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A GUIDED JOURNEY
Physics to God Episodes
The Intelligent Cause series is ten essays that present three compelling arguments from physics for an intelligent cause. The first five essays present a novel formulation of the fine-tuning argument from the constants of nature.
The Multiverse series is sixteen essays that analyze the scientific support for the three premises of the multiverse, and show why it fails as a viable solution for explaining fine-tuning, design, and order without an intelligent cause.
Each post also has a recording of its episode from the Physics to God podcast. We recommend reading or listening to the episodes in order.
Subscribe to Physics to God on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
The Three Premises of the Multiverse
The idea of the multiverse is one of the most wild, mind-blowing, and fascinating ideas in modern physics. The concept of an infinite number of universes, each with different laws and constants of nature, may sound more like science fiction than science. But many of the world's greatest physicists believe it's true. They realize that they need infinitely many parallel universes to get around the clear indication that one intelligent cause fine tuned our one universe. Welcome
Many Worlds of Quantum Mechanics and Other Supports for an Infinite Multiverse
After an introductory discussion about the concept of infinity, we consider three lines of evidence that multiverse supporters bring to justify the Infinite Multiverse Premise: (i) Inductive reasoning; (ii) Empirical evidence; (iii) the Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Besides explaining these attempted supports, we point out two problems with each. First, we show how none of them convincingly demonstrates the existence of an infinite number of universes. More
Eternal Inflation Explained: How It Creates Bubble Universes and a Multiverse
This essay will discuss multiverse scientists’ strongest support for an infinite multiverse. This support comes from the theory of inflation and, in particular, from a model for this theory known as eternal inflation. We discuss to what extent eternal inflation supports the infinite multiverse premise and doesn’t support the varied multiverse premise (that the laws and constants of nature change from universe to universe). As a bonus, you’ll also learn a lot of fascinating p
Multiverse Scientists' Hidden Premise
Multiverse scientists support the Varied Multiverse Premise - the claim that the constants vary from universe to universe - by using fine tu
String Theory Landscape Explained: Why It Predicts 10^500 Universes
Multiverse scientists use the string theory landscape to support the claim that the constants vary between universes. This essay will explain how clearly and evaluate whether it is truly justified. To do so, we’ll first give some context on how string theory fits into the picture of modern physics and the pursuit of a theory of everything (one theory that explains everything else in the universe). We’ll discuss some of the basic elements of string theory relevant to the multi
Naive Multiverse
This is probably our favorite essay in the series. Together with the next four essays, it contains the heart of our argument rejecting the multiverse and marks the conceptual turning point of this entire series. This essay in particular has a strange objective - to thoroughly reject a naive version of multiverse theory that no serious scientist actually believes in. While this may sound strange, this exercise is actually quite important. First of all, while no serious scient
The Typical Universe in the Multiverse
This essay will discuss something that many people fail to mention about the multiverse - that it actually attempts to make a prediction.
Boltzmann Brain Explained: Why the Multiverse Predicts You Are a Random Brain
One of the strangest predictions to come out of modern multiverse cosmology is the idea that you might not be a normal human observer at all. According to certain multiverse and eternal inflation models, random fluctuations in empty space could occasionally produce a single self-aware brain, complete with vivid memories of a past that never happened. This hypothetical observer is called a Boltzmann Brain. Because forming one isolated brain by chance is vastly easier than form
Infinities and Measures in the Multiverse
In previous essays, we discussed the multiverse's sole "prediction" that we are typical observers in a typical universe. However, this ignored the major problem that it doesn't seem possible for an infinite varied multiverse to use probabilities to make any prediction whatsoever because there are an infinite number of copies of every possible universe! To get around this problem, multiverse scientists use something called measures to compute probabilities in an infinite multi
The Multiverse's Measure Problem
In an infinite multiverse, the need to calculate if our universe is typical leads directly to the devastating three-layered measure problem: ad hoc measures are bad ideas to begin with, all intuitive measures don’t work, and even if multiverse scientists were to find a contrived measure that did work, it would beg the question of what fine tuned and designed it? While multiverse theory is plagued by many issues, the measure problem is unique. It conclusively demonstrates the
The Mathematical Multiverse and the Meta-Measure Problem
If you thought multiverse scientists have difficulty explaining the fine tuning of the constants without God, you won’t believe the trouble they have explaining away the designed laws of nature. The mathematical multiverse solution to the design of the laws is so outlandish it makes a standard multiverse look tame by comparison. It’s really the ultimate multiverse theory - and it runs directly into the ultimate meta-measure problem. Series 2: The Case Against the Multiverse E
Philosophical and Scientific Methods for Multiverse
The scientific method has been the key to the great success of science over the past 300 years, and it’s incredibly important to distinguish it from the philosophical method. You probably learned about the scientific method in 5th grade and might be surprised we’re writing an essay on it. But times are changing. There’s now a serious controversy in the scientific community about whether it’s time to change the definition of science to accommodate the multiverse under the bann
Is Multiverse Science?
Multiverse scientists deviate from the longstanding scientific method, grounded in predictions and observations, by positing infinitely many unobservable parallel universes to explain fine tuning. They have subtly switched to a mathematically formulated philosophical theory about an infinite multiverse to explain the fine tuning of our one ordered universe. This essay justifies why the multiverse is not science and supports this assertion through the words of prominent scient
Lee Smolin’s Cosmological Natural Selection Explained: Black Holes, Baby Universes & Cosmic Evolution
Physicist Lee Smolin’s cosmological natural selection is one of the most creative attempts to explain fine tuning without God or a standard multiverse. The basic idea is simple: new “baby universes” may be born inside black holes, and each baby universe inherits the same laws but with slightly different constants. Over many generations, universes that produce more black holes would become more common, in a process Smolin compares to natural selection. Biologist Richard Dawkin
Cyclic Universes and Bouncing Cosmology
Our universe’s initial state was incredibly unlikely, and if it were even slightly different, nothing would exist except for black holes. This essay discusses physicist Paul Steinhardt’s theory of Bouncing Cosmology which attempts to explain this unlikely beginning without requiring either an infinite varied multiverse or an intelligent cause. This theory is so wild and imaginative that we really had to struggle to come up with analogies to make it understandable to everyone.
Roger Penrose’s Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC): How It Works, the Evidence, and the Problems
Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC) is an unusual theory proposed by physicist Roger Penrose. It tries to explain the extremely special conditions of the Big Bang without appealing to an intelligent cause or a multiverse. Instead of a single beginning, CCC suggests that our universe is just one “cycle” in an endless series of universes, where each one somehow gives rise to the next. Penrose has stressed just how extraordinary the beginning of our universe appears to be. Using th
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