Why can't there be an infinite number of universes?

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Increasingly, I’ve been hearing the objection to the fine-tuned Universe argument that not only do multiple universes exist but an infinite number of universes exist, and our universe’s traits are not only probable but repeated an infinite number of times. Now, I obviously don’t believe this, but why can’t there be an infinite amount of universes? What’s a good scientific or philosophical objection to this?
 
I think that an infinite number of universes is a definite possibility. One problem with that might be for those who see God as “inhabiting” the same 3 dimensional universe(s) we do. If the universe is (or universes are) infinite, then where is God? Plus, if God and the universe(s) are both infinite, then they are one and the same. Unless God “is” in a dimension beyond those of the physical universe(s)…or is of an entirely different nature than the physical universe(s)…or…?

The other big, big problem would be in reconciling a once and only incarnation of an infinite God in a tiny, insignificant speck of matter within the infinite universe(s). In an infinite universe with an infinite number of stars and planets, and potentially an infinite number of planets containing life “created in the image of God”, would the Earth be the only one where the Son of God have appeared?..or needed to appear?
 
I suppose there could be an infinite number of universes but it still doesn’t help anyone who is trying to argue against the argument from fine tuning. The creation of the many universes would again have to arise from somewhere, maybe some sort of many-universe generator. And again this many-universe generator would have to be fine tuned for the creation of many universes. Instead of explaining away the problem it just transfers it up one level…
I believe Michael Behe wrote something about that objection if you care to take a look.
 
One premise of the “fine-tuned universe” is that the physical nature of the universe had to be a certain way to result in life, that it was “tuned” for life. One could just as easily argue that our “form” of life is a result of the the physical make-up of our universe, and that other universes operating under different physical laws could have produced life as well, but not similar to ours. Therefore, it is not that life required a certain type of universe, but that the universe resulted in a certain type of life.
 
I suppose that there could, in theory, be an infinite number of universes, although, to me, the theory lacks elegance. Still, even an infinite number of universes would be contingent. None would contain within its own nature sufficient reason for its own existence.
 
Pieman333272 said:
Increasingly, I’ve been hearing the objection to the fine-tuned Universe argument that not only do multiple universes exist but an infinite number of universes exist, and our universe’s traits are not only probable but repeated an infinite number of times. Now, I obviously don’t believe this, but why can’t there be an infinite amount of universes? What’s a good scientific or philosophical objection to this?
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Physicist Paul Davies once explained the absurdities we’re led into with the infinity of universes hypothesis. Consider the technology of our society, where we stand in computer modeling today, and what we will be capable of in a thousand or more years from now. Those computer worlds like The Sims will be nothing compared to the computer simulations of “reality” we’ll have in the future. We will be able to build computer simulations of our world where the “participants” in the computer world have actual consciousnesses and think their world is the “real world”. Think of the movie The Matrix for a rough idea. And since these are just computer simulations, our one society could have many multiples of these computer simulated “universes”.

Now the kicker. If we stipulate that their are an infinity or less than infinity but still very vast number of universes in addition to ours, then some of these universe would also develop intelligent life who would then build simulated universes. And because simulated universes are “cheaper” to make than a real one, the actual number of computer type simulated universes would dwarf the number of “real universes”.

And thus, according to the overwhelming odds, we are likely living in a computer simulated universe, and we don’t even know it.

It’s a classic reductio ad absurdum.
 
ronnie_bonigli said:
Physicist Paul Davies once explained the absurdities we’re led into with the infinity of universes hypothesis. Consider the technology of our society, where we stand in computer modeling today, and what we will be capable of in a thousand or more years from now. Those computer worlds like The Sims will be nothing compared to the computer simulations of “reality” we’ll have in the future. We will be able to build computer simulations of our world where the “participants” in the computer world have actual consciousnesses and think their world is the “real world”. Think of the movie The Matrix for a rough idea. And since these are just computer simulations, our one society could have many multiples of these computer simulated “universes”.

Now the kicker. If we stipulate that their are an infinity or less than infinity but still very vast number of universes in addition to ours, then some of these universe would also develop intelligent life who would then build simulated universes. And because simulated universes are “cheaper” to make than a real one, the actual number of computer type simulated universes would dwarf the number of “real universes”.

And thus, according to the overwhelming odds, we are likely living in a computer simulated universe, and we don’t even know it.

It’s a classic reductio ad absurdum.
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Thanks Ronnie, good point.

Just out of curiosity, what source does Paul Davis mention that in?
 
JimG said:
I suppose that there could, in theory, be an infinite number of universes, although, to me, the theory lacks elegance.
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This is not a valid scientific hypothesis or theory. This looks like bad philosophy. lacking elegance is not the words I would use for such a meaningless belief.
 
ronnie_bonigli said:
Physicist Paul Davies once explained the absurdities we’re led into with the infinity of universes hypothesis. Consider the technology of our society, where we stand in computer modeling today, and what we will be capable of in a thousand or more years from now. Those computer worlds like The Sims will be nothing compared to the computer simulations of “reality” we’ll have in the future. We will be able to build computer simulations of our world where the “participants” in the computer world have actual consciousnesses and think their world is the “real world”. Think of the movie The Matrix for a rough idea. And since these are just computer simulations, our one society could have many multiples of these computer simulated “universes”.

Now the kicker. If we stipulate that their are an infinity or less than infinity but still very vast number of universes in addition to ours, then some of these universe would also develop intelligent life who would then build simulated universes. And because simulated universes are “cheaper” to make than a real one, the actual number of computer type simulated universes would dwarf the number of “real universes”.

And thus, according to the overwhelming odds, we are likely living in a computer simulated universe, and we don’t even know it.

It’s a classic reductio ad absurdum.
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This unnecessary story assumes that personal self-consciousness can arise in machines.
 
Pieman333272 said:
What’s a good scientific or philosophical objection to this?
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In-order for this to be a question of science, one must first have a testable hypothesis. You cannot positively test the existence of an infinite amount of universes. Therefore its a question for philosophers.

What does it mean to speak of a definite amount that is infinite in quantity?
 
KostyaJMJ said:
I suppose there could be an infinite number of universes.
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If there can be an infinite amount of universes, then any number of irrational things can be said to replace God. It will not help you to say that one needs a universe maker, since you have already conceded that irrational concepts such as an “actually infinite number” are indeed possible. Thus what is the need to speculate about a infinite universe maker?

In any case they begin with an irrational concept and then try to explain away fine tuning using methods of rational argument, which is an error in the first place.
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
Excuse me?:confused:

what are you talking about?
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I thought I was talking about what others here were talking about, but perhaps I am confused. If so, I apologize.

What I am thinking is that centuries ago (and not that many centuries ago) people thought the universe was quite small and that earth was the biggest thing in it. We are finding that the universe is much the opposite and that our awareness of the number of galaxies (and therefore the number of stars and planets) within our universe seems to be constantly increasing. If there is a limit to our universe, then what lies beyond it? If our universe exists within our awareness, what other universes may exist outside or beyond our awareness? So my response to the question is that additional universes could exist, perhaps an infinite number of them.

We (meaning mankind through the ages) have seemed to want to limit what exists to what we can observe or understand. As our ability to observe and detect grows and as our understanding increases, those limits keep expanding. And will continue to expand beyond what we can currently comprehend. Yet we always seem to want to limit it until found in error. Perhaps it is better to leave it as an open question, while always striving to find the answers.

In my first post I was trying to relate the idea of an infinite number of universes to our concepts of God and the Incarnation. Perhaps that wasn’t the point of asking the original question but it was what came to me in reading it. Again, if I am off base about the topic, I apologize.
 
chaunceygardner said:
I thought I was talking about what others here were talking about, but perhaps I am confused. If so, I apologize.

What I am thinking is that centuries ago (and not that many centuries ago) people thought the universe was quite small and that earth was the biggest thing in it. We are finding that the universe is much the opposite and that our awareness of the number of galaxies (and therefore the number of stars and planets) within our universe seems to be constantly increasing. If there is a limit to our universe, then what lies beyond it? If our universe exists within our awareness, what other universes may exist outside or beyond our awareness? So my response to the question is that additional universes could exist, perhaps an infinite number of them.
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This is a bad argument, since it suggests that because people have been wrong in the past about what’s possible that therefore the impossible is possible, or that we cannot know what is impossible.

I don’t see how that follows since in-order to have rational discussions in the first place, certain things must be impossible and we must know that they are. For example, I cannot both exist and not exist at the same time. This is also true of objective ontological numbers. Something that is finite in nature cannot also be infinite in nature in the same way or context. No matter how many numbers you add to something, you will always have a potential infinite, which is a finite quantity, and never an “actual infinite”, since you can always add one more; you cannot complete numbers or transcend them via quantitative additions. It is impossible to add up to infinity, thus it is non-nonsensical to speak of an infinite quantity that is made of finite parts, and this is simply because an actual infinite transcends all finite quantities, and thus numbers themselves.

An actual infinite is not a definite quantity. If an infinite quantity is infinite because of the numbers it is made up of, then it should be the case that if I take away a number, I will end up with a finite number. This would suggest that an infinite is a finite number away from finite. But an infinite cannot be reached or transcended via progression or addition, thus a true ontological infinite is not infinite because “numbers” and is thus not a quantity or any number of possible universes.
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
This is a bad argument, since it suggests that because people have been wrong in the past about what’s possible that therefore the impossible is possible, or that we cannot know what is impossible.
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I appreciate your explanation, but must disagree with the above point. Of course people have been wrong in the past about what is possible. What some people claimed was impossible turned out to be possible, and not only a possibility but often an actuality. This has occurred in my lifetime. We cannot know everything that is impossible because we do not know what IS possible, and we do not know “everything”.
I don’t see how that follows since in-order to have rational discussions in the first place, certain things must be impossible and we must know that they are. For example, I cannot both exist and not exist at the same time. This is also true of objective ontological numbers. Something that is finite in nature cannot also be infinite in nature in the same way or context. No matter how many numbers you add to something, you will always have a potential infinite, which is a finite quantity, and never an “actual infinite”, since you can always add one more; you cannot complete numbers or transcend them via quantitative additions. It is impossible to add up to infinity, thus it is non-nonsensical to speak of an infinite quantity that is made of finite parts, and this is simply because an actual infinite transcends all finite quantities, and thus numbers themselves.
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An actual infinite is not a definite quantity. If an infinite quantity is infinite because of the numbers it is made up of, then it should be the case that if I take away a number, I will end up with a finite number. This would suggest that an infinite is a finite number away from finite. But an infinite cannot be reached or transcended via progression or addition, thus a true ontological infinite is not infinite because “numbers” and is thus not a quantity or any number of possibly universes.
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Do you know that there are almost an infinite number of “infinites” in these paragraphs? It is a little confusing, and it may take me awhile to follow what you are saying and to determine what is infinite and what isn’t. I will agree that you cannot add any finite numbers together to get an infinite number. Nor multiply or square them. There could always be one more. If, however, you “subtract” something from infinity, infinity still remains. If not, that would imply that the original infinite “number” (which can’t be a real number) was not infinite, as I believe you said.

Admittedly, being neither a mathematician or physicist, I do not know how that would work with universes. Also, I believe the current thought is that the universe cannot be infinite in size (or mass). That is physics. But this forum is philosophy, which can somewhat ignore the limitations of physics and imagine multiple universes, even infinite universes. More than knowledge is required. One must add in curiosity and imagination. Without them we would still be rubbing sticks together to start a fire.

If our philosophy and theology were limited to the laws of physics, or to what everyone agreed was “possible”, then the Jesus of the Gospels could not have happened, and there would be no point or purpose to these forums.
 
An infinite number of universe necessitates fake universes as well as universes with a God. Does this even make sense?
 
buffalo said:
An infinite number of universe necessitates fake universes as well as universes with a God. Does this even make sense?
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I am not sure from where we are getting “fake universes”? And I am puzzled that if we consider God to be infinite and the cause of all existence, then why should God’s creation have limits? Or does that harken back to a question in my first post?

If God is how we think He is, then the universe of which we are aware is infinitely small to Him, not even a speck of dust. Even if the universe(s) are not infinite, our place in it is still microscopically tiny to God (and to physicists and astronomers) in comparison.

Yet here we are. Quite amazing and glorious.
 
chaunceygardner said:
I am not sure from where we are getting “fake universes”? And I am puzzled that if we consider God to be infinite and the cause of all existence, then why should God’s creation have limits? Or does that harken back to a question in my first post?

If God is how we think He is, then the universe of which we are aware is infinitely small to Him, not even a speck of dust. Even if the universe(s) are not infinite, our place in it is still microscopically tiny to God (and to physicists and astronomers) in comparison.

Yet here we are. Quite amazing and glorious.
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Think about it - an infinite number of universes means all possibilities, including fake universes. How do we know we are not in a fake one?
 
buffalo said:
Think about it - an infinite number of universes means all possibilities, including fake universes. How do we know we are not in a fake one?
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Bear with me on this, as my brain doesn’t always work quickly. I am not sure of the logic that an infinite number of “something”, whether it is universes or anything else, means the same as “all possibilities”, and why it should also lead to the assumption of a “fake” something. IF there were an infinite quantity of atomic particles, would that necessarily mean that some are “fake”? I guess I don’t follow that assumption or reasoning. I may be mis-understanding this or may not be defining some terms, like “infinite”, the same as you.

Also, please keep in mind that I did not say that there must be infinite universes or that our universe must be infinite. I just left open that possibility. Closing off possibilities because we cannot conceive of them with our current state of knowledge or abilities, or because they do not fit what we want to believe, seems to me counter productive to advancing our scientific knowledge and philosophical conjectures.
 
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