The Story of Our Universe May Be Starting to Unravel

The cosmic speed limit comes from the theory of special relativity.

One of Einstein's results is the famous E=mc^2. That shows how the cosmic speed limit defines the relationship between mass and energy. If c is actually a changing parameter (instead of a constant) that would have huge affects across the universe that we could detect.

On the other hand, light travels at the cosmic speed limit only when it is in a perfect vacuum. Space is not a perfect vacuum, so it's no surprise that light is not traveling at c all the time. There are massless particles other than photons and there are gravitational waves. These also travel at the cosmic speed limit.

One can see reports from astronomy claiming the likelihood of startling new finds. Then, later those finds get disputed as probably due to light traveling through intervening dust or other mass - thus making it look like something amazing happened.

If you can come up with a modified theory of relativity, that would be STUPENDOUS. You would be famous for human existence - like Einstein.

 

We would not be able to detect if universal c changes with time because all our measurements are carried out in our frame of reference. A changing c does not negate the equation E=mc^2 (or E= hf). The equation still holds.

However if c changes smoothly to c + delta c, the equation shows that the change will effect mass, energy and frequency depending on the particle/photon. We won't see the change in our frame of reference because all the parameters will balance out the change. However light sources from distant bodies will carry the old parameter properties to us. For example, what may appear to be a red shift may actually just be showing the change in f due to the change in c. Yes, this may ultimately be pointing to a steady state universe but many holes are showing up in the expanding universe theory leading to the insertion of other unknowns such as dark energy and dark matter

 

What would be detectable would be the difference in the relationship between mass and energy.

Your issue of frequency is interesting.

The expansion of the universe does affect frequency in a way similar to how sound frequency is affected by the speed of the source relative to the microphone.

The expansion rate of the universe is considered to have been stupendous at the start, then it slowed, and now we detect that the RATE of expansion is increasing - we're accelerating! This has been measured in multiple ways.

That is a serious issue as nobody knows why that kind of change has taken place, whether the universe is in lock step, whether there are regions of different rates, etc. It gets called dark energy, or whatever.

This doesn't change the speed of photons, though. It DOES change the light frequency we detect. And, it changes the distance photons have to travel in order to reach Earth.

As I understand it, of course!

 

My knowledge WRT to light is cursory at best.

We KNOW that light "bends" when it intersects a medium like water and, if deep enough, will fade out entirely. We also know that water causes light to refract into the rainbow spectrum.

My knowledge is lacking regarding the interaction between photons and "light waves".

If a photon is "white" light then it would contain ALL of the light "waves" and only when it refracts it would then split up into the different wave lengths. But does this mean that the photon itself splits apart? Or are there multiple photons all traveling at the speed of light or do the red and blue photons travel at different speeds that are less than the speed of light? If so does adding or subtracting energy from the photon alter its wavelength? In which case since white photons contain all wavelength's wouldn't that mean the speed would be reduced to the lowest wavelength or is the opposite happening that the combination of all wavelengths are the maximum speed of light?

Sorry if this is elementary but I have never managed to fully understand the relation between photons and light waves.

 

Showing yourself to be blind to what was clearly written, is not the same as showing that nothing had been there. I proved beyond any doubt, that you did not once even address my position, or acknowledge it, or seemingly understand it, even after much correction and remedial reiteration of the idea, for your benefit. Rather, I demonstrated that all your replies were non sequitur, irrelevant pedantry, having NO applicability at all, to my posts, which you'd only pretended, poorly, to answer.

So LOL at Nonsense man, telling me that I was shown to have no position. After showing yourself incapable of writing a credible post, you have decided to forego all your irrelevant pounding of sand, and just skip to your baseless, bogus, unproven conclusion? Well, when the content is empty of meaning, shorter is at least better.

 

Just to be clear, though I think you realize this: I was not arguing anything about multiverse theory, per se, but only pointing to the hypocrisy of calling some unexplainable things nonsense, not worth discussing, and treating others not simply as interesting theories, but as if they were known facts.

Could you please clarify this, for me? You begin by talking about what is beyond our universe, but end up talking about the Dark Matter, in our own universe.

Would you care to elaborate on what cyclical universe theory you refer to, how it might explain some of the anomalies found, and who are its credible supporters? I assume you're not referring to Einstein's original theory, which even he acknowledged was wrong, about gravity gradually arresting the universal dispersion, then pulling it all back to center, for another Big Bang.

I have myself noted of nature, and of existence, that the principle of recycling seems about the most universal of constants. If I may be allowed my own divergence-- I had considered this in reference to a metaphysical question, based on the speculation that the world of spirit (in which, I realize, you may well not believe) followed similar principles to those of the physical universe. This is the same line of thought, behind the idea of reincarnation: that our spirits, like anything else in nature, would be recycled, similar to the way that rainfall evaporates, the water molecules recondense, and then fall again, elsewhere. Rain was, from early times, in fact seen as symbolic of reincarnation.

Where this concept gets intriguing, is in extending this comparison to the soul itself-- like the raindrop which is a collection of many water molecules-- being an assemblage of pieces, coming from any number of former souls. IOW, the individual soul would not need be an inviolable whole as all generally assume (including Leonardo Da Vinci). Instead it could be a conglomerate of pieces, each with its own life history, all of which would add this most recent life to their experiential reserve. The interesting implication, then, of a reincarnated person, would be that though his soul would would have experienced life in its past, the combination of soul pieces, in any individual, would essentially always be new: so we would be both immortal, in a sense, yet also any one person, would only live once. Though the water, time after time, falls as rain-- the exact same raindrop, never falls twice.

 

I understood what you were getting at. As far as the unexplainable goes isn't that the entire purpose of the Scientific Method to obtain explanations for things that are currently unexplainable?

I am sorry if I wasn't clear. Let me try from a different angle. You go spelunking and enter a cave. You have the best LED torch available but it cannot reach the ceiling. You can see the ends of the stalactite tips, some larger, others smaller, different colors but your powerful torch cannot see any further.

It is almost as if you were looking up at the stars and galaxies. From your own depth you know there must be something beyond the reach of your torch but you cannot observe it. Our ability to measure the Universe is the torch and using math we know that there has to be more out there than we can currently measure.

If we use this definition of Dark Matter...

https://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/doc...r is composed of,that we can observe directly.

Are we looking for something that exists BEYOND our ability to measure? I ask because otherwise the ASSUMPTION has to be that DM is all around us but we cannot see, feel, touch or measure it? The bolded part is interesting because if there are "effects on objects we can observe" then are those effects coming objects that might be just BEYOND our ability to measure?

I apply Occam's Razor to Dark Matter like this. Our choices are (A) an UNKNOWN matter with the attributes listed above or (B) UNMEASURABLE matter that has the same attributes as the EXISTING matter in the measurable Universe.

I apply Occam's Razor and (B) wins hands down.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.06914#:~...ogy (CCC) is,related by a conformal rescaling.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/brea... that the universe,creation of a new universe.

I think that covers your questions except for the anomaly part. This is what I did find but I don't know if that is what you were referring to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology

Way above my pay grade.

Yes, you may because I too have been considering this concept.

My concept is that the spirit/life force/spark/whatever is a form of pure energy akin to a photon, a different form of massless particle because Nature never makes just one of anything. If it works for photons, why not use it somewhere else? For the sake of this discussion we can call them Spiritons. Photons contain knowledge in the form of light, spiritons contain knowledge in the form of energy.

Matter and energy combine in many forms and if a spiriton were able to interact with a certain combination of matter/energy that could be the "spark of life" that exists in the smallest measurable life form that we know of being a single cell. We are just a collection of specialized cells each with it's own life span but each cell passes something along to the next while life exists in our present form. We accumulate knowledge and store that in specialized combinations of cells.

And then we die and those spiritons leave with some form of that knowledge and are free to interact other spiritons throughout the Universe. But there is an attractive force of some sort that recycles them back into matter/energy conducive to life.

A bit garbled but I think you get where I was going.

I like the raindrop analogy, way better than mine above. It has more of a flow (pun unintended) to it. Each "spiriton" of knowledge exists within the Universe in some combination or other and is recycled endlessly.

 

I don't see ANY of that as anywhere near elementary. This is an area where quantum mechanics takes noticeable effect and even today there are serious questions concerning quantum mechanics and gravity. Einstein thought light was streams of photons only.

Physicists devised a test to see if light is a particle or a wave. What they found is that light can behave as particles OR waves depending on the circumstances.

Here's a pretty readable description of the double slit experiment showing light behaving as a particle or a wave, depending on the test. It's sort of wordy, so you have to keep going to see how the experiment works.
https://www.space.com/double-slit-experiment-light-wave-or-particle

Wiki goes deeper:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave–particle_duality

So, your questions are right on, and I have to look up these issues just like the next non-physicist in an attempt to be close.

Physics sources point out that photons travel at the cosmic speed limit only in a vacuum. If you put different amounts of glass or dust or whatever in the way, the speed will change. You can look up the speed of light through various mediums. This is important in photography, too - you need good glass. And, as a wave the light can be diffracted, like with a prism or lens since the light ends up going through different amounts of glass.

https://www.olympus-lifescience.com...proximately 300,000,(refractive index of 1.5).

Light can bend due to gravity. As a particle, light has no mass. If it had mass, it couldn't ever travel at the cosmic speed limit. But, mass and energy have an equivalency defined by Einstein (E = mc^2, or for our use here, m = E/c^2). So, light does have momentum due to it's speed, and thus can be bent by traveling near a massive object - like a black hole, an intervening galaxy, etc.

In astronomy, telescopes receive light from some incredibly distant galaxy. Astrophysicists can look at the spectrum they get and detect various elements that were present at the light source, because hydrogen, etc., have distinctive frequency signatures. But, these signatures will have been shifted in the electromagnetic spectrum, because our universe is expanding. This is like the change in a tone when a train is moving away from you. You may know the tone and notice that it has changed by a certain amount.

So, one of the methods astronomers use to determine distance is to see how much the spectrum has shifted and then use the rate of expansion of the universe to determine how far away the star must be. In real life, this isn't trivial as one might guess from the above and no single measurement would be considered definitive. In fact, it's pretty common for astrophysicists to specify distance to distant objects not in lightyears, but in how far the spectrum has shifted.

I know I went off the topic of your questions and didn't even try to answer some of them - I tried to bend this a little toward exploring our universe. I like watching how the universe gets explored.

 

You're free to ask questions, of course. As you note, I'm not great at guessing at your questions.

 

You say that you got my point, but then ask your question, as if, I had been arguing or suggesting, anything different. I am advocating only for consistency. If one wants to dismiss everything that science has not ample evidence to support: fine, but then don't treat the idea that a new universe or dimension is created, every time a person makes a decision, as if it's a credible idea, worth serious consideration. Alternately, if one is open to consideration of currently unproven speculations-- as I am, so long as they're not patently false-- then one should not discriminate with one's openness. If, one is willing to consider string theory, and so forth, it is inconsistent to dismiss out of hand, something like theories about UAPs (formerly UFOs), or Ancient Alien theory, for the reason that they "lack proof." That is a double standard, and so straightforward hypocrisy-- basing one's judgement not on empirical evidence, but simply upon arbitrary preference: which ideas a person finds appealing, and which ones they don't.

This doesn't mean, obviously (to all except probably Will Readmore) that one must accept every theory that comes down the pike-- just don't use the same reasoning, to summarily dismiss one idea, while ignoring the way that same disqualification would apply to another theory, which one treats as worthy of consideration.

If any research involving spirits or their supposed realm, one considers a joke, because they cannot be tangibly examined, then such a person would be contradicting that principle, and that mode of applying it, if he treated differently, theories of unseen dimensions, sharing our universe. On what basis, would one "scientifically," consider "heaven," or the afterlife, as anything intrinsically different, than another dimension?

This way of behaving, unfortunately, is very common. It is clearly, completely subjective opinion, which though, is falsely portrayed as in some way demonstrating a so called scientific perspective.

 

Time and space I take as four completely independent and infinite things. But, I can have some fun supposing they are not. Imagining that perhaps at some point the expansion stops. Would there be some kind of change in tried and true current physicochemical behavior? Would perhaps Benjamin Button be every newborn’s lot in life? And then as all that exists rolls back to a singularity, what’s life like when that happens? Everything nowhere all at once. Squeezed in. Comfy and close AF. A quantum orgy of oneness. The dot of no dimension and infinite mass finally cools to absolute zero: and time stops. Boom. Then there it goes again!

 

The thing is, the Schrodinger equation is the foundation of quantum wave theory, developed in 1925. It's proven itself over and over again.

That equation DOES support a multi-world model by direct application of the equation - the Everett model.

The so called Copenhagen interpretation (such as in string theory, etc.) goes through a LOT of work to try to avoid that direct interpretation. They add ideas such as superposition and wave function collapse to explain the Schrodinger equation in order to avoid the direct multi worlds interpretation.

The multi worlds interpretation of Everett just takes the Schrodinger equation for what it says.

From Wiki:

Under Copenhagen, the idea is that there can be a superposition of particles, being one state or the other at the same time. (Less shocking than multi worlds)? At some point (like types of measurement) the superposition collapses and one state alone is witnessed.

This is not directly what the Schrodinger equation states. Instead, it is added mechanism present in order to avoid multiple worlds.

Don't believe me on this next, but it seems that the "spooky action at a distance" thing is probably answered by the Everett model, as instead of having superposition, there are multiple worlds, each with a proper set of the possible outcomes. It would make NO difference how far apart the particles would be, as in one world it would be one way and in the other it would be the other way. The "me" in this universe would see it one way, and he "me" in the other universe would see it the other way. That's a totally clean solution.

How does Copenhagen address that action at a distance problem, other than to say it is true?

Which is the correct model? Does anyone want a Nobel?

 

Cool thoughts!

I think you are thinking of entropy, and its relationship to time.

The universe could stop expanding and that would not mean that entropy would stop within a meaningful time frame or in a way that would change our understanding of the universe, either, I think. The average temperature of the universe is -450F. With an expanding or static universe, that's a serious problem for life.

Would the universe then begin to shrink? I suspect one would have to figure that out. It might depend on the reasons the universe stopped expanding.

Today, the expansion of the universe is speeding up. Gravity of all matter and energy in the universe isn't enough to change that. So, where would the new force for shrinking come from?

Newton thought time and space were independent.

Einstein corrected that, with relativity theory that strongly connects space and time.

 

I see that the thread has degenerated into restating that it's all about "settled" science 'cause Einstein said... or whatever.

But this thread topic is about the actual findings that the story of our universe may be unraveling.

Not many people realize that the foundations of our understanding of the universe have been led by the "don't try to understand it, shut up and calculate the math crowd." That is, entire structures of the universe appear and disappear depending on what model one uses to calculate the math.

It will probably take a few years for the boggled-eyed scientists to use and re-use our latest and upcoming space telescopes to come to grips with the fact that everything we knew a few years ago was garbage. Much less them figuring out where to go from here.

 

You can't find any examples of that.

And, given your derogatory comments, I'm betting that you don't even want to.

So fine. You see scientists as "boggled-eyed" and their data as garbage.

I'm OK with that.

 

Take Dark Matter, for example. We've recently made some progress with mapping Dark Matter:

Hubble Makes Unexpected Dark Matter Discovery (nasa.gov)

However, some models trying to explain the early galaxies seen by the James Webb Space Telescope also eliminate Dark Matter entirely. I can't recall their names off the top of my head.

As I said, entire structures of the universe appear and disappear depending on the model used in calculations.

 

This is exciting. It continues to become clearer that there is dark matter. And, what it is certainly justifies the level of effort to determine what it is.

However, investigations of our early universe are stupendously difficult for the various obvious reasons.

What we're seeing IS a standard pattern. New information comes in from a new method of detection. It might show something unexpected. Over analysis time and the further gathering of data, it becomes clearer what was seen and how it fits with the existing model, and/or how the model needs to be tweaked.

This is NOT a new process. It goes on all the time. The most common result is that there was intervening dust! Plus, JWST is a big improvement over Hubble.

Scientists are ALWAYS hoping that their finds will shake up our view of the universe. They are pretty much never that lucky over the last 100 years. Einstein was that lucky!

 

All of that, was your reply to my making the point about it being inconsistent, and hypocritical for scientists who dismiss some theories as even being worth considering, due to lack of evidence, while at the same time considering, and sometimes even accepting as true, other theoretical ideas, which they find more appealing. My example had been the way that I'd seen Stephen Hawking talk about the multiverse concept, as if it were a positive truth, in his t.v. show, How To Think Like A Genius. Here is the beginning of the post you'd quoted:


DEFinning said: ↑
You say that you got my point, but then ask your question, as if, I had been arguing or suggesting, anything different. I am advocating only for consistency. If one wants to dismiss everything that science has not ample evidence to support: fine, but then don't treat the idea that a new universe or dimension is created, every time a person makes a decision, as if it's a credible idea, worth serious consideration. Alternately, if one is open to consideration of currently unproven speculations-- as I am, so long as they're not patently false-- then one should not discriminate with one's openness. If, one is willing to consider string theory, and so forth, it is inconsistent to dismiss out of hand, something like theories about UAPs (formerly UFOs), or Ancient Alien theory, for the reason that they "lack proof." That is a double standard, and so straightforward hypocrisy-- basing one's judgement not on empirical evidence, but simply upon arbitrary preference: which ideas a person finds appealing, and which ones they don't...
<End Quote>


So, I have one question for you: was your post supposed to be a defense, of the way Hawking portrayed multiple universes, according to my description of his so doing? This, btw, is a yes/no question-- so please, no novella to go with it; or, at least give the definitive positive or negative indication, up front. OK?

 

Yes, there has been a lot of progress on dark matter.

There certainly is a lot of effort going on to understand exactly what dark matter is. After all, dark matter is about 27% of our universe, given the most likely outcome that it is made up of particles.

I don't agree here. The Schrodinger equation, the very heart of quantum field theory has been tested over and over and over again. It is used all the time, and not just in theoretical physics. And, the Everett interpretation of that equation is by far the most direct interpretation. Everett showed that multiple universes are a DIRECT outfall of that equation. Other models of quantum wave theory, such as string theories certainly do accept mathematically consistent multiverse views as well, but it's less direct because there are additions made almost specifically to confound the Everett model.

I don't see quantum wave theory as on the same level as UFOs. Quantum wave theory is used every day and is well trusted. UFOs are something where there really is nothing resembling scientific evidence.

Another way to look at it from the point of view of science MIGHT be that theories are measured by whether they are useful in extending human knowledge. I don't see anything about UFOs so far that is useful in extending human knowledge - it hasn't gotten to the point where it could even be verified.

You write long posts that I don't always find to be to be clear, plus sometimes there is a larger issue that would be better to address.

So, here's the good part: I do ask you for clarification. Even when you don't like it.

Other times I try to answer. But, then that can go wrong too, because I don't manage to address the precise issue you wanted addressed.

Look - you have reasonable stuff. I'm not always trying to prove you wrong, or something.

As for your question: No. I have NO IDEA what you think of Hawking's many statements about the various multiverse ideas. In fact, I've looked at other sources than Hawking, not that I disrespect his work in any way.

 

Look. I had been saying that sometimes scientists are arbitrary in their assigning of worth to some concepts, which they see as respectable, and not to others, which they deem dismissible. I described in my "long posts," precisely what transpired, and what Hawking had said. If you now say that, "no" you would not defend what Hawking was saying, WHY THE F*** did you then, use that occasion to begin a diatribe of numerous posts to me, all of which were completely non sequitur to my point?

But, is that even what you are trying to say? It is beyond ironic, that you should say you don't always find my posts clear, in your answer to a post that asked for you to clarify your prior post, through answering a yes or no question-- in which you take 10 paragraphs, to answer in a way that is completely unclear. You insert all kinds of additions into my question, such as saying that you don't know what I think of Hawking's ideas! I explained the idea, thoroughly; you'd answered it; now you're telling me you don't know what the idea is? Or did you think I was asking something about my opinion on "Hawking's many statements about the various multiverse ideas." Where are you pulling that crap from? Yeah, I'm the unclear one, between us, for sure. I asked a freakin' simple question. Maybe you don't remember, but the reason you were writing a reply to me, about multiverse theories (& Schrodinger, and other things), was because I had mentioned it, in my story about Hawking. That is the only f'ing thing I'm asking about. Something you already answered, or at least sent a response. Because what you wrote, in this last response-- while it was better than the earlier ones, which did not at all overlap, with anything I had talked about, and this one, at least, connects to the subject in my Hawking example-- was so unclear, on the point about the multiverse example from my post (which you were answering), that I had to ask you to clarify. And your response is that you don't know, either, your opinion on the thing, about which you had already addressed a post to me? Really? And your gonna throw in a dig, that you're not always clear on what I'm trying to say? Have you followed this post? Do you know what I'm asking you, or do I have to ask it again? That would make my post longer, you know.

Do you need the link, to my page 1, original post, you'd answered?

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...e-starting-to-unravel.613298/#post-1074417755

then came a chain of your posts, accusing me of things that I clearly was not saying, as you ignored my every re-explaining of how my point had nothing to do with your replies. The last of those, on this page, was the one you had answered, with the post I asked about, and provided you, in my last post's quote (so to which, you'll hopefully be able to find your way back). My post, occasioning your last reply:


http://www.politicalforum.com/index...ting-to-unravel.613298/page-3#post-1074425036


When you figure out what you had intended to say, can you tell me how it related to my initial mentioning of what Hawking had said about multiverse (my first link)? In other words, were you defending those words I'd credited to him, against my calling this a delusion of Hawking's, that in this caprice, he was being "scientific?"

Yes or No.

If "no," then Why TF, did you reply? What had been your point?

 

Here you will note that I responded concerning the cosmic speed limit and Einstein, not Hawking. That was relevant to the discussion.

Here I would say that the view of scientists is very definitely dependent on the degree to which evidence is available. In fact, there is a chasm between theoretical physics and experimental physics, right? So, even within physics there is a strong divide between what can be tested and what can not be tested.

Within theoretical physics, where experimental physics is extended through math, etc. in hopes of directing experiment, there is no doubt that ideas of UAPs simply don't gain interest. UAP stories are not an extension of anything. And, they don't hold the possibility of extending what we know about physics - which is what physicists do.

I don't know what you said about anything Hawking said (originally or not). I've pointed that out before.

I targeted my reply to specific ideas stated in your rather long posts. Sometimes there are individual pieces where a comment could help.

In a posting environment, things work better when specific questions get asked rather that requests for response to some bygone post that isn't specifically identified. That does lead to having to restate a question, unfortunately.

 

Let's open up, with a reminder of the question, you, Will Readmore, are now taking your second shot at answering:

I hope that was clear enough, for everybody.

Non-responsive.

And the dancing commences.

Does not seem relevant, to answering my question.

Now you are definitely talking about another subject. This is not what I asked for your clarification on. At first-- though I got a bad feeling about it-- I was allowing that you might have been building yourself a ramp, into actually addressing my question. But now it seems like you are just trying to skip over it, to talk about other things.

That is poppycock. The government report, released to the public, last summer, actually stated that we lack a sufficient understanding of physics, to explain this phenomena. Hence, in studying, analyzing, and theorizing, we would have the specific goal, of "extending what we know about physics." So your commentary, besides being non sequitur to the question I'd addressed to you (a second time), was as wrong of a statement, as could possibly be made... Congratulations?

AND SO I GAVE YOU A LINK BACK TO THAT POST. If you read the post-- which you had, previously already answered, so presumably have, already read (?)-- you would see what I'd said. Your failure, a second time, to do so, shows that all you are doing, is dodging.

Fine, you are showing that you cannot grasp such a simple concept as, if your memory is foggy as to what I am referring, you could use the link I'd provided, and refresh your memory, by reading the post. I will try again, lowering the intellectual and effort bars, to the point at which anyone should be expected to clear them.

But LOL, at your earlier suggesting that the reason you have trouble understanding me, at times, is due to some obscurity in the way I express my thoughts, rather than the responsibility for your lack of understanding, falling closer to home.

 

I looked at your links. I didn't notice that the name Hawking came up in those posts. I still don't know what Hawking quote you are referring to or what you said about what Hawking said.

Can you please just ask the question?

 

On the contrary, I was only adding in the molecular aspect, of which earlier man was unaware, to an established analogy; your analogy was original, and I liked it, very much. Forgive it taking me so long, to get to the bottom part of your post-- you'd put a lot into it. I also find it just wild, that you had been thinking along those same lines as me, about composite souls-- (sound of mind being blown).

 

When I, just now, went back to read my post (#21) which answered your post (#11), I see that, though I did talk about Hawking, I had not been as specific as I'd thought, because I had remembered, I'd said, in the post, that we had already had this conversation, so I didn't think it necessary, or desired by you, for me to redundantly rehash all of the details. So I'll accept that as my bad, to have asserted to you, otherwise, in these last couple of posts. However, you had not made it clear before this third reply, in two fuller answers, that you had actually read the post, and that it didn't include Hawking's specific words (in fact, even now you say you hadn't seen Hawking's name, which speaks poorly of the amount of care you had taken, in "reading" it). That would've been all you had needed to say, to have ended the confusion.

I am still sure that we have previously discussed this, but my Forum search only yielded one explanation, to another member, from two years ago, in the Science forum thread, "You Are An Ape," page 3. Here is the pertinent description:

So your answer to my post #21, in which you say that Hawking did not have a "casual" attitude about such things, was mistaken. He had stated, as a fact, with no equivocation whatsoever, that every time any of us makes a decision, a whole new universe is created in which the "you" there, instead, makes some other decision. Clearly, this is a highly speculative notion, which we would be at an utter loss, in trying to explain its foundational mechanics, and yet Hawking embraced the concept, in a declarative sentence, as if there was not the slightest doubt, of this reality.

So, now do you agree, that he had be showing an arbitrary, subjective elevating of a particular theory, to a much higher level of credibility than it was entitled? It would be foolish, IMO, if he'd acted this way, in this case of multiverse theory, to believe that he would not likely have other "pet" theories, which he invests with much more credibility, than they'd be due, strictly on a basis of empirical science. By the exact same vehicle, personal tastes, do many scientists dismiss, out of hand, the things I had mentioned, earlier-- UAPs, Ancient Alien theory, even theories of a spiritual "dimension"-- all of which, have at least, if not more, basis, than does this idea of instantly created universes. Do you agree? So my point was that it is inconsistent, and unscientific, to treat the multiverse theory, as depicted by Hawking, as any more credible than those other theories.