"The no boundary histories of the universe thus depend on what is being observed, contrary to the usual idea that the universe has a unique, observer independent history. In some sense no boundary initial conditions represent a sum over all possible initial states. This is in sharp contrast with the bottom-up approach, where one assumes there is a single history with a well defined starting point and evolution."

So, all questions aside, the one thing that seems certain in the H-H paper is that observers play a role in the state of the universe. Multiple histories, observer dependent. Very convenient.

Rob,

I get the impression that the paper does not say one way or another. What do you think?

First, I wouldn't want to try to tell you the answer you should have. I would try to help you understand. However, I think you already figured it out.

Here is my biased interpretation…

In the 1994 debate between Penrose and Hawking, Hawking made it quite clear that he is not interested in guessing at reality. IMO, he is only interested (as a formal scientist) is in developing tools he can use to calculate the answers seen in experimental data.

Therefore, it would be unlikely that Hawking would be providing a specific answer in a scientific paper. And in reading this paper, it does seem like it says a lot without coming to a common sense conclusion.

While I can understand Hawking's position, it makes it frustrating when trying to get straight answers about QM from people who share his view. No one feels the need to defend any one interpretation because it has become "Standard QM" to accept them all as equal possibilities, even Many Worlds Interpretation.

At which time I throw in the "God does it" interpretation and point out that must be a valid QM interpretation too.

That being said. I do like that Hawking is starting the support of the idea of looking at the 4D spacetime wavefunction(s) holistically from the here and now.

This leads to the inevidable questions of…

1. In integrating all the paths, shouldn't the future paths be included too?

2. Wouldn't integrating paths in both directions result in a standing wave or waves over the entire length of spacetime?

Something to think about.

Why trust either of them?

Because I just do not have the knowledge to be able to evaluate the paper myself. Having looked a bit more carefully, I get the impression that the paper does not say one way or another. What do you think?

Hi Rob R.

Are we talking about the link MikeGene gave in his original blog post here and the New Scientist article nullasalus just linked to? Am I missing something, specifically the "rather different" part? Sorry if that's a dumb question but I feel I've missed a left turn here somewhere. Thanks.

The Hertog and Hawkings paper makes the claim that at the Big Bang a superposition of all possible universes. The issue is when the resultant wavefunction collapses to give the single universe we live in. Some possible answers are:
1. Shortly after the Big Bang, when the other universes themselves collapse
2. When the first sentient being (conscious observer) appears in the universe
3. When scientists start looking back at the Big Bang
4. When superbeings evolve into some kind of God in the far future
5. Never
The article Mike linked to seems to suggest the first, while the New Scientist article the second or third. I see nothing in the paper to suggest they consider conscious observer at all relevant, but then I could not find anything one way or the other way.

Interesting that the New Scientist article says something rather different to the article Mike found.

Are we talking about the link MikeGene gave in his original blog post here and the New Scientist article nullasalus just linked to? Am I missing something, specifically the "rather different" part? Sorry if that's a dumb question but I feel I've missed a left turn here somewhere. Thanks.

And, nullasalus . . .

Russell's probably spinning in his grave over that. And Flexiverse would turn him into a bona-fide drill.

. . . That's just funny right there. I don't care who you are.

I believe you owe me a new shirt.

Why trust either of them?

Here is the link to the actual Hawking/Hertog paper.

I would say something about independent thinking but I have probably riled enough people already.

Interesting that the New Scientist article says something rather different to the article Mike found. Which do we believe?

I do not think Hertog and Hawkings are saying this is fact; I think they are proposing it as a possible hypothesis. If that hypothesis is true, then the wavefunction that was the superposition of all possible universes collapsed pretty soon after the Big Bang. So if they are right, this neatly solves the fine-tuning problem for atheists. Cool.

Let's go with your version of it: 'The superposition of all possible universes collapsed into a fine-tuned universe.' Alright; So what made it collapse? Why did it collapse into a fine-tuned universe? "We're not sure, but it wasn't a mind" and "luck" This seems like trying to turn lemons into lemonade, except in this case the lemon is a brick. I admire the spirit.

As for what Hawking has proposed, you can see it more fleshed out in this New Scientist article. Here's a juicy bit, with added emphasis:

But according to Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge and Thomas Hertog of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the steps are all backward. According to these physicists, there is no history of the universe. There is no immutable past, no 13.7 billion years of evolution for cosmologists to retrace. Instead, there are many possible histories, and the universe has lived them all. And if that's not strange enough, you and I get to play a role in determining the universe's history. Like a reverse choose-your-own-adventure story, we, the observers, can choose the past.

I admit, I didn't expect to find this - but at least I seem to have been right in that Davies wasn't the one proposing this. I suppose we see the reason why this is a couple year old article, but Hawking Flexiverse isn't being bandied about as an atheist save for the fine-tuning problem: It 'solves' it by admitting to fine tuning, but arguing that observers play a central role. Not a popular move.

Then again, the preferred method for 'solving' fine-tuning has usually been outright MWI. Russell's probably spinning in his grave over that. And Flexiverse would turn him into a bona-fide drill.

Personally, I find that unconvincing.

Physicists. Down the hall. Switchblade.

From what I read, just what 'collapsed the superposition of the big bang' at that point, and under what conditions, is itself quite a debate.

I do not think Hertog and Hawkings are saying this is fact; I think they are proposing it as a possible hypothesis. If that hypothesis is true, then the wavefunction that was the superposition of all possible universes collapsed pretty soon after the Big Bang. So if they are right, this neatly solves the fine-tuning problem for atheists. Cool.

You're connecting 'conscious observers will eventually arrive on the scene given these conditions' with 'the observers themselves are what cause the collapse'. But the latter doesn't automatically follow from the former. Really, let's go by your own claim; 'The superposition of the universe collapsed far in advance of known life.' From my reading of Davies and the like-minded, it may well have been the case that the only collapse options at that point were ones whose unfolding would lead to observers (if there's no other life, then 'life on earth'). But that claim isn't tied to the life-on-earth doing the collapsing.

I am observing that some people are connecting 'conscious observers will eventually arrive on the scene given these conditions' with 'the observers themselves are what cause the collapse'. From here:

In Wheeler's Universe, measurements by observers involve irreversible acts of amplification of quantum events, and registering them as phenomena using 'classical' measuring devices effectively gives tangible reality to the Universe and its past history. Wheeler's Universe is a 'self-excited circuit'.

Personally, I find that unconvincing.

Already have. Went into more detail at your request. Again, your move.
You did? Well I am sure I responded to those details then.

I read "single history" to mean the wave function has collapsed from the "superposition of ever more different versions of the Universe" that were present in the first instants, to leave a single reality.

From what I read, just what 'collapsed the superposition of the big bang' at that point, and under what conditions, is itself quite a debate. But even putting aside that question.. well, that's next.

Sorry, you have lost me there. Sure if you are restricted to histories that give rise to an observer, that is because the arrival of the observer fixes the universe to those histories?

You're connecting 'conscious observers will eventually arrive on the scene given these conditions' with 'the observers themselves are what cause the collapse'. But the latter doesn't automatically follow from the former. Really, let's go by your own claim; 'The superposition of the universe collapsed far in advance of known life.' From my reading of Davies and the like-minded, it may well have been the case that the only collapse options at that point were ones whose unfolding would lead to observers (if there's no other life, then 'life on earth'). But that claim isn't tied to the life-on-earth doing the collapsing.

Tell you what, you say why "saying that 'well, this all happened before conscious agents were around' doesn't say much", and I will respond accordingly. Or we can just bat about empty assertions. You choose.

Already have. Went into more detail at your request. Again, your move.

Let me see if I can put this into my overly-simplified terms…

There is a certain felt beauty that comes with physical laws derived from symmetry conditions. This is a remarkable observation. Einstein hinted at this when he declared that "what is incomprehensible is that the universe is comprehensible" (in not so many words).

I agree, the universe is beautiful and wondrous, yet simple. This defies expectations and fills most people with awe and suspicion that it is too perfect.

The incomprehensibility relates to sentience (the law's precondition), in my view, and so there is something that is beyond our laws that is ineffable. I figure that this ineffability is irreducibly complex; meaning that the ineffable cannot be reduced to chance and necessity, as I said before.

Are you saying that awareness or consciousness is a precondition for natural laws to even be discovered? I would agree that the laws can not be reduced beyond a certain point. Penrose calls Quantum Mechanics non-algorithmic (can't be reduced to chance and/or necessity).

What is needed in a Trinitarian logic of the likes of Hegel's dialectic, or Edmund Husserl's transcendental subjectivity. So what I am suggesting should not be seen as completely original. There is also a hint of what I am suggesting in Steve McIntosh's "Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution," where we see heavy reference to Hegel.

I disagree that we could even begin to guess at the form of the non-algorithmic processes behind Quantum Mechanics. To me, this approaches philosophy. For that, I go with the basics that it is the wise man who knows that he doesn't know the Truth. Penrose's trilogy is made up of Mental World, Platonic World and Physical World.

So we live in a world of felt equivocations, at least that is what I am saying. Natural law as an equation is such an equivocation as this law as an abstraction tends to forget the sentience that led to the law's discovery.

I used to think of "F = ma" as approaching gospel even though it was just an equation. I have come to understand it is just how we think about the problem. My religious training was in Christian Science. I recited the scientific statement of being many times… "There is no life, truth or substance in matter, all is infinite mind and its infinite manifestation…." I no longer call myself a Christian Scientist, but I still remember.

"Design" is the detection of contrivance given as an innate synthesis of representation and its recognition. The middle term is hiden by the synthesis and is the source of the ineffiable. The felt source slips away and gives its support to the innate grammar that is now universal is scope.

Are you suggesting the "innate grammar that is now universal in scope" is the universal belief in some kind of ineffiable supreme being (i.e. God)?

Sorry, but I look at the night sky in wonder and awe and believe that in this universe if it can happen it does happen. However, this just does not give me the feeling that there must be a designer behind the "design".

Thank God that the equivocations are felt, lest there be no beyond to point to and Husserl would be unable to purify the pregiven assumptions leading to his transcendental subjectivity. The equivocations would otherwise be a challenge to us, not knowing of this weakness is to fall blindly for our desires. So find yourself vibrating, in a pulsation of vitality.

Ethics and self worth is what prevents me from falling blindly for my desires.

IMO, imposed morality without agreement is the cause of sin, not the cure.

Ethically, I'll let Husserl and others purify whatever assumptions they wish as long as they don't try to impose their transcendental Truths on me or mine (per the agreement laid out in the Constitution of the United States of America).

"Poverty of spirit" is said is to be required, so as to empty ourselves to make room for God's grace. But this equivocation shares the same felt middle term as "richness of spirit": having the self certitude to turn into the light, even in our darkest hour. And you see, arguably this spiritual tension impacts our evolution, including other life that shares a felt vitality.

I am sure that I could be put into a mental state where I would be willing to believe whatever. While I have been in a state of "poverty of spirit" and down right desparate, I did not feel a desire to turn to an ineffiable supreme being for help.

I'm sorry if my reaction overly surprises you in a negative way.

Please let me know if I misunderstood what you were saying.

Thanks