by Cosmologists have suggested highly speculative scenarios by which it may be possible for an advanced civilization to create new universes in a laboratory. If doing so were possible, I would be wary of carrying it out, because I fear the new universes, full of small wild-animals enduring short lives of Darwinian suffering, might contain more total pain than happiness. However, many other people favor creating new universes if doing so were possible.
If it is possible for life to create new universes, then as David Pearce suggested to me, a variant of the simulation argument would seem to apply. In this case, it has four horns: if civilizations can create new universes, then either (1) almost all civilizations go extinct before being able to create them, (2) almost all civilizations that don't go extinct do not want to create them, (3) the number of universes created naturally far exceeds the number created by advanced civilizations, or (4) our universe was almost certainly created by an advanced civilization.
In the case of Alan Guth's scenario, I think horn (3) comes out with high probability, because, as Guth explains in a quote in this piece:
Of course, if other mechanisms were possible, this needn't be the case. In fact, horn (4) is the selfish biocosm hypothesis, an example of which is Louis Crane's Meduso-anthropic principle.
If horn (4) were true, would it affect the probability we assign to seeing humans go on to create new universes? In his original paper, Crane seems to suggest that it does, if I'm reading it correctly. However, I don't think this is obviously the case, because it may be that 99.99% of universes created by advanced civilizations do not, in fact, go on to produce universes of their own. Moreover, even if our universe is one of the 0.01% that do, it may be other civilizations, not our own, that are responsible. The analogy to evolution should be clear: Does the fact that you were born mean that you'll go on to have children? Not necessarily -- especially if you're a member of a species in which organisms give birth to far more offspring than can survive to maturity. (The fact that this is true of most species is one of my reasons for thinking that nature may contain more suffering than happiness.) On the other hand, if you happen to know that that your species successfully sustains itself and yet its members have only one or two children, then the fact that you were born does give you more reason to think that you yourself will have children, other things being equal.
The analogy with evolution highlights another potentially tragic fact: The continued reproduction of universes may go on even if the universes tend to contain net suffering. The objective function being optimized is reproduction, not happiness, and as long as a few civilizations decide to create new universes, the process continues -- regardless of what the inhabitants of the "failed" universes think. (Of course, the civilization creating the new universes itself would probably optimize something far different than happiness.)
If it is possible for life to create new universes, then as David Pearce suggested to me, a variant of the simulation argument would seem to apply. In this case, it has four horns: if civilizations can create new universes, then either (1) almost all civilizations go extinct before being able to create them, (2) almost all civilizations that don't go extinct do not want to create them, (3) the number of universes created naturally far exceeds the number created by advanced civilizations, or (4) our universe was almost certainly created by an advanced civilization.
In the case of Alan Guth's scenario, I think horn (3) comes out with high probability, because, as Guth explains in a quote in this piece:
To put the story in perspective, one should remember that the process of eternal inflation leads to an exponential increase in the number of pocket universes on time scales as short as 10^-37 seconds. Since the time needed for the development of a super-advanced civilization is measured in billions of years or more, there appears to be no chance that laboratory production of universes could compete with the "natural" process of eternal inflation.
Of course, if other mechanisms were possible, this needn't be the case. In fact, horn (4) is the selfish biocosm hypothesis, an example of which is Louis Crane's Meduso-anthropic principle.
If horn (4) were true, would it affect the probability we assign to seeing humans go on to create new universes? In his original paper, Crane seems to suggest that it does, if I'm reading it correctly. However, I don't think this is obviously the case, because it may be that 99.99% of universes created by advanced civilizations do not, in fact, go on to produce universes of their own. Moreover, even if our universe is one of the 0.01% that do, it may be other civilizations, not our own, that are responsible. The analogy to evolution should be clear: Does the fact that you were born mean that you'll go on to have children? Not necessarily -- especially if you're a member of a species in which organisms give birth to far more offspring than can survive to maturity. (The fact that this is true of most species is one of my reasons for thinking that nature may contain more suffering than happiness.) On the other hand, if you happen to know that that your species successfully sustains itself and yet its members have only one or two children, then the fact that you were born does give you more reason to think that you yourself will have children, other things being equal.
The analogy with evolution highlights another potentially tragic fact: The continued reproduction of universes may go on even if the universes tend to contain net suffering. The objective function being optimized is reproduction, not happiness, and as long as a few civilizations decide to create new universes, the process continues -- regardless of what the inhabitants of the "failed" universes think. (Of course, the civilization creating the new universes itself would probably optimize something far different than happiness.)
