"Multiple Universes" is redundant and misleading

[Gustav]

I suppose there may be an argument for the linguistic evolution of the word "universe" where the modern Western natural scientists may co-opt the term for the rest of us.

i dont know about the rest of us, but science does try to instruct those that insist on clinging to quaint and medieval notions

Oh, but I know what will happen. Hawking will propose an elaborate Unification Theory of the Whole that includes all Multiple Universes -- and then he will discover Multiple Wholes (with more holes than Swiss cheese; but that's another story).

i'll quote a famed physicist......

The search for a theory of everything is just a way of saying science aims to understand as much as possible. That isn't pseudoscience, it is the definition of what the aim of science is.

ja
it is that simple and straightforward

 

[NMSquirrel]

I happen to believe in time travel and see the biggest obstacles- the energy required to create an alternate universe and the effect of the causality of creating one.

Say you can go back in time. Well, you would not only create the alternate universe by being in it (and in that regard a god) but as you would exist in that new past you would change it to where the future becomes something different altogether...

um..you have just stated that a New alternate universe would be created, so the timelines would not conflict,there would be the original timeline and the others that were created by traveling through time.

in effect you would be sending people back in time to unmake the future, and there is no viability to that.

only in the universe/timeline that you had changed. if your goal is to make a better life for yourself, the original 'you' would not experience it, you would only be changing the timeline you are in(assume another 'you' exists here), you would have to use your Tardis to bring you back to your original departure timeline, but nothing should be affected in the original timeline, only the alternate experienced the changes (and so has the alternate 'you')

but yea..i suppose it would require such a prohibitive amount of energy to create such a new timeline/universe, that it would render time travel impotent. (at least going backwards..)

 

[Hesperado]

Of course it implies more than one universe. The term means "multiple universes" and includes the real, tangible universe (i.e. all existing, observable space and time) and other theoretical universes that do not have measurable existence.

Apparently you have not noticed that I consider the term "universe" to be equivalent to "Everything" / "All" / "Totality".

Can there be multiple Everythings / multiple Alls / multiple Totalities?

It's linguistic nonsense. And no matter how sophisticated the science is, if it cannot be expressed in language that is not nonsense, then something is wrong Houston.

However, toward the end I conceded that if "universe" simply means One Thing out of a Totality of Things of the same category, then "multiple universes" can make sense.

 

[Stryder]

Apparently you have not noticed that I consider the term "universe" to be equivalent to "Everything" / "All" / "Totality".

Can there be multiple Everythings / multiple Alls / multiple Totalities?

It's linguistic nonsense. And no matter how sophisticated the science is, if it cannot be expressed in language that is not nonsense, then something is wrong Houston.

However, toward the end I conceded that if "universe" simply means One Thing out of a Totality of Things of the same category, then "multiple universes" can make sense.

"Whether there is one or more sheep, they are still sheep."

So the plural of more than one sheep is sheep, the plural of multiple universes is?

It's hardly nonsense to use a "noun" interchangeably with the pluralization of a singular not being denoted by the noun itself but how the sentence in phrased. This is just a syntax point of language.

 

[Hesperado]

"Whether there is one or more sheep, they are still sheep."

So the plural of more than one sheep is sheep, the plural of multiple universes is?

It's hardly nonsense to use a "noun" interchangeably with the pluralization of a singular not being denoted by the noun itself but how the sentence in phrased. This is just a syntax point of language.

There is no plural form of "everything" (except, playfully and poetically, perhaps, in a George Gershwin song).