Of course, if the multiverse theory is right, then it by no means proves it per se, but if the data/information is indeed destroyed then it's most likely false.

It's NOT supernatural. It always existed just in different forms. 

Where's the consciousness part come in?

I'm pretty sure you read my infinite consciousness topic, since I'm pretty sure you posted in it.

Maybe I just don't get it. Cos it sounds like a philosophical non-sequitur dovetailed to theoretical physics.

I still don't see a connection.

For you to postulate consciousness of this scale, you must have:

1) a gap in scientific theory that this consciousness would fill

2) a theory of precisely what this consciousness is and what it does.

3) a plausible reason for this to have come into existence

All I have seen in any of your speculations is an attempt to make your creation fit into the existing scientific model.

You're doing it completely ass-backwards.

I like the multiverse idea better, so that's why I accept it.

If I did that, than you'd accuse me of an 'Argument from Ignorance' 

 Consciousness is the ability to independently process data. A computer, for example,  is not conscious because it relies on programs (written by sentient beings (us).) to process the data.

 Physics may never go past the Planck Era.

No, Pineapple.  You just don't understand what I'm asking for.  An argument from ignorance is saying, "We don't know why, so X is true." A gap that this consciousness would fill would be something like "X is not explained by our current theory.  The math would work if Y were the case, so I will begin to look for signs of Y."

So far, you have not provided such a gap, or even begun to speculate as to which physics theories are missing a variable which would turn out to be your infinite consciousness.

Pineapple, I didn't ask you what "consciousness" is.  I asked what "infinite consciousness" is.  The answer, to be scientific, would have to incorporate the answer to #1, which you have not yet provided.

So, you're speculating without any basis.  At least you admit that it's an argument from ignorance.  I can dismiss it thoroughly now.

The multiverse, at this time, is unfalsifiable, unless there's been a breakthrough I'm not aware of.

So, you're basing your theory on an unfalsifiable idea. Might as well go back to claiming the supernatural.

If the multiverse is ever proven, then we'll know something about it. Until then, don't you think you're jumping the gun a bit? Forming theories based on properties of something that is unproven and unfalsifiable?

At least you again admit that it's completely unfalsifiable and undefined speculation. I feel comfortable lumping it in with that other theory that is unfalsifiable and undefined until such a time as you can separate it with some hard science.

It's actually on my  "To Read List."  Unfortunately, it's a long list, and that's a bit of the way down.

So, after having read the book, are you prepared to say that the multiverse is falsifiable and that we know something about what it is, not just what it might be if it becomes falsifiable?

I've heard interviews with Michio Kaku, and read some of his essays.  He often ventures into the realms of speculation and unfalsifiability.  He admits this.

Now, you're making an argument from authority.

No, it's not. You said the multiverse is unfalsiable. I corrected you by pointing you to the book where Kaku says how it could be.

Sloan sky survey

 L.I.S.A probe

Dark matter detection etc....

Pineapple, you refuse to address my main point:

Speculation is only science when it addresses something we already know.  You've invented something that doesn't fill any gaps, doesn't solve any problems, and doesn't answer any questions.  You can speculate all you want about infinite consciousness, but there's no gap for it to fill.  There's no mathematics which would suddenly work with it.

Furthermore, you didn't address my direct question.  Does Kaku provide the mathematics by which we can falsify the multiverse concept?  Did he at the very least provide the path by which the mathematics can be attempted, if the math is not yet "discovered"?

If he did, then I stand rebutted, but my objection was NOT an argument from ignorance.  It was an objection to your unsubstantiated claims.  Read the section on burden of proof and status quo.

Unless Kaku has provided falsifiability for the multiverse, it IS speculation, and you DID make an argument from authority.

Here's another one:

My own view is that the verification of string theory might come entirely from pure mathematics, rather than from experiment. Since string theory is supoosed to be a theory of everything, it should be a theory of everyday energies as well as cosmic ones. THus, if we can finally solve the theory completely, we should be able to calculate teh properties of ordinary objects, not just exotic ones found in outer space. For example, if string thery can calculate the masses the proton, neutron, and electron fromt eh first principles, this would be an accomplishment of the first magnitude. In all models of physics (except string theory), the masses of these familiar particles are put in by hand. We do not need an LHC in some sense, to verify the theory, since we already know the masses of scores of subatomic particles, all of which sould be determined by string theory with no adjustable parameters.

page 282-283 Parallel worlds. 

Run that by me again? How does this provide falsification criteria for the "infinite conciousness"? You seem to be suggesting that if data can be destroyed by a black holes (as it currently seems to be) then the infinte conciousness is falsified. You then seem to spend the rest of the thread speculating on how data may not actually be destroyed after all. In other words you seem to be trying to justify your pre determined conclusion by speculation about possible loop holes. So you neatly provide get out clauses for the destruction of data - thus, regardless of what the LHC tells us the idea of "infinte conciousness" still remains unfalsified and unfalsifiable!

All of you, shut up.

Now, listen children.

In science and mathematics, we have hypothesis which are put forth based on tentative evidence and plausability. If something has mathematical basis which makes it very likely to be true we call it a conjecture. We might regard multiverse as in this stage of the scientific heirarchy at present. You are confusing present falsifiability with absolute falsifiability. If we have a mathematical conjecture where our present technology does not allow us to confirm or eliminate the hypothesis, we simply wait until such technology develops. In this case, we need to wait until the SLOAN sky survey and the LISA Gravity Wave Detectors come online. Until then, given that there is good circumstantial (but not absolute) evidence for the Multiverse proposition, agnosticism towards the position is a logical choice. Remember Dawkins? Remember when he was talking about instead of a position of absolute agnosticism or absolute strong atheism, we work in terms of probabilities?? Same here. The Multiverse proposition has good evidence to suggest its plausability, but no evidence to confirm it. This is the same with Guth's Inflation, which you were all happy with when I brought it up in my essay on the absurdity of the cosmological argument. The evidence which will confirm or eliminate the proposition is called the "smoking gun". For that, you will have to wait several more years.

For further reading on this matter:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_argument_from_ignorance_and_its_uses_and_abuses

Especially reference the ideas raised about the continuum of probability of the validity of empirical claims.

Now, I dislike the idea of "infinite consciousness" since

a) Neuroscience indicates consciousness is the product of brains, which are discrete entities

b) Information physics does not allow for a conscious entity to be infinite. That would break the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Remember how long I spent ripping that apart in this essay:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_absurdity_of_the_cosmological_argument

Oh, by the way, consciousness is much, much more, Cpt, then the ability to indepedently process information. Every cell in your body has the capability of doing that. Every aspiring molecular biologists learns that in cell dynamics 101: Cells are discrete information-processing entities. The biological processes of transcription, translation, transduction, ion pumping, synaptic shuttling, allosteric control, molecular switches are all indepedent information processing occurances. Information is that which is being percieved while consciousness is that which is perceiving. Granted, consciousness in turn is based on matter, which in turn is based on information. However, consciousness is a discrete process, not an absolute continuum process.

I would say that the notion of multiverses is a prediction rather than a theory and to gain credence the laws of physics will have to be known sufficiently well. A theory can make both testable and untestable predictions, the multiverse is a prediction in a theory and as such does not need to be observed itself. Yet becoming accepted will depend upon the accuracy of our model of the universe(s).

There is circumstantial evidence from the anthropic principle.

Am I the only one reading who, even after all his attempts to explain the idea of "infinite consciousness", cannot understand what the good Cpt means by it?

I thought the brains generate consciousness by the inequalities in neurons.  That brains generate consciousness by processing the data given off by the neurons.

I'm talking infinite potiental. I have mentioned it several times in my infinite consciousness topic.

Doesn't evolution say our consciousness developed in stages?  That there are different stages of consciousness?

That is my point. There are different levels of consciousness. 

Hammby, I already said, it from bit can be applied to quantum paradoxes. 

If you create 2 infinite sets one of all positive numbers and one of all negative numbers and then add all the numbers the result is 0.

To me it is more like an analogy of how something comes from nothing or resulting complexity from breaking symmetry. 

I like the godly undercurrent in Haischs' spiel "white light" and "intelligent subtraction" good fun

My message to this God: "he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." 

So, you are defining God to be the set of all possible universes, or perhaps the set of possibilities itself? Perhaps this description is too simple....

So, assuming there is no major flaw in that description, doesn't it cause problems when you try to describe god as existing? How does the concept of existence apply to such a thing? Or intelligence? Why do you call it God?

And for the umpteenth time, I really would like to know where the leap from all possible universes to "infinite consciousness" occurs, and how in the multiverse it is possible for the multiverse to be conscious, since we know consciousness to be the state of sentience in living beings, life being a replicating system that passes genetic information to descendents.

You are confusing our level of consciousness, with what I'm getting at. I have said several times (including in that quote), that the infinite consciousness is potiental. Potiental to be our level of consciousness.

In order to achieve this level, it must limit (filter) out from the infinte potiental. 

Now do you see?  

Now you are presenting this in a way I can address.  

I'll try to explain now. 

This may take me into the Higgs mechanism. I'll try to present it as clearly as I can.

 Beleive it or not, even matter uses data to communicate. For example, W Bosons communicate the weak force. They have a rather small range (off the top of my head, I think it's 10^-17m). This range is what gives it mass. This is where the Higgs mechanism comes in (which is testable with the LHC.). Basically, the Higgs mechanism limits the range of the weak force giving it mass. (It does not do this with photons however, hence photons are massless and have infinite range.).

So the point is that by limiting the potiental you create the finitely real. Matter/mass is no exception.

This is what does the limiting. 

Right. Limiting potential creates the finitely real. Another way of saying that is "Anything that is finitely real has limits." The word "create" is tricky there, and I refuse to let this word influence the argument. As far as I can tell, we're still talking about the transition from singularity to post-Planck existence, and "create" doesn't seem nearly as appropriate as "cause," but honestly, I don't think any of this is relevant, as you will see.

Can we all join hands and say NON SEQUITUR!

You nakedly assert that something is "doing the limiting" and that it is conscious, blithely ignoring what consciousness is. You jump from a philosophical way of looking at finite existence into the existence of a universe-sized brain.

It's a gigantic, unsupported leap. Every new idea you've come up with to support it is simply a different way of describing what we observe as the existent universe. You then, each and every time, with one sentence or less, say, "See, that's god."

That's a non sequitur. There's no connection.

My Oxford Dictionary states that consciousness is the state of being conscious as well as one’s awareness or perception of something. Typically sentience, or the ability to feel emotively about things, is implied as well. Producing something that can learn is pretty easy; producing something that can learn how to learn (metalearn) is harder than hard. Adding emotional states are trivial and usually neglected as they are not useful in solving anything but cognitive problems and prompting them is difficult (though well known) to implement.

If it is your opinion that at least everything up to mice are even semi-conscious then I would direct you to the works of those scientists who have recently completed simulation of the equivalent of half a mouse's brain at one-tenth speed. The simulation will grow as technology progresses. If that is consciousness then we're already playing god and may begin to ponder the ghost in the machine questions.

Seeing as consciousness did not unexpectedly arise, we must wait until technology catches up with our cognitive conjecture. Had it shown up in such a model it would have been a great suprise, there would have been a media explosion, politics would be in an uproar (do androids have human rights?), and we'd have to figure out why it broke the model.

What you think has no causal relation to what is true. You're inferring a top-down relationship between reality and consciousness where consciousness is actually something that develops within the constraints of reality. Consciousness is not the filtered set of all things; the problem with producing consciousness therefore is not having a lot of stuff to filter but rather having a non-linear filter through which information is run. Perhaps sometime I will write out an exhaustive formula of our current model of consciousness, but in the meantime rest assured that even the compex movement of cosmic bodies do not constitute a sufficient non-linear economy to produce conscious thought.