Cosmological Origins: Conscious Multiverse vs. Personal Creator

My thanks to Pro for challenging me to this debate, it was a very fruitful discussion. =Parsimony= Pro charges me with misusing Ockham's razor, citing that it is properly used to "shave away all excessive postulates, causes, and explanations." However, that is exactly what I am doing. Though both may purport to explain reality, a multiverse that is filled with countless universes is much more excessive that simply postulating one universe, one deity and no multiverse. Both explain what we have, but all things being equal, the latter hypothesis is preferred because the number of entities needed to explain reality is smaller. Imagine that you need to balance a scale by placing fifty pounds on it. One way to do this is to fill a box (whose weight is negligible) with twenty-five two pound weights. Or, one can simply place a fifty pound weight on the scale. It is the latter that is more parsimonious. Applied to the multiverse, it should be ruled out on the basis that it multiplies entities beyond the number that are needed to explain the relevant phenomena. Pro then charges standard physics with "complicating the theory by "adding experimentally unsupported processes and ad hoc postulates." On the contrary, this does not violate Ockham's razor, which states that entities should not be multiplied beyond _necessity_. Just as it is necessary to posit some phenomena to account for the multiple universes on multiverse theory, it is necessary to posit certain phenomena in order to explain reality. =Immaterial God?= Pro appears to treat the idea of an immaterial being with no physical parts as an unintelligible notion. He charges this as being an unscientific concept that the human mind cannot comprehend. This is correct, but just exactly why is this considered to be a bad thing? Pro appears to presuppose that something is intelligible only if it is able to be analyzed by science. This, however, is a self-refuting venture, for that assumption itself cannot be analyzed by scientific means. Philosophers recognize the existence of a wide range of immaterial existing objects, including: numbers, universals, properties, propositions, laws of logic, etc... Simply because my conception of God cannot be analyzed empirically does not mean that it is non-nonsensical. The origin of the universe is just as much as an exercise in metaphysics as it is in physics. And how exactly is an immaterial being with no physical parts a complicated being? It would have no physical parts, and thus, a fortiori, it would be incredibly simple! =Edge of Another Universe= Pro simply asserts that Merisni-Houghton's conclusion does not rely on string theory, but this is simply false. [1] Her conclusion does rely on string theory, which is still in its infancy. He also restates that "we have actually observed what is likely the edge of another universe." Again, this is true only if we interpret the void according to string theory and a MW interpretation. Consequently, Pro needs to demonstrate why an interpretation along the lines of string theory and MW should be preferred. Pro responds by stating that "the math checks out." That however, was not my criticism. The math may check out in regards to what we have, but all of the equations for string theory have not even been formulated yet. [2] Pro did not respond to the fact that there are explanations for the WMAP under standard physics. In fact, to posit a speculative explanation that rests on a speculative theory that has secured no amount of empirical evidence and whose equations have not even been fully formulated yet is unparsimonious. =MW Interpretation= Pro's response is rather weak. He simply cites a quote in which states that it complicates quantum theory by "adding experimentally unsupported processes and ad hoc postulates." However, the addition of these processes are explanatory necessary, and hence their addition is necessary. Moreover, this is not a very strong reason as to why we should accept an MW interpretation over more than a dozen competing interpretations, all of which are empirically equivalent. =Kalam Cosmological Argument= Pro doesn't seem to respond to my argument at all. Instead, he presents two alternatives: a deistic creator and a theistic creator (of which the latter is personal). I am arguing, of course, for the latter conception of deity. I have already established this point through prior argumentation (In order to create in the lack of prior determining conditions, the creator must have freely willed to create, thus indicating that it is personal). As far as I can tell, Pro does not respond to this argument. Pro does seem to charge the conception of deity as one that is compatible with deism, and thus I have failed to demonstrate the existence of a personal creator. Notice however, that this equivocates on the meaning of "personal" as indicated in the debate topic. This debate is about cosmological origins, and whether or not the creator of the universe had the property of being a personal cause. A deistic creator, though he does not intervene within creation, is still personal in the sense that it freely choose to create in the lack of determining conditions. Thus, regardless of whether or not the conception of deity I have proven is deistic (does not intervene in creation) or theistic (active in creation), both have the property of being a personal cause of the universe. Thus, they can both be described as personal creators. Thus, contrary to Pro, I have succeeded in demonstrating the existence of a personal cause. =Infinity and Time= Pro attacks a strawman. My argument is NOT that "because we can assign arbitrary divisions or events, therefore the divisions and events exist." As I outlined clearly, on the A-theory of time, divisions between events are real by virtue of the reality of temporal becoming. However, because it is hard to determine the exact division of events on an A-theory, we simply substitute it with an arbitrary division of events for the sake of simplicity. For example, it is clear that there is a difference between a few pieces of trash and a giant heap of trash. But simply because we can't specify when exactly a few pieces of trash becomes a giant heap of trash does not mean that there is no distinction between the two. For pragmatic reasons, we therefore simply specific an arbitrary distinction in place for a distinction that we know exists but which can't be specified with certainty. Pro's argument is simply a modern version of the sorites paradox. =God and Thermodynamics= Note firstly that Pro has completely dropped his argument about the laws of nature being prescriptive as opposed to descriptive in light of my previous criticism. Pro charges my conception of deity as being unfalsifiable because it is not bound by scientific laws. This is flatly incorrect, as falsifiability does not depend solely on science. It is very possible to falsify the traditional conception of God: simply show that there exists a contradiction in his attributes. If such an argument succeeds, then the existence of God is falsified. =Pro's "Smoking Gun"= Pro argues that to insist on only one universe is to violate Ockham's razor. But just why should I accept that assumption? He quotes Victor Stenger as stating that "no new hypothesis is needed to consider multiple universes" and that it "takes an added hypothesis to rule them out." I see no reason to accept any of this. Positing the existence of multiple universes is explanatory superfluous when one universe is enough (On non-MW interpretations of QM, there is no entities being multiplied beyond necessity in regards to a single universe hypothesis). It is thus multiverse theory, and not a single universe, which violates Ockham's razor. =Conclusion= Pro has failed to demonstrate that a conscious multiverse should be preferred over a personal creator. Thanks for reading!