A Theological Argument for an Everett Multiverse

TL;DR

This paper presents a theological argument suggesting that the existence of an Everett multiverse aligns with the idea of a benevolent God who values creating a universe with mathematical elegance, even with suffering.

Contribution

It offers a novel philosophical argument linking the Everett multiverse to divine attributes and the principle of the universe being the best possible world.

Findings

Multiverse may be the result of divine adherence to physical laws

God's preference for elegant laws influences universe's structure

Quantum unitarity leads to many-worlds interpretation

Abstract

Science looks for the simplest hypotheses to explain observations. Starting with the simple assumption that {\em the actual world is the best possible world}, I sketch an {\it Optimal Argument for the Existence of God}, that the sufferings in our universe would not be consistent with its being alone the best possible world, but the total world could be the best possible if it includes an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God who experiences great value in creating and knowing a universe with great mathematical elegance, even though such a universe has suffering. God seems loathe to violate elegant laws of physics that He has chosen to use in His creation, such as Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism or Einstein's equations of general relativity for gravity within their classical domains of applicability, even if their violation could greatly reduce human suffering (e.g., from falls). If indeed God is similarly loathe to violate quantum unitarity (though such violations by judicious collapses of the wavefunction could greatly reduce human suffering by always choosing only favorable outcomes), the resulting unitary evolution would lead to an Everett multiverse of `many worlds', meaning many different quasiclassical histories beyond the quasiclassical history that each of us can observe over his or her lifetime. This is a theological argument for one reason why God might prefer to create a multiverse much broader than what one normally thinks of for a history of the universe.