Charles Murray

Why it's not a satisfying theory.

First place, it's all theory.

Right.

But there is no empirical evidence for it at all.

It's just theoretically possible.

And, you know, if you're talking about plausibility, in order for this universe to have a reasonable chance of existing by chance, there would have to be not just two or three multi-universes, there would have to be a couple of million universes.

just to have a decent chance of this universe existing.

Now, tell me, is believing in a million universes more plausible than believing in a universe that was created intentionally?

You want to talk about a commitment to faith, I would say that believing the multiverse is one which is contradicted every time you walk outside into your backyard in a starry night and look up there and say, do I believe there are a million of these?

Nah, I don't really think so.

And I find the multiverse theory something that only super smart intellectuals can believe.

What do you make of that?

I have a couple of thoughts on that.

One is that the 20th century was in many ways anomalous.

And it was anomalous in the degree to which intellectuals managed to avoid thinking about and writing about the basic questions of the human condition and human existence.

It was an impoverished century philosophically, and I think spiritually as well.

And that's unnatural.

It is deep in the human instincts, and especially among people who consider themselves intellectuals, to think about these questions.

That's what college kids should be talking about until three o'clock in the morning when they're sophomores and juniors.

And that we moved away from that was, I think, a kind of adolescence.