Based on currently available information, we favor 2 forces and the same number of bangs. X, and X' the two forces (say supergravity and anti-gravity) either (or both) a unification of the other known forces. Just two bangs because one doesn't make (as much) sense and more is too many¹. Universes like ours are not as thick as blackberries but happen when fragments of the 'real' bang bang (thusly). The two 'really fundamental' forces are unified as (mere physical) 'existence'
(物 力 ).
Wrt the additional dimensions required by string and M, our corresponding Volkslösung is to assign abanachspace with three universal frames of reference, that of our ordinary spacetime, the infinite one enclosing it, and the infinitesimal one operative at the subatomic level, in each of which the quad of extension plus observer duration is recapitulated, the total of which for any given such observer is 9 1.
¹ The excess rejected by appeal to Martin Gardners authority.
In Ch. 6, Ray Kurzweil states this § title positively (pp 342-349), i.e. without the "not*. His overall argument is fallacious as it's elements undermine each other. On the one hand he acknowledges that post-singularity species are likely to exploit means of communication that we pre-singularity cannot yet understand looking as we are for electromagnetic signatures. On the other hand his main ground for the assertion is the large number of species that should have reached "Kardashev type II or III" which, ignoring for the moment its validity, is still practically defined for the purposes of his argument in terms of said currently observable means of communication. In the end he says that it is unlikely there would be no role for EM based technology at all in such ETI which is true but quite besides the point, already granted by him, that they are unlikely to be using same for the critical purpose which was the basis for his assertion. Once this critical flaw is reversed, the rest of the text of the chapter is support for the negative statement in this § title, and which is, SFAIK, the position of mainstream science.
