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starship-design: Infinite Schizophrenia
Isaac writes:
>>Ahhh - but once you start thinking in terms of multiple universes, you
lose
>>the idea of probability. What does it mean to have one universe that is
>>less probable than another? If a universe exists its probability is one;
>
>If a universe exists, its probability of existing is indeed 1. So?
>If we can never access that universe, what difference does that make?
Maybe this is the source of the confusion. I AM talking about jumping from
one universe to another. We got on this thread talking about possible time
travel theories, one of which was jumping into alternate universes as a way
of avoiding various paradoxes.
Sounds to me like you're just talking about an infinite number of possible
universes, not universes that actually exist. (Either that or you're just
playing devil's advocate?) I completely agree with you that there are
infinitely many possiblilities that the universe Could evolve into. What I
don't believe is that there ARE an infinite number of different universes,
and my consciousness is continually splitting up into an infinite number of
different "selves", and this particular "self" I find myself in is just a
matter of chance. I think there are some strong philisophical arguments to
support this claim, even if the number of universes involved is infinite.
Occam's razor comes to mind.
>BTW, out current understanding doesn't just involve 1 or two or a
>million million million simultaneous possibilities--it involves an
>infinite continuum of possibilities. It's not even a countable
>infinity.
When you say "our current understanding" what exactly are you invoking?
The sum-over-all-possible-universes theory says that this universe is the
sum of all possibilities, but that there is still only one universe. Other
theories treat the universe as a "block" that does not evolve in time but
rather was created with all quantum events already determined. We're well
beyond established facts here; more in the realm of philosophy than
physics, probably.
Of course, if we're dropping the FTL threads, I suppose we can drop the
time travel and alternate universe stuff as well. Giant relativistic
flywheels, anyone?
Ken