Multiworld Problem

[Aran613]

The multiworld theory apparently says that every possibility happens, similar to rolling a dice.

However, you roll a dice. It isn't possible for all sides to have been landed on, because it would land in the same way considering you were not compelled to make any decision and our typical laws of physics are in effect?

If you throw the dice, it's not going to land in all six, it's going to land on one because you threw it the same way in that one therefore it will land the same way since it is the same exact thing, right?

Or am I just overthinking this?

[Raven]

It's all interesting stuff and all, however I honestly believe you're really over-thinking it.

It really is not something which is worth our time and effort to think about in great depth, because I really don't think we will ever find definitive evidence of an infinite number of alternate universes, where every single possibility happens ever.

Personally I don't think that is the case, just because I think our universe is finite, and it is part of an infinite number of universes (so a multiverse, in theory). I definitely think there is other life out there, whether or not it is inside our own universe or not is another thing totally. I don't believe in "alternate dimensions" and all that jazz. Just an infinite, single dimension that we are living in, with an infinite amount number of universes. The life out there may well be very primitive and not as advanced as our own race, however it is possible that there are planets out there that are even more technologically advanced, and know we exist, but don't have a method to communicate with us.

Who knows. And quite frankly, until there is solid evidence of anything, who really, truly cares.

[Aran613]

It's all interesting stuff and all, however I honestly believe you're really over-thinking it.

It really is not something which is worth our time and effort to think about in great depth, because I really don't think we will ever find definitive evidence of an infinite number of alternate universes, where every single possibility happens ever.

Personally I don't think that is the case, just because I think our universe is finite, and it is part of an infinite number of universes (so a multiverse, in theory). I definitely think there is other life out there, whether or not it is inside our own universe or not is another thing totally. I don't believe in "alternate dimensions" and all that jazz. Just an infinite, single dimension that we are living in, with an infinite amount number of universes. The life out there may well be very primitive and not as advanced as our own race, however it is possible that there are planets out there that are even more technologically advanced, and know we exist, but don't have a method to communicate with us.

Who knows. And quite frankly, until there is solid evidence of anything, who really, truly cares.

I'm not wondering about that, I'm wondering about the dice itself :P

[buttmuncher.ops]

In my opinion I look at the die having landed on all sides because from your perspective you feel that the top side that shows is the one that it "landed on." However, if I was connected to what the desk / was feeling; was looking at the die from underneath it; behind a surface (ex: wall) it fell against etc. all the "perceived" numbers that it landed on would be different, so from all angles and perspectives it would have landed on every possibility.

Simply put, if someone's looking at an object from the east and someone else is looking at the object from the west they will perceive different surfaces with whatever differences there are between those surfaces, even if said object is in the shape of a cube, because nothing is truly symmetrical (man made on earth at least.)

At least that's how I try to boil down multiworld theory into 2-dimensional aspects to understand it better.

[Phoenix Wright]

Text differing from the default color, and probably white, are incredibly difficult to see on the new skin haha.

It's just an analogy, not to be taken in its exact and literal sense. The reference to dice is meant to teach that in a multiverse, all outcomes happen in one universe or another. The "rolling" of the dice, then, can be thought of being "different" each time, in one way or another, if you choose to think about it that way. But there's no reason to.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Phoenix Wright

[lancerusso]

The original 'parallel universes' thing comes from quantum physics. I'll use the analogy of Schrödinger's cat (even though it's a silly example). If you look at the cat, you can then determine whether it's dead or alive. Parallel universes are theorised to account for where the dead cat went, effectively. Rolling a dice isn't a quantum phenomena. It's mechanical. Unless something in your brain subconsciously makes you throw it slightly different somehow. And it's not like we'll ever be able to interact with these 'universes'. Also, I didn't want to get pulled into the other metaphysics discussion because it'd already mothballed into having all the sorts of misconceptions about physics you usually get when such discussions arrive...

Concerning multiple universes: They can't exist by definition of the universe... the universe IS everything. if anything is discovered to be 'outside' our 'bubble', we'd probably just start renaming things. The Observable Universe is different. Definitely more than one of those. For example, my observable universe is slight different to everyone else's simply because we aren't standing on the same place. [/ramble]

Edited February 29, 2012 by lancerusso

[CT075]

If you throw the dice, it's not going to land in all six, it's going to land on one because you threw it the same way in that one therefore it will land the same way since it is the same exact thing, right?

I vaguely remember reading something in the theory that amounted to "your hand position, upon release, was slightly different than in THIS particular fold of the multiverse", which leads to a different side. Or something like that.

Then again what do I know~

[Original Alear]

I think you're misthinking this. It isn't, if you rolled a die once, would all the sides come up? It's, if you rolled the dice an infinite number of times, is it possible that one of the six sides would never come up? Because infinity is never ending, there is never a quantity at which you reach infinity - you just know, if it's infinite, that for any given quantity, it just gets higher and higher. However, for any particular super large number that you can think of, even a googolplexplexplex where the plexes go on a googolplex times, there is a probability, however small, that one of the sides would never come up. However, to make things more balanced, we do not know how old the multiverse is - or if it has a distinct beginning (or an end) so we don't know how many universes there have actually been, nor do we know that there are a finite number of universes - if the universes can last forever, there may be infinite variations of universes within the infinite multiverse.

Concerning multiple universes: They can't exist by definition of the universe... the universe IS everything. if anything is discovered to be 'outside' our 'bubble', we'd probably just start renaming things.

The way you phrase it, it's seems like your point lies less with physics and more with speculative semiotics (in other words, it seems a rather arbitrary distinction). And considering that there seems to be an extensive amount of scientific theory (whether you believe it to be hogwash or near definite) on the subject stemming from the many worlds interpretation which you are probably more familiar with than I am which at least some of the time refers to these parallel worlds as parallel universes. At the very least, in a video here, the guys who believe in it seem to be throwing the word universe around. That being said, if, as you say, there is an observable universe and an unobservable universe, and the two do not act on each other, then they are separate universes, no? And if they do act on each other, at least if the other one acts on ours, then is there not room for observation?

EDIT: HAH I beat Phoenix at calling it semantic/semiotic distinction!

Edited February 29, 2012 by Jet Black Gunner

[Phoenix Wright]

The original 'parallel universes' thing comes from quantum physics. I'll use the analogy of Schrödinger's cat (even though it's a silly example). If you look at the cat, you can then determine whether it's dead or alive. Parallel universes are theorised to account for where the dead cat went, effectively. Rolling a dice isn't a quantum phenomena. It's mechanical. Unless something in your brain subconsciously makes you throw it slightly different somehow. And it's not like we'll ever be able to interact with these 'universes'. Also, I didn't want to get pulled into the other metaphysics discussion because it'd already mothballed into having all the sorts of misconceptions about physics you usually get when such discussions arrive...

It doesn't matter if it was quantum or mechanical phenomena...

Schrödinger's thought experiment "proves" that there are multiple worlds by the logic that the universe splits into two when you open the box and the cat is either dead or alive. It divides again and again and again by other factors that would arise.

Concerning multiple universes: They can't exist by definition of the universe... the universe IS everything. if anything is discovered to be 'outside' our 'bubble', we'd probably just start renaming things. The Observable Universe is different. Definitely more than one of those. For example, my observable universe is slight different to everyone else's simply because we aren't standing on the same place. [/ramble]

That's not an argument of non-existence, that's an argument of semantics.

Edited February 29, 2012 by Phoenix Wright

[Original Alear]

It doesn't matter if it was quantum or mechanical phenomena...

Schrödinger's thought experiment "proves" that there are multiple worlds by the logic that the universe splits into two when you open the box and the cat is either dead or alive. It divides again and again and again by other factors that would arise.

I have never studied this stuff, so it is magic to me, but I am under the impression that the Schrodinger's cat experiment is actually intended to prove the opposite, that opening the box causes a wavefunction (waveform?) collapse that makes the cat be in one of two states. And that Schrodinger, favoring the Copenhagen interpretation, merely believed that, to the universe in general, the cat was both alive and dead - the cat itself was always in one state or another.

[Phoenix Wright]

I have never studied this stuff, so it is magic to me, but I am under the impression that the Schrodinger's cat experiment is actually intended to prove the opposite, that opening the box causes a wavefunction (waveform?) collapse that makes the cat be in one of two states. And that Schrodinger, favoring the Copenhagen interpretation, merely believed that, to the universe in general, the cat was both alive and dead - the cat itself was always in one state or another.

To the observer, the cat is both alive and dead. Not until we open the box can we have attain empirical knowledge of the cat's existence.

The many-worlds interpretation, if memory serves, relies on the thought experiment to prove its logic, in that, since the cat is neither absolutely alive nor absolutely dead, the universe splits into two once the box opens--one dead cat and one live cat--the wavefunction collapse is the event that is most likely to happen. In multiple universes, both events happen, and in many different ways. This is also where the idea of quantum immortality comes from.

The cat, indeed, would be one of those depending on prior events. So...either the universe splits before the box is opened, after the box is opened, or both. It's probably both, though I have no real idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavefunction_collapse

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation

[lancerusso]

It doesn't matter if it was quantum or mechanical phenomena...

Schrödinger's thought experiment "proves" that there are multiple worlds by the logic that the universe splits into two when you open the box and the cat is either dead or alive. It divides again and again and again by other factors that would arise. ;

To the observer, the cat is both alive and dead. Not until we open the box can we have attain empirical knowledge of the cat's existence.

The many-worlds interpretation, if memory serves, relies on the thought experiment to prove its logic, in that, since the cat is neither absolutely alive nor absolutely dead, the universe splits into two once the box opens--one dead cat and one live cat--the wavefunction collapse is the event that is most likely to happen. In multiple universes, both events happen, and in many different ways. This is also where the idea of quantum immortality comes from.

The cat, indeed, would be one of those depending on prior events. So...either the universe splits before the box is opened, after the box is opened, or both. It's probably both, though I have no real idea.

Nonono! Being dead or alive isn't a quantum state. So the cat in the box doesn't experience superposition of the dead and alive states. Schrodinger got around this by supposing there was a radiation source that would trigger something to kill the cat, where the radiation emission was dependent on a quantum state- which would then collapse when the box is opened, and then we find whether or not the cat is dead. Similarily, the result of a rolled die isn't a quantum state.

And yes, I was being semantic regarding the word 'universe'; but there really isn't any sort of grounding for belief in parallel universes that we can ever get into. \And the 'unobservable' universe does affect the observable universe. The light simply hasn't reached us from those places yet, it's quite simple. But the light (and consequently forces) can and has already reached places in our universe ( though we can't detect it yet, and by the time we do, we'll be able to see the origin of those effects, so this is a moot point...). Point is, the universe IS all there is. Not just simply by definition. But because the universe is so unimaginably large it's effectively infinite. And expanding, on top of that (Well, the stuff inside the universe is drifting apart, which is effectively the same).

[Kriemhild]

The multiworld theory apparently says that every possibility happens, similar to rolling a dice.

However, you roll a dice. It isn't possible for all sides to have been landed on, because it would land in the same way considering you were not compelled to make any decision and our typical laws of physics are in effect?

If you throw the dice, it's not going to land in all six, it's going to land on one because you threw it the same way in that one therefore it will land the same way since it is the same exact thing, right?

Or am I just overthinking this?

Rolling a dice isn't a random occurrence. It's just unpredictable. Which side the dice lands on depends on a whole lot of different factors, like the force you apply, the angle in which it leaves your hand, the distance between your hand and the board, etc. They all play a role in controlling the motion of the dice, causing it to eventually land on one specific side. It's only because we can't accurately measure all those to determine the result that it seems "random", when it's actually just unpredictable.

True randomness is a situation where an event can have more than one possible outcome and there are no factors, measurable or immeasurable, that can completely ensure one outcome over the others. In that case, it makes no sense for one outcome to happen while the others don't. So the only logical possibility is that they all occur. But obviously they can't occur in the same world line, so the universe basically splits into multiple branches, each of which accommodate a different possible outcome. And then those branches would later be divided into more branches for future events and so on.

In the case of a rolled die, as I said, it isn't a random occurrence. However, IF we treat it as quantum phenomena and consider it to be truly random, then the result would be that yes, the dice will roll all possibilities. The universe will branch into six world lines for each of the six possibilities. But from within a single world line, only the outcome of that world line will be observed, while the others remain unknown. The observer rolling the die will also split into six identical people, and each of those people will each only see one outcome, even though all six outcomes happened.

Edited March 1, 2012 by Luster Purge

[lancerusso]

Rolling a dice isn't a random occurrence. It's just unpredictable. Which side the dice lands on depends on a whole lot of different factors, like the force you apply, the angle in which it leaves your hand, the distance between your hand and the board, etc. They all play a role in controlling the motion of the ball, causing it to eventually land on one specific side. It's only because we can't accurately measure all those to determine the result that it seems "random", when it's actually just unpredictable.

True randomness is a situation where an event can have more than one possible outcome and there are no factors, measurable or immeasurable, that can completely ensure one outcome over the others. In that case, it makes no sense for one outcome to happen while the others don't. So the only logical possibility is that they all occur. But obviously they can't occur in the same world line, so the universe basically splits into multiple branches, each of which accommodate a different possible outcome. And then those branches would later be divided into more branches for future events and so on.

In the case of a rolled die, as I said, it isn't a random occurrence. However, IF we treat it as quantum phenomena and consider it to be truly random, then the result would be that yes, the dice will roll all possibilities. The universe will branch into six world lines for each of the six possibilities. But from within a single world line, only the outcome of that world line will be observed, while the others remain unknown. The observer rolling the die will also split into six identical people, and each of those people will each only see one outcome, even though all six outcomes happened.

Very much this.