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Breaking News: Multiple Universes Exist!
nudone:
i'm an idiot for opening my mouth but i think this kind of thing just shows (again) that we really have no understanding of what infinite implies.
every branch that is taken that forms a new path obviously then leads to a further infinite number of universe paths - each one of those infinite universe paths also having an infinite number of branching universe paths. in other words, we're multiplying infinities by infinities. every possibility is happening and has happened and will happen.
taken to the extreme i'm trying to say something like this: in an infinite number of these universes there is a device that eliminates all universes - that's all infinite universes wiped out. how so?
at some point in an infinite number of universes (note i'm not saying in one single universe - as an infinite number of branching universes allows me to have an infinite number of universes within that infinite set that all have the same event occurring), okay, at some point in an infinite number of universes a device is created that has the ability to transcend time and prevent the origin of the universe(s). therefore an infinite number of universes are eliminated from ever existing.
likewise there are an infinitive number of universes that has a device created as some point that prevents the above device being constructed.
etc. etc.
Deozaan:
There's a reason this stuff is called SciFi. Because it's fiction.
Don't get me wrong, I love science fiction, but when people start claiming that fiction is fact, I get a little perturbed. I must admit that I don't have a deep understanding of quantum physics, but I doubt there's any such thing as an alternate universe.
Of course, a large part of this has to do with my religious views, which I know are off-topic to this site, so I'll just summarize and say that if I believe there is a God who purposely created us all, I can't believe there are infinite copies of us in alternate dimensions. Those beliefs seem mutually exclusive to me.
Human logic isn't always foolproof. I've seen people "prove" all kinds of things with mathematics, like 2+2=5. It was a fun thing for major nerdgeeks (yeah, I just invented that word) to try to show off how smart they were in high school by confusing everyone else.
Anyway, if you want to discuss some of the fun theories about time travel and alternate dimensions/universes, lets do it, but don't try to pass it off as proven fact that these things really exist.
Like Eóin's post, this isn't directed specifically at anyone here. Just my take on the matter.
tinjaw:
Well, not exactly breaking since it was back in September,
-Ralf Maximus (November 20, 2007, 09:53 AM)
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Well, you should take comfort that it is current breaking news in a parallel universe ! :P
Deozaan:
Okay, with my rant out of the way, and on to the fun topic of time travel possibilities as explained by theories for fiction...
Note that this being a work of mathematics, nothing has been really proven. But if validated, it lays an excellent foundation for experimentation, and finally, building the Time Travel device of my dreams. I'm coming to kill you, great-great-grandfather!
-Ralf Maximus (November 20, 2007, 09:53 AM)
--- End quote ---
I would hate to shatter someone's dreams, but the type of time travel you imply is probably not possible.
If it were possible, we would know it was already, from the evidence of people from the future doing it and traveling to our time or earlier. How could we not know about it going on? As humans, we are bound to blab our secrets when we shouldn't, so some time traveler would have spilled the beans about it. It's our nature. We screw things up.
The fact we have no proof in our current time that there are time travelers in the future that have visited the past, leads me to believe one of 3 things are true:
A. Time travel, of the type you imply, isn't possible.
B. Humans become extinct before they discover how to do it.
C. The evidence of time travelers is being hidden in the biggest global conspiracy/cover-up of all time.
C is a bit far fetched, because like I said...we can't keep secrets that well.
B...I don't want to think about, even if it is true...so I'll just believe in A.
Of course a 4th possibility could be true:
D. People will someday figure out how to travel to the future but never how to travel to the past. (but then that would mean one-way tickets, we would have no proof that it worked since the traveler could never come back and tell us, and we would assume it just messed up and killed him, and abandon the project before anybody else got hurt.)
-app103 (November 20, 2007, 10:50 AM)
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There are 3 ways (that I can think of) to change the past and a total of 4 conclusions you can come to:
Ralf came up with one: That you simply change an alternate universe's history, but your own remains the same.
The second is that if you change the past everything that you know simply vanishes (except you?) and then history plays itself forward as if what you did was always that way. (read Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus for this example)
Third is that the changes you make only slightly alter the events, but the end result is the same. An example of this is the newer movie The Time Machine (2002). His girlfriend/fiance dies and he builds a time machine to save her. Every time he saves her, she dies another way in a matter of hours/days. The reason is because if she had survived, he never would have built the time machine to save her. Thus you can change minor events, but ultimately history will be the same.
Fourth is that you simply cannot change the past. If you go back to kill Hitler to prevent WW2, then WW2 never would have happened and you never would have gone back in time to kill him. Thus, because you never went back in time to kill him, he would be alive and then WW2 would have happened. It's a never ending loop called a time paradox. So if time travel were possible, something will happen to prevent you from changing anything, and that something that happened to prevent you from changing anything already happened back then but it wasn't notable so nobody knew about it in history. Because history already happened, you can't change it. Your attempt to go back in time and change it already happened back then. A movie that illustrates this (and presents a neat time paradox) is Somewhere in Time. In the movie, a very old woman comes to lead role (Christopher Reeve) and gives him a watch telling him to come back to her. He finds out later she was a beautiful actress from the early 1900s and goes back in time, they fall in love, and he gives her the watch. So the question is, where did the watch come from? She got it from him, but he got it from her.
Ralf Maximus:
taken to the extreme i'm trying to say something like this: in an infinite number of these universes there is a device that eliminates all universes - that's all infinite universes wiped out. how so?
--- End quote ---
Perhaps such a device exists, but to operate it would require an infinite amount of energy.
Just because they're infinite doesn't mean each universe's internal rules and physical laws go away. Each existence must remain internally consistant to um... er, exist. For example, my "time travel" shenanigans as described above would still have to obey conservation of energy; thus an equal amount of energy and/or matter would have to be exchanged with the target universe should I want to go there.
HOW is a topic I will leave to the wild-eyed backyard physicists/engineers with too much time on their hands.
Anyway, if you want to discuss some of the fun theories about time travel and alternate dimensions/universes, lets do it, but don't try to pass it off as proven fact that these things really exist.
-Deozaan (November 20, 2007, 11:46 AM)
--- End quote ---
Of course. I posted the initial article with a kind of tongue-in-cheek "wouldn't this be cool?" frame of mind firmly in place. I think mathematics is a form of mental masturbation until somebody comes along and actually applies it. If you Google Dr. Deutsch you can quickly find all sorts of contrary opinion, much of it equally on solid ground.
Like I'm qualified to know. :-)
And a quick reminder to those who dismiss such fancy as mere Sci-Fi, remember that many things we take for granted now were at one time considered ridiculous to contemplate. Atomic energy, air travel, the nature of disease and the possibility of curing it. For awhile, it was "known fact" that man would never travel faster than a horse since the flow of oxygen would be cut off by the gale-force wind and he'd suffocate.
Of course, a large part of this has to do with my religious views, which I know are off-topic to this site, so I'll just summarize and say that if I believe there is a God who purposely created us all, I can't believe there are infinite copies of us in alternate dimensions. Those beliefs seem mutually exclusive to me.
--- End quote ---
Personally, I find no conflict with belief in God and alternate universes. Without triggering a religious discussion I too am spiritual, and believe that a beneficent creator left us with a wonderous universe to play in and learn. If the playground is bigger than we first imagined, even better.
If nothing else, the Multiple Universes theory neatly addresses the old queston, "why does God let bad things happen to good people?"
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