[ExI] Everett worlds

Sun Aug 16 15:53:06 UTC 2020

On 2020. Aug 16., Sun at 17:48, spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
>
> Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat
>
> Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2020 2:58 AM
>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>
> Cc: Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com>
>
> Subject: [ExI] Everett worlds
>
>
>
> >...I'm researching Everett's quantum mechanics again. Is there any
>
> interpretation or variant of Everett that you are aware of where more than
>
> one but not all Everett worlds are real?
>
> For example, one could think that a new "real" world is spawned only when
>
> there's an inconsistent time loop in a current real world (this seems to be
>
> the case in Greg Benford's science fiction novel Timescape).
>
> Or, one could think that Everett world's are selected according to some
>
> reality criteria and only some (but not all) worlds are accepted.
>
> Like in genetic programming, where many parallel evolutions are generated
>
> but only some are selected for continuation.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Giulio,
>
>
>
> Since you are thinking about this kind of thing, you are OK with the
>
> mind-blowing aspects you encounter while frolicking on that particular and
>
> peculiar philosophical playground.

Wow! Let me digest this and reply later!

>
>
>
> As an offshoot to your idea, imagine a slightly modified Everett universe
>
> where you have quantum branching and all that, but... not every possible
>
> quantum branch is allowed, not even most of them, but only those which can
>
> somehow cause what I will call spike convergence.  Spike convergence is
>
> where many different quantum events can happen in arbitrary order, but they
>
> all hafta somehow end up in an identical end state.
>
>
>
> Consider a particle anti-particle pair which somehow borrows energy for a
>
> Planck, goes a very short distance apart, comes back together, annihilate,
>
> hand back the energy it borrowed, does it all in a short enough time and
>
> small enough space to not hurt Dr. Heisenberg's feelings.  Wacky scenario,
>
> ja?  But current theory tells us this happens skerjillions of times per
>
> picosecond in every cubic nothing of space, constantly, and no one is the
>
> wiser, because once those particles live and die, we have no way to know
>
> they were ever there.  They were born, lived and died, left no will.  The
>
> universe was in exactly the same condition before and after.  Their
>
> pointless existence had no impact at all, because their future world
>
> converged with the future that would have been there had not they ever
>
> existed.
>
>
>
> OK, is that kinda how you think about quantum mechanics?  Me too.
>
>
>
> The only conditions that I know of where a quantum pair doesn't spike
>
> converge is when one falls into the event horizon and the other heads on
> out
>
> of town.  Dr. Hawking used that mechanism to explain why black holes
>
> evaporate.  Damned if I understand how that wouldn't violate Dr.
>
> Heisenberg's notion, but hey, the Brits and the Germans have been fighting
>
> for a long time.
>
>
>
> Here's where I am going with all this: what if... the number of Everett
>
> universes is not really infinite, but rather is unimaginably large and
>
> finite?
>
>
>
> In that scenario, only quantum branches allowed are those which somehow
>
> converge with the others, such that there is ultimately one possible future
>
> state, with maaaaany many paths to get there.  The present, with all its
>
> many possible branches forms a kind of braided rope configuration sorta,
>
> with skerjillions of strands, with a known far past (the pre-big bang
>
> universe) and each strand representing a possible now but only one possible
>
> future.  I think of it as a kind of quantum rope, with pointy ends.
>
>
>
> Oy vey, words are not very good tools for describing what really needs
>
> equations.
>
>
>
> As a parting thought, consider this.  The universe is either open, closed
> or
>
> exactly in-between.  Many physics fans here who are old have lived thru a
>
> progression in our lives where the universe was widely thought to be
> closed.
>
> That the end state is where the expansion eventually stops, convergence
>
> begins, THE END is an enormous black hole where all matter and energy ends
>
> up, with that end state identical to all other paths to that end state.  We
>
> end up the same way we started, with no matter and no space and no time.
> Oh
>
> that is so sad.
>
>
>
> Then it became more popular to think there was all this missing matter or
>
> something that somehow made the universe exactly flat, or some reason why
>
> the universe must be exactly flat.  Then stuff keeps flying apart, and the
>
> end game is heat death, which is not really a convergence: there are
> various
>
> ways cold dark matter could be distributed in the final state, ja?
>
>
>
> In 2011, Saul Perlmutter was given a Nobel in physics for convincing us
>
> about the accelerating expansion of the universe, an open configuration,
>
> which results eventually in the terrifying Big Rip scenario, equally sad
>
> with the Big Crunch scenario, but that scenario is also convergence.
>
> Reasoning: every Big Rip end state where all the matter is ripped to quarks
>
> and the energy infinitesimally tenuous spread out over infinite space is
>
> identical to every other Big Rip scenario, regardless of what path it took
>
> or how it got there.
>
>
>
> So sad was that Big Rip scenario, but it resulted in the funniest episode
> of
>
> Big Bang Theory ever, where Sheldon expresses what plenty of us were
> feeling
>
> deep inside, except for a different reason.  Ref: The Speckerman
> Recurrence,
>
> season 5, episode 11.  I wet my diapers laughing at that one.  The writers
>
> of that show were brilliant.
>
>
>
> I met Saul Permutter in the flesh, nicest guy he is and a fine person, but
> I
>
> do hope he is wrong.  We must stop inflation somehow.  The universe must be
>
> exactly flat, somehow.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> extropy-chat mailing list
>
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20200816/3822d7a1/attachment-0001.htm>