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Originally Posted by wicked4182
And if that were all so, then what are the chances that the universe in which we live is the only one where insane things like that do NOT happen? I'd say thats a slim chance. I really don't know much about astrology or whatever but thats how I see it.
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The numbers involved are bigger than you think.
In fact, the universe we live in is a very 'likely' one. There may be many wierd universes, but the odds are this one is completely and utterly normal.
Because we define normal by it being likely.
Even in a 'wierd' universe where one strange thing happens (Mr T spontationously appears), what happens after that will
probably be normal.
Wierd universes where wierd stuff continues to happen are very very rare.
The scale of the probabilities involved is simply ridiculous. More universes probably exist in which the half of earth spontaniously turns into anti-matter, than in which 10 copies of Mr T appear, says "I pity the fool", and then spontaniously disappear.
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Originally Posted by Final_Identity
When you surmise that something is so highly unlikely that, for all practical purposes, it becomes an impossibility, you are saying something that many statisticians would rebel at. But I agree with it. Hume explained, for example, that we don't KNOW that the sun will rise tomorrow, but that we might as well assume it will, because for all practical purposes, we have a good ENOUGH proof that it will. You're doing the same.
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That is the beauty of it. It might be possible to arrange an experiment, theoretically, that would confirm or deny this model of the universe.
You just can't
communicate the results of your experiment to most of the possible futures.
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Originally Posted by MultiverseKid
If most, if not all, options have a "miniscule" chance of occuring, then doesn't that mean that all options (e.g. head getting chopped off and dying; or head getting chopped off and living) will equally, or close to, occur?
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No. The math, which seems to work, says some are more likely than others. A continuum of possibilities, with probabilities for each.
Just because there are an infinite number of sheep, doesn't mean that they are more than 7 black ones.
More precicely, you can have an infinite number of sheep, with 10% of them black, if you define "10%" in
some reasonable ways. 0.0000001% of then could be green even. =)
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Originally Posted by MultiverseKid
In addition you mentioned in your experiment that "you" would push the button 1000 times. This may or may not be enough trials to take into consideration the "2^10000000000000000000" chance of getting your head chopped off and living. So to truly validate the experiment there would have to be an infininte number of trials to validate the possible infinte solutions. In this case even a "2^10000000000000000000" chance of something happening would happen infinte number of times.
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The goal is simply to find an experiment that would determine if you are living in a universe where all possible futures exist, or in which there is only one future that comes into existance.
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Originally Posted by MultiverseKid
If that is the case, how does that define multi-universes? Either there are multi-universes that all this occurs in, or there is one universe that has infinite possibilities of events to occur.
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It depends on what you call a universe.
If the interpritation is correct, then there are parts of reality that are casually disconnected from this reality. You could call that a "different universe", because you can't get there from here or vice versa.
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Originally Posted by MultiverseKid
If there is only one universe with infinite possibilities, does that lead into proving God?
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I do not see the need for that hypothesis.
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Originally Posted by MultiverseKid
Otherwise, there are multiple universes in which all this MUST occur because every option would have had to be accounted for and occured to prove that it was in fact an option, correct?
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This question does not make sense to me.
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Originally Posted by Janey
For me to grapple this concept (beyond you providing some remedial reading) can you put Heinlein's the Number of the Beast inot perspective with the theory? I read that book, and thought that I understood it.
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Sorry, I liked Heilein's juvy, but found his later fiction ... less appealing. So I don't remember reading "Number of the Beast".