Parallel World. What I hate, HATE is that people thing parallel words can only made by a choice or a decision. If the point of a parallel universe is that it is DIFFERENT from ours, then image a universe that is exactly the same as ours in all respects. Everything, but one tiny atom, which for a fraction of second vibrates slightly differently, but then goes back to being the same as ours.
Superficially it's the same, except for this one action and this one point of time. Then image this happens for each atom, in each possible point of time, then you start taking combinations of atoms and they start vibrating and as you can see there is all ready going to be an infinite amount of universes which LOOK EXACTLY LIKE OURS!
Don't forget that a parallel universe that is exactly (FCVO...) the same as ours might as well be ours if we can't compare the two. Which (in leiu of a 'metaverse' analysis[1]) means that you need to have Joe Bloggs(x) from Universe A(x) jumpinging into Universe A(y) looking at the change. And to maintain the (other than the theoretical minor change in that atom) exactness Joe Bloggs(y) would either need to visit Universe A(x) (in which case it would help if the universes together formed a rotationally-symmetric pair) or in turn visit Universe A(z) (consider a stack of universes each being different by just one atom[2]), unless that one atom change is the cause/inhibiter of the cross-plane jump.
Personally, I tend to go for the idea that while any particular Universe (and we only have proof of there being one) cannot
by its own efforts infinitely accurately determine its own future (either of the whole or a sub-section) in any way that can precursor its own inevitable prosession through the 't' dimension (and, of course, with the problem of possibly changing that result due to the intersection of the causality/light-cones of both analysed and analysing regions), if one were to take account of sub Planck-length and Planck-time information that is extant and definite but irretrivable/untouchable behind the fogs forecast by Heisenburg and Schrodinger... <pauses for breath in a long and complicated sentence> ...
then we woud see a purely deterministic universe, one outcome flowing out of each prior universal state and thus a complete lack of free will, randomness and all of Quantum wierdness explained away as the abstraction of unknown but definite sub-Planck oscillations expressing themselves in the micro and macro appearance of the universe.
Of course, with only the most basic of abstractions being apparent to the 'constructs' that are our consciosnesses (e.g. "a ball that is falling will continue falling in a definable way until it hits something solid, or perhaps deflected by the flow of a fluid") the mind's eye (which is not a simulcra sitting in the 'pilot seat' of one's brain, but an almost literal 'afterthought' of group dynamic of one's mind[3]) is mroe or less forced by all physical laws to follow procedural 'conclusions' about the universe's (and each individual's) capability for free will, due to the complete
Personally, I (or at least the complex waveform which is best identified by the term 'I') tend think in terms of complete determinism[4]. But of course I was always going to think that, just as you (or at least the 'you' waveform!) were always going to 'think' your own 'thoughts', quite possibly including the "What on Earth is he talking about?" meme.
[1] And if you can get a metaverse analysis of a universe, then the metaverse can safely be assumed to handle all the "getting enough information to predict the future" issue, even if it's just by subcontracting the calculations to various
other universes in its domain like in a metaverse-scale server farm/SETI@Home type thing.
[2] But not necessarily the same one atom during the same single period of 'differentness'. Universe A
- and Universe A[z] might differ by two atoms/two different sets of wobbles. Travel far enough along the line of Universe As and you find that Universe A(Theta) and Universe A(Gimel) are very different, and both different from Universe A(Edd). If the whole series ends up meeting itself, across infinity, there may be the same situation as the breeding combinations of related Gulls around the northern hemisphere, there being a discontinuity of compatibility at one point. )
[3] Which may or may not be effectively confined to the physical matter of the brain/body. Some people (not me) contend that 'mind' extends to the physical world beyond the body, and 'explains' ESP phenomena in the way that two people sat at a table, having lunch, may simultaneously burst forth with "That reminds me..!" as both consciousnesses (having absorbed the shape of the vase, subconsciously connected it to some other item of shared experience and ended up bringing about a thought about an item a third or fourth level of awareness away from the original concept, for much the same reason and at muich the same time) arrive at a similar conclusion in a 'freaky' manner that some ascribe to intermingling consciousness, but which is usually just a synchronicity of awareness. Ditto for the phone ringing and it being the person you were just about to call yourself, which would be rarer but far more noteworthy when it occurs than on occasions when it does not.
[4] Also that if closed-timelike curves occur (i.e. full time travel, as opposed to basic reletivity-induced dilation), the universe is self-consistent and thus the consequences of a time-loop are self-sustaining. i.e. the events that precipitate the time-traversal are themselves caused (or at least not counteracted) by the repurcussions of the events that the time-traversed causes cause to be effected within the 'normal' time-flow inbetween the arrival and departure points. IYSWIM. Although I'm also willing to go along with universe-branching, at any point when a future impinges upon its own past. Either at the expense of the post 'departure' unvierse being dissolved into the energies required to create the new branch at the 'arrival' point, or (if the universe as a whole is zero-sum in energy/matter) just as a clone-but-with-TimeTraveller offshoot. The tapestry of the universe is self-consistent, of course, and if cross-universe travel can also exist then the weave of cause and effect is part of the ultimate time-independant pattern.
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Topic: A way to prove the (possible?) existence of the soul. (Read 7399 times)