What do you think about Alternate Universe??

[rose-30]

One of my favorite movie and discussion topics! Could it be possible that every decision we make in our life, automatically, creates an alternate version of ourselves in another universe that chooses differently? Would it be possible?

One caveat I have is that, if we try to define "a decision", then doesn't every step you take, every movement you make, every moment of your day constitute a decision? Would that create a new version of me every time I stopped walking and turned around?

Or would it only split into "big decisions," and, if so, who would decide/define what is a "big decision"?

Let me know what you think about this theory!

[Sy Borg]

I find the Many Worlds Hypothesis to be less credible than the idea that wave functions collapse due to interactions with the environment, including being measured.

If Many Worlds was real, I imagine it would be a near-infinite peeling off of all possibilities at all times. I don't think there would be big or small decisions. Every moment is one where one thing happens when countless other things could have happened.

For example, consider dropping a pencil on the floor. You dropped it from a height of 1.11845 metres, at a distance of 35.556437 cms from your feet at the time 4:05pm 22.238656 secs. My guess is that, based on the Many Worlds hypothesis, there would be another universe where you dropped it height of 1.11846 metres, at a distance of 35.556438 cms from your feet at the time 4:05pm 22.238657 secs ... and so forth.

[Atla]

One of my favorite movie and discussion topics! Could it be possible that every decision we make in our life, automatically, creates an alternate version of ourselves in another universe that chooses differently? Would it be possible?

One caveat I have is that, if we try to define "a decision", then doesn't every step you take, every movement you make, every moment of your day constitute a decision? Would that create a new version of me every time I stopped walking and turned around?

Or would it only split into "big decisions," and, if so, who would decide/define what is a "big decision"?

Let me know what you think about this theory!

Multiverse and MWI are arguably two different things, MWI is every variation of our universe, and multiverse is every variation of every possible universe. MWI is infinite, multiverse is still infinitely larger. The total reality might also be infinitely larger than the multiverse, mostly containing structures that can't be said to form universes.

Within the MWI, in my opinion:

- New universes aren't "created", rather there have been infinitely many all along. (As far as I know, this is actually the original formulation of the MWI, but then it was popularized using this really dumb creation idea. You sneeze and a trillion new universes spring into existence. )

- Universes don't permanently "split", there is no such asymmetry, in the quantum world causality is independent of time. So it should be possible that two universes will once again "merge" in our future.

- It's not about human decisions, this was a very crude attempt to solve the mistery of the quantum measurement problem. We still have no idea if these "splitting" events are bound to something specific or not, it's the million dollar question.

[LuckyR]

One of my favorite movie and discussion topics! Could it be possible that every decision we make in our life, automatically, creates an alternate version of ourselves in another universe that chooses differently? Would it be possible?

One caveat I have is that, if we try to define "a decision", then doesn't every step you take, every movement you make, every moment of your day constitute a decision? Would that create a new version of me every time I stopped walking and turned around?

Or would it only split into "big decisions," and, if so, who would decide/define what is a "big decision"?

Let me know what you think about this theory!

Sounds complicated, I prefer simple.

[JackDaydream]

One of my favorite movie and discussion topics! Could it be possible that every decision we make in our life, automatically, creates an alternate version of ourselves in another universe that chooses differently? Would it be possible?

One caveat I have is that, if we try to define "a decision", then doesn't every step you take, every movement you make, every moment of your day constitute a decision? Would that create a new version of me every time I stopped walking and turned around?

Or would it only split into "big decisions," and, if so, who would decide/define what is a "big decision"?

Let me know what you think about this theory!

The trouble with the multiple universe, or idea of parallel universe idea is that it may be trying to make the idea of imaginative possibilities as more concrete. There is the question of how many dimensions there are to existence, but that depends on whether these include the non physical ones. The question over multiple worlds does raise the issue of which are physical or not, but this is probably complex at a quantum level, as the starting point may be energy.

In a way, the multiple way theory could be compared to Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence, which is also shared by some other thinkers. In that view, the person lives their life endlessly but with slight variations. Nietzsche shifted between seeing the idea of eternal recurrence as a fact or as a symbolic truth. It may be that multiple worlds is more of a symbolic truth too, as being about the way in which everything can be seen and expanded differently in the imagination, which can be seen as the source of these multiple worlds of human observers.

[GrayArea]

My belief is that things happen because they make sense. That if something makes sense, then it happens as much as it can. For example, reality exists because it makes sense for existence to exist. So theoretically, a concept of a phenomenon that makes sense should be solidified and conveyed over and over again, as many times as it makes sense.

Therefore in a similar sense, I think that if alternate universes ever existed, their reason of existence would center around the fact that having a new reality present per each possible difference in the original reality just makes sense when it comes to conveying as much as possible the existence of a concept we call "real-ness", which apparently makes sense to exist. But this is only if one considers possibilities to be a subset of "real-ness".

The alternative would be having a single reality that does not solidify all of its possible "real-ness" because perhaps these possibilities of events that have not happened yet are simply not real and therefore has no need to be solidified/conveyed as a part of the real-ness of things.

[stevie]

Let me know what you think about this theory!

Well, one of these countless fantasies ...

[GrayArea]

So theoretically, a concept of a phenomenon that makes sense should be solidified and conveyed over and over again, as many times as it makes sense.

Correction—a concept or* a phenomenon.

[rose-30]

One of my favorite movie and discussion topics! Could it be possible that every decision we make in our life, automatically, creates an alternate version of ourselves in another universe that chooses differently? Would it be possible?

One caveat I have is that, if we try to define "a decision", then doesn't every step you take, every movement you make, every moment of your day constitute a decision? Would that create a new version of me every time I stopped walking and turned around?

Or would it only split into "big decisions," and, if so, who would decide/define what is a "big decision"?

Sounds complicated, I prefer simple.

So as usual, it depends?

[LuckyR]

One of my favorite movie and discussion topics! Could it be possible that every decision we make in our life, automatically, creates an alternate version of ourselves in another universe that chooses differently? Would it be possible?

One caveat I have is that, if we try to define "a decision", then doesn't every step you take, every movement you make, every moment of your day constitute a decision? Would that create a new version of me every time I stopped walking and turned around?

Or would it only split into "big decisions," and, if so, who would decide/define what is a "big decision"?

Sounds complicated, I prefer simple.

So as usual, it depends?

Well, we are not only pondering an unknown, but an unknowable. Thus our opinions here reveal more about ourselves than the universe.

[heracleitos]

Our physical universe is deemed to be an interpretation of the elusive Theory of Everything (ToE).

If the ToE satisfies the conditions for Godel's incompleteness to apply, then the existence of Godelian sentences in our physical universe automatically mean that there must exist nonstandard physical universes that also interpret the ToE.

What is a Godelian sentence?

It is a sentence that is true but that cannot be predicted or proven from its theory.

If we have free will then our behavior is not predictable from any theory. In that case, our behavior is a Godelian sentence in this physical universe. Therefore, if we have free will, then there must exist alternative physical universes.

In that case, our physical universe belongs to a larger multiverse.