Why the theory of 'Infinite universes' is false.

[Reginald_001]

So this theory pops up in many current popculture reference and sci-fi series. Even more popular culture is picking up on it, with the Marvel Universe being one of the cinematic giants embracing the 'Infinite Universe' theory. And I have a bit of a problem with it.

 

So the theory postulates that for every imaginable choice that a person or 'entity' can make in our reality, reality splits into two different realities, one where you said 'yes' to the choice, and one where you said 'no' to the choice, and this splits on and on for each choice you can make. In this way, all through the history of reality, already an infinite number of realities exist at this time. For instance, there is a reality where you chose to study rocket science, or another one where you became a gardener. According to the theory, there is even one where you became a super hero.. at least, according to the theory. Now.. more and more scientists are actually subscribing to the infinite universes theory, which I think is a bit silly.

 

The thing is that once every choice that could have been made in the history of our reality is already created, or being created, in one universe or another, then the whole encompassing 'group' of infinite realities becomes deterministic. Following the theory, you know that there is one reality in which you became an evil overlord, creating nanites to rule the universe. And you know this exact scenario to be true, because depending on the life choices you made, this *could* theoretically happen.

 

So let's follow the theory. All the way back in the beginning, there was a Neanderthal, that made all the choices that led him to intelligence. In fact, this Neanderthal taught his children his wisdom, and they in turn got smarter and smarter, until one of his great grandsons invents the car. This is fully possible, under the infinite universes theory. And we know it has happened in at least ONE of all the infinite universes, because it is a deterministic universe now, according to the theory of infinite universes...

 

So let that sink in for a bit. We know that according to the theory, there are an infinite number of universe/realities, each reflecting choices made, or not made.. By this we know that any imaginable possible reality is there. Anything you can imagine, which is scientifically possible should already have been imagined and is a reality... somewhere.

 

If we consider that it should be scientifically possible to find out what makes our universe tick, in one of the infinite universes there should be a scientist that figured out just exactly how all of this works. that is a logical conclusion. We know that anything that anyone can imagine is already a reality under this theory, and we know that therefore it IS a reality (at least according to the theory).

 

So I postulate: There is one (in fact there are many) reality where there is a crisis going on. And in this reality they know how to communicate with persons from other realities as this should be a scientific possibility. In this reality they need US for some kind of a particular reason.. our blood, immunity to something, our knowledge.. any reason will do. We know this can happen, because.. (see all the reasons above... All of reality has become deterministic, what can happen, will happen). They have not communicated with us, hence the theory is false.

 

Or I postulate: There could be one reality imagined, where a natural disaster, or a man made one, could threaten and destroy all other realities... in fact, according to the 'Infinite number of universes' theory this should already have happened... but we're still here.

 

So I conclude: The only logical conclusion is that the 'Infinite number of universes' theory is completely false.

 

Disclaimer: Should the laws of physics or logic not apply in our reality, despite our feigned understanding of it, or should some form of intelligent design be in place, guarding the boundaries between realities..  then good luck! You're on your own!

[Reginald_001]

4 minutes ago, Alkpaz said:

Rodney McKay ("Stargate Atlantis") will figure it out, or we will be invaded by the Kromaggs ("Sliders", Neanderthal species).

Well, according to the theory, he already should have.. ?

[tlrd]

How do we know that the choices that lead to whatever calamity that would cause a universe to contact us has/will happen in our lifetime that's the inherent problem with "Infinite". With Infinite possibilities you have to be both right and wrong and neither all at the same time.    

[spoonsinger]

2 minutes ago, tlrd said:

How do we know that the choices that lead to whatever calamity that would cause a universe to contact us has/will happen in our lifetime that's the inherent problem with "Infinite". With Infinite possibilities you have to be both right and wrong and neither all at the same time.    

What you'll be needing is some sort of large box, (and maybe a cat).

[Reginald_001]

5 minutes ago, tlrd said:

How do we know that the choices that lead to whatever calamity that would cause a universe to contact us has/will happen in our lifetime that's the inherent problem with "Infinite". With Infinite possibilities you have to be both right and wrong and neither all at the same time.    

Because in an infinite set of universes, all courses are deterministic. That is why I gave the example of the Neanderthals. In one of these universes Neanderthals grew smart and invented space travel. I can say that, because it's deterministic. Because it is theoretically possible that humans in another universe evolved far quicker than us, it should have already happened. (Not to mention alien life evolved millions of years before us...)

[Guest]

There's nothing that says that communication or interaction between universes has to be possible. If that's just a physical impossibility, then you can have both infinite universes *and* our status quo. Every universe would be bound by that physical constant.

 

Of course, then those universes don't exist in any meaningful sense from our frame of reference... but the whole thing is just a nice thought experiment, not really a useful philosophy.

[wishnot4]

Not to get in on the debate, because I don't care about infinite realities.  But your using Neanderthals as not being smart is a misnomer.  They were actually more advanced than Cro-Magnon man, with tools and societies.  The only difference appears to be that Cro-Magnon man breed faster, in effect wiping them out simply by producing more children.

[Reginald_001]

1 minute ago, wishnot4 said:

Not to get in on the debate, because I don't care about infinite realities.  But your using Neanderthals as not being smart is a misnomer.  They were actually more advanced than Cro-Magnon man, with tools and societies.  The only difference appears to be that Cro-Magnon man breed faster, in effect wiping them out simply by producing more children.

Ah.. well my point was that in one possible universe, the Neanderthals had evolved on top as the smartest.

 

3 minutes ago, zexari said:

There's nothing that says that communication or interaction between universes has to be possible. If that's just a physical impossibility, then you can have both infinite universes *and* our status quo. Every universe would be bound by that physical constant.

 

Of course, then those universes don't exist in any meaningful sense from our frame of reference... but the whole thing is just a nice thought experiment, not really a useful philosophy.

If not communication, then the disaster scenario, a disaster so great as to encompass all other universes, or 'infect' them...

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Reginald_001 said:

If not communication, then the disaster scenario, a disaster so great as to encompass all other universes, or 'infect' them...

That's why I say 'interaction' as well. Anything that was able to propagate beyond its container-universe would have to be in some way more powerful/bigger than its container-universe, imo, and thus a physical impossibility.

[Sceadugengan]

To invade is just another choice, which means another split.

 -> invade parallel universe [yes/no]

 

We just might be the lucky ones.

[Reginald_001]

4 minutes ago, zexari said:

That's why I say 'interaction' as well. Anything that was able to propagate beyond its container-universe would have to be in some way more powerful/bigger than its container-universe, imo, and thus a physical impossibility.

Wait.. why? I can imagine a scenario where a mathematical equation does just that trick. Why does it need to be more powerful? Are there natural examples of this? A mis-configuration of an atom can cause it to explode with wonderful power.. What would be the reason that it would have to be more powerful to expand beyond it's boundaries?

[Jazzman]

Since we can't see past the choices we don't understand, there is just one universe.  And there is no infinity, not even for the expansion of the universe.  Bang bang!

The question that bakes your noddle later on is if this is the first universe or the umpteenth in a row and what, thus, its purpose might be, if there's any 'cause causality is none.

[ToJKa]

28 minutes ago, Jazzman said:

The question that bakes your noddle later on is if this is the first universe or the umpteenth in a row and what, thus, its purpose might be, if there's any 'cause causality is none.

I'd imagine The Universe is a pulse, so slow humans can not really understand it. It borns, it lives, it dies, and it borns again, forever. Maybe there's more than one? Maybe they are part of some far greater whole?

 

And the best part is, we are all part of it. All of us are little pieces of the universe that have become self-aware, or perhaps, think they have become self-aware? Regardless, what makes us will continue in the universe forever. Perhaps the next one too. Perhaps infinite amount of universes before this one.

 

I should found a religion: Universelism ?

[Cynical Misanthrope]

A big emphasis on theory tho. 

 

It's the same approach that science has to the dark matter (or is it dark materia?) theory. Sometime during our history, and computers started to become a powerful thing, scientist tried to figure out how the universe worked. Every simulation they tried, they universe just collapsed.

Every time they added a new theory with its values, the universe just collapsed faster than it should had. Then one day, they came up with dark matter (or dark materia) and just like before, they added values but this time the universe did not collapse (or at least for the set time stamp) 

and that became the template for further studies and understandings. And yet, no one knows what it is exactly. It can't be observed, at least not with our current technology, and yet we can see and feel it's interaction with the universe.

 

But it's still just a theory.

 

Now, I don't know exactly the details of how they came up with it so I can't actually give and deeper insight to it. Maybe it's similar like gravity. We can't see it, but we can still see and feel the interaction it has with it's surroundings.

 

Now, a infinite universes is way harder to figure out. It's could maybe exists but how can we determine that? Well, first we will need the technology to invent equipment so that we can transcend beyond the current limits of all possible experience and knowledge.

But how can we do that when we don't even know if such place exists? And even if manage to do that, then it's no longer beyond the limits of ordinary experience, but it was just another obstacle on the road to something even greater.

 

I know I don't contribute much to the discussion itself, but lets keep it simple. What if you could travel back to the very first somewhat intelligent manlike being, and say "hey, in the future, humanity will have mastered fire and electricity and we will have technology that can literally remove and plant new memories (which is a thing btw), and we will have cars and cellphones etc etc"

 

They will likely look at you and either think you're a retard, or a god. And as I see it, we are those beings now. So therefore, the infinite universe theory could be true, or it could not be true at all. But I don't think we will ever be able to get to any of them, because our bodies, our planets, our energies, our laws (not the man made laws but laws of the universe) was made for this universe. Another universe has likely completely different laws in which we cannot exists in. Because we weren't made for it.

And then you have the paradox itself. Meeting yourself in either the past, or the future (in that another universe that is) which I will not get into. But just think of the complications it could create. 

 

And I am also one of those idiots who thinks that our current big bang, is just one of many that has happened and it wont be the last. Maybe it's the last in our universe, but not the last overall. So that could potentially also means at every new big bang, a certain amount of new universes could be created but with a slight difference in each because during a blast, the energy is not 100% on every single side from the center of the blast. So there is no reason to think that a big bang blast is absolutely equal in force during the blast itself.

 

Okay, I'm gonna stop because I have no fucking idea what I am talking about. I'm high as fuck, so deal with it ?

 

TL;DR, the possibility could exists, but we will likely never know because we weren't made to exists in there or in those (and vice versa).  

[SleepyJim]

The problem with "what can happen, will happen" is that one thing that can happen is, technically, something not happening. If you toss a coin it can end up heads, but it can also end up tails. It can also, potentially, end up landing on its edge and not toppling to one side or the other. A giant magnet can be switched on before the coin lands, meaning it never lands at all, etc, etc. All of these can happen, but not all of them can in a single universe.

 

So just because another universe can contact us but hasn't doesn't mean infinite universes don't exist. The coin can end up heads, but it ends up tails. The fact it didn't end up heads for me doesn't mean there isn't another reality with another me flipping another coin where it did end up heads.

 

I think...

[fejeena]

When I sat in the The Restaurant at the End of the Universe last Sunday, I could clearly see that the universe is not infinite.

[Tyrant99]

If you had an infinite string of numbers and you had the opportunity to pick one number on that string without knowing at what point the string started, would it be deterministic or random? The 1 trillionth digit of Pi is always exactly the same, presumably deterministic based on the predefined characteristic of Pi, but good luck finding it. If a number is infinite in both directions, it suddenly becomes unquantifiable, even if its internal characteristics are as precise as Pi in being representative of some characteristic of the fabric of the universe.

 

Now what if each number was equal to a universe?

 

Who put mushrooms in the salad?

[Cynical Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, SleepyJim said:

[..]

 

17 minutes ago, Tyrant99 said:

[...]

 

[Fakenet]

Ah, the same line of reasoning as "time travel is impossible".

No, them not contacting us does not mean that it is false.

Try to wrap your head around this:

There are limitless other realities which they could contact instead.

You know how your chances to win in the lottery are? And now divide those chances by infinity.

 

PS: That was a lot of talk just to make that one statement, OP.

[Bazinga]

3 hours ago, Reginald_001 said:

So the theory postulates that for every imaginable choice that a person or 'entity' can make in our reality, reality splits into two different realities, one where you said 'yes' to the choice, and one where you said 'no' to the choice, and this splits on and on for each choice you can make. In this way, all through the history of reality, already an infinite number of realities exist at this time. For instance, there is a reality where you chose to study rocket science, or another one where you became a gardener. According to the theory, there is even one where you became a super hero.. at least, according to the theory. Now.. more and more scientists are actually subscribing to the infinite universes theory, which I think is a bit silly.

That's not how physicists talk about the topic, at least not to my awareness. Ok, now I'm familiar with physics but not on a physicist level ... they talk in strange tongues most of the time, I think they are all possessed by the unspeakable evil that lurks in the deeps of space or something ... maybe it's contagious too because not all of them stare at the night sky through telescopes. ?

 

As far as I understood it this here is probably what you are refering to.

And this doesn't need you or any other entity to make decisions, realities would split every time a quantum mechanic dice roll happens. Meaning it's not very likely that there's a world where you are an evil overlord because it would have needed to take a very similar development to our world up to your birthday and then all kinds of crazy fuckery must have happened that don't make sense. And since this many-world reality branching is just about quantum mechanical uncertainties and probabilities in the end and the macroscopic world reacts to these in very subtle and barely noticable ways (in a cosmologically short period of time like one human life) you wouldn't be an evil overlord anywhere I'm afraid.

Can't prove that of course but all this is very sketchy and speculative anyway so I doubt anybody could.

[Reginald_001]

11 hours ago, Bazinga said:

That's not how physicists talk about the topic, at least not to my awareness. Ok, now I'm familiar with physics but not on a physicist level ... they talk in strange tongues most of the time, I think they are all possessed by the unspeakable evil that lurks in the deeps of space or something ... maybe it's contagious too because not all of them stare at the night sky through telescopes. ?

 

As far as I understood it this here is probably what you are refering to.

And this doesn't need you or any other entity to make decisions, realities would split every time a quantum mechanic dice roll happens. Meaning it's not very likely that there's a world where you are an evil overlord because it would have needed to take a very similar development to our world up to your birthday and then all kinds of crazy fuckery must have happened that don't make sense. And since this many-world reality branching is just about quantum mechanical uncertainties and probabilities in the end and the macroscopic world reacts to these in very subtle and barely noticable ways (in a cosmologically short period of time like one human life) you wouldn't be an evil overlord anywhere I'm afraid.

Can't prove that of course but all this is very sketchy and speculative anyway so I doubt anybody could.

I dumbed down the 'decision making' to humans making decisions to *not* drag in quantum mechanics..  In any case we are still speaking about a deterministic universe in that case, 'anything that can possibly happen, will happen... somewhere'.. the universe has been made deterministic due to each possible quantum decision that can be made..

 

As long as it's physically possible (e.g. follows the laws of physics) it will have happened, or will happen, at least somewhere in the whole quantum tree of existence.

 

And by that argumentation, my hypothesis stands.. there is no such thing as 'infinite worlds' as it's described.

[Guest]

if i send this message will it create a new universe

[Bazinga]

18 hours ago, daedal said:

if i send this message will it create a new universe

Depends on what exactly influenced your decision making. If it's something quantum mechanical where at some point quantum decoherence happened then probably yes according to the many world theories.

If not and what happened in your brain was all reassuringly deterministic (like in the idealized models physicists use to describe the macroscopic world - see General Relativity or Maxwell's equations) then not but in that case there's other things to be afraid of, like if the free will is imaginary.

Another option would be that quantum effects are in fact influencing the decision making in your brain but they are not strong enough to change the outcome, think of acoustic noise on top of some still very clear base signal. Which is what I think is most likely it, so I prefer to discuss free will instead of the question if we're all at the mercy of subatomar dice rolls, meaning erratic as fuck (...insert some lame joke about women).

[wokking56]

On 6/5/2018 at 10:23 AM, Reginald_001 said:

So this theory pops up in many current popculture reference and sci-fi series. Even more popular culture is picking up on it, with the Marvel Universe being one of the cinematic giants embracing the 'Infinite Universe' theory. And I have a bit of a problem with it.

 

So the theory postulates that for every imaginable choice that a person or 'entity' can make in our reality, reality splits into two different realities, one where you said 'yes' to the choice, and one where you said 'no' to the choice, and this splits on and on for each choice you can make. In this way, all through the history of reality, already an infinite number of realities exist at this time. For instance, there is a reality where you chose to study rocket science, or another one where you became a gardener. According to the theory, there is even one where you became a super hero.. at least, according to the theory. Now.. more and more scientists are actually subscribing to the infinite universes theory, which I think is a bit silly.

 

 

While I can understand your reluctance to accept this theory; we have to understand that a fair number of these universes will be empty. As somewhere along the line someone will have made a bad decision and destroyed everything.

 

Also to further confound you we have to remember the "butterfly effect", so while your decisions may seem trivial and unimportant it may have a profound effect on someone else. Thereby changing the course of their life, for instance my taking my dog to the park rather than just letting him run in my yard will bring me into contact with several people. Perhaps something I say or do will influence them in some unknown way. So yes while most of our daily choices seem mundane (do I have fish or a burger) they will alter the outcome of something somewhere even if we are unaware of it.

 

As for your we have not been contacted by another universe therefor they don't exist theory, it is completely unfounded. Firstly how do we know we have not been contacted the general populous aren't always told everything. Secondly since we have not yet unlocked the secrets of the multi-verse perhaps we just can't understand the message.

 

Furthermore while the "There could be one reality imagined, where a natural disaster, or a man made one, could threaten and destroy all other realities.." is completely possible it is not likely probable. I have to invoke the "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" rule, or more correctly just because something happens in one room of my house doesn't mean it happens in all of them (even a fire). So a catastrophic event in one universe might effect 2 or 3 nearby universes it might not effect all of them or even destroy the nearby ones.

[Reginald_001]

1 hour ago, wokking56 said:

While I can understand your reluctance to accept this theory; we have to understand that a fair number of these universes will be empty. As somewhere along the line someone will have made a bad decision and destroyed everything.

 

Also to further confound you we have to remember the "butterfly effect", so while your decisions may seem trivial and unimportant it may have a profound effect on someone else. Thereby changing the course of their life, for instance my taking my dog to the park rather than just letting him run in my yard will bring me into contact with several people. Perhaps something I say or do will influence them in some unknown way. So yes while most of our daily choices seem mundane (do I have fish or a burger) they will alter the outcome of something somewhere even if we are unaware of it.

 

As for your we have not been contacted by another universe therefor they don't exist theory, it is completely unfounded. Firstly how do we know we have not been contacted the general populous aren't always told everything. Secondly since we have not yet unlocked the secrets of the multi-verse perhaps we just can't understand the message.

 

Furthermore while the "There could be one reality imagined, where a natural disaster, or a man made one, could threaten and destroy all other realities.." is completely possible it is not likely probable. I have to invoke the "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" rule, or more correctly just because something happens in one room of my house doesn't mean it happens in all of them (even a fire). So a catastrophic event in one universe might effect 2 or 3 nearby universes it might not effect all of them or even destroy the nearby ones.

You completely missed the point of determinism. I tried using the word as often as I could.

But the theory clearly states 'What can happen, WILL happen in any universe.'

 

Therefore the statistical probability of the universe NOT being destroyed by a cataclysmic event is completely unlikely.. in fact... not one... but uncountable cataclysmic events in uncountable other universes should then be happening, right now... as for each quantum decision the catastrophic will be caused by a slightly different cause and all it's flavors.. (e.g. 1 millisecond earlier, one millisecond earlier..etc..etc..).

 

Simply logic makes the statistical likelihood completely impossible, because in an infinite universes, infinite diversity would exist, making ours a deterministic universe.. which it isn't... Our universe is governed by the uncertainty principles, not certainty principles.