X-Message-Number: 5513 Date: Sun, 31 Dec 95 11:36:41 From: mike <> Subject: Ettinger-many worlds Bob Ettinger, in message #5496, says: >Many people--including, if I read him correctly, Dr. R.M. Perry--take the >"many worlds" interpretation of quantum theory, due to Everett and others, as >implying that the entire universe "splits" with every quantum interaction or >act of measurement. No, it's my understanding that, when the splitting occurs, it propagates at the speed of light only, not instantaneously. Bob goes on to say: >And a personal remark: Dr. Perry (among others) seems to suggest that >many-worlds guarantees a multiplicity of near-identical continuers or >reincarnates in the fullness of time. This, I think, *is* what many worlds guarantees, i.e. basically, any outcome that is possible actually happens, in one of the parallel domains. Anytime, in particular, that a random event happens, such as a photon reflecting from a half-silvered mirror, a corresponding event, the photon passing straight through, must happen in an alternate domain. Extending this idea, myriad random events must go into the making of a continuer, a slightly different mix (or nearly compensating events) leading to a slightly different variant. I see no reason that all possible "variants," within some large limits, would not be produced. (snip)>The mere fact of infinite variations does not guarantee that >every possibility will be realized. As a crude analogy, I can easily draw an >infinite number of sketches without any of them bearing the remotest >resemblance to anyone's portrait. Suppose I start with a 1000 X 1000 array, i.e. a square grid containing a total of 1 million elements. Next, to each of these elements I randomly assign a byte or 8 bits of information representing an intensity level between 0 and 255. (In particular, note that there are exactly 256 possible bytes ranging from 00000000 or 0 to 11111111 or 255.) Since my action is random, by the parallel-worlds hypothesis, whenever I assign a byte, I and my immediate surroundings split, so that alternate versions of me assign all the other 255 possible bytes to their version of the image they are building up. In this way then, although the vast majority of the pictures created will be more or less fine-grained nothingness, included among the noise will be quite detailed portraits of every person who ever lived. On the other hand, only a finite number of images at this level of resolution is possible, that is, simply, all possible ways of assigning one of 256 values to the number of elements available, or 256 raised to the power of 1 million--a big number, but not infinite. In the case of continuers of people too, I think it is reasonable that we are dealing with a finite (though large) number of possibilities. So, much as in the case of the 2D images, we expect, essentially, all possible variations. More generally, the principle seems to be that, given any process that yields, at random, one of a finite number of possibilities, all the other possibilities are also realized, in the corresponding alternate worlds. Mike Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5513