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


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