You and the Multiverse

[aka CAT]

“According to a hypothesis devised by quantum physicist Hugh Everett,

we live in a [...] multiverse where timelines are constantly branching off and creating

distinct and coherent worlds, each experienced by a different version of you”--

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-9-weirdest-implications-of-the-many-worlds-interpre-1692618056

The above is, thus, associated with alternate dimensions and histories.

Decisions, even the most trivial of them, are seldom without consequence.  That each of our choices might somehow modify reality as we know it doesn’t necessarily mean the result amounts to a branching off of one universe into another.  Yet, certain choices so determine people’s future that the different outcomes potentiated by every other option can seem worlds apart.  

Similarly, events that are often beyond human control can so alter people’s lives/selves as to sometimes make them feel like strangers even to themselves, e.g. my already discussed NDE and its aftermath.

What greatly fascinates me are occurrences whereafter one might, for all s/he knows, actually be in a parallel universe*.  So, insofar as circumstances that cause persons to resultantly feel forever changed, however subtly or drastically, could coincide with such a diversion, why not explore life- and mind- altering events?   With that purpose in mind, I welcome any and all accounts of your experiences that could conceivably pertain to alternate realities.

*See Brian Greene’s nine types of parallel universes.

Edited September 24, 2017 by aka CAT
Footnote and illustrations added.

[I'mConvinced]

It's a fascinating theory but I can't see how examination of how people feel at the moment of major life altering events will help understanding of it.

What is the definition of a major life or mind altering event?

When is the precise moment of causality? If I apply for and get a new job then where, exactly, was the point we would consider a split to have happened? Would it be how I felt on application? During the interview? When I got the acceptance letter? The first day on the job?

It's a good thought but I don't see even a billion pieces of anecdotal evidence helping you. I am also fascinated by the pictures you chose and the relevance of them.

 

[Will Due]

8 minutes ago, I'mConvinced said:

What is the definition of a major life or mind altering event?

Great question. For me, it's when a certain kind of decision is made.

 

"It requires a great and noble character, having started out wrong, to turn about and go right. All too often one's own mind tends to justify continuance in the path of error when once it is entered upon."

 

 

[XenoFish]

So nothing we do matters. Which means there is an infinite number of me, all living a meaningless life. 

[GlitterRose]

1 hour ago, XenoFish said:

So nothing we do matters. Which means there is an infinite number of me, all living a meaningless life. 

It means that somewhere there is an "Optimist Xeno."

[XenoFish]

1 minute ago, ChaosRose said:

It means that somewhere there is an "Optimist Xeno."

It also means there are an infinite number of cynical versions of me.

[GlitterRose]

I wonder if at some point all the Xenos unite into one indifferent being.

[GlitterRose]

Or maybe if the Optimist Xeno ever crosses paths with the Pessimist Xeno, there will be a rift in the time/space continuum, and that would be bad.

[XenoFish]

Doesn't a multiverse just devalue your individual existence? In a way it shows that you do not matter at all. That anything you do amounts to nothing. Because there are infinite "you". So? Should I hate the me that got to follow his dream?

[I'mConvinced]

1 minute ago, ChaosRose said:

Or maybe if the Optimist Xeno ever crosses paths with the Pessimist Xeno, there will be a rift in the time/space continuum, and that would be bad.

With infinite universes this is happening infinitely...

[GlitterRose]

There are some experiences that are so traumatic that they become defining moments. There is before and after those events. And people explore Dark Night of the Soul because of them. 

People who undergo a lot of adversity probably learn more, but it comes at a high price. 

[XenoFish]

Why don't we just say that deja vu is us synching up with a version of ourselves doing the exact or similar thing.

Let the woo begin.

[acute]

I totally believe in the branching multiverse theory. I can't explain the reason why (even to myself!) but it just feels right.

XenoFish will no doubt dwell on the parallel universes in which he is already dead.

Edited September 27, 2017 by acute
.

[I'mConvinced]

3 hours ago, Will Due said:

Great question. For me, it's when a certain kind of decision is made.

 

"It requires a great and noble character, having started out wrong, to turn about and go right. All too often one's own mind tends to justify continuance in the path of error when once it is entered upon."

 

 

And that 'certain kind' is defined how?

[Will Due]

12 minutes ago, I'mConvinced said:

And that 'certain kind' is defined how?

I thought the quote described it pretty well, but perhaps not.

Deciding to "turn about" when the realization occurs the one is wrong regarding something. To humble oneself and change direction.

But I believe an even greater decision must occur first.

The decision to explore the possibility that one might be wrong regarding that specific thing (or anything in general) in the first place.

To be sincere enough to wonder if, although it may have been years that one has thought to be right about something, wonder if one is actually wrong. Wrong all along.

This to me is the greatest thing that applies to the OP's question about things:

"that cause persons to resultantly feel forever changed, however subtly or drastically, could coincide with such a diversion, why not explore life- and mind- altering events?"

That "turning about" would be that mind and life altering "event."

 

 

[The Narcisse]

I like to imagine a version of me out there who isn't a total loser...however unlikely that might be.

[I'mConvinced]

@Will

I understand but that doesn't help the OP. They were proposing a way to investigate the multiple universe claim.

To measure someone's feeling at the 'moment' of a decision, important enough to split the path, isn't possible because you cannot define which exact decisions are important, nor can you define the correlation between how you felt and the results of your decision.

 

[XenoFish]

Perhaps it's more of a schrodringer's universe. Where all possible outcomes exist and do not exist at the same time. Only becoming reality once a choice is made.

[Will Due]

11 minutes ago, I'mConvinced said:

@Will

I understand but that doesn't help the OP. They were proposing a way to investigate the multiple universe claim.

To measure someone's feeling at the 'moment' of a decision, important enough to split the path, isn't possible because you cannot define which exact decisions are important, nor can you define the correlation between how you felt and the results of your decision.

 

Well, you can say that for yourself I guess, that you cannot.

But I can.

I know exactly which decisions I made that altered my path for the better and for the worse.

I know that it was to my great detriment to think the way you've described. That I am enslaved to fate. That I had no control of my destiny, and what I could decide to identify myself with as a matter of higher principal than what I thought of before.

 

 

[I'mConvinced]

11 minutes ago, Will Due said:

Well, you can say that for yourself I guess, that you cannot.

But I can.

I know exactly which decisions I made that altered my path for the better and for the worse.

I know that it was to my great detriment to think the way you've described. That I am enslaved to fate. That I had no control of my destiny, and what I could decide to identify myself with as a matter of higher principal than what I thought of before.

 

 

I still don't see how this helps the OP or invalidates the point I was making. Sorry.

[Essan]

The problem with the idea of multiverses branches off every time something could have gone one way or another, is that there are maybe a billion universes created every second, and each creates a billion more the next second and this has been going on for billions of years.  Just based on what happens on Earth.   Expand that to the biillons of stars in the galaxy and by now there will be more universes created every second than there are atoms in the universe.

Maybe Mr Ockham might care to look at his shaving device?


(I have may seriously underestimated my numbers)

[XenoFish]

25 minutes ago, Essan said:

The problem with the idea of multiverses branches off every time something could have gone one way or another, is that there are maybe a billion universes created every second, and each creates a billion more the next second and this has been going on for billions of years.  Just based on what happens on Earth.   Expand that to the biillons of stars in the galaxy and by now there will be more universes created every second than there are atoms in the universe.

Maybe Mr Ockham might care to look at his shaving device?


(I have may seriously underestimated my numbers)

Perhaps they "exist" as a potential rather than something tangible. Because that means every choice you make and every choice the infinite you make, would create even more multiverses, plus you have the whole of the planet doing the same thing. So it make sense in my mind to call it a Schrodinger Universe. The choices are a potential and only exist as than till they are made tangible. In other words it doesn't matter after the fact. You chose oatmeal and coffee for breakfast instead of a banana and peanut butter on toast. The other breakfast option isn't running on some other timeline, it's gone doesn't exist because it never did. However it "did" until the choice was made. At least this is how I view it.

[White Unicorn]

On 9/24/2017 at 0:54 AM, aka CAT said:

“According to a hypothesis devised by quantum physicist Hugh Everett,

we live in a [...] multiverse where timelines are constantly branching off and creating

distinct and coherent worlds, each experienced by a different version of you”--

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-9-weirdest-implications-of-the-many-worlds-interpre-1692618056

The above is, thus, associated with alternate dimensions and histories.

Decisions, even the most trivial of them, are seldom without consequence.  That each of our choices might somehow modify reality as we know it doesn’t necessarily mean the result amounts to a branching off of one universe into another.  Yet, certain choices so determine people’s future that the different outcomes potentiated by every other option can seem worlds apart.  

Similarly, events that are often beyond human control can so alter people’s lives/selves as to sometimes make them feel like strangers even to themselves, e.g. my already discussed NDE and its aftermath.

What greatly fascinates me are occurrences whereafter one might, for all s/he knows, actually be in a parallel universe*.  So, insofar as circumstances that cause persons to resultantly feel forever changed, however subtly or drastically, could coincide with such a diversion, why not explore life- and mind- altering events?   With that purpose in mind, I welcome any and all accounts of your experiences that could conceivably pertain to alternate realities.

*See Brian Greene’s nine types of parallel universes.

I find that is an hypothesis interesting to explore and ponder but it's mind boggling when you consider it might be true in reality!

I try to make sense of the woo as unexperiencers  call it.

One of my woo experiences one morning was I envisioned myself in a car accident and I  was calling my insurance and the police. I vividly envisioned a gray truck coming fast going the wrong way on a road and turned into the alley fast as it rear ended me as I was pulling out of a store's parking lot. 

That morning I was planning on going to the store in the vision. So I had choices to dismiss it as some psychological babble of my own mind, be afraid and avoid going to the store or go to the store. Each choice has a different ending in some kind of parallel world of thoughts not really a reality until time passes and fate comes into play because of your choices made. Maybe sometimes we can see or feel the choices of which universe we choose at certain points?

So that day I wrote my morning visions and told my spouse about it who said well just don't go.

In reality I chose to go to the store but was very cautious and extra observant.  As I backed up I saw the gray truck coming at me from the one way road not to hit an oncoming car. I was already backed up partially out of the parking space and quickly changed gears to forward and went over the front parking curb to avoid an accident and almost hit the store front. He screeched his brakes not to hit me.  

The accident never happened in reality but I know somewhere the thought of choice existed for me to forsee an accident and to avoid it. The choice that I made was different then the events of the choices from the vision that I thought I had, since I didn't think of a choice of avoiding an accident and that is what really happened.  I often wonder if that means there are many parallel universes in reality? Or does it just exist in a shared thought outside of time  and there aren't  parallel universes in reality? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2017 by White Unicorn

[I'mConvinced]

23 hours ago, Essan said:

Expand that to the biillons of stars in the galaxy and by now there will be more universes created every second than there are atoms in the universe.

Maybe Mr Ockham might care to look at his shaving device?


(I have may seriously underestimated my numbers)

It all depends on your view of infinity. Maybe it's just a mathematical construct but it not then numbers have just become meaningless when talking other dimensions.

Totally off the topic here but something I found amazing is 52 factorial. How many different ways are there to organise a deck of playing cards:

 

[aka CAT]

I thank all of you for your replies.  Like most of you, I cannot fathom our every action creating a separate universe.  That is why I invited you to explore life- and mind- altering events, personal events that are as apt to define as redefine you and/or your total perception of reality.

Special thanks to White Unicorn for sharing a first hand experience.  It is such personal testimonies that I seek for the very reason that I chose to post this topic in the Metaphysics section versus our strictly limiting its discussion to physics in the Science section.  To eliminate much ambiguity in that regard, I quote:

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy exploring the fundamental nature of reality.^[1] Metaphysics seeks to answer two basic questions:^[2]

1. Ultimately, what is there?
2. What is it like?

Topics of metaphysical investigation include existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility. A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into the basic categories of being and how they relate to one another.

There are two broad conceptions about what "world" is studied by metaphysics. The strong, classical view assumes that the objects studied by metaphysics exist independently of any observer, so that the subject is the most fundamental of all sciences. The weaker, more modern view assumes that the objects studied by metaphysics exist inside the mind of an observer, so the subject becomes a form of introspection and conceptual analysis. Some philosophers, notably Kant, discuss both of these "worlds" and what can be inferred about each one.

Some philosophers and scientists, such as the logical positivists, reject the entire subject of metaphysics as meaningless, while others disagree and think that it is legitimate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics

If you are a "logical positivist," discuss physics in the science section.  Whether you have a 'strong' classical or 'weak' modern view of metaphysics, I ask that you reserve your point of view for interpreting your own experiences.  The reason is because, much as we may strive to be as objective as possible in coming to terms with our own existence, the nature of this study is subjective by virtue of something else stated in above source, "Metaphysics continues asking "why" where science leaves off."

Edited September 28, 2017 by aka CAT