I can hear this post in their voices. Maybe I’ve seen the movie too many times…nah

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Whenever I think about the possibility of a Multiverse it just gets so unbelievably convoluted that I can’t believe that that’s how the Universe/Multiverse actually exists. Is the idea that every potential change in every atom or event in the Universe leads to all these other Universes, all co-existing, no matter how small & insignificant the differences? So we’d have a ridiculous number of Universes whose sole difference from ours is that a single atom behaved slightly differently in a rock out in the parking lot. Then multiply that by EVERY possible atom in the entire Universe, all behaving slightly differently.

    That’s just physical matter, what about conscious decisions made by living things? So in one Universe I filled my bowl of cereal with X oz of milk VS another universe where I filled it with X+1 oz of milk, and so on. All these micro-decisions that branch out into separate timelines, multiplied by the number of living entities in the Universe, every second of every day.

    So are new Universes just constantly springing into existence at every moment in time, connected to every atom and every living thing, just brought about by tiny differences? I write some gobbledygook here: aksfhkashdf in one universe, adshfoasfdoajsidd in another, pooigjmasiodmfas in another, and so on. Multiple universes all suddenly springing into existence based on random key presses? Universes can’t possibly be that “easy” to create can they, all that mass and energy, just poofed into existence, and it’s constantly happening every second? Is mass, energy, and space just meaningless?

    Or is it some other more basic set of differences describe the universe, just the starting conditions are different, but from there, each different Universe just proceeds as is, without multiple branching timelines? I’m not smart enough to understand any of it, it just quickly gets so incredibly convoluted and complicated for me to wrap my brain around.

    • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      There are a few possibilities:

      1. All the universes existed from the start. Most just haven’t diverged yet. At any given moment, there are an infinite number of completely identical universes.
      2. The universes literally split, and some quirk of quantum mechanics makes this actually possible.
      3. They aren’t universes, they’re timelines. All the universes are in quantum superposition with each other.
      4. There aren’t actually multiple universes. It’s just acknowledgement of the infinite possibilities. (This is how I like to think of most quantum mechanics, tbh.)