Weird thread from 10 years ago, when I was worried about coming back in an afterlife. Some interesting input from actual astrophysicists though (we were spoilt for scientists in those days :)) I don’t know how I managed to confuse “beings exactly like me” with me myself:

http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/archives/archive51/newposts/348/topic348113.shtm

Some comments:

- Don’t know why I didn’t contribute, I have the same (or very similar) hypothesis myself, and I have never seen any convincing rebuttal.
- I don’t think the contribution from the “actual astrophysicists” was that great. They tended to be a bit arrogantly with their “we are actual astrophysicists” attitude.
- I wonder what Boxhead is up to these days.

Should have said that was copied from Bubblecar in chat.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Weird thread from 10 years ago, when I was worried about coming back in an afterlife. Some interesting input from actual astrophysicists though (we were spoilt for scientists in those days :)) I don’t know how I managed to confuse “beings exactly like me” with me myself:

http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/archives/archive51/newposts/348/topic348113.shtm

Some comments:

- Don’t know why I didn’t contribute, I have the same (or very similar) hypothesis myself, and I have never seen any convincing rebuttal.
- I don’t think the contribution from the “actual astrophysicists” was that great. They tended to be a bit arrogantly with their “we are actual astrophysicists” attitude.
- I wonder what Boxhead is up to these days.

Seemed like a lot of effort to explain error to a certain poster.

I remember that thread

When did SSSF lose HTML?

poikilotherm said:

Seemed like a lot of effort to explain error to a certain poster.

That was the good thing about the forum back then..

People put in that sort of effort and pretty much it was appreciated

poikilotherm said:

Seemed like a lot of effort to explain error to a certain poster.

Those were the days when you could take your time to formulate and write up a detailed argument for or against a topic and not be 10 pages behind once you submit it.

poikilotherm said:

Seemed like a lot of effort to explain error to a certain poster.

You can skip that bit without losing anything of value to the interesting discussion though.

Doesn’t seem that weird.

BTW, Aqua has one of the few pop songs that mention the Multiverse.

Mamma just crossed, just crossed to the parallel world
She crossed, she crossed to the multiverse
Circling protons, it’s all vibrations
Circling neutrons, it’s all vibrations

>Doesn’t seem that weird.

The weird bit was the afterlife musings. I don’t know how I convinced myself that the existence of another being having my personality and memories would amount to a “continuity of self” after my death.

Bubblecar said:

>Doesn’t seem that weird.

The weird bit was the afterlife musings. I don’t know how I convinced myself that the existence of another being having my personality and memories would amount to a “continuity of self” after my death.

Would this be considered as “Method Acting”?

>Would this be considered as “Method Acting”?

That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, no.

> In the multiverse, everything that is possible does actually happen

No. We had a very good discussion about this in a forum thread many years ago, based on different levels of cardinal infinity. One conclusion was that because many things that are identical happen an infinite number of times, there is plenty of wriggle room to allow possible events never to happen.

I’m talking above about the quantum multiverse. In a non-quantum multiverse the laws of physics vary with distance so everything that is possible is only possible in a finite patch of space-time so as a result all possibilities become extremely unlikely.

mollwollfumble said:

> In the multiverse, everything that is possible does actually happen

No. We had a very good discussion about this in a forum thread many years ago, based on different levels of cardinal infinity. One conclusion was that because many things that are identical happen an infinite number of times, there is plenty of wriggle room to allow possible events never to happen.

I’m talking above about the quantum multiverse. In a non-quantum multiverse the laws of physics vary with distance so everything that is possible is only possible in a finite patch of space-time so as a result all possibilities become extremely unlikely.

Except a reasoned argument was made that that reasoning was not valid, and as far as I’m aware no response was made, so the current state of the argument is that in an infinite universe anything possible will be repeated infinitely.

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

> In the multiverse, everything that is possible does actually happen

No. We had a very good discussion about this in a forum thread many years ago, based on different levels of cardinal infinity. One conclusion was that because many things that are identical happen an infinite number of times, there is plenty of wriggle room to allow possible events never to happen.

I’m talking above about the quantum multiverse. In a non-quantum multiverse the laws of physics vary with distance so everything that is possible is only possible in a finite patch of space-time so as a result all possibilities become extremely unlikely.

Except a reasoned argument was made that that reasoning was not valid, and as far as I’m aware no response was made, so the current state of the argument is that in an infinite universe anything possible will be repeated infinitely.

What’s wrong with the argument:

In an infinite universe there can only be a countable number of non-overlapping Hubble volumes, but since there are continuous variables in physics there are uncountably many different possible ways to fill a Hubble volume, therefore some (almost all in fact) possible Hubble volumes are not realised.

Soso said:

What’s wrong with the argument:

In an infinite universe there can only be a countable number of non-overlapping Hubble volumes, but since there are continuous variables in physics there are uncountably many different possible ways to fill a Hubble volume, therefore some (almost all in fact) possible Hubble volumes are not realised.

But infinitesimal differences are not detectable so are of no concern to us.

Certainly in the context of this thread, but arguably in the context of any discussion about the number of possible different worlds, we are only concerned with differences that can be detected by a human, so the upper limit on the number of different worlds is the number of detectably different brain states, which is finite.

i remember a thread about monkeys and swimming :)

The Rev Dodgson said:

Soso said:

What’s wrong with the argument:

In an infinite universe there can only be a countable number of non-overlapping Hubble volumes, but since there are continuous variables in physics there are uncountably many different possible ways to fill a Hubble volume, therefore some (almost all in fact) possible Hubble volumes are not realised.

But infinitesimal differences are not detectable so are of no concern to us.

Certainly in the context of this thread, but arguably in the context of any discussion about the number of possible different worlds, we are only concerned with differences that can be detected by a human, so the upper limit on the number of different worlds is the number of detectably different brain states, which is finite.

Okay if we assume 1) the number of detectably different brains states is finite, and 2) the probability of a naturally occurring Hubble volume harboring a brain state is greater than zero, then there are a countable infinity of brain states in existence and almost certainly for each brain state an infinite number or undetectably different? detectably indifferent? brains state exist.

I guess 1) is equivalent to saying that, in principal, your brain and your entire life as you’ve experienced it could be digitally simulated.

I really miss the sssf of 10 years ago…

ME TOO :(
diddly-squat said:

I really miss the sssf of 10 years ago…