infinite earths

[bearded]

i was thinking about infinity this week.  if there are infinite earths, think of yourself.  that means there is an alternate universe for every single dna combination variant of you.  and, a different reality for every step in another direction every minute of your life.  and a different reality for every variant for every step they make.  infinity is big.  that means, there is a reality where you are an actual super hero.  funny how your consciousness is here instead of there.  and a seperate reality for each super hero you with slightly different powers. etc...
everything possible is an actuallity, somewhere in the multiverse, using infinity as a factor.  including a duck you.
speaking of quantum quackery, i don't understand something about string theory.  when they say some theories require extra dimensional space as part of the equation, do they mean an extra dimension in the higher level of magnitude definition, or do they mean it in the more laterel meaning, as in a dimensional rollout on the space/time dimension?

[lugaru]

You dont have to go so far as to consider "dimensions" when our universe is infinitely big with the same elements composing every single world. So if the universe is infinitely big then there is a very small chance of another planet identical to earth, but with an infinite number of chances to re-create it then you will. Now the chances of a world identical to ours with mostly identical history where an exact replica of you was born is incredibly small... but in an infinite universe if you keep going far enough you will find it.

[bearded]

You dont have to go so far as to consider "dimensions" when our universe is infinitely big with the same elements composing every single world. So if the universe is infinitely big then there is a very small chance of another planet identical to earth, but with an infinite number of chances to re-create it then you will. Now the chances of a world identical to ours with mostly identical history where an exact replica of you was born is incredibly small... but in an infinite universe if you keep going far enough you will find it.

and by 'going far enough', i take it you mean that time/space is a loop with infinitisimal differences in each layer of the spiral? so...if you go in a straight line temporaly and spatially, you will end up where you started...i think that's what i get from what you are saying.

[lugaru]

Not even that complicated. It's like if you have a six sided die you have a 1/6th of a chance of rollign a 6 on one try and your odds improve with each chance you get. One step further.. if you have 3 dice and you want to roll 3 ones then your odds of that are 1/216 since each die has 1/6th of a chance to give you what you want and 5/6th of a chance to ruin it for the other two dice.

That means that if you get 216 die rolls to get your triple ones, odds are pretty good that you will roll 111 but it is not garanteed. Now if you have infinite chances... well there you go, extremely likely.

Likewise say there is a 1/1,000,000,000 (made up number) chance that there will be life on a planet, but with 1,000,000,000 planets the odds become good that one of them has it. Now the odds of a planet with EXACTLY what you want on it is incredibly small, but compared to the sheer number of planets in an infinite universe it is quite plausible and perhaps even has multiples of itself.

So in other words if atoms can combine to create a dragon, in an infinite number of worlds odds are that dragon was created at some point or even exists right now. Now as for time and space well yeah, we have no way to access a world that is thousands, millions or billions of light years away, so they might as well be entirely different dimensions or realities. On the other hand if you could combine time and space travel you could probably instantly be on a planet identical to ours on the exact opposite side of the ever expanding big bang universe chatting with an alternate version of myself that actually makes sense. 

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

You dont have to go so far as to consider "dimensions" when our universe is infinitely big with the same elements composing every single world

Except that that's not why scientists mean when they say the universe is infinite.  They current theory is that the universe is shaped as a four dimensional ball.  In other words, launch your rocket ship from Earth and given enough time, it will end up right back at Earth all in a straight line.  Similarly, when the universe expands, it's because of the fourth dimension, like a balloon blowing up.

So there is a finite amount of energy and matter, which is why, for instance, they can confidently say that opening up an actual wormhole in space would take all of the energy in the universe.  If they believed there was an infinite amount of it, they would never say that.

[bearded]

You dont have to go so far as to consider "dimensions" when our universe is infinitely big with the same elements composing every single world

Except that that's not why scientists mean when they say the universe is infinite.  They current theory is that the universe is shaped as a four dimensional ball.  In other words, launch your rocket ship from Earth and given enough time, it will end up right back at Earth all in a straight line.  Similarly, when the universe expands, it's because of the fourth dimension, like a balloon blowing up.

right!  that's what i was getting at.  using 2 dimensions as a reference point, a circle is infinite.  straight from earth, back round to earth along the edge of the circle, or four dimensional ball.  add another magnitude of dimension, and the circle becomes a spiral, with each loop of the spiral being another seperate reality, so sim to the first you can't tell the difference, an atomic shift of difference.  on a temporal scale, you are one atom's shift from your alternate selves.  time and space calculated as the same thing in this way.

[daglob]

I once read something somewhere about a concept called something like "The Conservation of Reality". Given that, if an event has two choices and two outcomes, there would be a REAL infinity of alternate realities out there, what if each choice gave the SAME outcome? Non-sentient things would be in this also.

Say there is a rotten tree in the middle of the forest. The wind blows hard on Monday, and the is a 50/50 chance that it will fall. It both falls and doesn't fall, creating two alternate Earths (Trick question: Did it make a sound?). Then the wind blows on Tuesday, and because the tree was weakened by the wind on Monday, the chance that it will fall is 75/25 in the "tree didn't fall" universe, and it falls. No one sees it, no animal uses the hollow log or the stum as a burrow on either Monday or Tuesday, no one hears it, some animals notice it but its existence isn't important to them. On Wednesday, a badger wandering by sees the tree lying on the forest floor, and decides to use it as a den. The badger (whom we'll call "Larry"), has been unaffected by either event, so he wanders by in BOTH universes. From Wednesday on, the tree has the same history in both universe, except that it rots to nothing one day earlier in one universe. What happens is the old "What makes no difference, is no difference" addage, and at some point after Tuesday the two universes merge back together. Thus, like zero point energy, alternate universes are being created and merging back into the main universe all the time. It takes a large event, involving a large number of participants, to create a totally separate universe. Kind of like in Fritz Lieber's "The Big Time", if you want the North to win the Civil War, you have to add as much effort (that is, energy) into the event(s) as The South did (What do you mean the North won? Blankety-blank Changewar!).

So, you think this is far-fetched? Different example:

You always put your car keys on the table near the door. You have done this for years; as soon as you walk in, you put the keys down, maybe the mail if there was any, and go change clothes, bathe, whatever. The keys are always there when you get ready to leave the next time.
One day, the phone is ringing when you step in the door. Having no idea if the phone has been ringing for awhile, you hurry towards the instrument and answer it. In that hurry, you have two choices:

1. Put the keys down and go answer the phone
2. Carry the keys with you to answer the phone

It turns out to be a stupid salesman, who you have to hang up on to get rid of. The "take the keys with" version of you abstractly puts the keys on the end table, because both of you really need to go to the WC. The evening passes, and the location of the keys is not a sufficiently different difference to make a difference, and the two universe merge back into one. However, the universes don't just merge into one or the other-pieces of both universes end up in the final version. So the next morning, you go to leave... and your keys are gone. You remember putting them on the table when you came in. And you did-in your universe. The keys that ended up in the final universe, however, are the keys from the "take them with" universe, and now you have to figure out where the heck that dumb so-an-so alternate version of you put the keys in HIS universe.

I told a woman that once, and she informed me that I had just undone years of therapy.

Still, the alternate universes may not last forever. In the far, far future, when the universes have expanded to the point that there is little left but a very small temerature differential to mark where stars might have been, and all life as we know it has either gone somewerhe else or gone extinct, in the millions of years of the great dark, maybe all those myriad universes merge into one.

Changewar series by Fritz Leiber
The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
All The Myriad Ways by Larry Niven
Destiny Times Three by Fritz Lieber
The Timeliner series by Richard C. Meredith
Sideways in Time by Murray Lienster
The End of Eternity By Isaac Asimov
The Paratime series by H. Beam Piper (heck, ANYTHING by H. Beam Piper is good)

...and a LOT more.

[AncientSpirit]

Not sure if this proves anything, one way or another.   But I've just come back from 45 alternate realities and in each and every one of them, Catwoman, with Halle Berry, sucked. 

[The Hitman]

I've started to catalog the infinite universes. Decided to name them after what I liked about them. Seemed like the best way to go about it. My favorites? "Earth Seasoned Tater- Tots" and "Earth Old- Timey Moustache and- Porkchop- Sideburns."

[lugaru]

I'm a traveler from "Earth - Pants Optional" and it has been difficult adapting to the ways of this world.

[daglob]

Not sure if this proves anything, one way or another.   But I've just come back from 45 alternate realities and in each and every one of them, Catwoman, with Halle Berry, sucked. 

That just goes to show that there are some things in the alternate universes that are... uh.. universal. Like how all sentient races have something that resembles Sweedish Meatballs, or that all civilizations have some kind of ninja.

If the Conservation of Reality law really works, you woulld have to put at least as much energy into making it good as was put into it to make it bad.

That might result in the heat death of the universe you are in.