# What's the likelyhood of us living in a multiverse?



## Tendency (Aug 18, 2011)

Aether said:


> If talk of probabilities is the only thing that's going to come of this thread I'd rather you all let it die. Thanks.


This thread and I are already dead....in another universe ^.^


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## Psychosmurf (Aug 22, 2010)

sprinkles said:


> Probability only effects our best guesses. Anything _other_ than 50/50 is actually arbitrary (or simply not well defined)
> 
> We are talking about the _existence_ of something, not roulette. If it exists, the probability of it existing is 100%. If it doesn't exist, the probability of it not existing is 100%. Two options. Our prediction is either the right one, or the wrong one. 50% chance of _us being right_ regardless of what it is we are right about (or not)


Probability is in the mind. Frequency is in the world. I think you're getting the two mixed up.

To the OP: From what I understand of QM and the MWI, I'd say >90%.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

Psychosmurf said:


> Probability is in the mind. Frequency is in the world. I think you're getting the two mixed up.
> 
> To the OP: From what I understand of QM and the MWI, I'd say >90%.


Well if something _is_, as in it exists, then its frequency is constant, is it not? It isn't partly there, or maybe there, it IS there.
A percentage is how sure we are that is the case but has no bearing on whether it is actually true (a thing doesn't need to be known to be true, and things thought true can be not true)


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## sarek (May 20, 2010)

I believe that we will find that IF something is possible, given an infinity of space in which it can become reality, than it WILL be found. So if the laws of nature do not specifically exclude the possibility of multiverses than they have to exist somewhere.


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## Psychosmurf (Aug 22, 2010)

sprinkles said:


> Well if something _is_, as in it exists, then its frequency is constant, is it not? It isn't partly there, or maybe there, it IS there.
> A percentage is how sure we are that is the case but has no bearing on whether it is actually true (a thing doesn't need to be known to be true, and things thought true can be not true)


Right but probabilities are not frequencies. So it makes sense to say that there's an 80% probability that X. As long as we condition our probabilities on evidence, then they do have a bearing on whether or not something is actually true.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

Psychosmurf said:


> Right but probabilities are not frequencies. So it makes sense to say that there's an 80% probability that X. As long as we condition our probabilities on evidence, then they do have a bearing on whether or not something is actually true.


 It has bearing on what we _consider_ to be true. If it IS true then it is true all by itself.

The evidence doesn't make it true - evidence is had if it _is_ true (and some things might be true yet produce no evidence)

Anyway. That's beside the point. I just prefer to say "it is possible, but I don't actually know yet."

Example: you might say based on the cards you were dealt in blackjack (the evidence) that it's 80% to hit and win. The problem there is that the 80% is the percentage of your guess being correct, not knowing what the next card is - _but the next card is already there_. It was already determined from the start all the possibilities once the hand was dealt. The next card already is what it is and you can't change it - the percentage is the percentage of your guess coinciding with reality.


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## Aether (Apr 27, 2010)

Psychosmurf said:


> Probability is in the mind. Frequency is in the world. I think you're getting the two mixed up.
> 
> To the OP: From what I understand of QM and the MWI, I'd say >90%.


Any chance you could elaborate? I'm interested but if it's too much to go into that's cool.

Personally when I think of the existence of a multiverse I think less about the many-worlds theory where afaik infinite other universes are basically sitting right on top of us (theoretically on different branes was it?) and more about simply other areas "outside" of our universe with completely different laws and natural constants some that could be seen as failures where nothing can exist or where they've instantly collapsed or undergone a big crunch early in its age and others that have yielded stuff like us. Kind of reminds me of evolution. I have little knowledge on the subject as a whole if you can't tell lol but am interested in this particularly.


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## Psychosmurf (Aug 22, 2010)

Aether said:


> Any chance you could elaborate? I'm interested but if it's too much to go into that's cool.
> 
> Personally when I think of the existence of a multiverse I think less about the many-worlds theory where afaik infinite other universes are basically sitting right on top of us (theoretically on different branes was it?) and more about simply other areas "outside" of our universe with completely different laws and natural constants some that could be seen as failures where nothing can exist or where they've instantly collapsed or undergone a big crunch early in its age and others that have yielded stuff like us. Kind of reminds me of evolution. I have little knowledge on the subject as a whole if you can't tell lol but am interested in this particularly.


I was talking about the MWI. I don't know enough about cosmology to tell you about other kinds of multiverses.


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## M1R4G3 (Aug 21, 2011)

Aether said:


> I mean if the odds of our universe* spontaneously creating itself are insanely small, yet it happened chances are it's because the event's had a chance of taking place frequently and for a while right?


Granted there was no such thing as "a while" because there was no such thing as time before our universe, you are correct. The odds were small, but it doesn't matter. If such a thing could happen to create one universe as our own, it should (in theory) create an infinite number, since the creation of both plane and time happened when there wasn't time. So technically the rate of creation should be infinite. I really have no idea if this makes sense to anybody but me.


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## Tempest09 (Jun 19, 2011)

If we did, I would be curious as to what technology, if any, would be necessary to traverse between them, or if it would even be possible.


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## Aether (Apr 27, 2010)

M1R4G3 said:


> Granted there was no such thing as "a while" because there was no such thing as time before our universe, you are correct. The odds were small, but it doesn't matter. If such a thing could happen to create one universe as our own, it should (in theory) create an infinite number, since the creation of both plane and time happened when there wasn't time. So technically the rate of creation should be infinite. I really have no idea if this makes sense to anybody but me.


Makes sense to me, especially when you think about how random it seems that life is able to exist.



Tempest09 said:


> If we did, I would be curious as to what technology, if any, would be necessary to traverse between them, or if it would even be possible.


No idea about this but yeah would be very interesting if you didn't just die as soon as you entered the other universe lol.


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## Tempest09 (Jun 19, 2011)

Aether said:


> No idea about this but yeah would be very interesting if you didn't just die as soon as you entered the other universe lol.


I say we start testing with politicians. If they die, no big deal, and if they make it, aliens will kill them.


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## Aether (Apr 27, 2010)

Pretty interesting.


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## Nutkin (Nov 7, 2011)

Aether said:


> It could explain dark flow and the occurence of our bubble of space? I mean if the odds of our universe* spontaneously creating itself are insanely small, yet it happened chances are it's because the event's had a chance of taking place frequently and for a while right?** If this is the case I see no reason why a successful creation of a universe shouldn't take place again and again. Then there's the possibility of the CMB coldspot being a region of space entangled to another universe. Bit too much speculation not enough theory? Probably, but by my intuition it seems a pretty likely story. Any input supportive or skeptical is obviously appreciated.
> 
> *Not sure if this makes sense in the context of a multiverse but I don't know what else to call it.
> **I understand this might not make much sense considering time seems to only exist in our universe, but I hope you know what I mean by it.


 Zero, zilch, nada.


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## JohnGalt (Nov 5, 2011)

Tendency said:


> Bahaha....all right, now for some clarity.
> 
> 1 over infinity equals zero, which means that everything has an equal chance of not existing—an infinite die is a moot gedankenexperiment. Let's place complex complications where calculating calculations need to be calculated.


Except the die does not have to be "fair" (in his example, the sides don't all have the same chance of showing up). As long as the number of sites is countably infinite, the chance of a side showing up can be nonzero and actually pretty large.

Example: Take a die that has chance 1/2 of rolling 1, 1/4 chance of rolling 2, 1/8 chance of rolling 3, etc... (2^-n chance of rolling n)
This is an infinite-sided die, yet there is a 50% chance of rolling 1. 

Conclusion: His infinite die analogy is perfectly valid.



> Next, Binary logic= 1 or 0; Yes or No
> 
> Am I a rabbit, yes or no? There is no requirement for you to even think about the probability of me being one. There is a chance that I am a rabbit, there is a chance that I am not. There is no requirement for what it would take for me to "become" one to safeguard against the ramifications of now, an implicit tautology.
> 
> Yes or no, do you have hot dogs in your refrigerator? I didn't ask you the probability of your refrigerator running. Regardless, if so, well then they sure wouldn't be called hotdogs now then, would they? :3


If we are to presuppose there is only ONE reality and ONE universe we live in, then yes, it is ridiculous to talk about the probability of a binary event. It either is or isn't. You're a rabbit or you're not. It's not random. End of story.

But quantum physics views reality in a probabilistic sense. At any given time, it argues a number of universes are possible and we happen to just observe one. If there are in fact multiple possible universes that could have formed from the Big Bang and we are just experiencing one path, then it makes perfect sense to talk about the probability of us living in one where you are a rabbit. Maybe you are a rabbit in 0.38% of these possible universes?


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## Aether (Apr 27, 2010)

Nutkin said:


> Zero, zilch, nada.


Why?

The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 10 characters.


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## RRRoooaaaRRR (Jun 18, 2011)

Ludendorff said:


> An unproven idea of the existence multiverses without scientific evidence makes it scientifically 0% probability. We just don't know, and what we don't know we can't guess. There is some theoretical basis for this idea, however, so I think something between 0.01 x 10^100 and 99.99999999999 percent chance is about right.
> 
> 50% probability for an unknown truth is so arbitrary. If we can't prove something, we don't just default to half and half. Guess what, there is a teapot orbiting halfway between Mars and Earth. We can't detect it. Does it exist? According to this logic it has a 50% probability of existing. Yet common sense and logic says there isn't a teapot orbiting between earth and Mars. Not provable doesn't give us anything on how probable it is. Unfortunately, this question has no easy answer. We cannot accurately predict the probability of the existence of a scientific unknown, simply because it is unknown.



Well regardless I would place my money on there being multiverses and take all the bets against there being a teapot orbiting anywhere in any universe ... ooh no hold on ... there are millions of teapots orbiting the sun - that`s guaranteed!


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## RRRoooaaaRRR (Jun 18, 2011)

wuliheron said:


> For almost a hundred years people have been speculating wildly about quantum Indeterminacy proposing everything from Bhomian aether theories to consensual reality to infinite parallel universes. All the latest evidence, however, supports contextual theories which explains why we've received so many different conflicting results and why they all incorporate some sort of off the wall wild speculation.
> 
> To put this into perspective, from the ground the earth looks flat, from orbit it looks round, and from far enough away it looks like a dimensionless point. From a contextualist point of view it doesn't matter whether the earth is really flat, round, or dimensionless. It doesn't matter whether we have infinite dimensions or consensual reality. All that matters is how we might perceive these things in different contexts and, so far, the idea of infinite parallel universes has proven utterly useless in a physical context.



I like this - however I have a question: I thought there is some theory that a multiverse would explain the apparent unexplained quantity of gravity?
Also although the question/answer re the OP is useless in the physical context I reckon it has a lot of value in the philosophical context in the dualistic (physical) and non dual - which does provide a backdrop highlighting the limitations of science?


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## RRRoooaaaRRR (Jun 18, 2011)

Aether said:


> Sorry the aim of this thread wasn't to talk about the exact probability of it, was just to discuss points for and against the possibility I suppose. Badly worded title, I know.


What do you think it would tell us/mean ... the implications, if we learnt that there are multiverses?


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## tooboku (Jun 9, 2010)

I don't get it. Where are people pulling these numbers from? Since when was the probabolity 50%?

I think we're oversimplifying this and confusing two possible outcomes as being the same thing as 50:50. This is actually not a coin toss and such a thing cannot be put into binary terms like this.

First, we have to determine what the properties of a multiverse would be. Then we need a way of measuring them. Thus far, I am not aware of any way to do so. If anyone does, I would love to be enlightened but until then, would have to say that this question cannot be answered due to insufficient information.


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