This is a continuation of the thread found at

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2078290

Near the bottom of this thread there is a conversation between Amyjo (the thread's originator), Ificouldhietokelob (I hope I remembered his monicker correctly), and Henry Bemis about the basic probabilities of our universe being a simulation. During that discussion, Amyjo noted that the whole question was being funded by some very wealthy people which made me think of my first response to this thread and what this could all mean.

As background, I should note that I began reading in 2012 and 2013 in various left-wing publications that the U.S. government was doing a lot less funding of scientific research than in the past and that this trend would continue. What scientists were doing to raise funds was to try to appeal their work to wealthy people who could then fund the work that government would no longer fund. The problem, as magazines such as the Guardian, Think Progress, and salon.com saw it, was that when wealthy people started funding research, the interests of that research would move towards the interests of the wealthy funders as opposed to the interests of all.

Fastforward to the link to the thread above and what do I find? Scientists are being funded by wealthy donors to determine if our universe is a simulation and that we are living in some sort of unreality. Why, I asked myself, would some wealthy people wish to fund such research. The only answer I can figure, regardless of whether what is found is true or not, is that some wealthy people are funding this kind of research to justify their own destructive behaviors towards other people. It is not a stretch from saying "I have more money than anybody else so people should look up to me to be their savior and to have all the answers," to "The universe and everything is a simulation. Therefore I can force people to give me money and destroy and ruin their lives because they really don't exist, anyway."

Put more briefly, I think we should start thinking about who is funding scientific research (especially this kind) and why.

Except, wealthy people don't force people to give them their money, or destroy and ruin their lives.

Why would you imply that? What's the line of demarcation? You're currently sitting in front of a computer, with enough leisure time on your hands to post on an online forum. YOU are wealthy.

It seems more likely the wealthy are funding this kind of research because they're bored.

Having time to post something on a computer may be a sign of wealth, but I suppose that depends on where you see it from.

The Rothschild's, Koch Brothers and their ilk certainly aren't apt to share the 'wealthy' title with a kid in a basement that works at McDonalds.

To cynical people, like myself, the probability of the uber-wealthy funding studies which would yield results that benefit themselves seems quite likely. I would not be so hasty as to dismiss this concept. There are some uber-wealthy people who are bent on increasing their wealth and their power and don't give a rats ass who suffers or dies in their quest.

No, the uber-wealthy do not strongarm their victims, but you have noticed that Opioids very conveniently alter the priorities and interests of a fairly large number of people and they piss their money away on drugs---with the bonus of providing profits for the aforementioned uber-wealthy.

Additionally, they are feeding information to all of us that splits us into sub-groups and the messages we get cause us to despise other subgroups. From their position, it's a beautiful thing...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/2018 06:47PM by csuprovograd.

Maybe because since theoretical physicists and other scientific endeavors are leaning in that direction, why wouldn't you want to know more if it were possible?

If I were rich in monetary terms, it isn't buying things that bring happiness. It becomes philanthropy. Investing in the future, and in causes that elevate and help make the planet a better place for those taking up space on it.

Not everyone has our best interests at heart. But philanthropy for its own sake would seem the reason wealthy donors would want to fund research into scientific endeavors to learn more about what makes our world go round.

If it were nefarious reasons for funding the research, would it make the findings any less credible, assuming they are the work of legitimate endeavors?

It's what we do with knowledge that counts. Knowledge IS power, regardless of who possesses it. With knowledge can come wisdom. Wisdom is just applied knowledge.

Information is exploding with the advent of the Internet Highway. It's quadupling and compounding faster than at any other time in the history of our planet. If you aren't riding that train, you will get left behind.

If I had the money to give to science, I'd be funding it too. That's where the future is.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/2018 04:57PM by Amyjo.

You almost got the monniker right (o, not e, in kolob!) :)

You make a good point. I don't know if that's the case or not, but it's worth nothing the possibility.

My issue was simple: there's no evidence (despite George Smoot claiming there is) we're in a simulation.

And it was the absurdity of the "probability" that was the most hilarious.

I'll note it again, with a quote from Amyjo's post above:

"It's what we do with knowledge that counts. Knowledge IS power..."

Now, remember, the study specifically said if we WERE in a simulation, we wouldn't know that we were.

Their claim, not mine.

No knowledge that we're in a simulation, they claimed.

Then claiming to have knowledge about us being in a simulation -- enough knowledge about it to calculate a probability.

We have no knowledge.
We have knowledge enough to calculate a probability.

That's called shooting your well-funded self in the foot.
Or being hoist on your own petard.
Or (more simply): contradicting yourself.

Doesn't matter who funded it. Or how smart they are. Or how rich or popular or well-known or whatever else they are.
They contradicted themselves.

:)

It's quite obvious that not having knowledge of the simulation is proof that we are in it.

Conversely, claiming to have knowledge of the simulation is proof that it doesn't exist.

:)

"In Genesis it says, "The Spirit of God [Pure Principle] was stirring above the waters [quantum fluidity] … Let there be a firmament [Geometric Holographic Matrix] in the midst of the waters …" Could it be possible that Genesis was referring to the quantum fluidity (feminine principle) of the holographic matrix? In contrast, the geometric holographic matrix (the masculine principle) may then be an analogy for the firmament, which was created from the waters. From quantum fluidity then, came the holographic matrix or the blueprint of form. This blueprint is geometrical in nature.

See : 5) The Triune Principle of Reality: Going Beyond Sacred Geometry : Let us examine the three principles of reality that form the trinity of creation...."
http://www.ascensionnow.co.uk/the-spiral-and-the-holographic-matrix.html

"You are a simulation and Physics can prove it." (Nobel Prize winner George Smoot)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chfoo9NBEow

The Matrix of our Reality - Do We Live in a 3D Hologram?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCk-8_0Qwds

Amyjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "In Genesis it says, "The Spirit of God[Pure Principle] was
> stirring above the waters [quantum fluidity] …Let there be a
> firmament [Geometric Holographic Matrix] in the midst of the
> waters …"

Gee, no copy of Genesis I've ever seen says that.

But I guess if you make up new meanings for words, and call them something other than what they are, and pretend an ancient creation myth contains words like "quantum fluidity," when it doesn't, you can make it mean anything you want...?

Isn’t “quantum fluidity” a song by Queensryche?

Here is where you can find Nick Bostrom’s argument:

https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

Here is the thesis statement as found in the introduction:

Many works of science fiction as well as some forecasts by serious technologists and futurologists predict that enormous amounts of computing power will be available in the future. Let us suppose for a moment that these predictions are correct. One thing that later generations might do with their super-powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears. Because their computers would be so powerful, they could run a great many such simulations. Suppose that these simulated people are conscious (as they would be if the simulations were sufficiently fine-grained and if a certain quite widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind is correct). Then it could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race. It is then possible to argue that, if this were the case, we would be rational to think that we are likely among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones. Therefore, if we don’t think that we are currently living in a computer simulation, we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears. That is the basic idea. The rest of this paper will spell it out more carefully.
. . . . . .
The structure of the paper is as follows. First, we formulate an assumption that we need to import from the philosophy of mind in order to get the argument started. Second, we consider some empirical reasons for thinking that running vastly many simulations of human minds would be within the capability of a future civilization that has developed many of those technologies that can already be shown to be compatible with known physical laws and engineering constraints. This part is not philosophically necessary but it provides an incentive for paying attention to the rest. Then follows the core of the argument, which makes use of some simple probability theory, and a section providing support for a weak indifference principle that the argument employs. Lastly, we discuss some interpretations of the disjunction, mentioned in the abstract, that forms the conclusion of the simulation argument.
________________________________________________________

Now, let us take it apart step by step: (What follows is accessible to everyone interested in this topic.)

“Many works of science fiction as well as some forecasts by serious technologists and futurologists predict that enormous amounts of computing power will be available in the future.”

COMMENT: O.K. So, in the future there might be in general terms “enormous amounts of computing power.” But what does that mean? It doesn’t mean that such level of computing power will include the ability to “simulate human beings,” including all those that had previously actually lived as real physical humans. In the first place where will the data come from in order to make such simulations? Dead people do not leave behind “data” that can be used to simulate their physical properties, much less their conscious lives and experiences.
_____________________________________________

“Let us suppose for a moment that these predictions are correct. One thing that later generations might do with their super-powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears. Because their computers would be so powerful, they could run a great many such simulations.”

COMMENT: This makes two blatantly false assumptions: First, that “computer power” of the future is such as to duplicate what is essentially the human brain, including all of its memories, etc. and second that there are remnants of “human data” sufficient to feed into the simulation program in order to create, not just any old human forebear, but specific ancestors who had specific lives and experiences.
________________________________________________________

“Suppose that these simulated people are conscious (as they would be if the simulations were sufficiently fine-grained and if a certain quite widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind is correct).”

COMMENT: Personally, I think this assumption is also false. What it says is that if you can create the human computer simulation, you will also create a conscious human to go with it. There is no evidence for this assumption, and most neuroscientists believe that consciousness is not an emergent property of computation, but rather an emergent property of specific physical functions of neurons of the physical brain.
_______________________________________________________

“Then it could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race. It is then possible to argue that, if this were the case, we would be rational to think that we are likely among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones. Therefore, if we don’t think that we are currently living in a computer simulation, we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears. That is the basic idea. The rest of this paper will spell it out more carefully.”

COMMENT: So, given the above false premises, it “could be” that a futuristic simulation would involve a vast number of simulated people over and above the number that actually lived on earth. So, all of the earth people would be a statistical minority of the full set of simulated people. Therefore, it is far more likely that we are part of a simulation that never actually lived than it is that we are part of a group that did actually live. Moreover, if we deny that we are currently living in a simulation, we must also deny, on probability grounds, that there are futuristic progenitors have the associated computer power to create the simulation assumption. (I can readily deny this assumption for a host of reasons.)
__________________________________________________________

“The structure of the paper is as follows. First, we formulate an assumption that we need to import from the philosophy of mind in order to get the argument started.”

COMMENT: This is just the assumption noted earlier that mind is a product of computation, whether that computation is from a brain or some other hardware. Again, most experts would deny this.
____________________________________________________________

“Second, we consider some empirical reasons for thinking that running vastly many simulations of human minds would be within the capability of a future civilization that has developed many of those technologies that can already be shown to be compatible with known physical laws and engineering constraints. This part is not philosophically necessary but it provides an incentive for paying attention to the rest.”

COMMENT: There is absolutely no evidence or reason to make this assumption based upon what computers have currently achieved, or what we can reasonably assume they will achieve in the future. As such, there is no incentive to take this seriously. And, I assure you that NO theoretical physicist, and probably no philosopher of science, does. The needed assumptions are wild and extravagant, and worse most probably false.
_____________________________________________________________

“Then follows the core of the argument, which makes use of some simple probability theory, and a section providing support for a weak indifference principle that the argument employs. Lastly, we discuss some interpretations of the disjunction, mentioned in the abstract, that forms the conclusion of the simulation argument.”

COMMENT: So, the “probability” theory is based upon an assumption that is clearly false, namely that futuristic humans will be able to create simulations of their ancestors. Presumably, they create simulations of all possible humans, or a great many, with a small subset of such simulations which represents those humans that actually physically lived. Since we are more probably NOT in the small subset of humans that actually lived, the probability that we are merely a simulation is high. Assume, for example, that at this futuristic date, there were 100 billion humans (10^11) that had actually physically lived in mortality. But a simulation could, theoretically, produce astronomically much more, say 1 million trillion. (10^18) The odds, therefore, of any of us being in the first group but not in the second are (10^11) divided by (10^18), which equals 1 divided by 10,000,000 (10^-7), or one out of ten million. So, we should reasonably assume we are simulations! Utter nonsense. (Hie can check my math!)

What this demonstrates is that there is a whole lot of nonsense being written in the name of science, even by “scholars.” (Bostrum is from Oxford) You simply cannot accept any “study” or “argument” at face value.

Henry Bemis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What this demonstrates is that there is a whole
> lot of nonsense being written in the name of
> science, even by “scholars.” (Bostrum is from
> Oxford) You simply cannot accept any “study”
> or “argument” at face value.

Bingo, Henry :)

Come to think of it, I was expecting more of a mathematical approach. Something involving entropy flow. Machines may someday harness the ineffable (quantum computing?), but it seems like premature arm waving. A theory of mind should include the reverse flow of emergent time, to explain the negentropy that drives life.

It's Amyjo's son who told her that he considered it possible that we're living in a matrix. Which is fine and dandy, because he's a physicist/mathematician.

What I still don't get is why Amyjo is so exercised about supporting the matrix stuff, and the Bank of America's report in which a percentage of probability is offered that we ARE living in a matrix. Every time Hie remonstrates against it, Amyjo doubles down. And that's where I get perplexed! Because Amyjo has said she does NOT believe in the matrix...


Here are her words, the ones she said she spoke to her son after he told her of his theory:

"I said to him: No, we're as real as you and I. We have physical bodies that are born, we live, we age, grow old if we're able to. It's what comes after such as our consciousnesses surviving death that is more the unknown as to who or what is in control of our destiny besides ourselves. Because we most certainly are not.

"If we are a simulation and part of a matrix why would we need a physical body at all? We'd be transparent as a hologram; virtual simulations only, of ourselves. And then so too the physical world we're born into.

"But we're not. We're real enough for me to accept our physical limitations.

"If we are part of an artificial intelligence matrix, then we have absolutely no control over our physical selves at all or the physical world we inhabit.

"But we do. That we've been given intelligence, however finite, and are able to think through problems ... solving them. Creating, inventing as we go ... we are in the process of becoming something more than a mere invention by something or someone else."


This is good stuff! Someone alert the Bank of America!!


I wondered how the discussion progressed from there, between the two of them, after she'd countered his thesis. I asked if there was any push back. Her response was:


"There was no "push back."

"We respect each other's ideas.

"That we are both opinionated is due to our independence and strong wills, which we both possess."


So Hie, when Amyjo 'pushes back', it is likely an indication that she does not respect your ideas. Which of course if fair, given that... Well, you know.

You’re good.

It seems like something the Burning Man kids would fund. Private funding is an American thing. It’s the rationale behind relatively low taxes. Philanthropy worked well in the past, and it will keep working well if the rich keep up their end of the bargain. With classic religion’s downward slide, something else needs to provide a metaphysical foundation for being. Why not science? At least it will be a good exercise. Personally, I think it’s well worth doing.

Babyloncansuckit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> With classic religion’s downward
> slide, something else needs to provide a
> metaphysical foundation for being.

Does it? I wouldn't agree :)

> Why not
> science? At least it will be a good exercise.
> Personally, I think it’s well worth doing.

Personally, I'd prefer to keep science using the scientific method, and keep out of out unscientific things like "metaphysics."

For those who wish it, the "philosophers" can provide the metaphysical hand-waving. Working scientists (but not science) can do so in their free time if they want.

But I hope science stays science. :)

Sure, but it’s not your money.

What an amazing thread!! I find myself completely enthralled! '

Oh, the mysteries of it all !!!!!

I'm glad that you can enjoy the modified version of the original.

"The only thing stranger than truth is the absence of fiction!"
- - Judic West, as quoted by an IRS undercover agent

"The universe and everything is a simulation. Therefore I can force people to give me money and destroy and ruin their lives because they really don't exist, anyway."

Ironically neither do they (the wealthy antagonists) in this paradigm, so I fail to see the logic.

It is all an illusion. "Computer simulation" is a trendy twist. For ages it has been called a dream, a collective hallucination. Quite like a dream, very few in it are "lucid." In our nightly dreams, the dramas feel real, the images are often in intricate detail, the food has taste, the hurts really hurt, and we really seem to suffer at the hands of other dream figures--which are all our projected mental creations.

Richard Foxe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It is all an illusion. "Computer simulation" is a
> trendy twist. For ages it has been called a
> dream, a collective hallucination. Quite like a
> dream, very few in it are "lucid." In our nightly
> dreams, the dramas feel real, the images are often
> in intricate detail, the food has taste, the hurts
> really hurt, and we really seem to suffer at the
> hands of other dream figures--which are all our
> projected mental creations.

I agree with most of your sentiment here except for have you really actually tasted food in your dreams, or felt actual hurt other than grief, sorrow, or joy/happiness?

Because as real as dreams can seem, I haven't actually tasted food, drank a beverage, when I've fallen down there was no 'boo boo.' Etc.

I have awoken from dreams that caused me great anguish. Sometimes great joy. Like once I dreamed of winning the lotto. That one ended way too soon. It was a nice dream while it lasted.

Q: Is it an illusion or is it real?
A: Yes.

I thought we were in a galaxy, in a glass ball, hanging on a cat's collar.

(As per Men in Black)

Lol

"Nothing is new under the sun." Everything old is new again.

When I've gotten a deja vu sense, it makes me wonder what other lifetime/s I've lived through.

Along with the matrix theory is the parallel universe idea. There's the idea being floated that we have clones of ourselves living in parallel universes, mirroring our lives here on planet Earth.

"One of the most exciting and enticing topics to speculate about is the idea that our reality — our Universe the way it is and the way we experience it — might not be the only version of events out there. Perhaps there are other Universes, perhaps even with different versions of ourselves, different histories and alternate outcomes, than our own. When it comes to physics, this is one of the most exciting possibilities of all, but it's far from a certainty. Here's what the science actually says about whether this could be true or not.

The Universe, as far as the most powerful telescopes can see (even in theory), is vast, huge and massive. Including photons and neutrinos, it contains some 10^90 particles, clumped and clustered together into hundreds-of-billions-to-trillions of galaxies. Each one of those galaxies comes with around a trillion stars inside (on average), and they’re strewn across the cosmos in a sphere some 92 billion light years in diameter, from our perspective. But, despite what our intuition might tell us, that doesn’t mean we’re at the center of a finite Universe. In fact, the evidence indicates something quite to the contrary.

The reason the Universe appears finite in size to us — the reason we can’t see anything that’s more than a specific distance away — isn’t because the Universe is actually finite in size, but is rather because the Universe has only existed in its present state for a finite amount of time. If you learn nothing else about the Big Bang, it should be this: the Universe was not constant in space or in time, but rather has evolved from a more uniform, hotter, denser state to a clumpier, cooler and more diffuse state today.

The observable Universe might be 46 billion light years in all directions from our point of view, but there's certainly more, unobservable Universe just like ours beyond that.

This has given us a rich Universe, replete with many generations of stars, an ultra-cold background of leftover radiation, galaxies expanding away from us ever-more-rapidly the more distant they are, with a limit to how far back we can see. That limit is set by the distance that light has had the ability to travel since the instant of the Big Bang.

But this in no way means that there isn’t more Universe out there beyond the portion that’s accessible to us. In fact, from both observational and theoretical points-of-view, we have every reason to believe there’s plenty more, and perhaps even infinitely more. Observationally, we can measure a few different interesting quantities, including the spatial curvature of the Universe, how smooth and uniform it is in both temperature and density, and how it’s evolved over time.

Inflation set up the hot Big Bang and gave rise to the observable Universe we have access to, but we can only measure the last tiny fraction of a second of inflation's impact on our Universe. Image credit: Bock et al. (2006, astro-ph/0604101); modifications by E. Siegel.

What we find is that the Universe is most consistent with being spatially flat, with being uniform over a volume that’s much greater than the volume of the piece of the Universe observable to us, and therefore probably containing more Universe that’s very similar to our own for hundreds of billions of light years in all directions, beyond what we can see. But theoretically, what we learn is even more tantalizing. You see, we can extrapolate the Big Bang backwards to an arbitrarily hot, dense, expanding state, and what we find is that it didn’t get infinitely hot and dense early on, but rather that — above some energy and before some very early time — there was a phase that preceded the Big Bang, and set it up.

That phase, a period of cosmological inflation, describes a phase of the Universe where rather than being full of matter and radiation, the Universe was filled with energy inherent to space itself: a state that causes the Universe to expand at an exponential rate. This means that rather than having the expansion rate slow as time goes on, at having distant points recede from one another at ever slower speeds, the expansion rate doesn’t drop at all, and distant locations — as time goes on incrementally — get twice as far away, then four times, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, etc.

Because the expansion is not just exponential but also incredibly rapid, “doubling” happens on timescale of around 10^-35 seconds. Meaning, by time 10^-34 seconds have passed, the Universe is around 1000 times its initial size; by time 10^-33 seconds have passed, the Universe is around 10^30 (or 1000^10) times its initial size; by time 10^-32 seconds have passed, the Universe is around 10^300 times its initial size, and so on. Exponential isn’t so powerful because it’s fast; it’s powerful because it’s relentless.

Now, obviously the Universe didn’t continue to expand in this fashion forever, because we’re here, and so inflation had to end, setting up the Big Bang. We can think about inflation as occurring at the top of a very flat hill, like a ball rolling slowly down it. As long as the ball remains near the top of the hill, rolling slowly, inflation continues, and the Universe expands exponentially. Once the ball rolls down into the valley, however, inflation ends, and that rolling behavior causes the energy to dissipate, converting the energy inherent to space itself into matter-and-radiation, taking us from an inflationary state into the hot Big Bang.

Inflation ends (top) when a ball rolls into the valley. But the inflationary field is a quantum one (middle), spreading out over time. While many regions of space (purple, red and cyan) will see inflation end, many more (green, blue) will see inflation continue, potentially for an eternity (bottom). Images credit: E. Siegel.

Before we move on to what we don’t know about inflation, there are a few things we do know that are worth mentioning.

Inflation isn’t like a ball — which is a classical field — but is rather like a wave that spreads out over time, like a quantum field.

This means that, as time goes on and more-and-more space gets created due to inflation, certain regions, probabilistically, are going to be more likely to see inflation come to an end, while others will be more likely to see inflation continue.
The regions where inflation ends will give rise to a Big Bang and a Universe like ours, while the regions where it doesn’t will continue to inflate for longer.

As time goes on, because of the dynamics of expansion, no two regions where inflation ends will ever interact or collide; the regions where inflation doesn’t end will expand between them, pushing them apart.

Image credit: E. Siegel. Even though inflation may end in more than 50% of any of the regions at any given time (denoted by red X’s), enough regions continue to expand forever that inflation continues for an eternity, with no two Universes ever colliding.

Now, that’s what we do expect, based on the known laws of physics and the observables that exist in our Universe to tell us about the inflationary state. That said, we don’t know quite a few things about this inflationary state, and what this does is bring up a huge number of both uncertainties and also possibilities:

We don’t know for how long the inflationary state lasted before it ended and gave rise to the Big Bang. The Universe could barely be larger than the part observable to us, it could be many ridiculous orders of magnitude larger than what we see, or it could be truly infinite in scale.

We don’t know if the regions where inflation ended are all the same, or whether they’re vastly different than our own. It’s conceivable that there are (unknown) physical dynamics that cause things like the fundamental constants — particle masses, strengths of forces, the amount of dark energy — to be exactly what they are for us in all regions where inflation ends. But it’s also possible that different regions where inflation ends, what we might consider different Universes, have arbitrarily different physics.
And if the Universes are all the same as one another as far as physical laws go, and if the number of these Universes is truly infinite, and if the many-world interpretation of quantum mechanics is completely valid, does that mean that there are parallel Universes out there, where everything in it evolved exactly the same as our own Universe did, except one tiny quantum outcome was different?

The multiverse idea states that there are infinite numbers of Universes like our own, and infinite ones with differences. Image credit: flickr user Lee Davy, via https://www.flickr.com/photos/chingster23/11937781733. (CC BY 2.0)

In other worlds, would it be possible that there’s a Universe out there where everything happened exactly as it did in this one, except you did one tiny thing different, and hence had your life turn out incredibly different as a result?

Where you chose the job overseas instead of the one that kept you in your country?

Where you stood up to the bully instead of letting yourself be taken advantage of?

Where you kissed the one-who-got-away at the end of the night, instead of letting them go?

And where the life-or-death event that you or your loved one faced at some point in the past had a different outcome?

The idea of parallel Universes, as applied to Schrödinger's cat. Image credit: Wikimedia commons user Christian Schirm.

It’s an incredible notion: that there’s a Universe out there for every outcome that’s conceivable. There’s one where everything with a non-zero probability of having happened is actually the reality in that Universe. But there are an awful lot of ifs that are mandatory to get there. For one, the inflationary state must have happened for not just a long amount of time — not just for the 13.8 billion years that our Universe has been around — but for an infinite amount of time.

Why is that, you ask? Surely, if the Universe has been expanding exponentially — not just for a tiny fraction of a second but for 13.8 billion years, or around 4 × 10^17 seconds — we’re talking about a tremendous volume of space! After all, even though there are regions of space where inflation ends, most of the volume of the Universe is dominated by regions where it hasn’t ended. So realistically, we’re talking about at least 10^10^50 Universes that started off with initial conditions that might be very similar to our own. That’s 10^100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Universes, which might be one of the biggest numbers you’ve ever imagined. And yet, there are numbers that are bigger that describe how many possible outcomes there are for particle interactions.

There are 10^90 particles in each Universe, and we need for all of them to have the exact same history of interactions for 13.8 billion years to give us a Universe identical to our own, so that when we choose one path over another, both Universes still wind up existing. For a Universe with 10^90 quantum particles in it, that’s asking an awful lot — for fewer than 10^10^50 possibilities to exist for how those particles will interact with one another over 13.8 billion years. The number you see above, for instance, is just 1000! (or (10^3)!), or 1000 factorial, which describes the number of possible permutations there are for 1000 different particles to be ordered at any instant in time. Consider, mind you, how much bigger this number is — (10^3)! — than (10^1000) is.

In other words, the number of possible outcomes from particles in any Universe interacting with one another tends towards infinity faster than the number of possible Universes increases due to inflation. Even setting aside issues that there may be an infinite number of possible values for fundamental constants, particles and interactions, and even setting aside interpretation issues such as whether the many-worlds-interpretation actually describes our physical reality, the fact of the matter is that the number of possible outcomes rises so quickly — so much faster than merely exponentially — that unless inflation has been occurring for a truly infinite amount of time, there are no parallel Universes identical to this one.

The singularity theorem tells us that an inflationary state is past-timelike-incomplete, and hence, most probably did not last a truly infinite amount of time, but rather arose some distant-but-finite point in the past. There are a huge number of Universes out there — possibly with different laws than our own and possibly not — but there are not enough of them to give us alternate versions of ourselves; the number of possible outcomes grows too rapidly compared to the rate that the number of possible Universes grows.

A huge number of separate regions where Big Bangs occur are separated by continuously inflating space in eternal inflation. But unless there's a truly infinite amount of space out there, the number of possible outcomes grows faster than the number of possible Universes like ours. Image credit: Karen46 of http://www.freeimages.com/profile/karen46.

So what does this mean for you?

It means it’s up to you to make this Universe count. Make the choices that leave you with no regrets: take the dream job, stand up for yourself, navigate through the pitfalls as best you can, and go all-out every day of your life. There is no other Universe that has this version of you in it, and there is no future for you other than the one you live yourself into.

Make it the best one possible."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/11/18/is-there-another-you-out-there-in-a-parallel-universe/#76cb453a634f

'Astrophysicist and author Ethan Siegel is the founder and primary writer of Starts With A Bang! His books, Treknology and Beyond The Galaxy, are available wherever books are sold.'

If there are clones of ourselves living parallel lives in parallel universes it does beg the concept and question of how much free will we actually have? Or is our future already scripted for us in our astrological charts? The things that are beyond our control like where we're born, our DNA, etc. The lives we live are shaped by our environment, heredity, parenting, and cultural conditioning. Parallel universes or no parallel universes. I'd hate to think of other people living my life in better or worse condition than myself. Because if that is so, it does sound like a simulation experiment by someone else overseeing our lives. What control exactly does that mean for ourselves if we are but a figment of a simulation aka someone else's or other's imagination?

>
> Or is our future already scripted
> for us in our astrological charts?
>

Who should I consult to find out?