Cosmology and the Multiple You: Part Three

The quantum mantra revolves around the theory that in physics, anything not forbidden is compulsory - given enough time and/or space. While there is nothing forbidden about an identical twin(s) of yourself existing elsewhere in the cosmos, how compulsory that is depends on what sort of cosmological model you adopt.

You are unique, aren't you? There never has been a person exactly like you before, there isn't now, and there never will be. Maybe! Depending on what's really real in all things cosmological, the odds that there are identical copies of you out there can range from plausible if improbable, to plausible and probable, to in fact near certainty, even certainty. The key issue revolves around the concept of infinity, or near infinity. If one has an infinite number of universes to play around with, and/or infinite time, then every possible history is, sooner or later, somewhere, compulsory.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Fifthly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you in the 'Many Worlds Interpretation' of quantum physics? That's taken as given!

Discussion: There is a theory known as the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics that each time anything, from fundamental particle to human being, comes to a fork in the road as it were, and has to make a choice(s), both/all forks are taken (something can be, and not be at the same time). To accommodate both/all alternatives, this quantum decision making (in the case of the micro), or macro decision making (in the case of scales we're familiar with), the entire Universe splits, and where we had one Universe, we now have two (or more), one for each fork. Of course when you consider the number of forks that the Universe encounters, well it's been calculated that every second, some 10 to the 100th power of Universes need to be created. (Just think how many hundreds, perhaps thousands of decisions (usually quite trivial, often subconsciously) you make every day. There has to be a new Universe to accommodate every alternative. Of course that means that when you add up all these collected Universes, there must be a lot of you, and a lot of everything else, each one ever so subtly different. In the case of deciding between wearing a green dress or a red dress there are now two Universes - one with you in a green dress; one with you in a red dress. And as in the case of parallel universes, there's no known, even theoretical, way of getting from this (say green dress) one to say another one of them (say red dress) and thus exchanging greetings with your identical self or selves.

Lastly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you as a Simulation? That too is as close to certainty as makes no odds!

Discussion: Do you exist? I mean really, really exist and have a physical reality? That's a pretty dumb question you'll probably ask! The answer is an obvious 'yes'. But, what if I were to suggest that the odds are very high that you have no actual physical reality, and that I have no actual physical reality, and that in fact all terrestrial life, Planet Earth, perhaps the entire observable universe has no actual physical reality! In other words, what if we are a computer simulation!

Let's suppose, for argument's sake, that in the real physical Universe, there exists some tens of thousands of extraterrestrial civilizations which have evolved technology our equal or better; even more advanced than we can conceive of. The odds are high that most would have invented computers - hardware and software. Any one civilization, such as our own, have (to date) produced multi-thousands of computer programs, many of which simulate life forms - think of the hundreds, indeed thousands of computer or video games. No doubt these programs will grow, over time, ever more complex and lifelike until they simulate reality to the same degree as reality itself.

If one advanced civilization produces multi-thousands of individual computer programs that simulate an actual, or imagined, reality, what are the odds that we aren't one of those simulated thousands vis-à-vis being that advanced civilization that actually exists in real reality? How could you know if you were real (hardware), or imaginary (software)? I maintain there's no way of you knowing, at least for absolute sure.

There's only a relatively few actual civilizations, but untold numbers of created false (simulated) realities - what odds we are one of the real ones and not one of the imaginary/simulated many?

Perhaps our concept of 'God' is nothing more than a mythological version of some advanced, but hardly supernatural, extraterrestrial computer programmer! Now as long as nobody hits the delete key!

But of course if there are multiple copies of that computer program containing you then that equates to a lot of you! You could exist hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of times over, all leading perhaps identical, but more likely as not, similar 'lives'. Now you quite obviously could not meet yourself as each piece of software is akin to a one universe - the collection of all the units of that software is akin to a type of multiverse!

Is the idea really so way out in left field that there's not a snowball's chance in hell that it could be right? We have to look to advances in our own terrestrial computing power to determine that. Computer generated simulations are already realistic enough that they are used to train pilots and MDs and other humans in professional activities where mistakes in training, if done in real situations, could be disastrous. Our cinema industry has already produced computer generated virtual reality films, bypassing real actors and real scenery. It's entirely possible to bring back in a sense dead actors to star again in new productions. We've all be awed by computer generated special effects in films that are so realistic that if you didn't actually know better, you'd swear they were real.

Walk into any DVD store and you'll find thousands of video (computer) games and/or simulations that you can run on your PC. Most have 'humans' in various role-playing guises that are software generated and which you interact with. The reality factor is increasing by leaps and bounds. At what point will the software become complex enough such that these simulated 'beings' are advanced enough to have self-awareness? What happens when the computer software programming these virtual 'humans' becomes equal to the software (brains) that program us? What happens when the computer software complexity exceeds that of the human brain? Far fetched? Methinks not. Now just replace our virtual 'humans' with ourselves, and maybe, just maybe, we're the virtual reality in somebody (something) else's actual reality.

That theory is testable. While I can think of no way to prove I'm not a simulated being, one can find evidence that we do live in a simulated universe, and by implication, we too are simulated beings. No software (computer or human wetware - brains) is perfect. If there are any glitches, or software upgrades, they might be detectable as anomalous phenomena in some context or another. Like say one of the physical constants were tweaked and altered ever so slightly (and there is some evidence for that - the fine structure constant for example or the proton-electron mass ratio has apparently changed over astronomical time periods), or say the expansion of the Universe began to accelerate for no real apparent reason (that sounds familiar - recall dark energy). Computer software - from our experience - is always being upgraded and updated. If the same applies elsewhere, we could perhaps notice it if we're a product of that software.

Even though there could be multiple copies of a video game that contains you as a character, it's one you per copy, so again, no meeting yourself. That's not to prevent the creator of the game from including multiple copies of you within the one game - if so; well a conversation between you and copies of you won't be very interesting since you each know what you're going to say before you say it!

Finally, one bright note is evident. Even as you approach your own demise, take heart and rejoice, for somewhere out there, there is another you(s) to carry on, and on, and on, and on, and on! As the sun (once upon a time) never set on the British Empire, so to will the sun never set on you.

By the by, if you want to split hairs, you could insist that any copies of you aren't really identical in that the elementary particles, atoms and molecules making up your twin aren't the same elementary particles, atoms and molecules making you up. The flaw in that argument is that all fundamental particles, like say all electrons, are identical to as many decimal places as you care to measure and calculate.