So (ha HA!!) I was having a think. It was not long after 6am, Elena had decided shed had enough sleep, she was sat upon the rug, I was lying on the floor next to her, we were transfixed by Cbeebies. And then the thought came back to me about the experiment, where the professor asks his assistant to spin the barrel and then shoot him, and from his perspective the barrel keeps landing on an empty chamber and he miraculously survives, but at some point (maybe the 1st, maybe the 12th attempt) from his assistants perspective she sees his head open up and he dies in front of her. And you mentioned that you would never die, so how would you.....at some point....die? I admit that I still dont know the answer to that, but as I was thinking the situation expanded for me. This is not just Peakey, Im sure Ive seen other writers use this example, and it is to illustrate also the M theory. Im sure they said something similar in Red Dwarf - whereby each and every decision we make pops a new universe into existence. The numbers involved are so staggering that they make your head spin, but just because we cant comprehend them I guess doesnt mean that its not true. 7 billion people on the planet, each making (at a conservative estimate) several hundred decisions a day means there alone there are approximately 500 billion new universes popping into existence every day. And thats just for human decisions. What about things animals do, or natural occurrences that may or may not occur? And each human decision might not be a simple case of yes/no. Imagine one person going into a football stadium and being allowed to choose from 40,000 seats - theres 40,000 new universes just popped into existence in one go. And if the stadium gradually fills up, the 2nd person has 39,999 choices, the 3rd person 39,998 choices and so on and so on - makes me feel like my brains swelling up like a balloon :-) Anyway, I digress, my point that I thought made the professors experiment appear that little bit more normal was that each time his assistant spins the barrel and then shoots, there would be (Im guessing) six new universes that pop into existence - one for each of the six chambers. In 5 of these new universes, the prof survives, but in the 6th, he dies. But if we’re looking at this from his perspective, he is witnessing the whole process, so therefore he must be alive. So therefore, we must be in one of the five universes where he is still alive. Isn’t it the Copenhagen Interpretation that says something along the lines that something has to be witnessed in order to happen? Like the two particles which can be in both places at once, in wave form, but once observed they take on a physical form and end up in one place? Is that right, like Schroedinger’s Cat? So, logically, if it is me that is the prof, I will continue to observe what is going on, because I am still alive in at least one of the multiple universes. So from my point of view, it will appear almost miraculous, because the chamber with the bullet in it will never land in the correct position. Like tossing a coin, where the probability of head is 50%, but I toss the coin 12,500 times and each time it lands on heads, but that can only happen in one universe, whereas in the other 24,999 universes that have been created since I started flipping the coin, this never happens (although there is one universe where it lands on tails 12,500 times). So this is why, and I hope I’m right, from your own perspective, you won’t die young. I’ve no idea what will get us in the end, or whether we will all live to be 120 years old and our bodies eventually just pack up due to old age. Theoretically, you should survive in your own universe (not sure this qualifies as solipsism, although there seem to be similarities), and watch as other people fall by the wayside, yet in so many of the other universes, you will be dead, while other people survive, it’s just that you won’t be there to observe that. I could be talking utter cobblers, but I like this idea. I’m not sure how it concludes - theoretically it sounds as though we could live forever, or at least up until natural causes take over, I don’t know, that final part needs polishing (or maybe further reading). Or like I said, I might be talking cobblers, misinterpreting some of the theories already out there. I was going to send this as a private message Mike, following our conversation as we walked to the pub on Friday, but then I thought it should be posted for others to read. Other people might be able to confirm Im talking cobblers, or might be able to chip in with ideas of their own, or even just to extract the Michael. Im sure this is a post rich with ribbing possibilities :-)
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 09:22:37 +0000
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