jmtorres | More brain explodey

Current Mood: analytical

More brain explodey

Here's my current problem with division of universes at every decision point:

Not all outcomes are equally probable.

I could decide to eat the can of chicken soup I accidentally left in my bedroom a month ago. But I probably won't today. After all, when I am hungry, I go to the kitchen. Soup? Not in kitchen.

But is probability purely a function of my universe, based on which occurrences happen here, or is probability a multiversal property? Is the fact that I am not likely to eat the soup reflected in the division of universes over my lunch choice, or is the fact that I am not likely to eat the soup purely a result of my not having eaten the soup yet in this universe?

If the universe splits over whether I eat the can of soup or some yogurt and sweet potato slices, then the multiverse has essentially placed equal weight of probability on both outcomes. For me, before the decision point, it's a fifty-fifty chance whether I will go left or right, to the daughter-universe where I eat the soup, or to the daughter-universe of yogurt.

Except it's not. It's not fifty-fifty. It's probably more like a one in twenty chance that I will eat that soup. Does that mean the multiverse will contain one universe where I have soup, and nineteen where I have yogurt? Or that the universe where I have yogurt is nineteen times as real as the universe in which I have soup?

Maybe you don't believe me about the soup, or the example doesn't work for you. I mean, the human mind is a complex thing. I've probably hugely influenced the probability that I will eat the soup by talking it to death. Today, it would be a conscious choice rather than a matter of whether I remember it's up in the bedroom or not. Today, it probably is fifty-fifty--whether my sense of irony leans towards eating it or leaving it be.

So let's talk about something I can't influence that way. Radioactivity. The idea of a half-life is based on probability. Here's a hunk of radioactive material. Half of the atoms in it will undergo radioactive decay and release an electron before X amount of time from now; half after. Some of them are doing it right now, some won't for thousands of years, and it's impossible to guess which atoms will be which.

But suppose, through some wildly improbable fluke, that all of the atoms in this particular hunk are going to decay in the next ten minutes. And this substance usually has a half-life of fifty years. All of these atoms have the potential to do just that, decay in the next ten minutes, but most of them probably won't. So it would be a major fluke, though not impossible, if they did. It could happen. The odds against it are astronomical, but it could happen.

Is there a universe where it does happen? Is there a universe where all the atoms decay in a ten-minute period sometime six hundred years from now? For every other possible amount of time and distributions around that time?

Are there universes where it's not just this hunk of substance, but every bit of this substance in that universe that behaves in these improbable ways? And in that universe, by virtue of it happening that way all the time, it is not improbable but perfectly normal? Universes where the half-life of a radioactive substance is different from what we would measure it as? Universes where the behavior of radioactive substances is so random and chaotic and improbable that no one has ever come up with the idea of a half-life?

Is there a universe for each possibility, even though some of the possibilities are more probable than others in our universe, which would imply that probability is local to a universe rather than multiversal?

Or is probability a property of the multiverse after all, are there more universes where probably outcomes occur and fewer where improbably outcomes occur? Or are universes which have higher probability more real than universes that have low probability?

Are improbable universes like--since I've already got the metaphor handy--radioactive isotopes, unstable, eventually decaying into more probable atoms? Like in Diana Wynne Jones's Witchweek--universe after universe where Guy Fawkes failed miserably, and just one where, to everyone's surprise, he actually succeeded in blowing up Parliament. And that universe was so improbable that it had to be reabsorbed into one of the others.

Here's an important piece of probability. The sliders are demonstrably more likely to land in certain types of universes--universes where humans evolved, universes which mostly diverged from their own only within the past few hundred years. They are unlikely to land in universes which diverged so recently and minutely as to be indistinguishable (although I spoiled myself for later episodes and apparently there's once where they see a murder before they slide, and on the other side the same murder is just about to be committed) and unlikely to land in universes that diverged so long ago that anything BC was affected (again, spoiled myself, there is a dinosaur planet... my point is, these are rare). I call this the electron shell theory of slide probability, because there's a certain range they bounce around in. But there's definite probability, and it looks like multiversal probability, not local universal probability. So how does that affect the division of universes based on a slide? Are bundles in which the sliders land inside the probable range repeated to make them more common than bundles in which the sliders land outside the probable range? Or are the bundles in which the sliders land inside the probable range more real, and bundles in which the sliders land outside the probable range less real and possbily prone to decay?

In case you were wondering, I had soup for lunch.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Does that mean the multiverse will contain one universe where I have soup, and nineteen where I have yogurt? Or that the universe where I have yogurt is nineteen times as real as the universe in which I have soup?

The former: it's not a 50-50 chance because whether you choose to eat the soup or not is a result of many preceding decisions.

Let's simplify the multiverse and only have one universe and take it as probability 1 that you come home for lunch at this time.

Decision one: The universe splits over whether you enter your palace from the back (uni 1) or the front (uni 2). In the back door scenario, you enter into the kitchen and it's probability 1 that you go for the yoghurt.

Decision two: following uni 2, you either summon a servant to bring you food from the kitchens (uni 2,1) or you go up to your room (uni 2,2). Path 1 means that you end up eating yoghurt and don't eat the soup.

Decision three: following uni 2,2, you either see the can of soup (uni 2,2,2) or you don't (path 2,2,1).

Decision four: following uni 2,2,2, you either choose to eat the can of soup (uni 2,2,2,2) or you summon a servant to bring food to your room (2,2,2,1).

The number of universes we have from our starting universe is 2^4 = 16, and in only one of those do you end up eating the soup. It's obviously a lot more complicated than that, but you see how the other option is actually 15 other eventualities.

Or is probability a property of the multiverse after all, are there more universes where probably outcomes occur and fewer where improbably outcomes occur? Or are universes which have higher probability more real than universes that have low probability?

All of me theory above assumes that each decision is a 50-50 choice, which is wrong. But if we took all the universes in which you were in the situation you were at at the start of this sample universe, and took an average mean of the probabilities of each decision, they would all resolve to 50-50 (and thus make up for one another), unless the very first time the universe split was not 50-50.

*nodding* I follow this, and it makes sense to me. Thank you. I think it could be made more realistic and complicated by having nonbinary decisions, but it's a good example.

unless the very first time the universe split was not 50-50.

I assume you meant the first time within this sample, but. Wow. *tries to figure out what the universe's actual first split was probably over* Time and speed of the Big Bang? Suppose in some universes it was fast enough to create an eternally expanding cosmos, but in other universes, the cosmos will eventually start contracting? And... if it wasn't a fifty-fifty split...

The only way I can visualize that is one chunk of multiverse being less real than another.

For Sliders, it's moot. I don't think they would ever manage to slide to a universe which diverged so far back, and if they did, who's to say Earth would even be there?

But my brain is kind of gooey now.

But since there is an endless number of factors, how do we begin to decide what the likelihood is? It seems logical to me that there would be "more" endless possibilities in the not-eating side of things, but who knows? Also, a friend of mine who actually knows her math says you can't have more or less of endless, cause it's all-encompassing.

Which, by the way, makes no sense to me. If I have a two-dimensional line going on endlessly in one direction, why can't I add to it an endlessness in another direction and get more?
Oh well.

Also, a friend of mine who actually knows her math says you can't have more or less of endless, cause it's all-encompassing.

That's true, which is why at the start I limited the example with "take it as probability 1 that you come home for lunch at this time". If we were to start measuring paths from the start of all creation and split universes at every possible point, it would be 50-50.

That is, of course, not taking into account the supernatural influence of Oberon, Puck, Trance Gemini, Frick, Flux, Tinkerbell, Mustardseed and all the other fairies whose duty it is to tend all branches of creation to happy endings. Then it's about 60-40 in favour of happy events (fairies aren't very good at what they do).

Trance Gemini operates in a reality featuring only one universe at a time--the universe at time point D may change because of alterations made to the universe at time point A, but the universe remains singular.

Trance Gemini is a Q on crack.

Only. Possible. Scientific. Explanation.

Perky cheerful crack!

Also, how do you explain Sid?

Sid is Q.

Wha--bu--*confused*

Dude. Trance is a Q, not, you know, Picard's boyfriend.

Sid is totally Picard's boyfriend.

Just think of the Q every time Trance mentions her people. And Sid shows up.

It'd explain how he went from needing Beka's help to being owner of everything so damn fast.

*sighs*

Shall I prepare the diagrams?

Dude. Trance is a Q, not, you know, Picard's boyfriend.

That cleared things up for me.

Query: Is Andromeda a post-Trek world? No mention has been made of the Federation, but the time is far enough after the, what, 23rd? 24th? century that Trek could be ancient history and the Federation annexed by the Commonwealth.

Well, it is a Roddenberry-verse. And their approach to time travel is like Star Trek's... sort of.

I view it as being one universe. Makes for evil ideas.

Yeah, but they make such good pets :)

MUSTARDSEED!

If I weren't dating so many people (and engaged to another entirely) I would propose right now.

Oh, why stop now?

What kind of girl do you think I am?

...don't answer that, sweetheart.

Heh. *smooch*

*smooch*

Thanks for not answering that.

Pity. You take slaves?

Always!

Friended ya!

Friended you back.

Yes, but see, you're ignoring Schroedinger. *IF* the multi-verse is probabilistic, then an outside observer is required to collapse the wave function into certainty. ALL possible universes stemming from all possible decision points and all their possible variations and permutations and random mutations exist in equally indeterminate limbo - until Q&Co became the outside observers by Sliding. So whatever universe they Slide to *doesn't* really exist until they get to it. There is only ONE real universe at a time - the one the Sliders are in. All the rest exist only in a vast fog of possiblity.

That is very much the Farscape theory of unrealized reality, but I see a flaw in it for Sliders:

Quinn from another universe came to our Quinn's home universe before or during our Quinn's first slide. How was he able to do so if one or both of his universe and our Quinn's home universe were unrealized at that time? And alterQuinn had made 7 slides previous: he should have been your outside observer, unless someone was sliding before him.

If there are multiple "outside observers" and they all see different things, what does that mean for reality?

Another thought: the Sliders do not, cannot see enough of a universe to define it wholly and completely. Ie, it is not one universe that would be defined by their observing it, but some huge number of related, similar universes which, from their limited observation, would all seem indistinguishable.

Or, did our Quinn slide into a "universe in which another Quinn has been sliding", making it real?

*g*

As I see it, the sliding itself is part of Quinn's universe. The universes he visits are part of his reality. You can call it a meta-universe, but it's still just one single option.

Bigger than the universe, smaller than the entire multiverse--I've been calling that a "bundle" of universes.

Does that imply that Quinn has never been home, not since the first experimental jaunt to red light/green light land? That the time did not return him to his own universe, but to a similar universe affected by the act of the slide itself?

OK, I've had just enough beer for the following to make sense: What if there is *only one* universe? Picture this - the universe as one of those newspaper holder thingys the library uses, with a central core that's split to allow each page it's own separate existance, while they're all joined at the center. But this has an infinite number of "pages".

Q¹ was the first to step outside his native page - but instead of Sliding to a "new" universe, he's really only Sliding to a different page. He's stepped off the spindle momentarily, then stepped back on, and in stepping has rearranged the pieces.

Like this - where the black lines are the various universes, and the green line represents one possible path for Q1 to take - around the outside - or via blue line through the center.

Wow, and I didn't even watch the show that much.

....I have people making graphics to illustrate their new metaphors of sliding to me.

I'm a menace and must be stopped.

What is the significance of all the pages being part of on universe, rather than multiple universes on a roulette wheel?

Perhaps the idea is that he's trying to get to another page instead of heading toward the spine. He's traveling in the wrong way.

In a way.
What I mean is that if we define "universe" from one person's perspective, Quinn can't leave his universe, since it's linked with the way he perceives what's around him. So everything he's been through happened in his universe.

I mean - "universe" can be seen not a specific dot in time/space/choices, but as what a specific person perceives around him, his reality. Since sliding (and the worlds he's been to) is part of his reality, part of the universe he chose and created, and lives in (much like your "have eaten soup" universe), it can be seen as just his universe.

Which, then, means there are a lot of universe possibilities in which people move from universe to universe.

But that's just one way of looking at it.

...you make my head hurt a lot. In a wonderful way. *hugs you*

Awww. *hugs you*

A possible sign that I need much more sleep: I understood what you were saying a heck of a lot better while you were talking about soup than while you were talking about half-lives.

Why, do you usually follow radioactivity very well?

Maybe not as well as the average chemistry major, but I normally have a decent understanding of the concept and its variations, yeah. Right now my reaction to anything above soup-level seems to be either "Buh?" or "Shiny."

I know! This has been bothering me since I read One.

You can say there are endless possibilities and therefor the math is impossible and irrelevant, but that's such a pansy un-answer.

And as for the probability being different in other universes - yes! Exactly! Which makes our guesses about the probability (if we assume some possibilities are more probable and therefore have more universes or something) completely subjective to our own view in our single universe, and therefore inaccurate (or, well, unlikely to be accurate *g*).

Perhaps different views in different universes do effect, or reflect, the actual number of universes for each possibility, but different views from different universes cancel each other out, so to speak, making all possibilities equally likely (the universe in which you'd eat the soup 19 times out of 20 would "cancel out" this one). Though, of course, who's to say everything would be that... organized.

Unlikely, you say? Well, perhaps there's a universe in which it is likely :)

LOVE your new icon! Can I have it?

He is mine! All mine!

Unrelated to your post, but:

I wandered over to Seven's board on a nostalgia trip today, and found that they're in the midst of a complete fandom archive effort ( http://p211.ezboard.com/fearthfinalconflictcentralfanfiction.showMessage?topicID=2306.topic ). I'll be overhauling the Spherite's Archive in the coming week. Wanna link and/or send me your old EFC fics? (Assuming no one's contacted you about this yet)

That link gets me an error message...

My old EFC fic is a) largely and permanently unfinished and b) rather embarrassing to me, now. While it is possible for one to find it with the proper search terms, as I did leave an extant copy on a website I no longer update, I'm not interested in making it any more available than that. Sorry.

s'cool

Pretty much all of this went right over my head, but you referenced Witchweek and I think I might love you for it.

Heh. Love those books.

So do I, dude. They're hella awesome. *goes to update wish list*

Ok, here's a theory. Not that I know the show, or its multiverse, but I shall theorize anywho.
It's not about what worlds are realer, or whether there's more of them or not; it's all a matter of *distance*. In one sense or another.

Assume, for a moment, that all the various universes have a quasigeographical arrangement in the multiverse. If we assume that most "like" universes are also "near" universes, and we also assume that most slides are (within a certain range) about the same cosmological distance, then they are unlikely to end up in a nearly-identical universe, but also unlikely to end up in a vastly, vastly different one. You will only end up in a nearly-identical 'verse if you take an unusually short slide, or there's two twin 'verses that are unusually far apart. Otoh, you'll only end up on Planet of the Dinosaurs if you take a phenomenally large slide, or there's an out-of-place 'verse.

Did you ever watch Sliders? Because they ended up on the Planet of the Dinosaurs and other random places like all the time.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

More brain explodey

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

If you even ever see this <g>

I see all, woman