Just because a set of things is infinite does not mean it is all encompassing. For example, there is an infinite number of distinct digits between 1 and 2 (1.1, 1.2, 1.21, etc.) But none of them are 3.
I mean- neither one is wrong exactly. Not only can an infinite string never produce a certain result, but despite the sound of it- there are different scales of infinity. Which leads to a question not of how they count in any universe precisely- but how the universe counts. We tend to think of infinity as starting at a number and counting up forever. That’s… a version. But let’s say instead of starting at “1” and writing numbers in a line forever- what if we put a “1” in the upper left corner of a grid, and while we wrote “2,3,4” to infinity going from left to right, we also continued “2,3,4” going down from “1”? And what if for each square on the grid we continued adding numbers to infinity starting with the last number going down? Like this but much longer:
1234
2345
3456
4567
So we would have infinite whole nuke era of every number and infinite sequences of numbers infinitely- which while still “infinity” as though we just wrote them out in a line- this is kinda like… “bigger infinity…”
Of course we can also list numbers “normally” in multiple rows like this but bigger:
12345
12345
12345
And we still end up with every whole number ever that could exist- but we end up with more than if we just made one single line list- but unlike a single line list, we have strings of infinite “2” or “100” etc. which gives us less total complete sequences of every number than our grid example for a given number of characters from our infinite sequence- but we end up with more or any one specific number.
We can also do a grid where we list numbers, but not on one line. Like:
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
11121314
Where this sequence will have infinite sequences that vary based on row length but we can create all manner of quantity of various infinite unique sequences.
Of course there is no reason peoppe in other universes can’t count differently. People in our universe do it to! We don’t have to count in “base ten,” where 9 is the largest digit that can occupy a space before you have to “carry” the number over a place. Using another base changes some things but it doesn’t change reality since math reflects reality. But if we take the extreme hyperbolic view of multiverses- there could then be a universe where fundamentals of physics and reality were totally different and thusly the basic way math even works would be completely different since math expresses reality in numbers!
Of course we can’t say what is or isn’t possible- but it’s very likely that any sort of “multiverse” copies of our universe could at most only exist for every POSSIBLE scenario. So there are a bunch of unknowns- but if the greater “multi universe” that contains all these alternate universes- the operating system or “engine” of reality has certain set rules which can’t be violated- then no universe could exist which violates those rules unless some fir e had the power to change the rules and did so, but such a force could not theoretically be generated form within the multiverse as such a force theoretically wouid violate the rules of the multiverse. Or not. It’s all speculative.
I love the fact that alternate universes are just as likely to not exist. This could very well be the only universe. There is literally no way to test the multiverse hypothesis, at least for now and maybe forever, so we can't actually say. Unlike Schrodinger's cat we have have no way to open the box. But I do like a good thought exercise and we've got some really nifty stories out of this one.
For sure. It can be a lot of fun to think about- and as you say, we don’t really have a way to know. One prevalent model of reality that is still fun but less fantastical to ponder on is one in which time is merely the perception of an observer sequencing events. It doesn’t exist in a practical sense and all events happen simultaneously. In other words the beginning and end of the universe are at the the same time and that time is.. technically now. But what we perceive as time is just our minds taking in all that sensory data without ability to process it and are thusly sequencing it. That would imply that causality is also a figment of the mind- a result of how our brains work. We would perceive a cause and then an effect because natively that’s just how we are wired. Which could also explain some odd quantum phenomenon and such that seem to or theoretically violate causality.
That gets a bit pseudo scientific and again is a bit hard to prove at the moment if ever. It does conveniently explain some things though- like why time travel wouldn't work- time wouldn’t be a dimension to move through, you’d only exist in space- the two sets of “coordinates” for time and space would be identical. If all things happen at once it seems contradictory to say but you couldn’t be in two places at once. You’d be where you are and able to observe events local to you, and your perception of temporal movement would be simply your mind sequencing things. A flip book is an imprecise but workable analogy. If you have a 500 page flip book where each page has a slightly different image and if you flip them it appears that a bear is dancing or something- if you spread those images out on one piece of paper you could focus on all 500 at once. So “time” and “causality” would simply be your mind creating a sort of “flip book” from reality.
Much the same that if you are physically in Manitoba Canada you wouldn't be able to see and hear with your own sense what was occurring in Tokyo Japan- if we picture reality as a globe of sorts or similar plane that is huge- let’s say the American Civil War is Tokyo and everything you’ve seen and done or will see and do in life is a room in Manitoba.
If you can’t actually travel through time, forwards or backwards- it doesn’t technically exist- you couldn’t reach Tokyo aka the US civil war or any other events that you don’t perceive as in your lifetime” because wherever you are at this moment is where you are in the universe. I dunnoh. Kinda neat stuff. There are obviously way more theories or speculation and such. But that is one I find neat.
And quick side note- coming towards the inform war/end game arc in the marvel films, with all they did in the story up to that point, I was very concerned because I couldn’t see how they’d write themselves out of it without using time travel or multiple universes- my fear being that especially for such a mass appeal “blockbuster” style franchise that they’d handle it ham fistedly if they did. And in my opinion… that’s what they did. Basically took out all the stakes. When <beloved character> dies, it had zero impact on me- they can multiverse time travel them back now. When <beloved character> goes back to live their life over, it was like…. This doesn’t really matter at all anymore.
It’s one of the reasons I’ve never been into traditional big name style comics. The continuity is a mess and it was like click bait before the internet. You can only see “final death of..” or “this time it’s for real” or “it’s permanent..” so many times only to have things rebooted or retconned.
The time thing is interesting but it fails the non-perception test. It's similar in concept to those that exclaim reality is purely what we perceive and not on it's own a fact. The easiest way I've come to describe it is with death. Specifically those that die from things that happen too quickly to for them to realize they are going to die. In those cases they don't perceive anything and they still die or turn into goo or dust. The same is similar with the all at once theory. If time and space are related so that a coordinate in time is the same as a space then there should be several things happening at once. Instead of actually moving in the form of waives or particles everything should be lines. This is close-ish to string theory but not really. Second would be that if you ever did actually travel to another coordinate since time and space are the same whatever existed there would always exist there without beginning or end. Thirdly light or a moving object can't actually move since
it already exists in all the coordinates it will ever exist in. This means if we're "traveling" in a perceived direction and we shine light behind us it can't ever be reflected back or vice versa if we do see a reflection is should have been perceivable in front of us before it was reflected. Just the mere fact that light's speed can't actually be measured one way disproves this. Of course this also means that because light's speed can be measured by it's reflection also disproves this. Is an interesting concept though. In fact it's been used in scifi before too. DS9 used it for the wormhole aliens. They perceived time not as linear but as a whole and decisions were made based on the outcomes achieved before the act was ever done.
I forgot all about the “prophets” from DS9 and their perception. Good call back. Good show. lol.
I largely agree with you, but I will say that it’s not necessarily a failure due to non perception. There are several factors I think that can play into it. For example- if cause and effect are an artifact of how we sequence things, it’s moot. Wether you perceive what killed you and then die, or die and then perceive what kills you. More so- that shows the perception bias. Who says that something killed you so you died? If we reverse causality- something had to kill you as an effect of you dying. If we have no causality- something killing you and you dying are perhaps unrelated. Another way to say it- if everything happens all at once- you die the moment you’re born and you were born the moment the universe was. Where you die perceptively would just be wherever that death fell in the sequence of things- now one could say that’s where we prove non perception- how could you sequence…
.. what you didn’t know? There are two answers I think mainly. The first is that we know many things we don’t know. You might hear a tune and recall it but not be able to place it, or have seen DS9 like 5 times front to back and forgot about the prophets being in a moment in time. You may read an old book or what not or hear an old story or see an old video and your memory isn’t the same as what is there. So the mind is not perfect. The second is that you don’t need to know something happened for it to happen- it still happens wether you know it or not. I would doubt reality is any individuals “dream” or some shared construct generated from all our minds and “doesn’t exist-“ the particular theory I discussed was more that reality is real, but we can’t experience it omnipotently or omnipresently, we can only experience it from a narrow perspective. So if all things happen at once, you could only experience some fraction of those and you couldn’t process all at once.
You not perceiving something wouldn't mean it wasn’t real- if would just mean you didn’t notice it. An ability would be that if you are in a crowded market, there might be 1,000+ people. Would you know or be able to know what every one of them was doing at any second? Who was wearing what clothes, who bought what for what price, who was being pickpocketed? Even people like security who’s focus is on spotting only rule breakers sometimes miss some. The nature of human cognition as we know it. We can’t process all that information at once. Some things “jump out” to us for whatever reason, we may forget the face of a loved one after many years or remember a stranger forever. We may find one person in a crowd oddly captivating and totally miss one person in a smaller group. Many factors contribute- but that’s the gist.
What’s very interesting to me- and it feeds into ponderings on reality or religion or many things of this nature- there are some things we just… can’t understand. Time travel fiction- even relatively hard science fiction versions- often fall prey to concessions for the sake of comprehension or because the authors bias. Picturing a reality without cause and effect or where they are flipped etc for example- we can maybe sort of kind of get an idea but we can’t understand it. Some higher dimensional space where shapes exist that we can’t even fathom… how do you proves a shape you can’t understand? Many works of fiction or religion and magic speak of entities which appear in alternate forms or disguises etc. because a human can’t understand their form or would die/go insane etc. is this possible? Maybe. There may be things we can’t process.
What happens when we encounter them is a semi mystery. It might be as simple as the human brain/mind or the minds of all things have evolved to ignore or otherwise negate such things- if we think about it- it would make sense that IF things existed that the very sight of could kill or drive mad, it probably wouldn’t take long for a species that could see them to go extinct or develop some method to cope in a world where perceiving or being near etc. the wrong place could instantly end you. That sounds like a long shot to me- but it is a bit of a fun thought. The nature of reality is as you said- unknown, probably
Unknowable. We lack the capability to even definitively say what consciousness is or where it might come from. We have clues and theories- but we still can’t even prove you or I exist necessarily beyond to say that regardless, we seem to so must assume we do.
"I think therefore I am" huh? Interesting that we can still come back to that phrase all these millennia later. One of my favorite scifi book series is Troy Rising. In the series the mc is talking with an AI where the AI explains how knowledge works. It's something along the lines of "there are things we know, things we know we don't know and things we don't know we don't know." Now they added another one for the AI "things we know but can't know" meaning the AIs know they know something but aren't allowed to access that information. Anytime I get going on a thought exercise I'm always reminded of the first bit with the things we don't know we don't know. You can drive yourself mad trying to ponder that one, and yet isn't it such fun?
Agreed. That addition of things we know but can’t know is a neat twist on a classic model of thought- especially for AI. Im grateful to have the luxury to be able to ponder things at length.
1234
2345
3456
4567
Of course we can also list numbers “normally” in multiple rows like this but bigger:
12345
12345
12345
And we still end up with every whole number ever that could exist- but we end up with more than if we just made one single line list- but unlike a single line list, we have strings of infinite “2” or “100” etc. which gives us less total complete sequences of every number than our grid example for a given number of characters from our infinite sequence- but we end up with more or any one specific number.
We can also do a grid where we list numbers, but not on one line. Like:
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
11121314
Where this sequence will have infinite sequences that vary based on row length but we can create all manner of quantity of various infinite unique sequences.
If you can’t actually travel through time, forwards or backwards- it doesn’t technically exist- you couldn’t reach Tokyo aka the US civil war or any other events that you don’t perceive as in your lifetime” because wherever you are at this moment is where you are in the universe. I dunnoh. Kinda neat stuff. There are obviously way more theories or speculation and such. But that is one I find neat.
It’s one of the reasons I’ve never been into traditional big name style comics. The continuity is a mess and it was like click bait before the internet. You can only see “final death of..” or “this time it’s for real” or “it’s permanent..” so many times only to have things rebooted or retconned.
I largely agree with you, but I will say that it’s not necessarily a failure due to non perception. There are several factors I think that can play into it. For example- if cause and effect are an artifact of how we sequence things, it’s moot. Wether you perceive what killed you and then die, or die and then perceive what kills you. More so- that shows the perception bias. Who says that something killed you so you died? If we reverse causality- something had to kill you as an effect of you dying. If we have no causality- something killing you and you dying are perhaps unrelated. Another way to say it- if everything happens all at once- you die the moment you’re born and you were born the moment the universe was. Where you die perceptively would just be wherever that death fell in the sequence of things- now one could say that’s where we prove non perception- how could you sequence…
Unknowable. We lack the capability to even definitively say what consciousness is or where it might come from. We have clues and theories- but we still can’t even prove you or I exist necessarily beyond to say that regardless, we seem to so must assume we do.