Re: Universes with different laws?

From: Fred Chen <flipsu5.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 21:07:13 -0700

Saibal Mitra wrote:


> According to quantum theory there exists a finite probability that someone
> will simulate me in a virtual environment using a computer. This means
that
> there is a finite probability that I could wake up in a virtual world with
> different effective laws of physics. Of course, the real laws of physics
> haven't
> changed, but to me that's not relevant. Once I find myself in the
> simulation, I have to deal with the virtual world.
>
> I would thus say:
>
> The MWI of quantum physics implies that all logical possible universes
> actually exist, because they can all be simulated inside a single
universe,
> and the MWI guarantees that every posible simulation is actually being run
> on a computer in some branch.
>

The MWI of quantum mechanics (where worlds share common laws and
characteristics) and the multiverse concept from Tegmark, Schmidhuber, Lewis
and others (all logically possible universes exist, including those with
different laws and characteristics) are very similar, but they are actually
independent concepts. It is an interesting perspective you bring up where
all possible universes could actually be MWI-type splittings of a computer
running a program.

Fred
Received on Sat Aug 18 2001 - 21:14:17 PDT