Re: Infinite Universe analogy for MWI
On Tue, 4 May 1999, Gale wrote: > Jacques M Mallah wrote: > > It never ceases to amaze me that many people who are adamantly > > opposed to the MWI accept an infinite universe without blinking an eye. > > This analogy also shows that the MWI is really a conservative hypothesis. > > That is quite interesting. Especially since priors on how a universe > might form tend to suggest finite universes. > > > Right. Although I suppose one could generalize the idea of a > > non-MWI infinite universe to include such things as Lee Smolin's universes > > that are produced by black holes. > > Current observations indicate that our universe is open and > > suggest that the expansion is accelerating. > > I read current findings as general agreement on a hyperbolic geometry > (with accelerating expansion even) but that whether this is associated > with a closed or open universe is still undecided. That's interesting. I thought most people agreed that a non-collapsing universe would be open. It remains true, that many people believe that, but maybe not the most knowledgeable people. I don't really know that much about current hypotheses on universe formation ... - - - - - - - Jacques Mallah ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate "I know what no one else knows" - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Infinite Universe analogy for MWI
Jacques M Mallah wrote (in Re: Recent paper on MWI) > The predictions of the MWI > are very clearly no different from the predictions of a one world > interpretation in an infinite universe. Ive taken this out of context, but you have made similar statements before, Jacques. Im not sure if you mean this literally, or as an analogy that makes a convenient way to think for most purposes. It is certainly a convenient analogy. However, I see one way in which the predictions of the MWI of a closed universe would be different from the predictions of a one world interpretation in an infinite universe. Basically, when the observers within the closed universe became able to observe the closed nature of their universe, they would have a difference between the MWI of their own universe and a one world interpretation of some part of an infinite universe, because the topologies must differ. Now, as is frequently argued here, nothing is impossible for a QM universe, so there would actually be some incredibly tiny measure of universe segments in an infinite universe where just by chance, over billions of years, the universe segments acted in a manner probable for a closed topology. But what is left of the simple statement above is that the measure of a closed appearing universe would be *very* much smaller in an infinite universe than in a closed universe. Gale
