Multiverses: Do Other Universes Exist?

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 9:50 am

Cranberry wrote:
Walden wrote:What would constitute another universe? Would the existence of other universes mean that the universe was not all-encompassing? What is the boundary line? What makes other universes so other?
I think I agree with that.

What constitutes any universe?
Look at the Mandelbrot. A theoretically infinite mathmatical universe. How about some of the vast online virtual worlds. I consider them micro-universes.

Then there's the universe we create in our minds daily. For example the voices in my head come from a beautiful universe where everything is MINE. And everyone is MY MINION. MUUAAAHAAHAAAH.

...sorry. got carried away.

I.D.10-t · Post by **I.D.10-t** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 9:56 am

Flyingcursor wrote:
Cranberry wrote:
Walden wrote:What would constitute another universe? Would the existence of other universes mean that the universe was not all-encompassing? What is the boundary line? What makes other universes so other?
I think I agree with that.
What constitutes any universe?
Look at the Mandelbrot. A theoretically infinite mathmatical universe. How about some of the vast online virtual worlds. I consider them micro-universes.

Then there's the universe we create in our minds daily. For example the voices in my head come from a beautiful universe where everything is MINE. And everyone is MY MINION. MUUAAAHAAHAAAH.

...sorry. got carried away.

Just make sure the sky isn’t green in your world. It makes it near impossible to tell when to stop mowing.

missy · Post by **missy** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 9:59 am

I remember YEARS ago, reading a sci-fi story about a "universe" that was contained in a water drop. I think it was called "Surface Tension".

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 10:13 am

I.D.10-t wrote:
Flyingcursor wrote:
Cranberry wrote: I think I agree with that.
What constitutes any universe?
Look at the Mandelbrot. A theoretically infinite mathmatical universe. How about some of the vast online virtual worlds. I consider them micro-universes.

Then there's the universe we create in our minds daily. For example the voices in my head come from a beautiful universe where everything is MINE. And everyone is MY MINION. MUUAAAHAAHAAAH.

...sorry. got carried away.
Just make sure the sky isn’t green in your world. It makes it near impossible to tell when to stop mowing.

Well, when I read things such as

According to Max Tegmark, the existence of other universes is a direct implication of cosmological observations. In an article entitled "Parallel Universes" in the May 2003 issue of Scientific American, he presents a clear and comprehensive picture of the idea of parallel universes. Tegmark describes the set of related concepts which share the notion that there are universes beyond the familiar observable one. He goes on to provide a taxonomy of parallel universes organized by levels.(1)

Level I: (Open multiverse) A generic prediction of cosmic inflation is an infinite ergodic universe, which contains Hubble volumes realizing all initial conditions - including an identical copy of you about meters away.

Level II: (Andre Linde's bubble theory) In chaotic inflation, other thermalized regions may have different effective physical constants, dimensionality and particle content. Surprisingly this level includes Wheeler's oscillating universe theory as well.

Level III: (Hugh Everett III's many-worlds interpretation) An interpretation of quantum mechanics that proposes the existence of multiple universes, all of which are identical, but exist in possibly different states. It is widely believed that Everett's interpretation considered as a formal theory is a conservative extension of standard quantum mechanics, that is, as far as results expressible in the language of ordinary quantum mechanics is concerned, it leads to no new results. According to Tegmark "This is ironic given that this level has historically been the most controversial".

Level IV: (The ultimate "Ensemble theory" of Tegmark) Other mathematical structures give different fundamental equations of physics. M-theory would be placed here. Since this subsumes all other ensembles, it therefore brings closure to the hierarchy of multiverses: there cannot be a Level V .

...it's honestly flies over my head; however, Walden's thoughts are easier for me to understand...

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 10:19 am

Flyingcursor wrote:How about some of the vast online virtual worlds. I consider them micro-universes.

You mean like http://shipoffools.com ?

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 10:41 am

Walden wrote:
Flyingcursor wrote:How about some of the vast online virtual worlds. I consider them micro-universes.
You mean like http://shipoffools.com ?

I was thinking of Evercrack or World of Warcraft but that site may be considered.

Here's a few scifi items about alternate universes.

Every time someone makes a decision a new universe is created where the opposite decision is made. I can't remember where I read that one.

I had an idea for a time travel story where the hero discovers you cannot travel in time and what's really happening is he is jumping into a self created alternate universe. He get's stuck creating multiple universes and there's some time paradoxes and there's a plot and eventually he get's back or he doesn't.

Another idea is that of space travel. A special drive that somehow bounces you into an alternate universe but because no universe can lose or gain matter you get bounced right back but in a different spot. In this story instead of getting bounced back something goes wrong and an object with exactly equal # of atoms is send to this universe instead, causing mayhem.

missy · Post by **missy** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 10:45 am

anyone (old enough) to remember Dark Shadows and it's "parallel time"??

Tyler · Post by **Tyler** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 10:45 am

Flyingcursor wrote: Another idea is that of space travel. A special drive that somehow bounces you into an alternate universe but because no universe can lose or gain matter you get bounced right back but in a different spot.... causing mayhem.

I thought that was raquetball...

maire · Post by **maire** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 10:53 am

I know this to be true.
There are others out there.
How do I know?
Ask my ex-husband, he was definately not from this planet, as we say in Belfast,'he was a space cadet'.

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 11:02 am

Beautiful photo, Denny. As to multiple universes, I think that there are questions where "I don't know or maybe" is about as close as we are going to come to a good answer. I am comfortable with having things left as unknown. For example, what will happen when I die? I don't know the answer to that, and that is OK with me, although I doubt that I will "Walk All Over God's Heaven". It is more likely that I will pop my tiny head out once again in a third world country on planet Earth and hope for the best possible life. That is some incentive for me to be as generous as possible with my current world-wide charitable giving. The Carter Foundation is doing good work in this regard.

djm · Post by **djm** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 11:39 am

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 12:04 pm

This is a theme in the Golden Compass (His Dark Materials) Trilogy by Philip Pullman. (The first book is called Northern Lights in the UK.)

In the second book, The Subtle Knife, one of the characters obtains a knife which enables him to cut holes between universes. It causes all kinds of problems. If you find a knife like that, try not to use it.

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 1:41 pm

Walden wrote:What would constitute another universe? Would the existence of other universes mean that the universe was not all-encompassing? What is the boundary line? What makes other universes so other?

Well, one of the most understandable possiblities I've heard was
along dimensionality. Imagine that time is not continuous; it just
seems continuous to us, but is actually a series of discrete
moments, and the amount of time between moments is too small for
us to perceive. Then, it would be possible for another universe to
exist on another timeline, with each moment being interspersed
between two of our moments. Then, you wouldn't be able to
perceive it, because you only perceive the moments that make up
your own universe's timeline. It would be just as easy to imagine lots
of universes' moments interspersed between two of our moments.
(On second thought, maybe this is easier to understand if you've
had a Digital Signal Processing class...) If you were able to imagine
this for time, you could also imagine it for any of the other
dimensions (including forward/backward, right/left, up/down)...

Your question about boundaries is a good one. In this example,
what would bind us to our particular set of moments, and not let us
smear our timeline into other universes?

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 1:42 pm

fearfaoin wrote:In this example,
what would bind us to our particular set of moments, and not let us
smear our timeline into other universes?

Our mental health.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 3:20 pm

missy wrote:I remember YEARS ago, reading a sci-fi story about a "universe" that was contained in a water drop. I think it was called "Surface Tension".

If ever you've had the self-punishing urge to tackle the Lankavatara Sutra (sorta like tackling Finnegan's Wake but different), you come across the idea that there are universes contained within universes ad infinitum.

It doesn't pay the bills.