Pointless Ponderings
Don't have anything new here, surprise surprise. But I do have an interesting topic.
Ever read a great book that you wished you inhabited? I know I have. I'm reading here about a particularly twisty pocket of physics called quantum mechanics. Here are the select highlights:
Such arrogance! To actually suggest that the existance of the universe, born of the Big Bang Theory billions of years before life or worlds evolved from its fires of energy and chaos, is dependent on the minds of humans or others to somehow will it into being smacks of nothing so much as a kind of megalomanical hubris, an arrogant, doomed assumption by Man of the prerogatives of God.
And yet, this seems to be precisely the way things work, as validated both by the mathematics of quantum mechanics, and by experimental results.
Erwin Shroedinger illuminated this radical, seemingly mystical notion by inventing a thought experiment, a well-known physical parable that today bears the name Schroedinger's Cat. Suppose, the parable goes, an experimenter places a live cat in a sealed box. With the cat is a vial of prussic acid, designed to be broken if and only if some random event occurs, like the decay of a radioactive particle with a half-life of one hour.
The cat has a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the hour. At the end of sixty minutes, the experimenter opens the box. Will he find a live cat....or a dead one? More to the point, is the cat dead or alive BEFORE the experimenter opens the box?
According to one of the weirder interpretations of quantum theory, the correct answer is 'yes'. Until the box is open, say the equations, and the so-called 'observer effect' comes into play, the cat is both alive and dead, a kind of mathematical wave function that does not, that cannot, collapse into one probability or the other until the cat's state is actually observed.
The discussion seems to fly in the face of reason. However, this would hardly be the first time that insights the way the universe works seemed to defy common sense. In fact, enough experimental evidence has accumulated to suggest that quantum physics, does, in fact, provide the best interpretation of how the universe- or universes- actually work. One explanation, known as the Copenhagen Interpretation, postulates that every time a quantum event occurs,(an electon goes up an energy level, its spin changes, it loses energy), a new universe branches off to accomodate the change.
This theory is controversial to say the least. Can it be that a new universe is born EACH AND EVERY TIME something as insubstantial as a photon is born, or the spin-state of an electron changes?
Perhaps nature is not so profligate. Perhaps the multiplicity of universes overlap somehow, in ways we cannot yet understand. Perhaps such overlappings explain how people could unknowingly step from one world to another, as seems to have happened upon occasion. The accounts of Charles Forte and of other books are filled with names and descriptions of mysterious vanishings and arrivals--Kaspar Hauser, Judge Crater, the two women at the Garden of Triannon, the green children of Suffolk, the crew of the Marie Celeste, the ubquitous 'Grays' who COULD be extraterrestial but who can exhibit powers more easily explained by extra-dimensional origins- and so very many more.
Even so, it seems that nothing less that an infinity of parallel universes, alternate realities distinct from one another yet ever splitting one from another like the branches of a tree, could embrace so bizarre a concept.
Infinity is a very LARGE number, one that means ANYTHING is possible--somewhere. An ifinity of universes means that somewhere, somehow, every possible event or combination of events has taken place. Every alternate history ever imagined, every world of fantasy ever dreamed of, every universe concieved by every writer of science fiction, every hallucination spawned by every madman, all, ALL have concrete reality, somewhere. Did they exist from the beginning, or were they somehow created by the very act of thinking about them? The question may well be meaningless; time may be an illusion from the unique perspective of the metacosmos, and reality may require no more than BELIEF to give it substance.
The Nobel-winning physicist Niels Bohr once commented," Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it."
Consider. Within the framework of quantum physics and the Worlds of If, it is quite possible-more, it is certain- that somewhere, someWHEN, universes exist-infinities of them, in fact where magic works. Where Sauron's minions seek the One Ring, and hobbits shun such inconvenient thins like adventures. Where the Lensman battles the evil forces of dark Eddore, or where crystal cities gleam along the banks of the Grand Canal on Mars. Where Vikings colonized all of North America, or perhaps where the cause of Southern Independence was won at Gettysburg. Where YOU are the president of the United States of Columbia...or the Emperor of the Earth and all her far-flung colonies.
*********************************************************************************************
If you don't understand this right away, read it over and think about it some more. This theory is the one light on the horizon that has kept me trudging through life after my ill-fated attempt. It gives me hope that there are places where there are no such things as hate, jealousy, or war. And maybe there's a universe out there where I kissed Ray, and stayed there with him for the rest of our lives. And that comes with the chance, however minsculely tiny, that I may cross over to it.
But I do not place my hopes on that. It's comforting just to think about it. I have faith in this theory, it has to be true, even scientific evidence says so. Of course, with all the possibilities for paradisial worlds, there are is an equally infinite amount of bad ones, as well. I have said that there are worlds where there is no such things as hate or fighting; imagine a place where that's all that exists. Where the people despise each other for no reason, and exterminate themselves as well as the natural world around them. That makes me a little more grateful for the Earth we live in, however troubled it might be right now, there will always be room for hope.
Look at me, getting all sentimental. ;) As much as this world gets worse, it always gets just as much better. I'm sure of it. It has to. Just contemplate the endless paths of far worse alternatives.
~Adrian
Ever read a great book that you wished you inhabited? I know I have. I'm reading here about a particularly twisty pocket of physics called quantum mechanics. Here are the select highlights:
Such arrogance! To actually suggest that the existance of the universe, born of the Big Bang Theory billions of years before life or worlds evolved from its fires of energy and chaos, is dependent on the minds of humans or others to somehow will it into being smacks of nothing so much as a kind of megalomanical hubris, an arrogant, doomed assumption by Man of the prerogatives of God.
And yet, this seems to be precisely the way things work, as validated both by the mathematics of quantum mechanics, and by experimental results.
Erwin Shroedinger illuminated this radical, seemingly mystical notion by inventing a thought experiment, a well-known physical parable that today bears the name Schroedinger's Cat. Suppose, the parable goes, an experimenter places a live cat in a sealed box. With the cat is a vial of prussic acid, designed to be broken if and only if some random event occurs, like the decay of a radioactive particle with a half-life of one hour.
The cat has a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the hour. At the end of sixty minutes, the experimenter opens the box. Will he find a live cat....or a dead one? More to the point, is the cat dead or alive BEFORE the experimenter opens the box?
According to one of the weirder interpretations of quantum theory, the correct answer is 'yes'. Until the box is open, say the equations, and the so-called 'observer effect' comes into play, the cat is both alive and dead, a kind of mathematical wave function that does not, that cannot, collapse into one probability or the other until the cat's state is actually observed.
The discussion seems to fly in the face of reason. However, this would hardly be the first time that insights the way the universe works seemed to defy common sense. In fact, enough experimental evidence has accumulated to suggest that quantum physics, does, in fact, provide the best interpretation of how the universe- or universes- actually work. One explanation, known as the Copenhagen Interpretation, postulates that every time a quantum event occurs,(an electon goes up an energy level, its spin changes, it loses energy), a new universe branches off to accomodate the change.
This theory is controversial to say the least. Can it be that a new universe is born EACH AND EVERY TIME something as insubstantial as a photon is born, or the spin-state of an electron changes?
Perhaps nature is not so profligate. Perhaps the multiplicity of universes overlap somehow, in ways we cannot yet understand. Perhaps such overlappings explain how people could unknowingly step from one world to another, as seems to have happened upon occasion. The accounts of Charles Forte and of other books are filled with names and descriptions of mysterious vanishings and arrivals--Kaspar Hauser, Judge Crater, the two women at the Garden of Triannon, the green children of Suffolk, the crew of the Marie Celeste, the ubquitous 'Grays' who COULD be extraterrestial but who can exhibit powers more easily explained by extra-dimensional origins- and so very many more.
Even so, it seems that nothing less that an infinity of parallel universes, alternate realities distinct from one another yet ever splitting one from another like the branches of a tree, could embrace so bizarre a concept.
Infinity is a very LARGE number, one that means ANYTHING is possible--somewhere. An ifinity of universes means that somewhere, somehow, every possible event or combination of events has taken place. Every alternate history ever imagined, every world of fantasy ever dreamed of, every universe concieved by every writer of science fiction, every hallucination spawned by every madman, all, ALL have concrete reality, somewhere. Did they exist from the beginning, or were they somehow created by the very act of thinking about them? The question may well be meaningless; time may be an illusion from the unique perspective of the metacosmos, and reality may require no more than BELIEF to give it substance.
The Nobel-winning physicist Niels Bohr once commented," Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it."
Consider. Within the framework of quantum physics and the Worlds of If, it is quite possible-more, it is certain- that somewhere, someWHEN, universes exist-infinities of them, in fact where magic works. Where Sauron's minions seek the One Ring, and hobbits shun such inconvenient thins like adventures. Where the Lensman battles the evil forces of dark Eddore, or where crystal cities gleam along the banks of the Grand Canal on Mars. Where Vikings colonized all of North America, or perhaps where the cause of Southern Independence was won at Gettysburg. Where YOU are the president of the United States of Columbia...or the Emperor of the Earth and all her far-flung colonies.
*********************************************************************************************
If you don't understand this right away, read it over and think about it some more. This theory is the one light on the horizon that has kept me trudging through life after my ill-fated attempt. It gives me hope that there are places where there are no such things as hate, jealousy, or war. And maybe there's a universe out there where I kissed Ray, and stayed there with him for the rest of our lives. And that comes with the chance, however minsculely tiny, that I may cross over to it.
But I do not place my hopes on that. It's comforting just to think about it. I have faith in this theory, it has to be true, even scientific evidence says so. Of course, with all the possibilities for paradisial worlds, there are is an equally infinite amount of bad ones, as well. I have said that there are worlds where there is no such things as hate or fighting; imagine a place where that's all that exists. Where the people despise each other for no reason, and exterminate themselves as well as the natural world around them. That makes me a little more grateful for the Earth we live in, however troubled it might be right now, there will always be room for hope.
Look at me, getting all sentimental. ;) As much as this world gets worse, it always gets just as much better. I'm sure of it. It has to. Just contemplate the endless paths of far worse alternatives.
~Adrian