On the borders of respectable physics and oddball philosophy lies the concept of the quantum multiverse, the notion that there is an infinite number of universe, which brings with it the possibility of an infinite number of possibilities.
To get a grasp of what infinity means as a mathematical concept I take you back to an early 1980s Not The Nine O'Clock News sketch which mentioned a parallel universe identical to this one, but in which the gear-stick of the Mini Metro was one millimetre shorter. Now extend that idea to include a parallel universe identical to this one, except that in it your breakfast this morning contained one fewer cornflake. And so on, you get the idea ( a parallel universe where on some planet on a star in a galaxy 7,000 light years away a amoeba-like creature has one more flagellum than in this universe).
Now imagine a parallel universe in which your parents never met. It exists - indeed, a near-infinite number of these parallel universes exist, but you cannot be aware of them, as in them, you don't exist.
This is the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, which has been around since first posited in the early 1950s. It has implications for those interested in the spiritual side of things. Recall that Schrodinger's cat is alive and dead until the observer opens the box and looks in to see which quantum state the radioactive particle is in - whether it has decayed or not. Now, you are the observer of all that is around you, you are alive and conscious. Now consider the many occasions since Big Bang that could have caused your parents not to meet; going back to before the dawn of Homo sapiens, to before the mammal evolved, to before life first crawled out of the oceans, to before conscious life first appeared on our planet, to before our solar system was formed.
More - there could be multiverses in which a 'parallel you' has already died - others have observed your passing, but not you, as the 'dead you' is no longer conscious.
But the 'live you' is very much conscious, reading these words and observing life and the universe. Could it be that you could go on observing it forever in at least one universe - the one you are observing?
Science is not tolerant of whacky ideas that cannot be subjected to scientific method - repeated in different labs by different scientists. The story of PEAR - the Princeton Engineering Anomaly Research lab is a cautionary tale for those who push the spiritual/parapsychological agenda too hard into the scientific world. There is a multiplicity of theories on the borders of what science considers to be acceptable. The nature of dark energy and dark matter, for example - substances/forces that remain undetectable - is one that generates many theories, which for the moment cannot be proven or disproven.
These leave open a window for unconventional thinking, as do the myriad possibilities that quantum uncertainty brings. Can we control quantum outcomes by thought? The PEAR lab debacle shows that even if one tenth of one percent of quantum outcomes can be altered by the observer, unless the experiments are repeatable, the theory is bunk.
The border between hard science and spirituality is a rigid one. But we must follow our instincts. Perhaps two multiverses coexist side by side - one in which magic happens, and we feel it, we know it's there - and another one, in which it doesn't, because it can't be proved.
The beauty of the quantum multiverse and its many-worlds interpretation is that everything is possible - but not always in the here-and-now.
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5 comments:
Hello Mike0000001, Richard0000001 here from the only universe0000001!
Hey, way back during epiphany you were doing a brilliant review of Stuart Kaufman’s book, which I really enjoyed and I’m sure others did too, my curiosity was aroused and I thought I’d have a look at some YouTube talks of his, but somehow got shunted off into the theories of Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose regarding consciousness and the quantum processes that probably give rise to it.
I think Penrose postulates something called “collapse of the wave function”, where as far as I can tell, a single photon having popped through all slits simultaneously, condenses back into a single entity removing the possibility of endless duff universes (and think of all the wasted energy that would involve!)
I feel sure you would enjoy Hameroff’s lectures as his theories point toward the brain’s capability of creating the “infinite and eternal” as you once wrote, and explains the instantaneous nature and timelessness of consciousness. What fun?
One of the very positive messages from this is that artificial brain simulations which could simulate or mimic human consciousness are not likely to arise any time soon.
Best wishes
@ Riccardo
How very good to hear from you! Many thanks for your comment - indeed Penrose and Hameroff's 'orchestrated objective reduction' (OrchOR) is a fascinating proposition - that consciousness does not reside between the neurons in the brain but actually in them (something about microtubules that I'm not 100% comfortable with); but this creates the possibility that consciousness is something more than a higher level of intelligence, as Marvin Minsky suggested. I'd go along with Penrose and Hameroff rather than Minsky on this - I believe consciousness is a stand-alone property like energy or mass. I shall have a look on YouTube for some Hameroff lectures!
Hope all is well at your end, all the very best!
@ Riccardo -
YES - this has it all...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpUVot-4GPM
A brilliant Sunday morning's reflection upon consciousness, the universe, the soul - many thanks for pointing me here!
Thanks for that, am looking at it now.
I have spent some time looking at Roger Penrose interviews and am very inspired by his depth of knowledge, his curiosity about the universe - apparently at all scales, and at such an advanced age still having a grasp of it all! I suspect he knows a lot more than Einstein, Feynman, and Hawking, well mainly because he’s still alive and has been going at it for over 60 years and that he has an almost continual Buddha smile, which I think derives from the pleasure of enlightening those around him (and of course living in Oxford, which is a great place to be!)
For myself, I can’t see why the efficiency of quantum biological processes would be overlooked in evolution of life, as it seems for example that photosynthesis uses some neat tricks (just thinking about Jim Al-Khalili book). Consciousness seems super fast and vast and memory slower and more fallible.
Someone needs to design an experiment to test these hypotheses. I suspect that the ingredients could well involve music, laughter, reading, dogs and plenty of sunlight. So there you have it, “Polish polymath solves the problem of life, the universe and everything, with a little light reading, meditation and hot bath on a Sunday morning in October 2018!) Hurrah!
Eh Riccardo - you inspired me to do a summary of the Danaylov/Hameroff video - many thanks for pointing me this way!
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