The strangest thing about science is the way we can disagree about the same evidence.

 

Science was once about certainties, based on empirical data gathered from experiments that could be repeated and proven. Since the early part of the 20th century, however, things, as Yeats might say (1), fall apart: uncertainty is now the biggest idea in science and, from it, we now know, for certain, considerably less about a great deal more. Schrodinger's cat (2) is alive and dead and the truth is it could be either, both or neither. Perhaps it never existed in the first place!

 

One completely fabulous result of this uncertainty, when it is applied to understanding the reality of ‘what lies beneath’ our perception of things, is the theory of multiple universes (‘multiverse theory’). Theories like these grow out of inconstancies or unanswerables, and the evidence to support them is scant. The inescapable outcome of multiverse theory is an infinite number of universes in which everything will occur an infinite number of times. This seems highly improbable, but the probability of things that are infinitely improbable becomes rather strange. When there is infinite space and time (or spacetime) in which they may occur, it gets very strange indeed. Everything has a probability of one (infinity divided by infinity (3)), and is therefore definite. The mathematics is incontrovertible and some offer this as evidence that multiverse theory cannot be right as it introduces a paradox: there will be at least one universe, amongst the infinite number, in which the multiverse cannot and does not exist. And if it is impossible in one, how can it be possible in another? However, for those who accept the multiverse hypothesis (it’s not yet really a theory as there is really no concrete evidence for it), it introduces a truly phenomenal reality check…

 

OPTION 1: Change the Universe – no, really – into anything you want!

 

Well, the thing is, you can design your own version of your universe if you want to. Your current reality is a product of your own perceptions (this is one interpretation of multiverse theory that makes philosophical sense in that all universes are only perceptions and therefore don’t need the huge amounts of energy required to create them in reality). If you can change your perceptions, you can change the universe. Of course, there are a whole host of rules and risks involved. However you make your universe, the rules are unlikely to change. But you'll think they have. Your universe will feel like they have. So, all you need is a step by step guide that leads you willingly into your own reality... 

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HOW TO RECONFIGURE THE UNIVERSE

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Create your own version of the actual universe in 4 easy (okay, not all easy) steps.

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STEP 1    Accept that your current reality is flawed. Not that it might be flawed. It is. This is the hardest part. You really have to genuinely and categorically believe this or the rest of the steps will be futile.

STEP 2    Clear your mind of all extraneous and superfluous data. A sensory deprivation pod or negative decibel environment will be useful but you can do it without them. Yes, you can. Practice, if necessary, by meditating.

STEP 3    Believe in a new physical law. Be creative. You could go with easier options to begin with then get gradually more extreme or you can jump in the deep end with both feet (or wheels, if you prefer). If your mind is still blank after a while, have a look at the examples across the page.

STEP 4    Enjoy and explore your re-imagined universe. IMPORTANT! It is not imaginary, so beware. Real things exist and you are not invincible.

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If these steps do not work for you do not give up. It may be that you are unable to make a universe, via your altered perceptions, and inhabit your own new universe but, according to theorists, you can still create one.

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The truly incredible thing about multiverse theory is that you can make your own ‘pop-up universe’ whenever you want (or whenever you don’t want, actually). A universe is, by necessity, created at the ‘fork in the path’ of any decision, whether conscious or otherwise. Why, you ask? Because multiverse theory says so, that’s why (4). So, to generate an entirely new universe, all you need do is to make your mind up about something. Coffee, or tea? Romantic Night In or Boys/Girls Night Out? Left or Right? Itch or Scratch? And so on. According to multiverse theories, every single time you make a momentary decision, you create a new universe. The new universe implements the alternate event, whilst the old continues as it was before you conceived that thought or twitched that eyelid. You are the creator of almost infinite universes and the more decisions you make, conscious or otherwise the more universes you will create. Exciting, huh?

Here are the all-important instructions:

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HOW TO GENERATE AN ENTIRELY NEW UNIVERSE

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Create your own actual SPANKING NEW universe in 4 easy (really, this time, all easy) steps.

STEP 1    Establish two options.

STEP 2    Choose one. New universe.

STEP 3    Change your mind. New universe

STEP 4   Go out. New universe. Stay in. New universe. Eat nachos. New universe. Eat chillies. New universe. Blink. New universe. Don’t blink. New universe. Read this. New universe. Don't. New universe.

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Okay. So, if you followed the directions really closely, you will now have your very own, newly created universe (or several). All the way through this universe, other sentient beings are doing just what you did and there are (probably) already billions of billions of further new universes in existence just because of the one you made. And it's not the only one you've made. You've been doing it every few microseconds or so: every decision you've ever made, be it momentous or trivial, even if it has been an unconscious act (blinking, for example), has been the origin of a whole new set of particles, structures, rules, patterns, beings, and systems more vast than you can possible imagine. Taken to the nth degree, you have personally created an infinite number of existences. In some of these (about 50% statistically), you do not survive. In at least one, you live forever, meet the girl of your dreams and fall in love, have the most wonderful (or the most appalling) existence imaginable, grow younger, have no corporeal body, and any other possible (or apparently impossible) experience. It is not for the faint-hearted.

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Multiverse theories are odd, to say the least. But so is quantum mechanics.

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Paul Davies, in A Brief History of the Multiverse says, ‘Invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language but, in essence, it requires the same leap of faith.’ We are inclined to agree, and feel that certain aspects of quantum theory are equally ‘faith-like’ rather than scientific. We have a preference for the Scale Symmetry hypothesis (see article in Issue 2). We also have an idea that, in the end, it will all come down to there being more than one fundamental type of energy (see article in Issue 3). Everything that exists is made of these various energies rather than anything you could truly describe as a particle. The interactions of different energy systems is always likely to produce anomalous outcomes. If we consider things to be made of particles that behave according to set rules, we are certain to be taken by surprise when things don't make sense, like particles having dissimilar yet simultaneous behaviours or being in two places at once (5). Re-imagine these things not as particles but as interactions between energies that are not yet fully understood opens up a world (or a universe) of possibilities! It allows a single event to result in energy outputs that look like 'particles' in two places at once. It allows for a single 'particle' to take different paths simultaneously. It allows a 'particle' to decompose and, equally, not decompose. It allows existence to be very different from what we measure and perceive.

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In the end, it allows a cat to die and remain alive. It allows us to make sense of anything and everything. Energy is the new quanta.

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NOTES

 

​1   Yeats The Second Coming

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Was Yeats, in 1919, seeing a future in which the 'rough beast' manifests in quanta?

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Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot see the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

 

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert

A shape with a lion body and the head of a man.

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to a nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 

2   Shrodinger's Cat (I)

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Shrodinger proposed that we place a living cat in a sealed box, in which the decay of a radioactive particle within the box triggers the death of the cat. Until we open the box we have no way of knowing if the cat is alive or dead. Therefore, whilst the box is sealed, the cat may be considered both alive and dead.

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This 'thought experiment' illustrates the logically misguided conclusions of the 'Copenhagen Interpretation' of quantum mechanics (6), which claims that particles exist in all states until observed.

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Shrodinger's Cat (II)

Shrodinger was pointing out that, if a quantum particle can exist in multiple states simultaneously then, as it is made up of such particles, so must a cat (or, indeed, anything).

Theories and interpretations of 'Schrodinger's Cat' proliferate. One such idea is the multiple realities or multiverse theory, that creates a new existence for each and every possibility that exists or comes into existence. Under the auspices of such a theory, every new eventuality creates a new and independent reality.

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Go ahead, create your new universe.

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3   Infinity Divided by Infinity

 

The Maths Bit

 

Probability can be expressed as a fraction. If there is a two-outcome event, such as the flipping of a coin, the probability is that exactly half of the time the result will be Heads, the other half Tails. The fractional probability of getting Heads, for example, is ½.

If there are two tosses of the coin, the probability of the result being Heads is 2 times ½, which is 1. A probability of 1 means it is definite (the reality, of course, is different – what it really means is that, over the course of time, with a very large number of coin tosses, the probability of getting Heads exactly half of the time is 1, and therefore definite).

 

If there is an infinitely small probability of an event occurring (which means, to all intents and purposes, it's impossible), its numeric probability is 1/󠇙infinity (∞). If there are, like above, two occasions on which this probability applies (e.g. two universes), the probability of the impossible outcome is twice as much, or 2/∞ (still impossible as 1/∞ is mathematically the same as 2/∞ - see Infinity is Weird, Issue 2). However, given an infinite number of occasions for which the 'impossible' is amongst the potential outcomes, the probability is infinity multiplied by 1/infinity.

 

Just as ½ x 2 = 1, 1/∞ x ∞ = 1

 

So, the impossible, given an infinite number of tries, is definite.

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4   Multiverse Theory

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The hypothesis is that, for every possible different outcome for a particle (electron, meson, lepton, bosun or whatever), all eventualities occur. This is the only way that science can (so far) explain the connectedness of particles that are enormously distant from one another in spacetime. Just as we see in the philosophical accounts of Schrodinger’s Cat, if it applies to a particle, it applies to the stuff made up from those particles. Every time a decision is made (be it conscious, unconscious or even inorganic, such as the fall of a coin), it results in a change in outcomes for such particles (elemental particles eroded from the coin, new neuronic networks formed in choosing a custard cream not a Garibaldi), which generates the need for another universe to accommodate the alternative (that’s not to say they’d pick the Garibaldi, or even be human, or alive, or recognisable, in the new universe), but another particle, in symmetry to the new one generated in this universe, would necessarily kick into existence with an entire new universe around it to accommodate the particle).

 

 

5   Particles in two places at once

 

The double slit experiment is taught in secondary school Physics, but it presents us with weirdness that cannot currently be explained beyond some very loose hypotheses. Basically, when sub-atomic particles are fired at an opaque screen with a single vertical slit, a receptor device (sometimes a simple as a projector screen) shows, as you might expect, a single vertical area of light. Add a second slit, however, and interference patterns forms from the interactive effect of waves passing the two slits. Things become weirder still if single electrons or photons are fired separately towards the slits. Unobserved, the interference pattern remains. Place a device in position to measure the path of each 'particle' however, and the result is just two separate lines of light just as you would expect from single particles that are unable to interact with each other to create interference. So, you may well ask, how do they do that when we are not looking? Some physicists suggest that the particle 'knows' it is being observed and responds accordingly. Others suggest that a 'pilot wave' creates interference whilst communicating information simultaneously to the 'particle' which then responds to this information in determining its own path. Whatever reality underlies this phenomenon, it it is beyond any current model. Some even suggest that there is no underlying reality, making the creation of your own even more achievable (as it wouldn't depend on a 'fixed' set of fundamental laws).

 

 

6   The Copenhagen Interpretation

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During the 1920’s in the heady days following the origin of Quantum Mechanics, Neils Bohr, Max Born and Werner Heisenburg formulated what became known as ‘The Copenhagen Interpretation’.

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There are three key principles:

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Wave function is a description of a wave/particle (or particle/wave). Any information that can’t be derived from the wave function does not exist. For example, a wave is spread over a broad region, therefore has no location. This means that, at quantum level, everything is nicely woolly and vague (don’t, whatever you do, try to pin it down)

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Measurement of the wave/particle causes the collapse of its wave function. For example, a momentum wave packet consists of many waves each with its own momentum. Taking a measurement reduces the wave packet to a single wave and single momentum. So, if you measure it at quantum scale, it is already different.

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If two properties are related by an uncertainty principle, no measurement can simultaneously determine both properties to a precision greater than the uncertainty relation allows. If we measure a wave/particle position, its momentum becomes uncertain.

Basically, if you know where it is you don’t know where it’s going, where it’s been or how fast it’s moving.

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In layman’s terms, the suggestion of all of this is that nothing comparative is measurable, identifiable or locatable, which seems a handy longhand way of saying ‘we just don’t know’.

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