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question
- Thread starter ralph
- Start date
By 'assumption' I mean the basic information one must start with to form a logical argument. This could be anything - my assertion that the earth revolves around the sun is an assumption, but one which I'm sure almost everyone would agree with. My whole point was that a logical argument has to be based on 'assumptions' or 'facts', or whatever you want to call them, that are accepted by the people you're trying to convince. If they're not, and you just graze over the issue, then it's not a logical argument at all - this is where Scientist's argument for infinite universes fails.
G
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If all possibilities are already present in a multiverse, then you use your free will to decide which of those possibilities you will 'experience' or actualize. We would still be creating our own destiny in such a scenario.
No you wouldn't. Say you come to a fork in the road. Which one do you choose?
Whichever way you want, you might say. But, that is not the case.
If your 'double' in an alternate universe chooses left, you HAVE to choose right. If you double goes right, you HAVE to go left.
It would be egotistical to think that we are the originals with the free will, and they're copies of us that have to do the opposite.
Whichever way you want, you might say. But, that is not the case.
If your 'double' in an alternate universe chooses left, you HAVE to choose right. If you double goes right, you HAVE to go left.
It would be egotistical to think that we are the originals with the free will, and they're copies of us that have to do the opposite.
What becomes wrong when one envisions a multiverse is the concept that there is an 'individual'. In fact, there is an infinite number of people exactly like you, who make exactly the same decisions, and live the same lives, only at one point they sneezed a fraction of a second earlier than you did, or moved one nanometer further to the right, or whatever.
But you still have free will. If one of your counterparts moves right, you can still move right, too. But an infinite number of people also go right, and another infinite number go left. All the infinities are just really hard to deal with.
As an aside, there's the story of the infinite hotel. Imagine an hotel with an infinite number of rooms. Say it's full, it has an infinite number of occupants, filling all the rooms. But you come in, and rent a room for the night. How will you fit? Well, the clerk, experienced in such matters, just asks all the other tenants to move up one room; those in room 1 move to room 2, and so on. Now there's an empty room, but no-one has left! In fact, you can use this method to vacate an infinite number of rooms! Just an example of the intractability of infinities.
But you still have free will. If one of your counterparts moves right, you can still move right, too. But an infinite number of people also go right, and another infinite number go left. All the infinities are just really hard to deal with.
As an aside, there's the story of the infinite hotel. Imagine an hotel with an infinite number of rooms. Say it's full, it has an infinite number of occupants, filling all the rooms. But you come in, and rent a room for the night. How will you fit? Well, the clerk, experienced in such matters, just asks all the other tenants to move up one room; those in room 1 move to room 2, and so on. Now there's an empty room, but no-one has left! In fact, you can use this method to vacate an infinite number of rooms! Just an example of the intractability of infinities.