5 ms·
In your example, a falling _might conceivably_ affect one person's conception. But even in that example, the odds are most likely that it doesn't. Let's say 99
by foldingmoney 7y ago
In your example, a falling _might conceivably_ affect one person's conception. But even in that example, the odds are most likely that it doesn't.
Let's say 99 times out of 100, a delay of a few seconds doesn't impact whether one person is conceived.
There's a pretty big gulf to cross from that, to 'an entirely different set of people in one generation.'
- anyfoo 7y ago> Let's say 99 times out of 100, a delay of a few seconds doesn't impact whether one person is conceived. It does not? Isn't the person that comes out dependent on many many minuscule factors? Aren't all sperm cells, from the same person, different in genetic makeup? Aren't many outside factors influencing how exactly the genes will combine?
- foldingmoney 7y agoYou assumed that the woman who was delayed would go on to conceive that night. I suggested that, generously, 99 times out of 100, the branch falling doesn't slow someone down and/or that person doesn't go on to conceive that very night.
- anyfoo 7y agoSo? You assume that with the end of the day, the person gets magically reset, and will next day behave exactly as without the change, without the slightest difference? Despite having arrived a few seconds later, had different conversations because of that, went to bed slightly differently, had more and more diverging thought trains...? In a more physicalist sense, you are somehow assuming that all the state that exists in her brain and body in general, all the synapses, electricity pulses, cells etc. have a chance to get back to the same state that it would have been without the change. I think that's pretty much impossible. In fact, if anything, things will be even much more different the next day, and the further you go into the future, imposing more and more differences onto her own environment, rippling out exponentially. Even more generally, every particle is subject to the same, with or without people in the equation, bounded only by the Light Cone emanating from the change (due to light speed being the limit on everything, including information; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone ).
- foldingmoney 7y agoI'm not saying it isn't ever possible, just that most of the time, whether you arrive at work at 8:00 or 8:01 doesn't have a meaningful knock-on effect in your life or anyone else's.
- foldingmoney 7y agoI have to concede on your conception argument -- that is legitimately fragile.
- travisjungroth 7y agoA man ejaculates around 200 million sperm. The tiniest change to either of the parents and a different sperm will be the on to fertilize. Then, you have a different person born.