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why doesn't the claim that there are infinitely many particle arrangements follow from there being infinite non-identical universe pairs?
by exit 15y ago
why doesn't the claim that there are infinitely many particle arrangements follow from there being infinite non-identical universe pairs?
- gwern 15y agoParticle arrangements aren't the only property of a universe. Imagine a universe with 1 particle in it. Imagine a second universe with the same particle but +1 volume bigger. Not identical. Now imagine a third universe with the same particle arrangement with +3 volume bigger... And so on for all natural numbers. An infinite number of universes, each distinct, with the same particle arrangement. We can do this same trick for all sorts of universe properties (laws, energies, geometries). If we define universes as the particle arrangements, then it would then logically follow that infinitely many unique universes implies infinitely many particle arrangements (a ≡ b; a; ∴ b). (This is common to many Eternal Recurrence theories as well; need some assumption which prevents repeating patterns from 'running out the clock' and not exploring the full range of possibilities.)