couldn't get you a link to this upi story, but here is a more technical paper from the authors, and here are some highlights:
“Spanish and American astrophysicists claim the universe we inhabit contains an infinite number of other universes like our own, called O-regions, that we will someday be able to contact. Jaume Garriga, of the University of Barcelona, and Alexander Vilenkin, of Tufts University, call the concept "many worlds in one."
…these universes are likely similar to our own -- share similar life forms, for instance – because they share a key feature with our world: a finite number of distinct histories. A history is the way something has evolved in time and will continue to evolve. Until now, physicists have never been able to make such an assertion.
Are these ideas far-fetched? Alan Guth (MIT) says no. "Do I think that the ideas are viable? Definitely yes. In fact, I very much admire the precision with which the ideas are expressed. I consider the work of Alex Vilenkin and his collaborators to be the leading work in this field."
”Whenever a thought crosses your mind that a terrible calamity might have happened," Vilenkin told UPI, "you can be assured that it has happened in some of the other O-regions." Furthermore, since some O-regions have histories identical or nearly identical to our own, "if you nearly escaped an accident here, then you were not so lucky in some of the O-regions with the same prior history," he said
Guth also believes the many-worlds hypothesis has profound philosophical implications. "We already know that our planet is merely a tiny speck in a vast cosmos, but now we are being told that we do not even hold a unique copyright on our own identities," Guth told UPI. "Instead, each of us is actually only a single copy of an infinite number of beings that are completely identical to
ourselves."
When I was a kid reading comic books, I hated those alternate future stories, which I saw as a cheap way of avoiding the consequences of telling a real story, but science fiction just won't stop becoming factual. It does seem that all the O-regions funnel back to the same point of origin. Unified Field Theory, Theory of Everything, physics keeps trying to tie it all together, a search analogous (or is it identical?) to the search for god. It's harder to suggest that the Universe operates under one law at one moment, and under some other "truth" at another moment. As long as we believe that there is an actual explanation for the way things are (even if we can't quite understand it), then we believe. As discussed elsewhere, deconstruction, et al, have not discredited, but have only critiqued belief, basically in terms of the limitations of viewpoint. Even when we admit ignorance, we can only operate out of knowledge, such as we have, which is perhaps why these philosophies often lack in practice the humility that they might properly promote.
i love this article!!!!!
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“Spanish and American astrophysicists claim the universe we inhabit contains an infinite number of other universes like our own, called O-regions, that we will someday be able to contact. Jaume Garriga, of the University of Barcelona, and Alexander Vilenkin, of Tufts University, call the concept "many worlds in one."
…these universes are likely similar to our own -- share similar life forms, for instance – because they share a key feature with our world: a finite number of distinct histories. A history is the way something has evolved in time and will continue to evolve. Until now, physicists have never been able to make such an assertion.
Are these ideas far-fetched? Alan Guth (MIT) says no. "Do I think that the ideas are viable? Definitely yes. In fact, I very much admire the precision with which the ideas are expressed. I consider the work of Alex Vilenkin and his collaborators to be the leading work in this field."
”Whenever a thought crosses your mind that a terrible calamity might have happened," Vilenkin told UPI, "you can be assured that it has happened in some of the other O-regions." Furthermore, since some O-regions have histories identical or nearly identical to our own, "if you nearly escaped an accident here, then you were not so lucky in some of the O-regions with the same prior history," he said
Guth also believes the many-worlds hypothesis has profound philosophical implications. "We already know that our planet is merely a tiny speck in a vast cosmos, but now we are being told that we do not even hold a unique copyright on our own identities," Guth told UPI. "Instead, each of us is actually only a single copy of an infinite number of beings that are completely identical to ourselves."
- linda 3-29-2001 4:36 pm
When I was a kid reading comic books, I hated those alternate future stories, which I saw as a cheap way of avoiding the consequences of telling a real story, but science fiction just won't stop becoming factual. It does seem that all the O-regions funnel back to the same point of origin. Unified Field Theory, Theory of Everything, physics keeps trying to tie it all together, a search analogous (or is it identical?) to the search for god. It's harder to suggest that the Universe operates under one law at one moment, and under some other "truth" at another moment. As long as we believe that there is an actual explanation for the way things are (even if we can't quite understand it), then we believe. As discussed elsewhere, deconstruction, et al, have not discredited, but have only critiqued belief, basically in terms of the limitations of viewpoint. Even when we admit ignorance, we can only operate out of knowledge, such as we have, which is perhaps why these philosophies often lack in practice the humility that they might properly promote.
- alex 3-29-2001 5:25 pm [add a comment]
i love this article!!!!!
- Skinny 3-29-2001 5:52 pm [add a comment]