• Maharashtra@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yes, but you’re not applying the hypothesis to the fullest.

    If it’s correct, and the number of worlds is infinite, then some of you buy tickets even when you don’t. And they win. So, you don’t actually need to make the move at all. 😎

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If it’s truly an infinite number of worlds, in some of them you win the lottery without even buying a ticket.

    • kromem@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      In a literal sense, assuming the theory that consciousness in some way depends on quantum processes is correct, this is the proper interpretation.

      Lottery balls being picked seems very unlikely to be dependent on a superposition.

      But (a) choosing to buy a ticket, and (b) what numbers you choose both plausibly could if the above assumption is correct.

      So not only would other yous be buying tickets in other worlds, they’d be buying many different numbers in many different worlds, even if the you in this world wasn’t buying any tickets at all.

      And even if the you in this world was now so strongly against the lottery that no future ‘branch’ of you would ever buy a ticket regardless of the degree to which a superposition might influence your decisions, the many yous from childhood would be so variably influenced in different ways from others around you from birth to now that there might be other parallel yous who superstitiously buy every ticket.

      Even in terms of number selection - if the you here might choose the birthdate of a spouse or children as the numbers, yous in other worlds might have different spouses or children to choose numbers based on.

      Many worlds is a rather boring theory unless also entertaining it with the notion that - like how birds navigate - our decision making somehow depends on quantum effects.

  • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    It’s possible to have an infinite number of universes where you win the lottery in none of them. It’s a common misconception that infinity=every combination when that’s not necessarily the case (there are infinite values between 1 and 2 for example, but none of those are 3)

    • kromem@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s also a common misconception that Everett’s many worlds involves an infinite number of universes.

      And that it involves multiple outcomes for macro objects like lottery balls.

      It only means multiple ‘worlds’ specifically for quantum outcomes, so in OP’s case their winning or not winning the lottery would need to be dependent on a superposition of quanta (i.e. Schrodinger’s lottery ticket).

      And given the prevailing thinking is that there’s a finite number of quanta in the universe, there cannot be an infinite number of parallel worlds. (There could only be an infinite number of aggregate worlds if time is infinite and there’s perpetual quantum ‘foam’ in its final state perpetuating multiple possibilities).

      The theory is much less interesting than is often depicted in mass media (though as of recently is a fair bit more interesting given the way many worlds as a theory would mirror what backpropagation of the physical universe might look like).

    • MrFagtron9000@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I thought many worlds meant every single possible divergent quantum thingy gets its own universe. There is a universe where a single potassium atom in a banana in my kitchen doesn’t decay and there is another universe where that same potassium atom does decay. Multiply that for every single particle in the universe, right?

      I guess even if that was true on a macroscopic level that’s not going to guarantee that every possible thing happens?

  • nandeEbisu@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    That’s only if you assume that you winning the lottery falls within the infinite, but bounded, realm of random fluctuations between when you bought the ticket and the winning numbers are drawn. There’s still physical constraints that the random quantum fluctuations fall within.

    An example is, there are infinite numbers between 1 and 2, there’s 1.1, 1.11, 1.111, etc. Because of the constraints however, we can still know that none of those infinite numbers between 1 and 2 are equal to 3. Infinite doesn’t mean anything is possible.

  • rockstarpirate@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Serious question: Can somebody explain to me, if an infinite number of universes exist, why do we assume that every possibility must exist within the set? Like, why can’t it be an infinite number of universes in which OP does not win the lottery?

    • admiralpone@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Your intuition is correct here. OP is wrong. An infinite set of branches of the wavefunction does not necessarily imply that everything you can imagine must happen somewhere in that wavefunction.

    • There1snospoon7491@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Fun fact: you can have multiple sets of infinities and even though all are infinite, that does not mean they are all equal. See Georg Cantor.

        • There1snospoon7491@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I mean, Cantor said so, not I. But an easy example

          Imagine a list of all whole numbers. 1, 2, 3 on up and up. Obviously this list is infinite - numbers do not end.

          Now imagine a list of all real numbers - that is, all numbers plus their decimal amounts between each while number. 1, 1.1, 1.11, 1.12, 2, 2.1, and so on. This list is also infinite - but it is also inherently larger than the infinite list of only whole numbers. It has more numbers.

          • rockstarpirate@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I think Cantor would say you need a proof for that. And I think he would say you can prove it via generating a new real number by going down your set of real numbers and taking the first digit from the first number, the second from the second, third from third, etc. Then you run a transformation on it, for example every number other than 1 becomes 1 and every 1 becomes 2. Then you know that the number you’ve created can’t be first in the set because its first digit doesn’t match, and it can’t be the second number because the second number doesn’t match, etc to infinity. And therefore, if you map your set of whole numbers to your set of real numbers, you’ve discovered a real number that can’t be mapped to a whole number because it can’t be at any position in the set.

            Some will say this proves that infinities can be of unequal sizes. Some will more accurately say this shows that uncountable infinities are larger than countable infinities. But the problem I have with it is this: that we begin with the assumption of a set of all real numbers, but then we prove that not all real numbers are contained in the set of all real numbers. We know this because the number we generated literally can not be at any position in the set. This is a paradox. The number is not in the set, therefore we don’t need it to map to a member of the other set. Yet it is a real number and therefore must be in the set. And yet we proved it can’t be in the set.

            I’m uncomfortable making inferences based on this type of information. But I’m also not a mathematician. My goal isn’t to start an argument. Maybe somebody who’s better at math can explain it to me better.

          • Ech@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            That’s like saying am infinite number of feathers is lighter than an infinite number of bricks. Neither is heavier than the other - they’re both infinitely heavy.

            • There1snospoon7491@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              You’re measuring a quality of the two objects, not the quantity, which might make a difference. I’m just sharing something I learned that I think is cool:)

              • Ech@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                It’s an interesting concept, for sure, don’t get me wrong. It’s intuitive to see the scenario of “different infinities” as being different sizes and believe it makes sense, but it doesn’t pan out. It’s weird because infinity is used in regards to numbers, but it’s not a number itself. It’s more the antithesis of a number - it’s everything. It’s a tool we use to interact with the concept of something that specifically can’t be measured. Measuring implies limits or bounds, but something that is endless has neither.

                So saying there’s an infinite number of this or that is more akin to the “riddle” of if 100lbs of feathers weighs less than 100lbs of bricks. The trick is they both weigh the same, even though our brain might not intuitively realize that, just like infinities. Ultimately, it’d be more accurate to say there’s infinities within infinities, which is another tricky concept all on its own.

    • Ech@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Murphy’s Law (edited a bit by the Nolan brothers)- If something can happen, it will happen. On the scale of infinity, this is particularly inevitable.

        • Ech@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Umm…logic? Statistics? If something has a chance of happening, even the smallest possible chance conceivable, it will happen given infinite time and iteration.

          • rockstarpirate@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Well, but if there are other “me”s, then there must be some set of common events that must occur in each universe containing a copy of me in order for that individual to qualify as me. In that case, isn’t it entirely possible that those particular things that must be in place preclude certain other possibilities that make it such that there is no chance that some otherwise conceivable events could occur?

            • Ech@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              Sure, and that would fall under “can’t happen, won’t happen”.

              And if we’re getting that philosophical about it, what qualifies as “you”? Arguably, that’s just you, since you represent a single culmination of events and possibilities. All other variations would technically be someone else with a mostly similar history. You could consider a “spectrum” of you’s, but again, where is the cutoff? Trying to define that gets pretty tricky.

              • rockstarpirate@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I agree with all of that. But the bigger point is that there are things that can’t/won’t happen that we can’t predict, so this means we can’t assume that “there must be a universe in which X happens to me”.

                • Ech@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  In respect to the lottery, every (lottery valid) combination has a chance of happening and we are assuming infinite variation, so if someone buys a lotto ticket for say “1 2 3 4 5”, that will be the picked numbers in at least one variation.

  • Blóðbók@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    While the basic idea is interesting, the statement is misconceived. It confuses what you believe to be possible with what is possible according to quantum physics.

    For your statement to be true, the lottery would have to be set up in such a way that the choice of winning lottery number is decided by the outcome of a quantum measurement which includes the possibility of your number being chosen. The outcome would then exist in superposition, and as soon as you learn the result, you are entangled with it and enter into superposition as well.

    But like I said, the core idea is still fun to think about, because this type of branching happens constantly and it becomes an interesting philosophical dilemma of how to think about what could possibly happen, not merely what does (as far as any ‘you’ can tell). Imagine if you could experience all outcomes of some particular chain of events and how that would affect the way you make decisions.

    • Gregorech@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Like the idea of winning is more fun than actually winning. Until you check you have both won and not won.

  • fubo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    However, every time you buy a lottery ticket, almost all of you lose a little bit of money.

  • Dr_Chocolate@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    In at least one world, the ticket machine short circuits and electrocutes you. In one of those, you become a superhero named Lottery Lightning.

  • s_s@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    In many of those worlds the lottery doesn’t exist.

    In many of those worlds you don’t exist.

  • The Giant Korean@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    But also, every time you buy a lottery ticket, one of you gets a paper cut from it and dies from an infection from antibiotic resistant bacteria.

  • dtc@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Also, everytime you buy a lottery ticket you also don’t.

    Likely one of the “other” yous won when you decided not to buy a ticket.

    • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      So a version of me must win every single lottery, but I will never win any of them if I don’t buy a ticket.

      Gotcha.

  • Ucinorn@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    Correction: at least one of you wins.

    It’s possible to buy a lottery ticket where ALL of the alternative universes wins the lottery EXEPT you

  • PotjiePig@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    And every time you don’t win, you can slowly confirm your darkest fears that you are indeed in your shittiest timeline.

  • Hedup@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    You’d have to pick numbers purely randomly. Maybe construct a machine that randomly decays cesium. If it does, it triggers some sort of mechanism to register a 1 or 0. Maybe put it in a box with a toxic fial and a cat. When it triggers, the toxic substance is released and cat dies. So depending on if cat is dead or alive you get 1 or 0. Generate enough bits this way and you’ll get numbers to put in the lottery.

      • Hedup@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        It’s impossible to tell - it’s random. But on average it would take a number of cats equal to half the bitsize of the numbers you generate.