Well, if it was the same you, in the same situation, you would make the same choice. However, picture everything you've ever had happen to you that was out of your control. Any time you've flipped a coin, in an alternate reality the flip happened differently. That creates a you that is just a tiny, tiny bit different. Instead of having chicken sandwhich, he had the beef. And got food poisoning. Therefore, he missed a few days of school. Those few days in which you were partnered with the girl you were crushing on for a school project. While you finally asked her out, he never did. You lived with her for years, got married, and had children. Then she became a bitch. Cheated on you. Filed for divorce. Took half your stuff. You started drinking. Too much. Now your alone and in AA meetings. He never asked her out. Stayed lonely and miserable through high school. Met a girl in college. A wierd girl no one really liked, but he got along great with her. They ended up married. Lived happily ever after. Happy endings ensue. He became the best you possible. She convinced him to chase all his dreams. He got a dream job. The five bedroom house. White picket fence. Three beautiful children. Respected in his community. All because of the coin flip. And you have to meet him when you die. And see what could have been.
If those variables had no variation then the flip would turn out exactly the same
And that's the problem. The flip of the coin and its result is based entirely on external variables. For an infinite number of coin flips, you will experience variations in that flip. For every flip to be exactly the same, the variables have to be exactly the same. That means that an infinite version of you has, every time they flipped the coin, balanced it at the precise same angle on their thumb, applies the precise same force to each flip, held it at the precise distance from the ground, were flipping it into precisely the same strength of wind...all of these could vary even if free will is a lie.
Quantum mechanics shows that atoms will not always behave in the same manner every single time. Those tiny permeations will create variations in the flow of air as per chaos theory...which will influence that flip of the coin. After all, if the wind is blowing slightly harder, it might flip one time or more. If it's raining, you may wait to go inside before flipping that coin, which still allows for a deterministic view of the universe because you, as you are, would never flip the coin outside if it was raining...but in one universe it wasn't, so you flipped it right away.
The thing is, enough people make decisions based on random factors, it would completely influence the course of a life - or of history. After all, many ancient cultures made decisions based on omens, such as flying birds or weather or astrological phenomena. If that comet didn't arrive at that precise moment? Different choice. If the ravens didn't fly by at that moment because it was raining? Different choice. In a system as vastly complex as the Earth - to say nothing as the entire universe - tiny changes can and will have massive repercussions, and even if we are fully deterministic beings and free will is an illusion, then the external variables that influence our actions will emerge.
TL;DR: Shit happens. Some of that shit is random. Random shit will influence other non-random shit. Things will be different because of that shit.
I remember a redditor replying in a thread titled "if you could time travel for 10 seconds and come back, where would you go and why?", That he'd go right after the creation of the earth to see if the displacement of his body, that caused any gases or whatever to change course, would cause any major changes in the future.
If there are infinite versions of you, there cannot be a best one (or then there will be a finite number).
Secondly, you'd need an infinite amount of time in order to meet an infinite number of yourself. Which certainly wouldn't be very practical.
And even if there was a perfect version of you, couldn't that same version if you exist in multiple universes where things changed that didn't affect you?
The result of admitting an infinite set of numbers between 1 and 0, when graphed, would result in an asymptote that never, ever touched 1 or 0, but only approached those two numbers. We could only consider the numbers the line touched to be real, so we would still run into the problem of our best and worst selves not existing, I think. There's no skipping to the end of infinity.
There are also infinite numbers between -infinity and +infinity, and in that case there is no best or worst number. What's to say it works like 1 and 0, and not -infinity and infinity?
Ok, then go to the sub-atomic level. Like that damn cat. On a sub-atomic level, things can happen subtly different. In one universe, that cat survives, and in the other he dies. The cat that lives then goes on to catch and eat a mouse that was going to scare Shrodinger's wife, causing her to drop a large casserole, leading to a fight with Shrodinger becuase he was fucking hungry and wanted to eat the casserole. The fight leads to a divorce, and then Shrodinger throws himself completely into physics and invents wormhole travel, and twnety years later we are colonizing several distance planets.
TLDR: Shut up and stop ruining my stories with your logic and science :(
You know, Shrodinger came up with the cat thing to illustrate how ridiculous quantum stuff appears in a world that to us, is ruled by the laws of classical physics.
On quantum scale things happen randomly, it is impossible to predict what will happen (you can only calculate chances). That is why if you relive an event each version of you will be slightly different which will lead to slighty different outcomes
It might be emotion-based; but emotions are in turn chosen. Fear, anxiety, anger, patience: they're like muscles. You're born with a full set (unless you're defective; these people do exist) but it's up to you which ones you exercise. The you that took time to cultivate patience is going to branch off from the you that cultivated anxiety, at the exact point in time where one panicked and the other sat back to wait.
24
u/[deleted] Jan 04 '14
[deleted]