Foundation for a Unified Theory

The double-slit experiment immediately makes slightly more sense under the TDR model, because it allows all possible paths for the light to be evaluated in a single instant.

Single-slit and double-slit experiments are cases of light being curved. Let us consider that light appears to travel at c along this curved path. Suppose that a photon appears to travel a curved distance of d and hits a screen. The time value at the screen along the curved path is the same time value at the sender. However, due to 1/c invariance, from any perspective I will see the time difference between sender and screen according to straight-line distances. That means that the length-time that I observe or measure between sender and receiver is smaller than it is measured along the "instantaneous" curved light path. In other words, the photon has shifted into a slightly different time than the one I can observe.

However, this also suggests that I wouldn't see any photons hitting the screen, because any curved path would mean a slight shift in time. This suggests that the light event is not instantaneous after all, but has a small duration. So, though many photons appear time-shifted, those that are shifted only slightly are still visible. An interference pattern becomes apparent, as photons are shifted out of visible time to form dark spots, and others are shifted into visible time to form brighter spots.

A natural correlation between the energy and duration of a light event is that the duration of the event would be proportional to its energy. The apparent frequency of light might be illusory. An explanation of redshift or the appearance of it would need to be provided in accordance with TDR. Note that the appearance of a sinusoidal aspect of an apparent "light wave" may mean that a light event occurs similarly sinusoidal. That is, it is a "flash" of light energy that begins "dark", increases in intensity until a maximum amplitude is reached (would the amplitude be the same for all different energies of light?), and decreases back to "dark". If a light event is said to occur at a specific time, it would likely make sense that the moment of maximum intensity would be that time. Note: Several questions come up that cast doubt on this interpretation of frequency effects of light. Does that mean that part of a light event can happen before the official time of the event? Wouldn't it make more sense if higher-energy light stretched it across space (width, for example) rather than time? Either would allow wider bands for higher frequencies to be visible in the slit experiments, but the opposite effect is apparent. Therefore these ideas need to be revisited.

The effect of "which path" observations on the slit experiments destroys the appearance of interference. A couple possible explanations come to mind:

• The detection of light anywhere along the path changes the light event from a single curved-path event, "splitting" it into multiple straight-path light events.
• The detection of light involves an interaction with matter. That matter has size, which means the interaction takes time. This time might be random enough that it removes the otherwise precise correlation between time and locations on the screen.

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Revisiting the Time-shift explanation for interference patterns...

Consider conservation of energy as it relates to number of photons. We would think that any photons that "disappear into another time" would be replaced by an equal number that appear from another time. However, a single-photon light-event will always be detected. So something is wrong.

The model of a single light event is a line (possibly curved). But the double-slit experiment suggests that light propagates as a spherical wavefront.

It could be that light does indeed propagate along that entire round wavefront, and in fact interacts with the entire area it "sees". However, every location that it interacts with exists in a different time, while any observer only exists in a single time. An observer will see light interact with only a single point at which its observed time matches the light event's time. An observation from the exact location of a light sender, could "see" that that light in fact hits everywhere, and not just a single point. This reinstates the instantaneousness of light.

It also suggests an experiment which may predict that observers in frames that have relative movement will see a different diffraction pattern, because each observer will have different measurements between the light source and locations on the screen. However, it could instead be that the pattern is defined by the ratio of curved-path distance to straight-path distance, which might be the same for any observer.

There must be something that was missed or incorrect in all this speculation.

The above describes single-slit interference, but doesn't cover double-slit.

One last wild speculation: What if time is meaningless to a light event? The "time" at which it occurs depends on a definition of time, which is time-frame location dependent. Perhaps the light event exists as a wave through all of time, and we only see the single location and time of that event that matches our observed time-frame's time definition of that event. In this case, when a single photon follows a curved path, we see it shifted in time depending on location and straight-line distance between sender and receiver. So with less curvature, we observe events similar to if they were straight-line light events, and at locations involving more curvature, a photon appears to disappear into another time, and elsewhere we see more or less (depending on location) that the photon is visible as it appears due to it having been sent at a different time value than the one that our time frame says it was sent at.

Confusing.

Consistency

I've touched on the idea that separate observers each experience "their own reality", but when they come together and compare notes, they will always find their experiences are mutually consistent. This is the Law of Consistency.

Basically, if all that you can be certain of is only what you know and what you observe, then everything else is defined only by probabilities. Some quantum mechanics junk says that it can't be known any more than that, I think. But a separate observer may make observations of what you can't observe, meaning that they have a different definition of what is real and what is only probability.

When you and the other observer share information, you gain knowledge. What was previously just probable is now actual. Probability waveforms collapse, and this propagates "backward through time", in that observations of the present depend on observations of the past, and what you know to be real now makes what it is based on in the past, real in the past.

So you have your reality, and the other has their reality, and where those overlap is a shared reality. This reality will always be consistent. Your shared reality will have a common shared history. The events you shared will appear the same under any observation. At least, they will within the bounds of causality. For example, the chronology of causally unrelated events may not be agreed upon by separate observers. This may be a major clue about the Law of Consistency, but I'll put it aside for a moment.

Consistency appears on the surface to be a source of weirdness, in that there is an appearance that some mechanism "corrects" or "sorts out" observers when they come together, or somehow simultaneously restricts separate observers while they are apart. On the other hand, consistency may be what saves us from the otherwise weird aspects of quantum mechanics.

Take the example of entangled particles. When both particles are considered by a common observer, there are some "weird" aspects apparent, like "spooky action at a distance". Consistency requires that the observation of other laws, such as conservation of spin, is observed for both particles. However, the observer of only a single particle sees no weirdness. They see only a single particle behaving as a single particle. The expectation that a message can be passed from an observer of one particle to the observer of the other is false, because only an observer of both particles can observe an effect that depends on both particles (such as any effect of entanglement). This again may appear weird, because the common observer can include an observer who gains information from one or both separate particles at a later time. That is, I may gather the results from 2 separate observations, and notice that they display weird aspects of entanglement, but neither I nor anyone else will observe any effects of entanglement until we've made observations of (that is, gained information about) both particles.

And so Consistency simultaneously displays weirdness, and makes it not weird (because it is by definition consistent). That is to say, it is only because things must be consistent that they appear to be weird, in cases like this. The weirdness cannot be exploited in ways that break laws (FTL message passing breaks the law of Causality, notably).

Trying to exploit entanglement involves trying to make things inconsistent, but the only way to attempt that is to separate the observers, and in doing so, consistency between the observers no longer applies, and the effects of consistency (such as entanglement) can no longer be observed.

Theories

I've had a lot of vague thoughts lately but neither the time nor focus to develop them well.  Here are some ideas of things I'll have to reconsider later in depth.

These are some theories that I can't prove, but I think may be true due to clues and gut feelings.

Theory: It is impossible to observe alternate universes except in terms of probability wavefunctions.

The idea of an "alternate universe" from our perspective, is that it is part of a superposition of all potential realities.   It exists only as wavefunctions describing the probability of any specific aspect of a potential reality being an actual reality.

However, QM experiments and interpretations suggest that making observations of something "makes it real".  In QM terminology, an observation collapses a probability wavefunction.  To oversimplify and demystify, we might say that "anything that is possible is always possible, but as soon as we know anything about it, only what we know is possible."

However, if we gain any knowledge of alternate reality, that constitutes making an observation.  The more certain we know anything, the more real it is.  But this suggests that it becomes "real" in "our" reality (the reality from which it is observed).  Thus, possibly by definition of reality, the only reality that we can observe is our own.

A rephrasing of the theory is: It is impossible to transfer information between physically separate realities, without physically joining them.

Theory: It is not possible to transfer information faster than the speed of light through the use of quantum entanglement.

This is really just based on gut feelings and evidence from the history of science that basically suggests to us, over and over, that there's no free lunch and you can't cheat the universe.  Conservation laws, causality... these suggest that the universe ultimately runs in a logical manner with a strict set of rules.

I have no proof.

The basic idea for using quantum entanglement for FTL (faster than light) message passing, is that making a measurement of one entangled particle immediately tells you some corresponding information about the other particle, due to conservation laws, regardless of distance.  To break causality laws, this would mean that the observation of one particle somehow changes it (which must also instantly change the other).  So, if FTL information transfer is impossible, which I think it is, this must mean that making an observation of the particle doesn't "change" it in an immediately measurable way.

I believe that the results of any experiments done, will have a caveat that any information that can be obtained from one particle, requires additional context information from the other particle before it can be in any way useful.  In other words, any message passed would effectively be "encrypted" with additional information that is not available at both particles simultaneously.  Experiments may show things like, "When results from both particles were compared, it showed that a message was instantly transferred, however it wasn't until the results from both particles were brought together that the message could be understood."  -- An example of this idea is the "quantum eraser" experiment, which hints that information has traveled faster than the speed of light, however that information is only available retrospectively, meaning that causality is not violated.

In vague terms, this would mean that observing a particle "locks" it to a particular reality, but it doesn't "determine" what that reality is.  You can't control reality through cleverly manipulative observations.

If 2 separate observers are making observations of their realities, they should each see a reality that is independently consistent and isn't affected by anything they can't observe (IE anything outside of the scope of causality).  Then when the 2 observers meet, they should find that their separately observed realities are consistent with each other.  I'm not sure yet exactly how this will be exemplified in the case of entanglement.

Addendum (trying to wrap my head around this):

In my last post, I showed how a misunderstanding of the Quantum Eraser experiment can lead to conclusions like that one can control what is observed in the present by what one does in the future.  But this is not the case.  Both the present and the future each exist consistently, in the Quantum Eraser experiment.  In "the future", the context of the observations may let you observe things from the past differently, but that future context doesn't exist in the present and is not usable as information now.

The same should be seen with entanglement.  Information will seem to be passed instantaneously when observing the results in a context that contains information from both particles, but individually, each particle will allow observations that let it be observed only as if it is an independent particle.

So it's not so much that an observation "makes" a probabilistic event "real".  It is that an event will seem "real" and precise and deterministic when viewed in a context that makes use of deterministic observations, and it will seem only probabilistic when viewed in a context without that information.  The two exist simultaneously, consistently, but can't both be seen simultaneously.  And so making an observation doesn't physically change a system.  You should be able to make precise measurements of a particle's position, and make separate precise measurements of a particle's momentum.  However there should be no possible way to combine these measurements such that the two retain independent meaning or precision.  They should combine with destructive interference, or (as in the case of the quantum eraser) constructive interference that destroys information.

Within the multiverse theory of individual realities for individual observers, it means that there must be some flexibility between separate observers, so that when they come together, there is a certain amount of "blurring" of the combined reality.  It may turn out that this is required for consistency.

I also have a gut feeling that quantum "weirdness", when understood properly, will prove to be not that weird at all.  Perhaps the next generation of high school students will grasp this as intuitively as we grasped the concepts of velocity and acceleration.

Theory: The Uncertainty Principle (or complementarities) applies to a wide range of things either on a variety of size scales, or in a "real world" scale.

Specifically, it seems that the idea of coupled complementary aspects of knowledge apply to elements of thought and consciousness.  This is purely philosophical.  The idea might stem from the acceptance of the uncertainty principle leading me to think about other aspects of life in similar ways.

Some unscientific ideas based on this are things like, the more precisely you focus on one thought or subject or object, the less you are able to focus on a large range of the same.  You can either observe much with little precision, or little with much precision.  Another example is that the more precisely you try to imagine what someone is thinking, the more errors your imagination is likely to produce, and the less you 'get' them.  You can either 'get' someone accurately and not care about the details, or try to get them precisely, and not be accurate.

These could be simply analogies, or perhaps there is some fundamental aspect of the uncertainty principle that applies equally to real-world junk.

Quantum forgetfulness

I wrote this on an anonymous science forum, concerning the question "Can probability waveforms re-form from collapsed, observed realities?":

I believe waveforms must reform, because otherwise you'd have all previously observed particles traveling through space and time being inherently different from unobserved ones.

An interesting experiment would be to recreate the double-slit experiment with a particle detector at one of the slits, but then purposefully ignore or "forget" the output of the detector. In a sense, you'd be putting the results into a "quantum cat box" in a way that it's impossible for you to observe the results. I believe that all "forgotten" observations = "reformed" wave functions, so I believe that the interference pattern would be visible again, if you did it right.

I was clued-in to the Quantum eraser experiment, and followed up...

So the expected result is seen ("erasing" the effect of observations restores the photon's probabilistic nature, or whatever). But the real-world consequences displayed by the experiment are still mind-bogglingly unintuitive.

As for time... "(delaying deciding) whether to measure or destroy the 'which path' information ... appears to have the bizarre effect of determining the outcome of an event after it has already occurred." -- In other words, what you see now depends on what you do later. This is balls as nuts!, but a more intuitive way to put it might be, "The experiment will display probabilistic effects now if there is no way to make 'which path' observations in the future (IE no useable information), and will display deterministic effects now if there is."

It would seem that having deterministic information now about events that occurred in the past, does indeed make those events deterministic in the past. Or perhaps in other words, we can make observations now of events that happened in the past???

... and having information now about events from the past makes those events deterministic in the past.  Wikipedia says so, folks!

...

Let's get philosophical about the idea of determining the result of an event in the future.  That is, what I see now is apparently the result of what I do tomorrow.  I say "determining" instead of deciding, and "apparently", because it might not actually be the case that I'll be causing an effect in the past.  It could simply be that I can predict now whether or not there will be information available in the future, to be able to make an observation then about what I'm doing now.  The bizarre part is that in the case of the quantum eraser experiment, I can control in the future whether or not there will be information (by measuring or destroying the 'which path' information).  So does that mean the experiment predicts what I will do in the future?  Or that there is an effect that travels backward through time?  Or perhaps the experiment would require such short time periods and such great distances, that "now" and the "future" that I speak of are no longer causally linked (at least in the backward direction), and it is all irrelevant?

I assume the latter option.  I assume this fits with the "rules" of causality in a way that makes the time travel of information impossible.

However let's assume that I can tell today from the experiment, whether a measurement will be made tomorrow or sometime in the future (by me or anyone else), or whether the information will be destroyed first.  Then I can set up a meta-experiment in which I manipulate how the experiment is done, for example to send a message back in time from the future (lotto numbers, say).  I would set up a series of timed experiments or perhaps multiple apparatuses, and code a massage in binary, using the observations of whether or not I see double-slit interference patterns today, to represent the 2 states.  Tomorrow I would measure or destroy the 'which-path' information appropriately.

In the end, I would still expect not to be able to send a message back in time.  In the meta-experiment, observing the result of the series of experiments constitutes an observation, thus collapsing the probability waveform describing the meta-experiment.  This would leave me no way to randomly change what I do tomorrow (whether I measure or destroy).  Since it seems impossible that I could lock myself into a particular action, I think the more likely result is that none of the apparatuses would display interference patterns.  They would all act as if the information would be measured in the future.  In some way, the observation of the meta-experiment would be linked to the 'which-path' information, and observing an outcome of any kind would collapse the waveforms and no interference pattern would be seen.

This still doesn't make sense, so unless I missed something, there is likely some other factor that prevents "impossible" results.  It is likely that there is no way to set up the experiment within the scope of causality.  For example, say you wanted to destroy the 'which-path' information, and then observed that the interference pattern was visible, so you quickly changed your mind to measure the information instead, creating a paradox -- This could probably never happen because the observation of the interference pattern would likely need to be causally disconnected (via very small time or very large distance), so that you could never "change your mind" fast enough based on the observation, as to whether or not to destroy or measure the information.  In other words, you would never be close enough to say for certain that the observation of the interference pattern did in fact happen before the act of measuring or destroying the path information.  The very best possible that you could ever say was that they appeared to happen at the same time.

This is all conjecture.  Personally I think the second explanation is more likely, unless we can find a direct link between observations in the meta-experiment, and information involved in its apparatuses.

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Addendum

After reading about the Delayed choice quantum eraser, a simpler explanation is given for why this could not be used to send a message back in time.  Interference patterns are only visible in the "past" portion of the experiment when combined with information from the "future" part.  I think basically you could say that multiple possible outcomes that could create a destructive interference pattern in the "past", combine constructively to create no interference pattern at all.  You need information from the "future" to be able to filter out the possible interference patterns of the past.

Makes sense.

The Lost post

This is a post that started as an explanation of how multiple coexisting realities can occur, which was a theory of what was going on early in the final season of Lost. The explanations quickly untangled into further puzzles, like "Are there infinite copies of me out there?", and "How was Desmond able to observe one reality from the other?"

Scientists: I hope this rambling isn't so tl;dr as to prevent the little bits of Einsteinian genius from being found and contemplated further. Perhaps one day it will be figured out, and repeated in a concise, sensible blog post.

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Schroedinger's Poor Cat -- Explaining the paradox

... or, New(?) ideas on the propagation of probability waves

... or, I never met a lasagna I didn't like.

Take a box. Add: 1 cat; 1 sealed vial of catpoison; 1 molecule of radioactive material that has say a 50% chance of decaying over the next year; 1 radiation detector connected to an apparatus that will break the vial of poison if the radioactive particle's decay is detected. Now close up the box, wait a year, crack it open again, and see if you don't have yerself a dead cat.

This is the basic idea behind the famous Schroedinger's Cat Paradox, a thought-experiment conceived by the actor Arnold Schroedendinger. It was originally suggested to point out the absurdity of the theory and consequences of the Uncertainty Principle in Quantum Mechanics. The principle says that the state of a subatomic particle is impossible to predict and is only determined when it is observed. The particle's state is only a "probability waveform", that collapses into a specific state of reality when observed.

The "cat" thought experiment takes random events in the subatomic realm and through cause-and-effect has results in the human scale of things.


Without clarifying the details of the experiment, it is easy to set it up so that it's clearly ridiculous. You can't just throw the cat in a cardboard box, or shake the box to see if it's alive without opening it. Any clue that can be examined to determine whether the cat is alive or dead, should be considered an observation. And there must always be a probability that the cat can be alive. You can't throw it in without food and wait until you know it must starve.

Speaking of what constitutes an observation, what then constitutes an observer? Must it be a human conscious? No, and it need not even be alive. Anything that can record the state of the cat can be considered an observer. So, the cat too is an observer. It can tell whether it is alive or dead, it doesn't need a human to look at it before its life is determined. The particle detector is an observer too. Anything can be an observer: If the particle decays and emits radiation that has an effect on something else, then that something else is an observer. If the effect can be determined, then the state of the particle is no longer a probability waveform; it has collapsed into a real state. (This suggests the question, what about effects that aren't lasting? Can an event be observed, then completely forgotten, and does this then somehow reinstate a probability waveform? This question might be answerable later in this essay. (See nugget 1, below))

Of course, if the cat is an observer, then its aliveness is never in question, so there should be no probability waveform that collapses when the box is open, and the experiment is not valid. But this need not be the case. If there is no observation made of anything inside the box, then its state is indeterminate to an outside observer, so it is still possible that its state exists only as a probability waveform. How is this possible? One way is through "simultaneously existing alternate realities" in a multi-dimensional "multiverse" thing. The particle may decay and it may not. It may be that each case is played out, simultaneously, in alternate realities. Every such possible event in the universe may occur simultaneously, branching into 2 or more different results, in a sense continuously "spawning" new universes where every possible outcome exists in its own universe. This would require an infinite (or infinitely growing) number of universes, and questions like "Where would they all fit?" make it hard to conceive. Surely, as time goes on, more and more universes would have to exist?

A different way of thinking about this is to consider that the universe exists in multiple dimensions, not all of which we can "see", and rather than say that 2 distinct universes exist, one in which the cat is dead and one in which it is alive, instead both exist in one universe as the superposition of 2 distinct possibilities. The universe would simultaneously contain all possible outcomes of every event ever, not existing as distinct realities as we understand them, but as probabilities of all possible states. The reality that I know and observe would simply be me seeing only the possibilities that make up one combination of all possible states. But being a part of the universe myself, I would also exist only as part of a probability superposition of all possibilities, and so there could be an infinite number of realities I could see, IE. an infinite number of "me"s. (See nugget 2)

Let's just assume for awhile that all of this is true. I'm sure later we'll be able to devise an experiment to test it. It is useful to make assumptions like this, and think about what consequences will result. This leads to thought experiments, which in the past have brought about leaps in understanding ideas that were hard to verify physically.

So by having a particle detector observe the state of the particle, the particle's waveform collapses into either a decayed or not-decayed state, and the cat either dies or lives, respectively. The cat has observed the state of the poison, simply by living or dying. For it, the probability waveform for the particle has collapsed.

Outside the box, if the state of the cat has had no effect on the world, and it is possible that the cat is either alive or dead, then both possibilities still exist in a probability waveform that isn't collapsed until the box is opened. In the multiple universe theory, the cat lives in some universes and dies in others, and we don't know which one we're in until we open the box. This doesn't quite make sense because the act of opening the box can be seen as an event, that should split the universe into multiple realities, but if the cat can still be truly alive or dead, then this may suggest "jumping" between realities... a split occurred earlier for the cat, and now occurs again for the opener of the box.

In the universal superposition theory, instead it means that to us the external observer, the cat has simultaneously lived and died in superposition, and we only observe a single reality from that superposition set when we open the box. If the cat is dead, other realities still exist where it is alive, in the superposition of all things.

Now imagine that you're inside the box. Use your home as an example. Just as anything outside that isn't affected by our state in the box can view us only as a probability waveform, so too do we see everything outside the box as such. We can still measure things like light and gravity penetrating the walls of the house, so some things can be observed between inside and out, and so some waveforms collapse to set a certain reality. As well, we have reasonable expectations of what is possible, so we can be sure that the stars have not suddenly rearranged themselves into a connect-the-dots image of the Mona Lisa, while we were stuck in our cat boxes. More generally, all events outside the house have probabilities, so we can be fairly sure of some things and uncertain of others, to varying degrees. But, it may just be that the reality that exists outside of our houses, that is beyond observation from within, is not determined until we actually go outside and observe it.

This could be happening for every individual who ever puts their self in a probability box with respect to another. We may each have our own specific realities. That is, each reality may be a specific observation of all possible configurations of the universe. Each would be based on prior observations and the possibility of all observable events, and all unobserved events with unobserved consequences still exist only as probability waveforms. As well, the probability value of any waveform should be different in different realities, as past events will make future events more or less likely.

* Idea #1 (with conjecture rating of 95%) Imagine the universe as a world in darkness, and you have a flashlight that follows you around and illuminates every observed part of space-time. Each of us has one of these flashlights, and when we cross paths our realities match as much as needed... I exist in my own reality and you exist in yours, but you also exist in mine, and any part of your reality that can have an effect on mine also exists as reality for me. However, any part of your reality that hasn't yet been observed in mine may still exist only as a possibility in mine. This must be true when we are not connected through possible observation; you may be a cat in a box and are certainly either alive or dead, but to me both cases may be possible.

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Some rules for this new universe.

1. The universe is finite. Or, perhaps the universe is infinite. This is not known. If there are only a finite number of particles, and each has a finite set of possible quantum states, then there is only a finite (though mind-bogglingly large) number of possible configurations for the universe.

2. Not everything is possible. Almost anything is possible, because matter can wink into existence. It may be possible, if not statistically impossible (meaning it's unlikely to ever happen within the average age of the universe), for example that a full-grown whale suddenly appears in space. If this has greater than zero probability, it will happen in some alternate reality. There will be alternate realities occurring for each position in space, and each point in time, and for half-whales and for every combination of whale or penguin or piano, of everything and everything in between. As long as it is possible. If there is zero probability of something happening, it won't happen in any reality. You can't say for example imagine a particular universe, and then say "consider that but with one extra particle", and use mathematical induction to deduce an infinite number of universes. If it is not possible, it doesn't exist in any reality nor probability waveform. The superposition of all states includes only those that are possible.

Rather than to think of an impossibly large number of universes, each with some weird specific set of features, think of the whole thing all at once, where these weird features have probabilities. All these universes with spontaneously spawned whales and pianos have infinitesimal probabilities, and conceptually, they can be fit into a very small part of the superposition of all universes.


Experimentation:

Experimenting on this theory is difficult, because possible results of the experiment represent collapsed waveforms. If you imagine 2 people experiencing different possible realities, when you bring them together to compare experiences, you are left with one single observed state of the universe. If they did have different experiences, they will have collapsed into multiple distinct realities, in each of which the two observers experienced only the one shared reality.

There are areas where probabilities are observable. The double-slit experiment is an example where the effects of probability can have observable effects in our reality. I consider this experiment to be the most important that I can think of, and holds a treasure trove of puzzles regarding the probabilistic and uncertain nature of reality. And possibly some of the answers.

Is it possible to devise similar experiments in the larger world? Is it possible to combine 2 separate observations of reality, and to notice the effects of probability wave interference (where certain areas of reality are measurably more probable than others)? More on this some other day.

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This idea shrinks the multiverse (and all possible universes) into a conceivable, understandable, small mental model. Things don't exist in specific places, where multiple copies exist elsewhere, each one a little different, and we're left wondering where it all is. Things exist as a superposition of possible states, not as a multiple of single states. It is only observations that limit things to specific states.

How can you conceive of such a universe? How would you store this, if you were modeling it? In a computer simulation of a Newtonian universe, you might store data for each particle in the model: its position, velocity, and anything else like spin or mass that you would need. Then you can run a simulation on the set of data for all particles.

In a simulation of a multiverse with a fixed number of particles, you would do a similar thing, except that instead of storing specific (collapsed) positions and other values, you would store a probability waveform for a particle's position. I'm not sure what that would look like, or how complex it would be. Roughly how many bits of information would it represent? Would it be smooth? IE. would "adjacent" universes have all particles adjacent? Or would there be abrupt differences, such as "particle has decayed" vs. "particle has not decayed", in "adjacent" universes, with no other possibilities in-between? If positions and probabilities can be quantized, it may be that there is no smooth middle "in-between" 2 given possible universes.

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Further Nuggets...

(1) Can probability waveforms re-form from collapsed, observed realities?

I think the answer must be yes. I don't think that all subatomic particles are indeterminate until observed, and then spend the rest of their existence in the universe being actualized observed particles.

I think the definition of "observed" would be something involving the ability to have any kind of effect on the observer. Any event that you witness is clearly observed. Any memory of any event is observed. Anything felt, anything that made a mark, anything that caused another observed event, is observed. But anything which is completely unknown, and for which it makes absolutely no difference how it may have turned out, is not observed. A cat in a sealed box is not yet observed. And I believe that anything that is forgotten, is no longer observed. In a way, if you died and any evidence of any kind that you existed was destroyed and forgotten (from photographs to the states of any subatomic particles with which you ever interacted), then it no longer matters if you actually existed or not. Perhaps it is just a probability waveform again?

So if you measure a particle and then let it go and lose track of it, never again being able to correlate that particle with the measurement, then a probability waveform is restored. You won't have someone a thousand years in the future observing a particle and saying "Oh! I see that you've been involved in an experiment before!" Such thinking suggests that we can turn a probabilistic universe into a classical one simply by observing it (which actually might be exactly what we do every day) -- and that the transformation is permanent.


(2) There are an infinite number of "me"s in the multiverse.

When we think of multiple universes, we like to think of copies of ourselves doing different things, being different people in some specific way, living different lives. We also imagine ourselves being able to travel to these alternate realities and meet our alternate selves.

I think there are several problems with this line of thought.

1. As with the cat-in-a-box ideas, an alternate universe isn't a fully formed universe as big as anything that ever existed; it is only as big as the box. A particular reality only consists of those waveforms that have collapsed. So stepping into another reality would be no different than exploring new areas of your existing reality, except for where the waveforms have collapsed (things that you would know are different).
2. The "distance" between realities must grow very fast, in multiple measurable dimensions. A reality where a subatomic particle has decayed may be very close to a reality where it hasn't, but a reality in which Germany won WWI would be inconceivably distant from our reality. It would likely be that much harder to visit, assuming visiting alternate realities was in any way possible. Likewise, a reality where some formative event in your youth occurred differently, would also be inconceivably distant.
3. As such a vast number of things can change very quickly over time, it is likely that an alternate "you" would not be "you" in another reality. This argument would require a lot more work, delving into what it means to be "me", and is this entity unique in my own reality, and am I the same "me" as I always was, and always will be? Too many unknowns. However, I don't believe that there is something real, unique, and persistent enough about this "me" that I would be able to identify with corresponding objects in an alternate reality. I don't consider there to be an infinite number of alternate "me"s, because I don't think those alternates are "me".