- #36
vanesch
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
Gold Member
- 5,117
- 20
Coldcall said:But the odds that a universal wave function evolves a viable Unicorn-inhabited universe before the one with microbes makes it almost impossible. Let's face it, the unicorn-centric fine tuning which would need to go into the wave function for such an outcome is highly unlikely. Our microbe universe, even though it is wildly coincidental as it is, is a darn sight more probable than a universe which spontaneously evolves unicorns as its first valid observer.
You seem to forget that in a wavefunction, if there is unitary evolution, there can be AT THE SAME TIME a component that will allow a microbe to emerge 3 billion years ago, and a very tiny component with a unicorn in it *right away*. There are no "odds" in a unitary evolving wavefunction: we simply have different terms of the wavefunction. So the statement that "our microbe universe is more probable than a unicorn universe" simply means that the coefficients of their predecessors in the wavefunction have different coefficients. But you should agree with me that it is still more probable that NO life evolves in a universe, or that a different form of life evolves in a universe. So "our" universe, when "our first microbe" came out, wasn't so very very more probable either. If, in our universe, the first microbe evolved after about 10 billion years, then you should admit that the odds that somewhere else another microbe evolved after just 9 billion years isn't so remotely impossible - the odds must be comparable, which means that their precursor terms in the universal wavefunction had comparable amplitudes. Early unicorns had precursors with smaller amplitudes, but they were nevertheless there.
But now you are telling me that in order for a precursor term in the wavefunction to develop a living thing, and hence to collapse out all other precursor terms, that term must have a respectable amplitude. Small terms, even though they have evolved highly sophisticated living creatures, are not capable of collapse. That saves us from the early unicorn. It can nevertheless make disappear other precursor terms, with even larger or comparable amplitudes, as long as they didn't evolve enough living material at that moment, although they would have evolved microbes, but they were just a bit late.
Now still more difficult. What is "earlier" and what is "later" depends on the frame of reference. Imagine two precursor universe terms in a neck-to-neck race in the unitary evolution to make the first microbe (and hence to collapse away the competition). Let's call them "term15" and "term208". Suppose that they make their first microbe on a spacelike interval, and on planets in different motions (remember that each precursor term now describes an entire universe: the planet on which the microbe that appear in term15 appears, doesn't even have to exist in term208. The microbe in term15 is a totally different creature than the microbe in term208, different genetic code, etc... Now, from the frame of reference of the microbe in term15, it appears to be the "first". It is of course the only one in term15. But if it maps the universe described in term208 into its own spacetime, then it is "earlier" than the event that corresponds to the microbe creation in term208, at least in its own frame of reference.
And now we look at term208. In this term, there's also a microbe created. When it goes through the same exercise as did the microbe in term15, then it comes to the conclusion that, in ITS frame of reference, it came first ! It is of course the only microbe in its entire universe described by term208, but if it maps the event in the universe of term15 into ITS spacetime, then in ITS frame of reference, it came first.
So, who wins ? What universe is now going to disappear, what microbe will never have come into existence because its precursor term of its universe was collapsed away by the awareness of the other ?