Parallel universes, the soul and God

[Chrysame]

I don't believe in a god and I'm not sure I believe in the concept of a soul. I guess that depends on how you define soul. If there are different universes, I'd imagine that each me is an individual not tethered to the next me by anything other then genetic material. Wow, it really is interesting to think about, a lot of what ifs and maybes and wouldn't that be cool! I hope one of my alternatives is a good pianist. I always wanted to play the piano.

[michealdark]

Hrm. I think it may be a mistake not to view the physical universe as a mathematical abstraction so, from my vantage, they're equally real. Or rather, abstraction is closer to reality than our artificial notion of reality.

Isn't reality just an abstraction created out of our sense perceptions? That everything that exists, as we understand it, is a simple series of aggregates based around the construction of our senses into a system we can logically understand with our limited brains?

[restlessnative]

In reading this thread, I reminded once again about how much I miss SLIDERS.

I'm reminded of fuzzy memories of conversations in my friend's mom's smoke-filled basement.

[Patrick Gerard]

Isn't reality just an abstraction created out of our sense perceptions? That everything that exists, as we understand it, is a simple series of aggregates based around the construction of our senses into a system we can logically understand with our limited brains?

I'd say yes and no.

We tend to break the world down into bite sized chunks. It's not really broken down that way. But our abstractions are probably closer to reality than the bite sized chunks we perceive at any given moment because our abstractions are where we try to reassemble it. So what we think of as abstractions are, I think, more real than what we think of as concrete and tangible.

But I suspect a math problem (or even a riddle) is probably closer to the physical reality of the universe than Lego blocks or 3 dimensional models would be. The universe is very intangible.

[michealdark]

I think I get it, maybe. What you're saying is that the math we use to describe physics is probably closer to reality than the sense I have that my laptop has weight, density, and a specific feel to it. My sense of that is an illusory construct, but the math that describes that is real.

[ChastMastr]

Isn't reality just an abstraction created out of our sense perceptions? That everything that exists, as we understand it, is a simple series of aggregates based around the construction of our senses into a system we can logically understand with our limited brains?

I don't believe so, no. We're trying to comprehend that reality, however imperfectly we do, but that doesn't mean there isn't an external reality to imperfectly comprehend.

Also, I wouldn't at all limit our perceptions to our sense perceptions (in the sense of our bodily senses).

[michealdark]

Well no, I also believe we have extrasensory perceptions as well, but the physical universe is made up of what we can see, smell, taste, hear, feel, or measure with physical monitoring devices. Our emotional sense, our intuition, or empathy and sympathy, our ability to anthropomorphize, or sense of the divine, our thoughts (to the extent of the content of them), are also real to me and help form our perception of the universe, but they're harder, if nor currently impossible, to accurately measure and describe. They're just things we sense, things we know often without understanding how we know them.

[Patrick Gerard]

I think I get it, maybe. What you're saying is that the math we use to describe physics is probably closer to reality than the sense I have that my laptop has weight, density, and a specific feel to it. My sense of that is an illusory construct, but the math that describes that is real.

Right on!

EDIT: Or real-ish. I don't think reality has discreet parts. You'd have to take in the whole thing at once to experience the reality of it. But the math is, potentially, a better reconstruction because it takes in more observation and types of observation... and because it's focused on patterns rather than isolated evidence. Senses are easy enough to trick. Logic that holds up is as good as it gets with human limitations, though.

[J.R. LeMar]

The close ones would all be indistinguishable. You'd need an electron microscope pointed at one particle in another galaxy.

We could be hopping between the closer ones right now or they could all be folding in together as the result of some kind of undiscovered probabilistic gravity and we'd never know. Because they'd be identical as far as we could see.

That's one of those things I want to play with if I ever get to work on an established comic book. Say, the Justice League crosses over into another universe and meets another Justice League. Not one with distinct costumes or evil goatees or even different boot colors. Identical.

Now, where the difference lies and whether the interaction causes a difference, that's where the story is. But when they meet, there is NO apparent difference.

I think it would be eerie.

I do find that to be an interesting twist on the typical parallel universe story where there are radical differences. I'm imagining that there's a parallel Earth right now where my counterpart is sitting in his room, typing on the Gail Simone Forum, and everything about him is exactly like me, and his life has turned out exactly like mine, EXCEPT...he likes chocolate ice cream better than vanilla. Or prefers Coke over Pepsi. Something we'd never notice unless we happened to go out for ice cream or to buy sodas together.

[Dragonbat]

On the darker side, if everyone's choice sets of a new parallel universe, well, you or me deciding to walk instead of take public transit, put in overtime or take a sickday... probably at most gives us Sliding_Doors. But when you think about political decisions by world leaders... on how many Earths would you say that the Cuban Missile crisis ended differently? Or someone used a smallpox bioweapon? The multiverse might be a lot smaller than we think...