this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

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[–] MuThyme@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I don't really understand why, but this seems to be a common misunderstanding of the multiverse theory.

All it says is that every possible universe exists, so it's not at all required that everything you can think of exists, just everything permitted by physics. Possible is the keyword here, and you can still have an infinity of universes even if you restrict what is possible.

I'm no expert on the subject, but as I understand it there are generally two types of multiverse theory. The one where you have infinite universes all with the same physical laws, but every unique possibility under those laws exists in the multiverse. And the one where every possible variation on the laws of physics exist (generally talking about different coupling constants rather than entirely different laws). It's entirely reasonable that both types are one in the same.

In either case, it wouldn't really be consistent for there to be a universe where the multiverse doesn't exist, unless it is the only universe and there is no multiverse at all.

[–] bstix@feddit.dk 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

infinite universes all with the same physical laws, but every unique possibility

What makes different possibilities exist if the laws are the same? Is there a random function somewhere in the laws of physics?

[–] MuThyme@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Different arrangements would do it, or you could think of it very loosely as the "if you made different decisions in each" kind of thing. Events/history is different, essentially.

On your idea of a "random function" yes, pretty much everything at a fundamental level appears to be probabilistic to some level. Quantum theory cannot in most cases predict the exact outcome of an experiment, just the probability of different outcomes.

[–] fkn@lemmy.world -4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You can combine the same atoms into different larger elements. It's like that. The same physical laws, but the combinations are infinite (or at least uncountable).

The other concept is that the laws are different, but not true infinite combinations within reach.

Or both.

[–] bstix@feddit.dk 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What combines the atoms differently when the laws of combining atoms are the same?

[–] fkn@lemmy.world -3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What do you mean? It's chemistry...

[–] bstix@feddit.dk 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The question is if the laws of physics are deterministic or not. If the rules are the same, then the result would be the same and all the universes in that case would be identifical.

The multi universe theory assumes randomness, undeterministic physics or that every universe has different initial properties.

[–] fkn@lemmy.world -2 points 2 years ago

Oh. You literally have no idea what these words mean. Got it.