In a universe of infinite space and time, is it possible for something to happen once

Guybrush · 12-07-2012, 12:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoorOldPo

A friend of mine proposed this to me recently. I find it hard to conceptualize but theoretically, if there is an infinite amount of time and space, then yes, literally anything imaginable is possible. Now if you believe that our entire universe is a product of it being observed in the first place, by our conscious minds, then anything is possible. If something has to be looked at to actually exist. This leads me to the question, what is reality? Is it the individuals need to give the chaotic life they find themselves in some kind of consistency and order, a set security. What if nothing is real, and everything visualized in your head, including the words you are reading right now, are a product of your mind trying to make sense of what is really there, what if everything that you see right now isn't what is actually looks lie, but a human interpretation, or even just an interpretation made by pure conscious thought, human or not.

This is an old idea and one I think just about everyone somewhat reflected stumble upon at some point in life, typically in teenage years when you start reflect on reality a bit more. This philosophy is often found in the basic foundations of fantasy fiction like the role-playing game Mage: The Ascension, Neil Gaiman's Sandman or Terry Pratchett's Discworld (fiction many teenagers read).

One could argue that if the world really was like that, then all our assumptions should consistently be proven true, as long as it is believed by the majority of people. Yet we've often found ourselves to be wrong. F.ex when Copernicus relaunched the heliocentric world view, most people in the world believed in geocentrism. Christians in Europe believed in geocentrism and I believe the same went for f.ex most of China so I'm guessing the vast majority of people believed in geocentrism. Still, all evidence explored by Copernicus and others pointed towards a heliocentric world. If the world is created only in your head, how can you imagine a scientist working with ideas contradicting your own that eventually spread to become popular in your fantasy? And if the world is made up by a sort of collective fantasy of what people believe, why would the minority ever be right about anything? And rules seem to apply to the universe that we still don't understand. How can such rules exist if we can't even fathom them? Wouldn't this idea create a universe we can fully understand?

But of course, it's ultimately impossible to say whether or not it is like that, just like it's impossible to tell whether or not the world you live in is entirely a product of your imagination. After all, changing what you believe in the present would then alter what had happened in the past so one could argue that there was no Copernicus until people believed there was a Copernicus. Of course you'd still have the problem of explaining where the initial seed for the idea about Copernicus would come from in such a universe if it's not found in history, but I'm sure you can come up with some explanation for that as well if you try hard enough.

My personal feelings is that it's standard, cheap, philosophical BS of course

By the way, a comment on your friends idea of infinity; an infinite universe in time, space and matter doesn't necessarily mean anything imaginable can happen. It means everything which has a probability of happening should happen. In order for everything imaginable to have a probability, you would have to have physical laws that at some point allow everything imaginable to be a probability, but you probably don't (right?). At least I don't believe that so f.ex I doubt there would ever exist a marshmallow the size of a thousand galaxies because the probability of that event taking place is 0 as far as I'm concerned.