• Firipu@startrek.website
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    2 days ago

    In an infinite list of letters, every single book ever written, every word ever spoken (and to be written/spoken) should be present no?

    I guess the only caveat is that in an infinite universe certain physical laws could be universal (which would prevent eg any universe to break the speed of light)? But some version of me having hair past my 30s should certainly exist no?

    Or am I getting this completely wrong?

    • MajorSauce@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      This infinite list of letters could be "any random combination of letters EXCEPT when that makes the word “banana”. A subset of an infinite set can still be infinite.

      Infinite != infinite randomness

      • Firipu@startrek.website
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        2 days ago

        Ah, fair enough. So that’s similar to “infinite universes of infinite possibilities, except light can never go faster than 300.000 km/sec”?

    • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      Or am I getting this completely wrong?

      I mean, the whole premise is getting this completely wrong. The actual physics idea behind multiple universes is that every possibility in specific quantum events happens, each one being in a separate, ‘parallel’, universe where everything else in the universe is exactly the same. All the laws of physics stay the same, just the results of all the cumulative random possibilities are different.

      This is also not the only explanation of that strange phenomenon in quantum mechanics.