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Rumination on Infinity, Physical Constants, Multiverses and what that means about our reality

Today while I was doing dishes I had a minor existential brainstorm. I’ve been thinking about multiverses, reality, and infinity for most of my adult life. But for some reason today, while doing dishes, they all coalesced in an interesting way. And yes I did have a lot of dishes to do. 

Let me say I’m by no means a theoretical physicist, or a philosopher. In fact I never graduated from college. But I’ve read entirely too much science fiction and I’ve watched a lot of discovery/science channel content. And for the record, I didn’t read up on my coalesced ideas before writing this down, because I didn’t want to be influenced by others thoughts on the same subject. For all I know there’s an internet forum (or an infinite number of them) where folks talk about this very thing all day and night. I also recognize many of these ideas are hardly unique, in fact there’s even an episode of Star Trek were these ideas were touched on.

First I want to get some basic concepts, or at least my under educated understanding of these concepts out of the way.

Infinity:

Our human brains tend to think about infinity as just a single number that is really large. In fact it’s not a number at all, it’s a concept. This is because there are an infinite number of infinities. Let me give you an example using simple numbers. There is an infinite number of whole numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…. to infinity. There’s also an infinite number of even numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, 10… to infinity. By definition there are twice as many infinite whole numbers as there are infinite even numbers. And by extension there is a way smaller infinite number of multiples of the number 8,642,212. So infinity isn’t a number its a way of describing something, anything, that goes on forever. So remember, there are different relative “quantities" of infinity depending on what we are talking about. I’m going to use the word infinity a lot in this post, so be prepared.

Physical Constants:

In layman terms, physical constants are the the values that describe the physics of our universe. There are many physical constants, but the best known are the Gravitational Constant, the Speed of Light, the Planck Constant, Weak and Strong Electromagnetism and many more. Each of these has a value that is constant throughout our universe (we think). Now the interesting thing about these values that they could have been any value at all from from a presumably infinite number of possible values. However if any one of these values had deviated even a tiny fraction from what they actually are, our universe would not exist, or certainly would not exist in the way we experience it. And we, humanity would most certainly not exist to ruminate on it. So why, are the numbers so perfectly tuned to create the universe, and the things in it, like us? After all, the odds of them all being exactly what they need to be is infinitesimally small, or just shy of it. I read once what the odds were that all the dials would be exactly right, and it was a number so small as to be unfathomable to our human brain.

So again, why is it so perfectly tuned? The unsatisfying answer to that is simply that those dials had to be set exactly as they are in order for us to exist to ask the question. We’ll come back to this shortly.

Infinite Multiverse “Theory”:

According to wikipedia: "The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of possible universes, including the universe in which we live. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, and the physical laws and constants that describe them." This is by no means a fully accepted theory, but I would argue in order for our universe to exist, it has to be the case.

Either there is an infinite number of parallel multiverses all around us, or there was a near infinite number of universes that came before ours coalesced. For the purposes of this essay, I don’t think it really matters which kind we are referring to, what matters for this thought experiment is that there is or has been a near infinite number universes besides this one we all live in. And to get technical, they could be the same thing, since time itself is a construct of our particular universe. So whether they are parallel or serial is beside the point for the sake of this essay. What matters is that the reason our particular set of physical constants is exactly what they are in our universe is because our universe is the particular universe instance where those values all happened. There have been or are an infinite number of other universes where the values are either a little different or wildly different. And there were probably a much larger infinite number of other combinations that simply didn’t result in a universe forming at all. 

We just happen to live in the universe where those constants all lined up in such a way as to make a universe capable of creating us. To me this is the only explanation as to why our universe is so perfectly tuned. There were a finite but astronomically large number of universes that existed or attempted to exist prior to ours (or in the parallel version of multiverse, an astronomically large number of parallel universes, of which ours is one).

Okay, those are the baseline concepts that are a foundation to my thought experiment. Let's move on to my primary question, and what the answer may imply. If there are an infinite number of universes, doesn't that mean there have been an infinite number of universe instances that are almost exactly the same as the one we all live in right now? For example, is there a universe where everything is exactly the same as ours except that the ocean of earth has exactly one less molecule of H2O? Is there a universe where everything is exactly the same, except Donald Trump has purple hair? Is there a universe where Aphrodite gave birth to Harry Potter? And actually due to the nature of infinity, is there an infinite number of all those universes, including ours, and every other possible combination of physical constants, particle combinations, time conventions, etc? 

This brings up another conundrum, what about the supernatural? For example in the reference above I mention Aphrodite and Harry Potter, both things that would be impossible to exist in our universe because they would have to break the physical constants of our universe. But due to the sheer number of universes, is there a universe (or an infinite subset of universes) where Harry Potter can exist? I would argue that any given universe must exist within its physical constants, and thus the supernatural, meaning things or actions that work outside of a given universe’s physical constants, can’t exist. 

Now the next part of the question, where does the infinite part of an infinite multiverse come from? Are there an infinite number of universes, and/or an infinite number of combinations of physical constants that then create an infinite number of possible universes? And to that end, lets say there are two universes with exactly the same combination of physical constants as ours? Does that mean those universes are exactly the same, with the same combination of particles that combined in the same way? If so, are there at least exactly two of you reading exactly this same text? 

Or is there such a thing as true randomness outside of physical constants? Which would mean the universes with identical constants would still be almost completely different and there would be an infinite number of universes with our exact same set of physical constants, and we happen to be in one of them. Now lets say there is an infinite subset of universes with exactly the same set of physical constants, and if randomness exists between them, then there are an infinite number of universes with every possible combination of particles including this one and one where I put two periods at the end of this sentence..

If true randomness doesn’t exist, then you could make the argument that a particular combination of universal constants will inevitably lead to an identical universe. If that’s the case then it would follow that turning the dials of the physical constants is in fact the very thing that makes universes unique. However, since there’s an infinite number of combinations of values of the various constants, then it brings us right back around to an infinite number of almost identical universes to our including one with a purple haired Donald Trump.

I’m sure this whole thing could get even more complex by bringing in quantum physics. Universes infinitely branching depending on the interaction and observation of particles or quantum states. And of course cats that are alive and dead in parallel universes in which the cats decided to be dead or alive depending on how/when they were observed. Or we could complicate it by bringing in the idea of whether our universe as we understand it is just a simulation. But I would argue this is actually a subset of the bigger concept.

In the end, I’m pretty sure I need to drink a finitely less amount of caffeine.