SaltyDangerHands t1_jcdi70w wrote on March 16, 2023 at 1:17 AM

Reply to comment by dasBergen in If the universe goes for forever, will every event repeat itself? Or is it been happening? by EmbarrassedFriend693

I feel like you fundamentally misunderstand my point, which I should remind you isn't even my point but instead a generally accepted property of infinity. It's literally "an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters", this is the exact sort of thing that saying is about.

Nothing you've said is downright impossible, so straight up mathematically, as in "we can prove this with math" and not "this is a difference of equally credible opinions", that makes it eventual. Do the stars and shapes in the sky need to match? That's less probable, only, not impossible, so it STILL happens an infinite number of times. There are an infinite number of exactly-like-earth copies staring at an infinite number of identical-to-ours-skies because that's ONLY fantastically unlikely, not impossible, and given an infinite number of opportunities to happen, it will, according to the math, according to presently considered "proven" properties of infinity, happen an infinite number of times.

I am trying to be super clear here, we do not disagree, you are simply wrong. You can believe or not believe whatever you want, go nuts, but according to math, the people who study math, and the fundamental rules of probability (which is just math), this is how a genuinely infinite universe would work. None of this is opinion. These are the facts about infinity.

I'm not trying to be rude or dismissive or condescending here, but you're not arguing with me, you're arguing with the institution of "math", this is not what I say, this is what we find when we actually sit down to calculate how infinity works. I'm sorry, genuinely, but you're just wrong here.

dasBergen t1_jce48ya wrote on March 16, 2023 at 4:12 AM

I enjoy the debate, and fully admit I may be wrong. An infinite number of monkeys will create Shakespeare, but cannot produce a list of all typewritten lists that do not contain themselves as it is simply a paradox, not an improbability.

This is why I compare to pi. You can find an infinite number of 1s, infinite number of 14159s an infinite number of a million digits of pi, but it does not repeat. So if you say an exact earth is 15 digits long then yes you will find an infinite number of those digits (and every other combination of 15 digits). But you will not find anywhere that pi starts at 14159 runs any distance and then repeats 14159 and on exactly. How does this relate to the copy of earth? Earth has influenced and been influenced by everything within 14 billion light years, so 14 digits of pi let's say, you can certainly find an infinite number of those, but at the edge of that 14 billion years those influenced objects have been influencing things for 14 billion years as well. (I'll grant that we're probably getting into less than plank lengths so I'll admit I'm wrong here, but hear me out anyway) the continuous expansion of the sphere of influence encompasses the entire infinite universe in this way. So in order to create an exact copy, with the same history, same future, same influence you need a copy of the whole universe, the entire length of pi... And pi does not repeat, though it is infinite.

Anything less than an entire universe copy will eventually diverge from our earth (perhaps after the heat death of the universe and be really really really hard to notice but would be different none the less)

If you are talking about a multiverse, infinite big bangs, then clearly yes this happening once is proof it is possible, and would happen infinite more times.

If the size of your copy is infinite you need a new infinite universe to put it in.

The other point I'd like to raise is that not everything is random, so something like the same earth but I'm left handed may not be a possibility. The genetics of my parents may not be capable of creating left handed children, and the mutations that would create left handedness probably require several other changes to the world, plus the experiences I would have being left handed my entire life would shape me into a different person with different thoughts.

So the exact way the earth was assembled is a cause and effect relationship, without one you don't get the other. If you don't care what history the atoms of earth had before assembly then you can find infinite earths, but I argue that is not an exact copy.

Thank you for your thoughtful and respectful responses.