And if so, could this copy have different outcomes, or is it destined to repeat the same existence as…this?
We’re all you, hon.
There’s no real answer, as there’s no way to know if multiverses exist. But, in what I would consider the most common multiverse theory in science, called the “many worlds hypothesis,” any outcome in quantum mechanics that only has a probability of happening actually has all probabilities happening, just in different universes.
Thus, if there are any copies of you in this theory, it is very possible that some quantum effect would be different, and that, by the butterfly effect, macroscopic things could also be different.
The whole idea of a multiverse is that each universe is at least slightly different from every other. So they would not be doomed to the same future.
But, again, barring some interaction between universes or something something we don’t know we don’t know, there is no real way to test and see if other universes exist, let alone know what their contents are.
Moderator Action
I don’t think it’s possible to answer this one factually, so let’s move this to IMHO (from GQ).
Any factual information about the current state of multiverse theory and related topics is of course still welcome.
Yes, there are an infinite number of copies of you in the multiverse. Sadly, all of them are either better-looking, richer or happier (or all of the above) than you are here.
Interestingly, not ALL of them are better-looking, richer, or happier. BUT an infinite number of them are.
Of course, finding an “Earth” , let alone one with another you in it, is going to be the hard part since an infinite number of times this planet never formed at all.
(post deleted by double)
There are different kinds of ‘multiverse’. One is the theorized quantum mechanical version in which there is a separate universe for each possible solution to the wave function, and another kind in which there is just one infinite universe containing an infinite number if ‘light bubbles’ or regions of space forever isolated from others by the speed of light limit.
Assuming that each one of those develops randomly, you can do the math to find out how far you’d have to go to find identical duplicates. It’s a long, long way. But in a truly infinite universe with the same rules and a random collection of matter and energy at the start, there would be places that don’t just have identical 'you’s, but identical everything else right out to the theoretical limits of detection in that bubble.
For that matter, in a truly infinite universe there are an infinite number of them. No quantum multiverse required.
Infinite doesn’t necessarily imply duplication.
I can define a number with a infinite number of digits, but only one “7” for example.
That’s why I qualified it to say IF each bubble starts with the same rules and a truly random initial starting condition.
It’s still possible that evolution leads to strange attractors and other features that drive similarity, but that would increase the odds of duplicate ‘universes’.
My other-universe car is a Ferrari.
There’s only one timeline allowed; we call it the Sacred Timeline. Every now and then, someone like you does something you’re not supposed to do. Maybe you started an insurrection, or you were just late for work. You become what we call a Variant. That’s when the Time Variance Authority steps in to arrest you and make you stand trial for your crimes. If found guilty, you’ll be pruned and have the timeline reset. The alternative would be vast multiversal conflict.
Or so the Time-Keepers would have you believe.
Physicist and one-time astronomy student weighing in here. As I understand the work of Max Tegmark, it appears that the universe we see today must be like this, and there are infinitely many other spots that are more or less identical to the one you are in right now. Exactly how identical do you want it? If you want another spot that looks and feels pretty similar though a bit odd, you ought to have to go some distance before encountering something that fits that description. If you want another spot where the position and motion of every subatomic particle is indistinguishable, meaning another version of you reading an identical web page on the Dope who had a molecularly identical breakfast and could see an identical sky even through the most powerful telescope, you have to go much farther. But you could still find an infinite number of such places, if you search over a broad enough range. I think I remember reading about a distance of 10^(10^100) meters in one of these cases.
Or, at least, you’d find these if it were possible to search such distances – except that you can’t travel that far within the lifetime of the universe.
But there’s no physical principle that would prevent, for example, the existence of a thread that goes from where you are to one of these nearly identical instances.
I think this is a philosophically intriguing situation. It appears that it would have to be so. Yet, it is such a fantastic claim, and the most basic ways of proving it to ourselves seem impossible. So, are we supposed to believe this? How should we think about the reality of such stuff?
This is sort of what I envision. The most likely probabilities are the most numerous. It’s a bell curve in which the higher points of the curve are many many universes in which I’m pretty much like I am now-- not wildly successful but doing OK, sometimes happy, sometimes miserable. Maybe in another universe I had eggs for breakfast on January 27, 1993 instead of cereal in this one.
On both shorter ends of the bell curve however, there are just a few universes in which I’m either doing very badly on the one end of the curve, or I’m rich, happy, healthy and living a charmed life on the other.
There are lots of ways to imagine a multiverse with multiple versions of you. One is an infinite five-dimensional many-worlds universe, where not only are there an infinite number of versions of you beyond the Hubble Volume, but there are infinite branching timelines, too. The three-dimensional universe we see at any given instant is a mere cross-section of this hyperverse, and this cross-section is constantly moving forward in the fourth dimension and branching as it goes. Each branch represents a minuscule movement sideways in the fifth dimension, so that the infinite number of branches can all be accommodated side-by side without interacting with each other.
Perhaps this entire five-dimensional bush exists as a block universe, eternal and unchanging; but as a mere cross-section of this manifold, we experience one four-dimensional timeline among the many branches of possibility. You probably exist in a great number of locations in this universe, but all these versions are forever inaccessible to one another, so they may as well not exist.
And I suppose, outside of my rather fanciful model, they probably don’t.