In that discussion about cars, it made me think about the multiple possible futures. And my question is to you:
If there are multiple possible futures available, are they all real? Are they all equally real? Or is only the one that becomes final real?
According to the probability of the universe theory (ahem, you can see it elsewhere on this site)- there are multiple possible futures, and they are not all equally probable, however these possible futures are still latent- available to exist, in the present.
So we have to ask- are the more probable futures "more real" than the less probable futures?
It is a difficult thorny question. I will quote Einsten (who wrote with another guy called TinyTree by chance)
Quote:
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It will hence be concluded that the principles of quantum mechanics actually involve an uncertainty in the description of past events which is analogous to the uncertainty in the prediction of future events.
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According to quantum mechanics, we have the same problem with the past (and according to the probability of the Universe theory as well).. there are multiple pasts which could have led to the present. Only one of them actually existed- but if it is "erased" which one brought us here.. is it still "real"?
As a simple example, lets imagine a computer playing yahtzee. You are not watching it as it plays, but you are playing against it. It rolls five quantum (genuinely random) dice , and comes up with 1, 1, 1 and some other numbers (4,5). Then it rolls these other numbers, and comes up with a Yahtzee.
If you were looking away, and the computer did not record these other numbers- did it matter what they were? Are they still real or not? Is that past reality more real than another reality where those numbers were something totally different (like 3,4)? If no one recorded what those other two dice were, and never saw them- does that reality have any more substance than a different reality where they were something else?
It appears from that quote of Einstein there is an implication that the "real" reality has lost its substance- it has no more impact than the alternative reality with other numbers. The past is "unravelled" so to speak, as the past is forgotten. Do you agree with this or not?
The staggering implication of this is that much of the past- or all of the past- is not real except insofar as it has impacted the present. If this is the case, the present is sort of a "narrowing of reality" where the future and the past both spread out into possible existences, and the past is constrained by what is remembered in the present. As the present loses touch with the past- it unravels. I am not sure I buy this, but it is an interesting thought.
Getting back to the future, I want to know your opinion about possible futures. Lets pretend there are only four possible futures. These futures have the following probabilities:
1) Future A 50% probability
2) Future B 30% probability
3) Future C 20% probability
4) Future D 0% probability
Is future D "real" at all? It can be imagined, but can not exist. Is that real? Is future A the most real, since it is the most probable? Or is Future C the most real, since it has moved the universe into a more actualized, less probable future?