If there is a Parallel Reality where you made a different choice, then what happens to free-will?

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No, your memory is not wrong. I and many others know for a fact that Desi Arnaz in his Cuban accent said “Lucy; you got some 'splainin to do!” many times throughout the series. Yet it doesn’t (no longer?) appears in the show and apparently never has. This is Twilight Zone kind of stuff.
 
StatuensNParteDextra said:
No, your memory is not wrong. I and many others know for a fact that Desi Arnaz in his Cuban accent said “Lucy; you got some 'splainin to do!” many times throughout the series. Yet it doesn’t (no longer?) appears in the show and apparently never has. This is Twilight Zone kind of stuff.
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The “You got some ‘splainin’ to do” sounds like something out of I Love Lucy parody skits.

More broadly, the alleged phenomenon you’re referring to is popularly called the Mandela Effect. (I don’t believe in it, I just know people who talk about it.)
 
IWantGod said:
people that only look the same superficially speaking and are not essentially identical
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If they are identical, then what does it mean to be a person? If I have consciousness of one reality, then what in the world is a parallel reality if not something disconnected from my perception of myself as a distinct individual? It seems that your assertions fail either on one side of these questions or the other… 🤷‍♂️
 
Wesrock said:
More broadly, the alleged phenomenon you’re referring to is popularly called the Mandela Effect.
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That is one term for whatever it is. I never believed in anything of the sort but I know that line was in the show often. Moreover, it appeared in parody skits because anyone who ever watched the show knew it was one of Ricky’s common lines.
 
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IWantGod said:
But if i only choose A because my counterpart chooses B, then free-will or choice is an illusion.
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You don’t have a ‘counterpart’ under this theory – just another reality which you inhabit. Sometimes. And cluelessly. 🤦‍♂️
 
Gorgias said:
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IWantGod:
But if i only choose A because my counterpart chooses B, then free-will or choice is an illusion.
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You don’t have a ‘counterpart’ under this theory – just another reality which you inhabit. Sometimes. And cluelessly. 🤦‍♂️
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In this hypothetical, it’s not two realities that have existed side by side since their beginning, but ome reality which branched into two or more, like tree branches from a trunk. Prior to the split they’d have been absolutely identical and one.
 
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Wesrock said:
In this hypothetical, it’s not two realities that have existed side by side since their beginning, but ome reality which branched into two or more, like tree branches from a trunk.
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If I’m not aware of these multiple ‘realities’, then how are these ‘realities’ mine at all?
 
Gorgias said:
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Wesrock:
In this hypothetical, it’s not two realities that have existed side by side since their beginning, but ome reality which branched into two or more, like tree branches from a trunk.
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If I’m not aware of these multiple ‘realities’, then how are these ‘realities’ mine at all?
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Both versions of Gorgias at Time 2 have equal claim to being the same Gorgias you are now at Time 1.
 
Wesrock said:
Both versions of Gorgias at Time 2 have equal claim to being the same Gorgias you are now at Time 1.
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At Time 2, I’m not two people.

If I’m only one ‘me’ at Time 2, then this isn’t “parallel reality”. It’s “one reality” and another “not-reality.” 😉
 
Gorgias said:
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Wesrock:
Both versions of Gorgias at Time 2 have equal claim to being the same Gorgias you are now at Time 1.
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At Time 2, I’m not two people.

If I’m only one ‘me’ at Time 2, then this isn’t “parallel reality”. It’s “one reality” and another “not-reality.” 😉
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In this hypothetical, both realities are actual. You’re right that Gorgias A and Gorgias B at T2 are different people, but they were the same person, one person, at T1. There is no Gorgias A and Gorgias B at T1, just Gorgias. That is, the you right now becomes both later versions, even if both are only aware of their one reality and not the other and are at T2 distinct.
 
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Wesrock said:
the you right now becomes both later versions, even if both are only aware of their one reality and not the other and are at T2 distinct.
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Still not helping.

At T2, there are two me’s? However, I’m not aware of my multiple “existences”? If they’re distinct at time T2 … then they’re not parallel , but rather, are distinct. Therefore, they wouldn’t be “me”. At best, there’d be one me and one not-me.

Or, on the other hand, if the two me’s, but only in potentiality at T1 with respect to T2, then there aren’t “parallel realities”, but only two potentialities (one of which come into existence).

The problem with “parallel reality” theories is that, if you take the assertion of “reality” seriously, then the number of “realities” quickly becomes untenable (at least 2n, for n instants being observed).
 
Bradskii said:
But existence is indeterminate. You can draw direct lines between events but it only works backwards. You can work out why something happened but you can’t predict an outcome. At least a single macro outcome from an infinite number of micro (name removed by moderator)uts. You can state that it was indeed the loss of the nail that brought down the kingdom, but you couldn’t state that the kingdom would fall at the moment the nail was lost.
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Something being indeterminate doesn’t change the fact that one event was the result of another event. The point of the matter is that If the blind physical processes in your brain caused you to think that you are the best, then you cannot say that this thought was self-determined. It was only the result of blind physical processes which themselves were the result of physical processes regressing back to the big-bang. The idea of a self-identity doesn’t enter in to it. Your thoughts and actions are just the sum total of all the physical activity that came before.
 
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IWantGod said:
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Bradskii:
But existence is indeterminate. You can draw direct lines between events but it only works backwards. You can work out why something happened but you can’t predict an outcome. At least a single macro outcome from an infinite number of micro (name removed by moderator)uts. You can state that it was indeed the loss of the nail that brought down the kingdom, but you couldn’t state that the kingdom would fall at the moment the nail was lost.
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Something being indeterminate doesn’t change the fact that one event was the result of another event. The point of the matter is that If the blind physical processes in your brain caused you to think that you are the best, then you cannot say that this thought was self-determined. It was only the result of blind physical processes which themselves were the result of physical processes regressing back to the big-bang. The idea of a self-identity doesn’t enter in to it.
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But one (micro) event is never the determinant of a macro event. There are an infinite number of (micro) events that create the flow of existence. And chaos theory and quantum indeterminacy makes a predicted outcome a nonsense.
 
Bradskii said:
And chaos theory and quantum indeterminacy makes a predicted outcome a nonsense.
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It’s irrelevant that something cannot be predicted. For example, imagine balls that randomly change colour in relation to one-another. The blue ball might not determine the colour of a red ball because it being red is random. But because they change in relation to one-another the red ball being red is still the result of the activity and behaviour of the blue ball. Thus one can still say that the red ball was caused to be red by the activity of the other balls, even though the system is indeterminate. Distinct quantum events still effect each-other. There is still cause and effect. They are not just arbitrary occurrences. The out-come of these relationships is just unpredictable.
 
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This is meaningless to me and I’d expect it to be tried to be explained away. I watched that show as often as it was on TV growing up and used to jokingly quote the line. Don’t allow yourself to question your memories, or even sanity, because if something’s going on to cause such things I’d expect that to be the very purpose.

Another thing people have noticed is famous the line in Apollo 13 that everyone remembered as “Houston we have a problem” changing to “Houston we’ve had a problem.” There are similar “misquoted” webpages stating as such (and they’re still out there), however the line once again went back to what everyone remembered. I personally witnessed this.

These are seemingly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things yet it still makes one question their understandings on the foundations of reality and our perceptions of it.
 
Quantum mechanics does not need parallel universes. It is simply the interaction of electromagnetic fields and matter at the atomic level. All of these interpretations that make it seem like something weird and earth shattering is going on are just nonsense.

The video makes it seem like the photoelectric effect leads to the need for parallel universes. That is just silly. The fact that energy is exchanged in discrete quantities between the electromagnetic field and matter is simply due to the modes that exist in natural systems. At the time of the photoelectric effect experiments, they had not even discovered the electron yet. So all this structure of matter at the atomic level was being just understood. Now, we engineer it.

We use quantum mechanics now routinely in engineering and I assure you there is nothing spooky or weird or needing parallel universes about it. The instruments, the fields and the matter that the fields are interacting with work as a system, and that system has finite discrete states so that energy can only be observed being exchanged in quantum.
 
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