could it have been any different?

[Narz]

Could anything that has ever happened been different?

I know jack about quantum physics, as do, I imagine, most folks who try to talk about it. Iirc tho it suggests there could be infinite timelines where infinite other choices could've been made but when I think back over my life it doesn't feel like I ever could've done anything different than what I did. Obviously I could now but not then, that's why I did what I did then.

 

[BvBPL]

A pigeon might have flown in front of Oswald, so, sure, things could have been different.

 

[Zelig]

Does it matter?

 

[gay_Aleks]

A pigeon might have flown in front of Oswald, so, sure, things could have been different.

The bullet would explode the pigeon and at best it would slightly slow the bullet.

 

[Zack]

This is where someone says free will is an illusion.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

If you're taking it to quantum physics then you're really talking about the Cosmic Landscape as described by Leonard Susskind, which is fun to think about, except that as far as we can tell it's impossible to interact with in any meaningful way so I'm not sure how many brain cycles it's worth spending on it.

 

[BvBPL]

The bullet would explode the pigeon and at best it would slightly slow the bullet.

I assumed the flapping wings of the pigeon would have distracted Oswald enough to cause him to miss.

It seems possible that an exploding pigeon would alter the bullet's trajectory in a manner that might have saved Connally or Kennedy.

Anyone know the effectiveness of a 52 mm round after passing through an exploding pigeon?

 

[gay_Aleks]

Sounds like a good xkcd What If question.

 

[Future PM]

What Narz really wants to know is if Zayn Malik is still part of One Direction in a parallel universe.

 

[BvBPL]

Somebody call Steve Hawking!

 

[madviking]

Could anything that has ever happened been different?

I know jack about quantum physics, as do, I imagine, most folks who try to talk about it. Iirc tho it suggests there could be infinite timelines where infinite other choices could've been made but when I think back over my life it doesn't feel like I ever could've done anything different than what I did. Obviously I could now but not then, that's why I did what I did then.

Link to video.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Somebody call Steve Hawking!

I trust more webcomic artists than Mr. Hawking.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Here is my admittedly unscientific viewpoint on whether things could have been different: Until we know for sure that there is no possibility of a "multiverse" existing, it's an intriguing thing to think about. Maybe there's another universe in which I just drank cranberry juice instead of wildberry juice, or in which I'm not posting right now, but instead did the sensible thing and went to bed (since it's nearly 2 am here), and everything else is the same.

Maybe there's another universe where things are so different that life never arose. Or maybe it did, but it's vastly different than anything we can imagine.

Universes where history went in a significantly different direction? Fascinating. I had a history instructor in college who could never fathom why it would be interesting to think about. I told him it was something that was fun to imagine and speculate about, and he just shook his head. He didn't get it.

@Narz: I would think that some of your choices were probably a close call, though, right? You might easily have made a different decision if some tiny thing had influenced your decision another way.

Some people think that every time someone makes a decision, another version of reality is split off into a different history (or universe, if you prefer), so that there is a history where the decision went one way and a history where it went a different way.

So I don't spend a lot of time fretting about all the things I could have done or owned or whatever... because it's not impossible that there could be some version of reality where these things did indeed happen. All we can do is make the best of the reality we're in right now, since nobody has, as far as we know, managed to invent a time machine or other way of getting to these hypothetical alternate realities.

 

[Kozmos]

Could anything that has ever happened been different?

Not in this universe. The others are none of your business.

This is where someone says free will is an illusion.

Greater behavioral versatility you mean.

 

[sophie]

Does it matter?

Yeah this.

 

[Borachio]

Does anything matter, then?

It's interesting to speculate, though.

Maybe what we experience now is just one of a multitude of possibilities.

Maybe the universe bifurcates at every decision point, so that there are a myriad of universes coexisting and bifurcating into a myriad myriad universes at any one time. And we just happen to experience just the one time-line?

What might happen if all those infinitely myriad universes collapsed to a single one? And how might we do it? And would it be a good thing to do or not?

Still, as you say, who cares?

 

[gay_Aleks]

Another shot on Mr. B's tab, barman!

 

[Lohrenswald]

I can't claim a whole lot of knowledge about quantum physics (a bit though), but I really don't think that there is anything there that can constitute "free will" or really cause a whole lot of randomness in the macroscopic universe.
So I think that a deterministic view is pretty accurate overall.
That is: Things couldn't really have been any different. Everything you've personally experienced is really just particles reacting to each other according to the laws of physics.

I also don't subscribe to multiverse theory, but if there actually is one, I think they have more to do with quantum physics than human choices. Whether an electron is here or there is an intrinsic uncertainty to the universe (is what I'm under impression of). Whether you buy this or that cereal isn't, that's in reality deterministic.

Now, despite having said that, I think it matters. I can imagine that I could have made a whole lot of choices very different. I can also imagine that a whole lot outside my ability to control could have been different (say, I can imagine having been born in India, for example).
And infact I do think about this. Pretty much all the time. I don't know if there is anything I think more about than what could have been different.

 

[Narz]

Does it matter?

Practically speaking, not really, but I'm trying to save CivFanatics.

Not in this universe. The others are none of your business.

Awww How do you know the other universes don't want our attention?

 

[warpus]

Could anything that has ever happened been different

Yes, a radioactive isotope should in theory behave differently each time you "run the timeline", if such a thing were possible.

Due to the butterfly effect this should lead to changes in the macroscopic world, ranging from "some" to "whoa".