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Comment by layer8 | Hacker News Reader

Maybe the larger universe is identical to the contained universe, like a fractal. That would solve the question. ;)

Might I suggest Brouwer's theorem while we figure it out

Could you elaborate? It's been a while since I've done any real analysis/etc.

A 2D version: If you have a map of the place you're in, there must be a point on the map that's in the exact place it represents.

Would be fun if we find a function f(state, time) such that for f(singularity, 14 billion years) we get our current universe. i.e.: every singularity turns into our exact universe.

Implying there’s no such thing as randomness, at any level?

No randomness when taking everything into account. I’m not an expert but I still hold out hope that if you know more about the universe than humanity does everything will be known to be deterministic.

Also implies that all singularities of the same mass are identical. I think this should be less bold of a statement. Let’s speculate that the more mass in the singularity would correspond to higher iterations in something like the Mandelbrot set. More of a resolution enhancement.

More if a scifi prompt than anything else to be fair.

That would mean that beings getting to know everything about the universe at some point and realizing it's deterministic was always pre-determined

While I doubt you’re unique in this, I think this is the first time I’ve seen someone say they hope there’s no such thing as free will.

Can you explain why you hope everything is deterministic?

Might just be a reflection of my enjoyment of life. I’ve been very lucky on most aspects. Perhaps if things were worse I’d wish for the knowledge that it could have gone differently.

But also it would be super trippy and interesting. Knowing just the mass of the universe you’d be able to peer into any time, past or present, and see exactly what happened. But then what happens around areas where people look into the local time? This happens in the show Devs. So not at all a new idea in scifi.

Not much concern for all the people less lucky than you?

Just explaining where my ideas on determinism might come from. It’s not as though I can change the laws of physics to be one way or the other.

In my way of thinking, determinism is a prerequisite for "free will". People usually speak of free will as a the idea of making their own choices. Suppose you hypothetically take a snapshot of my exact physical/mental state at the instant of decision and replay it multiple times. If I always make the same choice, that's determinism. If the outcome of the decision is sometimes different, I can't call that a "choice" or free will. It was something random that I had no control over.

Then we gotta find the black hole in our universe that contains that universe, and nuke it before they come to take our fluids!

Why selfish ???

It's imperative we maintain Purity Of Essence. It will bring Peace On Earth.

Might not be the best idea, unless we just so happen to be all the way at the top of the sequence[1]...

1 - https://qntm.org/responsibility

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