Reccurance

[cmatlock]

I am a complete noob to physics...

I'm 14 years old, easily frightened. I need answers.

There exists a creepypasta (scary story) entitled "The physics of hell". I'm too dumb to describe it, I recommend just reading it.

I have to know.... Is any of it feasible? Please... i'm shaking right now... Never has something I read terryfied me to this extent. I tried asking this on another forum, but they removed my post for being "too philosophical/speculative".

Please... Someone....

Sorry, I wasn't thinking. Would this have to be moved to the 'speculations forum'?

[Endy0816]

A good creepypasta. I'm a fan of SCP Foundation stories myself.

 

That creepypasta is mainly centered around:

 

-The Big Rip/Chill

-Recurrence or more accurately a physical form of reincarnation(infinite infinities)

 

The "End" stages in the Big Rip scenario would be matter-lite relatively speaking and there's no good reason for it to form into you(even if there was a sufficient quantity). Both are also speculation about the future. Time could end on Monday or the Universe could give deflation a whirl. We only know what is probable based on past experiences.

[Strange]

It is fiction.

[cmatlock]

A good creepypasta. I'm a fan of SCP Foundation stories myself.

 

That creepypasta is mainly centered around:

 

-The Big Rip/Chill

-Recurrence or more accurately a physical form of reincarnation(infinite infinities)

 

The "End" stages in the Big Rip scenario would be matter-lite relatively speaking and there's no good reason for it to form into you(even if there was a sufficient quantity). Both are also speculation about the future. Time could end on Monday or the Universe could give deflation a whirl. We only know what is probable based on past experiences.

Thank you... but could you explain in a bit more detail?

[Delta1212]

Ok, let's put it this way: assuming that the premise of the creepy pasta is correct (it's junk, but let's treat it as reality for a moment), the odds of you being reborn are astronomically small but, according to the pasta there is infinite time so it's bound to happen.

 

Well, the odds of an entire world tailored specifically to your tastes spontaneously appearing with you as supreme ruler are even smaller, but hey, infinite time, so it's bound to happen. Or three of you popping into existence right next to each other. Even less likely, but again, infinite time. In that case, who is the real you? Are any of them? In fact, going with this premise, it's entirely possible for a version of you to appear that is identical in every respect, except that you think your mother's name was Bob. So is that you or someone else entirely? Does it have to be the exact configuration you were in on your deathbed to count? The odds would theoretically be equally likely that the version of you that exists right now would pop into existence as the version of you that existed on your deathbed.

 

So you could be sitting on a bus and then suddenly find yourself floating in space billions or years after some other version of you continued on living life as normal until dying at the age of 92.

 

And a version of you popping back into existence without remembering the previous times you've popped back into existence is no less likely than one who does. For that matter, the version of you that pops back into existence remembering all the previous times you popped into existence just to die is just as likely to appear before those times happen as after them.

 

It's all utterly ridiculous even before you get into the physics of why their "it's very unlikely but there is infinite time so it's bound to happen" argument is specious.

 

After all, 1 divided by 9 is 0.1111111111... It's a decimal string that goes on to infinity but the digit 2 is never going to appear in that string just because it has infinite chances to do so. Or pi. 3.14159 etc etc. it's non-repeating, goes on to infinity and contains every digit at some point, but an elephant is never going to crop up no matter how many places of pi you go.

[elfmotat]

Okay, so what they're saying is that there's some nonzero probability for "you" to randomly come about by particles randomly coming together to form some sort of brain. (Of course this raises the philosophical question of what defines "you." I will take it to mean that it has all your memories and patterns of thinking, etc.) This is what's known as a Boltzmann brain. I once saw a low estimate of the amount of time it would take for a simple Boltzmann brain to spontaneously form, and the figure was something like 10¹⁰⁵⁰ years. For perspective, the universe is only about 10¹⁰ years old. But this guy isn't just talking about a random brain, he's talking about one configured in such a way as to reproduce your exact memories, personality, etc. I don't even know how I would begin to quantify that, but it would dramatically increase that big number I gave. So no, this is not going to happen. Don't worry yourself.

[cmatlock]

Well, thank you for listening to the silly fears of a 14 year old