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Each absolute and point of an atriodic irreducible continuum is an end point.
Limited edition available in pink and yellow. SOLD OUT Loosely speaking a "world" is a complex, causally connected, partially or completely closed set of interacting sub-systems which don't significantly interfere with other, more remote, elements in the superposition. Any complex system and its coupled environment, with a large number of internal degrees of freedom, qualifies as a world. An observer, with internal irreversible processes, counts as a complex system. In terms of the wavefunction, a world is a decohered branch of the universal wavefunction, which represents a single macrostate. (...) The worlds all exist simultaneously in a non-interacting linear superposition. Sometimes "worlds" are called "universes", but more usually the latter is reserved the totality of worlds implied by the universal wavefunction. Sometimes the term "history" is used instead of "world". (Gell-Mann/Hartle's phrase) I remember when I was a kid seeing this program where there was some fault in the structure of the universe, and these random doorways appeared to alternate realities. It really scared me. I remember once dreaming about it. I was walking home from school with my guitar (I was having lessons) and I got to the street where I lived and my family were all stood there in a row. But something was different. I looked down at my guitar and instead of being curved it was all angular. And it struck me that this was not my family and this was not my street. Soon after that I stopped learning the guitar and my dad bought me a drum machine. A tool adds to or changes what and how we imagine. When we take away the tool (as if it had never existed) then we take away that region of our imagination. Let us imagine that chess had been invented not as a board game, but as a game to be played with numbers and letters on paper, so that no one had ever imagined a board with 64 squares in connection with it. And now suppose someone made a discovery that the game corresponded exactly to a game which could be played on a board in such and such a way. This discovery would have been a great simplification of the game (people who would earlier have found it too difficult could now play it). But it is clear that this new illustration of the rules would be nothing more than a new, more easily surveyable symbolism, which in other respects would be on the same level as the written game. (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar) A courtier presented the Persian king with a beautiful, hand-made chessboard. The king asked what he would like in return for his gift and the courtier surprised the king by asking for one grain of rice on the first square, two grains on the second, four grains on the third etc. The king readily agreed and asked for the rice to be brought. All went well at first, but the requirement for 2n － 1 grains on the nth square demanded over a million grains on the 21st square, more than a quadrillion on the 41st and there simply was not enough rice in the whole world for the final squares. (From Meadows et al. 1972, p.29 via Porritt 2005) |