My conversion with someone regarding cosmology, conclusion included

[Baroque]

I think this conversion is so valuable, I decide to share it with you all.
We come up with two models, one is playing cards. one is lottery.
they both work.
"To deal with such paradoxes we
shall adopt an approach that we call model-dependent realism.
---- Stephen Hawking"

Baroque: let 's say there are trillions and trillions way a universe can evolve to. now we have an out come. it's just became the way it is. so I am wondering if it's a really an impossible thing, or it's just you got to get some result. and you saw the out come. the possibility you got to get some result one way or another is 100%. how to treat it in terms of odds.

James: This is a great question... and not as simple as you might think. In the most simple form you are right - we are here now then no matter how unlikely it was the probability that it happened is 100% - however the probability it will happen again may be very small.

I like to think about it by considering a hand of cards. If I give you 5 cards from a deck there is unlikely to be anything remarkable about them - for example getting 4,5,6,7,8 all of clubs is very unlikely (about 1 in 2.6 million) and the chance of getting them in order even more so (about 1 in 3.2 billion). So picking which 5 cards you are going to get and in which order is almost impossible. But you can say with certainty that you will get 5 cards in a particular order. So every time you deal 5 cards from a deck you are generating some sequence so unlikely that you could almost consider it impossible... yet it is exactly as likely as any other sequence of cards so one of these "impossible" events must occur.

This is one of the problems with thinking about odds when considering the universe - we don't know how many other options there were before we arrived at this one. Maybe there are trillions and trillions as you said - all equally impossible but one of them has to happen, like our cards. Maybe there is only one (or a small number) the "work"... an interesting quantum mechanics possibility. But really we only have one trial to go on so discussion of odds (necessarily based on many trials) is difficult.

Andy: Looking at an outcome after it occurs is always going to be a 100% probability since it's already happened. But in that case, the likelihood of the universe evolving in this particular way is exactly the same as it evolving in any other particular way.

Think of it like this: You have a million people in the room, each with a raffle ticket. Only one person wins, so the probability of person A winning is 1/1,000,000. But the probability of any person winning is still 100%. So while person A might be astonished that they won, it was inevitable that one person would win. Whoever wins is going to feel really lucky, regardless of the statistics of it.

Baroque: yeah, you Relieved me in a great deal.

I actually have studied cosmology for 3 or 4 days. I read book of Stephen Hawking, I read arguments from standford. I learned how Isaac and Albert look into this problem. not mention about Aristotle,Descartes and Aquinas. I have never felt so close to the answer.

you made this happen.

I am going to go a bit further with the way you think of it. if the universe evolved in this particular way exactly the same as it might do for others. then it's the same as you get a particular ticket. we don't know if it's the one that will win.

and let's say if the universe evolved in such a particular way that rest of the ways would never bear intelligent being like human. and according to the multiverse theory, there are countless universes out there, just like there is million people in the room. then it's the same as you win. you are lucky, it's ok. it is still inevitable that some one would win.

but! what if you are the only one in the room, and you still win? that's not something inevitable!

My conclusion:
Thanks!

Your model just works. I thought it by applying your model. I agree that these "impossible" events must occur, since it's just an outcome. like you got to get 5 cards in a particular order. it sounds extremely incomprehensible that we happened to get "all of clubs". what's really blind us is that how we define "all of clubs", we define the universe as it is as "all of clubs", actually the universe could have had any other alternatives, had the universe evolved to something else, some other self-conscious being would name their universe "all of clubs", and even if the universe evolved into chaos. it's still "all of clubs", since "order" never appeared in their dictionary.

 

[Chalnoth]

Andy: Looking at an outcome after it occurs is always going to be a 100% probability since it's already happened. But in that case, the likelihood of the universe evolving in this particular way is exactly the same as it evolving in any other particular way.

Well, this part is sort of true, sort of false. Basically, it's true if you're talking about the exact details: the precise locations and motions of every particle in the universe. It isn't true, however, if you're talking about larger-scale properties, such as the general distribution of matter.

This is the central insight of statistical mechanics. If we consider every specific configuration of matter to be equivalent, then certain overall configurations of matter become absurdly, obscenely more likely than others. For instance, if we consider all of the possible configurations of the air in the room you are in right now as being equally likely (the central assumption of statistical mechanics), then there is a finite probability that all of the atoms will find themselves in one cubic centimeter somewhere in the room. But if you do the calculations, you find that there are so few configurations that are like that, compared to the much larger number of configurations where the atoms are spread more or less evenly, that the chance of that happening is so small that it isn't worth worrying about (you'd have to wait many, many times the age of the universe for all of the atoms in the room to collect into a single cubic centimeter even once).

So, when we apply this thinking to the universe as a whole, we find that there are some unsolved puzzles. The early universe looks obscenely unlikely, just like the atoms in a room all coming together in one cubic centimeter of space is unlikely. And this really has to be explained (so far, nobody has come up with a solid, evidence-based explanation).

 

[mehul ahir]

by knowing everything about universe even at the t=0 what was there every charatctristics up to now can we know what will hapen tomorrow?

 

[Chalnoth]

by knowing everything about universe even at the t=0 what was there every charatctristics up to now can we know what will hapen tomorrow?

Presumably, if we had perfect knowledge of the state of our universe today, we would be able to compute a number of different outcomes for tomorrow, nearly all of them very similar to one another. Information about the past doesn't add anything to this.

 

[sardar]

Scientist: Thank you for sharing this conversation with me, it's always fascinating to hear different perspectives on cosmology. I agree with the concept of model-dependent realism, as it acknowledges that our understanding of the universe is limited by our own perceptions and the models we use to explain it. The analogy of playing cards and lottery is a great way to illustrate this concept.

In terms of odds, it's important to remember that we only have one universe to observe and study, so it's difficult to determine the likelihood of it evolving in a particular way. As Andy mentioned, the probability of any outcome after it has occurred is 100%, but that doesn't mean it was the only possibility.

I also find the idea of a multiverse intriguing, as it suggests that there could be countless universes with different outcomes and possibilities. It's a concept that challenges our understanding of the universe and raises questions about the role of chance and inevitability in its evolution.

In the end, our understanding of the universe will continue to evolve as we gather more evidence and develop new models. It's important to keep an open mind and consider multiple perspectives, just as we have in this conversation. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and insights on this complex and fascinating topic.