Did you know? You aren't unique. (mathematically)

Did you know that you are not unique?

Hi, I'm Derpy, and I'm here to tell you that you are far from unique. And I shall explain right now.

I am writing this post because I was looking through my old school stuff and found some doodling and crap. One thing that I found was a small mathematical experiment I did which ended up being a proof of the existence of exact duplicates of nearly anything in the universe. Of course this is only mathematical proof, it doesn't actually mean anything except for the fact that duplicates are very possible, mathematics just shows us that they probably do exist where science shows us they probably don't. Anyhow, on to the fun!

First i'll explain a simple, small version of the proof. Lets say you have 500 M&Ms, these 500 M&Ms only exist in 4 colors, you pour out these 500 M&Ms into a near perfect (though not perfect) mass, the M&Ms spread out on the table. There is our universe. Now our M&M universe is pretty small, so lets take a decent size chunk of it, say, a couple (ten-)thousand galaxies or so. Grab 4 M&Ms that are adjacent to each other.

Now, look at the permutation of the colors of M&Ms you just picked up, there are 64 different ways those M&Ms could have existed in the pattern you picked them up (be it square, L shapped, a line, etc) and you got one of them. Now lets look at the rest of our untouched universe, how many other groups of four M&Ms of any color are in that shape? There will be 124 other groups of 4, and ideally, the shape could always be found. (Though, this isn't ideal, and in all reality the shape doesn't matter, but i won't get too deep into that.)

So, do you think there is another group of 4 identical to the group you picked? Well, you could spend your time looking, and honestly you could probably easily find another. if there are 64 different permutations that you could have, and 124 groups, chances are there is a duplicate. Now in this example, the sample that we picked is quite large, and though we KNOW there are duplicate groups of 4 in the M&M universe, they could just be duplicates of any of the other 63 permutations.

So, lets shrink the sample, to 1 M&M. This still represents a few hundred galaxies, now, do you think there is another duplicate of this color of M&M in the other 499? Well of course there is! You know from common sense that unless you got a bunk back of M&Ms there will be more than one of a color. But let's look at the math. Well, there are 4 ways this one M&M can exist and 499 different places to find it. this allows for a lot of repetition huh?

Well, the same rules that apply to this M&M universe also apply to our universe! Though it's much more complicated. I'll start by explaining how the 4 M&Ms relate to you as a person.

Let's say a person takes up 1 meter^3 of space (cubic meter), of the particles that can exist in that cubic meter of space there are a limited number of ways they can exist. Like the M&Ms. The colors of the M&Ms represent the different types of particles, and the place where the colored M&Ms are in the series of 4 represents where the particles are in the cubic meter of space. Now we could go through a lot of debate over particles, find the volumes of all of them, and calculate how many ways they can exist, but i'll just give you the answer.

>Within 1 cubic meter of space, there are 10^(10^70) permutations for the particles there.

This number is analagous to the 64 in the M&M experiment, just much larger. now the question is, how big is the universe? Well, we don't know how big the universe is volume-wise, but we can use reciprocal physics, and a lot of calculus to determine a GUESS at the volume that the mass in the universe takes up. This guess is actually a range, from 10^10^120 meters^3 to 10^10^550 meters^3. But to make this simple, we will assume the universe is 10^10^100 meters^3, a number commonly known as googolplex. (as in this video I just found explaining this same theory, i'll link it at the end.)

So if the universe has 10^10^100 cubic meters of mass, this means there are 10^10^100 different places for your particles to exist, to exist in one of 10^10^70 ways. Or, in terms of M&Ms, a googleplex M&Ms to exist in one of 4 colors (high chance of repetition there huh?)

but what exactly is the chance of repetition of a person? well, pretty high actually.

The ration of Googolplex:# of meter^3 permutations is actually extremely high. 1 followed by 10^30 zeros. that's 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ZEROES! That's a big number.

This means that the chances of you being the one in 10^10^30 cubic meters in space that isnt duplicated, thus forcing something else to be duplicated more than it needs to be, are extremely low. The idea here is that YOU as 1 cubic meter of particles, are, mathematically, most likely not unique.

NOW before i go on to disclaiming my research to assure you this is not fact, i will go on to answer a question i know i will get asked.

"Well if there is an exact duplicate of me, then what about the environmental factors that formed me? how are they duplicated??!?! HUH! HUH?!?! Hah, Noobmathey!!!! (i got OP good)"

Well, kind sir, think about the size of the solar system, which is pretty much EVERYTHING YOU NEED for the environmental factors, and think about how exponents work. In reality, the number of ways a solar system size amount of particles can be arranged is less than 10^10^85, thus still allowing 1 followed by 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chances of duplication. So yes, there could be another earth, sun, mars and everything else to make you. At least at some point in time.

NOW TO THE DISCLAIMING!!!

Please remember, this is all just mathematical proof, this does not mean anything nor does it do anything for anyone. It's just some cool math that I did while bored because I thought it was awesome. Does it really mean that there are duplicate earths? Probably not, science has come to explain to us that physical factors often fuck up our maths and that it's more likely the duplication that does exist (that MUST exist) is taken up by MASSSSSSSSIIIVVE expanses of space occupied by so little mass that it literally could be just the rogue protons that happen to still exist in the universe. Take EVERY SINGLE ROGUE PROTON in the universe and it could make up the entire 10^10^30 space for all we know, thus having a LOT of duplication, but no humans. And remember that these duplications don't always have to exist, since mass doesnt always take up the same amount of volume. These duplications could be happening, for split milliseconds all over the universe and then disappearing, fleeting as ever.

Last thing i'll say is that this was before the discovery of the Higgs Boson that this data was collected and worked with, for all we know small variations in the way higgs bosons interact with the particles could increase or decrease the number of permutations for any experiment above (well probably not the M&M one). just remember that again, this is un-qualified work from someone who likes math, and also remember that math is not science. Math does not like variation, science does. Quantum physics may use a lot of math to understand measurements, but when talking about the fleeting existance of particles in the place where we made a measurement, math has no place there.

SO.... if you read it all, give some feedback, I have no idea why i made this thread, i was bored and it passed a lot of time. I like to talk to you people, so you should talk back more!

EDIT!!!!:I FORGOT THE LINK AND A LITTLE BIT OF EXPLANATION!!!

https://youtu.be/8GEebx72-qs

Now, people are going to look at my data, and say my measure of the universe is far too large. The thing is in the universe he is talking about in that video and what many measurments are of is the observable universe without expansion. My measure of the universe is a more abstract measurement of all of the universe we observe, plus all of the universe that on the edge of our observable universe could observe, plus what the edge of THEIRS can observe, while also factoring in eternal expansion, and talking about the universe as all of time including future and past. THIS is the universe that can be up to 10^10^550.

Like I said before, this really means nothing, and that video i linked is actually just talking about the size of a googolplex, but I promise you my work and that video were completely separate from eachother. I only chose a googolplex as my reference in my work because that is an easy number to work with and its better to underestimate than over.

What kind of feedback are you looking for?

I know for a fact that there is an almost identical copy of myself.

ketchup504 wrote:What kind of feedback are you looking for?

I know for a fact that there is an almost identical copy of myself.

The kind that promises me free food or something.

Until energy-matter conversion is possible through home computers, this would be rather difficult.

ketchup504 wrote:Until energy-matter conversion is possible through home computers, this would be rather difficult.

Or how about a 3d printer that prints in an edible material and allows flavored to be added? It would be more like burger flavored goop pressed into a shape but it would be better than eating paper.

swicked wrote:I exist in a specific region of space-time within this universe that no other creature is capable of simultaneously occupying.

Then again, I'm not entirely certain I understand what you mean by unique.

I remember an Are You Afraid Of The Dark episode who's theme was that everyone on earth had a twin somewhere on earth, and if you could find yours you would be abducted by aliens that would take you to paradise or something...
Initial google searches are not doing me any favors. Apparently creepy twins were a common theme on the show.

The ideas explained above illustrate that though you do exist in that specific point in spacetime, there is likely an identical copy of you, down to every single detail, action, thought and development, somewhere else in the universe in an analogous but unrelated region of spacetime that is also, identical.

swicked wrote:Just to clarify, I couldn't care less about being unique.
But you and I are identical in that we are both sentient biological lifeforms, and I am dissimilar to this hypothetical identical me in that they are made of different atoms and aren't in the exact same place at the exact same time.

This is all very interpretive.

The second half of your statement can be taken as a good interpretation of the proof above, but the first half is completely different from the general subject of this post. The reasons for being identical are that the M&Ms within you and the M&Ms in your duplicate are of the same color and position in a cookie-cutter area that is the same shape as yours. Between you and me as sentient beings on earth of the human race, our M&Ms are far from identical, most likely trillions of trillions of differences exist in our M&Ms, so its more like saying "We are both made of M&Ms".

I'm not saying what you are saying isn't true if in the right context, but in the context of this post that first half really isn't relevant, that's more philosophy and the above post was raw mathematics.

swicked wrote:
So you're breaking down people into a predictable matrix of particles, then stating that if one can assume the universe is infinite and covers every possible combination of those particles within a matrix of equal size, there should be something out there should be an infinite number of copies. Or, if the universe is not infinite, there should be large enough that there are at least a couple.
Is that a decent restatement of your thesis?

Pretty much, except i didn't every actually say infinite, though since universe theory tends to reach that on occasion its very plausible, and if the "shoulds" in your summary reference mathematical probabilities of greater than 0%, then yep, its exactly what i was saying! (though I would never use the term matrix in that sense when talking about math because nerds would get mad at me)