Re: A colleague possed a question.

From: Spoonfed (jonathan.doolin_at_spoonfedrelativity.com)
Date: 02/09/05 

Date: 9 Feb 2005 06:06:26 -0800

Hmmm, why would jchris...@hotmail.com ask the question back at
Quido?Clarification, perhaps? I will also ask the question again.

It seems like I vaguely remember hearing something about a statistical
thermodynamics theorem by Poisson that said that any system will
eventually return to its initial state. I was probably half-asleep and
misunderstood the professor.

My own feeling is that this is a question of dimension. You might have
an infinite number of universes which are representable by the points
on a line, or the points on a plane, or the points in all space.

Now, I'll ask the question back at you, as well

Let's say the event you are looking for is that 52 cards are drawn from
a well shuffled deck in order from Ace to King, of each suit in a
particular order. The odds are astronomically low, well, okay only
1/52! (=1/52*51*50*49*...*3*2*1) Now, add to that that the person
doing this happens to be Robert Small of Tinderhook Michigan, and the
time at which he does this is is at 8:15 P.M on October 27, 2006.

The probability of earth being formed must be combined with the
probability of evolution creating the human genome and in particular,
Robert Small's particular mix of DNA. And, throw in that his parents
have to choose to give him the name, Robert, out of all the possible
names.

Now, the number of ways that the cards can come out of the deck is
finite, but the number of different possible ways that humans could
have decided to name the four suits is most-likely uncountably
infinite. The number of names the parents could have given their son
under five syllables is finite, but the possibility of the symbolic
alphabet by which the parents named Robert Small is uncountably
infinite.

The positions in space and time of each of the events of card-pulling
are each infinite, possibly uncountably, depending on whether space and
time are discrete or continuous.

So you may have several uncountably infinite variables. If the number
of universes is equal to or greater than the number of possibilities
then it is possible (not guaranteed) that every possible event will
occur. If universes are generated every time there is a possibility of
several things happening, then of course every possible event will
happen in some universe.

I subscribe to the view that this is it, though. There's not another
me in some parallel universe who is doing all the things that I dream
of. There are no second chances, or concurrent chances. This universe
is unique and will be what we make of it.

Jonathan Doolin
http://www.spoonfedrelativity.com

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