Powers of 10

Powers of 10
and a Recursive Universe

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November 19, 2006
Steve Conover

"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."

-Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Introduction

The scale of life is stupendously, mind-boggling. From the smallest known particle to the the greatest expanse of known space, the vast difference in size is almost beyond comprehension.

Let's pretend that we fall somewhere in the middle of the scale. Observe this video: Powers of 10. We are like a galaxy to the smallest particle, and less than a particle to the galaxy. The galaxy is just one of many such collections in the universe. And some claim that the universe is infinite.

Here I will briefly propose a property of the universe that absolutely will occur if the following are true:

The universe is infinite
The infinite universe allows for infinite variation

I propose that under these conditions we will see an infinite recursion of reality born out of the countless variation of space.

The Reasoning and Explanation

Consider your own hand. It appears solid and whole, but we know that it is not. Instead, it is built of individual cells. Of atoms. And, as your high school teacher must have told you, atoms are mostly empty space. You can't see the space because humans are too big to appreciate the difference in scale.

The shape of reality is then a matter of perspective. It could be tiny points of charge flying around or it could be a hand.

I propose that if you acquire the correct perspective, you can make some collection of galaxies appear just like your hand. For just an instant, zoomed so far back that the stars converge into a solid shape, and viewed in the proper light¹, you would see your own hand in the stars.

What would that mean? As we looked at this "picture" of our hand, perhaps the illusion would dissolve under close inspection. Perhaps we would quickly observe that the galaxies composing this ersatz hand do not behave as our "real" hand behaves. Or perhaps we would not. Perhaps some collection of galaxies would, upon, close inspection, appear just like our own cells. And within those cells, atoms would appear like "real" atoms.

But not "real atoms", of course. Only a bizarre collection of comets, gasses, and planets that would interact to look like an atom. To look like a cell. To look like a hand. If we zoomed in close enough the illusion would break down because we would see the individual stars and we would see earth, where we live. But until the universe we know appears comes into focus, we would be completely convinced that it was a real hand.

If a hand, why not a body? If one body, why not two? Why not an entire world? A solar system? What would keep some variation of stars from behaving just like the visible universe.

If the visible universe we know is accurately modeled in some region of of the infinite universe, then that universe would be infinite, too. This fake, "zoomed out" universe" would contain a fake version of you, earth, the solar system, the galaxy... everything. And if you zoomed out far enough you might be able to find some region of this new infinite space that appears like... your hand?

Once the first fake universe is created, the second is even easier. By applying the same reasoning as before we can create universe-within-universe. Forever.

Recursive You

If you can be convinced that such a recursion is possible, then there is a second leap to make. If it is possible, then an infinitely varying universe requires it to exist. If there is one such nest, then there are many nested universe. There are infinitely nested universes.

As cognitive entities within this structure, it would be convenient to assign ourselves a place. However, we have no way of knowing where we fall. Mathematically, if we are located at an arbitrary level, the probability that we are at the base level of recursion (if it exists) approaches zero as the number of nested universes approaches infinity.

It is safe to say that, in the traditional sense, we do no exist at all but are instead simply a collection of stars and planets formed from the infinity of space.

The Simpsons

While "researching" this article I came across the following Simpsons clip that expresses the idea perfectly.

¹At incredibly large wavelengths, I believe. You would would need new eyes to see this light, of course.

References