Ask A Genius 664: Thrilling Games and the Cosmos
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2022/01/06
[Recording Start]
Rick Rosner: Okay, what this makes me think of is how the most thrilling games in sports happen during pivotal moments, like a World Series or a Game Seven that’s still tied in the ninth, tenth, or eleventh inning. Or consider a Super Bowl going into overtime. The closer the match between two competitors, the more arbitrary it feels to declare one as superior. This situation seems to touch on the difficulty in making decisions when there’s little basis to prefer one option over another, at least that’s my take on it.
Yeah, I’m not sure how to approach that. What I’ve been leaning towards in the past year or two is the concept that everything, on a collective level, contributes to information that results in lasting traces. The existence of information in our universe seems to stem from vast collective interactions and subtle, individual quantum events. These quantum events, not particularly special in themselves, serve as a foundational layer from which information is constructed. But it’s the quintillions of collective and virtual interactions that accumulate into significant amounts of information.
When we first started discussing this, I considered the idea that the universe, at any given moment, possesses numerous open quantum potentialities. These are indeterminate scenarios that become determined in future moments. Something that’s indeterminate now becomes determinate later, and the subsequent moment we experience reflects a world where a multitude of previously indeterminate events have occurred. These events become determinant, and the determination happens through the selection of possible future moments. Every moment carries a vast array of potential next moments, and things become determined simply by transitioning to one of these possible moments. You don’t choose the moment you’re in; you exist within it. However, this moment can be viewed as a consequence of the previous moment, with events unfolding between the two. The ‘have happened’ aspect is inherent to the moment, suggesting a chain of moments where the informational content within each moment indicates what has transpired.
Initially, I thought that every quantum determination reflected a different bit of information entering our world. Something was perceived, and the information processing system, which is the universe, filled in some determined, previously open quantum scenarios. Now, I’m considering that it might not be as straightforward or digital as Fredkin suggests. Information might enter our universe from an underlying reality, but it does so collectively through a multitude of quantum events. Each quantum event might not necessarily correspond to a specific event in that underlying reality. This doesn’t directly answer your question, but rather suggests that individual quantum events – which you could call decisions or determinations – don’t hold much meaning individually. It’s only in the aggregate that the universe generates information by interacting with itself on a large scale.
[Recording End]
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