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Originally Posted by octothorp
For the most part, I understand the concept of having an infinite number of universes, but why is this always equated with infinite possibilities? Isn't it equally possible that the infinite number of universes are all exactly the same, or that the number of realities is some finite number between 1 and infinity? There's a finite number of particles in the universe, and a finite number of ways in which these particles can interact with one another.
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I think physicists are over-enamoured with the idea of infinity; just because you can use mathematics to describe reality doesn't mean mathematical concepts
are reality - we live in a universe that is unbounded but NOT infinite and there is no reason to expect that the multiverse (if it even exists) is any different other than sheer speculation.
Just for example, in the "many worlds" interpretation of QM, the world splits out into possible universes at a furious rate as quantum events take place, but if you start with ONE universe at the point of the Big Bang, you don't end up with infinite universes, you just end up with an extremely large number of them, which isn't the same thing at all.
Other multiversal theories also throw infinities around casually, but these theories are little more than guesses dressed up in equations.