The Last Theory When the universe branches, what happens to me? with Stephen Wolfram
Mar 15, 2025
Stephen Wolfram, Co-founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, delves into the fascinating concept of consciousness in a branching universe. He explores how we navigate multiple versions of ourselves that eventually merge back together, allowing for a coherent experience of reality. Wolfram introduces ideas like branchial space and equivalencing in the context of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. He reveals how this interplay influences our understanding of consciousness and existence, connecting complex theories to our daily perceptions.
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Observers and Equivalencing
- Observers equivalence different states of the world to process complexity.
- This allows them to condense information into a manageable form for their finite minds, like perceiving a cat without processing every photon.
Consistent Histories
- Wolfram suggests that branches of history might be consistent and lead to similar results.
- He draws an analogy to algebra, where different calculation orders yield the same outcome.
Quantum Computing and Branching
- Quantum computing leverages many branches of history to run computations in parallel.
- The challenge lies in knitting these branches together to get a single result, a process not fully understood in quantum mechanics.