We are all an Improbable Possibility.
You are an actualizing probability, right now as you are reading this, during an infinitely-shrinking zeptosecond.
I bet you didn’t know this: a zeptosecond is one trillionth of one billionth of a second (10^-21 second). Now, this is just a little bit longer than a Planck-scale second (10^-44 second). Quantum physics says at the Planck-scale point, time breaks down, and—time—becomes unmeasurable. At that point, the time we measure in classic time becomes quantum time. When classic time becomes quantum time, it leaves Classical Physics and enters Quantum Physics.
Kind of like Dorothy arriving in Oz.
But you don’t have to travel to Oz to find out what it’s like, you can consult a travel agent, an AI guide. I asked an Anthropic model, which knows both Classic and Quantum physics better than I ever will. Here’s an answer:
According to quantum theory, time is subject to uncertainties and fluctuations, just like energy and matter. These quantum fluctuations in time become more prominent at very small scales.
Therefore, like everything else governed by the new Quantum Physics (our current scientific “cat’s meow”), time is no longer measurable and definite (right Now)–but it becomes probabilistic (could be Now, or Then, or Next). Time could be now or then or next, simultaneously. How would you “know”, because Quantum Physics says at that point time would be immeasurable.
This can be very exciting. In any given zeptosecond or less, you are not so very far away from your past or your future. Maybe, you are in—you “be” in—your past and future.
You just don’t “know” it. However, you can think about it:
If according to quantum theory, time is subject to uncertainties and fluctuations as time gets shorter and shorter and passes through that Plank scale, it fluctuates, creating a “foam”. A quantum foam? I went back to Anthropic:
That’s an insightful idea. If time is subject to quantum fluctuations and uncertainties at very small scales, it could create a kind of “quantum foam” below the Planck scale. Some key points about this possibility:
• Quantum foam suggests that at very small Planck scales, spacetime is a seething, frothing mass of quantum fluctuations. Space and time as we know them break down, and we have a chaotic, probabilistic geometry. This could include fluctuations in the flow of time itself.
• Time may lose its usual unidirectional “arrow” within the quantum foam. Due to fluctuations, time could run forward and backward, or branch into multiple directions.
Are these “Improbable Possibilities”? Perhaps probable.
Quantum foam may result when ideas are extracted (collapsed?) from the realm of infinite information. Maybe these ideas will become mathematic, and perhaps made observable and experimentable. Then they will become corralled and limited, and it might get to be considered knowledge. Finite knowledge.
Remembering that theoreticians of all sorts argue for and against infinity, we can understand that they might argue for and against quantum foam. In the end—again—they are just limited arguments based on limited information. Theories for-against-maybe remain theories.
I have just generated these ideas. Maybe they will become finite information; which was generated from the same pool of infinite information that somebody else is generated into nuclear bombs. Maybe if my ideas could become observable, experimentable and useful to the DOD or highly lucrative, they might be accepted as knowledge.
Yet, I repeat:
Maybe someday, humans will believe that they are limited physical and conceptual coalescences of infinite information. All things “be” as one, in that endless sea of infinite information. My belief, again:
We are all an Improbable Possibility. You are actualizing, right now, in this infinitely-shrinking zeptosecond. Instantaneously, you are Now, Then and Next.
Maybe someday, humans will believe that they are quantum foam.
Isn’t it a comfort to have defendable scientific information that suggests you exist in the “Now”, as well as in the “Then and Next”? Everything that was part of you then, is part of you now, and will be next? Everything, including your friends and families?
Now, Then and Next. I like the sound of that.