Ask HN: Why does an infinite universe mean a duplicate of me?
I’ve heard it said that if the universe is infinite then there must be infinite copies of me out there.
But this sounds wrong. Why, in an infinite universe there’s infinite possibilities but within some set of probabilities that make it essentially impossible to duplicate me.
Can someone explain this to me? I thought there were different types of infinity. Cant there be infinity that doesn’t duplicate everything?
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That sounds like the sort of sounds-cool concept that's often founded in popularized / kinda-sensationalized / as-understood-by-a-philosopher "science".
If one makes a bunch of carefully chosen, arbitrary assumptions about an infinite universe, then there could be quite a few copies of you out there. But I can make a few carefully chosen assumptions about this universe, and conclude that 999 invisible copies of you are hiding in my living room right now. And listening to my noisy keyboard as I type these words, and...
More realistically - there are a huge number of ways for the universe to be infinite...yet contain zero copies of you. But such dull facts don't get nearly as many clicks, so you hear less about them.
But it does not support the conjecture in question, that /any/ infinite universe must duplicate.