Job Openings: Philosophy and Prompts

Thought Experiment #3

A Conceptualization of the Butterfly Effect:

Assume for a moment that there exists at least one parent universe from which a default series of events occurs.

Imagine now that from that parent universe there are child universes which reflect alternate series of events.

If there are at least two possible outcomes from every action, inaction, interaction, thought, etc. from each child universe's series of events, and each of these alternate series of events spawns at least one new branch of child universes with at least two alternatives, imagine the possible outcomes from each option on that tree of possible outcomes. Considering the unpredictability of things like chemical reactions in the brain and our variable ability to interpret them, can we be said to have any control of our lives, even assuming the absence of predetermined fates or all-powerful beings? How often do these outcomes cross paths or repeat? Have/Will they repeat infinitely?

Aren't we just the randomness of the universe incarnate?

Imagine the ability to travel between those alternate realities. Imagine the good (and the harm) you could do. Would your ability to travel between these realities be factored into the series of possibilities, or would you truly be a rogue element? In an ultimate reality in which events are possible in any number of combinations and every series of events has the ability to repeat infinitely in any permutation, is there such a thing as randomness or unpredictability? Is there such a thing as impossibility? What is impossibility?

Is there such thing as travelling through time or across dimensions, or did the tree of events require your interference to proceed?

But think of how amazing it is that you exist as you are, here and now, and think of who you could be in this timeloop and in others. Think of how amazing it is that you exist at all.

Really think about that.