I've often thought about many things at night when I can't sleep. There is one thing, though, that truly keeps me up thinking about it at night. If you believe in science, then you also believe in parallel dimensions and alternate realities (think Sliders tv series). The thought that keeps me up is, since I believe in alternate realities, if all our fiction is fantasy, then there must be a reality where our fantasy is real.

The reason I worry about this at night is because of one thing. If the said realities are real, then one of those advanced realities has a scientist or dictator working on some device to go to the other realities, and if they have made such a device, how long til everything we know as fantasy is burned asunder to reveal a new truth?

Um... you do?

So... You think about bad science fiction when you can't sleep?

The 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics is just one of many. We don't know which interpretation is correct, or if any are.

I think there are some false inferences going on here...

Even if there are "alternate realities", there is no science that I am aware of that would imply that there is a reality where our fantasy is real... Just because these alternate realities could be anything doesn't mean that there will be one for everything, even if there are infinitely many of them.
The so called many worlds interpretation of QM certainly does not claim that there is a reality where our fantasy is real. In fact, for many worlds, the assumption is basically that the laws of physics is the same for all those worlds. The only differences are the different outcomes from various quantum measurements.

What usually keeps me up at night is the noise that the people downstairs are making.

Everything and nothing.

I apologize for all the assumptions. It is just I saw a discovery science special a few weeks ago and all the scientists agreed that, "We (the scientific community) would have to be fools to think we are alone in the universe. Likewise, we would be foolish to think our reality is the only one." The scientist who said this was the one in charge of NASAs warp speed testing (is that still going on though?). The special had the scientists in a room asking them questions where they all got to say their opinion, surprisingly everyone agreed with his quote.

Now that I stated my source as to why I made the above assumption about science, let me tell my logic for thinking the way I do. I was thinking that if these realities are infinite like scientist theorize, then that means that in one I'm a game programmer, in another I'm a serial killer, yet another I'm a bum, yet another I'm rich, I'm a president, etc. So it brings to reason that if the realities have alternate persons, then there are realities where are fiction is reality maybe not with the ficticious names we gave them though. For example there may very well be a reality where there is a Federation of Planets, Klingons, etc but there may not be a James T. Kirk, Picard, Riker, etc.

This is why I lose sleep once in a while, because if these realities do exist. Then what is to keep the advanced realities from figuring out how to reality jump? Granted this could be good or bad, depending of course.

I still think it sounds like bad science fiction; if the 'me' in another reality is a serial killer than that's not really me is it?

Have you heard this one? It goes: if the Universe is truly infinite that means there are regions of space with precisely the same structure and state as our local area; ie there are infinite Earths in an infinite Universe, with infinite people and all the variations that our choices entail. Your evil dictator is in THIS Universe; you don't need to rely on 'alternate realities'.

Is there an Act of Dog?;D

Yeah.. I've heard that one. I remember spending quite a bit of effort debunking it on a different forum.

The problem is that there is no saying what fills that infinite universe. There's no reason why it should have repeating version of us, or different version or anything else for that matter. It may just be an infinite amount of empty space (for example).

I'll see your "many worlds interpretation",
and raise you "the hidden varible consideration".

boobs

The thoughts that keep me up at night are the ones that involve making cups of tea and smoking fags.

Does anyone really believe in parallel universes or do they just like the idea ?
I bet travel agents are keen on it, and unemployed journalists.

Today in Beta 10017, Sauron finally made peace with the west of middle earth in order to counteract the ongoing insurgency from Beta 10018 by the forces of Ganon.
Flights from Heathrow to the shire have all been cancelled.

Where's the evidence they exist ? I thought science was evidence based.

Finishing my current work project!
It is not all that fun to be on-site for over a week trying to get something to work. I think I've had around 15h of sleep since Saturday morning. I'm not sure if it is a good thing or not but at the moment after being up for well over 30h for the second "day" in a row I'm not feeling all that sleepy. If I survive another week or two more of this and someone complains to me that his/her work is tough I can tell what kind of work I've done

As for the universe stuff, I don't think about it when I go to sleep, I'm usually way too tired and fall asleep in a couple of minutes. It sucks to have only 24h in a day.

Mehehe, in North America that doesn't mean the same thing.

Usually it's the excess sugar which keeps me up. Last night however, it was my roommate. I came in at 10:30 (22:30 US time) and he was in the living room reading. He recently acquired a laptop with a wireless and wired connection so I asked him (my fault) if he was able to go online. I went to bed thinking he would let me know in the am. Two minutes later as I lay in bed, he comes upstairs looking for me. He was able to disable the wireless connection but could not establish a connection. His laptop was trying to acquire an ip address already in use. I went through XP's network connections wizard and was able to get him going.

He probably never heard the term tea bagging either. Hehehe.

Finishing my current project tops the list, but rethinking the day's events (did I use the time allotted to its fullest potential, was I kind to others, etc.) and worrying about the war place highly.

Sometimes, I have nights where I wonder if things I've done years ago have been horrid mistakes and if I (and maybe the world) would have been better off if I'd have chosen a different path, and I end up not sleeping at all.

What keeps me up at night? Well, last night nothing, really, but the fire drill at 5:30 in the morning sure got me up.

Read this

Bah, mistakes are underrated. How would you learn anything if you didn't make any mistakes?

I've learned a lot from other people's mistakes. Like don't drop out of school, which almost all of my anscestors taught me. I'll be the first one in my family to complete college, and the reason I want to finish college so much is because I've seen what life is like when you don't have a college degree.

Right now, what's keeping me up is the entire first season of Transformers: Beast Wars.

I'm kept up by the urge to post a meaningless post to a programming forum that makes absolutely no contribution to the advancement of civilisation.

Everything contributes to the advancement of civilization. Some things directly improve civilization, and other things just teach us what not to do.

You can lead that same life with a college degree too. That piece of is meaningless if the you doesn't have the nous, gumption or attitude to make decent use of it.

The nous, gumption or attitude is useless without that piece of paper, unless you think of something truly innovative.

Am I the only one who had to look up the meaning of "nous,"? I was sure that it was a spelling error, or at least a misplaced French pronoun.

I usually have trouble when I have to do 10 things at once and so I drink a lot of caffeine to keep my mind working. Then it gets to the point where in order to do the jobs well, I need to get some sleep. Then I just lay in bed thinking about what needs to be done. Those conundrums are quite tricky.

Those thoughts tend to help me sleep. yes, cuddling up next to a nice pair of boobs.

The thoughts of that can help me sleep, yes, but if I have an actual pair to cuddle up with it keeps me awake for at least an hour.

I had to check I spelt it correctly.

Nope.

Seconded.

I think this cartoon is relevant.

I use to stay awake thinking about the games I was making, but recently I discovered I fall asleep faster if I don't try to think about anything at all.
Last night, however, I fell asleep thinking about how many people I saw killed in the new Halloween movie. And I thought I was desensitized to violence.

Last night I couldn't sleep and I thought of all the things I did wrong in my life. Comes down to 3 or 4 points.
But usually it takes about 5 or 10 minutes and I'm so fast asleep nobody can wake me up for at least six hours.

The strong urge to post on A.cc. And, when I'm not near a computer, the thoughts of what I'll post next time I'm on A.cc.

I'm sorry for not posting for a bit, was taking care of college things. I fear that Karadoc~~ and nonnus29 have confused the Universe Theory with the Parallel/Alternate Reality Theory.

Universe Theory: This is the theory that says there are other earth like planets like our own somewhere in the universe. (This is not what I'm talking about.)

Parallel/Alternate Reality Theory: This is the theory that says there are realities running parallel to our own. In these realities things are like our own but due to different set events have changed compared to ours. (This is the what I'm talking about.)

It may sound like bad science fiction, but it keeps me up because of the fact that if it were real then that means that a scientist in one of the realities may be finding a way to break through the barriers and go to the other realities. That is why I said that in some realities our fantasy and fiction may be reality.

Not really. What they assume is that if the universe has infinite energy in it, and it reaches infinitely in any direction, every event that can happen will happen, as there are infinitely many possibilities for it to occur.

Why don't you just admit it: The true reason why y'all lay awake at night is because none of you is getting any while the thuggish simpleton alpha male next door is hosting the decathlon of the sexual olympics.

Oh yes, more Jägermeister please and then some Branca Menta...

Because it ain't true. 99% of us get some sometimes, or if we haven't / don't, will do eventually.
Many things can cause insomnia. For example - caffiene, amphetamines, LSD etc... parallel universes.
Why have responded to this post ? Feeling argumentative.

It is not so much the thoughts as my girlfriend's chinchilla running on its exercises wheel. Whose bright idea was it to keep a nocturnal rodent as a pet?

At least she didn't choose a bat... a VAMPIRE BAT! AHHH!

@neil

I was 27 when I first 'got some'.
I went through years of despair before this time. I thought I was unwantable but I was wrong.
You're only 19. Listen to Phil Collins - 'Can't hurry love.'

27? That actually makes me feel worse. By 27 I'd like to have kids, not just be getting started. In fact, I'd like to have my first kid about 9 months after i get a decent job.

The kids crying keep me up at night, other than that I sleep the sleep of the dead.

William Labbett: You're actually pretty cute.

Thoughts of nonnus keep me up all night. Every night.

Me too.

Wow, I was 21 in my case and have kids. So Neil Black, don't be too sad or depressed.

Sweet Jesus!
I really don't want to have kids until I'm 30+ and starting to settle down. There are a lot of things I want to do between now and then!

well I want an early start because i want a lot of kids. Like, 6-7 at the minimum. I'm worrying about meeting a girl now because, face it, there probably aren't that many girls who want to have that many kids.

A way to do both would be marrying someone 10-15 years younger. Although, it might be tough unless she's very mature or you're very immature.

Thinking about that, I'll probably have to wait until I'm 45 before any girl of my maturity level even reaches legal age...

If you want that many kids, why not become a sperm donor?

Or you can ask piccolo to help with the sperm and the women.

Holy CRAP you want a lot of kids. I want two. For a couple reasons- money, one kid can have problems, more kids are hard to deal with...and overpopulation.

Lets see...death. I was a semi-religious person. Church Sundays, praying before bed, all that jazz. (note: I was also empathetic and nice and stuff) Then people were dying left and right, family stopped talking to us (my uncle is most likely insane, my mothers side is mostly drug addicted delinquents, and my fathers side stopped talking to us just because we had little in common), stuff was pretty suck.

So I became really introverted (previously extroverted). I rarely talked, spent a lot of time in my room, was emotional. (the real kind...::)) Then I get to go to therapy. Therapy was pretty fun...he had candy. No, seriously, that was the main draw- that candy and these odd, cylinder pillows. I pretty much dozed on the couch, hugging those pillows, while he asked me stuff (I was...um...9 or 10 years old?). I don't really think it was that useful...I just learned to hide stuff better. So, my parents took me out of therapy when it stopped being covered by health care.

Then I became immersed in current events and religion- trying to figure out wtf was up with it. I mean, what do you really hear that is good about religion? Give or take...jack. So that was pretty much when I lost my faith.

The icing on the cake was probably doing the Bible in freshman year (high school). I was reading it, and we were talking about evolution, Darwin, that stuff. It hit me- none of this made any sense. Faith doesn't cut it for me. A three thousand year old book is not how I should justify my existance.

I don't really believe in a God, so the thought of death is crazy scary. Mostly at night. I mean, does what we do really make a difference? I'd probably rather go to Hell for not believing than cease to exist.

Actually, I am not sure what I believe. But it definately isn't an Abramatic God.

Dude, I hope you wore protection.

...

If God truly would send you to hell for trusting your senses and logic, I'd rather spend eternity alongside likeminded people than with a bunch of ignorant fools.

And thus the science geeks rebelled and conquered hell!

Don't tell anyone I told you this, but God told me that the real way to find peace in the afterlife is to not believe in god, and to focus on 'evidence based faith'. The whole bible mumbo-jumbo and all that is just a 'test of faith'.
shh it's a secret.

Thats...the most sensible thing I've heard on religion. The bible does seem kinda like a prank- the earth is 6000 yrs old lololololololol!!!!11!

Really, so little of the bible makes sense (rivers of blood anyone?) and people still blindly follow this three thousand year old book.

Of course, 56% of people make Copernicus cry.

There are quite a few good ideas in the Bible as well though.

$10 that is going to turn into a passionate religion debate.

$10 that, after all the arguing and the huge flame war, nothing changes and nobody believes differently.

JESUS CHRIST! WHAT THE FUCK!? Do you know that on average every child costs approximately $10,000.00 per year!? IIRC, that's in USD and might have been before the dollar dropped. The more children you have the less you'll be able to afford for your children to have. Not to mention, some children have health issues that could cost a LOT more. So for 7 children you'll need to make approximately $70,000.00 + whatever it costs for yourselves and to pay your bills, etc. That would be with a broke-ass car and falling apart piece of shit house. If you want to have a nice car and house, you're looking at much more. And to make that kind of money you'll need an education that will start you off with a nice sum of debt. Good luck.

Well said.

bamccaig:
I'm not planning on having them all at once. And obviously I won't have more than I can afford, so I might not end up with as many as I want. I know kids are expensive, and I know what it's like to not have enough money to get by and I won't have more kids than I can afford to support well. But my goal is to make enough to support a large family. $70,000 a year isn't much more than some computer science majors make right out of school (although I'm not sure about how many actually get those good jobs), and I'll probably be waiting a while after the second one before I can afford more.

But I still want them.

I wouldn't mind having two or three kids at some point.

@bamccaig, you can live with so much kids. In our family there are 6 kids. We live very good. We have 5 televisions (1 is a plasma), 3 dvd players, playstation 2, food for a whole army, all in a school ( ok, 1 has moved out already, 1 is in university. ). We are categorized as 'middle-classed' as far as wealt goes. Thats in our country, and its not even America.

WELCOME! Welcome my friend, to the dark side! May Darwin be with you!

Which is why its probably so affordable

People like to think America is so great and rich, when in reality, most people are in debt up to their eye balls, and can barely afford their rent let alone anything else.

It costs a lot of money to live in the hills of Hollywood, but that's because of how nice of a place it is to live. It wouldn't make sense if the cost of living for a rich, free nation was the same as a third world nation...

Most people aren't up to their eye balls in debt. Only the stupid ones that don't know how to manage money, etc. For every million you hear about with x problem there are millions more without it.

Keep in mind that America has almost 10 times the population of our little nation.

I HAVE NO RENT! /drama

Seriously, I already own my own home, and property tax is only about $200-300 a year for it. Although there's a lot of development nearby so property values and property taxes might rise. And utilities cost less then $200 a month for four people, although it's been awhile since that many people lived there, the prices haven't gone up much since then.

Sure, I would love to live in Hollywood ( thats in Los Angeles, right? ) where the smog is so thick, you can cut it with a knife. But im not going to argue with you. The fact that so many foreign people are buying up land in Slovenia because of its beauty surely means nothing...

P.S.

This sentence gave me a very bad opinion about you. Who are you to judge other nations as you dont even know if what they are like?

My parents raised more with (far) less.

The average American has over $8,000 in credit card debt. (source) Granted, the median is probably far less than that, but most people do basically live "paycheck to paycheck."

I was mostly replying to Thomas Fjellstrom,...

Maybe you're making assumptions and judging me based on them. The fact is that the cost of living is largely based on the demand for residency. If nobody wants to live in a particular region they aren't going to pay the same to live there as they would pay in a better region (unless they absolutely have to). Contrarily, if they do want to live in a particular region they'll be willing pay more than they would for a region they are forced to live in.

I think that's the same for Canada too though.

Well I'm not going to have any credit card debt to worry about, because I'm not getting a credit card. I do have a debit card with my checking account, though. But I know enough not to overdraw it, except maybe a little by accident.

Heh, I have around 6k on one of my dad's credit cards. I owe about 25k+ to my mom for my "manufactured home", and a 10k student loan. I'm having fun!

Judging a country you havent seen, or probably heard of. - Wrong
Judging a man by his sentences. - Very right

Haha, you're one to judge.

And what country did I judge?

Im not going to argue with you. You effectively coined it as less than the U.S.A. which is offending to me.

If you dont know what country im talking about, then you dont read my posts.

I don't think he was trying to be insulting. I think he was just saying that the cost of living in the United States is higher than in many countries, which is true.

While there may be some truth to this, it's mostly just ignorant. Yes, people will generally want to pay less to live somewhere they don't really like, but that isn't the reason the cost of living is higher in America. It's higher here because it's a capitalist economy and people have more money to exploit here than in many third-world nations, so often we get charged more. Any country with a good economy is going to have a higher cost of living.

I didn't mean to imply anything about your own country. I know absolutely nothing about Slovenia. My comments were in reply to Thomas Fjellstrom. I was simply pointing out that if it costs a lot of money for people to live in a particular region then that region is probably in high demand.

There is some truth to that, but if you didn't want to live where you live in the United States and could be paying less elsewhere then you would probably leave. I think the cost of living is also proportional to the region's income.

See, I know because I'm one of those people in debt

Really though, the only bit that will adversely affect my credit is the Student loan.

You really don't read posts, do you baccaig?

I'm entitled to miss things too.

It always seems to be something convenient to your point of view that you miss

He has selective seeing.

Yeah... but we all do at one point or another

Yes but his has evolved beyond the point of normal humans. He's the next step in human evolution! NOOO!!!!

It's starting to look like you'll be forking over that $10..

Everyone's busy with Speedhack, the forums are almost dead right now. I don't understand it, we have over 9,000 members and yet when a few dozen are busy there's no one here.

This thread got real stupid since last I looked at it.

Threads here tend to do that.

Truth of the matter is, I do have a real thing that keeps me up at night. My wife has a muscular dystrophy and my son has been diagnosed as having the same thing. So my fear that keeps me up a lot at night is worrying and wondering if my son's MD is going to kick in more or stay away for several years to give him a normal childhood.

Shows how much you know. The Old Testament is somewhat outdated and obsoleted by the New Testament, which is roughly 2000 years old.

How do you already own your own home? You're lucky.

Credit cards are a necessary evil. You really should get one, use it for your purchases, and pay it off the in the same month. That's how you build your credit. You need credit for most things... getting a cellphone, buying a car, etc. Credit cards are good tools, IF you know how to use them properly. Most people don't, though, and see it as a free blob of money.

The fact that my SpeedHack entry doesn't compile properly using the makefile (due to a tiny oversight on my part) kept me up last night>:(

I understand this one. They found something in my son's brain and we used to stay up and worry. Now we just enjoy the time we have with him and try to keep him as happy as possible.

Death Gauge? Is that you?

I inherited it when my dad died. Not so lucky.

Didn't. Didn't. The only thing I need my credit card for is to order stuff from places where the banking system is outdated. cough*US*cough

The New Testament is a few decades short of 2000 years
And anyway, it is already obsoleted by the ~15 years old "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy"*

*-As a series, not just the first book.

If that is true, there are quite possibly an uncountably large numbers of alternate realities. Even things that seem completely inconsequential require many decisions to be made, and if the paralell-universe theory is true, each decision will branch reality. Now, assuming someone can make a single decision once every unit of Planck time (that's 10^-44 seconds), then in just one second, they are responsible for creating 10^44 alternate realities (not counting the alternate realities their newly-created alternate selves created in that second ended up creating in the remainder of that second). Now, if each individual lifeform can cause realities to split, then multiply that number by the number of lifeforms. This means that if any of the paralell universes contain an evil genius who has developped the ability to cross into a different reality, the chances they will cross over into your reality are extremely tiny (although once the evil genius has decided to put his plans into action, that clones the evil genius several times over, but even so, that's still a tiny drop in the big ocean that is the multiverse).

AE.

When I can't sleep, I think about space hardware, and my plan to conquer the Solar System. It's cold and quiet and dark in space, so it works really well as an insomnia cure.

On the subject of the cost of childeren. With current house prices, it is cost effective to have a child or two to sweep the chimneys. Midgets are too scarce and valuable these days.

Ironically, I have a wood-burning stove that they could sweep out.

This entire town is heated by collected waste heat from the paper mill (one of the world's oldest that still run) downtown, right accross the street from my favourite bar. No need for chimney midgets here.