Valid Realities

[Dave]

So according to quantum mechanics our reality was created by the combined Joy Squid hallucination of Rimmer, Lister, Cat & Kryten.

Therefore the scenes of them hallucinating Katerina, Rimmer’s impending deletion, Bingo Jingo and the invalid reality stuff were also another reality that is out there in the Multiverse.

Therefore some more, the combined Despair Squid hallucination of Rimmer, Lister, Cat & Kryten created a valid reality in which Red Dwarf really was a game, there really was an Leisure World International, Andy, a Cybernautic Division of the Police Department, a Ministry of Alteration, apples of the people and fabulous prizes to be won, out there in the Multiverse.

But are Sebastian Doyle, Billy Doyle, Duane Dibbley & Jake Bullett real?

Topic

[JamesTC]

>But are Sebastian Doyle, Billy Doyle, Duane Dibbley & Jake Bullett real?

In that dimension they are people who played a game and have not got their memories back, once the Dwarfers left then Doyle, Doyle, Dibbley and Bullet got their personalities back.

[Wilbur]

Yes, but as they occupy the same Lister, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten sections of the time space continuum, they can’t be real in any dimension which contains the cast of Red Dwarf/ the crew of Red Dwarf/ other alternative personalities of the crew of Red Dwarf (Ace, Spanners, Padre, Bongo etc.)

[dooky]

The explanation about our reality being the result of a hallucination did make me smile, expanding as it does on Dimension Jump’s premise.

Mind you, according to what little I know of physics, the Dimension Jump concept of decisions creating alternate realities isn’t actually how the multiverse system works… it’s more to do with probabilities on the quantum level (or… you know, something like that). And of course, this new stuff about dreams creating realities seems to have been pulled directly out of the you-know-where. It is a fun concept, though.

So here’s the thing… if I can dream about a world where I create a machine that destroys all universes, and then switch it on… does that mean we’re all doomed?

[peas_and_corn]

There was a sliders episode that went into this- though I sadly haven’t watched it.

[Another Phil]

>So here?s the thing? if I can dream about a world where I create a machine that destroys all universes, and then switch it on? does that mean we?re all doomed?

Nah, the Doctor and about a dozen companions will come along and stop it.

[Pete Part Three]

>So here?s the thing? if I can dream about a world where I create a machine that destroys all universes, and then switch it on? does that mean we?re all doomed?

Thank you for succinctly exposing the complete stupidity of this idea.

[Dessie]

>if I can dream about a world where I create a machine that destroys all universes, and then switch it on? does that mean we?re all doomed?

wouldn’t you still have to be intelligent enough to build this machine?

[Tyrell Corporation]

I regularly dream about an alternate, expanded and somewhat more adventurous version of my hometown.

I honestly believe it exists and evolves in my mind, regardless of whether I’m dreaming or not.

[Pete Part Three]

>wouldn?t you still have to be intelligent enough to build this machine?

That would be part of the dream.

[Dessie]

Yeah i guess so. Ah well you can rip pretty much every story on Red Dwarf apart if you try hard enough.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

> So according to quantum mechanics our reality was created by the combined Joy Squid hallucination of Rimmer, Lister, Cat & Kryten.

Wasn’t actually our reality though, was it? What with the massive Tyrell pyramid on the thames etc etc etc.

I’m not convinced that “dreams and hallucinations” are thought to create alternate dimensions in the workings of quantum mechanics. Just decisions / events occurring in the real world.

But…at the end of the day, who gives a smeg?

[Pete Part Three]

I’m not really trying though, I just felt that was a particularly illogical point for Kryten to make.

All of our dreams and hallucinations give birth to alternate realities? This is quite a leap forward from “every choice you make creates an alternate dimension”.

And the only real point of it is so Kryten can direct a joke at us, the audience, that we are the ones who are fictional. This doesn’t work because:

a) The reality featured in BTE is clearly not our reality.
b) Kryten’s whole theory of alternate realities means that, if we really are the product of their imaginations, then we DO exist anyway.

[dooky]

>>So here?s the thing? if I can dream about a world where I create a machine that destroys all universes, and then switch it on? does that mean we?re all doomed?

>Thank you for succinctly exposing the complete stupidity of this idea.

Heheh. In fairness, though, this is arguably a problem with the multiverse theory in general – as described in Dimension Jump and a lot of sci-fi. If you have infinite possibilities, then somebody, somewhere is going to have both the ability to destroy all universes and the inclination to do it. Thus, reality shouldn’t exist. The only way around this is if you explicitly decide that destroying all of reality is totally impossible… since the infinite universes would presumably still have to obey the laws of logic.

Another Phil’s comment has made me realise that this is a big problem for the Doctor Who universe, where it has been stated that destroying every universe actually is possible… although I’m not sure if they subscribe to the same multiverse theory as Dimension Jump. If they do, they’ve got a problem.

I do think that Kryten’s speech might have been better if it had dealt with the nature of dreams – a sort of riff on “I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man” – rather than trying to crowbar some sci-fi where it probably didn’t belong.

[Pete Part Three]

>I regularly dream about an alternate, expanded and somewhat more adventurous version of my hometown. I honestly believe it exists and evolves in my mind, regardless of whether I?m dreaming or not.

Have you quite finished being strange?

[si]

He’s been at that marijuana gin again.

[peas_and_corn]

>since the infinite universes would presumably still have to obey the laws of logic.

Well, the laws of physics are constant across all parallel universes. So you won’t have a universe where the gravitational constant was different.

[Author]

Replies