h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have been thinking…

Is it perhaps possible to boil all of existence down to a matter of probabilities?

If we accept certain forwarded chaos theories and admit that certain outcomes are guided by probability fields (discounting, for the moment, discussion whether free will is a function of neurochemistry, or "something more") then every possible chain of events, beginning at time zero, can be assigned a probability number dependent upon the summed likelihood of all simultaneous outcomes. Could each of these possible chains of outcomes represent a separate universe, with a unique identifying probability? This also leads to the conclusion that some universes will be more "probable" than others.

A person traveling form one universe to another with a very similar probability number would likely find the two to be very similar, if not identical in all practical respects with regards to the limited range of human perception.

An interesting side effect of this is that with each discrete time step, the probabilities become smaller and smaller, so that at the end of the universe, each individual universe will have the same asymptotic probability of zero, with the summed probability of all universes equaling to one. The mathematical implications of this could be exciting, depressing, or just plain mathematically inaccurate, depending on how educated you are.

Suppose there was a universe in which a coin toss was (hypothetically) a perfect 50-50 event. Suppose now that this is the ONLY deviating event in two parallel universes starting from the same fixed point in time. Those universes would then have...equal probability?

Damn and blast.