[deleted]
Hi Richard,
I like the analogy of a loaf although I use the idea of a whole pie instead, but I would argue there is an obvious way of slicing the loaf or the pie. Since we invariably are slicing the whole of all universes in the multiverse, and inline with Tegmark's idea the universe is ultimately a mathematical system, I will call the whole zero, and think of it as the ground state. We can most obviously slice zero in half, thus dividing apart all positive numbers from all negative numbers. So now we have two separated states, a positive and a negative singularity, which form the perfect duality. Maintaining the idea that zero is the whole, we cannot slice up the positive or the negative halves. The whole is always conserved. But we can allow the two halves to become less pure. We can allow the boundary between the two halves to break down. This doesn't allow the mathematical matter of one side to cross over to the other side, but it does allow a measure of the positive side to cancel the negative side, so our 50/50 split of zero can become 40/20/40. The 20% is neutralized, and shared by both sides. From the perspective of the positive side, which doesn't see the negative side beyond zero, the 40 translates into 66% matter and 33% an invisible neutral matter/space. This pocket or universe on one side of zero expands since it changed from 50% of the whole to 60% percent of the whole. The interdependent other side expands as well from the shared neutral matter/space. Of course the whole is relatively much larger than either half.
Notice the two halves of the whole is like the pattern of a checker game. When the game begins all of the pieces of one color (positive) are on one side of the board, and all of the other colored pieces are on the other side (negative). Note that this perfect division is a highly ordered state, yet not as ordered as the unified whole (ground state of zero) existing at the other end of the spectrum of possibilities.
So we can imagine an infinite number of slices in between the perfect division of 50/50 to the whole which is of course 100%. We imagine first the content within each slice is homogeneous, and then imagine a wide variety of lumpy patterns, including naturally a thin partition of scenarios where that lumpiness exists as stars and galaxies. And we even imagine the radical extreme of lumpiness, where all protons and electrons are grouped separately. In the same way the whole or zero state is the most probable state, since it is the point of balance, as half of all possibilities are more positive and half more negative, we also recognize that a universe having moderate lumpiness (between extremes of smooth and lumpy) is the most probable state at any given split of the whole (or average cosmological density), since half of the possibles are more smooth and half more lumpy. Arguably the thin partition of stars and galaxies is the middle ground.
There is a better explanation of these probabilities here:
The Space of All Possibilities.
So the range of possible slices continues toward zero, becoming a 30/40/30 split, then a 20/60/20 split, even a 4.8/90.4/4.8 split (where from either side there appears to be 5% matter and 95% neutral matter/space within their own O-region). And note that at this stage the measure of possible states or slices between the present slice and the extreme of zero is decreasing rapidly. This invisibly causes time to accelerate toward the neutral whole, or zero, or empty space, with the system finally becoming the largest state, or 100% of all universes in the multiverse (all other slices).
Ideas from the book Everything Forever: Learning to See Timelessness.