Reality Branching: The Universe as Circuit
Everett · decoherence · transistor gate · exhibit x
Two ways to wire a circuit. Two ways to structure reality.
Series: one path, one outcome, voltage drops across each component —
the classical view of time, where events happen one after another in a single thread.
Parallel: current divides across multiple paths simultaneously,
each carrying its own portion of the total flow —
the quantum view, where all outcomes occur at once in superposition.
Series reality (classical).
V_total = V₁ + V₂ + V₃ — voltage (causal potential)
drops across each event in sequence. One thread of history.
Each moment consumes some of the available possibility and passes the remainder forward.
The past is fixed. The future is one thing.
This is Newtonian time. It feels obvious because it is what consciousness experiences
from the inside of a decohered branch.
Parallel reality (quantum / Everett).
I_total = I₁ + I₂ + I₃ + … — probability current
divides at every quantum branch point. All outcomes occur simultaneously
in separate branches of the universal wavefunction.
Total probability is conserved — it just distributes.
You experience one branch, but the mathematics requires all of them.
Hugh Everett III proposed this in 1957. Most physicists still find it uncomfortable.
The equations insist on it anyway.
The transistor gate = decoherence.
A transistor is a three-terminal device: source, drain, gate.
A small voltage at the gate controls a large current through the channel.
I_DS = f(V_GS) — the drain-source current is a function of gate-source voltage.
In reality terms: a small quantum interaction with the environment (gate signal)
selects which branch carries classical current (becomes your experienced reality).
The gate does not create a new path. It routes among existing ones.
Decoherence is the gate. Measurement is the gate. Consciousness may be the gate.
Decoherence: how branches stop interfering.
ρ → Σ|ψₙ⟩⟨ψₙ|p_n — the off-diagonal terms of the density matrix
(the interference between branches) decay to zero as quantum information leaks into the environment.
Branches that cannot interfere with each other become, for all practical purposes,
separate realities. The decoherence time τ sets how fast this separation happens.
For a single electron: ~10⁻²³ seconds.
For a cat: ~10⁻²⁰ seconds. For a conscious observer: instantaneous, effectively.
The branches are always there in the math. They just stop talking to each other.
switch modes to explore each concept · adjust gate voltage to route current · fire a quantum event to branch