The Record and the Choice
The coin in your pocket, a planet in orbit, or the wheel of your childhood bicycle,if you take the distance across that shape (its diameter) and around it (its circumference), then divide that circumference by the diameter, you will undoubtedly land on π.
However, this is not a math lesson. π is more than just a string of decimals that your teacher tells you to round to 3.14 on a random Tuesday. It is a storage of every piece of information humanity has ever come across. With its infinite decimal numbers that never repeat into a pattern, it is said that it holds every possible combination of numbers. Thus, somewhere in the depths of the digits of π lies your birth date, your phone number, and the exact moment of your greatest achievement. More surprisingly, if those numbers are converted into letters, it holds the exact words of every lyric sung, every word ever uttered, and every book ever written.
That would mean that the very words I am typing right now, or the thought I will form in a few moments, already exist, sitting quietly in the infinite decimals of π.
Perhaps this means that the story of my life, your life, or simply what I am going to eat tomorrow is all written in π. Now the question arises: if the map of my entire life was drawn before I even drew my first breath, does that mean my choices aren’t really mine?
Okay wait, let me ask another one: this means that the next movie everyone is hyped about and the score of tomorrow's match are all waiting quietly in π, even the lyrics of the song that keeps popping up on your "For You" page every other day. Why write the script anyway, or why spend so much time thinking about the perfect words for the article that you will have to publish tomorrow?
I know I am getting a bit out of hand, because although this information exists, it certainly does not in the first 100,000 digits of π. And since it is infinite, you can’t really tell where it exists. However, as technology emerges and advances, I assume it won't be very difficult to continue calculating many digits of π and thus find such information.
Now, even if finding it is impossible, let us take a hypothetical situation where we know all the digits of π. This would mean that somewhere in there is every scrap of information you could possibly find. Does this mean that my whole life isn’t really mine, or maybe I shouldn’t even bother writing this article, because somewhere in the digits of π, there is everything I will ever think, say, or do,so... what even is the point?
The answer lies in the fact that a record of what will happen is not the force or action that makes it happen. In the infinite digits of π. There are also every other variation of my life: one where I fail the test, one where I skip breakfast, and one where a single digit of my phone number is altered. Therefore, even if a supercomputer does find all the digits of π, I wouldn’t know whether a given sequence is my actual life or just a false variant.
If I choose to study today and get good marks on my test, that specific reality exists in the digits of π. But if I choose not to study and fail, that outcome is also sitting somewhere in π. The record exists because I choose it, not the other way around.
