Multiverse

Late last year I started watching the new ABC series “Flash Forward” on Hulu. It began with a deep mystery: everyone on the entire planet experienced a coma-like black out for about two minutes. During that time, most experienced a “dream” that could only be understood as being their future, six months out. One scientist, Lloyd Simpson, believes his research experiment was responsible for causing the blackout. He explains it to Dr. Olivia Benford this way:

Olivia: “So you went to Harvard, in ’98?”
Lloyd: “Yeah.”
Olivia: “I was supposed to go to Harvard, in 98.”
Lloyd: “Have you heard of the many worlds interpretation?”
Olivia: “No.”
Lloyd: “Basically the idea is that anything that could have happened in our past actually did happen, in some other universe. If you buy the theory, I suppose in some other universe you did go to Harvard. And we did meet.”

This is the essential idea of the Multiverse — a multitude of universes (or “many worlds”), all either existing simultaneously, or being created moment-by-moment by the choices we make. As we make choices and decide what is to happen next in our lives, we solidify all the possible options into a single reality, what we perceive as this one real physical world. Multiverse theory proposes that all the other choices we could have made also exist in equally as real a sense, though they are not perceived by us. They exist in other universes that have diverged from that moment of choice, on paths outside of the one we selected.

The Multiverse theory is one interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. In future posts here, I will be discussing details of this theory, and why I think it is the best approach to understanding the world as it truly is.

Tags: choices, Flash Forward, future, many worlds interpretation, Multiverse Theory, mystery, paths, planet, Quantum Mechanics, theory, world