Somewhere out there machete wielding Dinosaurs are oppressing the human race and you are the last great rebel hope to led an insurrection against their brutal regime and finally overthrow the egg laying bastards. Also somewhere out there you write steamy romance novels and wear only jeans that have been properly bedazzled. Thus is the beauty of Infinite Worlds Theory, according to which everything that could happen, has happened. Maybe just not to you.
Infinite Worlds Theory, or as it is more properly called by cosmologists and theoretical physicists the Many Worlds Interpretation, states that there are an infinite number of parallel universes with an infinite number of parallel earths upon which an infinite number of variables and probability trees have played out. Still with me? Yes? Cool.
This concept stands in opposition to the most commonly held belief in physics called the Copenhagen Interpretation which holds (among other things) that all possible outcomes exist as a wave function that collapses into one fixed outcome once it is observed. Imagine the future as a giant unseen ocean where every drop of water in that ocean represents a different possibility. According to the Copenhagen Interpretation once you get to the beach and look out at that ocean it instantly collapses to the one drop of possibility. The outcome that you experienced. Supporters of this interpretation believe that our universe is unique, the result of a linear progression of oceans collapsing into single drops forming the universe as we know it.
But supporters of the Many Worlds Interpretation postulate that when that ocean of possibility collapses into a single drop the other drops don’t disappear. They actually exist side by side (or in some theories on top of) the droplet of possibility that we are currently observing.
So what does all that mean?
Well it means that everything you could imagine yourself doing you have done; somewhere, somewhen. There is a version of you that is currently dating Scarlett Johansson. Actually there are a number of versions of you dating her: a male version of you dating her, a female version of you dating her, a male version of you dating a male version of her, a female version of you dating a male version of her. And among all those possibilities are an infinite number of variations on the circumstance of those realities.
Take another example: you get on an airplane and start talking to the person next to you. There are an infinite number of realities in which you never see that person again. There are an infinite number of realities where you become lovers, And there are an infinite number of realities where you murder them with an axe.
If the laws of physics say it could happen according to Infinite Worlds Theory it has happened. And in fact because of slight variations in wave functions even the laws of physics can be different from universe to universe. Allowing for some rather intriguing and bizarre possibilities.
Infinite Worlds Theory also alters our perspective of time. In a Multiverse, universes are constantly dying and being born. Meaning that if you ever get the feeling that you’ve done all this before you probably have. As the odds of this being the first iteration of this particular version of reality is highly unlikely. I’ve written this post before just as I’ll write it again. And you’ve read this post before just as you will again.
Mind Blown?