I got a funny idea from one of Dean Koontz books[1].
In it he says that there are an infinite number of alternate universes that
exist. Some of the characters in the book can ‘feel’ where these ‘places’ are
and interact with the universes in a different ways. One of them thinks that
the places are just different versions of the same reality. He says that
everything that can happen will happen, if not in this place then in another
and that there is some kind of central control to all this chaos.
Let’s assume that your head suddenly explodes while you
were cooking something. In some universes that wouldn’t have happened. I some
your whole body would have exploded, while in another the stove instead of your
head would be obliterated.
What intrigues me is that a few years ago the smartest
girl I have ever known said the same thing in a presentation to the class. She
mentioned that a new universe is created every time a person makes a decision.
That by this very idea time travel could become possible as you would not
travel back in time, but to another universe where you live at an ‘earlier
time’ than in the current universe. Many of the time travel paradoxes would
effectively be nulled[2].
Neither she nor the book mentioned if the universes were parallel to each other,
whether they touch or whether they are just a tangled web of matter.
Anyway, so I wasn’t really mature at the time and I
couldn’t think of anything to refute the theory (if it can be called that). I
still can’t really think of anything substantial to make this idea seem
ludicrous because I quite like it, but I’ll try anyway.
A new universe cannot be created every time a human
makes a decision because that would refute the idea of evolution. What makes us
so special? We are just a series of accidents are we not?[3]
What makes us so different except the fact that we can think all this shit up?
Including animals would make the number of universes more infinite. Universes will be created every time an
earthworm thinks of going left or right.
Where does all the energy come from to make all the
universes? This would make the laws of conservation of energy seem like a joke.
An infinite amount of energy should exist; therefore travelling at the speed of
light would become possible if all that energy could be harnessed.
Anyway, whether an infinite amount of energy exists or
not is for physicists to find out and then to harness. If it does then the
human race is assured of a fruitful future if it can survive George Bush. I’ve
only a paragraph about the ‘everything that can happen, will happen nonsense’.
Considering that it takes all free will from anyone and anything makes it seem
just a bit ridiculous and I leave you with another paragraph of why I think
it’s crap.
Consider the big bang.[4]
Apparently it was very hot. What if the temperature was a couple of million
degrees lower, or higher? Maybe protons will start fusing early. Larger stars
would form. Supernovas would be more violent, thereby reducing the chances of
other stars forming within reasonable time. Less matter would be available and
less galaxies would exist. We’d probably never come to be.
Hotter?
[1] From the
corner of his eye
[2] The
spellchecker said that isn’t a word.
[3] Check out
Stuart Clark’s, Life on other worlds and
how to find it. It says we’re not and that’s a bit more believable than a
series of accidents.
[4] More
unbelievable shit. Nor should you believe anything that you read from here on.