We find ourselves in a time when movies are stretching our imagination, exploring the implications if our universe were not the only one but part of other universes; that is if we lived in a multiverse. We have seen this with the Marvel movies and recently with the Oscar winner for Best Picture, Everything Everywhere All at Once (EEAO). In this article, I seek to briefly explain the hypotheses (because it has not yet been proven that it actually exists) that science and philosophy have about the multiverse, as well as to reflect on two issues that EEAO proposes for human existence if we were to discover that this concept is valid: immortality and that everything is allowed.
The concept of the multiverse: the multiple
types of universes.
What makes
a universe are the following elements.
A. Initial conditions (in which state it began).
Ex: number of initial particles or antiparticles or degree of disorder.
B. Physical laws
C. Physical constants (or physical magnitude
that remains constant). E.g., speed of light, the mass of the electron.
D. Fundamental components (elementary
constituents of matter). E.g., photons and quarks.
E. Chain of occurrences or events. It depends
on everything else and how they develop in space-time.
The concept of a multiverse assumes that there
are different universes and possible variations in their elements. According
to mathematical physicist Max Tegmark (2014), there could be up to four types of
multiverses according to which elements vary.
Type 1: The part of our universe that is not
visible. Physicists believe the universe expanded rapidly after the
Big Bang (inflation). The expansion is faster than the speed of light, but it
is possible because it expands space-time itself, which does not violate the
speed limit of light (hard to explain here how this works). Our limit to travel
is the speed of light, so the universe itself expands faster than we could ever
reach by traveling. These other unseen parts could have had other initial
conditions (change element (a), e.g., more antiparticles than particles), giving
way to a universe different from ours (but with the same elements (b),(c),(d)).
Type 2: There are specific theories, such as
String Theory, that point out that there are other universes that have
different particles, or the constants of nature vary or dimensions of
space-time (change elements (c) or (d)). This leads to universes totally
different from ours.
Type 3: Many quantum worlds (changes (e), the
chain of events). In quantum mechanics, objects can be in different states simultaneously. But when we see large objects, we only see that they occupy one
position or state. One interpretation of quantum mechanics, Everett's
many-worlds interpretation, points out that, in that passage from small to
large, it is not that quantum states disappear but that two or more distinct
universes are created where each possible state exists itself. Thus, you
have a universe where the famous Schrödinger's cat is alive and, in another, dead.
Type 4: Different mathematical laws (change (b)).
Tegmark believes there are universes with different fundamental mathematical laws (e.g., other gravity laws). Everything mathematically
possible exists in some other universe. For him, multiverse types 1, 2, and 3 would only be one form of infinite mathematical possibilities.
But, to make things more complex, we must add
that the philosopher David Lewis (1986) postulates the existence of possible
worlds. A possible world is one with spatially and temporally related
objects that evolve in one way. For Lewis, there are as many possible worlds as
are logically possible. Thus, there are universes identical to ours where only
my hair color varies or where I live. But there are other universes where
things are crazier but logically possible. These universes do not arise from
type 3, where the options of an event bifurcate in other universes, but they
coexist since always or when they were created.
I put these different types of universes because they are often confused in the cinema. The important thing is to note that
there are different possibilities, which means there can be an even more significant number of universes.
What would the existence of the multiverse mean
for human beings?
EEAO uses the ideas of type 2, and 3 multiverses and Lewis' possible worlds. If the multiverse is proven to exist
(although we don't yet know what type(s) of the multiverse(s) it would be), it would
totally change our very sense of existence. In my opinion, Everything
Everywhere All at Once explores two implications of this (Spoiler Alert):
First, if there are different universes with
different events, laws, or constants, everything we think we know about how
things work becomes relative: if we believed that pigs could not fly, then in
one universe they do fly. But not only do physical facts become relative, but also
our moral laws. For a universe can be found where nobody respects the moral law
of not killing (it is logically possible). Then, we enter a kind of maximum
relativism, where nothing is constant, nothing is inevitable, and all is chaos. Everything we believe to be important is not: it exists in different universes (not something special) and, at the same time not in others (discovering that we
can live without it).
The second explores the moral consequences of
what is called quantum immortality or what, using the multiverse concept, I
would call multiversal immortality. Quantum immortality points out that in an
event where we are shot, the bullet kills us in one universe, but in another, we
are saved. And so on and so forth. So, we could not die. With multiversal
immortality, it would be similar: we could always find a universe where we
continue to exist. Crazy. Jobu Tupaki explores this sensation, adding that nothing matters, so she builds the bagel to end her existence.
These two implications are the development of
existentialism's multiversal version: existentialism was a current that wondered
about the meaning of existing if we will die or if the world has no
inherent meaning. This film explores the absurdity not only of the world like
Albert Camus but the meaninglessness of if everything possibly existed; furthermore,
it explores not the meaninglessness of death, where everything ends, but the
meaninglessness of never ceasing to exist. And what is the answer? Waymond Wang
seems to have a solution: even in that multitude of possibilities, we can find love or beauty, even in simple things. Yes, the world is meaningless,
but we can experience love and beauty among the infinite possibilities, and they become our beacons in the chaos. They "bind" us not
to infinity but to small finite, concrete things. Therefore, be kind;
this is our strategy for survival.