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MULTIPLE UNIVERSES AND PARALLEL REALITIES
by Deidre Madsen
WEST SIDE STORY'S MANY SIDES
When I was around 12 years old, the movie premiere of the critically acclaimed theatrical production of "West Side Story" with Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, and Rita Moreno, was set to air on one of the local TV stations for the very first time. (This must have been in the mid 60's as the true USA premiere was in 1961 in New York City.) My parents wanted the whole family to sit and watch the premiere together. They were so excited, telling the five of us how much we will love this movie, how wonderful it is, and 'we are in for a treat.' We were planning one of our movie nights, sitting together on the dense wool carpeted floor of our living room with our snacks of chips and cookies. My parents and the household overall kept the momentum throughout the day in preparation for this major event with one exception. Me.
Earlier in the day, floods of memories and total recall that we had already viewed this film began to fuel a strange dance between me and my parents. Strangely, as I stood there arguing with my parents this fact, I could recall the entire movie's plot line, visuals, story and dancing routines. Never having been to New York City in my life to see the theatrical version, it was impossible for me to have known this level of detail from the film. My parents were growing angrier and angrier at my insistence and I was growing more and more irate and angry at their lack of memory at their young ages. Truly, the concept that we had not seen the film did not occur to me at the time. I only knew what was real and true in my reality to me. The simple fact that they failed to remember this 'monumental event' was not my concern at the age of 12.
Perhaps you, too, have had unexplained experiences with the paranormal, time travel, out of body experiences, and the like. |
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After hearing over and over the words "that's impossible this is the world premiere" and "what is wrong with you?", the argumentative conversation finally dwindled to me succumbing to their belief that I was completely wrong. Years later I wondered if they thought I was going insane at that time of my life. During the movie, after settling down and 'behaving' once again, I heard their minced oath, "Thank Goodness you have stopped all this nonsense." This showed me they feared something within me - perhaps a simple fear of the unknown - nonetheless I knew it was not a safe place in which to explore these deeper inner mysteries and it took several years before I came up with answers, which is why I am wring this to you now. Perhaps you, too, have had unexplained experiences with the paranormal, time travel, out of body experiences, and the like. It is my hope that this article and others on my site help you understand the strange and mysterious.
TELLING TIME
During that same time period I had a mental block around being able to tell analog time. (Digital clocks were non-existent in everyday households.) Every evening after dinner Mom would clear the plates and I was made to remain at the table and tell the time on the clock, a clock with only four digits and carved out of a large strangely shaped lump of wood covered with tons of glossy shellac. During this ritual I was asked repeatedly to report the time and repeatedly I stammered and could not answer correctly. My inability to tell the time was a growing concern for them as well. To this day I still have difficulty looking at an analog clock and so I have all digital clocks in my home. RELATIVE QUESTIONS
What has had me wondering over the years, are two things. Why couldn't I tell the time correctly, what was the block there? And, how could I have known about West Side Story before viewing it on TV? So with these questions, more questions beg to be asked.
Could it be that I was connecting with a parallel universe or reality?
Is it possible that I was not wrong?
Is it possible that I could not tell time accurately because time and space are relative and somehow I knew that?
THEORY AND POSTULATION
Regarding time in and of itself (which by the way, is an interesting concept - time in and of itself), could time it be relative to which you-niverse we choose to exist in at one time singularity?
Is there such a thing as a time singularity or present-tense? Let alone a past-tense or future-tense? And if so, is it a type of zone of consciousness, i.e., a time zone of consciousness, that we choose to accept as our reality in the moment? And if no one else is there in the forest when a tree falls, does it make a sound? An illuminating discourse is presented through Mr. Michael Lockwood entitled The Labyrinth of Time: Introducing the Universe where he states:
When looking up the subject of multiple universes I came upon the explanation: Multiverse: The multiverse (or meta-universe (metaverse)) is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including our universe) that together comprise all of reality . The different universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes. The structure of the multiverse, the nature of each universe within it and the relationship between the various constituent universes, depend on the specific multiverse hypothesis considered. SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA
Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists that sweeps away one of the key objections to the mind boggling and controversial idea. Science fiction looks closer to becoming science fact, reports Roger Highfield.
"The work has wider implications since the idea of parallel universes sidesteps one of the key problems with time travel. Every since it was given serious lab cred in 1949 by the great logician Kurt Gödel, many eminent physicists have argued against time travel because it undermines ideas of cause and effect to create paradoxes: a time traveller could go back to kill his grandfather so that he is never born in the first place.
But the existence of parallel worlds offers a way around these troublesome paradoxes, according to David Deutsch of Oxford University (whom I absolutely would love to meet one day), a highly respected proponent of quantum theory, the deeply mathematical, successful and baffling theory of the atomic world.
He argues that time travel shifts between different branches of reality, basing his claim on parallel universes, the so-called "many-worlds" formulation of quantum theory.
The new work bolsters his claim that quantum theory does not forbid time travel. "It does sidestep it. You go into another universe," he said yesterday, though he admits that there is still a way to go to find schemes to manipulate space and time in a way that makes time hops possible.
"Many sci fi authors suggested time travel paradoxes would be solved by parallel universes but in my work, that conclusion is deduced from quantum theory itself", Dr Deutsch said, referring to his work on many worlds.
The mathematical idea of parallel worlds was first glimpsed by the great quantum pioneer, Erwin Schrodinger, but actually published in 1957 by Hugh Everett III, when wrestling with the problem of what actually happens when an observation is made of something of interest - such as an electron or an atom - with the intention of measuring its position or its speed.
In the traditional brand of quantum mechanics, a mathematical object called a wave function, which contains all possible outcomes of a measurement experiment, "collapses" to give a single real outcome.
... the universe is constantly and infinitely splitting, so that no collapse takes place. |
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Everett came up with a more audacious interpretation: the universe is constantly and infinitely splitting, so that no collapse takes place. Every possible outcome of an experimental measurement occurs, each one in a parallel universe.
If one accepts Everett's interpretation, our universe is embedded in an infinitely larger and more complex structure called the multiverse, which as a good approximation can be regarded as an ever-multiplying mass of parallel universes.
Every time there is an event at the quantum level - a radioactive atom decaying, for example, or a particle of light impinging on your retina - the universe is supposed to "split" into different universes.
A motorist who has a near miss, for instance, might feel relieved at his lucky escape. But in a parallel universe, another version of the same driver will have been killed. Yet another universe will see the motorist recover after treatment in hospital. The number of alternative scenarios is endless.
In this way, the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics allows a time traveller to alter the past without producing problems such as the notorious grandfather paradox.
But the "many worlds" idea has been attacked, with one theoretician joking that it is "cheap on assumptions but expensive on universes" and others that it is "repugnant to common sense." ["Common sense"[?] or perhaps "Divine Sense" as in, "there is infinite structure in what appears to be chaos" i.e., chaos does not exist, as there is only Z integer (or the Z - ion (particle) ... to me, this is the most simplest and most elegant of all explanations. This, in my opinion, fits with Max Tegmark's explanation of the law of parsimony, or Occam's Razor as it relates to multiple universes.]
"Common sense"[?] or perhaps "Divine Sense" as in, "there is infinite structure in what appears to be chaos" i.e., chaos does not exist, as there is only Z integer (or the Z - ion (particle)) ... [and] ... fits with Max Tegmark's explanation of the law of parsimony, or Occam's Razor as it relates to multiple universes. |
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Now new research confirms Prof Deutsch's ideas and suggests that Dr Everett, who was a Phd student at Princeton University when he came up with the theory, was on the right track.
Commenting in New Scientist magazine, Prof Andy Albrecht, a physicist at the University of California, Davis, said of the link between probability and many worlds: "This work will go down as one of the most important developments in the history of science."
Quantum mechanics describes the strange things that happen in the subatomic world - such as the way photons and electrons behave both as particles and waves. By one interpretation, nothing at the subatomic scale can really be said to exist until it is observed.
Until then, particles occupy nebulous "superposition" states, in which they can have simultaneous "up" and "down" spins, or appear to be in different places at the same time.
According to quantum mechanics, unobserved particles are described by "wave functions" representing a set of multiple "probable" states. When an observer makes a measurement, the particle then settles down into one of these multiple options.
But the many worlds idea offers an alternative view. Dr Deutsch showed mathematically that the bush-like branching structure created by the universe splitting into parallel versions of itself can explain the probabilistic nature of quantum outcomes. This work was attacked but it has now had rigorous confirmation by David Wallace and Simon Saunders, also at Oxford.
Dr Saunders, who presented the work with Wallace at the Many Worlds at 50 conference at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada, told New Scientist: "We've cleared up the obscurities and come up with a pretty clear verdict that Everett works. It's a dramatic turnaround and it means that people now have to discuss Everett seriously."
Dr Deutsch added that the work addresses a three-century-old problem with the idea of probability itself, described by one philosopher, Prof David Papineau, as a scandal. "We didn't really know what probability means," said Dr Deutsch.
There's a convention that it's rational to treat it for most purposes as if we knew it was going to happen even though we actually know it need not. But this does not capture the reality, not least the 0.1 per cent chance something will not happen.
"So," said Dr Deutsch, "the problems of probability, which were until recently considered the principal objection to the otherwise extremely elegant theory of Everett (which removes every element of mysticism and double-talk that have crept into quantum theory over the decades) have now turned into its principal selling point." SOURCE: TELEGRAPH UK
OCCAM'S RAZOR
Critics argue that to postulate usually unobservable universes just to explain our universe seems contrary to Occam's razor.
Tegmark answers: "A skeptic worries about all the information necessary to specify all those unseen worlds. But an entire ensemble is often much simpler than one of its members. This principle can be stated more formally using the notion of algorithmic information content. The algorithmic information content in a number is, roughly speaking, the length of the shortest computer program that will produce that number as output. For example, consider the set of all integers . Which is simpler, the whole set or just one number? Naively, you might think that a single number is simpler, but the entire set can be generated by quite a trivial computer program, whereas a single number can be hugely long. Therefore, the whole set is actually simpler. Similarly, the set of all solutions to Einstein's field equations is simpler than a specific solution. The former is described by a few equations, whereas the latter requires the specification of vast amounts of initial data on some hypersurface. The lesson is that complexity increases when we restrict our attention to one particular element in an ensemble, thereby losing the symmetry and simplicity that were inherent in the totality of all the elements taken together. In this sense, the higher-level multiverses are simpler. Going from our universe to the Level I multiverse eliminates the need to specify initial conditions , upgrading to Level II eliminates the need to specify physical constants , and the Level IV multiverse eliminates the need to specify anything at all." He continues "A common feature of all four multiverse levels is that the simplest and arguably most elegant theory involves parallel universes by default. To deny the existence of those universes, one needs to complicate the theory by adding experimentally unsupported processes and ad hoc postulates: finite space , wave function collapse and ontological asymmetry. Our judgment therefore comes down to which we find more wasteful and inelegant: many worlds or many words. Perhaps we will gradually get used to the weird ways of our cosmos and find its strangeness to be part of its charm." SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA
So how does this relate to West Side Story? And for that matter, time?
My conclusion is that I indeed went through to a parallel universe or dimensional space/time reality that had already happened a mere few minutes, hours, days or weeks prior to the space/time event of the world premiere event of our family watching West Side Story. In bringing back in to my current reality the full memory recall of the different reality I was attempting to understand the underpinnings of each reality I found myself connecting to and living within.
Clearly my experience be'tween both worlds (just two of multiversal probabilities) left me with many more questions for many years afterwards. Questions I am gaining insight and answers to through my spiritual quest and path. What my family ended up concluding about their reality-challenged daughter remains a mystery. Perhaps they have had similar experiences and have thought about the West Side Story experience.
re Time ... CHECK back on this. I'll be adding to this and updating our pdf as well.
... in every equation you will discover one constant red [blood - coding] thread and that is YOU. |
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IN CLOSING
Whether you believe in multiple universes, realities, realms, or dimensional options, ... in every equation you will discover one constant red [blood-coding] thread and that is YOU. In the end, remaining calm, grounded and centered throughout your spiritual path and life creations is more important than trying to wrap your mind around the head-spinning why and how of it all.  Namaste,
Deidre Madsen
'tween's author
Deidre Madsen, O.M. ~ Imagery Consultant, Author, Lecturer, Life Coach. As a tenured Imagery Consultant Deidre works body, mind and spirit whole-brained holistic retreats and sessions with clients worldwide. Shangri-La Sedona Soul Spa is Deidre's latest, a beautiful line of meta-spiritual bath and beauty products incorporating crystals and flower elixirs, oils, where eastern philosophy meets western. "Shangri-La Sedona Soul Spa". And, her self-help book "Everyday Enlightenment" is soon to be published. BIOGRAPHY :: EMAIL
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