Many-Worlds and Spiritual Implications

[path_of_one]

This is based on some ideas in physics, but what I'm really interested in is the spiritual implications, so I've posted here. I've been reading about the concept of parallel universes and multiverses, and thinking about many-world theory. Basically, the idea that for every choice you ever made, the universe (and you) split into multiples, each identical to the others, but encapturing that unique choice.

So, right now, there is this universe here in which I decided to post this this morning. And there is a universe somewhere in which I decided I was too busy and didn't. Same goes for all the choices I've ever made- and you. Infinite worlds, many with my alter-ego in them (and many more, presumably, with me never having come into existence at all).

This is a very interesting concept to me, and it poses fantastically complex spiritual questions. If I exist simultaneously in so many different worlds, would I really be me? That is, underneath it all, would my soul be unified or forever fracturing? And if the soul is unified, but I exist in multiple planes at once, does this explain the odd sort of occurances of deja vu, precognition, dreams, memories of other lives, and such that people report?

What would happen at death? Presumably, "you" (all the yous that exist) die at different times, based on your varying choices. For example, a smoker dies at 60 from lung cancer, but his alter-ego who had chosen to never try a cigarette doesn't die until 80. Where does the first one go after death? Does he wait around somewhere for the other selves to join him? Does he watch his other selves' lives in the meantime or do something in the spirit realm/heaven/whatever? If reincarnation occurs, does the soul wait for all the bits of it to return before reincarnating? Or is each bit reincarnated on its own, which would fracture into ever more pieces of the original? Would there be any linear progression of soul development, lives, or even time at all?

If all these many worlds exist, presumably there are ones in which I don't exist at all (since there are worlds in which my parents never met). Or would I exist as my soul, but born into a different body to different parents? The possibilities are endless: there would be worlds in which nearly everyone you know you would have never met, worlds in which you fell in love with different people, married different people, and had different kids.

All this leads to a huge question for me related to many-worlds: what about moral choice? If there are worlds that correspond to every possibility of the choices you have ever made, can you really ever make a moral choice? Yes, the "you" that is in this universe can, but somewhere "you" fractured and made the wrong choice. If so, then "you" can't really be held responsible for anything in a spiritual sense, and it is nebulous if you could in a practical sense. After all, if many-worlds is correct, then somewhere you made the right choice, and it was the laws of physics that meant in another place- here- you made the wrong one. It gives new meaning for me to the teachings of Jesus that focused on thought being as important as action in moral matters. If many-worlds is correct, then the mere contemplation of an immoral act makes it happen somewhere. Yet, we all know that no one is perfect and one is bound to contemplate many immoral/unethical/wrong action acts in one's lifetime. If the universe is set up this way, then the point of our incarnation is not to make the right choices, because we will wind up making all available choices in the grand scheme of things. So what would the meaning of life be? And would there be any moral development of the soul at all? Would the soul simply be incarnated to experience incarnation?

And this doesn't even begin to look at universes that operate on entirely different laws of physics.

Kind of mind-boggling (the understatement of the year). Thoughts, anyone?

[I, Brian]

If many-worlds is correct, then the mere contemplation of an immoral act makes it happen somewhere.

Ah, but it happens anyway - *you* don;t need to think or do it - one of your infinite forms may well do either for you, regardless.


What's great about the many worlds theory on a spiritual level is that we basically get to make a choice of which sort of world we want to live in.

In each of our actions, we partake in that choice. In which case, and in danger of sounding like a TV advert - "Where do you want to go today?".

Ultimately, the many worlds theory does a fascinating job of finding a middle ground between Predestination and Free Will - yes, everything is pre-ordained, but you get to choose which pre-ordained path to walk...

I'd almost say that it's brilliant - yet as someone who has always felt some unfathomable sense of destiny since a small child, I can never subscribe to Free Will of any description.

Perhaps the dice are simply loaded...

[Tao_Equus]

Superb topic for a thread Path_of_One, (that has an unfortunate abreviation ).

I believe several eminant physicists are espousing these ideas currently. I think they decribe each division createing a new universe quite seperate from the one it split from, (where does all the matter come from?). So my guess is that your pious soul in this one would be imune to the depravity your alter-ego(s) are now enjoying, ( remember that girl in the tight jeans on tuesday ).
The practicalities of the theory are to me more mind-boggling than the spiritual questions you raise. The energy and matter required to conjur countless billions of universes a second makes it all somehow implausible to my tiny mind. And if its true I want to go to that world where I am happily married to my 2 wives, Nicole Kidman and Penelope Cruz, maybe I should have just become a scientologist in this universe.


Regards

TE

[Pathless]

From my limited understanding of these ideas presented by quantum physics, the message doesn't seem to be at all that the different worlds are separate. What I gather from it is that all possibilities exist simultaneosly, but our limited perception only allows us to grasp a tiny fraction of reality. I speculate that as individuals raise their consciousness--as we evolve spiritually--we begin to perceive reality differently; hence the feelings of deja-vu, strange synchronicities, and all sorts of other "heavy" feelings, an extreme of which may be meeting another version of yourself someday as your version of "reality" bumps up against another particle-version of reality.*

Quantum physicists conjecture that reality is both particle and wave. It may be that our consciousness is so attuned to the frequencies of what we take to be reality, that we only see a certain "particle" type of reality; however, at the same time, many (perhaps infinite) other particles are out there as well, all joining together to create a "wave" of reality. I believe that if we pereived reality as a wave rather than particle, reality wouldn't be reality as we know it anymore. It would be more like us observing a multitude of finite realities that occur simultaneously, like sparks of possibility. Each particle of the wave could be likened to a spark, and then if you are able to view all of the sparks together, you see fire.

The spiritual implications of this I think are amazing. It may demand that we rethink our spiritual ideas of ourselves. Certainly, it challenges the security of our individuality and ego to think that there may be billions upon billions of different versions of ourselves (or not-ourselves, perhaps, if we were never born in certain alternate realities). Just as these ideas of parallel universes/alternate realities transcend our staid, taken-for-granted views of the world, they also challenge us to transcend our conception of spirit as ego-bound. Ultimately, the message that this kind of "unifiied field" theory is sending us seems to be: you are not the you that you think you are. You are an extension of the universe. You are an organ of observation that has grown from the universe; you are how the universe observes itself.

As we transcend our limited understanding of this reality and began to invite new ideas into our consciousness, we also begin to transcend our own egos, thereby expanding our spirits. I don't think that the implications for our personal spirits/souls are grave at all; instead, they are exhilirating. As we free ourselves from the constraints of particle reality, we are consciously inviting wave reality in; as we do so, our spirit-souls evlove--they open up to new or forgotten vistas of understanding and spiritual vision. What could be more exciting and beautiful than that?



*Or maybe we are meeting other versions of ourselves all the time, without acknowledging it. Maybe your friend Kevin is you, is your spirit-soul, except that he exists in a different "reality" (or heredity) where his parents are different. But, wait, you say--that can't be, because I know Kevin and he is part of my everyday reality. But do you know Kevin? Is he part of your limited conception of reality, or is he something more mysterious than that?

[wil]

I think this speaks to oneness....all possiblities..

and I need to contemplate the thought of all possiblities going on simutaneously...my brain hurts...because forget parallel or multiverse, we'd all be creating infiniverses...and not only that you'd be dragging me into your infiniverses w/o my choice as I chose to go elsewhere....an exponentially infinite number of infiniverses to the power of infinity...you know just writing that made me see a multidimensional curve that accelerated and swung back on itself..i, brian avatar yinyangish and it felt acceptable...so much for accelerated rambling..

but I thought the conjecture was the infiniverse was out there, multi circles in a sphere 360 degrees in all 7 ordinal directions and everything in between, adding time and space dimensions and their inverses as well. So prior to us doing anything or making any choice the future was ready...ie the wave to particle...

I'm going to sit on the sidelines and mull this for a while....

First to the store...brandy, kaluha, eggnog, guiness....cause my brain is gonna hurt...

[bob x]

I have never cared for many-worlds models; they just don't work very well.

[wil]

I have never cared for many-worlds models; they just don't work very well.

and this one does?

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

I'd almost say that it's brilliant - yet as someone who has always felt some unfathomable sense of destiny since a small child, I can never subscribe to Free Will of any description.

Perhaps the dice are simply loaded...

i am a bit curious as to what you mean by this Brian . are you saying that you sense a destiny beyond your control & that you have no say in it? is that as in, some force making you do things like a robot?

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by Bandit

i am a bit curious as to what you mean by this Brian . are you saying that you sense a destiny beyond your control & that you have no say in it? is that as in, some force making you do things like a robot?

Nah, that's why he chose "I, Brian" over "I, Robot."



sorry, couldn't resist

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by Bandit

i am a bit curious as to what you mean by this Brian . are you saying that you sense a destiny beyond your control & that you have no say in it? is that as in, some force making you do things like a robot?

I think that if you feel a sense of destiny, to choose to ignore it is not a choice you can make.

[wil]

I'd almost say that it's brilliant - yet as someone who has always felt some unfathomable sense of destiny since a small child, I can never subscribe to Free Will of any description.

I think this speaks to the concept that our souls came to this body, to 3D to learn, to grow, and maybe had a specific task in mind

I think that if you feel a sense of destiny, to choose to ignore it is not a choice you can make.

yes it will continue to come around again until you learn....or you continue to come around again till you get it.

Perhaps the dice are simply loaded...

and perhaps you loaded them....the being of light you, prior to choosing your parents...

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

I think that if you feel a sense of destiny, to choose to ignore it is not a choice you can make.

i think i can relate to that . kind of like something beyond our control 'nudging', even though we may try to ignore it for awhile by doing something different. kind of like another will that is not our own & we conform to it either willingly or not so willingly.
does that make sense?

[Heehoos]

In my tradition of faith (progressive Christian), I am reminded of the "one-ness" and limitless extent of all Creation and of Creator (however you name God or relationship to the Source of Life). Time in and of itself is purely a dimension and is a limitation of our human existance. Creation and Creator transcend time and so all things are infinitely possible. Think of all time as happening in the blink of an eye. All moments, as well as all possibility, "happens".

The value of this life, of the choices we make? Well, it probably doesn't depend so much on the minutae actions, but how we relate to Creation and how we respond to it all (to each other, to Creator, etc.). Only you, through your relationship with all that "is" (including Creator), can judge on the value of your life.

Because it is all more than our minds can handle, maybe therein lies the value of Faith... and the value of Letting Go. Or, as we say in the Christian world, "Letting God."

[_Z_]

Hi path of one.



I have studied this somewhat too – here are my conclusions.



Energy is conserved, which means there is ‘an amount’ of it. This amount cannot exceed the singularity i.e. this universe, therefore no other energy universes can exist!



What we think about does not even effect/affect our immediate surroundings unless formed into an event – acted out.



There is only one universe – but with infinite potential. If another exists, it would have to have completely different characteristics that are completely different to our universe, if not then they would simply be a part of this universe as there is nothing to divide them.



There cannot be infinite worlds, as one cannot build towards infinity.



That is how I see it anyhow. Quantum theory is still in its infancy.

I am probably wrong on all of this – I hope not though.



Fun to think about the mind interactions!



Z

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by Bandit

kind of like something beyond our control 'nudging'

Row row row your boat,
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily merrily merrily,
Life is but a dream

I find something profound in that simple rhyme - I often envisage the journey through life as like flowing down the stream. We can row with it, try to row against it, but utlimately we are caught in a flow not of our making, that will push us towards a certain general outcome.

Such an analogy only allows for a very limited expression of Free Will, though - which some people may not be happy with.