What Am I Up To In A Parallel Universe?

Something that I often think about is what alternate versions of myself may be doing in parallel universes. Assuming they exist, and assuming they exist in infinite variations from slight to severe, it’s often fun – or a little depressing – to consider my own path through life, and find points of divergence where I may have chosen a different path. Of course, with low self-esteem, it’s often tempting to portray my current self as one of the least successful or meaningfully defined versions of myself in these scenarios, but that’s only because I’m characterising other potential versions of myself as the embodiment of success in one of my potential paths.

The first and most obvious consideration is often the cruellest; what if I’d succeeded in establishing myself as an author by now? I’m quick to add that this could still happen at any time; many successful authors only found success when they were well older than I am now, and I’m not about to give up. (I should probably start before I give up, right?) But a part of me always desired to be a prodigy. Probably borne of no small amount of arrogance which I held before going to university, I initially dreamed of being a successful author at a young age. But looking back on some of my earliest short stories now, I can only wonder how that would translate to a more successful, published version of my 26 year old self. Would I be looking back on my earliest novels in alarm? Or would I have failed to learn some of the most crucial lessons I learned during university, and written stories of a lower quality than I’m now able to, should I apply myself?

Here’s something different: As I approached my late teens, I became fascinated with history, and this fascination feels like untapped potential to this day. What if I’d gone to university for a historical course instead of creative writing? How would my life path have been altered? Well for one thing, I’d have a different group of friends. I don’t do a good job of keeping in touch with my uni friends, but I’d be sad to have never met them. I also find it amusing that I don’t know what the average day-to-day life of a historian is even like, so it’s a little difficult to ruminate on where my life would now be. Maybe I’d combine my love of writing with my love of history and write historical fiction.

Anyone who knows me knows that my biggest hobby by far is gaming. I’m not only interested in playing videogames, but in how they’re made. What if I’d opted to put all my eggs in the game design basket? What kind of games would I make? Well, most games are made by teams, so it’s perhaps more apt to imagine myself joining a well-known developer studio after years of working my way through the industry. But, woof, I can smell the ignorance coming off of that last sentence. By all accounts, the games industry is a cutthroat workplace with all its layoffs and contractual positions. Even in this daydream what-if scenario, it’s hard to imagine myself settling somewhere and making a name for myself. With very rare exception, that’s just not how that works. All the same, I’d like to think I’d be working on some cool collectathon platforming levels, or maybe assisting in the world-building of some grand MMORPG.

Of course, these all assume I’m going down one of the paths that still interest me. Once upon a time, though, I was interested in drumming, and while I only had a few informal lessons, I was told that I had potential. Assuming this was the truth and not merely the platitudes of my sister’s then-boyfriend to keep my interest, perhaps there’s a universe where I’m touring the country in a rock band? It’s… difficult to picture, but if the multiverse is truly infinite, as I’ve arbitrarily decided at the top of this blog post, then there’s also a universe when I’m a purple elephant tamer in the employ of the grand galactic army, so…

Grounding our feet firmly back in reality for the moment, let’s stop looking at potential presents and dive back into the past. I’ve already documented on this blog post about how cause-and-effect fascinates me, how the butterfly effect affects everything we are. So who would I be if I’d been enrolled in a different secondary school? Our teenage years are some of our most formative, and the friends we make are central to that transformation. My interest in writing was instilled from a young age, but not my interest in history. What interest might I have picked up if I’d been introduced to a different school, a different group of people? I’d be very interested to talk to that version of myself… but not to be that version of myself. I made friends at my secondary school that I wouldn’t trade any opportunity in the world for.

To finish things off, I’ll end on the reminder that yes, it’s fun to think about the different versions of myself that could be out there – assuming multiverse theory is true, which is quite the assumption. And it’s tempting to measure myself against them. But at the end of the day, they’re all me. All people I could have been, but also people I could still be, if I truly wanted. I still have time to be a novelist, and while it may be more difficult to change tracks now, I could still try to break into the field of history – although I certainly have no plans. I could be a teacher, or an artist, or a cook.

Or I could just be myself. And be a little of all these things.

But I would have to learn how to cook…

Small Steps Shape Grand Schemes

Please read Infinite Butterflies first, for this blog post builds upon what I discussed there.

I always feel somewhat silly discussing theories regarding the building blocks of the universe, given that I’m a twenty year old student writing on a laptop in his bedroom in 2015. But hey, the mind is a universe in and of itself. Think outside the planetary box.

One thing that always bugs me is when people decide to harp on about how “small and insignificant” we are. This is usually preceded by some reminder as to the grand scale of the universe, our planet’s size versus the sun, the sun versus larger stars, galaxies, so on and so forth. People like to look up at the stars and think, “Damn, I am nothing compared to this.” And it’s always fanciful, too. Is it just a way of rationalising your own mistakes or previous wrongdoings? Is it a genuine statement of sorrow and existentialism? I don’t know.

But I know that I don’t agree.

Look at ants. They’re tiny. They’re not as intelligent. To us, they’re nothing. Step on an ant and you’re not going to hold a little funeral with its little ant friends, weeping and discussing its little ant life. And perhaps this isn’t the most sensible comparison to make, since ants aren’t sentient beings. But they live their lives on their own scale. To them, we’re giants, but so long as they can avoid us they go on with their own ant lives. Maybe they even hold little ant funerals, heck I don’t know, I’m not an expert.

Look at mayflies. They typically live for less than a day. Many of us may look at them (or squint in their general direction) and think, what’s the point? Why live for a day? But maybe they perceive time differently to us. What is a day for us is a lifetime for them, and maybe they perceive it for as long as we perceive our seventy our eighty years (should we be so lucky).

So why am I rambling about ants and mayflies? Because if you look a little closer, there’s a lot more to them. Like I said, I’m no expert, but they have intricacies that many people will say can’t be random chance and have to be design. We are just as intricate, just on a different scale. Size means nothing. You may think we mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, but maybe that’s simply because we can’t see the influence we exert in our own personal time frames.

Even more importantly, why the heck are you worried about the grand scheme of things anyway? We do not live our lives in the grand scheme of things. We live in a focal point, in social circles, and that is where you matter. You exist in the hearts of others, in their laughter and smiles and hopefully not in their tears. That may be a poetic way of putting it, but it’s damn true. And if you’re worried about the grand scheme of things, hold on to your seats, because there’s a reason I referred back to the Infinite Butterflies post.

Everyone you know knows somebody you don’t. And that somebody you don’t know knows somebody else your friend doesn’t. We’re all linked in this way, and I’d be shocked if there was a single group of humans on this planet that wasn’t, barring undiscovered tribes in woods or something. But if you make people happy, then they’re likely to make somebody else happy. You can inspire people in ways that change lives. Your presence on Earth is a footprint that cannot be erased by anybody, as every action you make has consequences, no matter how little, that ripple through time. The Butterfly Effect.

That sounds an awful lot like I’m trying to rationalise a reason for life, but I’m honestly trying to think about this logically. What was the process of events that inspired somebody to create that TV show Scrubs? Because, despite it being a comedy, that’s where I first learned about the Butterfly Effect. And that sat in the back of my mind for a few years until it matured into the thought processes you’re reading now. And if you take something away from this blog post, then it’s continuing the chain. If you don’t? It’s still continuing the chain. The time you spent reading this may delay you a few minutes to miss a tragic event, or meet somebody you otherwise wouldn’t, way down the line.

Infinite Butterflies

The butterfly effect is a concept that has fascinated me ever since I saw that Scrubs episode when I was twelve. I’m aware that Scrubs is making fun of / paying homage to a movie of the same name, but I’ve never seen that and Scrubs is superb, so we’ll stick to talking about Scrubs in this paragraph. Did I mention that I like Scrubs?

Anyway, if you’re not already acquainted with the concept, allow me to sum it up for you quickly. The idea behind the butterfly effect is that a butterfly simply spreading its wings can change the course of human history. A butterfly decides to take off, flying in front of someone’s face, causing them to stagger and laugh, making them forget their thread of conversation with their friend. This could have lead to an important revelation for the friend, which they will no longer encounter, changing that friend’s course of the day. For example, friend A was going to talk about getting a suit but forgot, and friend B was going to offer to accompany them suit shopping, which they didn’t. Friend B no longer meets his future wife whilst out shopping. This change could effect whether friend B has kids, which in turn could remove legendary figures of future history from ever existing, changing the course of human history forever.

So basically, Hitler was the fault of a lazy butterfly.

Of course, this thread of events is unlikely, but it’s a possibility, and smaller versions of this are always happening. Are you going to get the bus or walk to work? Your choice will affect your mood upon arrival, your physical being, and most importantly, your timing of arrival. These small adjustments then ripple through the day, changing more and more minor things until your day is shaped entirely by that morning’s decision.

What fascinates me is where it all begins. What causes the butterfly to decide whether it’s going to take flight or not? Where it’s going to land? What chain of events lead up to this butterfly’s current position and timing? Surely whether it would decide to fly or not would be based on the surroundings, the weather, and the butterfly’s current objective. So what events transpired to ensure that the world around the butterfly ended up how it did? Can you trace the placement of all events in the world back to one starting decision? Did some alien race way out in another galaxy accidentally create the human race by landing a craft on a meteorite and changing its trajectory minutely? What about the origins of that alien race?

In the end, it all comes back to the Big Bang, which we know precious little about. If the gasses and all of that universe creating variety mix exploded outwards from the Big Bang in a set fashion, then does that mean that all of time itself is predetermined? Or does the sentience of the human mind (and other alien creatures) deter that from being the case? Another factor that needs to be considered is where our ideas come from. If they are purely products from the world around us, then maybe everything has been set in stone from the beginning of time itself.

I like to think not, though. If destiny exists via a predetermined butterfly effect stemming from the Big Bang itself, then that makes the universe one incredibly variable machine, and I face a rather large existential crisis on my hands. And I can’t be dealing with that on a Tuesday morning.

So let’s talk parallel universes.

I don’t know if there’s any science to back this up or not, but I’ve always enjoyed the notion that for every decision we make, there’s parallel universes for the other possible decisions we could have made. I’m sure my friends tire of hearing me say, “there’s a parallel universe where you did decide to go out.” The reason this kind of stuff fascinates me is because of the butterfly effect, and the idea that somewhere else in some alternate reality, you will now be starting down the path of a completely different life.

I am well aware that nowhere near all of the small decisions we make stack up to be life changing, but I think there are more of them than you’d think. Usually to do with relationships; you may end up back on the same path later down the line, but if you deviate from it and end up having a child, you have created an entirely new entry into the ranks of human kind, and that is sure to have some lasting ripples and effects. Imagine how many of your friends may exist purely because of the positioning of the moon or the availability of a table reservation in a nice restaurant, paid for by a bonus from a generous boss who’s been influenced by someone else, and so on and so forth.

The idea of an infinite amount of butterflies causing an infinite variety of events entertains me greatly, and should I be lucky enough to be alive when we make discoveries about our origins or other alien life forms, then I greatly look forward to finding out if these theories have any credibility.