The Multiplicity of You

8/10/2019 The Multiplicity of You

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The

Multiplicityof You

Infinite Universes for

Infinite Events

Russell Silvey

Anthropology

Mon 6:30 to 9:30



This article ended up being intensely interesting to me for a variety of reasons. "What is it

like after you die?", the author asks. "The only way to know is when you die.", is just one of the

many possible replies. As a Daishonin Buddhist this thinking is integral to how I view the world

around me. When asked, “Is there a God?” it is not uncommon to hear a Buddhist respond “If

there is, He is unknowable and has no effect on our lives.”

Personally, I feel that the spiritual path I walk down helps, rather than hinders, when it

comes to understanding complex scientific ideas. Take the concepts of Heaven and Hell as an

example. In Japanese Buddhism there are ten levels of Heaven and Hell around us at all times.

These places are not real reachable destinations; they are concepts and emotions which can be

found in everything in the world around us.

I believe it is for this reason that the idea of “multiple universes” comes to be so easily

stood in my mind. To Buddhists, our consciousness (specifically, the ego) really does affect the

way we see reality. This specific line “our consciousness affects our reality” was used to describe

our knowledge of the multi-verse theory. This line is not meant to say that those who are not

consciously aware of the Himalaya’s means they blink out of existence; this means that the

consciousness we have will determine how we will see and comprehend the Himalaya’s once we

actually reach them. If one were to fly over these mountains by plane, or see them by distance in

a car, one would have a vastly different understanding of them than someone who has actually

climbed to the summit. Yet neither experience is any more or less right than any other.

It is easy to describe the idea of a multi-verse or the core concepts of quantum theory in a

way that even a lay person can understand. But simply understanding the concepts of a theory

does not mean that you understand the theory in and of its self. A colorblind person knows what



a rose is, but has no comprehending of the color red. Does one need to be aware of each thing in

order to grasp t he only? Not necessarily, yet seeing the shape, smell, and color of a rose does

help us understand it in a broader and more complex way.

I think the same can be said of the “many worlds” theory. It is an interesting theory and

can be easily transmittable to a lay person. Could concepts such as déjà vu, precognition, or

ghosts actually be linked to parallel worlds where electrons flow positively and all of these

events are just disruption in the flow of space and time in this universe?

None of these theories, not even the “many worlds” theory, have yet been proven. Yet

even without understanding the exact science behind it, my spiritual path has already opened my

eyes to the 10 levels of Heaven and Hell that exist around us at all times. I don’t think it is that

much of a leap to go from seeing people, our world, and the universe as interconnected to the

idea that there are many, many other universes out there and they are just as interconnected with

us as our own universe, we just aren’t sure how to see them yet.

Learning how to see and interact with these places, if they do exist, will be the most

difficult situation our species will likely ever encounter. It is one thing to understand the

multiverse but quite another to come face to face with an infinite amount of yourself. If the

multiverse is true and we are one day able to travel between them, what impact will it have on

what it means to be human?

(Side Note: There is an amazing movie called “Another Earth” which deals with this

exact topic of people being able to travel to an exact replica of Earth where loved ones were

living that had died, people who divorced on one world were happily married on another, etc. It

really brings quantum theory and its possible effects to a lay person’s level of understanding. )

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The Multiplicity of You