Every once in a while, a random chain of thoughts leads me to something really odd. I was thinking the other day about the flow of time, and the theory that at each deciding point, a parallel universe is spawned for each of the choices. Infinite numbers of universes varying in from one another on trivial things like whether you chose the minivan or the sports car. Whether you stepped
on a bug or
over it. Or bigger things, like "Did the politician push the button or choose not to?"
I am not speculating on whether or not this happens. I have a very solid answer to that question... I don't know.
But that means, that somewhere, another Eric might be driving a sports car or minivan (I picked the family sedan, so there!). Yet another may be living in the wake of nuclear holocaust. Oh, and the bug? The inconsequential bug? In my universe I stepped over it. Perhaps he flew into the window of a car, panicking the driver and causing a fatal accident? Or maybe he fertilized the flower that had the genetic aberration that spawned a cure for cancer? Or, some teenage girl swerves around it, and bumps into her male friend, spawning a "bumping game" that leads to a date.
I doubt any of this is new. But from this chain of thoughts, I came to another one. What if, in these forks in the time-space continuum, your consciousness picks one path. Or perhaps it is filtered into the paths where you continue to live. If this is the case, each of us would be immortal. Certainly with an infinite number of paths, one of them would lead to immortality, and you'd simply filter down to that path. It still works with existing reality, mind you, because on your path along this line, not everyone else would be.
Perhaps you know someone who passed away, but on some other path, they are still alive, and you may or may not be. On their path, though, you will either die eventually or benefit from the same choices and life-events that will make them immortal. On their path,
they will live forever because that is the one to which
their consciousness has been filtered down.
I'm neither a physicist or philosopher. So I'm sure there are a million holes in this. Also, I don't believe this is how consciousness works. I just enjoy thinking about perception and the tricks of perception that could be going on all around us. Others must enjoy this too, or we wouldn't have movies like
The Matrix or
Back to the Future II (I mention "II" because that's the one where they break/repair time).
Here's another one for though... is it possible there's only one consciousness in all the universe? That when you die, your soul jumps back in time to the point where the next baby is born and lives his/her life, and that this one soul is currently (from our perspective of time) inhabiting EVERY person you know? For the source leading to
that thought, read
Slaughterhouse Five.
