Quantum Mechanics' Many-Worlds Theory May Lead to Eternal Life For All

Disclaimer: What I am about to express is entirely unfalsifiable. The only way I could be proven wrong is if I, myself, am killed. Of course, I would never know this occurred, so I cannot be proven wrong. And you, the reader, can only know if I am wrong if you, yourself, are killed. My dying won't prove it wrong to you any more than your dying would prove it wrong to me. In short, if this writing makes you do something stupid to get yourself killed, it will not prove to me that I was wrong, but rather that one of your multi-verse consciousnesses did something stupid.

So let me begin. To start, for those unfamiliar, the idea of many worlds is ultimately the concept that our universe is simply one of many. There are some unknown and potentially infinite parallel worlds where things are tweaked from a small amount to a massive amount. For example, there may be another parallel universe where I am president of the United States or that there is no United States at all. Allow me to further clarify my own belief, however, based upon the quantum mechanical principle of uncertainty and probabilistic wave functions (I won't explain them--just know that I have my reasons). In short, I do not believe there actually are many worlds, but rather many possibilities of them. They all do and do not exist simultaneously depending on how one wishes to define existence. This can be rather confusing to comprehend since it appears as if we experience one true existence, but what we are experiencing is simply one of the potentials of what could be and there simply is no right or wrong of what truly occurred. Nothing truly occurred. They all are, and always remain, potentials as opposed to realities--potentials of which our consciousness can experience.

There are many choices I could have made differently in life and many choices that others could have made that would make my life different. What I consider to be "me" experienced only one of those many branches of choices. This "me" could have experienced any number of other possibilities, and yet here I am for seemingly better or worse. This is not to say, however, that there are universes where I have two heads, or that there is some universe where things randomly start floating off my desk, or yet another where we're all cockroaches instead of humans. I suppose, given my limited knowledge, that this could be possible, but that does not necessarily make it one of the many possibilities and thus actual experiences. Things still have to obey the laws of physics within their probable universe to develop. So unless physics and matter could interact in a way to bring about the evolution of cockroaches who then evolve into sentient species that just happen to develop the exact same countries and mental habits, there simply is no way for such a world to exist which parallels ours with cockroaches. But hey, what do I know? If it did exist, however, that cockroach version of me would be forced to write a different blog post since it would make no sense to use cockroaches as the hypothetical. Such small differences would ultimately undo the similarities as a massive butterfly effects that reverberate through that potential path of existence.

Hopefully this explanation helps aid in comprehending what the many worlds theory does and does not mean. With this understanding, perhaps I can now explain why this could very well mean eternal life for all of us. If everything is merely a possibility or a probability of what "is" but nothing truly "being" anything and thus not technically having parallel worlds, then all of the probabilities containing my essence truly are myself. They're not running in parallel, but rather they are myself given what I could have done or what could have occurred to me. They are quite literally still me but simply probabilities of me and how my life occurred. They are not copies, they are not different versions, they are truly me. This is a very important concept to grasp for the theory I am proposing. They do not exist, they are not real or parallel, they are simply a mathematical probability and I thus only experience whatever has continuity. I can't experience one where I die and then suddenly begin experiencing another wehre I did not. They'd no longer be "me" in such a case and we've already established that these are me. I am thus forced to experience one in which I continue to live. In this way, I can rest assured that I--or my consciousness--will experience my longest life possible as the only viable probabilistic option for such a consciousness.

It further stands to reason that my longest life would be the one that enables me to live forever. Such technology may not exist now, but it very well could come about during my lifetime. I might question why my longest life begins before eternal life is devised rather than afterward, but there could be many reasons for this. My personal make-up might require that I learn certain lessons while perceiving my life to be finite in order to make the proper choices later in life that keep me alive. Longevity may be the reduction of age-decaying death, but there is no escape of death when flying into a sun or living on a planet that implodes. Perhaps I simply have no means of escaping such deaths with my personal consciousness if I began when life was eternal. Who knows! 

So  as long as there is always a choice to go or not go on some crazy death-defying adventure, if I find that I actually choose to go through with it, it must be one such probabilistic universe where I do not die in the process or else I would never have made it or there was simply no avoiding death at that particular time. In such a case, eternal life, for whatever reason, must never have been a possibility for my particular consciousness. Maybe it was simply impossible for everything to come together as set up by the physics of the universe to create exactly me at a time where eternal life would be possible. Still, all risks are no risks at all if I am guaranteed to live my longest life--so I might as well simply do what I enjoy without fear. Again, if this makes you do something dumb and kill yourself, I have no way of knowing that "you" experienced that rather than it being one of many potentials of which you did not truly experience. So don't go crying to me if you went skydiving and it killed you. And remember, if you're still alive to tell me, there's no guarantee this wasn't for the best for some reason! And even if it wasn't, I can't possibly be convinced since my best life my very well include your death for some reason!

What is also interesting about this concept of multiple worlds leading to our own personal eternal life is that it jives so well with many religions and simultaneously demystifies them. For example, Jesus states that we should not worry about food and clothing since God will feed and clothe us. Clearly many people, even those of the faith, die of such things all the time. So how can this be? Well, perhaps it is because those instances are not the longest-life iterations for their consciousness. Their deaths might very well exist within our longest-life experience but their consciousness might actually be experiencing an entirely different scenario to the one we saw played out. So we can blindly continue believing and knowing that "God" will care for us since we will still indeed have our own longest-life experience. This also jives well with ancient Chinese philosophy in the I Ching which essentially tells us that all things which occur to us are for our greater good. At least, that was the takeaway I received from reading Zen and the Art of Happiness by Chris Prentiss.

In short, if this theory of mine is correct, we can live with far less worry and stress. We can truly believe that all things happen for the greater good of our consciousness. We will live our longest life which is simultaneously hard to separate from our best life. Stress causes health issues and shorter lives so it must be the case that our longest life will have a perfect balance of stress leading to greater achievement and life-long lessons which leads to better decisions and longer life. Of course, I write all this from a position of many comforts and that's where things perhaps get a little dicey.

If someone reads this and they are on the verge of death, they can ultimately know it is hogwash since they are clearly experiencing the book and the death simultaneously. For me, however, I can have no guarantee that the person informing me that my book is hogwash is indeed the version of their consciousness that is truly experiencing it. It could very well be one of the many potentials of their life which has come to conclude this to tell me. In short, it almost makes everyone else on the planet a simple automaton. A potential non-player character. Shells of a probability of what that person could have been but is ultimately not what that person truly experiences. In that case, it almost makes sense to live for me in a selfish and exploitative manner. Despite knowing this, however, I have zero desire to do this since I have learned many lessons which have shown me that this would not lead to my greatest life. So, while it could be true, it is in my best interest to remain kind, giving, loving, sharing, etc. 

Altruistic characteristics will yield the best responses of those around me to promote my longest life. If I stop caring about others and start treating everyone like trash, I already know this will yield poor results for me. Thus, I feel absolutely incapable of making such decisions--both out of logic and learning, and simply because it seems to defy my very nature. They do not appear to be choices I could truly make even if I wanted to prove myself wrong. I could prove my entire theory wrong right now by doing any number of things that would lead myself early to the grave, but I cannot seem to make those decisions. I feel the concept of free-will enabling it, but I could never make such a terrible decision. Thus, I cannot prove to myself that this theory is wrong. Nor can anyone else. They can only know in and of themselves if it is wrong while lying on their death bed. By then, however, it is too late.

While we yet live, at the very least, I find this perspective in life leads to many benefits with reduced stress and the ability to let things go. I can be happier and more confident and those characteristics themselves lead to better things in life. Much like the theory of the "law of attraction", I find that most of life is all about learning confidence and proper perspective which yields a harvest of the best things flowing our way like a magnet. If you are reading this and you are in a rough patch right now, this perspective might very well set you free and you may find that all the previous pain and suffering you have endured has merely been a means of learning and gaining insight to aid you in achieving your greatest and longest life. 

While we may never truly know, if our longest life is shared with someone else's longest life, perhaps that lends to the idea of soulmates. Further, perhaps our lives can be judged by the number of longest lives that share with our own longest-life paths. If many longest-life paths require our own longest-life path, then it must be said we did something right. And perhaps this is the very metric we'd be judged against in an afterlife or by some being running a mega-meta-quantum simulation that judges us for worthiness of eternal android bodies. Really, this interpretation yields all kinds of possibilities of religious and philosophical frameworks. Plus, it is super geeky, fun, and a potentially great perspective which, right or wrong, could indeed help us reach our greatest lives even if via nothing more than sheer confidence, placebo, and a false sense of security. So let's get out there, be free of stress, do what we love, and live forever! Or, at the very least, die blissfully ignorant while always assuming the best case scenario for our lives no matter what is thrown our way.

My Breakup With Facebook

 

I had rarely ever considered ditching Facebook. While I had seen others do it, I either shrugged at their luddite ways or else felt saddened at the lack of ability to now interface with them. The idea of having to share myself on Facebook and then do it yet again multiple times outside Facebook just to reach those few people was simply not  acceptable. It short-circuited my efficiency routines. If you care about what's going on in my life, then follow my Facebook! I'm not going to message each person individually simply because they chose not to care. And how can I follow them? I felt as if they were ditching me.

Facebook had also become a habit for me. I was not particularly concerned, however, as I did not really see how it hindered my life at all. I would open my phone to check an email and the first thing my thumb would do is click the Facebook app. After reading a few posts, I would put my phone away only to realize I never did check my email. On slow days, I would read through all the posts on Facebook, sigh at nothing better to do, exit Facebook, and then see once again the icon on my home page which autonomously forced my thumb to click it yet again. I had just exited the app, and yet now my thumb is opening it back up again! Silly thumb. I mostly brushed it off as humorous and gave it no second thought for how it was affecting my life. Sure, I had read that it affected many other people's lives, but it wasn't really doing anything for mine. Or so I thought. 

It wasn't really all that apparent what Facebook was doing to me. I engaged, I shared myself, I gave and received advice, I learned things, and it overall seemed like a great thing to be a part of. Sure, there were a few trolls here and there, but I learned how to ignore them and I became rather fond of the block and unfollow options. I thought I could simply cater my experience to keep it pleasant and joyful. I worried that I might be missing out on other sides of topics and creating my own little bubble, but in the end it was worth it to keep my sanity by being selective with my interactions. I kind of felt like a Facebook-using master. This is why I always chuckled at people who said it was toxic. They simply didn't know how to shape it to their benefit like me.

Well, kind of out the blue, I one day decided to do away with Facebook. I had been contemplating the idea as I began to notice that indeed energy was being spent on it. My life energy. It was something I put actual effort into and most of the time for very little payback. So I thought, heck, why not give it a shot? I chose to not open it, not engage, and simply do other things with my life. Even just sitting outside held a million times more enjoyment than post-scrolling. At first I didn't notice too much difference in my life, but I did realize that I didn't really miss it. I went and uninstalled the app from my phone just to make it easier and I went another day or two with no regrets. I logged in on my PC once in order to communicate with someone on Messenger and I had no alerts worth mentioning. It seemed my presence wasn't particularly sought after if I was not personally engaging. Facebook didn't miss me any more than I missed it.

And so, I've continued on without it. There have been a few moments where something cool would happen, like seeing a blue heron in our pond for the first time, and I would be a bit antsy to share it with someone. But, without Facebook, who would I share it with? And how? Out of nowhere, an idea came to me... I could share it with my immediate family: my wife and kids. No one else really needed to know. And why not be excited about events with them rather than with my phone? Like an epiphany, it occurred to me the difference between Facebook and real life. Throwing my life out there for hundreds to see is not very personal. Nobody feels like they are a part of my life simply because they see me post a few things. And I don't feel like I'm a part of their lives either. Facebook takes everything good about who we are and spreads it so thin that it lacks all potency. We become but dust in an electronic world. Worse yet, dust for dousing with ads.

In short, it is so much better to share something fun with one select individual than with the world. That one individual knows that you sought them out and decided they were the one worth your time and effort to share that particular story with. It's personal. It's engaging. It builds an actual relationship. And over time, I have noticed that I have so much more will-power and energy. Perhaps it's just the honeymoon of trying something new, but I am really thinking I like life just a tad bit more without Facebook. I may not receive as much in the way of news, but what good did that ever do me anyway? I am more at peace. I am less burdened. I can now focus on what is before me. I just might keep it this way. Facebook, we are through. You are a bad influence and you are terribly needy. It is time we go our separate ways.