There's a danger in getting fixated on the fantasy that there are other, better versions of our world.
Regardless of whether we can prove that the multiverse exists, the idea of it can distract us from doing the work we need to do to make this world better. |
 | | Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images |
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I've been keeping an eye out for signs of alternate universes my whole life, so when the concept started to seep from the realm of science fiction geekery into common discourse, I took notice. |
It seemed the notion of multiple parallel universes really caught on around 2016, when Donald Trump was elected president. "That whole year, a lot of people were saying half-jokingly that we were in the wrong timeline," wrote Annalee Newitz, the author of "The Future of Another Timeline." "There was a sense that history was out of joint." |
Five years later, the concept seems to have become embedded in our cultural vernacular: "Russians Are Trapped in Putin's Parallel Universe," an NBC headline warned. "There's a universe out there where they can chase laser pointers I just know it," a woman captioned a TikTok video of her blind cats. |
We all carry, in our heads, a vague model of the cosmos. In the Middle Ages, scholars and peasants alike imagined themselves at the center of a series of celestial spheres set in motion by the hand of God. Today we're more likely to picture ourselves surrounded by a multitude of alternative universes, one of which might be the right one — the one where Putin never invaded Ukraine or Trump never won or your lover never left you. |
There are other ways, too, in which we're imagining realer realities, worlds behind the world: That's what conspiracy theories are. And sometimes we are drawn to dystopias — imagining hidden truths that are worse than the truth. Maybe an oppressed minority is actually a threat. Maybe a secret cabal runs the world. |
"Our minds are built to construct alternative realities," Phillip Ball, the author of "The Modern Myths" and "Beyond Weird," told me. "By their very nature, that's what they do." |
In my life, the idea of a parallel universe had always been appealing, but after a terrible loss, it became a way of imagining the world that almost wrecked my life in this timeline, which I write more about in a guest essay this week. I didn't mean to make this a personal essay when I set out to write it, but it ended up becoming one. |
I had to find a way to let go of the multiverse, and I ended up creating my own cosmology of time, one that could help me live in this universe in peace. Maybe it will help you, too. |
| READ S.I.'S FULL ESSAY HERE | | |
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