What is the Multiverse? Science, Philosophy & Science Fiction Story for Sleep

Olimpia Pérez (0:00)

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Olimpia Pérez (2:29)

Hello, everyone. I'm Olympia. Thank you for being here with me in this wonderful place called Lights Out Library, and I have a great story to tell you.

Tonight, we are going to travel to the frontiers of science, philosophy, and science fiction, and explore a concept that you have heard of but that is not necessarily easy to grasp or fully understand. The idea of a multiverse, or the existence of multiple parallel universes, is different realities with their own distinct properties, laws of physics, and configurations.

We are going to examine where this idea comes from historically, because it is not that recent, and also what the actual meanings of this idea of a multiverse are. Meanings, because, as we are going to see, the same word, multiverse, is used to describe very different concepts. Cosmologists, physicists, including quantum physicists and philosophers may talk about a multiverse.

But what they mean by it can be completely different. These ideas come from different fields and different lines of reasoning. It all sounds complicated, but don't worry. As usual, we're going to take things one by one. Use concrete examples, and before you know it, you will have digested and understood a lot of things.

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And now, before we begin, if you wish to, you may close your eyes, and allow yourself to forget about any worries. Assume a comfortable position. Maybe move a bit to settle. Take a long, deep, relaxing breath. And when you slowly exhale, feel your shoulders drop.

Release the tension in your neck. Let your face soften, and your jaw relax. Make sure your fingers are not clenched, and that your legs are relaxed too. And allow the sound of my voice to guide you through this journey. And now, off we go.

I said historical because, in order to really grasp the different meanings of the term Multiverse, we need to go back in time, and understand what concepts it refers to and where it came from. The early philosophical roots of the idea of parallel realities are often traced back to ancient Greece, and especially to a philosopher of the 6th century BC called Anaximander.

Why? Because this rather obscure philosopher came up with important new concepts. Actually, we don't have his entire body of work, just fragments and references to his ideas from other authors. The first one was the hypothesis that our universe was made of a fundamental principle that he called a Peron or a Peron.