33 - many worlds

A light breeze blew down the river. It smelled like moldy vegetation. T.G. appeared to think for a moment. “I died and came back.”

April started to laugh then looked at the old man’s eyes. They were pale blue like arctic ice. She was quiet.

“Weird isn’t it? The first time I came back as a young man. The second time as an old man - the way I was when I started. That was four years ago. When I approached your father.”

Abby said, “I remember him talking about a crazy old man.”

“Yes. But he believed me.”

“That seems odd.”

“It’s all odd. But I convinced him. He told your uncle Stephen. I convinced him too.”

“Stephen was involved? ”

“Very much. How much do you know about him?”

Abby shrugged. “He and my father were roommates at Yale. He introduced my father to my mother. He is a physicist and teaches at Columbia. He comes down here fairly often. More in the past four years. He spent a lot of time with my father. With my Aunt Babs too.”

He looked at T.G., waiting.

T.G. leaned forward placed his hands on his knees, looked down, then looked up. “Stephen believes in the many worlds hypothesis. That is the key. Do you know what it is?”

“I’ve read about it in science fiction books.”

April spoke. “I don’t know what it means.”

“In quantum physics things don’t really exist until you look at them. Until then they’re undefined, undermined. It’s called being in a superimposition of all possible states. Everything - every possibility is all piled up. The final result is random. It depends on probability.”

T.G. looked at Abby then April. She frowned.

T.G. said, “Have you ever heard of Schrodinger’s Cat paradox?”

Abby nodded. April shrugged.

T.G. looked at April, looked away. “A cat’s in a box with a vial of poison. Depending on the outcome of a quantum event - it doesn’t matter what kind, or what kind of mechanism is used, the vial is broken or stays intact. Until you look, the quantum event remains undefined - in a superimposition of all possible states.. Which means so long as you don’t look - until you collapse the probability wave and cause the event to go one way or another, the cat is both alive and dead. That’s the paradox.”

Abby said, “Where does the many worlds part come in?

“According to the standard theory when you look at something undetermined, when you collapse the probability wave, things go one way or the other - the cat either lives or dies. According to the many worlds theory, when you look, both things happen. There is no randomness. The universe just splits. There are two cats - one alive and one dead, and two of you - one with the dead cat and one with the live cat. A separate world is created for every possibility, for every point-of-view.”

Abby stood up, looked toward the river, invisible beyond the edge of the cliff.

T.G. continued, “Scientists like Stephen say that once you get past the strangeness, the many worlds theory actually makes more sense. The uncertainty goes away. The universe becomes determined again.”

Abby said wonderingly, “There is one world for every point-of-view.”

April started to speak, but T.G. waved her to be quiet. “Shh - your friend is having a breakthrough.”

“This isn’t the only place. That’s what you said.”

“I said that.”

“Is that what they did, build a many worlds machine?”

“Yes.”

“A point-of-view machine?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I was doing - in the machine? Moving between worlds? How….?”

“It turns out that the point-of-view - the soul - whatever you want to call it - really exists. Not in normal space but in the space behind normal space - if that makes any sense. Colm’s machine temporarily detaches point-of-view from the body, from normal space. Shakes it loose, allows it to wander. That way you, or Colm, or somebody, could choose - whether to go with the dead cat or the live cat.”

T.G. picked up a twig and drew a tree-like shape in the dirt just beyond the toe of his scuffed New Balance walking shoe. “It’s like traveling along an infinitely branching tree. The material of this tree is the space behind regular space. The tree grows through regular space. Every time the universe splits a new branch is added - a new point-of-view. When you used the SPATIAL control you moved at the same level between nearby branches. When you used the TEMPORAL control you moved back down a branch. Of course it wasn’t you - the physical you - that was moving, but your point-of-view, picking alternatives, looking out from the tree into infinite worlds. A point of perception, but this time with a memory.”

T.G. stood up, said matter-of-factly. “That’s what happened to me when I died. My point-of-view got switched between a me in one world and a me in another world.”

Abby rose, facing T.G. “All right maybe I believe all this but you didn’t have a machine, how could…”

“There are others. They don’t need machines - or maybe they’ve got a machine I don’t know about. That’s possible. But when I die I move into another me; my point-of-view takes over. I know that.”

T.G. looked beyond the cliff, toward the river. “And I can get inside other people - in their dreams, their thoughts. I don’t make it happen. It just happens.”

“How do you know? Have you seen them?”

“The others? No. They just move me around, tell me what to do - in a manner of speaking.”

“My parents…”

“The man that killed them had been taken over - he was another point-of-view. From another branch. He would have killed you too.”

“But in another world…you said…”

“Yes, in the next world over they are alive. Other points-of-view. Other versions of you. Of them.“

“Why?”

“Why did the others do it - kill your parents? Kill me?”

“Yes. I suppose”

“I don’t know. Maybe they have a plan.”

“Is that why you killed that man? To save me - my point-of-view?”

“Yes. That was my idea, not the others.”

April walked over beside T.G., looked at him, looked down at the rocks 100 feet below. “Where does your point-of-view go when you die?”

T.G. walked to the edge of the cliff, looked down. “A good question. I don’t know. “

He touched his chest with his forefinger. “My point-of-view persists. Remembers where it has been. I don’t think that’s the way for most other people. They are scattered over many points-of-view - none of which knows about the other. When they die - well, it doesn’t make any difference. That’s just it.”

Abby stayed back. “What happens now?”

April tottered against T.G.. “I am dizzy.”

T.G. put his arm around her waist. “We move on.”

Later when he tried to explain it to Pruett the smiling detective, Abby said they just seem to get tangled up and fall.