Category: Time

Santa Cruz, CA – 20200502S – Universe Surfing 1, 2, 3

As I’m typing this, the beautiful beings in the house I’m living in are getting ready to have an Ecstatic Dance outside. I have a choice now. I can continue typing OR I can stop typing and start dancing. Both universes exist regardless of the choice I make. Neither universe is of lesser value than the other. My quantum self will experience both. My classical self will experiencing dancing now, and writing later. I will return …

I just returned from driving up the highway to try to catch the sunset. It was too cloudy for a nice sunset, but I did get a walk in along the coast. A sign along the highway notified travelers that the beaches were closed from 11am until 5pm due to COVID-19. The beach parking lots along the highway were closed and so people were parking on the side of the road.

I’m now watching the scene in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in which Daisy gets hit by a taxi:

If only one thing had happened differently: if that shoelace hadn’t broken; or that delivery truck had moved moments earlier; or that package had been wrapped and ready, because the girl hadn’t broken up with her boyfriend; or that man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier; or that taxi driver hadn’t stopped for a cup of coffee; or that woman had remembered her coat, and got into an earlier cab, Daisy and her friend would’ve crossed the street, and the taxi would’ve driven by. But life being what it is – a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone’s control – that taxi did not go by, and that driver was momentarily distracted, and that taxi hit Daisy, and her leg was crushed.

And that brings me back to universe surfing. In the scene, reality is described as a “series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone’s control.” This matches with the theory of universe surfing in the sense of intersecting lives and incidents. However, these intersections take place in a multi-dimensional reality where each universe with an event is matched by a universe without the event. So, there’s a universe in which Daisy did not get hit by the taxi and, instead, continued to dance.

Universe Surfing Hypothesis 1 – The classical universe we experience is equal in reality to the multitude of parallel classical universes that we do not experience.

Under this hypothesis, while Daisy’s dance career is forever affected by the her leg being crushed in the taxi accident, as her life continues, the two different universe timelines appear to merge back together.

Universe Surfing Hypothesis 2 – Unexpected events are more connected to your possible futures than to your possible pasts, and therefore are useful signposts and windows to your possible futures.

Under this hypothesis, when Daisy’s was injured in the accident, this unexpected event showed a window to universes in which she was not a dancer. This opened a window to see futures of building a relationship with Benjamin Button, which would be less likely in the universe where she continued dancing.

Universe Surfing Hypothesis 3 – Related events influence each other and the order in which we experience two events gives us the classical impression that one event caused the other.

I decided to put this hypothesis on the non-directionality of time because of the theme of the movie, with Benjamin Button aging backwards. This felt synchronistic to me since it was one of my roommates who started watching the movie while I was writing this.