I Fantasized About Multiple Timelines, and It Nearly Ruined My Life
The multiverse has become a favorite pop cosmology. But there's a danger in getting fixated on the fantasy that there are other, better versions of our world.
...It's easy to see the appeal of the multiverse, even as metaphor: the notion that we're surrounded by a multitude of parallel selves, one of which might be living in a better timeline than the one we're stuck in. It's probably no coincidence that the idea has become so popular during an era of pandemic, climate change and political turmoil, when so many of us have felt helpless and trapped. Who doesn't want to imagine a different world?
But it can also be a dangerous way of imagining the cosmos. Like the Capgras patient, we risk becoming detached from the world we can see and touch. 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. This timeline is the only one we have access to, and it's got to be enough... S.I. Rosenbaum
The multiverse has become a favorite pop cosmology. But there's a danger in getting fixated on the fantasy that there are other, better versions of our world.
...It's easy to see the appeal of the multiverse, even as metaphor: the notion that we're surrounded by a multitude of parallel selves, one of which might be living in a better timeline than the one we're stuck in. It's probably no coincidence that the idea has become so popular during an era of pandemic, climate change and political turmoil, when so many of us have felt helpless and trapped. Who doesn't want to imagine a different world?
But it can also be a dangerous way of imagining the cosmos. Like the Capgras patient, we risk becoming detached from the world we can see and touch. 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. This timeline is the only one we have access to, and it's got to be enough... S.I. Rosenbaum
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