Why You Can’t Live in a Multiverse

If you exist in a verse that is multiple, then you do not exist in a verse that is singular. A world that is simultaneously multiversal and universal is impossible. Multiverses exist theoretically, but you can’t possibly live in one. You can’t live in a multiverse because, if you try to be uniquely you in it, you will inevitably get stuck between generality and specificity and disappear.  

Statements like “to be everywhere is to be nowhere” reflect your inability to simultaneously broaden and constrain your attention. General everywhere is specifically nowhere. At any given moment, your attention is either more general or more specific.

If you’re focusing on a whole crowd, then you can’t focus on any specific face, or any combination of specific faces, in that crowd. You can’t simultaneously look at and through a looking glass, hear the whole band and a single instrument, or imagine in full detail a tree and one of its leaves. Try and you get stuck shifting between specific and general perspectives.

You get stuck this way perceptually and conceptually, but also existentially. When you have to make a life-altering choice but don’t know how to choose, you vacillate aimlessly between the implicated aspects of your reality. You worry about what you’ll miss if you pick this path and what might happen if you pick that one. It’s no coincidence that a disrupted multiverse can symbolize a psyche disintegrated by conflicting parts of life.

I come up to you – and I mean you, you specifically, not any of the other readers of this post, you. I ask, “How are you doing?”

What does “you” represent in this context? Hold it in mind.

In a multiversal world, “you” can only mean “an individual.”  

We’re suddenly in a multiverse. The second before I walk in the room, 99 exact clones of you are teleported in. The clones are identical copies from similar universes in the infinite multiverse. Out of everyone in the room, which is you? How can you tell for sure?

“An” indicates that there can be multiple of whatever the noun that follows it is. “An apple” works because there are multiple apples. “An individual” indicates that others can be not just like you, but also actually you.

In a multiversal world, other people in other universes with similar life trajectories are somehow made to be essentially you. The context transforms the specific you into the general you-ness that binds all the versions of you together. I would be all the Marshalls with my Marshall-ness. You would be all the (your name)’s with your (your name)-ness.

All the universal Marshalls in the multiverse are clones of me because they are all Marshalls. There isn’t “an individual” Marshall among all the Marshalls because, by definition, they are all Marshalls. The phrase “an individual” is incoherent in this environment.

In a universal world, “you” means “this specific individual.” The specifier “this” gestures toward a singularity. It indicates you are you singularly, not a clone of anyone else who could ever exist.

You’re back in the multiverse in the room crowded with all the (other?) clones. You can’t tell whether you’re the “you” I referred to earlier when I asked “How are you doing?” or a clone from another universe. You’re stuck and yet, whatever you are at this point is there. Whatever you are now is, must be, somewhere specific in the world.

Say, “I am here.” You are. You are there regardless of whether you’re the original “you” I referred to earlier or not. What you are in this present moment is what is specifically there where you are.

You can’t simultaneously be one specific you and generally all the (your name)’s with your (your name)-ness. You can’t be specific and general, one and multiple, at the same time.

In other words, you can’t live in a multiverse because you are a singularity that can’t be multiplied or divided. You can’t have copies or clones in any capacity without disappearing into generality. You cease to exist in a multiverse because the sort of thing you are can only exist in a universe.

Step into a multiverse.

You lose the ability to specify anything because everything is copied. You even lose the ability to specify what makes you uniquely you. This isn’t surprising given that you, like everything else in this world, are copied. You’re not unique anymore. You were never unique here at all. You’re entirely a part of something else. Now, I – me, the writer – can’t even discuss you because there’s no such thing.

You are gone.