Many civilizations throughout history have believed in life after death. This usually
takes the form of an eternal paradise, a place of punishment, or a cycle of reincarnation. However,
the answer to what comes next may lie in another now common concept - the multiverse.
This is Unveiled, and today we’ll be looking at the extraordinary
theories that suggest there could be life after death in the multiverse.
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Multiverse theory posits that our universe is merely one of an infinite number of possible
universes. Every action and every choice ever made or not made could potentially create a
separate reality. These other universes may not even obey the same physical laws as ours,
which could mean that there are worlds where things we consider impossible are ordinary. So,
is it then possible that there could be a life after death in the multiverse?
The concept is one that’s been thoroughly explored in fiction. Stop us if you’ve
heard this one - the protagonist dies suddenly, perhaps in a traffic accident,
only for them to reawaken in a fantasy world. The hero has a second chance at life, love,
and usually with incredible powers to boot! Japan has an entire subgenre based around this premise,
called isekai, or “different world.” While the premise is often used to place a self-insert
character in a fantasy world, or as a power fantasy, isekai stories also offer intriguing
possibilities about what awaits us after death. The possibility of a second chance,
to start fresh in a new place, is something that appeals to many of us in life, so the
idea of death offering the same opportunity is certainly attractive. But as great as stories
about life after death in another world are, there may be some basis for it in reality too.
Our brains hold the key to much of what we call the self. Those who hold to a
materialist perspective believe that mind is matter - your brain is you,
in other words. If this is indeed the case, then consider this - in an infinite multiverse,
matter is bound to be created and recreated an infinite number of times. Physicist Brian
Greene likens the concept to a deck of cards. If you deal the cards enough times, eventually
sequences will start to repeat. Therefore, the ‘cards’ that make up each of us are bound to be
repeated at some point after being ‘shuffled back into the deck,’ so to speak. Newtonian physics
holds that energy is never truly generated or destroyed, it only changes structure. The
energy that makes us up must go somewhere, and in a multiverse, that energy could conceivably take
the same shape again. But not everyone holds to a purely material view of the universe or the brain.
After all, recreating a human being’s mind is an extraordinarily difficult task. There
is still much about the brain that remains a mystery. Along with the biological processes
and experiential data, the organ may have quantum processes that we don’t yet understand. However,
in an infinite multiverse, surely some people, in some of those universes,
find the secret to reproducing human minds. And in some of those universes,
it’s possible that everything that makes us who we are up until the moment of our
deaths can be reproduced. Former CERN physicist Adam Jacholkowski certainly
believes it’s possible. But our minds are the key to more than one of these theories.
Dr. Robert Lanza has developed a theory of biocentrism. His theory posits that consciousness
is a fundamental aspect of the universe. Lanza invokes the famed double slit experiment,
in which electrons behave like particles or waves, depending on whether they’re being observed. In
Lanza’s view, the universe exists because of consciousness, not the other way around. Your
consciousness can’t experience death, which is nothingness. And so death “cannot exist in any
real sense.” Upon our death, our consciousness merely switches to a reality in which we survive.
It’s like the famous Schrödinger's cat thought experiment. A cat is placed in a box with poison
inside that’s released when a radioactive atom decays. Since, according to quantum physics,
this atom can be in a superposition of states - decayed and not decayed - the cat is both alive
and dead inside the box until it’s opened and observed. In the case of our own death,
we take the place of the cat! According to the many worlds interpretation, a version of
the observer would always survive. This concept is referred to as quantum immortality. To some
degree, every moment of our lives is like this. All of our choices until our deaths lead to a
reality in which we survive. Because you choose one route over another on your morning commute,
you didn’t get in a fatal accident. Because you chose to eat this food over that food, you
didn’t choke and die. We could be moving through the multiverse right now and not even know it!
Moving through the multiverse unknowingly is one possibility, but what if our next life in
the multiverse begins more dramatically? One theory often brought up in relation to the
many worlds interpretation is simulation theory. This broad set of theories posit that our reality
is merely an inconceivably elaborate computer simulation. You’re probably familiar with it by
now if you’ve seen any science fiction film or one of our other videos. If we are in a simulation,
then our multiverse may simply be one of an infinite number of simulations being run by
an infinite number of beings. Therefore, it’s conceivable that we ‘sims’ wouldn’t
be permanently disposed of upon ‘death’. In video game terms, what if when we die, we simply
respawn? Our lives could merely begin again, but with a potentially different path. Or maybe our
sims are reused by our programmers in a different simulation with a new life, in a new locale.
Then again, perhaps the isekai stories have it right. What if, when we die,
we’re reborn in a universe that operates on what we would consider magic? In an infinite universe,
physics can operate in an infinite number of ways,
so magically having our minds and/or bodies replicated in another universe upon death
could be possible. While we’re sure that not everyone would want to go on a quest to save
the world, like in the stories, fantastical worlds could offer many possibilities.
But our bodies in a multiversal afterlife could take a less familiar form. As we touched on
before, scientists have long sought to find a way to recreate the human mind artificially.
Suppose somewhere in the multiverse, you wake up after death in an artificial body. Perhaps
some of our afterlives will entail living without aging in a robotic or cybernetic
body. In an infinite multiverse, the possibilities are truly endless. But,
if we went through all of them, our video would be too long - for this reality, at least.
For now, do you think there's any possibility of immortality in the multiverse? How do you
envisage it happening? And do you think we'll ever come to realise that reality,
in the here and now? Science and technology has come a long way over just the last couple
centuries or so, but are we really ready to totally reshape our existence? Could we ever
uncover definitive proof that this life isn't all there is, all thanks to the multiverse emerging
not just as a science fiction plot device... but as a real world structure? If that were to happen,
then the impact would perhaps be indescribably huge for humankind; it would be an incomparable
before and after moment, through which the very meaning and definition of "life as we know it"
would need to be rewritten. An exciting prospect, yes, but also an unprecedented
and perhaps unnerving one. In the meantime, of course, we all have this life to lead;
the only life that any of us is actually aware of, promised, and has any kind of control over.
Imagining what comes next is fascinating to think about. Religions and philosophers
have been interested in it for millennia. But only people who have died could possibly say
what comes after life. So maybe it’s best to operate on the assumption that this is
the only life we get and live the best life we can while we can. It probably couldn’t hurt.
What do you think? Is there anything we missed? Let us know in the comments, check out these other
clips from Unveiled, and make sure you subscribe and ring the bell for our latest content.