I’ve been anticipating the release of Brian Green’s new book – The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. If you’re unfamiliar with his work (The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos), then be sure to treat yourself to any of his books. He’s a professor of physics and mathematics at Colombia who, like Michio Kaku, writes clearly about the quantum world.
I haven’t gotten very far in his newest book yet, but I can see that he’s laying out a convincing argument for why, if our universe is infinite, it may be just one of many. In an early chapter, Endless Doppelgangers, he talks about the kind of stuff that comprised my science fiction as a kid. “In the far reaches of an infinite cosmos, there’s a galaxy that looks just like the Milky Way, with a solar system that’s the spitting image of ours, with a planet that’s a dead ringer for earth, with a house that’s indistinguishable from yours, inhabited by someone who looks just like you, who is right now reading this very book and imagining you, in a distant galaxy just reaching the end of this sentence.” In other words, your doppelganger.
For those of us who have experienced doppelgangers – Mike Perry comes to mind immediately! – this chapter should hold considerable interest. In one of Jane Roberts’ Seth books, she and her husband, Rob, experienced doppelgangers in a place where they had gone dancing. Her sense was that the couple looked like she and Rob might have if Seth had never been a part of their lives – old and bitter.
Greene says that if the universe is infinite, then there are infinitely many doppelgangers, infinitely many yous. He proceeds to knit together the cosmology and the scientific principles to show why “the issue of whether space is finite or infinite has a profound impact on the very nature of reality.” He takes us through both possibilities with such elegance that even a non-scientist like me can get it.
And now, back to the book!
Aleksandar – you make some great points!
Musing – thanks for the link. off to check it out!
Just ran across this movie trailer from a movie that won a prize at Sundance: "Another Earth"
Try to ignore the annoying cartoon/ad at the start of the trailer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BLZHxV3Hnw
https://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogssundanceblog/51146932-50/sloan-prize-alfred-film.html.csp
Hi Connie, I remember you telling us that story about Ahna years ago, long before the blog world emerged. Glad you can tell a wider audience now! – R
Decades ago, the Guides of Ruth Montgomery,(especially Arthur Ford), of Jane Roberts, (Seth), of Brad Steiger, (no names), and of Dick Sutphen, (no names), all spoke of parallel lives. One of the suggestions made by all of them is that if, for example, I might have a parallel self living in China, and something traumatic happens to that parallel self, I would feel, intensely, the same trauma but would have no rational explanation for it. This has always fascinated me, and I've sensed it's total truth. This will sould off-the-wall crazy, but I've experienced a connection with a parallel-self (an aspect of my Over-Soul) who lived in Russia during the Chernoble incident. We were the same age. She was an ordinary person; a geophysicist working in a lab in a small village not far from the nuclear accident, and she quickly developed leukemia from the radio-active fallout and went to the The Other Side. Her name was Ahna
Bahrahnovski. My experiences of/with her were astonishing, frightening, humbling, instructive.
Can't wait to read this book.
"I’ve been anticipating the release of Brian Green’s new book – The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos." I love that first sentence. You can anticipate, I can anticipate, but computers can't. We have strange loops ("Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter) and they don't. Robert Rosen was talking about anticipation (consciousness, metabolism) as temporal loops (time moving in two directions) necessary for self-reflective consciousness to emerge. Jeanne Peijnenburg combining broad imagination and retrocausality has the same idea in mind. We don't need parallel universes to make this world amazing. Our self-awareness and capability to ANTICIPATE is already mind-boggling.
Sansego – what an interesting take you have on the australian twin soul! Thanks for the tip on coast to coast. I'll try to tune in, too!
Wow…Brian Greene is scheduled to be on Coast to Coast AM tomorrow. Will definitely have to listen in.
I loved CJ's description of "Twin Souls" in an earlier post. I've become so cynical about the term "soul mate" that many people use that I don't think it means what many people think it means. I don't expect to marry a "soul mate", because the "soul mate" could be anyone, and I already have a theory on who mine might be (a best friend).
If I have a "twin soul", I hope my twin soul has been living in Australia, because that is one country I've always wanted to visit but can't seem to afford. Not sure if I'll ever get to experience it in this lifetime and while I'd love to be Australian in my next life, the earth might not be a great place to return to a century from now, so maybe a twin soul who lived in Australia all his life would be a better option, that way in the afterlife, I can gain all the knowledge and experiences that my twin soul had during his lifetime.
As soon as I saw this title, I thought of you Trish.
I have it on my wish list to read.
Personally, I shudder to think there are more me's! One is more than enough for the poor Multiverse. 🙂
Interesting book, though.
oh, my gosh!!! more and more ME's and thee's! how sublime! 😉
gypsy-joking [uh, well, i was partly joking, anyway!] aside – totally intriguing subject and cannot wait to get the book – just think, more me's – oops, sorry, i didn't mean to go there again! 😉
This is on my Amazon list. He is a very interesting person. I watched him "interviewed" by Robert Colbert. Even with the spoofing, he caught my attention. This sounds like a really good book.
I just ordered The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, PhD, and one by Thomas Campbell entitled "My Big Toe" – about physics and metaphysics, for my I-Pad. Plenty to keep me occupied.
Syncro – sort of – I ordered this book on Friday. Love Brian Green. On one of this video talks – can't remember the context or when – when talking about string theory he said that he didn't expect his cat to understand string theory. I guess I just loved it that he had a cat and mentioned her in his scientific talk.
I'm looking forward to reading his book but don't expect it to be an easy read.
Mike – what a weird WV! Sounds like it's right in line with the post. I sort of screwed up here. This post was sposed to go up tomorrow. Oh well.
Shadow – the hidden reality is like your poetry!
you've certainly got me curious and intrigued. will keep an eye out for this book.
I must read this book.
I've always had in the back of my mind about endless doppelgangers – but also with a slight variation: That there could be lots of 'us' out there living lives we could, or would have lived if we had acted differently on a decision we made at some time or other. If we hadn't of taken that job, visited the place we met our partner, hadn't have said yes to an invitation and so on.
Fascinating subject.
Oh – just notice wv = 'schrolog'. I put 'schro' into Google search and the top entry was Schro(dinger's) cat – an experiment of quantum mechanics! To quote: The thought experiment presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event. How odd is that.