The many interacting worlds theory
I think we have advanced further enough into paranormal research now to entertain the idea that it is not just black and white and it is not necessarily just the one thing when it comes to determining what the paranormal actually is. It could be multiple things. When a Dr tries to diagnose a medical condition, sometimes it is difficult for them to pinpoint exactly what is causing an ailment as there are several factors in play. You may suffer from a few conditions to the point that it is unknown just which one is causing you pain that day. Paranormal phenomena could very well be the same. All the what-ifs we ask could be one of these factors. It could be a person whose consciousness has survived life after death. It could psychic projection. It could just be all in our head. It could be many interacting worlds. But first ....
The many-worlds theory
In the 1950s, there was a many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics that emerged. Based on this, the hypothesis says that there could potentially be an infinite number of universes that consist of everything that could have possibly happened in our past but didn’t. The best way to describe this is from the movie sliding doors. When the main character caught her train on time, she went home to find her partner cheating on her. In another reality, she missed her train and it set her upon a completely different path. Think of all the different scenarios in your life. You could have gone to work but you called in sick. In another universe, you went to work and so on.
It was US physicist Hugh Everett that claimed that our universe was just one of many parallel worlds that branch off each other without intersecting or communicating.
Quantum mechanics is pretty complicated for a person like me, so I am not going to get into the technical details, but that this is the basic idea of how the idea works. It may seem familiar as it is a popular idea that is used in many movies and television shows. If you recently watched the television series DEVS, you will know that the many-worlds interpretation played a solid role in the storytelling.
The problem with the many-worlds theory is that the worlds are unaware of one another and do not interact in any way. This is why many within Science will not accept this interpretation as a possibility. Some people do speculate in their own interpretations that it is possible but it widely disregarded. In 2016 however, Scientists came up with a new modified theory called the 'Many Interacting Worlds Theory' that opens up quite a few possibilities, especially when it comes to the paranormal.
The many interactive worlds theory
This theory was presented by Michael Hall and Howard Wiseman from Griffith University in Australia, and Dirk-André Deckert from the University of California, Davis. Instead of the universes sitting parallel to one another, they actually exist in the same space and time meaning they coincide and could interact. Their theory is that the interaction is extremely subtle.
Our “many-interacting-worlds” approach hinges on the assumption that interactions between deterministically evolving worlds cause all quantum effects. Each world is simply the position of particles in three-dimensional space, and each would evolve according to Newton’s laws if there were no interworld interactions. A surprising feature of our approach is that the formulation contains nothing that corresponds to the mysterious quantum wave function, except in the formal mathematical limit in which the number of worlds becomes infinitely large. Conversely, Newtonian mechanics corresponds to the opposite limit of just one world. Thus, our approach incorporates both classical and quantum theory. We perform numerical simulations and show that our approach can reproduce interference with a double slit. As few as two interacting worlds can result in quantumlike effects, such as tunneling through a barrier.
https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevX.4.041013
The concept of time
Mainstream belief is that when it comes to the paranormal, we are communicating with the spirit of a person who has passed away and that their consciousness has remained or imprinted on its surroundings in some way.
What if these ghosts, are really just us picking up on these simultaneous timelines?.
“One way to think about it is that they coexist in the same space as our universe, like ghost universes,”
Howard Wiseman Griffith University Queensland
Time may not be the same in an alternate timeline. An hour in our timeline could potentially be years in another timeline. Is this why when we communicate with said phenomena we get answers alluding to the past?
I want to finish by saying I am just asking a 'what if'. Many people will not accept this as plausible and that is OK. This discussion is asking questions and yes the answer could very well be a big fat no. But what if it wasn't? What if it was indeed possible? Up until 2016, the many-worlds theory meant that the universes existed parallel to one another. The new many interacting worlds theory while still in its infancy opens up the door to a multitude of possibilities that quite a lot of paranormal investigators have in fact wondered about. When we are on an investigation at a location and we feel we are interacting with a spirit from the past, is it possible that they are not a 'spirit' at all? How many times does it seem that what you are communicating with doesn't realise they are dead? Is it because they didn't die but instead they are in their own time? Is it possible that we are interacting with a person in their own timeline at the same location? They could be in the past, they could be in the present or they could be in the future as time is not necessarily the same. If it is our future selves for example, could this explain some UFO phenomenon? Are aliens and UFOS really just us from the future? A lot of these ideas may seem pretty out there, but when you sit down and think about all of the experiences you have had when investigating the paranormal, are they really that out there? How many times have you been on an investigation and it seems like a spirit is 'mimicking' a person in appearance or copying their voice. People often attribute this to some sort of negative entity. What if again we are just blending or interacting with another timeline? If a timeline is branched off by every decision made, if you decide to walk left down the hallway, then another timeline will exist where you walked right. Is this why when you walk left you may start hearing footsteps in the other direction? Your first reaction is that it is a spirit, but what if it is you in this other timeline?
When you start applying this way of thinking, you will start going down a lot of different roads and considering a lot of possibilities. Next time you are out on an investigation when you are asking your questions, instead of assuming the person has passed on and you are communicating with a consciousness that was once living, why not change the approach as if it was a person who was still alive? Entertain the idea that it could indeed just be something from another timeline. The right line of question could identify some clues.
I think we can all agree, when it comes to the paranormal, really anything is possible. It is time we start exploring these possibilities.
References
https://www.visitlongbranch.org/do-you-believe-in-ghosts/
https://news.griffith.edu.au/2014/10/27/new-quantum-theory-is-out-of-this-parallel-world/
https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevX.4.041013
If you enjoy LLIFS, consider buying me a book (otherwise known as buy me a coffee but I don't drink coffee and I LOVE books). Your donation helps to fund the LLIFS website so everyone can continue to access great paranormal content and resources for FREE!
Top pages with similar subjects
Don't forget to follow the Facebook page for regular updates
Join the mailing list to receive weekly updates of NEW articles. Never miss an article again!
Buy the latest and past issues Haunted Magazine
Check out the books written by LLIFS