Monday, January 14, 2008

Deja vu, Sisyphus!

This article, which begins with shades of Bishop Berkely (for those of you who heard last Sunday's sermon on Rom 1:19-20) got me thinking in related though different lines.

IF the ultimate reality of the universe is not God, but matter (broadly defined), and if matter has existed eternally (as it would have to: if there was a time when there was nothing, where did all this stuff come from and how did it come to be?), then an infinite number of universes has formed, died, been reshuffled and formed again and again and again. In fact, every possible universe has come into being an infinite number of times.

Since one of those possible universes is the one we are experiencing now, this exact universe (us included!) has existed (and will exist again) an infinite number of times. That would explain those feelings of deja vu we get from time to time! Not only that, but all the possible variations on this universe (imagine your life and surroundings with every possible small or large permutation) has existed and will exist an infinite number of times.

All of which pretty much proves the truth of Romans 1:18-20.

3 comments:

Jeffery Rogers said...

That's pretty funny. I can't imagine it proves anything since the suppositions don't follow. But it is pretty funny.

jlundell said...

Proves the truth? Maybe you could walk us through that proof a step at a time.

Pretty strange stuff, though. We can all be thankful for the noodly embrace of the FSM to reassure us of our place in the multiverse. (How do I know? The cookbook tells me so!)

Unknown said...

I was using "prove" loosely. When you consider the absurdity inherent in matter as the ultimate reality (of which this argument is one example) it just doesn't pass the laugh test.

Like Berkely's arguments, which I can't disprove logically, but which leave me no less confident that the external world I experience really does exist.