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Comments like this are why I love Slashdot.
(Yes, it's a little Owl Creek Bridge, but it's still thought-provoking enough to get a +1 from me, especially since I've been talking about the Multiverse quite a bit with a wide range of people, lately. Puzzling out stuff like this is good for your brains, people, and if you do it right, it's a hell of a lot of fun. Discuss.)
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These are the stories Wil loves to tell, because they are the closest to his heart: stories about being a huge geek, passing his geeky hobbies and values along to his own children, and vividly painting what it meant to grow up in the ’70s and come of age in the ’80s as part of the video game/D&D/BBS/Star Wars figures generation.
Just before you die, your entire life flashes before your eyes. Included in this replay is the bit at the end where your life flashes before your eyes. So you keep reliving your life. Over and over and over again. Billions and billions of layers deep.
What is the chance that this moment, right now, is your one real life instead of one of the multitudes of flashbacks a microsecond before you die?
Posted by: Alan | July 07, 2007 at 02:11 AM
years ago, i was nearly killed in an industrial accident because i was stupid and bypassed all my safety interlocks.
it involved high voltage. i was lucky, and only got electrical burns on my hand instead of both hands (and thus across my heart). i don't *know* that it would've been fatal, but it seems plausible given that i had nice entry and exit burns on the one hand that got shocked.
anyways, i remember very clearly walking around the day after the accident wondering if i was, in fact, having an "owl creek" moment. and then i decided that, really, the stuff i was doing was so boring, i totally would expect my mind to have come up with something much better.
Posted by: rmd | July 07, 2007 at 04:14 AM
Actually, it's quite a bit more than a "little" Owl Creek Bridge, eh?
Posted by: BL | July 07, 2007 at 08:39 AM
Please give us your thoughts on 7/7/7. I am sure you will get lots of comments.
Posted by: Freeman | July 07, 2007 at 10:08 AM
Wow... that just blew my mind.
Posted by: Brian | July 07, 2007 at 04:08 PM
I always liked how Richard Linklater opened his film Slacker by playing a character who muses to a cab driver about multiple versions of himself inhabiting various parallel universes (universii?). Wikipedia describes this character as a "miscreant" but I don't remember him as evil, just slightly annoying.
Posted by: Sally J | July 07, 2007 at 09:28 PM
I think Alan nailed it. I've had a hard time getting past the whole existential "life is but a dream" situation for the last few months after my mom passed away last year--I assume it's something you get over, but it can be very difficult living your life when you wonder if you really are "living" your life.
Posted by: Culture Minister Jagmohan | July 07, 2007 at 10:35 PM
What is "living" anyway? Maybe we are all just simulations in the mind of God -- like the allegory of the people in the cave by that Greek guy. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then treat it like a duck and don't worry so much about if it is really a dragon. If your perception of the world is mostly consistent then just try to live in it the best you can and don't worry so much about it not being real -- unless you are a quantum physicist in which case that is sort of your job.
Posted by: Alan | July 08, 2007 at 03:37 PM
This actually reminds me a bit of The Circular Ruins by Luis Borges. Kinda, but not exactly :)
Posted by: grimm26 | July 19, 2007 at 08:06 AM