What Would It Be Like To Travel Between Parallel Universes? | Unveiled

<h4>

What Would It Be Like to Travel Between Parallel Universes?</h4>

There once was a time when even the idea of parallel universes was purely science fictional, but not anymore. In today’s world it’s increasingly accepted that, really, there could be countless other worlds out there that we don’t yet know about. And perhaps can’t even comprehend. The multiverse is alive and kicking as a mind-bending concept, but also increasingly as a physical consideration.

So, this is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; what would it be like to travel between parallel universes?

What would you do if you could enter into a parallel universe? Would you do things differently or exactly the same as you have in this reality? Would you seek out your parallel self and make contact, just to freak them out a bit? Or would you try to guide history from the shadows? Let us know in the comments! But, beyond sci-fi thought experiment, is any of it actually possible?

The multiverse is a fundamental idea that dates back probably far further than most would guess, to the famed philosophies of ancient Greece. However, in the modern sense it only truly began to take hold toward the end of the nineteenth century. It was only seriously considered for the first time in the mid-twentieth century, and it only appeared in science fiction for the first time in the early 1960s. As ideas go, then, the multiverse is still an emerging one. And, while it remains wholly hypothetical, it comes in many different varieties. 

The most famous of the early models attached to the theory is probably Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation, first proposed in 1957, and suggesting that (on the quantum level) reality splits into two whenever any kind of choice or decision is made. The “many worlds” grow and grow from there, into an endless stream of realities (all equally real although only one is experienced by us). The most well known of the more contemporary models is arguably Max Tegmark’s four-leveled multiverse, which imagines a physical structure that could hold it all together, with varying degrees of complexity.

No matter the model, though, it’s almost always thought that to travel across the multiverse - to move from one parallel world to another - would require an unfathomable amount of energy. Even an Einstein-Rosen Bridge (or wormhole) wouldn’t be enough in this instance. Traditional wormholes are imagined structures that pierce through the fabric of spacetime to link between locations that are potentially light years apart. As such, they’re a proposed means to achieve faster-than-light travel. While there are theories as to how and where they could form, however (including inside the deepest depths of a black hole) there are no confirmed wormholes in reality. And, in fact, there are no known sites in the universe with even the hint of a wormhole about them. 

Nevertheless, we can still speculate (to some degree) over building one… and, indeed, some have proposed that an advanced enough civilization could even build itself on a sophisticated network of wormholes. The only problem is that we (as we are) know of no physical substance that’s strong or energetic enough for the task. For this reason, whenever the construction of wormholes is considered, the plans always require so-called “exotic matter”... which, broadly, is an unknown (and possibly physically impossible) material. And, even then, most predictions are that a traditional wormhole would inevitably collapse in on itself, whenever it was actually used.

All of this goes to show just how alien it would be to travel between parallel universes. Wormholes are generally offered as an option to traverse just this universe, and even they are currently incomprehensible. We’d need something even more exotic and unusual, then, to move from this universe to another one. On the Kardashev Scale, this is the massive difference between the already lofty Type Four and the even greater Type Five. For a physical, carbon-based, organic human being such as ourselves, it’s almost certainly not going to happen. And, if it did somehow happen, it could in all likelihood kill us, in a way something akin to the spaghettification our bodies would go through if we were to fall into a black hole. Even the individual atoms that make us probably wouldn’t survive the journey.

That said, what if there were a way to achieve it? What if we, as we are, could somehow switch between this universe and another? What kinds of scenarios would we be faced with, and how could the experience shape us?

First off, to have any immediate meaning for us, it would need to be that we’d disappear and reappear in the same place, from one universe to another. Much as with hypothetical time travel, even an iota beyond our target location and we’d find ourselves entirely cut off from the life we’d just left - such is the enormous scale of the universe and reality. Get it wrong, and moving between parallel universes would just be confusing and pointless… but, get it right, and we could be thrust right back into the life we know, but with an all new perspective.

Next, would you really want to meet yourself? Or, to put it another way, should you meet yourself? Imagine that moment from the otherside, from your current perspective as a being in this reality… how would you react if you bumped into you? How would everyone else react if you tried to tell them what had happened? How would the world react if the two versions of you were confirmed, and the true nature of reality were then revealed? Travel between parallel universes and let other beings know about it and, at best, you could be labeled unstable and/or locked up… at worst, you could trigger mass hysteria and the collapse of humankind. Perhaps, then, even with this incredible ability, you’d be wise to keep it to yourself.

But, how would you handle such immeasurable power and knowledge? It would certainly be easy to form something of a god complex. Make it to a parallel universe and keep your true identity secret, and you’d know that you knew more than everyone else around you. You’d know that reality really is guided by even the most forgettable decisions (if the Many Worlds Interpretation rings true) or that there really are higher planes of understanding out there (if the Tegmark Model is correct). And yet, it could prove a lonely and unfulfilling existence. With the secret of life laid bare, would it ever be possible to even be interested in anything else again? With the true nature of nature revealed, where would your motivation come from?

Perhaps there would be a darker path down which you could travel, where you stem the boredom by just playing with everyone else’s realities. Life, death, love, hate, happiness and fear… the entire range of human emotions could suddenly seem quite futile, like levels in a game, or expansion packs to complete. Moving around a parallel universe, far removed from your original reality and now all-knowing, you could quickly become mean, merciless and indifferent to such lower level states as pain and suffering. But, of course, you could also view your new reality in the opposite way; as somewhere that could benefit from your guidance. You could be benevolent rather than malevolent, and rather than seeking infamy or destruction… you could work and try to ensure that your parallel universe avoids some of the mistakes that only you know were made in your original one.

Again, what would you do if you could enter into a parallel universe? How would you handle your heightened position? For now, what’s clear is that this is a thought experiment, only. The multiverse is still a wholly hypothetical structure, and humanity knows of no way to build even regular wormholes… let alone bridges that can link between here and literally another reality entirely. 

Over recent years, there have been various unexplained cases perhaps hinting toward the presence of parallel worlds… and we’ve taken a closer look in some of our other recent videos. From a seeming highway to nowhere, to a man from a country that doesn’t actually exist, to an apparent “different life” where the Beatles never broke up, be sure to check those out next. Unless, of course, you exist in a parallel universe where none of those videos exist… in which case, you’ve been rumbled, your cover has been blown, and the truth really has been unveiled.