A good TV programme recently about Quantum Physics.

It seems that at the sub-atomic level there is a THING (which must have some special name) that is itself made up of a lot of MINI-THINGS. Every of these is capable of developing into a THING and they can communicate with each other. Some accident (nature unknown) tells one MINI-THING that it has been chosen and it tells the others “I am the one. All of you, collapse into me”. The chosen THING then becomes REALITY

In my imagination, the MINI-THINGS are like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle, but while they all have all the shapes necessary, those shapes don’t have a picture on one side. But each has a colour, and they are all different. When the chosen MINI-THING calls the others, it says “You are all to integrate with me and assume my colour which is, say, Shocking Pink. So now there is just one THING and it is Shocking Pink.

But if another MINI-THING had been chosen then the THING created might be Mustard Yellow or Puce or Green, or any other colour.

Nobody knows why one MINI-THING is chosen instead of others but before the instant of choice they all exist simultaneously in a state called SUPERPOSITION. They are all capable of becoming real: until the ‘call’ happens each one is potentially real. So if a different one was chosen we would have a different reality. Maybe a Mustard Yellow planet or a Puce planet or a Green planet.

So Quantum Theory allows the theoretical possibility of ALTERNATIVE REALITIES and ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSES. Maybe what we experience is only one of them. It seems to be scientifically proven that, at some sub-atomic level this does actually happen. It does not happen at a higher level, as the Shrodinger’s Cat thought experiment seems to prove. But  if SUPERPOSITION can exist at any level at all then maybe it can somehow exist elsewhere.

The possibility suggested by Quantum Theory is enough is to support the numerous fictional stories that explore other universes. This possibility has also boosted the religions that postulate some sort of after-life. The argument is that if some unseen state is hinted at by two quite independent methods then there must surely be something in it. Perhaps the priest and the scientist are going to end up in the same place.