Disclaimer - what you read next you might find to be bullshit. But please, don’t let that stop you.

Multiverse (mŭl′tə-vûrs″) noun - a hypothetical group of all the possible universes in existence.

Can we get weird for a moment?

So, the latest Dr. Strange saga hit movie theaters and will probably crush box office records. I’m not a Sam Raimi fan, so I don’t know if I’ll check it out or not. Besides, I promised myself Endgame would be my last Marvel movie because I don’t want to waste my life twirling down a toilet drain of a neverending story. But such a momentous theatrical event got me thinking about what “reality” actually is and whether we may be already living in the very multiverse a ton of people will head to the movies this weekend to experience.

Dr. Strange floating through the multiverse.

Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness

(Sidenote - is it possible for there to be “multiverses” plural? Doesn’t the plurality of a multiverse mean it can only exist in the singular?)

Reality (rē-ăl′ĭ-tē) noun -The quality or state of being actual or true. One, such as a person, an entity, or an event, that is actual. The totality of all things possessing actuality, existence, or essence.

My concept of a multiverse was always this infinite collection of worlds where a different version of myself existed, along with endless variations of everything that I knew existed and even things that I don’t. And these worlds were always irrevocably separate from each other except in science fiction novels and comic book movies. But then I began to see that one could make a powerful case that not only is the multiverse real, but it wasn’t these separate worlds that we always envisioned. Instead, it was more like simultaneously projected realities all superimposed over each other like multiple movies being shown on the same screen - AND we are all currently living in it.

So what are the first clues that you’re living in a multiverse?

Well, from what we already know of multiverses, (again, can a multiverse be plural?) anyone living in one would have to be on the lookout for variations of reality. So that would mean the same object simultaneously being different objects or variations of itself, or an occurrence in time happening in a variety of different ways all in that singular moment. If that happened then your multiverse radar should be pinging like a gerbil’s heartbeat because the metal detector you bought from that pawnshop that your mom told you was a colossal waste of money is about to uncover the Titanic, baby!

Scene in the Titanic movie where Rose pleads with Jack to wake up after he freezes to death saving her life.

But for it to truly be a multiverse, it’s not enough to include a couple of versions of reality. The definition says a multiverse must have ALL possible universes in existence. So, for us to really be living in a multiverse, it would need to contain EVERY possible version of reality. This brings us to a little notion called subjective reality.

Subjective Reality

The underlying principle behind subjective reality, or what I like to call “might-as-well” reality, or “what’s it matter” reality, is that our reality is created from an alchemy of our experiences and beliefs.

So, for example, let’s say you’re at a social mixer and you meet an attendee who lies to you and tells you her name is Susan. “What’s it matter” that her name isn’t Susan? You called her Susan. She answered to Susan. She left the mixer, and you never saw her again. - Her name was Susan.

What about the guy who drinks a glass of wine, is falsely told that it was poison, goes into shock, has a heart attack, and dies? The wine was poison for all intents and purposes because it “might-as-well” have been.

I realized at an early age that “truth” was subjective.

I experienced this phenomenon firsthand in my first-year high school Spanish class.

In her mid-twenties, our Spanish teacher seemed barely older than the kids she was teaching, and although her Spanish was fluent, she spoke with an amazingly thick Texas drawl. There were no rolled “R’s” in our class. And for some reason, this sparked the ire of one of our star football players, who teased her relentlessly, mocking her qualifications. Finally, I had enough, and I jumped to her defense, proclaiming to the entire class, “Enough, man! Like she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Only then did my teacher burst into tears and admonish me in front of the entire class for being so cruel. And I’m looking around like - what the fuck just happened? How did I just become the bad guy? Finally, I realized she must have misunderstood what I was trying to say, my point being that as the teacher, the concept that she didn’t know what she talking about was preposterous. I even used the right inflection and intonation and everything!

After class, I apologized to her, but I pleaded with her that it was a misunderstanding and that I was actually trying, although horribly, to stand up for her. She was thankful for the apology but wasn’t buying my explanation, insinuating that I was lying to her face, which made me try even harder to convince her. And that was when a fellow student came up from behind and gave me a good ole slap on the shoulder and said, “give it up, Dre, we all know what you meant.” At that moment, I realized I wasn’t budging anyone from their reality of what had happened. It was a pretty helpless feeling, and I started to despise humans a little bit that day.

“Once you teach a child the name for bird, the bird doesn’t exist.”

A friend once came across this quote, and although it bewildered her it was something I felt intuitively. There is a taoist saying that “the unnameable is the eternally real,” and I tried to explain to her that with language, we associate meaning to a word by our personal experiences and attachments we anchor to it. The problem with that is when we see something we associate with a word or label, instead of seeing what’s in front of us, we see a projection of all of our past experiences and beliefs about that label, which may or may not have anything to do with the actual thing we are labeling. So, now a child looks at a bird with all the associations that come with that word, and that particular bird may have lived a life wildly outside of the bounds of what that child is acclimated to and the kid has no conception of who that bird really is.

Picture an apple in your mind.

This is a pear.

Picture an apple in your mind. The apple you see will be different from one I picture. What “apple” means to me is different from what it means to you because of our distinct experiences with apples. Sure the meaning overlaps enough that we know we are referring to the same fruit, but the nuance and tones of the meaning are different (especially if one of us is allergic). Even if we were both looking at the same apple, that apple will present itself differently to us because of our unique experiences.

“You might be living in a multiverse if the same object is simultaneously different variations of itself.”

But subjective reality isn’t only confined to objects and fruit, it also affects events themselves.

If a car crash is witnessed by five different people from five different vantage points, and you asked them what happened, you may get five different stories and all of them could be subjectively true.

“If you witness an occurrence in time happening in a variety of different ways all in a singular moment, you might be living in a multiverse.”

Even if you concede that objects and events exist as simultaneous various versions of themselves due to subjective reality, you still would need every possible reality to be represented for an actual multiverse to exist. You can explain this with the fact that no two people are alike. If our experience shapes our reality and no two people have the exact same experience in life, then intrinsically, no two people share the same reality. We are essentially living in a multiverse composed of every possible reality of every person living in it. A multiverse where the Earth is still flat, Snickers wants to get rid of dick veins, and there are Jewish Space Lasers.

The Earth is round. Stop it. Please. It’s round.

And even if it isn’t an actual multiverse, subjectively, it “might-as-well” be.

“It is the wise man who realizes he knows nothing.” - taoist saying

So this leads us to an interesting question. This is an art blog, so what does the multiverse have to do with art?

Fuck all.

But it does make me think how creativity, imagination, and art can expand our experience beyond what we could ever know without it, thereby expanding our reality. Einstein used imagination to uncover many of his significant scientific achievements. Star Trek imagined a world of wireless communication devices and automatically opening doors, and now I can call anywhere in the world from my watch, and I can walk in and out of a grocery without having to touch a door handle.

What we imagine - is real.

Be Well. Question. And Create.

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