It’s an ancient story. Sisyphus was the founder and king of the Greek city of Ephyra (now known as Corinth), who ticked off the gods by being two really annoying things: an inhospitable king who murdered visitors to Ephyra and an arrogant trickster who defied death. (One gets the impression it was the latter that bothered the gods more than the former.) His punishment, in addition to the eternal rock-rolling, was to have pointlessly dreary tasks named after him for thousands of years to come.
Fast-forward those thousands of years, and, thanks to the wonders of modern physics, we have our own form of the Sisyphean punishment: existence in the multiverse.
It was Hades who enchanted the rock to roll down the hill just before Sisyphus might’ve pushed it to the top, making this endless task literally a hellish punishment.
But we’re beyond believing in any gods now. It’s only us and the multiverse.
There are four ‘levels’ of multiverse, all somewhat different, plus a weird mathematical idea called the Poincaré recurrence theorem which says that on exceedingly long timescales the universe is doomed to repeat itself over and over, into eternity.
The multiverse level that’s really hot right now is Level III—the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics—which is not without its problems. It also has a depressing genesis with the tragic figure of physicist Hugh Everett III.
Generally speaking, Many Worlds goes like this. There are near-infinite copies of each of us, each in its own universe. Anything that can happen does happen. Choice is an illusion. When you come to a fork in the road, you don’t choose to go left or right, the universe ‘splits’ and becomes two universes: one in which you go left, and another in which you go right. According to proponents of Many Worlds, both of those “yous” are still “you,” which you can maybe-kind-of-sort-of wrap your head around if you ditch the parochial idea of “you” being a unique entity in only one universe. Since we’re faced with an unimaginable number of choices every second of every day, that’s a lot of universes and a lot of yous.
Here’s the philosophical problem, though. Putting aside the question of what mechanism generates these copies, what does it all mean? If there are a near-infinity of “yous” out there, does it matter if the one in this universe is having a miserable time or has its life tragically cut short? And if choice is an illusion, what possible meaning can there be to life? Enduring such a life over and over and over into eternity seems the very definition of a Sisyphean punishment.
We take our cue from the French philosopher, Albert Camus. Camus was an absurdist, and in his essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, he deftly elevates the murderously tricksy king from miserable sufferer to happy hero through the power of positive thinking.
We can likewise become heroes in our own lives, though there are apparently rules to this “make your own meaning” thing.
Make your own meaning, but within limits, which are defined by… ? No one knows. I urge you to find your local absurdist and ask him if it’s anything-goes out there in the world of make-your-own-meaning, and if no, what defines the limits.
Meanwhile…
It never seems to work out that way, though.
We’ll let Andy have the last word here.
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Hi Sarah! So good to here from you. Hpoe you're doing well and happy new year!
"Make your own meaning, but within limits, which are defined by… ? "
Yikes, this discussion is insanity time. A multiverse of possible situations and options and outcomes and dreams (the unique rearranging of observed information to one's liking--is there a Dream Multiverse?). But only one real life path of your own making. Maybe the gift of life is not so much about "meaning," but the consequence of it.
What's fascinating about the basic structure of the Multiverse model is that it's the scientific theory of other existences. The science/religion intersection/partnership that you promote.