One/Many/Fewer/Finite
17 August 2022
Comparing world views from a show, a movie, an album, and a book
There are things that are real, and there are things that are not. How do we tell which is which? There are things that we care about, and things that we do not. What is the most important of these? And the things that we care about—are those real or not? It is certainly possible to care about things that are not real. Just as it is possible to not care about things that are real. Use whatever definition of "real" that you would like, I think I'm not equipped to deal with that level of philosophy right now.
In In this smoking chaos, I wrote about the tv show Devs, movie Everything Everywhere All At Once, album Actual Life (April 14 - December 17 2020) by Fred again..., and Reality Is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rovelli. This essay assumes familiarity with all four pieces of media (sorry). Some relevant quotes from Reality can be found here.
In each of the four pieces of media, the character(s)/artist/speaker/audience comes up against Something. Something Big. The capitals are important here. It's something life-altering. And they learn something, and it forces them to confront their reality, it draws into question what they know and what they do not. And what is important to them.
In Devs, Forest is faced with a quantum computer that can predict/project/simulate the past and future. In Everything Everywhere All At Once, Evelyn is faced with all her alternate presents across the multiverse. In Actual Life, Fred is faced with uh actual life and also the pandemic. In Reality Is Not What It Seems, Carlo Rovelli/the reader is faced with quantum mechanics.
What do these things change for them? Forest was overwhelmed with guilt over his daughter and wife's deaths; that the computer works proves to him that there was nothing he could have done, that everything had to happen exactly as it did. The quantum computer absolves him. For Evelyn, knowing about her other possible lives puts her own into perspective and shows her all that she is capable of so many things. Fred "loses dancing," as the world changes during covid. Carlo/the reader learns that, ahem, reality is not what it seems, just as Newton had to learn it, just as Einstein, just as Dirac. It is not just atoms, or even just elementary particles. It is interactions of quantum fields.
Just considering our two fictional characters, I don't think they'd do well if swapped in each other's universes. I think Evelyn in Forest's would be totally paralyzed by the idea that everything happened because it had to happen, because it was always going to happen. That the multiverse exists is what gave her freedom in Everything Everywhere, the knowledge of all that she could be. Forest in Evelyn's would just be obsessed with finding whatever universe he needed to get back to Amaya, he'd probably get overloaded by jumping too many times, probably go like Jobu Topaki but without a daughter who could pull him back from it.
It's about possibilities—since the computer works, Forest believes there is only one possibility, one way for his universe to play out. Evelyn takes the opposite—her eyes are opened to just how many possibilities there are/were for her. Fred loses opportunities as social distancing forces people apart. In Carlo's explanation of quantum physics, there are an extremely vast, but, importantly, finite number of opportunities for anything to happen, since space and time can both be quantized. It's about how the world works. All of their world views change.
What do they conclude about what matters? Forest believes the universe is deterministic, and to some extent his choices don't matter, since he will always behave as he is supposed to. (Katie seems to take this even further, and doesn't seem to feel guilty at all at the fact that they killed Sergei.) So nothing matters. He cares about things sure, but I don’t know that he thinks that they ultimately matter. Evelyn (and Joy/Jobu Topaki before her) gets totally overwhelmed by jumping around so many multiverses. Like Joy, she almost decides that nothing matters in response to this total information overload, but eventually decides that happiness matters, love matters, her daughter matters to her. Her life matters, even if as a laundromat owner, it wasn't the most glamorous of lives she could have had. Fred goes with relationships matter, connection matters. "I want you to see me," "I can’t wait to see your face again," "we're gonna make it through," "I just wanna be with you," "she's all I need," "wish I had you near me now." Carlos says interaction matters—it doesn't matter that the particle is here, or there. It matters that there is an interaction between fields.
One possible unfolding => nothing matters. Many possibilities => love and happiness matter. Fewer possibilities => connection matters. Very many but finite possibilities => interaction matters.
Something about hope and how they handle these conclusions. Forest wanted this conclusion, wanted to believe the universe is deterministic, because it absolves him. But he doesn't really have hope for the future, because he knows how it plays out/he believes the future is set. Evelyn has hope—at the end of the movie she's reconnected with her husband and daughter, she believes her future is a good one. Her conclusion has motivated her. Fred seems to have a determinedly optimistic set—"we're gonna make it through." We're going to make it, not just I hope we do. And he continues to find beauty/joy in the present. Carlo embraces the new vision of the world and how it works. It is beautiful. There's a connection here to knowing what's going to happen—Forest (thinks he) knows while Evelyn, Fred, Carlo do not. Carlo is further explicit in that he writes that he does not know what further research/study might bring. He has some ideas, but says he isn't sure.
Something about how they see themselves in connection to their world. Forest sees himself as both insignificant (like a cog in a machine?) and also as a god figure ("I'm afraid we might be magicians," devs <= deus). Pretentious as hell, but feels consistent—if you believe there's only one way for the universe to unfold, and you're one of the only ones who know what's going to happen, then sure that gives you godlike knowledge. It also kind of removes his connection to the world—if he doesn't really feel responsible for the consequences of his actions, he's not really part of the world. Evelyn starts off by seeing herself as insignificant, but Waymond tells her that she could be the key to saving the world. Interestingly Evelyn also gains godlike knowledge when she experiences so many worlds across the multiverse, but by the end she seems very content with her life as a laundromat owner. She literally connects to the universe/multiverse by verse-jumping, and finds peace in her place in it. Not going to try and guess how Fred feels in connection to his world, but at least it seems like he does feel like he's part of it in a way I don't think Forest does. Carlo for sure feels connected to the world. He seems to delight in being part of it.
To summarize: these characters/speakers are confronted with something life changing. They learn something, they have to reevaluate their world view. They consider the possibilities the future holds, find/lose hope in that, their connection to their worlds changes/evolves. That's extremely vague, but it's also an experience that we all go through at one point or another, many times. Not to get too precious about it, but that's part of why I find all these works so compelling too. I don't have a quantum computer, I can’t verse-jump, I'm not from London, I don't study quantum physics. But "what do you do when faced with something life changing?" is fairly universal.