From Parallel Universes to PossibleWorlds: Ontological Pluralism in Physics, Narratology, and Narrative

This essay explores how theoretical physics, narratology, and narrative itself deal with the idea that reality consists of a plurality of worlds. In physics, the existence of parallel universes has been postulated on the cosmic level to describe what lies on the other side of black holes and, on the level of subatomic particles, to avoid the paradoxes of quantum mechanics. In narratology, the philosophical idea of a plurality of possible worlds and the contrast between the actual and the possible provide a model of the cognitive pattern into which readers organize information in order to interpret it as a story. But the many-worlds interpretation of physics and the possible worlds (PW) model of narrative differ in their conception of the ontological status of the multiple worlds: in physics they are all actual, while narrative theory stresses the contrast between actuality and mere possibility. This does not mean that the PWmodel is incompatible with the many-worlds cosmology proposed by physics: faced with a narrative that presents multiple realities as existing objectively, the theory would simply claim that the actual domain is made up of a number of different worlds and that the distinction actual/nonactual repeats itself within each of these parts. The last section of the essay explores what it takes for a narrative to impose a many-worlds cosmology, distinguishing these narratives from other texts that present contradictory versions of facts and situating them with respect to three types of story common in fantasy and science fiction: the narrative of transworld exploration, the narrative of alternate history, and the time-travel narrative. My thanks go to the anonymous readers of Poetics Today, whose comments have been a precious help in revising this essay, especially the part devoted to physics. I take responsibility for whatever errors the text may still contain. Poetics Today 27:4 (Winter 2006) doi 10.1215/03335372-2006-006 © 2006 by Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics 634 Poetics Today 27:4 The idea that reality—the sum total of what exists—may include other worlds than the world that we experience every day ranks near the very top of the topics that fascinate the human mind.We find its manifestations in a wide variety of fields: in medieval cartography, with the representations of fantastic creatures in the terrae incognitae that lie beyond the limits of the known world (Brown 1977 [1949]); in philosophy, with Leibniz’s doctrine of the monads (Rescher 1991); in logic, with the postulation of possible worlds to define the truth conditions of modal operators and counterfactuals (Kripke 1963; Lewis 1973); in technology, with the hype that surrounded the development of virtual reality (Ryan 2001), a hype fueled by the hope that the computer could physically transport us into alternate realities; and, of course, in literature and the visual arts, which did not await the development of science fiction to produce a steady stream of foreign worlds. Last but not least, the idea of multiple realities has made its way into theoretical physics and narrative theory. In the first two parts of this essay, I compare and contrast how these two disciplines conceive ontological puralism; in the third part, I explore how narrative fiction deals with the notion of a multiverse composed of parallel worlds. Multiple Realities in Physics In physics, the idea of multiple realities is known as the ‘‘parallel universes’’ or as the ‘‘many-worlds’’ interpretation. (World and universe are used interchangeably.) This interpretation is extremely controversial in the physics community, andmany eminent scientists—for instance, the late Irish physicist John S. Bell (1989) or the respected science writer Martin Gardner (2001)—find it completely absurd; but it has recently received a lot of publicity in books and journals of scientific popularization. In my presentation of the notion of parallel universes, I will follow a taxonomy proposed by Max Tegmark (2003) in Scientific American, but I will also rely on work by other authors in my discussions of the individual categories. Tegmark distinguishes four types of parallel universes, which he associates with four ‘‘levels’’ of the multiverse, the global scheme that encompasses everything that exists.Though Tegmark does not explain the rationale of his ordering of levels, it seems that the higher the level, the more improbable it is that human beings will ever visit its worlds.1 1. If it were not for the third level, one could also say that the higher the level, the more adjustments are needed in the laws of physics compared to the laws of our world. But level 3 requires no adjustments, as we will see below. Ryan • From Parallel Universes to Possible Worlds 635