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Spoilers forThe OA: Part IIbelow.
The OAssecond seasonasks a lot of us.
In other words, it is an absolutely perfect television show.
Which of its sci-fi-ish notions, as Vultures own Jen Chaney put it, are the most plausible?
If I tried hard enough, could I shoot the shit with trees?
When I die, can I live on forever inside a mirror?
How familiar are you withThe OA?Not at all.
After you reached out, I watched the first ten minutes, but didnt have time to watch more.
It wasnt very clear what the connection was between [me and this show].
But it looked interesting, like it could go in one of a million different directions from there.
Oh, and it does!
Its also a quantum theory of gravity.
So the premise ofThe OAis that there are multiple dimensions that exist all on top of each other.
How realistic is this?It depends what you mean by all on top of each other.
But its quite possible that there might be extra dimensions, so long as they have a certain property.
These are two possibilities that weve considered very extensively in physics literature, going back more than a century.
I hesitate to say its likely or unlikely, but its a possibility.
If string theory is true, there are extra dimensions.
Its not a crazy idea.
Within the extra dimensions onThe OA, theres a different version of every person.
Everyone else she knows is also in that second dimension.
Does that seem possible to you?That doesnt fit … anything.
A dimension is a direction.
To say there are two copies, what does that mean?
Theres me here, and theres another me on the next floor up?
It doesnt mean theres a parallel world.
Youve probably seenStranger Thingswith the Upside Down thats not another dimension.
To the extent you might make sense of it, its some other place.
Maybe you could get to it by moving through another dimension?
But its just another three-dimensional space.
When you say dimension, I think you mean it differently than the show does.
The OA refers to dimensions as sort of parallel worlds.
Theres no physics theory wherein a parallel world exists?No, there are.
They dont involve other dimensions, necessarily.
The other worlds are never other dimensions themselves.
I can give you a whole list of these theories.
Thats called the multiverse.
Another way in which that idea rises is in quantum mechanics.
But the description is probabilistic: It doesnt tell you for certain that something is here or there.
It may tell you that something is hereandthere.
Its in a state where its in both places at the same time.
We dont have good English words for this, but its called a quantum superposition.
Anyway, you’re free to think of that as two worlds.
One where the particle is in one place, the other where its in a different place.
But the number of dimensions is still three.
I think the show is dealing in multiverses, but referring to them as dimensions.
Theyre coming from more of aSchrodingers catperspective.
What would you call it instead of dimension?Yeah, people use these terms differently.
I guess Id call it a quantum superposition.
Do you think theres a way for us to jump into other realities?
[Long pause.]
If you do it long enough and with perfect feeling, you are transported.
[Long pause.]No.
When that happens, your original body dies.
And if they didnt do that, thered be two independent versions of them?
Theres nothing remotely like this in any branch of physics.
I should say that consciousness is regarded as a mystery.
Personally I dont understand why, but it is.
And some people think quantum mechanics has something to do with it.
Im skeptical of this, but maybe.
Even if that were the case and consciousness relied on quantum mechanics … yeah, no.
Let me say this: There is something very exotic about quantum mechanics and superpositions.
You could think of it as two of very, very many alternate worlds.
This is called themany-worlds interpretation.
And every time a random event happens, this split happens, so theres an infinite number of worlds.
In some sense, that may be the correct description of reality.
But in quantum mechanics, these worlds rapidly lose all contact with each other.
If you find yourself in one, youll never interact with the other one.
Jumping back and forth is definitely not allowed.
Although it may sound weird, I think its the simplest explanation for what we observe in the world.
Where are these other versions of ourselves?They dont exist in space.
The closest analog is a probability space, in the sense that its like flipping a coin.
They just exist in our minds?Thats a hard question because I dont know what exist means here.
If this is the world, this is what existing is.
But not the way we think of it.
Its so different from how were used to thinking about the world, so its very hard to describe.
What it really comes down to is mathematics.
We trust those more than we trust our ideas about the way things are or ought to be.
Just not in another universe.
Its not separate in any sense in space.
What separates them is some sort of branching, the wave function, which describes our state.
I feel like I almost get it, but I am going to move forward.
The movements I described earlier can also heal people and bring them back from the dead.
Nothing even close in science.
The second version of our protagonist, in this new multiverse, can communicate with trees and animals.
She is a medium to nature.Communicate with trees?
Like, what would that mean?
She can understand them.Meaning they have brains and intelligence?
That seems extraordinarily unlikely, from everything we know about trees.
Aside from being able to communicate with them.
The trees all communicate with each other, too.
They form a sort of tree internet.
They heal each other and they chat.
And theyre psychic.There is no reason to believe that trees do anything other than grow.
Thats disappointing to me personally, but okay.
This is getting better and better.
Did it predict the World Cup?
Octopuses are very smart, right?Yes, they are.
So maybe theyre psychic?Im not sure how one statement follows from the other, but okay.
In that scenario, its possible that there could be a wormhole.
Its very unlikely, though, because if it does exist, it probably violates causality.
And spirits or someones consciousness can communicate via television sets and mirrors.This is way beyond … anything.
One thing you’re free to say about science, though, is that its never finished.
If it was certain to be true, it wouldnt be science by definition.
Its a set of ideas that could be disproved.
So its always, Maybe.
No honest scientist can ever say, Absolutely not.
But there are also state-of-the-art, What do we think is most likely?
And this is … not the way we think the world is.
People once thought the world was flat!Not that many people, actually.
Only people who didnt think about it.
Aristarchus even estimated the size of the Earth accurately.
It just takes geometry to figure it out.
Anyway, I take your point.
For sure people believed things that were wrong.
I have no doubt we have many things we believe now that are totally wrong.
Future generations will look back and think,How could they believe that?
Why laugh at this particular one and not all of them?
Also, its you with a different set of knowledge.
