Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Didn't get Everything Everywhere All at Once? Maybe I can help.

I normally try to keep my blog PG-rated, but I want to talk this once about an R-rated movie since it won so many awards, and so many people are talking about it. This post is still PG, or even G. I just went to make it clear the movie isn't.

Some of my friends are saying they didn't get Everything Everywhere All at Once.

I'm about to get boring and sciencey, but here's my (over-simplified) explanation. 

According the the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, every choice creates a new world. We can access any possible world that stems from a choice, but only until that choice is made. After that, we're stuck with the world created by our choice - but that doesn't stop the other worlds from existing. They continue to exist. We just can't access them. 

This means that there are worlds where you are a martial arts expert, worlds where you are a famous actress, and worlds where you are a chef. There are worlds with every possible version of you.

Many science-fiction stories ask What If? and EEAAO is no different. It asks, "What if you could access those infinite other versions of you by making insanely unlikely choices?" And the beautiful moral of the story is that given every possible version of herself in every possible world, the mom would still choose to be in the world where she is her daughter's mother.  

I don't know if that makes things any clearer, but I hope it helps.

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