#766 Confusion about the Multiverse
January 16, 20221 ° If there are universes where there are different versions of ourselves, therefore we have different personalities and tastes not to mention that we could be born with another sex, there are universes where we do not believe in God, on the contrary we are everything. bad that we can imagine for being infinite universes where everything is possible. How can we answer this question if God created the multiverse?
2° Another problem with the multiverse is the question What happens to the soul? Since if in a parallel universe the Aztecs defeated the Spanish and continued with their civilization, then thanks to that I as a Mexican would never have been born.
3 ° Another problem with the soul is that if nuclear bombs had not been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a parallel universe, the people who lived there would have continued with their lives and therefore would have had children, souls that should not exist. How can we answer this question if God created the multiverse?
4 ° If we imagine that in a universe parallel to the moment in which I developed as a fetus, I acquired another combination of chromosomes that would result in me being born with another sex, it would no longer be me because the individuality of each person is what makes them unique and unrepeatable and that includes twins, triplets, etc. How can we answer this question if God created the multiverse?
Carlos
Mexico
Dr. craig’s response
A
Carlos, I think that your questions evince a confusion between possible worlds and the universes composing a multiverse. If a multiverse exists, then all of the universes or domains comprised by the multiverse are part of the same possible world, namely, the actual world. Other possible worlds, some of which may entail multiverses and others not, do not “obtain” or exist as concrete actualities. It is an open scientific question whether the actual world entails the existence of a multiverse. So in answer to your questions:
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In a multiverse there are not different versions of yourself. Certainly there are different possible worlds in which you exist; but you do not exist in different universes in a multiverse. There are at best persons similar to yourself in other universes, but they are not you. You are not identical to them. They are at best counterparts of you. Since they are different persons created by God, God presumably loves them, too, and has a plan for their lives.
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While the Aztecs defeat the Spanish in other possible worlds, that has absolutely no implications for the actual world. So it has no effect on your soul. This is the case even if in other universes people like the Aztecs defeat people like the Spanish.
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Even if people like the Japanese are not killed by a nuclear bombs in another universe, that has absolutely no effect upon those actually slain in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There’s no problem if different people in different universes have different histories. Of course, in other possible worlds it is the case that nuclear bombs are not dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as they are in the actual world.
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Since you do not exist in other universes, it is irrelevant to your identity what happens genetically to persons similar to yourself in those universes. So if God has created a multiverse, He has a plan for the lives of all of these different persons who are conceived in different universes comprised by the multiverse.
In short: don’t confuse possible worlds with the universes composing a multiverse.
- William Lane Craig