Memories of the 28th Century

J. R. R. Tolkien wrote about “secondary worlds,” imaginary worlds created by writers that are internally consistent. But there are other derivative worlds: those of the Many Worlds that split off from the original “primary world”, as decision points came into existence. These are the Many Worlds referenced in the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Theory (or THE THEORY OF THE UNIVERSAL WAVEFUNCTION, as Mr Hugh Everett, III titled his paper). There may be infinity of such worlds, but Occam’s razor suggests that there probably are not that many. As a minimum there should be several worlds, but, if the multiverse is efficient, then it would reuse worlds when possible. That is, if a change or difference does not require a complete space-time, then it might be placed within another space-time that already existed. This would allow us to get by with dozens of space-times instead of infinitely many, but it led me to wonder which is the primary, and what would it be like?

Of what use is this concept? At present, none, because we do not yet have the means to access any of the other worlds, and we will never be able to gain access to all of them, but at some point in the near future we will be able to access some of the worlds, and we should be prepared. Those worlds that are closest to us should be accessible without all that much trouble, but we may not be compatible with worlds that are more distant (this matter is quite uncertain). But we should have no trouble gaining access to the world from which this world was directly derived and to worlds that directly derived from this one. If we designate worlds on their distance from this world, then we could call these worlds secondary (our own being the primary). If we decide to designate all worlds on their distance from the original world, then we probably will discover that our own world is tertiary or quaternary or even further distant from the original.

We don’t know much about what the primary is like, but we have some information about it (or an earlier secondary) from the folktales of antiquity and from archeology and geology. From that, ignoring the geological changes, we can see that there have been significant physical and cultural changes in humans; although many of those changes were the results of change over time and may be reflected in all of the derivatives and in the primary. In addition, there may have been many worlds that split off before there were humans evolved. In past geological eras there would have been matters like whether an asteroid would strike. Since human intelligence evolved there have been significant matters that were decided by humans, and any of those decisions could have caused a bifurcation. The most interesting derivative worlds would be those of which we have an inkling from folklore. If there was a world in which there were elves, while our world does not have elves we can assume that this was the result of a relatively recent bifurcation. Similarly there might be worlds that split off as a result of historical events.

We could argue about whether, which, and so on endlessly, but there is only one way to learn about these things with high confidence. We must go there and find out in person. We must build an interdimensional time travel device and use it. We have already discussed the methods and the types of device that could work and that could be built with present technology, and it is clear that we must build an isolation unit, a device that will cut itself and its occupants off from the ordinary space-time.

The problem of propulsion can be handled with an electro-magnetic rocket; although this is an inefficient device, and the simple “thermos bottle” design will work. The actual construction will not be as expensive as the proposed mission to Mars would be. To keep expenses to a minimum and to provide a guide for determining which world we explorers were inn, we would examine the methods and results of the brewing and fermentation of beverages.

Humans have been consuming fermented juices as long as there have been humans; the making of ale appears to have been the primary reason for grains to have been domesticated; and developments in the making of wine and ale can be used as the milestones of development within most cultures. Our first exploration into prehistory will be to observe levels of technological advancement as measured by the quality and quantity of the brewing and fermenting industries.