Are there infinite versions of you? A journey through physics, computer science, and philosophy

Imagine that right now, you’re making a decision. Coffee or tea? Left or right? Call or stay silent? But what if not just one of these possibilities becomes real, but all of them? Welcome to the bewildering, fascinating world of parallel universes.

Physics: When Reality Can’t Make Up Its Mind

In 1957, physicist Hugh Everett posed a radically simple question: What if nature doesn’t choose at all during quantum events, but simply lets everything happen?

His Many-Worlds Interpretation sounds like science fiction, but it’s serious physics. In the quantum world, particles don’t exist in one specific place but in a nebulous state of all possibilities simultaneously. An electron is here and there, an atom vibrates this way and that. Only when we look, measure, observe does the world seem to decide.

Everett’s provocative thesis: The world doesn’t decide at all. All possibilities become real, but in separate universes.

This means: Every time a quantum event occurs—and this happens constantly, everywhere, in every atom—reality splits. In one universe, you drink coffee and regret it slightly. In another, you choose tea and feel great. In a third, you forget both and go for a walk.

These universes exist in parallel like radio frequencies broadcasting simultaneously. You only receive one channel—yours. But the others keep playing, inaudible, unreachable.

Computer Science: The Universe as a Giant Quantum Computer

From a computer science perspective, the multiverse can be elegantly conceived. Imagine an algorithm that doesn’t calculate just one path, but all possible paths simultaneously. A chess program simulates thousands of moves in fractions of a second, but in the end, only one is played.

In Everett’s universe, all moves are played—as real worlds, not just computational operations.

The universe itself then functions like a quantum computer of unimaginable scale. It doesn’t calculate sequentially but executes all possible states in parallel. Every variant of your life runs as a separate instance in this cosmic data structure. You’re not one person but a program running in billions of variants. Each version experiences itself as the only one that truly exists.

The dizzying consequence: Perhaps reality is computation. Perhaps physics is just the hardware on which the algorithm of being runs.

Philosophy: Who Are You When You Exist Everywhere?

Here it gets existential. If there truly are countless versions of you, what does “you” even mean?

You’re no longer a fixed point but a pattern. A web of information that can be woven differently. Your identity isn’t your body, not your memories in this one universe, but rather a kind of algorithm that unfolds differently in different contexts.

Each of these yous feels complete, unique, real. But objectively speaking, you’re all expressions of the same fundamental pattern, like waves on the same ocean. The water droplet may think itself separate, but it’s never truly divided from the sea.

The Many-Worlds theory thus shatters the classical concept of self. It whispers: Individuality is perspective. The self is not substance but standpoint. You’re not one person living, but a process experiencing itself in infinite variations.

The Big Picture

The physical level tells us: All quantum events really happen, in separate worlds. Like radio channels broadcasting simultaneously while you only receive one.

The computational perspective adds: The universe calculates all states in parallel, like a gigantic quantum computer running through every possible version.

And philosophically considered: You’re a pattern that can have many variants. A water droplet that thinks itself individual but is part of the ocean.

And Now?

Perhaps it comforts you: In some universe, you made the right decision. In another, the wrong one. In most, you were mediocre. In some, brilliant.

Or perhaps it disturbs you: If every version of you is equally real, why should this particular version matter?

The Many-Worlds Interpretation offers no moral answers. But it opens a space for a new kind of humility. You’re not the center of the universe. You’re a pattern in infinite possibility space—fleeting, diverse, wonderfully insignificant and simultaneously absolutely unique.

In this one moment, on this one channel you’re currently receiving.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​