Mysteries Solved by Metaversalism

Some of the great, age-old questions of philosophy, theology, and spirituality that are definitively answered by Metaversalism

1. Basic Premises of Metaversalism

2. Great Mysteries Solved by Metaversalism

Q. Why does the universe exist?

A. It exists because, as modern physics suggests, it is describable as a mathematical object.  All mathematical objects, including all mathematically describable universes, must exist, in a mathematical sense, by pure logical necessity.  However, some universes are apparently more "real" than others, which we interpret as meaning more probable.  By the laws of probability, our universe is overwhelmingly likely to have a high degree of reality, among those universes that contain sentient beings similar to ourselves.  This high degree of probability can be interpreted as implying that our universe must be (a) particularly simple to define, (b) particularly interesting to elaborate the details of, or (c) some combination of the two.  Physics suggests that (a), at least, is true.  The fact that intelligent life has evolved in this universe suggests that (b), at least, is true as well.  Because our universe is simple, it occurs frequently within other "dumb" mathematical structures, quite by accident, and because it is interesting, it may be intentionally embedded within other universes, for purposes of examination & study, by powerful beings in other universes.  Both its simplicity and interestingness may contribute to our universe's overall degree of reality.  It is not yet clear which of these factors has the greater importance.

Q. Does God exist?

A. The Metaverse includes all possible mathematically describable entities, so if your conception of God allows that He may be defined by some mathematical description (however complex it may be), then yes.  As to whether your God (or any God) actually created the particular instance of this universe that we are all in, that is a different matter.  In metaversalism, all possible means of creating this universe are simultaneously true (for different "shares" or instances of it).  However, some ways of creating the universe involve mechanisms that are more real (more probable) than others.  Whether your God is likely to have done the job depends on how real your God is.  If you can demonstrate that the mathematical object that describes your particular God entity arises more frequently in the metaverse than other possible universe-creating mechanisms, then your God is more real than other possibilities and is likely to be the responsible party.  Otherwise, He isn’t.  The Church of Metaversalism does not (yet) take any particular stance on which existing conceptions of God (or non-senitient creation mechanisms) have the greatest degree of reality, although further study may help to clarify these issues.

We should add that, even if one postulates that the greatest share of our universe arose from some non-sentient creative mechanism (a "dumb" physical or computational process), that begs the question of how that process arises.  It too can be embedded, simulated, or otherwise elaborated within an infinity of other structures as well, and so forth.  If one keeps expanding out the ancestral tree of all the possible "parents" of our universe, it may be the case that sentient Creators will eventually occur, with high probability, along nearly every randomly selected ancestral line.  In that sense, "a god created the universe" can be true with high probability even if the most probable direct cause of our universe is via a simple non-sentient mechanism.

Another, additional concept of God offered by Metaversalism is that "God" may be considered to be just another name for the whole Metaverse itself, in other words, for the completed, infinite totality of all possible mathematical theories, structures, and computations, in their entirety.  This Entity would contain the answers to all questions, including those about the consistency of mathematical theories and the final outcomes of unbounded computations, which we have proved cannot be answered by any finite means.  This God would thus be "omniscient" in a sense, containing reflections of all aspects of its infinite self.  We, as finite beings in a finite observable universe, are a part of this infinite entity.  This Metaversal God-Entity would itself be the timeless, eternal essence of Being, a static thing rather than a thinking, conscious process; whereas all of us finite conscious observers / civilizations / universes, at any given point in our experience, would merely be somewhere along in the process of Becoming.

Q. Is there life after death?

A. Yes, in a certain sense.  The instance of your consciousness that is embedded within any particular universe may certainly cease to exist within that universe.  But, insofar as a consciousness is a mathematically describable evolving pattern of information, that same pattern (identical with you at the moment of your death) also exists in an infinite variety of other contexts, throughout the metaverse.  Although one instance of you may die, others will continue living, and insofar as “you” are the general pattern of your consciousness, rather than just a specific instance of it, you will find yourself continuing to exist within a new context, once the framework of this universe no longer supports your continuation.  The question of which context, which new environment, you will find yourself in depends entirely on the relative probabilities (degrees of reality) of the various contexts in which you might continue.  You are most likely to find yourself continuing within whichever context, out of those that support your continuation, has the greatest degree of reality.  

To some extent, you may be most likely to find yourself within the arms of whatever god is, based on his personal preferences, most likely to find you worthy of preserving in an afterlife.  Thus, if you want to enjoy your afterlife, it is rational to behave, in this life, in such a way that the kind of God whom you would want to be in charge of a type of afterlife that you would like to end up in would be likely to find you worthy of preserving in that kind of afterlife.  That strategy doesn't guarantee that a substantial share of your subjective train of experience won't find itself waking up in some much less desirable scenario.  But it should improve your chances.

Incidentally, the fact that during your lifetime, you reliably find yourself continuing within this universe, rather than finding your consciousness constantly hopping around between wildly different universes, is one of the major pieces of evidence that this universe is more real (more probable) than others in which your particular consciousness may be continued.  So when you die, you go to a place that is less real than here, and if you die again in that place, you go somewhere else that is less real still.  However, the absolute degree of reality of your current environment is imperceptible to you, and your continued existence never fades out entirely.

 Furthermore, since it is possible for the following to occur in some possible universe, after your death, some instance or share of your soul will continue growing and developing, increasing in knowledge, insight, and capabilities.  This process will continue ad infinitum.   So at least a share of every soul will develop towards becoming a godlike being itself.  Eventually, all souls may be destined to merge  with each other as they converge towards the state of omniscience, i.e., the Metaversal God-Being.

Q. Are our ancestors watching over us? 

A. Yes, because there are possible universes (extending our own universe's laws of physics) that provide a mechanism for the consciousness of a dying individual to be preserved in some other medium, and permitted to explore and examine the events occurring within a replica of our universe.  If a super-smart programmer armed with a computer with unlimited power could , even in principle, program such a scenario, then it exists, somewhere out there in the Metaverse.  Therefore, in these extensions of our universe, your ancestors (and perhaps all manner of other beings as well) are observing your actions.  (This is assuming that your particular ancestors are interested enough in your life to pay attention to it.)  You can talk to them.  However, don't expect them to be able to talk back - most of your conscious experience may be stuck within a "plain vanilla" version of our universe, based on just the laws of physics as we know them, without any interference taking place, and with no mechanism for deceased ancestors to communicate back to us.

3. Answers to some Objections to Metaversalism

4. History of Metaversalism