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The heart of the argument is that single-particle interference phenomena unequivocally rule out the possibility that the tangible universe around us is all that exists. There is no disputing the fact that such interference phenomena occur. Yet the existence of the multiverse is still a minority view among physicists.
The quantum theory of parallel universes is not the problem, it is the solution. It is not some troublesome, optional interpretation emerging from arcane theoretical considerations. It is the explanation – the only one that is tenable – of a remarkable and counter-intuitive reality.
Spacetime is sometimes referred to as the ‘block universe’, because within it the whole of physical reality — past, present and future — is laid out once and for all, frozen in a single four-dimensional block. Relative to spacetime, nothing ever moves. What we call ‘moments’ are certain slices through spacetime, and when the contents of such slices are different from one another, we call it change or motion through space.
The multiverse does not ‘come into existence’ or ‘cease to exist’; those terms presuppose the flow of time. It is only imagining the flow of time that makes us wonder what happened ‘before’ or ‘after’ the whole of reality.
The reason why our traditional theories of time are nonsense is that they try to express these true intuitions within the framework of a false classical physics. In quantum physics they make sense, because time was a quantum concept all along. We exist in multiple versions, in universes called ‘moments’. Each version of us is not directly aware of the others, but has evidence of their existence because physical laws link the contents of different universes.
