Parallel worlds

Even though it may take only a few hours of work to find some promising groups, there is still the problem of the time it takes to appreciate the substance of a group, find somebody suitable and receptive enough to strike up an association with, and then put into effect a tic-for-tat strategy to build up a relationship. In the bricks and mortar world, this would represent a serious limitation to the number of contacts you could reasonably hope to acquire.

Establishing reliable relationships of trust and co-operation can take weeks, months or even years. And, to build up a whole collection might take a life time. However, with the multiple connectivity of the Internet, this time can be reduced by orders of magnitude because it is possible to exist in parallel worlds.

The idea of parallel worlds comes from the imagination of science fiction writers who extrapolate from some of the concepts found in quantum physics.

In the quantum world, it is not possible to measure both the momentum and position of an atomic particle at the same time, so, to get around this, particles are thought of as having a probable existence rather than an actual existence. A probable existence is where you don't know where a particle is or even if it is there at all, so, you describe it in terms of a range of possibilities.

A simple way to think of this is to consider a clock. Each hand of a clock varies in position over a range of sixty divisions. This gives us a way of visualising the existence of time because we can visualise all of time's possibilities in terms of the positions of hands on a clock face. However, we don't have to be able to see a clock face, or, the position of the hands, to use time in calculations.

Quantum physics does something very similar when it deals with particles. As long as we can describe a model of where particles are likely to be, we can make calculations about particle (in the same way that calculations with time can be made without having to see the hands of a clock).

If we wake up in the middle of the night, it may be too dark to see the face of a clock. Until we turn on the light and actually look at the hands, it could be any of a range of possible times. In this state of not knowing, it can be interpreted that all possible times are in existence and we select one of these times by turning on the light and looking at the position of the hands on the clock face.

Studying a particle with quantum physics is something like contemplating the position of the hands of a clock when you wake up in the middle of the night. You know where it is possible for the particle to be, but, without being able to turn on the light to see it, the particle is effectively at all possible positions.

A fanciful interpretation of this mathematical concept, by science fiction writers, reasons that as the world is made up of atomic particles that can only be described in terms of probabilities and multiple existences, then the whole world can be described this same way. This leads to the bizarre conclusion that there might be other parallel worlds in existence and we are only experiencing one of them.

Science fiction writers can let their imaginations run riot with the idea of parallel worlds: speculating on the possibilities of people being able to move between different worlds to enjoy different lives and different circumstances. For example, in one parallel world you might be poor and in another you might be a multi-millionaire. By moving from one existence to another you could go from being poor to being rich. This is like waking up in the night and being able to choose what time you want it to be.

We know of course that in the real world this is not possible, but, in the world of the Internet there is something even more spectacular because it is possible to live in several worlds at the same time. Imagine, waking up at 2 am, 3 am, 4 am 5 am and 6 am, all at the same time. There would then be five of you in simultaneous existence. With these multiple existences, you would be able to talk to several different people at the same time. You could attend many different meetings or conferences in different parts of the world on the same date?

Supposing everyone you knew also had these multiple existences. Couldn't you ask them each to send one of their virtual selves over to you for a meeting? They could do this while they were still attending to their own private businesses with their other selves. You could get all of your friends and contacts to send over one of their spare existences: to have a grand meeting with you, to discuss your problems. At the same time, you could send one of yours to help them with theirs.

This is what can be done on the Internet, and it is being able to exploit this bizarre parallel world property of the Internet environment that can provide a massive advantage for anyone involved in e-business or e-commerce.