The idea of parallel universes intrigues me. I'm not sure whether they really exist or not, but for some reason I just seem to feel that it'd be neat if they did. I don't think they'd be connected to each other in any sort of way, though; no traveling between them, etc. like you read about in some stories, maybe even no being able to prove that they exist.
But this is something I ponder sometimes (not really based on science, just my own thoughts): if parallel universes do exist, then there'd be an infinite number of them, which would mean that there would be an infinite number of possibilities for things to exist within them. So there could be worlds that are absolutely nothing like the world that we know, or there could be worlds that are exactly the same with some minute difference that you would never be able to find...a tree that has one less leaf, or something like that.
Now suppose you write a story about a girl named Ann. According to you, she's only something made up by your imagination, and she doesn't actually exist. But isn't it possible that somewhere in one of those universes among the infinite possibilities, she would exist? Not necessarily because you somehow or another by writing the story and thinking of her actually created her, but just that it's merely a coincidence that you wrote a story about her and she also exists somewhere. Going along with the same idea, there could be a Middle Earth out there somewhere, with everything just like it is in the books, and there could also be millions of alternate ME's that aren't like what happened in the books. Again, not because the writing of the books 'created' this universe, but because it just happened to already be there before they were written. If you've ever read the 'Myst' books, there's a similar idea in them...they 'write' these books to link to other worlds, and it would seem like their writing the books is like their creating the world that the book links to, but they don't actually create it, it's already there, they just find it through the specific descriptions that they've written.
I'm not saying that I think that this is the case or that there's even a high probability of it happening, but I don't think such possibilities should ever be completely ruled out until it can be proven beyond doubt one way or the other. It's not like it'll ever have any effect on our lives, it's not like we'll all turn into fan-fiction characters and magically warp there, it's just something that's interesting to think about when you're bored. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] For me, anyway. o_O
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