National Geographic - Parallel Universes

Science, Physics and Philosophy
Multiverse, the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes
The many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics

Parallel Universes And How To Change Reality

Disclose.tv - Parallel Universes and how to change reality Video

Wonderland or Parallel-Land

Alice in Wonderland (1865), classic Victorian fairy tale by Lewis Carroll (Latinized pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832–98). First published as Alice's Adventures Under Ground (1863), it was inspired by a boating party with Alice Liddell and her sisters, daughters of an Oxford don. The fictional Alice is a 7‐year‐old who falls down a rabbit hole, changes from microscopic to telescopic proportions, and encounters a hookah‐smoking Caterpillar, Mock Turtle, and Cheshire Cat. This early version was expanded to include the Mad Tea Party, the Pig and Pepper episode with the Ugly Duchess, Alice's trial by the Queen of Hearts, and parodies such as ‘Speak Roughly to Your Little Boy’ and ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat’. The revised text also included illustrations by John Tenniel, the political cartoonist for Punch who also worked on the sequel. Through the Looking‐Glass and What Alice Found There (1871) has Alice participating in a Rabelaisian living chess game with Red and White Queens and a White Knight. On her way to becoming a Queen, she meets talking flowers, a battling Lion and Unicorn, Humpty Dumpty, and the twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who recite ‘You Are Old, Father William’ and ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’. ‘Jabberwocky’, perhaps the most celebrated English nonsense poem, and ‘Upon the Lonely Moor’, a parody of Wordsworth, are also included.

The fact that nonsense and literary parody coexist in these novels underscores the dual nature of their child/adult readership—and their author. Often described as a Jekyll‐and‐Hyde personality, C. L. Dodgson was a celebrated Victorian photographer, ordained deacon, and Oxford don who delivered dry mathematics lectures and published logic texts. As the pseudonymous Lewis Carroll, however, he wrote whimsical fiction that challenged the moralizing children's literature of the period. His Alice is in the tradition of the abandoned child heroine, but the Wonderland she explores borders on Victorian Gothic horror fiction. Carroll's originality was to combine the two genres. He tempered his allegorical portrait of socio‐economic upheaval with humorous doses of thought‐provoking paradox. This fresh didacticism made his ‘love‐gift of a fairy‐tale’ so popular that his books were second only to the Bible in bourgeois Victorian nurseries.

Alice's commercial value rose as she was reproduced on everything from teapots to chess sets. Marketing reached new heights with playing cards, puzzles, songs, plays, and broadcasts once the copyright expired in 1907. Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the Ugly Duchess had long entered national folklore by 1928, when Sotheby's auctioned the original manuscript for the unheard‐of sum of £15, 400; it was later sold to the Parke‐Bernet Galleries for $50, 000. In 1948, to show its appreciation of Britain's war efforts, the United States donated this national treasure to the British Museum—where it was received by no less than the Archbishop of Canterbury.

What in the Alice books could possibly have commanded such respect? For many, Alice is the epitome of the brave Victorian innocent in a confusing magical land. Translated into languages ranging from Swahili to Esperanto, her fairy tales are surpassed only by Shakespeare and the Bible for expressions that have entered the English language (such as ‘mad as a hatter’). Given this lofty company, it is little wonder that those who wax nostalgic for these children's books find it a sin to dissect them. Psychoanalysts, for example, puncture the Alice books' myth of childhood innocence. Focusing on the author's sexuality, they document his fantasies about becoming a little girl and cite scores of letters to ‘little‐girlfriends’ whom he adored kissing, sometimes photographing or drawing them in the nude. They also speculate on his attraction and rumoured marriage proposal to young Alice Liddell, and find phallic symbolism in the fictional Alice's snake‐like neck and bodily distortions from large to small. Freudians feel that this may also represent a return to the womb; others posit a hallucinogenic drug experience. Literary historians, on the other hand, note that Gulliver and Micromégas underwent similar changes, and place the Alice books in the satiric tradition of Swift and Voltaire. Socio‐political criticism of a fragmented bourgeois society is also noted by historians: they find parallels with the dizzying pace at which the early Industrial Revolution reacted to technological, demographic, and political changes as it embraced industrialization, laissez‐faire capitalism, and a free‐market economy. Still others analyse Alice's dream and parallel universe that violate spatio‐temporal laws. For them, Alice exists in an eternal moment out of time, a Heideggerian space between consciousness and reality where she poses existential questions of identity and confronts problems of maturation. Moreover, she must function in a metaphorical world where everyone is ‘quite mad’ and relationships are paradoxical. Indeed, linguistic and physical realities rarely coincide in Wonderland, and semioticians annotate disjunctions between sign and signifier whenever smiles represent Cheshire cats or boys turn into pigs. In addition to Alice's numerous meta‐referential allusions to her own fairy tale, they examine Carroll's linguistic experimentation and portmanteau words with reference to Edward Lear (a contemporary) and James Joyce (who was reared on the Alice books). Carroll's marvellous images are balanced by Tenniel's illustrations, which caricatured real‐life politicians like Disraeli (the Unicorn) and Gladstone (the Lion). It is in this combination of text and image, of fantasy and reality, of the abstract and the concrete that Alice's dual readership finds meaning and enjoyment.

Alice's enduring influence is attested by some 200 pastiches and parodies, some reproduced in Carolyn Sigler's Alternative Alices: Visions and Revisions of Lewis Carroll's Alice Books (1997). Many of these texts were produced by Victorian women writers: just as the Alice books comment on Victorian girlhood, so these imitations construct women's cultural authority. Other texts were blatantly didactic, still others were humorously political. All were subversive. Their popularity waned during the 1920s when Alice left popular culture for high culture and was appropriated by scholars and theorists. Film‐makers adopted her as well, and her representations ranging from Disney animation (1951) to pornographic musicals (1976) underscore her mythic capacity to adapt to genres for both children and adults. Today's Alice, a bit wiser than Carroll's, is a postmodern empowered heroine in control of Wonderlands of her own (feminist) design.

Bibliography

Bloom, Harold (ed.), Lewis Carroll (1987).
Gardner, Martin, The Annotated Alice (1960).
Heath, Peter, The Philosopher's Alice (1974).
Rackin, Donald, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking‐Glass: Nonsense, Sense, and Meaning (1991).
Sigler, Carolyn (ed.), Alternative Alices: Visions and Revisions of Lewis Carroll's Alice Books (1997).
— Mary Louise Ennis

The Theory of Parallel Universes

By Andrew Zimmerman Jones and Daniel Robbins
The multiverse is a theory in which our universe is not the only one, but states that many universes exist parallel to each other. These distinct universes within the multiverse theory are called parallel universes. A variety of different theories lend themselves to a multiverse viewpoint.

Not all physicists really believe that these universes exist. Even fewer believe that it would ever be possible to contact these parallel universes.

Level 1: If you go far enough, you’ll get back home
The idea of Level 1 parallel universes basically says that space is so big that the rules of probability imply that surely, somewhere else out there, are other planets exactly like Earth. In fact, an infinite universe would have infinitely many planets, and on some of them, the events that play out would be virtually identical to those on our own Earth.

We don’t see these other universes because our cosmic vision is limited by the speed of light — the ultimate speed limit. Light started traveling at the moment of the big bang, about 14 billion years ago, and so we can’t see any further than about 14 billion light-years (a bit farther, since space is expanding). This volume of space is called the Hubble volume and represents our observable universe.

The existence of Level 1 parallel universes depends on two assumptions:

The universe is infinite (or virtually so).

Within an infinite universe, every single possible configuration of particles in a Hubble volume takes place multiple times.

If Level 1 parallel universes do exist, reaching one is virtually (but not entirely) impossible. For one thing, we wouldn’t know where to look for one because, by definition, a Level 1 parallel universe is so far away that no message can ever get from us to them, or them to us. (Remember, we can only get messages from within our own Hubble volume.)

Level 2: If you go far enough, you’ll fall into wonderland
In a Level 2 parallel universe, regions of space are continuing to undergo an inflation phase. Because of the continuing inflationary phase in these universes, space between us and the other universes is literally expanding faster than the speed of light — and they are, therefore, completely unreachable.

Two possible theories present reasons to believe that Level 2 parallel universes may exist: eternal inflation and ekpyrotic theory.

In eternal inflation, recall that the quantum fluctuations in the early universe’s vacuum energy caused bubble universes to be created all over the place, expanding through their inflation stages at different rates. The initial condition of these universes is assumed to be at a maximum energy level, although at least one variant, chaotic inflation, predicts that the initial condition can be chaotically chosen as any energy level, which may have no maximum, and the results will be the same.

The findings of eternal inflation mean that when inflation starts, it produces not just one universe, but an infinite number of universes.

Right now, the only noninflationary model that carries any kind of weight is the ekpyrotic model, which is so new that it’s still highly speculative.

In the ekpyrotic theory picture, if the universe is the region that results when two branes collide, then the branes could actually collide in multiple locations. Consider flapping a sheet up and down rapidly onto the surface of a bed. The sheet doesn’t touch the bed only in one location, but rather touches it in multiple locations. If the sheet were a brane, then each point of collision would create its own universe with its own initial conditions.

There’s no reason to expect that branes collide in only one place, so the ekpyrotic theory makes it very probable that there are other universes in other locations, expanding even as you consider this possibility.

Level 3: If you stay where you are, you’ll run into yourself
A Level 3 parallel universe is a consequence of the many worlds interpretation (MWI) from quantum physics in which every single quantum possibility inherent in the quantum wavefunction becomes a real possibility in some reality. When the average person (especially a science fiction fan) thinks of a “parallel universe,” he’s probably thinking of Level 3 parallel universes.

Level 3 parallel universes are different from the others posed because they take place in the same space and time as our own universe, but you still have no way to access them. You have never had and will never have contact with any Level 1 or Level 2 universe (we assume), but you’re continually in contact with Level 3 universes — every moment of your life, every decision you make, is causing a split of your “now” self into an infinite number of future selves, all of which are unaware of each other.

Though we talk of the universe “splitting,” this isn’t precisely true. From a mathematical standpoint, there’s only one wavefunction, and it evolves over time. The superpositions of different universes all coexist simultaneously in the same infinite-dimensional Hilbert space. These separate, coexisting universes interfere with each other, yielding the bizarre quantum behaviors.

Of the four types of universes, Level 3 parallel universes have the least to do with string theory directly.

Level 4: Somewhere over the rainbow, there’s a magical land
A Level 4 parallel universe is the strangest place (and most controversial prediction) of all, because it would follow fundamentally different mathematical laws of nature than our universe. In short, any universe that physicists can get to work out on paper would exist, based on the mathematical democracy principle: Any universe that is mathematically possible has equal possibility of actually existing.

Parrallel Worlds - Parrallel Lives

Musician Mark Oliver Everett (also known simply as "E") is the founder of the indie rock band Eels. One of the interesting things about E's life is that his father was Hugh Everett, a mathematics genius who originated the "many-worlds" interpretation of quantum physics, a theory which essentially suggests that each time a decision is made a parallel universe branches off, creating a very large (perhaps infinite) number of parallel universes. Therefore, everything that could possibly have happened in our past but didn't, "has" occurred in the past of another parallel universe. Many-worlds is now considered a mainstream theory in quantum physics.

However, Hugh Everett was a very distant father, and he died prematurely in 1982, when Mark Everett was just 19. In a wonderful, witty documentary, Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, Mark goes in search of his father and his research into parallel worlds by visiting old friends, talking to modern quantum physicists, and looking through his father's old documents and audio tapes.

The multiverse as a block of Swiss cheese, strings and things, branes and the brain

The multiverse (or meta-universe, metaverse) is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including the historical universe we consistently experience) that together comprise everything that exists and can exist: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. The term was coined in 1895 by the American philosopher and psychologist William James.[1] The various universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes.
The structure of the multiverse, the nature of each universe within it and the relationship between the various constituent universes, depend on the specific multiverse hypothesis considered. Multiverses have been hypothesized in cosmology, physics, astronomy, religion, philosophy, transpersonal psychology and fiction, particularly in science fiction and fantasy. In these contexts, parallel universes are also called "alternative universes", "quantum universes", "interpenetrating dimensions", "parallel dimensions", "parallel worlds", "alternative realities", "alternative timelines", and "dimensional planes," among others.

Alice (Jan Svankmajer) (1988)

Alice is a 1988 Czechoslovak film directed by Jan Švankmajer. Its original Czech title is Něco z Alenky, which means "Something from Alice". It is a free adaptation of Lewis Carroll's first Alice book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, about a girl who follows a white rabbit into a bizarre fantasy land. Alice is played by Kristýna Kohoutová. The film combines live action with stop motion animation, and is distinguished by its dark and uncompromising production design.

After more than two decades as a prolific director of short films, Alice became Švankmajer's first venture into feature-length filmmaking. The director had been disappointed by other adaptations of Carroll's book, which interpret it as a fairy tale. His aim was instead to make the story play out like an amoral dream. The film won the feature film award at the 1989 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

Céline et Julie vont en bateau (Céline and Julie Go Boating) - 1974

English and Czech subtitles. Céline and Julie Go Boating (French: Céline et Julie vont en bateau) is a 1974 French film directed by Jacques Rivette.
Shot casually in a documentary style, we see a red-haired woman—we will learn that it is Julie (Dominique Labourier)--sitting on a bench in a pleasant but rather non-descript Parisian park. She is reading a book, we can see, on magic incantations. But after a few minutes of random looks around the park—children playing, a cat on the prowl for pigeons—Julie is suddenly taken by the sight of a lithe woman woozily staggering across the park, a long scarf dangling from her neck. No one else seems to notice the dazed woman when she drops that scarf except for Julie, who leaps up from her park bench. She calls after her. Julie will chase after Céline (Juliet Berto), at first seemingly only on the mundane task of returning a dropped scarf. But with just that simple act, the magic of the narrative—both of this particular story and, in Rivette's meta-approach, that of cinema itself—begins.
The film won the Special Prize of the Jury at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1974 and was an Official Selection at the 1974 New York Film Festival.

Lewis Carroll and the Search for Non-Being

In which Humpty Dumpty, a true Heraclitean, asserts that there must exist an opposite to a birthday which is an un-birthday.

By Pinhas Ben-Zvi. From: The Philosopher - The Journal of the Philosophical Society of England, Volume LXXXX No. 1 (Spring 2002 Issue)
This text is reproduced on this site with permission from the author

Humpty Dumpty informs Alice that 'there are three hundred and sixty four days when you might get un-birthday presents'. It is obvious to him that un-birthdays are real Beings and not mere utterances. His statement is another augmentation to one of the oldest and rudimentary philosophical controversies: whether Non-Being, like Being, exists.

Footprints of this controversy, which was initially conceived by Greek philosophy, can be tracked all over the two books of Alice. Carroll conveys, through Alice's discourses with the various figures she meets on her way, his belief that Non-Being does indeed exist. This stand can be inferred not just from Humpty Dumpty's statement but from other passages in Alice as well.

The beginning of the 6th Century B.C. was a defining moment in the history of mankind intellectual thought. From this time on, for a period that lasted around 150 years, some Greeks, in later years called the 'pre-Socratics', began to ask new questions and propound new answers about the nature of the universe. (Most of the pre-Socratics flourished not in Athens, nor even on mainland Greece, but in Asia Minor, Lower Italy and Sicily. 'Greek', in this context, is a cultural expression rather than a geographical one.)

The pre-Socratics were the first to formulate tenets that were based on reasonable arguments rather than on theological doctrines, and they set the foundation on which the future intellectual revolution in philosophy would be created by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle

But before we follow Alice into Wonderland, we should recall the roots of the controversy, in Elea in Lower Italy, in the early 5th Century BC. There, Parmenides, asserted in a poem that he had composed, that only the 'Is' is, whilst to speak of the 'Is not' is to take a '. . . wholly incredible course, since you cannot recognise Not Being (for this is impossible), nor could you speak of it, for thought and Being are the same thing.'

The grammar used by Parmenides in his poetic assertion gave rise to different interpretations. Did he mean 'is' as a predicate, as for instance in a sentence like: 'Parmenides is Greek', or is it the 'is' of Existence ?
It seems most likely that the 'IS' means Existence since, later on in the poem, he characterise the 'IS' as a well-rounded ball, namely having material properties. Accordingly, to Parmenides, Non-Being was analogous to Non-existence.

Parmenides' concept, embraced by his disciples (the Eleatics) is considered to be a refutation of the teachings of his predecessor, Pythagoras, who claimed that a kind of Non-Being does indeed exist. Other pre-Socratics, such as Democritus of Abdera, the most prominent of the atomist scholars, and one who wrote and taught some decades after Parmenides, also insisted, like Pythagoras, that Non-Being must in fact exist, in spite of Parmenides' rigorous logic.

Certainly, the pre-Socratic philosophers conceived Being as (being) made of matter. Democritus for instance, and other Atomists, viewed Being as comprised of an infinite number of small particles- the word 'atoms' literally meaning 'indivisible'. Atoms combine to form all the objects in the universe. They are solid, microscopic, move in space and join one another to form more complex objects. Movement of atoms is possible since imbetween each one of them there is a void.

The void is not nothing at all - it is Non-Being. A Non-being that, however, exists. But Greek philosophy had to pass through another thinking revolution in order to postulate the existence of non material Beings; The leading figure in this revolution was Plato who conceived the tenet of the Forms (Ideai). The Forms are the ultimate real Beings, having no spatial nor material properties.

In the Sophist dialogue, Plato argues that what 'is not' in some sense also 'is', refuting Parmenides' concept of the impossibility of the Non-Being to exist. Non-Being is just a being characterised only by its difference from 'another' being. He asserted that the antinomy between Being and Non-Being is false. The only real antinomy is that of a single object of consciousness and all other things from which it is distinguished.
Carroll was no stranger to Greek philosophy, which was one of the subjects he studied as part of the Classics curriculum at Christ Church. It seems that he embraced Platonic Ideational thought by asseverating the existence of un-birthdays - un-birthdays are non-material beings.
Nor are they the only ones to be found in Carroll's realm of non-material beings. There also is the dog's temper. The Red Queen urges Alice :

'Try another Subtraction sum. Take a bone from a dog: what remains?
Alice considered. 'The bone wouldn't remain, of course, if I took it -and the dog wouldn't remain; it would come to bite me -- and I'm sure I shouldn't remain!'
'Then you think nothing would remain?' said the Red Queen.
'I think that's the answer.'
'Wrong, as usual,' said the Red Queen: 'the dog's temper would remain.'
'But I don't see how -'
'Why, look here!' the Red Queen cried. 'The dog would lose its temper, wouldn't it?'
'Perhaps it would,' Alice replied cautiously.
'Then if the dog went away, its temper would remain!' the Queen exclaimed triumphantly.'

Carroll is over and over again seen to be fascinated by the idea that Nothingness is more than what meets the eye:

Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, 'so I can't take more.'
'You mean you can't take LESS,' said the Hatter: 'it's very easy to take MORE than nothing.'

The Cheshire cat's grin too is a non-material being. The cat appears from the void and slowly vanishes back into it leaving behind him just a grin. Can a cat's grin exist without its master? Carroll does not hesitate, he is certain that it does. For it is clear that to Carroll a grin is just a Platonic Form - a nonmaterial being which has real existence. He is not at a loss to see the phenomena of the cat's head without its body, the possibility of which brings about a heated disputation between the king and the executioner.

The executioner's argues that: 'You couldn't cut off a head unless there was a body to cut off from', but the king is not at all convinced. To him, like to Carroll: ''anything that had a head could be beheaded.' and the executioner's philosophical observations are just 'talking nonsense'.
However, there is a philosophical hurdle for un-birthdays. Birthdays and Un- birthdays are of course also expressions of time. Plato did not consider time as a form. He held that: 'The moving images of eternity we call time, days and nights, are the parts of time' (Timaeus). One must therefore question whether Birthdays or Un-birthdays are indeed Platonic Forms.

Humpty Dumpty is not in the least troubled by this philosophical hurdle. He remembers well that the Hatter told Alice that he 'knew Time' and that one cannot 'talk about wasting it' because Time is 'him'. Time, says the Hatter, is someone that if you only 'knew how to keep on good terms with him, he'd do almost anything you liked with the clock', for instance 'you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked'.

To Humpty Dumpty, as well as to the Hatter, Time is a real entity. Once we become aware of this reality, Plato's concept presents no hindrance to the existence of either birthdays or un-birthdays. As with Time, Numbers too are portrayed by Carroll as real entities. Upon entering the garden Alice comes up to three card gardeners presented by Carroll as Two, Five and Seven. To Carroll, the Christ Church mathematician, Numbers, like Time, are more than just abstract figures - they are real Beings. Carroll venerates here Pythagoras' concept about Numbers. Aristotle records that the Pythagoreans held that Numbers were: the first things in the whole of nature' and that 'the elements of numbers are the elements of all things'
Numbers also play an important role in Plato's philosophy. It is commonly construed that he inclined to interpret his theory of the Forms in terms of mathematics as in the Timaeus dialogue; Mathematical entities have real existence; they are nonmaterial entities that exist in the realm of the Forms.

Aristotle however held (in the Metaphysics) that Plato thought of the Number as an intermediate substance between the Forms and the world of appearances. The Neo-Platonics, who flourished after Aristotle, believed, contrariwise, that numbers were identified by Plato with Forms. Whatever is the right meaning that Plato intended for the numbers, it is widely agreed that the Pythagorean number theory is the direct ancestor of the Platonic theory of Forms.

Numbers afford Carroll creative freedom. The gardeners' numbers are equivalent to their identities, so it is only natural for the Queen, coming upon the gardeners, to ask: 'And who are these?' Since the gardeners 'were lying on their faces', 'she could not tell whether they were gardeners or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own children'.

Plato, as part of the cave allegory, asserts that the identity of a human being is not derived from their body but from the character of the their soul. Carroll, in pure Platonic reasoning, professed that a Number like the soul, is a nonmaterial entity that harbours the true identity of its subject. The gardeners' bodies are visible but, alas, their numbers are out of sight, hence their identity vanished and their very existence is in doubt.

Another issue that Carroll coped with was the question raised by Greek philosophy about the true nature of the Being. Ever since the pre-Socratics, Greek philosophers have disagreed with each other about the very nature of Being. Is it one or is it many? Can it move or is it immovable?

This controversy is interwoven in the two Alice books. In order to follow Carroll's adaptations in this respect, one must go back to the pre-Socratics' tenets and 'Begin at the beginning'.

At the beginning, Parmenides taught that the IS, namely Being, or sole existence, is characterised as being one and not many, as neither generated nor capable of being extinguished, and as complete, not divisible into parts and immovable. Being is immovable- due to its being one and as such filling the whole universe with nowhere further to extend.
Alice, it seems, is aware of this concept. After drinking from the 'DRINK ME' bottle and growing in size to such an extent that her whole Being fills the room completely leaving no space for anything else, she observes : 'Oh, you foolish Alice!' she answered herself. 'How can you learn lessons in here? Why, there's hardly room for YOU, and no room at all for any lesson-books!'

Parmenides' disciple, Zeno of Elea, formulated a few paradoxes to demonstrate his masters' teachings that Being is one and motionless. The most famous of his paradoxes is Achilles and the tortoise. If, in the race, the tortoise has a start on Achilles, then Achilles can never reach the tortoise for, while Achilles traverses the distance from his starting point to that of the tortoise, the tortoise will have gone a certain distance and, while Achilles traverses this distance, the tortoise goes still further, ad infinitum. Consequently, Achilles may run indefinitely without overtaking the tortoise.

The Achilles paradox purported to force upon the listener the truism that motion is impossible and what we see as motion is an illusion. Pursuant to Zeno's paradox Carroll wrote a lovely short piece which he called What the tortoise said to Achilles. Achilles, trying to follow the tortoise's reasoning, is left by the end mentally near despair failing to understand Carroll's adaptation of Zeno's paradox which leads to infinity.

Parmenides further portrayed the IS as: 'perfect from every direction, like the mass of a well-rounded ball, in equipoise every way from the middle'. This portrayal raised a question - if that is so then the IS extends only as far as the periphery of the ball. What exists beyond?

Parmenides' pupil, Melissus, was aware of this seeming inconsistency and added his own refinement. He negated every form of void: to him, Being is infinite in space as well as in time. Any other possibility will be inherently contradictory since it will imply a presence of some Non-Being beyond the edge.

Another pre-Socratic who conceived a tenet about the nature of Being was Heraclitus of Ephesus, in Asia Minor, a predecessor of Parmenides, who lived about 500 B.C. Unlike Parmenides' 'oneness' concept, Heraclitus taught that existence is dualistic - both 'oneness' and plurality. He further asserted that the nature of all things is governed by one universal principle- that of the logos, the ultimate reality, which is manifested by the interdependence of the opposites and by the process of flux (Panta Rhei) and change. His teaching is defined as the unity of the opposites.

The opposites may appear different but at the same time they are held together in unity as, for instance, health and disease, or hot and cold. They in fact define each other. As Heraclitus put it: 'Justice, which is a good, would be unknown were it not for injustice, which is an evil'.

The existence of the opposites depends only on the difference of the motion on 'the way upwards' from that on 'the way downwards'; all things, therefore, are at once identical and not identical.

Humpty Dumpty, a true Heraclitean, asserts that there must exist an opposite to a birthday which is an un-birthday. Alice enters the world where Humpty Dumpty lives through the looking glass, and, as is common in mirror worlds, every image has its opposite. The mirror images are different, right appears as left and vice versa, but at same time they are identical, since after all they are images of the same object.
Lewis Carroll rejects Parmenides' concept of oneness and the impossibility of movement; Equally Heraclitean he embraces the view that everything is in an everlasting process of flux, change and transformation, while its essence remains the same. This is evidenced by Alice's encounter with the Caterpillar: Who are you', asks the Caterpillar and Alice answers:

'I - I hardly know, Sir, just at present I know - at least I know who I was when I got up in this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then'. Alice is uncertain: 'I can't understand my self, to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.'

The caterpillar, unlike Alice, is 'not at bit' confused and does not 'feel queer' at his transformation 'into a chrysalis, some day, and then after that into a butterfly'. And why should he? As an Heraclitean thinker he knows that the process of his transformation does not change his essence and identity.

Carroll submits more evidence that sameness is not lost due to change. In one instance Alice refers to her previous height changes when she briefly suffers an identity crisis:

'I wonder if I've changed in the night? Let me think; was I the same when I got up this morning?'

And the unavoidable question: 'But if I am not the same, who in the world am I ?' She ponders whether she 'could have been changed for any one' of the children she knew - Ada or Mabel. For a moment she believes that 'I must be Mabel and shall have to go and live in that poky little house and ever so many lessons to learn!' To avoid such a grim prospect, Alice, still deeply doubtful about her identity, expresses her preference to stay down in words that immediately call to mind Heraclitus' 'up and down' language:

'I'll stay down here! It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying 'come up again, dear!' I shall only look up and say 'who am I, then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up; if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else.'

After another short cycle of height transformations Alice gains self- confidence and, with indisputable Heraclitean conviction she is 'very glad to find herself still in existence'. Alice still experienced another alarming transformation. After tasting the mushroom she found that 'all she could see, when she looked down, was an immense length of neck'. Luckily she was delighted to find that her 'neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent'.And indeed a Pigeon, protecting his hatched eggs, insists that Alice is a serpent, not just by her snakelike shape but also in accordance with Aristotelian Categorical syllogism, which the pigeon applies in an upside down manner:

All Serpents eat eggs
Alice eats eggs
Alice is 'a kind of serpent'

Carroll, the author of several books on logic, is paying here tribute to Aristotle, the founder of logic as a branch of philosophy, and to Aristotelian syllogistic propositions of two premises and a conclusion like :

All Greeks are mortal
Socrates is Greek
Socrates is mortal.

The right Aristotelian syllogism, the Pigeon should have used, is of course:

Serpents eat eggs
A is a serpent
A eats eggs

One must excuse a Pigeon in distress for such a fallacy when many people, in more relaxed circumstances, reach similar false conclusions. Carroll suggests that in spite of all the changes that have transpired, Alice's existence has not been affected.
After the great Greeks, nearly all eminent philosophers, through the ages, have taken part in the disputation about the existence and nature of the Non-Being.

This issue is still debatable and open on the philosophical scene.

Source of this article

Down the rabbit hole! Philosophy and social comment in 'Alice in Wonderland'

You may think that Alice in Wonderland is just a children's tale you happen to take too seriously. Good news - there are more than a couple of reasons to completely justify your obsession with it! And people will be delighted to join you in discussing social issues in Wonderland over tea and treacle...by Abigail Muscat

The existence of non-existence

The existence of Non-Being is probably one of the main reasons why the world of Alice was dismissed as one of absolute nonsense. Yet the existence of Non-Being is actually one of the oldest philosophical controversies of Western philosophy. It is clear that Carroll was influenced by his learnings of Greek philosophy at Christ Church.

The beginnings of this controversy can be dated back to the cradle of Western Philosophy: a group of philosophers called the Pre-Socratics (as in pre-Socrates, who in honour of Bill and Ted we should pronouce 'So-creights' not the correct 'Sock-rat-ease'). The Pre-Socratics were also called natural philosophers as they studied the most obvious thing to them: Nature. They wanted to develop the essence of being and explain the changes around them... namely, how things went from being to non-being. Parmenides of Elea was probably the most radical Pre-Socratic philosopher as he relied, for the most part, entirely on his reason. The crazy fool!

This Parmenides asserted that change is utterly impossible, as something in existence cannot move out of it. He said that only 'Is' (i.e Being) is, and one cannot speak of something that 'is not', for who can recognise something that does not exist? It was baffling to his rationality and therefore, he rejected it.

It seems that Carroll disagreed with this assertion, as both the Alice books show. In fact, Humpty Dumpy tells Alice 'there are three hundred and sixty four days when you might get un-birthday presents'. Carroll here seems to follow the ideas of another natural philosopher: Heraclitus.

Heraclitus and Parmenides are often contrasted because of their opposing views. Heraclitus was the very opposite of a rationalist; he was an empiricist (he followed observations according to what his senses showed him). Heraclitus was so deep that some other ancient guy who thought a lot said 'it would take a Delian deep sea diver to get to the bottom of him'. Heraclitus spoke of change, and said that opposites do not exclude each other - as Parmenides argued - but in fact complement each other.

Therefore, in a Heraclitean world (and in Wonderland), opposites (being and non-being) co-exist peacefully. This is the philosophical basis that Carroll must surely have used to write the Alice books. To Carroll it seems that 'nothingness' is, in fact, a special essence, something that is immaterial but existent.

Lewis Carroll also seemed to share the concept of a non-material realm with the philosopher Plato. Here are some examples of the importance Carroll gave to the existence of non-material things:

'Try another Subtraction sum. Take a bone from a dog: what remains?

Alice considered. 'The bone wouldn't remain, of course, if I took it - and the dog wouldn't remain; it would come to bite me - and I'm sure I shouldn't remain!'

'Then you think nothing would remain?' said the Red Queen.

'I think that's the answer.'

'Wrong, as usual,' said the Red Queen: 'the dog's temper would remain.'

'But I don't see how - '

'Why, look here!' the Red Queen cried. 'The dog would lose its temper, wouldn't it?'

'Perhaps it would,' Alice replied cautiously.

'Then if the dog went away, its temper would remain!' the Queen exclaimed triumphantly.'

Lewis Carroll constantly asserts the essence of nothingness:

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?

And:

Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, 'so I can't take more.'

'You mean you can't take LESS,' said the Hatter: 'it's very easy to take MORE than nothing.'

Plato believed that everything in existence in our world (which is often referred to as the world of experience), exists as an Idea or perfect form in another plain of existence. This belief seemed to be shared by Lewis Carroll also, most clearly in the infamous grin of the Cheshire Cat:

Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin; but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my Life!

According to this Platonic theory, a grin can exist without its master, as a grin may exist entirely on its own, as a non-material being, as a perfect idea of a grin. As the Cheshire cat himself may be a non-material being and can exist, possibly without its body, as a non-material essence of a Cheshire cat head.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are countless philosophical theories about the world of Wonderland. Some say it is a message about the existence of non-existence, a satire about the war of the roses, a story about Carroll's interest in Logic and Language or simply written proof that he was high on drugs. This is probably why we are all so fascinated by this story; it is the type of nonsense we can comprehend, the type of nonsense that requires one to have a considerable amount of sense to write it. I'm sure all of you (myself included) are master Logicians when it comes to nonsense and stupidity.

Fabric of the Cosmos: Universe or Multiverse?

Hard as it is to swallow, cutting-edge theories are suggesting that our universe may not be the only universe. Instead, it may be just one of an infinite number of universes that make up the "multiverse." In this show, Brian Greene takes us on a tour of this brave new theory at the frontier of physics, showing what some of these alternate realities might be like. Some universes may be almost indistinguishable from our own; others may contain variations of all of us, where we exist but with different families, careers, and life stories. In still others, reality may be so radically different from ours as to be unrecognizable. Brian Greene reveals why this radical new picture of the cosmos is getting serious attention from scientists. It won't be easy to prove, but if it's right, our understanding of space, time, and our place in the universe will never be the same.

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Quantum Leap

Join Brian Greene on a wild ride into the weird realm of quantum physics, which governs the universe on the tiniest of scales. Greene brings quantum mechanics to life in a nightclub like no other, where objects pop in and out of existence, and things over here can affect others over there, instantaneously and without anything crossing the space between them. A century ago, during the initial shots in the quantum revolution, the best minds of a generation—including Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr—squared off in a battle for the soul of physics. How could the rules of the quantum world, which work so well to describe the behavior of individual atoms and their components, conflict so dramatically with the everyday rules that govern people, planets, and galaxies?

The Fabric of The Cosmos: The Illusion of Time

Time. We waste it, save it, kill it, make it. The world runs on it. Yet ask physicists what time actually is, and the answer might shock you: They have no idea. Even more surprising, the deep sense we have of time passing from present to past may be nothing more than an illusion. How can our understanding of something so familiar be so wrong? In search of answers, Brian Greene takes us on the ultimate time-traveling adventure, hurtling 50 years into the future before stepping into a wormhole to travel back to the past. Along the way, he will reveal a new way of thinking about time in which moments past, present, and future—from the reign of T. rex to the birth of your great-great-grandchildren—exist all at once. This journey will bring us all the way back to the Big Bang, where physicists think the ultimate secrets of time may be hidden. You'll never look at your wristwatch the same way again

The Fabric of the Cosmos: What Is Space?

space/spās/

Noun: A continuous area or expanse that is free, available, or unoccupied: "he backed out of the parking space".

Verb: Position (two or more items) at a distance from one another: "the houses are spaced out".

Synonyms: room - interval - place - distance - area - gap

Surprising clues indicate that space is very much something and not nothing.

The Fabric of the Cosmos

Acclaimed physicist Brian Greene reveals a mind-boggling reality beneath the surface of our everyday world.

Welcome to the 11th Dimension - The Elegant Universe - Part 3

Welcome to the 11th Dimension - The Elegant Universe - PBS NOVA

Part 3 of "The Elegant Universe" with host Brian Greene shows how Edward Witten of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, aided by others, revolutionized string theory by successfully uniting the five different versions into a single theory that is cryptically named "M-theory," a development that requires a total of eleven dimensions.

Ten...eleven...who's counting? But the new 11th dimension implies that strings can come in shapes called membranes, or "branes" for short. These have truly science fiction-like qualities, since in principle they can be as large as the universe. A brane can even be a universe—a parallel universe—and we may be living on one right now.

Witten has described string theory as "a part of 21st-century physics that fell by chance into the 20th century." In fact, the theory is so far ahead of experimental technique that there is as yet no way to verify whether strings are real. But scientists at the CERN atom-smasher on the French-Swiss border are working to test of one of the predictions of string theory. This experiment may take an important step in showing that string theory is not just a crazy idea, but crazy reality.

String's The Thing - The Elegant Universe - Part 2

String's The Thing - The Elegant Universe - PBS NOVA

In the second hour of "The Elegant Universe," a three-hour miniseries with physicist Brian Greene, delve into the nuts, bolts, and outright nuttiness of string theory. Part 2, "String's the Thing," opens with a whimsical scene in a movie theater in which the history of the universe runs backwards to the Big Bang, the moment at which general relativity and quantum mechanics both came into play, and therefore the point at which our conventional model of reality breaks down.

Then it's string theory to the rescue as Greene describes the steps that led from a forgotten 200-year-old mathematical formula to the first glimmerings of strings—quivering strands of energy whose different vibrations give rise to quarks, electrons, photons, and all other elementary particles. Strings are truly tiny, being smaller than an atom by the same factor that a tree is smaller than the solar system. But, as Greene explains, they are able to combine the laws of the large and the laws of the small into a proposal for a single, harmonious theory of everything.

But even with its many theoretical successes, as of the 1990s physicists realized that strings suffered from a pernicious flaw—an embarrassment of riches: There were five different versions of the theory, each totally out of sync with the others. We have one universe, so shouldn't there be one theory of everything?

Einstein's Dream - The Elegant Universe - Part 1

The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory is a book by Brian Greene published in 1999, which introduces string and superstring theory, and provides a comprehensive though non-technical assessment of the theory and some of its shortcomings. A new edition was released in 2003, with an updated preface.

Einstein's Dream - The Elegant Universe - PBS NOVA

Eleven dimensions, parallel universes, and a world made out of strings? It's not science fiction, it's string theory. Bestselling author and physicist Brian Greene offers a tour of this seemingly strange world in "The Elegant Universe," a three-hour Peabody Award-winning miniseries.

Part 1, "Einstein's Dream," introduces string theory and shows how modern physics—composed of two theories that are ferociously incompatible—reached its schizophrenic impasse: One theory, general relativity, successfully describes big things like stars and galaxies, while another, quantum mechanics, is equally successful at explaining small things like atoms and subatomic particles. Albert Einstein, the inventor of general relativity, dreamed of finding a single theory that would embrace all of nature's laws. But in this quest for the so-called unified theory, Einstein came up empty-handed, and the conflict between general relativity and quantum mechanics has stymied all who've followed. That is, until the discovery of string theory.

About The site: Williamson Tunnels

The Williamson Tunnels consist of a labyrinth of tunnels in the Edge Hill area of Liverpool, England, which were built under the direction of the eccentric businessman Joseph Williamson between the early 19th century and 1840. They remained derelict, filled with rubble and refuse, until archaeological investigations were carried out in 1995. Since then excavations have been carried out and part of the labyrinth of tunnels has been opened to the public as a heritage centre.

When Joseph met Alice : The Brief

The literary world that surrounds Alice (Alice in Wonderland and Looking Through the Glass Mirror) has been an endless source of inspiration / provocation in the realms of creative cultral engagement since their publication.

The objective of the project is to undergo a design journey to reconcile the imaginary world of Alice into the mysterious physical world of Joseph : When Alice Liddell meets Joseph Williamson.

The preserve of the imagination is to be explored in its fullest sense from sources drawn from the literary and visual worlds into the realms of physical spatial architectural investigations. You are invited to design a resource inspired by the works surrounding Alice and her world through your own interpretation of the subject. The main thrust of the project will be in the space-making process where you will be expected to execute drawings and model-making as the key

means for inquiry.

The impetus for the project begins in earnest by making a visit to the exhibition at Tate Liverpool where you are asked to engage in the world of observation, recording and ultimately the imagination as a precursor to the development of the brief for your project.

Your first task is to generate your brief for the project and declare your objectives where the work of the following may be exhibited / archived / transformed :

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson

John Tenniel

Anna Gaskell

Annelies Strba

Torsten Lauschmann

Surrealists

Various architectural themes are to be considered to facilitate the engagement of the imagination towards creative design of spatial possibilities:

Scale shifts

The Art of This Century: Kiesler

Largeness, smallness

Underworld

The Monumental,

Stratification

Perspective

Reality and the City

Lime Street’s trench,

Agoraphobia, claustrophobia

Visual, virtual and symbolic thresholds

Lewis Carroll:

“Take care of the sense and the sounds

will take care of themselves.” “Everything’s

got a moral, if only you

can find it.” “One of the secrets of

life is that all that is really worth

doing is what we do for others.” “If

you don’t know where you are going,

any road will get you there.” “That’s

the reason they’re called lessons,

because they lessen from day to day.”

“Everything’s got a moral, if only

you can find it.” “I can’t go back

to yesterday - because I was a different

person then.” “Who in the

world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”

“Sometimes I’ve believed as

many as six impossible things before

breakfast.” “It’s a poor sort

of memory that only works backwards.”

Williamson Tunnels:

The extent of the Williamson tunnels is the

result of a number of excavations conducted

by Joseph Williamson over two

hundred years ago. The mystery of the

works resonates equally with Williamson’s

reasoning for the creation of the tunnels,

fuelling possibilities for imaginative exploration

- this will be the site for your project.

This will also take into account the

dynamics of the existing railway cutting,

the existing network of ‘underground’

tunnels, the unconfirmed presence of

the tunnels and the original residence of

Joseph Williamson.

Major Themes

Growth into Adulthood

This theme is central to both books. Alice's adventures parallel the journey from childhood to adulthood. She comes into numerous new situations in which adaptability is absolutely necessary for success. She shows marked progress throughout the course of the book; in the beginning, she can barely maintain enough composure to keep herself from crying. By the end of the novel, she is self-possessed and able to hold her own against the most baffling Wonderland logic.

Size change

Closely connected to the above theme, size change is another recurring concept. The dramatic changes in size hint at the radical changes the body undergoes during adolescence. The key, once again, is adaptability. Alice's size changes also bring about a change in perspective, and she sees the world from a very different view. In the last trial scene, her growth into a giant reflects her interior growth. She becomes a much stronger, self-possessed person, able to speak out against the nonsensical proceedings of the trial.

Death

This theme is even more present in the second Alice book, Through the Looking Glass. Alice frequently makes references to her own death without knowing it. Childhood is a state of peril in Carroll's view: children are quite vulnerable, and the world presents many dangers. Another aspect of death is its inevitability. Since the Alice books are at root about change (the transition from childhood to adulthood, the passage of time), mortality is inescapable as a theme. Death is the final step of this process of growth. While death is only hinted at in the first book, the second book is saturated with references to mortality and macabre humor.

Games/ Learning the Rules

Every new encounter is something of a game for Alice; there are rules to learn, and consequences for learning or not learning those rules. Games are a constant part of life in Wonderland, from the Caucus race to the strange croquet match to the fact that the royal court is a living deck of cards. And every new social encounter is like a game, in that there are bizarre, apparently arbitrary rules that Alice has to master. Learning the rules is a metaphor for the adaptations to new social situations that every child makes as she grows older. Mastering each challenge, Alice grows wiser and more adaptable as time goes on.

Language and Logic/Illogic

Carroll delights in puns. The Alice books are chockfull of games with language, to the reader's delight and Alice's confusion. The games often point out some inconsistency or slipperiness of language in general and English in particular. The books point out the pains and advantages of language. Language is a source of joy and adaptability; it can also be a source of great confusion.

Just as baffling is the bizarre logic at work in Wonderland. Every creature can justify the most absurd behavior, and their arguments for themselves are often fairly complex. Their strange reasoning is another source of delight for the reader and challenge for Alice. She has to learn to discern between unusual logic and utter nonsense.

Alice in Wonderland Summary

Alice is sitting with her sister outdoors when she spies a White Rabbit with a pocket watch. Fascinated by the sight, she follows the rabbit down the hole. She falls for a long time, and finds herself in a long hallway full of doors. There is also a key on the table, which unlocks a tiny door; through this door, she spies a beautiful garden. She longs to get there, but the door is too small. Soon, she finds a drink with a note that asks her to drink it. There is later a cake with a note that tells her to eat; Alice uses both, but she cannot seem to get a handle on things, and is always either too large to get through the door or too small to reach the key.

While she is tiny, she slips and falls into a pool of water. She realizes that this little sea is made of tears she cried while a giant. She swims to shore with a number of animals, most notably a sensitive mouse, but manages to offend everyone by talking about her cat's ability to catch birds and mice. Left alone, she goes on through the wood and runs into the White Rabbit. He mistakes her for his maid and sends her to fetch some things from his house. While in the White Rabbit's home, she drinks another potion and becomes too huge to get out through the door. She eventually finds a little cake which, when eaten, makes her small again.

In the wood again, she comes across a Caterpillar sitting on a mushroom. He gives her some valuable advice, as well as a valuable tool: the two sides of the mushroom, which can make Alice grow larger and smaller as she wishes. The first time she uses them, she stretches her body out tremendously. While stretched out, she pokes her head into the branches of a tree and meets a Pigeon. The Pigeon is convinced that Alice is a serpent, and though Alice tries to reason with her the Pigeon tells her to be off.

Alice gets herself down to normal proportions and continues her trek through the woods. In a clearing she comes across a little house and shrinks herself down enough to get inside. It is the house of the Duchess; the Duchess and the Cook are battling fiercely, and they seem unconcerned about the safety of the baby that the Duchess is nursing. Alice takes the baby with her, but the child turns into a pig and trots off into the woods. Alice next meets the Cheshire cat (who was sitting in the Duchess's house, but said nothing). The Cheshire cat helps her to find her way through the woods, but he warns her that everyone she meets will be mad.

Alice goes to the March Hare's house, where she is treated to a Mad Tea Party. Present are the March Hare, the Hatter, and the Dormouse. Ever since Time stopped working for the Hatter, it has always been six o'clock; it is therefore always teatime. The creatures of the Mad Tea Party are some of the must argumentative in all of Wonderland. Alice leaves them and finds a tree with a door in it: when she looks through the door, she spies the door-lined hallway from the beginning of her adventures. This time, she is prepared, and she manages to get to the lovely garden that she saw earlier. She walks on through, and finds herself in the garden of the Queen of Hearts. There, three gardeners (with bodies shaped like playing cards) are painting the roses red. If the Queen finds out that they planted white roses, she'll have them beheaded. The Queen herself soon arrives, and she does order their execution; Alice helps to hide them in a large flowerpot.

The Queen invites Alice to play croquet, which is a very difficult game in Wonderland, as the balls and mallets are live animals. The game is interrupted by the appearance of the Cheshire cat, whom the King of Hearts immediately dislikes.
The Queen takes Alice to the Gryphon, who in turn takes Alice to the Mock Turtle. The Gryphon and the Mock Turtle tell Alice bizarre stories about their school under the sea. The Mock Turtles sings a melancholy song about turtle soup, and soon afterward the Gryphon drags Alice off to see the trial of the Knave of Hearts.

The Knave of Hearts has been accused of stealing the tarts of the Queen of Hearts, but the evidence against him is very bad. Alice is appalled by the ridiculous proceedings. She also begins to grow larger. She is soon called to the witness stand; by this time she has grown to giant size. She refuses to be intimidated by the bad logic of the court and the bluster of the King and Queen of Hearts. Suddenly, the cards all rise up and attack her, at which point she wakes up. Her adventures in Wonderland have all been a fantastic dream.