What if everything you have done in your life, and everything you will do, has already happened? What if you are a copy of a large number of copies that repeat everything exactly?
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Physicist Sean Carroll proposes a new hypothesis, a new cosmological model based on quantum mechanics and Hilbert's finite space rather than general relativity, suggesting that existence consists of closed cycles in which historical and cosmic events reweave themselves exactly as a replica each time, like the mythical snake that swallows its own tail.
This idea arose primarily to resolve a strange paradox known as "Boltzmann brains." Older theories posit that if the universe continues to expand indefinitely, the movement of atoms will eventually produce conscious minds floating in space, carrying false memories—and perhaps we ourselves are simply one of these false minds. To resolve this paradox, the model assumes that the universe does not behave with absolute randomness, but rather follows a precisely regulated quantum path that prevents the emergence of such brains, forcing the universe, after a very long time, to return to its starting point, just as any closed system returns to its initial state.
And in order for the cycle to begin anew, the universe doesn't end in a dead, permanent void. Instead, it reverses its motion like a video reel playing backward. Light begins to compress, and the black holes that once swallowed everything transform into white holes that expel matter and energy. This contraction drives everything toward a "Big Crunch," similar to the Big Bang but in reverse. When it reaches its peak, it rebounds in another explosion and rebirth, rewriting the very history of the universe in every detail.
Although this hypothesis offers a clever angle for understanding the "arrow of time" and its constant forward movement with increasing disorder , and helps in trying to reconcile quantum mechanics and gravity, it encounters a fundamental obstacle; the model fails to explain why the universe began in an exceptional state of extreme order and low entropy, and remains merely a mathematical and philosophical proposition awaiting observational evidence to prove it.
If Sean Carroll's view is indeed correct, we've interviewed him before—not just once, but countless times. According to him, we met in a previous cycle of the universe, conducted this interview in Dublin, Ireland, asked the same questions, received the same answers, and discussed the unsettling possibility that the universe is destined to recreate itself as a carbon copy of its predecessor.
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