Be still my heart - part 17

“Do you think there are parallel universes?”

“It is unsettling how you always wake up in conversation. Good morning, Eva.”

Elon was seated in a reclining chair next to my bed. We were in a new room albeit still all white. There was a window high on the wall to the right of my bed, but all I could see was sky. I stared at the blue I hadn't seen…since before I was dead…and then not dead. It was so beautiful. It reminded me…of a Renaissance painting.

“Titian,” I said, turning from the ‘window.’

He turned to look at the ‘sky.’ “Well, yes, but how did you know?”

“I loved art. I loved the sky and how it was a constant for humanity and appeared similar in paintings hundreds of years before I was born and no doubt before then, too. That,” I indicated the window, “is Titian's sky in,” I looked back at Elon with raised eyebrows, “Bacchus and Ariadne?”

He frowned. “Yes.”

“Interesting. So, do you think there are parallel universes?”

“Why do you ask?”

“It was one of the many things I used to wonder. Before.”

“Something else you remember?”

“Yes. So?”

“I believe there is room for only one of me…”

“Says iteration number 522 of Commander Musk.”

“Number 5 and we are each of us one and the same.”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”

“We are.”

“Each of you must start with an update to the original you that encompasses the experiences of the previous iteration or else you'd be in a really bad place every time you…woke up.” I laughed. “You each confront wildly different realities, environments, if you will, that impact and change you. If the original Musk met you, he might not even recognize you, that is, who he's become.”

“I am him. My actions and reactions can only be what his would be. Because he is me.”

“Yeah, no, but okay. Fine. What I was thinking was, what exactly is a parallel universe? As I recall, the theory held that for every event in our lives, the universe splits off into countless realities representing all the possible alternative outcomes of said event.

“So, somewhere out there, there could be an infinite number of you doing this or not, or maybe even a world where you don't create clones or newlifers and so this conversation is nonexistent because we are both dead.”

“Aren't you glad we're here?”

I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, what if parallel universes are something completely different? What if they aren't the result of infinite splitting but rather were created from the get-go? What if the Originators set up the experiment of Life with controls and subtle, infinite manipulations and this is just one of them? One of countless simulations?

“Indeed, that may be the reason your AGI responds the way it does to the question Original you most wanted answered: What is outside the simulation?”

“Which one?” he whispered.

“Sounds like AGI may be more advanced than you thought,” I said to Musk's back as he hurried from the room.