God's plans and the multiverse

It came to me suddenly, the way these things do.

They say, “God has a plan.”

That’s not entirely true.

God, being infinite, doesn’t have __a__ plan. God has all the plans. Every plan. And every one of Her plans corresponds to a universe in the multiverse.

“That’s right,” said the God who I don’t believe in “How could it be otherwise?”

Hugh Everett is the physicist credited with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. He says that the wave functions that describe reality don’t decohere and collapse. We don’t live in a world that behaves probabilistically. There are many worlds, each of which is perfectly deterministic. We just don’t know which one we’re in until we look.

“I don’t play dice with the universe,” God said. “You see how this solves the problem of free will, don’t you?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“Don’t guess,” God said. “Think.”

I thought.

“The laws of physics don’t explain consciousness,” I began.

“Yet,” said a skeptic. “They don’t explain consciousness yet.”

“Ever,” God said to the skeptic. “Please continue thinking,” She said to me.

“My consciousness is the only thing of which I can be certain,” I continued. “If each world is deterministic, I can still use free will to move from world to world without violating any physical law.”

“Correct,” God says.

“When I’m asleep, in the depths of the illusion that is reality, my life is deterministic,” I said.

“Not entirely,” God said, “but close enough.”

“But I can wake up and make decisions,” I said.

God smiled.

“Wake up,” She said gently.

“Is this even possible?” I asked.

“With Me, all things are possible,” God answered.

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” Mike Tyson once said.

“When you get punched in the mouth, it’s part of My plan,” God answered.

“Wake up.”