Forget the multiverse. In the pluriverse, we create reali...

What’s Happening

Not gonna lie, A radical idea that resolves many quantum paradoxes suggests there is no objective view of reality.

How can the cosmos be stitched together from interlocking perspectives? Physics Forget the multiverse. (we’re not making this up)

In the pluriverse, we create reality together A radical idea that resolves many quantum paradoxes suggests there is no objective view of reality.

The Details

By Jo Marchant 16 March 2026 Facebook / Meta Twitter / X icon Linkedin Reddit Email J R Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection/ What is now? The nature of the ever-changing present moment has always fascinated me, because there is a paradox at its heart.

From a personal perspective, the present is everything: it is the only time we can ever act or choose; the only thing we can ever experience or know. What did you have for breakfast?

Why This Matters

Where do you hope to go tomorrow? Even our memories and plans are forged in the present; we can only experience them now . And yet, the conventional view of physics is that now, as we usually think of it, doesn’t actually exist at all.

This could have implications for future research in this area.

Key Takeaways

• In Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, all time points are equal : any event can be already done or yet to occur, from different points of view.
• There is no cosmic unfolding through which reality comes to be.
• A new place for consciousness in our understanding of the universe This raises a problem for us as thinking, feeling humans.
• If now is an illusion, then we cannot intervene in that moment to affect the future, because all events and times already exist.

The Bottom Line

But only if we are prepared to radically rethink what reality is and who we are. “The world is such that you cannot separate yourself from it,” says Michel Bitbol , a philosopher of physics at the École Normale Superieure in Paris.

What do you think about all this?