Multiverse and Marijuana

"Consider a rolling of the dice," Carl Sagan murmured while rolling another blunt.

Neil deGrasse Tyson pulled deep on the smoldering remnants of his roach speculating the forthcoming conversation.

“Consider a rolling of the dice,” Sagan began again, “on this plane, in this universe, this version of yourself you roll a three - but there are six sides to a die and the other five sides are rolled by you in five completely different parallel universes other than our own.” He took a long hit and exhaled six different smoke rings illustrating his point.

Tyson’s bushy mustache and mouth turned up into grin while his eyelids drooped, deeply pondering. “'Philosophically, the universe has really never made things in ones. The Earth is special and everything else is different? No, we've got seven other planets. The sun? No, the sun is one of those dots in the night sky. The Milky Way? No, it's one of a hundred billion galaxies. And the universe - maybe it's countless other universes.'”

Sagan’s head nodded in slow agreement, “That’s what I’m saying.”

“For every left turn, there is a variation of me who takes a right. That means there are infinite number of universes, and infinite versions of me. Does that make the Earth, the Universe - me, insignificant?”

“You know Neil, ‘For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.’”

“True. True…” Tyson leaned back in his chair and stared into space. He took another drag and with a long exhale he exclaimed, “If at any moment there are innumerable versions of me existing on different parallel planes - then I am immortal. For every time I die another me lives.”

“Yes. Yes,” Sagan agreed, “Don't you see? We are all immortal. The cosmos are in us. The Buddhists got it right 3 thousand years ago - you can't kill energy. ‘We’re made of star stuff.’ Even if your human body dies, you will never be dead.”

For several moments the two friends sat in silence while thoughts of the infinite swirled around their heads mixing with the smoky haze of incense and marijuana .

“Stop bogarting the blunt, Carl.”

“Sorry. Sorry. Take it.”

“Thank you.” Tyson inhaled and coughed out his next question, “Where are the aliens? With multiple and infinite universes you think the aliens would have dropped in by now. ‘Perhaps we’ve never been visited by aliens because they have looked upon Earth and decided there’s no sign of intelligent life.’”

“What? Are you serious, Neil? Of course the aliens have been here, man. They visited thousands of years ago.”

Coughing, “They did?”

“Yea. Yea. The aliens were here. The pyramids, man. You think the Egyptians and the Mayans did that alone? No, it was the aliens. They got a bad rap, but they're chill. They came to help - they’ll be back. You’ll see.”

“Carl, saying shit like that created some criticism for you by our peers.”

“Whatever, man. Those guys are close-minded. They think they know everything. ‘Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?’”

“Preach, Carl. Preach.” Tyson nodded his head in agreement and passed the blunt again. He saw a speck of dust floating in a ray of light. He fixed his gaze on this microcosm - a universe within a universe, a piece of himself - dance before his eyes. “‘Do you realize that if you fall into a black hole, you will see the entire future of the Universe unfold in front of you in a matter of moments and you will emerge into another space-time created by the singularity of the black hole you just fell into?’”

Carl Sagan stared at Neil deGrasse Tyson with his mouth open before breaking into cackling laughter. “You are toasted, man. Toasted.”

Tyson coughed, “This is really good shit, though. Who you getting it from?”

Sagan laughed, “Bill Nye.”

“Nice.”