The idea of the multiverse: An interdisciplinary perspective

Abstract

The article discusses modern trends in the development of the idea of the multiverse (plurality of worlds) on the material of natural science. In physics, this is a multi-world interpretation of H. Everett’s quantum mechanics, in biology, the teachings about Umwelt by J. von Uexkul, in cognitive science, the notion of cognitive isolation, subjectively personal coloring, phenomenological certainty of the worlds of cognition and creativity of individuals. It is shown what some conceptual foundations can be offered for finding ways to develop an integrative vision, for building bridges from physics to biology and from biology to social sciences and humanities. Evolutionary epistemology, the conception of autopoiesis, theory of complex systems, and biosemiotics are considered as possible bearing conceptual nodes for interdisciplinary synthesis. These theoretical conceptions make it possible to tentatively explain why there are many worlds and why they are separated from each other, cognitively closed in the living nature. Leibniz’s ideas about possible worlds, a wealth of potentialities, subtle connections and eventual interweaving of worlds and their compossibility and self-reference turn out to be very relevant today. Various realizations of the world that arise as a result of measuring particles states in quantum mechanics, the worlds (umwelts) of living organisms, semantic worlds in human creative activity are just options in which nature expresses itself, reads itself, calculates itself, correlates with itself, and there are countless options.