Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.
Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.
It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though.
- Intro, spread across several pages.
The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy has, in what we laughingly called the
past, had a great deal to say on the subject of parallel universes. Very
little of this is, however, at all comprehensible to anyone below the level
of Advanced God, and since it is now well-established that all gods came
into existence a good three millionths of a second after the Universe began
rather than, as they usually claimed, the previous week, they already have
a great deal explaining to do as it is, and are therefore not available for
comment on matters of deep physics at this time.
One encouraging thing the Guide does have to say on the subject of parallel
universes is that you don't stand the remotest chance of understanding it.
You can therefore say What? and Eh? without any fear of making a fool of
yourself.
The first thing to realise about parallel universes, the Guide says, is that
they are not parallel.
It is also important to realise that they are not, strictly speaking,
universes either, but it is easiest if you try and realise that a little
later, after you've reallised that everything you've realised up to that
moment is not true.
The reason they are not universes is that any given universe is not a
thing as such, but is just a way of looking at what is technically
known as the WSOGMM, or Whole Sort of General Mish Mash. The Whole Sort of
General Mish Mash doesn't actually exist either, but is just the sum total
of all the different ways ther would be of looking at it if it did.
The reason they are not parallel is the same reason that the sea is not
parallel. It doesn't mean anything. You can slice the Whole Sort of
General Mish Mash any way you like and you will generally come up with
something that someone will call home.
Please feel free to blither now.
- The Guide on parallel universes
You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know
what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I know
cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not of
the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know,
because that would be to replace you yourself.......
Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to
you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe
you percive is specific to you.
- Man up a pole speaking to Arthur
Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know.
Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't
know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things I
decided not to know about. Amen........
Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the above prayer. Amen
- Prayers given by the man up a pole
The ten seconds that passed after Trillian left were about the longest of
Arthur Dent's life. Time, as we know is relative. You can travel light
years through the stars and back, and if you do it at the speed of light
then, when you return, you may have aged mere seconds while your twin
brother or sister will have aged twenty, thirty, forty or however many years
it is, depending on how far you travelled.
This will come to you as a profound personal shock, particularly if you
didn't know you had a twin brother or sister. The seconds that you have
been absent will not have been sufficient time to prepare you for the shock
of new and strangely distended family relationships when you return.
- After Trillian told Arthur he had a daughter, Random