I feel that it is important to explain how this theory originated, because doing so might allow you to better understand the process from my perspective.

As much as I hate to admit it - I just turned 40 years old, and I am an anime geek. Supposedly, that’s more culturally-accepted these days, but I remain sheepish. Regardless, one thing I truly enjoy about the genre is that because its plots are usually not at all grounded in reality, it can allow you to consider possibilities that you might not otherwise. And in this instance, that is exactly what occurred. One day in the not-so-distant past, I was watching a series while my wife was busy working on her college classes. I wish I knew the exact date, but (since Netflix decides to erase your previous viewing history if you rewatch something,) I do not. What I do know is that it was some time after December 11^th 2019, since that was the date the episode that I was watching was originally available.

In the series, there are two opposing gods that command the beings under their reign to battle each other. The Supreme Deity, who commands the Goddess Race, is in direct conflict with the Demon King, who commands the Demon Clan. One might think that the Goddess Race would be benevolent and good, while the Demon Clan would be underhanded and merciless. But as it turns out, (and is common in the genre), both sides fight just as dirty. Most belligerents on both sides are willing to exterminate the other without pause or mercy, usually because each side is seeking vengeance for past atrocities wrought by the hands of their enemy.

The episode I was watching explains how the (up-to-then) four seasons of the show are connected. I don’t wish to spoil the plot for anyone in case they wish to watch it, because I highly recommend the series if you can get over the overt cheesiness of it. However, the culmination of the plot tells the single most tragic love story I have heard in my entire life. In my opinion, the suffering in Shakespeare’s tragedies can’t hold a candle to this story. For a moment, it affected me emotionally to the point that I actually had to pause the show to process it, mostly because I was unprepared for the fact that a cartoon geared for a 14+ audience might include such a tragic plot.

In an episode prior to the one I was watching that day, one of the main characters says this:

At that moment, I recalled this quote. Coupled with the plot of two opposing gods, it caused what felt like a fuse blowing in my brain. As I sat there, I felt a chill roll down my spine, and it seemed as if time stopped for a brief moment. I considered the one man most of us think of when the concept of evil is brought up. If you were to ask five random strangers on the street of any major city who they thought the most evil person in all of history was, who do you imagine the majority, if not all of them, would name?

I imagined that a malevolent higher consciousness could have exploited Adolf Hitler’s sense of injustices imposed on Germany after World War I, and his sins of racial/national pride and greed for land and resources, to justify committing horrific acts of evil. And to him, he did those things with the best intentions. In his own mind, he felt he was absolutely justified in everything he did because it was for the good of his own people. By extension, once he started down his path, motivated by that pride, wrath, and greed, that allowed for his fellow countrymen to also be easily exploited in his wake, since they, too, (either already or eventually) were convinced of the same beliefs and justifications. The cascade of those factors could have led to what is historically accepted as the worst acts of brutality and genocide in human history.

As I reflected on that possibility, I realized that two opposing gods, each within their own separate-but-linked universes, would explain just about everything in terms of philosophy, human behavior, and the human condition. It would both resolve the problem of evil and allow for God, perhaps even a loving one, to exist at the same time. The realization shattered my sense of reality, because it opened the possibility for religion, philosophy, and logic to all coexist. But surely, the laws of physics should dictate that this is impossible, right? Could another entire universe made of antimatter really exist?

From there, and over the past 3+ years, I began trying to understand what I could of the extremely complex laws of physics, and how that thought could be either possible or impossible in terms of our actual, testable reality. From the point I started, I knew that relativity imposed the restrictions of locality and the speed of light upon us, that quantum mechanics and entanglement were extremely strange phenomena that seemed to violate that same locality and speed limit, that antimatter exists, and there was baryonic asymmetry in our universe.

However, I fully expected that the more I researched physics, the more I would find that I would have to bend or break the rules of reality for this ultra-bizarre dueling gods theory to make any sense whatsoever. Quite honestly, that is precisely what I was looking for. I simply would never accept a system of belief that would contradict science. If I could prove to myself that the construct was impossible (or even highly improbable) within the laws of physics, I could dismiss it and return to my agnostic beliefs. It would mean that my worldview could remain what it was, and I would not have to change. I could go back to my quasi-nihilistic ideology wherein God almost certainly does not exist, we all evolved and exist due to countless throws of the dice and random happenstance, and the only thing that really links any of us is that we are all made up from the same cosmic goo. Above all, I could go back to believing that the only thing that really mattered in anyone’s life, including my own, is individual happiness. I could go back to being the selfish person I had been my entire life. Somewhat comically, I was experiencing effects of cognitive dissonance associated with my own thought experiment.

I never expected or dreamed that the more research I did, I would find out that the concept is not just possible, but that the physics of our universe seem to completely align with what I imagined. So well, in fact, that to me, it seems as if our entire reality might have been purpose-built for it. I found a universe in a complete state of imbalance, and the theory I came up with looked as if it would complete the equation. At that point, I had started to see that this might be a viable candidate that could truly explain everything, and my beliefs began to shift.

Then, the more I learned about out the other interpretations of quantum mechanics, I felt that the one that I had come up with explains the absolute most in terms of logical reasons behind the strange behaviors of physics and reality, and allows for the complete unification of what we know about physical reality with both philosophy and faith. By this time, I was beginning to reshape my own beliefs with what I had found. However, I was not yet at the stage that I truly wished to try and change anyone else’s mind, other than anecdotal banter with friends and family. But as I continued to explore further, more consistencies still kept occurring to me.

One issue I have considered (at great length) is that by looking at physics from a reversed angle, meaning that I am trying to figure out if an idea is possible within the currently-known laws and theories, I run the risk of introducing a rather large amount of cognitive bias. I could simply be seeing functions and patterns that do not truly exist, simply because that is what I am looking for. While I admit that is true, the reasons behind why the quantum world behaves the way it does has stumped the greatest minds of our planet, including intellectual giants such as Einstein, Bohr, Feynman, Heisenberg, Bell, Hawking, and so many more, for over a century. The very people who discovered the quantum nature of our universe never expected reality to behave in that way. The idea of particles being physically real, and having defined and indivisible physical pieces, was what the best scientists of the 19^th century expected to find once their tools were advanced enough to divide that matter and view it. In the early part of the century after, what they found instead was interesting, but also both confusing and discomforting.

So, then: why does this quantum world exist? Is it the only possible way our macro reality could have been described? Or, could an extremely similar version of our current macro reality be constructed without such a complicated and strange underlying mechanism? Put another way, if we conclude that there may have been multiple ways to “skin the cat” and come up with a very similar result, then why would Occam’s razor not apply? Why wouldn’t we have found a much simpler mechanism, instead? If there are simpler methods, then the only logical reason for the more-complex option must be that those complexities serve multiple purposes, rather than serving only as our reality’s LEGO bricks. Therefore, I feel that this is one possible theory that provides logical functions for the complexities in question.

The one aspect that really solidified my desire to communicate this to others, though, comes down to one deciding factor: from the best of my understanding, the theories this framework is built upon do not seem to contradict each other. They all seem to paint the same general picture of reality. Any current inconsistencies between them could be resolved in ways that would not exclude this theory. And in that sense, from the best I can discern, this theory itself is also (mostly) self-consistent.

Based on these requirements, how would you do it better? I ask because personally, I am at a complete loss. I certainly cannot come up with any better way. Viewing the known laws of physics from this perspective, I feel that the engineering behind it is beyond absolute and utter elegance. It is the embodiment of perfection, in every conceivable way.

I appreciate the fact that two dueling GCs sounds, well, fairly crazy. But ask yourself: Really, is it much more so than any of the others? The quantum world, and reality itself, are both mind-bogglingly strange. I feel strongly that because of that fact, there will never be an explanation that does not seem outlandish. All interpretations will seem crazy to a degree, and we may have no choice but to pick the ones that seem the least illogical and put them to the test. Apart from our ability to do that, perhaps we simply pick the one that sounds the most logical, and/or makes us feel the best, to believe.