"Parallels"

[Ken Thomson, Admin]

Summary:

Worf walks right into a surprise party, but notices that something is amiss when events begin contradicting themselves. When his environment changes - Troi suddenly believes she is Worf's wife and Geordi is killed in engineering during a Cardassian assault.

In depth coverage at trekcore: tng.trekcore.com/episodes/season7/7x11/

Wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallels_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)

This episode is probably the MOST important episode regarding canon in Star Trek. We can discuss its implications here.

Ken

[Ken Thomson, Admin]

Here's an article about the real-world theory behind it. Fascinating stuff.



io9.com/if-this-theory-is-correct-we-may-live-in-a-web-of-alte-896376482

[Ken Thomson, Admin]

One of the interesting implications of this metaphysical discussion, is that it might be a mechanism for free will. We could be like pinballs bouncing around different quantum states, always making choices that affect other pinballs in this giant machine. It is self-replicating with every possible outcome actually happening at each state, and thus energy is expanding space and time, the driving force of the expansion of the universe as we observe. Where is the energy coming from? Who knows. But the expansion of space is observable, and perhaps it is a directly observable effect of the creation of infinite possible choices all happening.

(Twilight Zone music playing)

[LaneDEA]

I did find it originally difficult to grasp the concept, but once I did it opened up lots of possibilities. And inspired a story I did.

You are right about canon though. If it wasn't for this episode, the new set of movies would be very difficult to accept on face value.

[Ken Thomson, Admin]

How about this one? The universe replicates itself by division, just like cells in the body. The mechanism is quantum energy. The universe itself, is a giant organism, and we are just parts of it.

[Ken Thomson, Admin]

Another interesting side-topic related to this, is the Anthopic principle. io9.com/5989467/how-does-the-anthropic-principle-change-the-meaning-of-the-universe