Love Across the Possible Worlds
While true love is the subject of many tales, the metaphysical question of its foundation is rarely addressed. One interesting way to explore this question is to bring in another popular subject of fiction, that of possible worlds. Imagine, if you will, a bereaved lover seeking to replace their lost love by finding an exact counterpart in another world. This raises the issue of whether it is rational to love the metaphysical counterpart of someone you love. I contend that this is just as rational as loving the original person and will argue for my case by using appeals to intuitions and analogies. In the interest of fairness, I will also consider and refute the transcendent argument for true love.
The metaphysics of Rick & Morty includes the existence of an infinite number of alternative worlds, each of which with its own Rick and Morty. The Rick and the Morty that are, one presumes, the true stars of the show have been forced to abandon their original reality a few times. However, they always end up living with “their” family (Beth, Summer and sometimes Jerry). While Rick often purports not to care, he repeatedly shows that he loves “his” daughter Beth and granddaughter Summer. However, as he and Morty themselves know, the Beth and Summer of their adopted world are not their Beth and Summer. They are daughter and granddaughter of the Rick of that world—a Rick who is (typically) dead.
CW’s The Flash show also makes use of the multiple world plot device as well, one that dates to the early days of comics. The DC comic universe features a multitude of different earths, most notably Earth 1 and Earth 2. Earth 2 was the home of the original Batman, Superman and others—it was used to maintain the timeline in which, for example, Superman was on earth in the 1930s. In a series of episodes of the TV show The Flash, Barry Allen (the Flash) travelled to Earth 2 and met the counterparts of people he knew and loved on his world, most especially his beloved Iris. On Earth 2, the normal Barry Allen 2 was married to Iris and Barry Allen 1 (from Earth 1) pretended to be Barry Allen 2 and was rather obsessed with her and her father, despite being explicitly told that the people of Earth 2 were obviously not the same people as those of Earth 1.
While people tend to feel how they do for no rational reason, there is a rather interesting question as to whether it makes sense to love someone because they happen to be the counterpart of someone you love. While this would be an interesting matter for psychology, the metaphysical aspect of this case is a question of whether the counterparts are such that it is rational to love or care about them because they are metaphysical counterparts of someone you love or care about.
For the sake of the discussion that follows, consider the following sci-fi scenario: Sam and Kelly met in graduate school, fell madly in love and were married shortly after their graduation. They were both hired by Kalikrates Dimensional, a startup dedicated to developing portals to other dimensions.
During an experiment, Sam was pulled into the blender dimension and ejected as a human smoothie. Unfortunately, he had neglected to keep up his premiums with Life Ensurance and had no backup. Distraught, Kelly considered cloning him anyway, but decided that without his memories and personalities, it would not be Sam.
Driven by her loss, she developed a safer portal system and then developed an Indexer that would scan and index the possible worlds. She programmed the Indexer to find a world just like her own, but where “she” rather than “Sam” would die in the portal accident. The Indexer labeled this world Earth 35765. Timing it perfectly, she popped through her portal just as the Kelly of 35765 would have returned, had she not been blended. The Kelly 35765 smoothie ended up in Kelly 1’s world, while Kelly 1 took over her life. Kelly 1 might have been happy with Sam 35765, but she was murdered and replaced a year later by the bereaved and insane Kelly 45765. Given this scenario, would it be rational for Kelly 1 to love Sam 35765?
One way to look at this matter is to use an analogy to counterparts in this world. To be specific, there are unrelated people who look exactly alike other people in this world. And, of course, there are also identical twins. While a person might be fooled by a twin or a look-alike, they would probably not love them simply because they looked like someone they loved. The same, it could be argued, can be applied to counterparts in other worlds: they look like someone you love, but they are not the one you love.
I certainly agree that it would be irrational to love someone simply because they looked like someone one already loves. After all, the look-alike could be utterly horrible or at least utterly incompatible. As such, it would be foolish to love such a twin solely based on appearance. That sort of shallow love would be irrational even in this world.
However, it can be rational to love a counterpart that exactly resembles the original. Such a counterpart could have the qualities that would provide a rational foundation for love. For example, if Kelly 1 loved Sam 1 because of his personality, values, laugh, and such, then if Sam 35765 had these same qualities, then it would make sense for Kelly 1 to love him. After all, he has the same qualities. To use an analogy, if Kelly loves Cherry Breeze pie because of its qualities, then she is obviously not limited to loving the first Cherry Breeze pie she had—any adequately similar Cherry Breeze pie would suffice.
Now imagine that there was one Cherry Breeze pie that Kelly loved above all others and that this pie could be duplicated to such a degree that every aspect of the pie would be indistinguishable from her most beloved pie. In this case, Kelly would love that exactly resembling pie as much as the original.
There is the obvious concern that there would be a fundamental difference between any counterpart and the original; namely that there would be no history or relationship with the counterpart. So, while Kelly 1 might love the qualities of Sam 35765, she has never done anything with him and thus has no history or relationship with him. She could develop that history and relationship, of course, but that would be falling in love with a new person. While it is true that Kelly 1 has no past relationship with Sam 35765, she selected the world in which Kelly 35765 and Sam 35765 did everything that Kelly 1 and Sam 1 did—there would be no distinguishable difference. Kelly 1 knows everything that happened between the other Kelly and Sam and will act exactly as Kelly 1 would have.
Going back to the pie analogy, while Kelly would have no established relationship with the new pie, the fact that it is (by hypothesis) exactly like the original pie in every way (other than being new) would intuitively entail that Kelly would love the new pie as much as the original. Everything discernable about the relationships with the pies would be the same other than their bare difference. If Kelly declared that she loved the original but did not care for the new pie, her claim would seem to be utterly unfounded—after all, she could point to no qualitative difference that would warrant her assertion.
It could even be contended that, in a way, Kelly does have a relationship with the pie—since it is exactly like the original pie, it would fit seamlessly into the relationship she had with the original pie. As such, it would be rational to love the exact counterpart of someone one loves.
Since I made the error of referencing true love, I opened the portal to easy and obvious objection to my position. One basic element of true love is that one person (Kelly 1) loves another (Sam 1) and not that person’s qualities. This is because qualities change and can be possessed by others. Intuitively, true love will not fade and cannot be transferred to another person that simply has the same qualities.
For example, if Kelly loves Sam because of his brilliance and humor. Then she would love someone else who had the same brilliance and humor. This sort of interchangeable love is not true love. If what is loved is not the qualities of a person, there is the question of what this might be. What is wanted is something “beneath” all the qualities that makes the person the person they are and distinguished them from all other things. Fortunately, philosophy has just such a thing in stock: the metaphysical self. This, as should come as no surprise, takes the discussion into the realm of Kantian philosophy.
Kant split the world into noumena and phenomena.[i] The phenomena are the things as they appear to us. This is what we experience-such how good a person looks in a swim suit. We can have empirical knowledge of such things. The noumena are the things in themselves. Kant claimed the noumena cannot be known because they are beyond our experience.
On Kant’s view, it would be sensible to stick with the phenomena and not speculate about the noumena. But, Kant claims that cannot resists the sweet lure of the transcendent illusions of metaphysics.
The metaphysical self is the illusion that is needed here. Like David Hume, Kant thinks we have no impression of the metaphysical self. What we do have are impressions, via introspection, of the empirical self. The inner eye never sees that metaphysical self; it just encounters things like feelings and thoughts.
Unlike Hume, Kant argues that we must think of our experiences as if they occur within a unified self. This provides with a frame of reference for thought and it is thus useful to accept a metaphysical self. Since it is useful and we need the metaphysical self to make sense of things, Kant concludes that we should accept it. While Kant did not take the step of arguing for true love, I will do this now.
Applying his method to true love, true love would be impossible without the metaphysical self. As such, it is a necessary condition for true love. The metaphysical self is obviously beyond the realm of scientific proof. However, true love is irresistible because it seems to be a critical belief for our happiness and our conception of ourselves. As such, while Kelly 1 might feel that she loves Sam 35756, this would be irrational: Sam 35756 is not her true love. As would be imagined, in a tragically poignant Twilight Zone style sci-fi story, she would come to realize this.
While true love is appealing, the objection can be countered. This should not be surprising, since the argument itself acknowledges that it is appealing to an illusion. But, of course, what is needed is a substantive reply.
While the idea of a metaphysical self behind all the qualities sounds fancy, it is merely a repainted bare particular. It is bare because it does not have any qualities of its own beneath all the qualities that it possesses. It is a particular because there is only one of each (and each one can only be in one location at a time). In the ideal love of the objection, one loves the bare particularity of another as opposed to qualities that can change or be duplicated by another.
Fortunately for my position, there is a rather serious problem with this notion of love. When we interact with the world we interact with various qualities. For example, Kelly can see Sam’s quirky smile and experience his keen intelligence. But it seems impossible for her to be aware of his bare particularity. Since it has no qualities there would seem to be nothing to experience. It would thus be impossible for Kelly to be aware of Sam’s bare particularity to love him. As such, love must be about detectable qualities.
While this is less romantic than the idea of metaphysical true love, it is more realistic and intuitively appealing. When one person talks about why they love another, they talk about the qualities of the person. Some dating services also make a big deal about testing people for various qualities and using them to find compatibility and love. Scientists also talk about the emotion of love as being driven by genes in search of suitable genes to combine with. Given this evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude that when Kelly loves Sam, she loves his qualities. As such, if it was rational for Kelly 1 to love Sam 1, then it is just as rational for Kelly 1 to love Same 35756. There is, after all, no discernible difference between the Sams.
In the above essay, I considered the issue of whether it is rational to love the metaphysical counterpart of someone you love. I contended that this is just as rational as loving the original person argued for my position by appealing to intuitions and using arguments from analogy. In the interest of fairness, I also considered the transcendent argument for true love. Thus, love is not only possible, it is possible across worlds.
Cherry Breeze Pie
Ingredients
Crust
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup butter or margarine — melted
or 1 pre-made graham cracker crust
Filling
1 package cream cheese — (8 ounces)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 can cherry pie filling — (1 pound, 5 ounces)
Directions
- Cook butter and sugar in saucepan over medium heat until mixture boils. Remove from heat and mix in graham cracker crumbs. Press mixture evenly and firmly into 9-inch pie plate to form a crust. Chill. (Or just buy a pre-made crust).
- Beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually mix in sweetened condensed milk, stir in lemon juice and vanilla. Spread in crust. Refrigerate 3-4 hours or until firm.
- Top with chilled cherry pie filling. To remove pie pieces easily, place hot wet towel around sides and bottom of pan before cutting.
[i] Kant presents this distinction in I. Kant (1965), Critique of Pure Reason (trans. J. Ellington), New York: St. Martin’s Press.
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