The random manner in which the world appears to work can strangely make all the parts of your life interconnect in ways you never dreamed. Sometimes when you think about what your life would be like if only x hadn't happened, or if you had made a different decision at some point, you can't even imagine all the other parts of life that would have been affected. Eric had that experience with his dog Nova, which is why this story from Pursuit of Wonder is called the Nova Effect. -via Laughing Squid
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Even if this is "a simulation you can review later," you wouldn't be able to analyze it unless it comes with all the possible alternate timelines. Cosmic.
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It was thinking along these lines (maybe in less depth, maybe more, I don't know) that led me to a completely different belief system than I had in the 1990s. Is there only one soulmate out there, or are there thousands that drift in and out of a Venn diagram saying, "Compatible with You"? What religion is the right one -- are there several or possibly none? If I'm in the mall, and I spontaneously stop walking for 10 seconds, how many lives will this affect through a personal butterfly effect? On that last one, when I'm feeling particularly down, I tend to go somewhere populated and do this, knowing I have had a weird reality-altering effect on the Earth, and maybe the universe, in some minute way. I have both created and destroyed the next Hitler or Hawking, Stalin or Sagan, and so on. I have both totally enriched and utterly wrecked days of my own life, through random happenstance. In what ways, it's impossible for me to ever know, unless this is all a simulation that I can review later.
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