There Will Be No Violins: 1
In the beginning, reality was fresh and crisp. Like a just-opened bag of potato chips.
Reality was so solid you could tap it with a spoon and it would ring like a bell.
Some people, the kind who wear tinfoil hats and argue on the internet, have started to suggest that reality itself has an expiration date. They believe the universe is like a carton of milk left too long in the cosmic refrigerator, slowly curdling into nonsense. These formidable intellectuals call themselves “Reality Decay Theorists,” though most others call them “those wankers down at the community centre.”
The Reality Decay Theorists claim that déjà vu is just reality hiccupping, trying to reset itself like a glitchy video game. They point to the Mandela Effect. They say it’s not faulty memory, it’s reality starting to rot. Remember when the Monopoly man had a monocle? He never did. Or did he, in a reality that’s since decayed? You can go on like this for some time. It’s a topic that has a way of looping. Spreading. Tangling.
The RDTs (let’s not make life too hard for ourselves) posit that we’re all living in the metaphysical equivalent of a block of cheese that’s been left out too long, our memories and perceptions going bad around the edges.
The increasing absurdity of world events, they tell anyone who will listen, is merely proof that something, somewhere — if not everything, everywhere — is breaking down. That we are living in a decaying loop. That it’s all become too much. And so on.
After all, in a Grade-A, new-in-box reality, would we really elect leaders based on their ability to post snappy comebacks on social media? Would we create devices that are smarter than we are and then use them primarily to look at pictures of cats? And then create software even smarter than that, and use it to generate artificial pictures of cats with a few too many tails?
Etc.
You get the idea.
For my money, this is where the questions start to become interesting.
If reality is decaying, what does that mean for us, the sentient mold growing on its surface? Are we decaying too? Are our memories, our very identities, rotting away with the universe that contains them? Perhaps that’s why your aunt Bridget suddenly believes the Earth is flat and vaccines contain microchips. It’s not Facebook’s fault; it’s reality decay.
And if reality does have an expiration date, what happens when we reach it? Do we all blink out of existence? Do we transition to a new, fresher reality? Or do we continue on, living in a universe that’s gone bad, like cosmic cockroaches surviving in the ruins of creation?
Some philosophers argue that the decay of reality might not be a bad thing. After all, they say, it’s only in chaos that true creativity can flourish. Perhaps as the old, stale reality breaks down, we’ll have the opportunity to shape a new one. Imagine a world where the laws of physics are more like guidelines, where cause doesn’t necessarily precede effect, and where “up” and “down” are matters of personal opinion. It would make for interesting architecture, if nothing else.
Others take a more pessimistic view. They see reality decay as the ultimate entropy, the final victory of chaos over order.
Perhaps the most terrifying possibility is this: what if reality isn’t decaying, it’s evolving? If what we perceive as decay is actually the universe upgrading itself to a new operating system, and our software is no longer compatible?
It’s not a happy thought.
It’s not even a profound one, necessarily.
But it is a thought, nonetheless.
