If I die, am I really dead?

[UPDATE] Wait a damned minute. Read to the bottom.

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Bear with me. I’m not a theoretical physicist. I’ve read a good bit of Dummies-level stuff about it, though.

Multiple/Parallel Universe theories posit that there are infinite universes, with one for each possible set of occurrences. Every time you decide to go left instead of right, you branch off another reality.

In other words, what we perceive as reality is merely one instance along an infinite probability curve.

“Sam” exists in lots of other “universes.” There’s one for the universe in which I post this and another in which I don’t (although given how few readers I have, they’re probably damned similar).

So, say I drive off a cliff tomorrow. I’m dead. But there are zillions of alternate probability curves in which I don’t drive off a cliff.

Here I’m “dead.” But here and there are all part of one huge multiverse. Which means … in one respect I’m dead, but in a very real way I’m very much alive, right?

Or at least, I’m as alive as I am now theoretically (to the extent “alive” has any real meaning) – what’s one thread in an infinity of threads?

I’d be grateful for enlightenment. Or a beer.

[UPDATE] Wait a second. In an infinity of universes I’m already dead in millions and millions (hell, trillions)? I barely survived the motorcycle blowing a tire on the highway north of Charlotte back in the ’80s in this world.

So the answer is yes – death doesn’t mean death in the sense we’ve thought about it.

Hmmm….