The Shady Milkman

After watching “The Story of Everything” episode of Stephen Hawking’s Into the Universe, I developed a radical new theory about déjà vu—that mysterious feeling of “haven’t I done this before?” It was like a small bit of his genius was transmitted through my TV and into my brain.

Before I jump ahead with my theory, I’ll quickly paraphrase and summarize Mr. Hawking’s theory on the Universe. He adheres to the Big Bang Theory, which says everything in the ENTIRE Universe has developed from one single point in space and time. After the Big Bang, the Universe expanded, and continues to expand, until, as Mr. Hawking believes, it reaches its limit, and then begins to contract. The Universe is cyclical, which is the fundamental idea behind my theory on déjà vu.

If every element, molecule, atom, quark and neutrino can trace its roots back to one single point in the Universe, then it is safe to say that everything on Earth, at the most basic level, is made up of the same matter. And if the Universe is cyclical, that means everything that has happened up to this point, will happen again in billions, maybe trillions of years. Our galaxy will form again, our solar system will form again, and our planet, Earth, will form again, as I believe this has happened countless times before.

So when the Earth is inevitably destroyed by the death of our own Sun, at the latest, all of our matter will be thrown back into the Universe, to eventually be recollected in that one single point in space. I believe that all of the memories we’ve gained over the thousands of years that humans have existed, will continue to remain forever, because I believe they are permanently imprinted into the matter that makes up our brains.

After the condensation of the Universe, and the Big Bang II occurs trillions of years from now, matter will again shoot to the edges of space, expanding the Universe and creating the many galaxies and nebulas we’ve come to know today, again. And when Earth is re-formed, and humans evolve once again, our brains have the chance to be made up of the many different pieces of memory-imprinted matter that existed in the former version of the Universe. And just as the Universe is cyclical, the Earth is too, so that everything that has happened in history—the building of the Great Pyramids, the Roman Empire, the discovery of America, World War II, etc.—will happen again.

Different people may achieve the legendary discoveries or execute the despicable injustices that have occurred in Earth’s history, but the actions themselves will remain the same—as they say, “history repeats itself”. So the next time you’re having a conversation and you get that incredibly odd feeling of “haven’t I don’t this before?”, you’ll know that haven’t, but that someone else has, and your action triggered that memory to be re-kindled, if only for a moment.

As humans, we only have the capability to think in the perspective of our time units, meaning one year equals the amount of time it takes for our Earth to complete one full revolution around the Sun, which makes it hard to grasp the sheer size of the Universe. But thinking from a Universe prospective, one billion years isn’t that long at all.

And if you think the odds of my theory being true are “a billion to one”, you could be right. But the chance that the Universe had to form the way it has had the same odds…and look where it is now.