The Republic of Heaven

I'm on my second reading of the trilogy and noticing things I didn't see first time, cos I was so caught up in the story. Like the language, but also some philosophical issues, like this one, from page 78. Lyra is newly arrived in Will's world:

" ... and that particular worn stone at the corner of Catte Street - there were the initials SP that Simon Parslow had scratched, the very same ones!... Someone in this world with the same initials must have stood here idly and done exactly the same. There might be a Simon Parslow in this world. Perhaps there was a Lyra."

This set me thinking, what would happen, if after all the adventures of the books, Will and Lyra returned to their own worlds and me Alternative Will and Alternative Lyra? Would the alternative Lyra (from Will's world)recognise Will? Would Alt. Will (in Lyra's world) recognise her? And would they have much to say to each other?

I think this has been discussed before.

But my opinion is that even if they did recognise each other, I don't necessarily think they'd love each other and be able to make it work. The experiences that Will and Lyra shared, I think, was as much a part of their love as their pheromones and DNA. If alt. Will didn't experience those things then how could Lyra love him?

Also, I think those experiences changed them both. If they hadn't experienced those things then they would still be the same people they were at the beginning. IE Lyra would be a lying brat, and imagine Will trying to explain that he had met the alternative her and fallen in love with her, and even (depending on your opinion on this particular issue) had sex with her. He'd get a slap, he would.

Yer! There's more to this parallel world thing than meets the eye. There's something in one of the books somewhere about one small change leading to many others, so your explanation would figure.

idk i think that even if they found an alt. Lyra and Will, they prob wouldnt act or be the exact same as the originals. It just wouldnt be the same i think, so i dont think that a original Lyra or Will could fall in love with a alt. one

They never said that there was another Simon Prarslow, Lyra just thought about it, it could have been someone with the same initials, i don't think that it could evenr happen, the alternate will lyra thing.

note to Taroh, actually spell before you get in trouble....

thank for the warning, i gotta break the habit of shortening words

Just my two pence.
Looking at Will and Lyra's worlds it does not appear like they split just before their birth...with all the differences going on. It split at least before Calvin (Pope Calvin) but most likely even way before that, because in our universe there was zero chance Calvin would be Pope, but not much earlier, or the differences would have been so great there would've been no Calvin.
(If the split was, say 100 years before that, that's 3-5 generations, what are the odds of the all the parents getting together the same way?) So we can safely assume the split was around then, BUT that can never be true. Just because of daemons.
Even in the Bible they speak of daemons. The bible having been written around 100-300AD (historically) or around 0AD(Christian view), and the old testament even before that. So that evidence points to a split before even around 0-300AD. Calvin was born around 1500. That's 1200-1400 years, or 6000-8000 generations, making it virtually impossible that Calvin would have come to exist in that world as well as ours.
But these works are just fiction, anyhow, so let's ignore that. Say the split occured around the time of Calvin, for we know that the histories of the two worlds really went different from then. That makes for almost 500 years from the split to the story and births of Will and Lyra. That's 2500 generations.
The odds of there being either an alt. Will OR alt. Lyra are as close to zero as you can get.

And now to take all my own powder: with multiple universes EVERYTHING is possible, quite literally. There are infinite worlds exactly like ours with differences you are I could never spot, say grains of sand dispersed differently at the bottom of the deepest ocean. So in fact there HAS to be infite worlds with infinite Wills and infinite Lyra's who all went through the same ordeal, and in some there will be alt. Lyra's and Wills. And some will have to meet. In fact there will be infinite worlds with Will and Lyra who went throught this whole adventure, with in all these infinite worlds alternate Wills and Lyras, and in an infinite number of these worlds they will meet. Now notice the first infinite is infitely larger than the second, which is infinitely larger than the third.

So in fact what you state HAS to occur, BUT to be realistic the chances of us having read the story of those Wills and Lyras is infinitesmal. But then again, the chances of us having followed the Will and Lyra we followed is even smaller. .

Are you confused? You should be...

I think that the two worlds are not at the same point in time. SP was written on the stone in Will's world by Simon Parslow, years earlier. So it makes sense that there was also a Lyra years earlier, the same Lyra.

We don't know whether or not the universes are in different times though. Nobody in Lyra's world ever gives us the date.

And DutchCrunch, the suggestion that our world and Lyr'as world split around the time of John Calvin suggests that daemons suddenly popped into existance at that time.

I think it's possible that once a world splits off from another, it can still follow roughly the same historical path. Therefore, we can infer that Lyra's world split off at around the time modern Homo Sapiens appeared (with daemons in L world, without in ours). That's around 10,000 years (correct me if I'm wrong). L world and ours ran "alongside" each other for a while, with a few deviations here and there, like Calvin's Papacy, the overpowering Church, and the electricity-amber switch.

SO, there may or may not be another Lyra and another Will.

So I've just taken the argument back to square one.

I think that the two worlds are not at the same point in time. SP was written on the stone in Will's world by Simon Parslow, years earlier. So it makes sense that there was also a Lyra years earlier, the same Lyra.

Based on the theories on which Pullman based his multiple worlds, this is not possible. They stem from the same original universe. Assuming time is not different there, they are at the same time as we are.

And DutchCrunch, the suggestion that our world and Lyr'as world split around the time of John Calvin suggests that daemons suddenly popped into existance at that time.

I know, I talked about the split being at the start of concious man, but somehow the worlds walked extremely similar paths up till Calvin. Hence my calculions starting at Calvin´s birth. Much like you said, indeed.

SO, there may or may not be another Lyra and another Will.

After the split in the Church, like Calvin's, the world would have changed like a war would've changed it. Families would have moved around, people would have joined other societies, etc. We know that has been going on for at least that time...the odds of there being a Lyra in OW or Will in LW are incredibly small.
But yes, there is the chance .

Really?
I don't believe there would have been at all.Surely if PP had intended it he would have explored it, can you imagine the power of two Asriels or Mrs Coulters?

Anyway I agree with Hermit, Its your experiences that make you who you are and therefore who you could love.

You see? He definately would have explored it had it been his intention.

I'd have thought he would leave it up to the reader to think about..

I'v always wondered about the initials, but I say they would have to have been carved in before the worlds spit, like said further up on the page. How this explains dæmons though, I have no idea.

That's not the only thing that seems to be confusing in this concept of parallel worlds. Even the countries, though spelt differently, may have some kind of shared history or parallel experience.

One more question that will be raised in this kind of discussion is this: did these worlds form at the same time?

Or does a new world come into being every time we make a decision which would have had a definite opposite effect?

The 'Trousers of Time' theory [/discworld junkie]

Trousers? Or maybe boxers of time...or the "leggings" effect.

Although I agree alt. Wills and Lyras couldn't be the same because their experiences had been different, there would still be some strong similarities in character, which are akin to their genes. In that sense I believe this idea opens great possibilities from the literary point of view; something definitely worth for the exploitment of fan-fic writers. One of the issues is that by falling for the alt. ones, they might doubt whether they are or aren't cheating their true love. However, since they are bound to match someone else in their own worlds, wouldn't it be better if they were their alternate ones?

i hope Lyra finds my alternate.

Lyra's world is like Will's world in the past. So...

We didn't have daemons in the past. And in the past the church wasn't merciless