Metaphysical universism

Here’s a metaphysical view I haven’t seen: the fundamental obejcts (priority version) or the only objects (existence version) are universes, but there can be more than one of these. Call this metaphysical universism (as distinguished from Quisling’s philosophy).

If in fact there is only one universe, metaphysical universism extensionally coincides with monism. But even in that case, metaphysical universism is a different theory, because it has different modal implications. And if we live in a multiverse, metaphysical universism is extensionally different from monism, since monism says that the one fundamental (priority) or one and only (existence) entity is the multiverse as a whole, not the universes.

I can think of two main advantages of metaphysical universism over monism.

First, suppose there is only one universe. It is plausible that there could be another in addition to this one. Metaphysical universism embraces this possibility. Monism only says that The One could have been bigger so as to comprise two spatiotemporally disconnected regions.

Second, there is an old intuition that being and unity are connected. In a multiverse, monism violates this intuition, for in a multiverse it is the universes that have unity, not the multiverse. Indeed quantum entanglement arguments for monism in the context of a non-Everettian multiverse seem to me to point more towards metaphysical universism than monism.

On the other hand, monism has a significant advantage over metaphysical universism insofar as monism solves the problem of truthmakers of negative and universal claims by making The One be the truthmaker of all of them.

Of course, both theories are false.