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I thought universe was all encompassing, but then I thought about multiverses, and then I thought about parallel universes, so what's a word that's more all-encompassing than an universe, and what's the ultimate word that encompasses all things?

For example:

The ____ contains all universes including parallel and those from other dimensions.

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  • "mother universe" (my coinage)
    – Mohammad
    May 22, 2021 at 13:33

3 Answers 3

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"The universe" already covers absolutely everything.

All existing matter, space, time, energy, etc., regarded collectively, esp. as constituting a systematic or ordered whole; the whole of creation, the cosmos.

Everything else you're talking about doesn't actually exist. Sci-fi writers can come up with anything they'd care to. "The multiverse" is pretty standard.

orig. Science Fiction. A hypothetical space or realm of being consisting of a number of universes, of which our own universe is only one; (Physics) the large collection of universes in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, according to which every event at the quantum level gives rise to a number of parallel universes in which each in turn of the different possible outcomes occurs.

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As a matter of fact, the Wikipedia entry on Multiverse suggests that it also covers parallel universes. So, it would seem multiverse is actually the word you're looking for.

Omniverse might work even better, since the prefix omni- implies all-encompassing (whereas multi- only hints at a collection of universes, of which there could be many, depending on the context).

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Contrary to @Ily's opinion, I'd agree with the second sense in the OED link they supply. "Multiverse" is not a science-fiction term, but a perfectly reasonable one used within the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

But, to continue that theme, there's another term proposed by a credible physicist, although it is extremely speculative -- but definitely a serious, non-fictional proposition:

The Ultimate Ensemble is proposed by Max Tegmark to refer to the collection of absolutely all self-consistent logical structures, going far beyond the concept of physical existence that "universe" or "multiverse" refer to, and instead encompassing anything that might exist in mathematics, logic and computer science.

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