Is it possible for a single object to have multiple references to it at the same time?

Yes, in iOS (both in Swift and Objective-C), a single object can have multiple references to it simultaneously. This is a common situation when several variables or properties refer to the same instance of a class. It is important to understand that object lifetime management is handled through reference counting (ARC — Automatic Reference Counting). An object will exist as long as there is at least one strong reference to it. For example:

class Person {}

let person = Person()  // first strong reference
let anotherReference = person  // second strong reference

Here, person and anotherReference point to the same Person object. The object will only be deallocated when both references are no longer in use or are set to nil.