ASM008 Free Will, Attraction, and Does Jesus Save Aliens?

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free will the law of attraction and does jesus save aliens all that and more on this episode of ask science mike

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the questions on ask science mike have gotten dude heavy once again so this is a call for all you ladies out there let's prove that science isn't just for the boys send your questions in i also want to thank all of the patrons this week who have contributed to the program and helped keep it going i appreciate it and also thanks to everyone who's rated the show on itunes it really does help let's get it started [Music] hey science mike it's keith from orlando my question for you today is do you believe in aliens and if so do you believe in an alien jesus because if jesus was here as a human on earth doesn't that provide evidence to say we're the only intelligent life form in the universe i can't wait to hear your response i love the show and keep up the good work thanks this is exactly the kind of question i was hoping for when i started ask science mike uh it has legitimate science content it has interesting spirituality content and it's very whimsical so this has got to be one of my favorite questions that's been on the program so far a great question rapid fire answers do i believe in aliens yes if so do i believe in an alien jesus i don't have enough data to make that call if jesus was on earth doesn't that prove that humans are the only intelligent life no okay here's some rationale first of all life is probably common and i get that idea from a rumination called the drake equation and it's a it's an attempt to quantify how many intelligent uh civilizations there may be in the galaxy or in the universe and there's a lot of really unknown variables in that equation that could be orders of magnitude off um so we can't really use it usefully yet but it does give us ways to think about life for example how many stars are out there how long do stars take to form how many of those stars have planets how many of those planets are habitable right how likely is life to emerge on a planet all these these ideas and what we're learning in astronomy these days is planets are really really really really common they uh outnumber stars significantly planetary systems are common most stars have planets most stars have more than one planet so some of those planets are going to be earth-like well if that's the case where is everybody the night sky is awfully quiet i haven't seen any spaceships recently at least other than the ones that we send out to other planets so where is everybody well there's a there's an idea in astronomy uh called the fermi paradox and that is if there are so many stars and so many planets why isn't the galaxy rife with life and uh i'm gonna link a blog actually my favorite blog i've probably ever read by anybody is by a blog called wait but why and it's on the fermi paradox and i really encourage you to go to sciencemike.com and click that link and read all about it but essentially one of the ideas is that life may be very common but it might not be that common that multi-cellular life is common that seems to be one of the most unlikely events in evolution that actually happened was the jump from single-celled to multi-cellular life and then from there intelligence of our type is not necessarily an inevitable consequence now of course that's all thinking very naturalistically most christians who believe in evolution would be theistic evolutionists and they would believe that evolution was guided by god in some way so that's going to throw off the math but regardless if god made other intelligent life we haven't heard from them yet in that paradigm okay so i'm very comfortable saying life is probably out there in a naturalistic worldview or even in a theistic evolution worldview a biogenesis although we don't fully understand it the process by which life emerged which is different and distinct from evolution which is the process by which the diversity of life on this planet emerged it seems to be a plausible concept even in our own solar system there are multiple bodies that have complex organic molecules and given enough time that chemistry can level up into self-replicating molecules and from their life yet we don't see it so maybe we're the only intelligent life that doesn't have to do anything with jesus or not but let's assume there is other intelligent life and we just haven't been able to contact it because space is so vast what is to say they would sin honestly how would we know that that alien life send how can we assume they were broken or in need of salvation in any way and i think that's an important point we're going to explore salvation a lot in a later question and those ideas behind it but on earth we're the only species that requires any salvation in christian theology so is it so hard to imagine that on other planets there could be life that doesn't require savings interesting idea if other species are out there and they're intelligent and they are sinful and they require salvation they have probably never heard of jesus of nazareth they have probably never heard of earth and so if there's a god guiding their development as well as we assume if god made us made the universe god would also be aware of other alien species we can assume he would have some plan for salvation on that planet the interesting idea comes if uh if we ever encounter another intelligent civilization if it is without sin how will it handle us and if it is uh also broken in the way that we are broken or broken in a completely different way what will that say you know it's easy to imagine that encountering other life in the cosmos will probably be the most dramatic event in human history it'll be a big deal it will probably send a lot of theologians back to the drawing board which i'm cool with i go back to the drawing board all the time with my theology so it'd be nice to see everybody else have to play in that sandbox as well so again ask sciencemike.com i'll have links to the drake equation and more about the fermi paradox interesting question yes aliens don't know about an alien jesus we may or may not be the only intelligent life but the existence of jesus doesn't prove that either way so much fun [Music] hey science mike i have a question about free will do we have it why did you choose to listen to this podcast could you have chosen otherwise if i throw a ball at your face do you choose to catch it if a blast of air hits your face unexpectedly do you choose to flinch how about this i just want you to pick up something nearby anything close by that will fit in your hand go ahead and pick it up and hold it in your hand now i want you to choose that if you drop that object or let it go that it will float in the air can you do it can you choose what you will think next what did you think of why did you choose that could you have chosen to think of something else before you chose to think of that we have reached a tar pit in philosophy and science and that is human will and agency it is a mystery it is confusing let's talk about some of the ideas in science one determinism the universe is made of physical bits right a little quantum phenomenon and they ping around and bounce off each other and they form larger things like atoms and larger subatomic particles like protons and then those bang around off each other and all of this can be described by mathematics and so theoretically if you knew enough math and enough values you could compute how everything would happen from the very beginning you would need a computer larger than the universe to do that but theoretically in determinism it's possible libertarianism not to be confused with the political philosophy is the idea that that's a bunch of bunk that outcomes are not predetermined and that humans can make free choices that is very common in religious thinking the other view is compatibilism that human free will can exist within a deterministic universe that determinism and free will are compatible concepts is called compatibilism now where do i stand it depends on the day and how much i've had to drink first of all pure determinism may face challenges at the quantum level right the unpredictable and poorly understood mechanism of quantum mechanics may or may not completely sweep the rug out from under determinism at a quantum level and the sheer immense volume of atomic and molecular interactions in any system may forever be beyond bounds of computation so no matter what we decide theoretically we may never be able to test it so this is not a problem we're necessarily close to solving and it's interesting to me how the members of each camp express such confidence in their respective viewpoints well i guess it shouldn't surprise me we are humans with human brains but um it's still weird people are so certain about it free will is pretty essential to religious ideas because evil can become a result of human free will and relieves god from that obligation although there are arguments against that like an all-knowing god would be responsible for such decisions salvation also requires free will the ability to choose or reject god now this quantum idea may or may not undermine physical determinism but it doesn't really help us out at the human scale and to think about that who is shoving who you're thinking things and as you're thinking things neurons are firing are the neurons firing because you're thinking are you thinking because the neurons fire what are you going to think next you can't predict it you have no idea your thoughts although you feel like you're choosing to think them they really emerge from some place that you don't understand here's a quote from a guy named sam harris who's a neuroscientist and he wrote a book called free will that i'll link to in the show notes on sciencemic.com and he says the distinction between higher and lower systems in the brain offer no relief i as the conscious witness of my experience no more initiate events in my prefrontal cortex that i cause my heart to beat there will always be some delay between the first neurophysical events that i kindle in my next conscious thought and the thought itself and even if there weren't even if all mental states were truly coincident with their underlying brain states i cannot decide what i will think next or intend until a thought or intention arises what will my next mental state be i do not know it just happens where is the freedom in that to support his thesis sam harris offers many pieces of evidence but one of those is that fmri scans can predict human decisions and movements before our conscious minds are aware of it milliseconds or in some more advanced decision-making processes whole seconds before where where conscious decision has been made we can scan the brain and watch the machinery do its thing and that seems hopeless for free will right if long before we make decisions our brains make decisions for us then our consciousness is just a wagon being pulled by a deterministic horse and you know uh you do so many things unconsciously you don't choose for your heart to be you don't choose to make red blood cells if i flick a pencil across the table you don't choose to slap your hand down and stop it all those things are happening in the lower brain and those are part of you right that's still you but you're not expressing your will in order to do it if you even have it and this whole idea of thought neurons pushing thoughts it seems impossible to overcome but think about it this way what else besides your brain would you want making decisions where else would your decisions come from where else would your consciousness reside you know i think about a clock and it's full of gears those gears don't make time meaningless they're just the mechanism by which the hands of the clock move so all those billions of neurons in your head are responding to an absolutely unfathomable number of photons that are entering your eyes and immense immeasurable vibrations that get measured by your ears and countless electrical impulses that come through your nerves telling you you've been touched but out of that emerges you the atoms molecules neurons and networks form your thoughts but your thoughts turn around and drive changes the other way so on some level we're looking at the same phenomena at different levels looking from the top down our thoughts are real looking from the bottom up they have physical explanations either way human choices matter they have consequences whether or not they're predetermined in a deterministic system the choices you make have absolutely profound power to shape the world and how you can help or hurt others now your agency is constrained you can't choose to believe things that you've never heard anything about or you can't choose to believe things that go against your natural experiences if uh you have genetic or neurological predispositions or disabilities you can't overcome those through your will in matters of justice we should always consider the limits on human agency and the fact that we'd never have truly unconstrained will capital punishment is likely immoral so we should rehabilitate people and failing the ability to rehabilitate them we should simply isolate them to protect other people but in matters of love we should always embrace our power to make choices and our ability to have will we should choose to forgive we should choose to offer grace and we should choose to stand up for the weak and oppressed whether we have truly free will or not we experience agency and we experience making choices and i would challenge you to make the best choices you can make and offer yourself grace when you let yourself down [Music] our next question comes via email and continues to explore these themes of will here's the question a couple of years ago i heard an npr story about james fallon the author of the psychopath inside james is a neuroscientist who discovered that he had both low activity in certain areas of the frontal and temporal lobes linked to empathy morality and self-control as well as the genetic makeup of a psychopath what is fascinating is that he attributes the fact that he is not a murderer or rapist although inclined to aggressive behavior to his loving childhood i was loved and that protected me he says he mentions that once he realized this he also tried to improve his behavior what implications does this research have on the theology of original sin or brokenness or hardwired for struggle or no longer the innocent babes we were whichever you prefer and the theology of sodorology how we are saved from that darkness by our own free will our community and jesus sincerely jinn from orlando florida general thoughtful and interesting question for those of you who aren't theology geeks in the audience and given our broad coalition of skeptics and religious folk i suspect some have never heard the term sodorology is the study of how we are saved you know different religions have different salvation doctrines but even in the big tent of christianity there is not agreement over how salvation happened specifically and that's one of the big drivers of denominational splits that's the reason we have so many variations of christianity in america two views are more common than others one would be calvinism and the other would be armenianism although american catholics are rolling their eyes right now because they don't subscribe to either and as we learned in the last question we may or may not actually have free will and whether we have free will or not our agency does have constraints in american religion and frankly all of western culture individualism is overplayed i think in justice and in our behavior because science is teaching us our behavior is shaped by nature and nurture both have a dramatic influence on who we are and james fallon is a perfect example he's a healthy psychopath but what about someone who has the neurological makeup of a psychopath and grows up in an attention a starved or abusive environment how responsible are they for their actions how responsible are you for your actions do you want to live a healthy life do you want to do good things are there things in your life that you want to do but don't well why would anyone choose to do things they don't want to do and that is because we are not some single neat machine we are a complex messy conflicted electrochemical storm different parts of your brain disagree with each other all the time and your consciousness presents this to you as a narrative in which you are in complete control right i'm fascinated by an ongoing conversation or it might be more of a debate between secularists and progressive christians on the internet over the term brokenness secularists often argue that people shouldn't use the term brokenness at all because there is nothing fundamentally broken about humanity and it echoes of a of an idea in calvinism called total depravity the idea that humans are so wicked that they are completely beyond redemption and seculars go ridiculous uh humanity is capable of great things and humanity is capable of great things but to say that we are not broken in any way i don't think reflects science just look at the ecosystem look at the mass die-off of species that's happening right now and the way humans exploit the earth look at our cultures and the way nations treat each other and the wars that we fight when the bible speaks about a sin nature it is talking about a very real very measurable tendency in humans to do things that are selfish and short-sighted so if we want to talk about sodorology or how we are saved these days i find myself most comfortable with the ideas in the eastern church the church that even thinks uh the roman catholic church are a bunch of crazy modernists when they talk about salvation they talk about sickness and healing they talk about being drawn to god seeking to become holy as we compare ourselves to god's light i honestly think at this point science really challenges a lot of the theological ideas in calvinism even armenianism but this idea in the ancient church of christ healing a broken world of christ showing a better way of christ revealing how to have victory over death through the process of resurrection is both immensely peaceful and reflects an understanding of how humanity works in science today christ came to heal a broken world god sent christ to heal a broken world that's where i'm at today my answer of course may change tomorrow i'll have some links uh in this answer for sure uh to the different views of salvation and sodorology but i'll also link to a ted talk by dr fallon because it's a fascinating story and something i think is worth contemplating [Music] our last question came from twitter when kristen dawn asked could you share your thoughts on the law of attraction not exactly a science question but i'm curious well kristen i think that's totally a science question but that might be why they call me science mike the law of attraction for anyone unfamiliar is most recently popularized by a book called the secret and the idea is like attracts like so if you think positive things positive things will happen to you if you think negative things negative things will happen to you and the thesis behind that idea is that everything including our thoughts is pure energy and this is a funny to me because metaphysics and the new age movement and physics and science have different understandings of what energy is technically yes everything is energy matter is composed of the same stuff that energy is and einstein figured that out and proved it to our satisfaction with the theory of relativity relativity is pretty darn good it stood the test of time quite well practically the idea that your thoughts somehow are transmitted out of your skull through energy and influence the universe is on very shaky ground scientifically there's not really any evidence whatsoever to support that but the secret sold a lot of copies and a lot of people are thrilled with the law of attraction in fact some christian leaders even incorporate ideas from that movement into their teaching prosperity gospel would be one way of adapting the secret to a christian context so why does this seem to work well science does have an answer the way we view the world affects our behaviors and our emotional states that's documented okay that's been tested our behavior the things we do does affect the outcome of what happens to us right and our emotional states affect how we judge outcomes if we decide this was a positive or negative turn so if you believe like attracts like and that encourages you to think positively it means you would believe that you have a greater chance of success you'll believe you're going to succeed it's going to make you determined it's going to make you take action if that happens you're going to make more efforts to succeed which is going to what increase the probability that you will succeed and because you have this positive emotional state whenever your efforts get any traction you're going to view that as validation that positive things are happening attracted to your thoughts so i don't put any stock in the idea that our thoughts magically or mystically influence the world through the power of positive thinking but i do think the power of positive thinking has been shown in studies to influence human behavior and human behavior will make those changes in your life so there's nothing wrong with thinking positive and maintaining a positive outlook on life it has been shown to make you happier [Music] well that does it for another week of ask science mike and i hope you enjoyed this one i felt more constrained than ever by the length of time i have to answer those questions three of those questions could have easily been 30 minute answers on their own but you know you're going to have more ability to dig in on ask sciencemike.com i'll have links for more information there and listen we need your questions to keep the show going and this is especially true for women we have a lot of female listeners you guys respond to me on social media record questions let's get some he for she for science uh this is not a boys club now to ask questions you can use hashtag asksciencemike on twitter soundcloud or youtube and if that's too technically complex folks no big deal just go to ask sciencemike.com where you can submit a question by typing it out and filling out a form which is a great way to do anonymous questions or i've actually got a thing on the site where you can hit a record button and actually do a recorded question with no extra software and no posting or tagging or anything come straight to me i also let you know that we're on stitcher now so if you are not an iphone user even if you are an iphone user and just like stitcher you can hear the show we also have better rss support than we've had before you can now go to feed press dot me slash ask science mike to subscribe to 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