ASM004 Rising Waters, an Expanding Universe, and an Infinite Number of Hells

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rising waters an expanding universe and an infinite number of hells all that and more on this episode of ask science mike

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welcome to ask science mike a weekly podcast where i answer your questions about science faith and life we've had lots of wonderful questions come in via ask sciencemike on twitter youtube and soundcloud but they all have one thing in common except for one case it's only guys recording questions so ladies this week i'd love to hear from you ask science mike let's get it started [Music] our first question this week came in on twitter and asked the following if the universe is expanding what in or of the universe is actually expanding great question uh one i had to figure out myself just a couple of years ago so when we talk about the big bang we all understand that the universe started as this tiny point and expanded outward and that's that's how we understand the big bang and that's uh that's wrong the universe did not start out as a point at all the universe which we understand to likely be spatially infinite although we're not 100 sure of that the universe may be uh limited in volume but either way it does not have edges if the universe is not infinite then if you move far enough you can arrive back where you began and that's called a closed universe model but we think the universe is probably flat um but we mean that in a three-dimensional context not a two-dimensional context which is the way our brains think of flat either way a flat universe would be spatially infinite a closed universe would not be spatially infinite but would still have no edges which means when space was compressed into a singularity before the big bang it was still spatially infinite and i know that doesn't make sense because our brains don't work that way but but picture a balloon okay when a balloon doesn't have any air in it it's small and when you blow up the balloon it gets bigger and bigger and bigger now if you lived on the surface of the balloon uh and you were very small the balloon would look flat your balloon universe would look flat but if you went far enough in one direction you'd come back to where you began okay so the universe space itself was once compressed nearly infinitely into what we call a singularity but but space was still infinite and so space itself is expanding now what does that mean how do we know when we look out into the sky everything is moving away from us and the further something is from us the faster it's moving away so picture for a second that you're baking a loaf of raisin bread right and when it starts out it's just dough with raisins in it you put it in the oven and all the raisins are really close together but as that dough begins to rise the raisins are going to get farther from each other from the perspective of any one raisin the raisins that are farther away will move away faster okay now imagine that your raisin bread is infinite without without end you now you have the universe okay only raisins are galaxies um so there's no thing for a space to expand into it's space itself and the universe by the way means everything there's nothing outside the universe now sometimes we talk about multiverses and we're going to in the next question but it's important to note that when you talk about multiple universes you're talking about multiple observable universes in order for a universe to be a universe it must encompass everything there can't be any additional universes so in multiverse models there are multiple observable universes now what does that mean since space is expanding so rapidly and it is it's booking um we can only see a certain distance from any point in the universe because there hasn't been enough time for light to reach every other point in the universe right a spatially infinite universe that's been around for 13.77 billion light years is going to only have a sphere uh at any point that extends out towards the temporal edge of the universe doesn't mean there's nothing at the end it just means there hasn't been time for any information to get to you from anything further away i know that's confusing so on ask sciencemike.com i'll include a link to a youtube video that will make that easier to understand some visuals will help but the important thing here is the universe is not expanding into anything the universe itself space itself which is probably infinite is expanding but remaining infinite while it does so [Music] our next question comes from the email inbox and it reads so if multiverse theory is true isn't it possible all of our life choices have been made for the better and for the worse how do you see this sitting with the traditional christian heaven and hell discussion do you think most churches will resist this theory more so than evolution this is a really interesting question mainly because the public's has an ongoing love affair with multiverses i probably hear multiverse cosmology reference than any other form of new physics or or theoretical physics discussion and that's because it's captivating to think about that maybe there's another universe where i'm a billionaire or another universe where you know i'm in better shape or whatever whatever sort of different reality you're imagining that there's some plausibility that your dreams are true somewhere but i think it's important to note that no matter how much we talk about multiverses there is only one universe no seriously no matter what happens there is only one universe but because by definition the universe is everything that exists so if one of these models we're about to talk about is true and there are multiple universes well that just means the universe is all of those universes and that means by definition those sub-universes are not universes in and of themselves but instead observable universes we know already that our observable universe is a fraction of the total universe right we can only see as far away as light has had time to travel since our universe emerged from a singularity and since it became uh translucent to light about 380 000 years later so we can only see a part of the universe so we know there are multiple observable universes because there is universe beyond the edge of what we can see of course it's not what people are talking about when they talk about multiple universes so let's talk about some of the contenders from multiverse models that would be multiple observable universe models and there are several the first of which and probably my favorite is brain theory and i don't mean brain br like your brain in your head b-r-a-i-n i mean brain as in short for membrane b-r-a-n-e this is an outgrowth of string theory which is an attempt to describe in physics why you know the standard model of quantum mechanics and einsteinian relativity don't really mesh all that well together and in brain theory multiple spatially infinite three-dimensional universes are stacked on top of each other in the nine total dimensions of string theory and think about that for a second that would mean there could be another universe centimeters away from this one but we could never get to it because it's in additional dimensions spatial dimensions that we don't have access to that's kind of a wild model and one variation of this model is cyclical and that occasionally these membrane universes touch one another and cause a big bang kind of wild um brain theory another model is bubble universes and this is uh one variation is called infinite cosmic inflation which you can read more about in lawrence krauss's book a universe from nothing and this posits that after the universe began to emerge from a singularity and inflated faster than light speed it continued to do so and continues to do so forever but sometimes part of this infinite expanding universe slow down below light speed a fraction of an infinite universe that is infinite in itself becomes a bubble universe like a like an air bubble boiling in a pot of soup and our universe would be a bubble inside of this larger fabric that continues to accelerate faster than light speed and there are multiple universes potentially infinite universes or at least a very very high number of universes each potentially with their own laws of physics which is also true in brain theory and the reason these universes have their own laws of physics is an attempt to explain why our laws of physics are so balanced and fine-tuned like they are if if any of the fundamental forces of physics were a bit different we wouldn't have atoms and planets and galaxies and stars and people or puppies or any any of these delightful things that we love they're dependent on the laws of physics being tuned in such a way and both brain theory and bubble universes are an attempt to explain why our universe is so well fine-tuned as is cyclic theory cyclic theory is this idea that after every big bang eventually there's a big crunch and that it happens over and over again and so you have infinite universes but instead of being separated spatially they are separated temporally by big bangs and big crunches there's another idea of black hole cosmology that all of our our universe is inside a black hole and that inside our black hole black holes in this universe are other universes and you know there's some mathematical support for that uh there's even an idea i read once that what's inside a black hole in this universe is our universe and it's our universe all the way down which doesn't make any sense to me at all um another idea and this one's even more out there is simulation theory that's the idea that if it's possible to simulate a universe on a computer then it's already been done it'd be very unlikely that we're first and therefore we're living a simulation you know the idea is that maybe we're all on some you know celestial iphone and a 13 year old will give us eternal life if he visits the app store i'm making light but you know that's the idea that we all live in a computer there'd be no way to disprove that and finally the most popular uh multiverse hypothesis is the mini world's model and that's the idea that in quantum mechanics because it's weird and difficult to predict the math behind particle interactions um and it's it's very strange and elegant mathematically so theoreticians guess that perhaps every possible quantum interaction occurs and therefore there are an infinite number of universes separated timelines that every decision you can make is made in every possible variation in an ever expanding cone of probability all these theories have something in common there is no observation or evidence to support any of them they are all mathematical hypotheses wherein theoretical physicists and cosmologists are trying to figure out avenues of inquiry to answer some of the bigger questions of cosmology like why our universe exists as it does the trick with any of these is is we don't have a way to probe them yet so they're not scientific theories like the theory of evolution or the big bang theory or the theory of gravity there's no observation we can make and kind of by definition in most of these an observable universe doesn't really intersect the other observable universes from our understanding of physics there is no road to probing this now you know potentially we can uh there's been some experiments actually where they're trying to figure out a simulation theory is true and we're getting on the threshold of maybe examining the many worlds hypothesis but bubble universes brain theory cyclical theory black hole cosmology we've got some hard limits in physics on how we could ever look at those which brings me to heaven and hell science doesn't speak to heaven or hell as i mentioned in the last episode it's on the other side of death and we have no way to probe that science being true to the null hypothesis would say that nothing happens after death until we have proof otherwise unless we have some reason to believe that and still most people believe in an afterlife an overwhelming majority of christians believe in heaven and a significant majority of christians believe in hell so how would we reconcile heaven and hell with the multiverse and when we do this we're speculating on top of speculation but i want to be true to the question i want to answer it even though i spend very very little time thinking about hell and only a little bit more thinking about heaven if the many worlds hypothesis is true and every possible decision plays out in every possible way and if heaven and hell are also both true and god is just if we make all those assumptions then we would have to conclude that there are an infinite number of heavens and hells to contain all of the infinite variations of souls that have made the differing decisions that lead to either destination so if heaven and hell are real and if the mini world hypothesis is real then we have to conclude there are infinite heavens and hells [Laughter] that's a fun question that has absolutely no life application whatsoever hey science mike what do you believe about the story of noah do you um do you think it's a purely mythical account and there was no flood that happened or maybe it's just an account of a tribal civilization wiped out by local flood um yeah i would love to know what you think about that i know there's some research going on in the black sea talking about a civilization that might have been there and might have been wiped out by a flood so yeah that would be really great to hear about i am not a biblical scholar i study the bible a lot i study the writings of biblical scholars but i'm honestly more comfortable with say cosmology or neurology than interpreting the anthropological implications of the old testament um i just wanted to be clear about that out of the gate but let's talk about noah and let's talk about the flood we're getting a lot of genesis questions which of all all the old testament is i don't know if it it's not really my favorite book anyway um so let's let's talk about the flood uh is a global flood a mythic account in my opinion absolutely geology does not support a global flood it just doesn't i know you know answers in genesis has a very strong belief that uh there was a global flood and that belief in a global flood is essential to the christian faith i just disagree completely now there are a lot of flood myths in ancient societies and those are probably based upon two things one fear of flooding which as we became agricultural before we were good at irrigation proximity to a waterway was essential to agriculture even before that in tribal society proximity to water was helpful and you can imagine as we started to settle and rains came and floods destroyed our primitive settlements and and ended life we were afraid of rising waters but because the flood myths and global flood myths are so pervasive in ancient mythologies many anthropologists do believe that there was some significant flood event in the mesopotamian river valley that left a mark on the survivors that was significant and so what i think is likely is the story of noah is a hebraic retelling of other flood accounts um you know and because in that time in history oral tradition and oral story defined a culture people's identity was based in the story of their people it was essential to have your own flood myth that doesn't mean i think anyone sat down and came up with noah as a fabrication i think that over time that story mutated and became endemic of a local people group so uh i don't think there was probably not an ark i don't think that it was full of every kind of animal on the planet i don't think that all of humanity was repopulated from one family genetic science makes us indicate that there's never been fewer than about 1200 humans on the planet although 1200 humans is frighteningly close to extinction if there's 1200 of any other large mammal on this planet we we panic and we we do what we can to help so yeah i think i think the flood's probably a largely mythic account but what's important when i study this mythology and i study any scripture what did this person know and understand about the god that i serve and the flood account speaks of a god who promised never to flood the earth again and who could be trusted and that was different than other accounts of deities in that time in history the noah account tells us that our god can be trusted and i'm fine living in that space and exploring that and looking for other themes other things that that passage can teach me i just don't read it as a history a historical account of a global flood because to do so puts me at odds with geology it forces me to refuse to accept reality as presented by the world and i don't mean the world as in the church versus the world i mean the fabric of reality the universe itself i get that some people are really uncomfortable with that if you need to believe in the flood believe in the flood i don't care doesn't bother me i go to church with people who believe in a literal flood i don't think they're stupid i don't think i'm smarter than they are i just think that the science is really clear but you know there's a lot bigger issues in my life to work out than the historicity of the global flood and if noah's family really did repopulate the whole earth for me my faith makes more sense if that's a mythic account from the people of god [Music] hi science mike my name is justin and i'd like to hear some of your thoughts about the concept of spiritual warfare and i know you did a little segment about angels recently but really what i'm more curious about is the the larger concept of the idea where there's this non-physical realm in which non-physical entities uh both good and bad or constantly doing battle and that this battle can and does regularly spill over into our physical world and we might even say that it intentionally and purposefully affects our physical world in order to either aid us or inhibit us in the pursuit of our goals and i i think there's probably a good number of your listeners who would say that they know somebody who tends to over spiritualize everything so you know imagine somebody's driving to a soup kitchen they're going to do some volunteer work or something and they get a flat tire and so their response to that event is to say well you know that was satan or that was a demon or some kind of anti-god force that has conspired intentionally to inhibit me and to keep me from being able to serve god or serve the greater good so i guess i'm just curious what science and maybe human psychology can tell us about the the human predisposition to assign providence to things that might otherwise be described as coincidence and i'm curious to just find out from your own experience what your what your thoughts would be with regard to this idea of spiritual warfare you know do you think there's any merit to that that there is a non-physical realm that is warring and trying to affect our reality or is this really just a construct um that that we as humanity have uh posited in order to try to find meaning in our own existence so i look forward to hearing what your thoughts are really appreciate the show thanks for all you do i'm a mystic well as a mystic i believe it's impossible to put god into human language i don't think it can be done i think neurology has my back on this when we ask people to describe god their temporal lobe modifies the neurological image they have of god that you cannot put spiritual experiences into words but the bible is a collection of words so although it's you know we call it the word of god the words about god um it is not god the bible is not god i i don't even think uh when i was a you know an inerrantist that i thought the bible was god and so when we talk about the unseen forces angels versus demons i think what we're exploring is a cultural understanding of spirituality in a time when the fate of mankind was largely decided by military conquest and when you knew your tribe was god's tribe because you were winning the battle of course all of the metaphors about the spiritual world were military or at least many of them so i'm not i'm not sure that there's like these you know angel demonic battles that doesn't really add up to me now again i know a lot of people who think that way my pastor thinks in terms of actual angels actual demons working in the world my mother thinks that way there's not many people in the world i'm more fond of than my pastor or my mother but i think these terms these constructs as as you said in the question do point to something real and that there are tensions in the world in our own internal lives there are the drive to do what we think we should do versus the thing we want to do i tend to use uh somewhat tried examples like you know eating fatty food versus eating healthy food but it goes deeper than that to do the thing that makes us happiest versus the thing that may help a friend this example can go further and further there's tensions in our lives that feel very much like an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other and that extends out more i've gotten a lot of questions i mean a lot of questions in the email inbox for ask science mike asking if the devil is a real being or a real entity and i don't think of the devil as a being or an entity and if we had more time i'd kind of go through the scriptural arguments where what we call the devil is a collection of literary characters across scripture but the accuser i think is very real the thing behind the devil in scripture the part of our humanity that's brutal and violent and oppressive and selfish is absolutely at work in the world i think if you look on wall street you see the accuser at work i think if you look in war-torn countries or in government corruption including in the united states you see the accuser at work i think when you see people who are depressed or suicidal people with eating disorders when you see a hyper sexualized society that has no respect for men or women as individuals and objectifies human beings without limit you see the accuser at work evil is real absolutely real i was at the sundance film festival last week and i watched cinematic explorations of true accounts of evil i saw a man who uh killed his family and then tricked a writer into teaching him how to manipulate people just so he could have more attention and then he used that insight to torment the writer that's evil that's actual big e evil so there is a war in our world between good and evil it happens in our hearts and is then played out into reality because we alone our species has been gifted with this capacity to ponder right from wrong and to make ethical decisions we alone on this planet have the power to either save other species or wipe them out entirely we alone have the capacity to produce enough food to feed everyone but lack the will to make sure it's distributed that's good and evil that's a real battle that doesn't mean it's carried out by angels and demons but it absolutely is the result of unseen forces [Music] well that wraps up another episode of ask science mike uh sort of the unseen forces and multiverse edition um you guys have great questions i'm really enjoying answering them i do want to ask you for some feedback or at least some insight into a particular issue i've had a lot of questions about sex sexuality and sexual ethics i want to make sure that most of the audience is comfortable with that so i'd love to hear from you on twitter ask sciencemike are you comfortable with questions about sex on this program or do i need to launch like ask science mike after dark i'm not talking about anything explicit necessarily uh just people because of a growing understanding of the world have questions about what's right and what's wrong and i've gotten hundreds and hundreds of questions about that so i would like to cover it if you guys are okay with it but you're the director not me uh if you'd like to submit a question to ask science mike just use the hashtag asksciencemike on twitter soundcloud or youtube i'm there checking all the time and uh i'd love to get your questions we did get a few more recorded questions this week and i appreciate it but i'm still getting a few hundred email questions for every recorded question and your best chance at being on the program is a recorded question now if you have a question that you want to ask anonymously that you're not comfortable attaching your voice to just go to ask sciencemike.com i've got a form right there you can fill out and submit a question anonymously no one will ever know that it was you at science mike was produced by greg nordin who does all our production and sound design and man i'm grateful for that of course our theme song is by jeff bodafort if you do a podcast and you need theme music he is your guy people love the ask science mic theme song and i'm no exception i can't wait to hear what questions you have next week and i'll see you then