When You Sum(As,e)--repost

The following post is a combination of three posts originally published on rationalfaiths.com. The graphics and formatting might work better on the rationalfaiths website. I encourage reading and commenting there (the posts are more manageable sizes, too), but I'm reposting the whole thing here primarily for and MTA members who might be interested. (As additional information, I will be posting the third Monday of every month over at rationalfaiths, and several of my projected posts this year relate to Mormon Transhumanism.)

http://rationalfaiths.com/when-you-assume/
http://rationalfaiths.com/multiverse-shapes-laws/
http://rationalfaiths.com/infinite-assumptions/
 

You've probably heard the saying: "When you assume . . . you make a sum of As and e." For you non-chemists, that would be arsenic plus one electron making an arsenic ion with a charge of negative one. That's not a very stable ion, so it's not really found in nature, thus the saying makes it clear that assuming is pretty unstable grounds for anyone to base life choices on.
You're telling me you heard a different version of that saying? Oh well, you get the point. Except that's not my point.

Everybody assumes. Assumptions underlie all our strongest convictions. No one is exempt. In fact, much of our war of words--the battle some wage between science and religion, between liberal and conservative, between literal believer and symbolic believer, between whole-hearted supporter and loving critic of the Brethren--is an often unrecognized war of assumptions. I want to frame for you, hopefully in a new way, different assumptions we make about the universe and about God. Many of the assumptions about the universe are currently discussed by working cosmologists. Many of the assumptions about God have been discussed for millennia. Most of the assumptions I favor are shaped by Joseph Smith and Mormonism. Some of the assumptions might be testable, soon, and others never will be directly testable. Why might you care about these assumptions? From certain assumptions, Science can disprove God. From other assumptions, Science can't teach you anything about God and Faith. From still others, Science reveals God, or at least aspects of God, to us. Do you want Science and God to be at war? Do you want Science and God to be separate realms of understanding? Do you want Science to prove or disprove God's existence? Do you want Science to reveal God's glory? Do you want Science to assist religion in teaching you to become gods? Do you simply want to know what's true, or what's good? What science does for (or to) religion depends implicitly on assumptions each of us makes about Science and about God.

In the following posts I'm not going to argue much for or against a particular set of assumptions, and I'll only give hints of the consequences of making certain assumptions, or of prioritizing certain assumptions over others. I am going to lay out, as best I can, some of the unproven, and in many cases unprovable, assumptions that we can and must make about the nature of existence. Which assumptions you choose affect such things as your belief in God, your willingness to learn new things, and your prioritization of ethical choices--like how you balance the giving of your time and resources to temple and missionary work or helping the poor. We all make these assumptions, even if we don't recognize or acknowledge them. They shape and are shaped by both our thoughts and our feelings. So take a walk with me through a tangle of assumptions and see if you can't figure out just what you take for granted about reality.

The Outline

I'm going to summarize my next three posts right here. Part 1 will appear over the next two days. Parts 2 and 3 will follow in a month. If I've piqued your curiosity, come back tomorrow for a second helping.

1. Assumptions about the Universe
   1. Universe or Multiverse?
   2. Finite or Infinite?
      • Flat or Curved
      • Finite numbers of forces and subatomic particles, or not
      • Big and Small (and Infinite) Infinities
      • Variation among universes
      • Something between/surrounding universes, or not
   3.  Assumptions about Evidence
      • Only objective, only subjective, or a mix
      • What mix is acceptable/admissible
2. Assumptions about God
   1. Limited or unlimited knowledge, power, or presence
      • What is the nature of the limitations
   2. Assumptions about God's purposes
      • Assumptions about the best ways to achieve those purposes
   3. One God or family of Gods
      • Nature of God's family
   4. Human interaction with God
      • How involved is God, and how is God involved
3. Conclusions: We all make assumptions, whether we identify them explicitly or not. Those assumptions bear on such important matters as our belief in God, how we react to new learning, how we feel about good and evil in the world, and how and where we devote our time and resources. For me, it's worth taking the time to explore and evaluate these assumptions consciously, and you are invited to join me or observe my exploration.

The three, nested Klein bottles shown in the image have only one side, like a Möbius strip--the outside is continuous with the inside (although a topologist would tell you that this is only an approximation and that a Klein bottle cannot really be made in our three dimensions--thanks, Dad, for the clarification). Our universe could be flat, or it could have an odd, topological shape like the Klein bottle, only in more dimensions. If this were so, with a powerful enough telescope, we might look off into the distance and see our past selves, just in a mirror image. If you want to learn more about this, I recommend How the Universe Got Its Spots by Janna Levin. It's a fun, accessible read about ideas in modern cosmology. She wrote it so her mother could understand her work.
In this second part of my discussion of cosmic assumptions, I introduce questions about the numbers, shapes, sizes, and compositions of universes. See the introductory post, here.

1. Assumptions about the Universe
   1. Universe or Multiverse?
   2. Finite or Infinite?
      • Flat or Curved
      • Finite numbers of forces and subatomic particles, or not
      • Big and Small (and Infinite) Infinities
      • Variation among universes
      • Something between/surrounding universes, or not
   3.  Assumptions about Evidence
      • Only objective, only subjective, or a mix
      • What mix is acceptable/admissible
2. Assumptions about God
   1. Limited or unlimited knowledge, power, or presence
      • What is the nature of the limitations
   2. Assumptions about God's purposes
      • Assumptions about the best ways to achieve those purposes
   3. One God or family of Gods
      • Nature of God's family
   4. Human interaction with God
      • How involved is God, and how is God involved
3. Conclusions: We all make assumptions, whether we identify them explicitly or not. Those assumptions bear on such important matters as our belief in God, how we react to new learning, how we feel about good and evil in the world, and how and where we devote our time and resources. For me, it's worth taking the time to explore and evaluate those assumptions consciously, and you are invited to join me or observe my journey through this and subsequent blog posts.

Assumptions about the Universe

The purpose of this post is simply to examine a number of assumptions made in the realm of physics. Theological assumptions and the practical and ethical consequences of various assumptions must be saved for later posts.

Universe or Multiverse?

An artist's representation of one mainstream model of the progression of universes. Many parts are generally accepted among physicists, while some details are extrapolated from current understandings.

The first question to answer is, what is the universe? Right from this point the language gets messy and the assumptions multiply. Most often, the universe is used to mean the space and time that we live in and can observe, and the stuff beyond our observation that can interact with our observable universe in "normal" ways. I'm going to call that the observable universe. Some people assume that the observable universe is all there is. Many other physicists think it likely that there is existence beyond our universe. They postulate many universes which they call the multiverse. These other universes could arise in a number of different ways, and be connected to or separated from our universe in various ways. There are a few groups of theories about the nature of the multiverse, and while we can't (currently) know which is most correct, just the concept itself influences what are the most logical conclusions about God and about the meaning of life.

Finite or infinite?

I think most modern people think about space and time as going on forever. Because of this you hear arguments like, "With infinite time and space, everything that can happen, will happen, someplace." This is then used to rebut "Intelligent Design" arguments that human life is too complex to have arisen by chance. It's a patently obvious argument. There are only four forces that govern our entire universe. There is a finite number of subatomic particles that make up everything in our observable universe (ignoring for now dark matter and energy, or at least assuming that they are made of a finite number of things). This means that if time and space go on long enough, literally every combination of the things that make up our universe will be tried by the universe just from randomly combining. One of the most peculiarly Mormon hymns celebrates our knowledge that "there is no end to space", and "no outer curtain where nothing has a place". But this argument is only true if our observable universe, or ones very much like it, are infinite. (Side note: I don't like Intelligent Design. Really. A lot. It makes God way too small for me. I also suspect this argument that everything will happen in infinite time and space is flawed, but that's mostly for a future post.)

Flat or curved?

Time and space could be infinite. They could also be finite. It can be argued that time, as we know it, had a beginning with the Big Bang, and that it will have an end with the end of our universe. What about space? Think about our earth. When you go for a long walk, or even drive across country, the world seems basically flat with a bunch of bumps and dips all over it. But we know that if you keep heading in the same direction for long enough you will come back to where you started. The earth is round. The earth is finite. The universe might be round, too. Or it might be a 3-dimensional Moebius strip, or doughnut, or any number of other shapes. The nested Klein bottles (or 3D representation of them) shown in the featured picture show how complex the shape of the universe might be, but living inside it the complexities could be hidden and hard to discern. When it comes to the observable universe, all we know is that it is close to flat for as far as we can see, but there are scientific reasons to ask if the universe might be curved just beyond what we can see, and even theories about what evidence we should look for to answer this question. Time and space in our observable universe might be finite or infinite.

How many forces and particles?

Only 17 known elementary particles. While there are a lot of ways to put these together--more than you or I could count in many lifetimes--the possibilities are still finite.

There are four (and possibly only one) forces that govern how everything behaves in our observable universe. There is a finite number of elementary particles that make up everything in our universe. Is our universe, even if it is infinite in space, time, and/or matter, finite in the ways space, time, and matter can be arranged and interact? Or is there infinitely more complexity as we get smaller and smaller and bigger and bigger, forever? I don't know. No one does, but we actually have some very plausible guesses as regards our observable universe. Unfortunately, that doesn't tell us much about other universes. Does every universe have the same four forces? And if they do, do the forces have the same strengths in the other universes? How about the numbers and types of particles? As far as I know, physicists have not arrived at a fundamental reason why our universe had to have these particular forces tuned just like they are, or these particular particles. And it's possible that intelligent life could emerge or exist in universes with other laws. How many sets of laws can result in intelligent life? Just one, or infinitely many? I lean toward believing the latter, or at least something a lot bigger than one. What do you think?

Tomorrow

I  apologize for cutting this post off in the middle, but I'm at the end of my wife's attention span (for this kind of stuff, anyway), and that is my rule of thumb for post length. Next time I'll continue with the discussion of the multiverse and some thoughts about just how big (and small) infinity might be.

In this third part of my discussion of cosmic assumptions, I explain that not all infinities are created equal. I discuss different sizes of infinity, variation among universes, and assumptions we make about evidence.  See the introductory post, here, and the follow up post, here.

1. Assumptions about the Universe
   1. Universe or Multiverse?
   2. Finite or Infinite?
      • Flat or Curved
      • Finite numbers of forces and subatomic particles, or not
      • Big and Small (and Infinite) Infinities
      • Variation among universes
      • Something between/surrounding universes, or not
   3.  Assumptions about Evidence
      • Only objective, only subjective, or a mix
      • What mix is acceptable/admissible
2. Assumptions about God
   1. Limited or unlimited knowledge, power, or presence
      • What is the nature of the limitations
   2. Assumptions about God's purposes
      • Assumptions about the best ways to achieve those purposes
   3. One God or family of Gods
      • Nature of God's family
   4. Human interaction with God
      • How involved is God, and how is God involved
3. Conclusions: We all make assumptions, whether we identify them explicitly or not. Those assumptions bear on such important matters as our belief in God, how we react to new learning, how we feel about good and evil in the world, and how and where we devote our time and resources. For me, it's worth taking the time to explore and evaluate those assumptions consciously, and you are invited to join me or observe my journey through this and subsequent blog posts.

Variation among universes

The questions I ended yesterday's post with are ones we have to ask about every possible universe, if there is more than one. Are the numbers of universes infinite, or finite? Is there stuff between the universes, or does nothing exist except where there are universes? Are other universes finite or infinite? Do other universes obey the same laws and have the same subatomic particles as our universe? All of these are currently unanswerable questions, but the ways we think about God, religion, and any number of other things implicitly affirm certain subsets of assumptions and deny the possibility of others. Extrapolating back to our implicit assumptions can reveal inconsistencies in our beliefs. One of the most disconcerting is revealed when we think about there being no end to time and space in our universe--something many of us assume--and also accept the idea that there are multiple universes. Is it even possible for there to be two, infinite universes? If a universe is infinite, doesn't it reach everywhere? And if it reaches everywhere, wouldn't two, infinite universes overlap each other in time and space, and be one universe? The answer to these questions is no.

A line can be infinite and still be infinitely smaller than a plane. This heirarchy of infinities has no end, in theory. Whether it has a practical end in our cosmos is an open question.

Big and Small Infinities

Different sizes of infinities is not an idea that cosmologists or mathematicians struggle with, but the rest of us don't always find it so natural. Infinities come in different sizes. They come in vastly different sizes. Imagine infinitely many libraries. How many books are in those libraries? How many pages? Letters? Ink molecules? Atoms? Getting the idea? But this doesn't begin to show the scope. There are infinities so big that other infinities might as well be zero, when you put them next to each other. In the limit approaching infinity (you probably can't really get there), some other infinities are zero. And there are potentially infinitely many sizes of infinity. Our Cosmos (that's what I'll call the sum of everything that is) might be made up of finities and infinities nested inside of each other, with some being so big that others vanish in insignificance, while others are so close in size that they have to share importance equally. The accompanying figure is intended to help you grasp this idea visually. First take an infinite series of points, sort of like counting by 1's from negative infinity to positive infinity. That's a lot of counting, but it doesn't compare to the number of points in a continuous line spanning that same range. And a line is infinitely smaller than an infinite plane. Add a third dimension, and you are infinitely bigger. Is there an end? I don't know. I think some really smart people would be surprised that their beliefs carry implicit assumptions about infinity that might not be true, or at least don't support their religious (or anti-religious) conclusions. What do your beliefs imply about the infinities of the Cosmos? I'll come back to that question in the future as we think about various understandings of Mormon Gods. Until then, maybe just try to get used to the idea that infinity comes in many sizes.

Evidence

Nearly certain knowledge results when all our sources of evidence agree. When various sources disagree or are silent, we can have many different reactions. A few of the possibilities are shown in this figure.

One key factor influencing individuals' beliefs is the nature of acceptable evidence. Most of us generally believe scientific data, with varying degrees of common sense scepticism. We are influenced by our expertise, our emotional investment in the subject, and our confidence in the practitioners or reporters of the science. Where we take issue is primarily in interpretation. Whether we can identify them or not, we are at least vaguely aware that scientific interpretation is influenced by human biases and methodological biases. For example, someone like me gives more weight to the professional opinions of LDS Egyptologists regarding the Book of Abraham than to Egyptologists who haven't shown a deep (or even passable) understanding of Mormonism. It's a bias I like. Another way we select our biases is in accepting or rejecting personal, subjective experience as credible evidence. Typically, people accept a level of subjective experience as evidence, but require checks and balances on its credibility. We require multiple witnesses in court. We require multiple labs to reproduce results on important findings. We require ourselves, as researchers, to replicate results multiple times in an attempt to reduce instrumental error and subjective, human error. Some psychological research must accept personal experience as real because that is the reality being studied. Where we divide is when scientifically objective reality and subjective personal experience conflict--or appear to.

I am not a cosmologist. I am not a climatologist. I am not an evolutionary biologist. I am a biophysicist, so I have many of the tools to understand and partially evaluate the explanations of these groups when their claims interest or influence me. So I make judgments about evolution, global warming, and the size and nature of the universe based on expert reports.

I am not a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator. I did not know Jesus or Joseph Smith personally. I am not a theologian, nor am I a historian of religion. I have received answers to prayers and had experiences where I believe truth was revealed to me. My grandparents' grandparents knew Joseph Smith, personally. I've read a fair amount, including a modest amount of theology, philosophy, and history. In other words, I have some of the tools to evaluate the claims of professionals and prophets. I have my own witness, but I also trust my grandfather's testimony who knew and trusted his grandfather, who personally knew and trusted Joseph Smith. It's third hand trust, but it's trust earned by lifetimes of demonstrated goodness, intelligence, and love. I trust these personal, subjective experiences. I claim them as evidence, for me. There are at least two other ways to treat these evidences: claim them as evidence for everyone, or reject them as evidence for anyone. Rejecting them for the purposes of scientific study does not require me to reject them as true, only as objective. What evidence do you accept? What checks and balances have you applied to it? These are questions I think you can't ever stop asking if you aspire to eternal progression.

Unsettl(ed/ing) Science

Most of the assumptions I've identified so far are real, undecided questions in Science. Many of them will possibly never be decided, because pushing back the boundaries of the unknown will only reveal another level that leaves the same questions open--just in a different way. This can be unsettling and disconcerting enough that people react with strong emotion. Some doggedly assert that, even if there is reality beyond what we can observe, it is unethical to use that reality as grounds for deciding what we should do here and now. Others tell themselves, if scientists can't even agree amongst themselves, I don't need to pay any attention to them. I can just decide that my church, or my personal experiences are right without any reference to what has been measured scientifically. I hope most of us make an effort to find the most productive, middle ground to live in, even if it is harder or less certain.

Next Month

I'll give those interested a little time for these ideas to settle. Next month I'll pick up with assumptions we make about God and how God interacts with the observable universe, and I'll try to connect the assumptions we make about the Cosmos to real, everyday ethical choices that confront us.