19B - Kosmos Theology (continued) - The Search for Reality

In this post: What is the nature of the Universe? What does the Universe require of us? What are some current theories? What needs to change for these theories to be adequately  evaluated?

In the first part of this post (19A) we mentioned that reality is a very important aspect of Kosmos Theology. Not easy to define,  and harder to identify, nonetheless most people think they know it when they encounter it in daily life (see cartoon above).

Within the context of this discussion, reality is defined as the answer to the questions: what is the nature of the Universe and what does it require of us? As a species, we do not have definitive answers to these questions. That doesn’t stop cosmologists, particularly theoretical physicists and philosophers, from putting forth theories. Let’s look at some examples of hypotheses concerning the reality of our Universe, keeping in mind that while these are probably the most prominent hypotheses, they are not the only ones:

The Universe as a simulation hypothesis – (the most recent theory being taken seriously)

In 2003 a philosopher named Nick Bostrom of Oxford University published a paper hypothesizing that our universe is likely to be a computer simulation. (Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?, Nick Bostrom, Philosophical Quarterly (2003) Vol. 53, No. 211, pp. 243-255.) To understand how widely this theory has attracted the attention of the scientific world, often in positive ways, simply google the phrase “simulation hypothesis” or the phrase “universe as simulation.”

The Universe as a creation of God hypothesis – (the most widely believed thesis)

The three Abrahamic religions, and many others as well, are based on the concept of a transcendent god that created the Universe and everything in it. Like each of the other theories this one includes multiple variations, such as the fundamentalist (scripture-based), the deist and those who believe in yotzer.

The accidental Universe hypothesis – (no intelligence involved in the creation of the Universe)

This is the atheist hypothesis. It holds that the Universe is either infinite (always existed) or totally accidental (the Big Bang just happening from nothing). There is no god, living or dead, that created our Universe.

The multiverse hypothesis – (a response to the anthropic principle)

By the beginning of the 20th century, this theory was widely discussed, mainly in science fiction. It faded to the background, then reappeared with greater vigour in the early 2000s. The extreme version of this theory holds that there are an infinite number of Universes, some or all identical to one another.

At most one of the above hypotheses could be correct. All of them have vehement advocates as well as vehement detractors. None of them can be tested using the classical scientific method, which is to design and perform an experiment, then analyze the results. How then, have scientists and philosophers been going about the business of evaluating hypotheses about the fundamental nature and origin of the Universe? Looking at some of the approaches that have been taken, and the ways in which they seem to fall short, might shed some light on how to proceed.

Robert Wright, a New York Times journalist, wrote a very interesting article in 2016, entitled “Can Evolution have a Higher Purpose?” In that article he points out that the simulation hypothesis has received many positive reactions, with even those who saw it as less than 50% likely to be true, being willing to hear more. (In fact, there are scientists considering the problem of ‘breaking us out of the simulation.’) Wright points out the irony of this response:

If you walked up to the same people who gave Bostrom a respectful hearing and told them there is a transcendent God (the God hypothesis), many would dismiss the idea out of hand. Yet the simulation hypothesis is a God hypothesis: An intelligence of awe-inspiring power created our universe for reasons we can speculate about but can’t entirely fathom. 

In other words, the simulation thesis and the God thesis are one and the same, at the level of Kosmos Theology. Once this is pointed out, it seems quite obvious. That it wasn’t immediately so probably has a great deal to do with the assumptions that underlie much scientific thought about our Universe.

For example, many scientists, particularly cosmologists, have adopted materialism, the philosophy that nothing exists except matter and that all phenomena are the result of material interactions. Accordingly, most scientific cosmologists will not investigate or hypothesize anything non-material, including things that are generally considered supernatural (such as a god – unless, apparently, that god is a computer programmer).

While materialism is widespread in the scientific community, it is not without challenges, especially since the advent of quantum physics. Challengers point out that there are questions about the nature of matter, of consciousness and mind, and about the interaction of matter and mind that materialism does not adequately answer. Clearly, fundamental assumptions, such as materialism or any alternative to it, profoundly affect which hypotheses and phenomena are even considered.

Kosmos theology assumes that there is much more about the Kosmos and about yotzer than scientific materialism can discover. As Hamlet put it: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Before we learned about magnetism, electricity and gravity, these properties were considered supernatural – indeed, magic. In a Kosmos as vast and multi-dimensional as it is, how arrogant we are when we assume that we have learned all its properties. As long as science ignores non-materialist properties, we will continue to be unable to understand our universe and discover reality. We will continue to talk about and avoid reality, and to talk about theories of everything while stumbling in the dark.

There are other ways in which some scientists seem to be adopting methods and approaches that work against an effective search for understanding. Jim Baggott, a highly respected science writer, in 2013 wrote an excellent book entitled Farewell to Reality — How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth. In his preface, he writes:

...Now, modern science has discovered that the reality of our physical existence is bizarre in many ways, but this is bizarreness for which there is an accumulated body of accepted scientific evidence. There is as yet no observational or experimental evidence for many of the concepts of contemporary theoretical physics, such as super-symmetric particles, superstrings, the multiverse, the universe as information, the holographic principle or the anthropic cosmological principle. For some of the wilder speculations of the theorists there can never be any such evidence. This stuff is not only not true, it is not even science. I call it ‘fairy tale physics.’ It is arguably borderline confidence-trickery. Or if you prefer, they have given up… 

Baggot then asserts that contemporary theoretical physics has crossed a threshold in at least two ways: through going too far with speculation that can’t be verified or falsified or even tested and thus bypasses the scientific method; and through popularization of these fairy tales to the point they appear to be mainstream and are often treated by most scientists as so. As he puts it:

The discipline has retreated into its own small, self-referential world. Its product is traded by its advocates as mainstream science within the scientific community and peddled … as such to the wider public. 

Some theories are not provable now, and likely will not be provable for a very long time or ever. This means there must be a way by which, according to strict standards, a level of peer consensus can promote them to reality or temporary near-reality, always subject to the possibility of being disproved. This requires improvements to the management of scientific theories once they are declared plausible.

Without guidance from science, it will continue to be the chore of theologists and philosophers to explore the non-material aspects of the universe. But they too must stay within the bounds of plausibility to achieve any realistic insight. Carl Sagan’s comment on this is worth thinking about:

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?" Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My God is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’ A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. 

Sagan claimed he was not an atheist, but his intolerance of religions was well known, so his comment must be understood in that context. Nonetheless, most organized religions have some work to do to achieve the level of Kosmos theology and to reflect that in their liturgy.

Reality is not what we want it to be, or a product of our prejudices, or our votes or polls. Yet facing it is necessary if we are to win a sports contest, compete in a quiz show, or, for that matter, avoid the end of mankind when the next global extinction event confronts us.