- So what is the multiverse?
- The multiverse is the idea that it might
be that our universe isn't the only one,
that there might be more universes beyond
our own, beyond the boundaries of our own
And some people are even saying there might
be an infinite number of universes beyond our own.
- And why is this seen as sort of a problem
that spans religion and science?
- Yeah
So the reason is that the multiverse idea
has been around for a long time
I mean, in Western philosophy, it actually
has about a 2500 year history, but it's really
resurging back in the last couple of decades,
partly because physicists are looking for
an answer to why the universe seems so finely
tuned, why it seems like all of the constants
of nature are precisely set so that the universe
can can emerge, can sustain life, things like that
And the danger for physics is that if you
say that the universe seems really well tuned
for life, that the theologians can rush in
and say, Aha! God did that fine tuning
God is a kind of cosmic mix maker who is like
setting this amount of gravity and this amount
of dark energy and this amount of electrons
Right?
And so a rival explanation to God is no, no,
no, actually there are an infinite number
of universes that take on all sorts of different
configurations over infinite time.
Every once in a while, one comes along that
happens to work
And we seem to be in one of those universes that works
- Okay
- Yeah
- Could that argument still work with a god though?
Absolutely!
This is the thing about theology, right?
It's remarkably resilient, right?
A theologian can always say, right, fine there's
a multiverse, good
God created the multiverse
And then the multiverse created the universe
So it's not actually any kind of arguing
The multiverse isn't any argument against
the existence of God
Sometimes physicists think it is
It's not
It just sort of takes some of his jobs away
but it doesn't disprove anything
So I actually think that it's kind of uninteresting
to be stuck in this back and forth over whether
or not God exists with respect to the multiverse,
I think the more interesting question is
what kinds of new stories are we getting from these
multiverse cosmologies?
That new stories about where we come from,
where we're headed, what the universe is like?
These are all questions that myths used to
ask and answer for us in any society other
than our own right now, this would be the
function of myths
Physics is doing it for us now
So I like to look at those stories and see
what kinds of values they're encoding, what
they're telling us about ourselves, whether
we like them or not
Are they are they telling us good, helpful things?
Yeah
- So what are some of these new stories that
they're telling us?
- Right
So, I mean, there are tons of them if you
ask, you know, most theoretical physicists,
they'll say, right, well there's only one
respectable one
The respectable one is that there's a sort
of primordial sea of inflationary energy
Inflationary energies pushes space out really,
really super fast
And this primordial sea races and races and
races outward and every once in a while, that
energy kind of turns off and allows little pockets of stable space time to form and those are universes
So you get these universes nucleating out
of this sort of primordial sea, like sort
of pockets of air in Swiss cheese or something like that
So universe, universe, universe, universes
is called eternal inflation and the idea is
that our universe is one of just these bubbles
and this eternal sea of inflating sort of
hyper spacetime
That's one of them
There are other theories that argue that every
time a massive, massive star collapses and
forms a black hole, you get- so that you've processing drawings of spacetime kind of going like this
You get an infinite amount of stuff in in
zeros, but you have stuff crammed into no space
You've got a point of infinite density
That point is called the singularity
Physicists also talk about singularities as-
or the singularity as having been what the
big bang was
Right?
A bunch of stuff crammed into a point of no size
So the idea is that every time a black hole
forms, you're actually producing a new universe
on the other side of the black hole
So we may have hundreds of millions of black
holes in our sort of visible universe
And each of them, the idea is, would have
potentially a universe inside it and conversely,
we're sitting on the inside of somebody else's
black hole in that universe
That's another idea
An idea that people love to ridicule is the
idea that our universe is all sitting on a
three plus one dimensional membrane and that
that membrane has a partner universe, which
is also a three plus one, three plus one,
three of space, one time dimention
And they're sort of hovering near each other,
separated by this fourth dimension of space
that nobody can see.
But it's like right there.
So this other universe would be like, right
just closer than anything to us
But we just can't cross the gap to that other
universe that every couple trillion years
or so, these two membranes smashed together,
that's the big bang, the universe is destroyed,
recreate it all the time and we've got this
kind of symbol crashing that makes an unmakes
the universe
These are some ideas, right?
I find this fascinating, right?
Why not look at these new stories and
ask what it is they're telling us
- So then how do you move from this like,
highly scientific realm of these different
theories to then looking at how what this
means for our values or in the way
that myths used to do?
- Yeah, well, so clearly these stories are
all trying
I mean, they have lots of differences among
them, right?
So we could start looking at what those differences are
So the black hole guys are really excited
that they have what they call an evolutionary
mechanism that if a new universe is being
formed from, say, a parent universe, it retains
many of those characteristics of the old universe,
but then sort of tweaks them.
So it's basically evolution that's driving
the formation of universes
So they're very excited about evolution
The membranes smashing together guys are very
excited about numerical simplicity and elegance
They're very upset at the idea of like infinite
numbers of universes being spawned all over
the place, they're like no, no, no, no, we
need we need simplicity, we need just two
of them, just infinite recycling
They're recyclers so you can see it- You can
do that work of seeing what the different
values are among the different physicists
who are setting forth these very different stories
But certainly what all of them are trying
to do is to account for the emergence of the
universe, the sustinence of the universe,
the governance of the universe, and the ultimate
destruction of the universe without any kind
of transcendent principle, without any sort
of divine figure or any figure outside the
universe, that's like regulating the whole thing
But it's not to say there's no regulation
There are regulating forces inside the universe
So usually you get gravity and the cosmological
constant or dark energy kind of working with
and against each other to produce and to sustain
the universe
These, I'd like to say, we can look at as a
sort of new divinities or new heroes who are
sort of making and shaping the universe
We get to these sort of new mythic figures
who are emerging and they're not, again, outside
the universe, they're inside the universe.
So one thing these stories are telling us is that we're not so much abandoning the idea of the gods
We're just trying to pull them all the way
into the universe and see how they're functioning
through the natural world itself
I think it tells us a little bit about a kind
of collective desire to see the operations
that we would traditionally have called sacred
in the natural world itself
See how the natural world itself is doing
that work of universe making
- So do you argue that there is a transcendent figure?
- No!
- No?
- No, I don't argue there isn't, I don't argue there is.
I don't think it's a game anybody can win
If it were possible to prove the existence
of God or if it were possible to disprove
the existence of God - meaning a transcendence
sort of humanoid figure, as if it were
If it were possible to prove the existence
of that guy or disprove the existence of it,
somebody would have done it by now, right?
Like somebody would have come up with a decent explanation
It's been thousands of years of attempts to
prove to disprove it to dadadada
Those were really smart people
It's not possible
You can always make arguments on one side
or the other so I don't try to do that at all
What I want to ask instead is in so far as
the word "God" has traditionally encoded our
deepest values
So traditionally think for monotheistic societies, what we mean by "God" is a single male, anthropomorphic,
very powerful force, disembodied, that tells
us that what the West's values are our singularity,
oneness, maleness, disembodiment, humanoid-ness, right?
It just reflects our own values at it
So if traditionally God has encoded our most
powerful values
what I want to ask instead is how can we think
about God differently?
How can we how can we look at the values that
we have that I think are beginning, particularly
in any kind of culture that's beginning to
value anew the world that we're part of - the
ecological set of systems that we're part
of - if our values are tending more toward
things like relation and mutuality and the
sort of participation of all creatures rather
than just the dominance of humans
How would we have to change what our understanding
of what God looks like in order to reflect those values?
What kinds of gods do we want?
I mean, there are all kinds of societies all
over the place who sort of make and ditch
gods depending on how useful they are
We could do that too, we could be like, what
do our useful gods look like?
So I take a much more pragmatic approach to
it than any kind of ontological approach
I'm not trying to argue there is or isn't
a God, I want to say like, what would it mean
to think about God productively, helpfully and ethically?
- And do you think that there is a need for divinity?
- No
- Do you not see like, could atheism fill these...?
- Sure
You know, I think that no, nobody needs needs
divinity for anything
I mean, well no, some people do
I've got a friend who's a former Jesuit priest
and somebody asked him, could you marry my
husband and me?
We're hoping to get married but could you
could you do it without God?
And he was like, Do it without- I can't open
a refrigerator without God, of course I can't
marry you without- So for some people it's
absolutely not an option
Some people absolute orient their lives around
their understanding of what God is
Whether that's the earth, whether that's a
father in the sky, whether that's totally
fine, not a problem
But I don't think that some sort of notion
of God, whatever it is, is necessary, for
example, to lead an ethical life
I don't think that it's necessary to lead
a meaningful life
People can lead perfectly ethical and meaningful
lives as atheists
They do
It's just that I find as somebody who has
traditionally studied religion that often
people who think of themselves as atheists
What they really just mean is I don't like
the idea of an eternal dude in the sky standing
over us and giving us rules
And I want to say, like, you know what?
Actually, most people who believe in God don't either
Most people don't like that idea
You may not have to ditch completely the concept
of divinity in order to in order to criticize
the dangerous position of that kind of that kind of diety
You can give up that kind of deity and still
have other ways of thinking about divinity
Do we have to have him?
Absolutely not.
But I do think that the particularly and this
is what I've been working on recently, the
natural sciences and the social sciences are
producing these sort of unintentional theologies
by ascribing, again to the natural world,
all of the functions that we used to ascribe
to divinity
So they think they're atheistic, but I'm actually
arguing they're kind of pantheistic - that
the divinity is sort of siffused throughout
the natural world itself
Is that an interesting move to make?
I'm not sure!
I think it's fun, but I'm certainly not out
there to convince any atheist that he's actually
not an atheist or something like that
- And how has that been taken by the physicists
or social scientists that were working on
such things?
Do they recognize in your work that divinity
might exist in their own work, or is that
in some opponents to that?
- You know, some people actually find it charming,
right?
Some people will be like, really?
Am I am I like a modern day myth maker?
Am I a modern day healer?
And that's fascinating.
As long as I'm not trying to say that really
they need Jesus or something like that, they're
totally fine with it
Other people will say that it's just unnecessary
Right?
That it's unnecessary to add the concept of
divinity to the concept of the natural world
If you've got a natural world that's self-sufficient,
that's auto creative, that works, that where
all the parts are working in different kinds
of collaborations to make what emerges emerge
You don't need to like add divinity on to
that, athiesm kind of functions just fine
on its own
Perfectly fine point to make
I think there's something to be said though
for working on the concept of God
The theorist Hortense Spillers says that our
concepts do violence in the world, right?
Our concepts like do work of establishing
some people as more important than other people,
some species as more important than other
people and really worrying about the concept of God
I really worry about it
I worry about the work that it does
I worry about the way that it still seems
to establish humans as superior to every other species
I worry about the way that it still seems
to establish men as more important than women
and like gendered others
I worry about the way that because of Europe's
traditional alignment with that particular
monotheistic God, it tends to establish the
supremacy of Europe and by extension, America
over every other region of the world
So I worry that if we don't do work on that
concept of God, we just leave it there intact
as grounding all of these hierarchies and
then we can say, oh, but it doesn't exist,
that God doesn't exist, but that doesn't get
rid of all of those conceptual adherences
that keep those duality is in those hierarchies in place
I think there's something to be said for like,
working on the concept itself to say, you
know what, divinity does not mean omnipotence
it doesn't mean you just go in and do whatever you want
It means a kind of relational negotiating
power because this is the way that we see
that nature works
Nature doesn't just destroy everything and
then recreate stuff anew, nature works with
what it has with all sorts, you know, bacteria
and ants and mushrooms and trees, all kind
of doing their part to make a forest a forest
That, I think, is a more productive way of
thinking about divinity than a dude in the sky
And again, I think if we leave it to particularly
conservative monotheists to define what God
means and the rest of us to sort of sneak
off into atheism, they've got God, they've
got our most powerful concept and I'd rather,
I'd rather do work on that concept
- And is it possible then to have a form of
theism that isn't that sort of dude in the
sky in a way that it's like someone that is
higher than humans and that is controlling,
controlling us?
Does pantheism sort of- how can you radically
break that away from an idea of divinity?
- Yeah.
So the idea of pantheism would be something
like, and I say would be because it's not
clear to me that we've got a decent pantheism
at the moment, and so I'm trying to figure
out how to stitch together and what it might
look like, but the idea pantheism would be
that what we mean by God is the natural world itself
And by natural I mean also the cultural world,
technologies, the world around us, the material
world around us, there's also a world of ideas
That stuff is God
How can we get away with calling it God?
Because what we mean by God is the
source of all things, the life in all things, 
the end of all things
Why not just say that's what we mean by the
universe, that's what gives us life, it's
what sustains us, it's what swallows us back
and makes us into something else
by re-combining our atoms
Right, so pantheism would mean something like,
what we mean by God is the universe itself
So then we want to ask, well, like, how does
the universe work and how does the world work?
And we can think about it on a small scale
about the earth or a patch of forest
How does the natural world work to get stuff done?
And really, the agents of doing stuff in the
universe are not human beings
It's like bacteria, right?
Bacteria are amazing creators
What would it mean if we thought for a little
while about the creative work that bacteria
like a bacterial theology, right?
About these microscopic agents as the engines
of life, as the engines of newness, as the engines...
What would it mean to think about rather than
consciousness or rationality as being some
divine principle, which usually what we know
this characteristic we ascribe to God, what
about like gravity or magnetism?
These amazingly powerful forces that hold
things together, that drive things apart
Like start somewhere else, start from some
different place in the universe that does
creative work and build your model of divinity there
And I almost think you could start from kind
of anywhere like a mustard seed or an acorn
or- I think that kind of pantheism would encourage
us to look all over the place and see how
and where we see like newness, creativity,
productivity at work.
- And has pantheism had a history?
What is the history of pantheism?
- It's a really hilarious history!
Pantheism doesn't have a great history
It was coined as a term at the outset of the 18th century
It was coined as just like a nasty word, like
a bad thing to call a dopey philosopher
The dopey philosopher in question was a man
named Baruch Spinoza who died toward the end,
middle end of the 17th century
And he had this idea that he was, he used
the term 'God, or Nature', 'Dues, sive Natura',
God or nature
And he sets forth this idea, he gets excommunicated
from his Jewish community in Amsterdam.
And for hundreds of years afterwards, in order
to gain a university professorship in Germany,
for example, you had to take a pledge against Spinoza
You had to promise that you did not affirm this
So the position known as pantheism, again,
was just like a nasty name, like a bad thing
to call a terrible person
It's got a bit of a resurgence in sort of
the 18th and 19th century German idealism,
but most of those German guys who take it
up end up then making fun of it when they
get older and kind of ridiculing it and converting
to a more orthodox form of Christianity
So again, there's not a great history of pantheism
I think you can see it kind of subtly at work
in, say, some of the German poets, some the
English poets even, some of the American transcendentalists
But folks don't tend to sort of take up the
cause of a banner of pantheism
So, again, part of the work that I'm trying
to do now is to kind of stitch it together,
to like find some friends to cobble it together
William James, who is an American philosopher,
pragmatist and a psychologist in the beginning
of the twentieth century, begins to say, you
know what, it looks like pantheism is the
only viable option for us these days, we can't
believe in this humanoid father God anymore
We're probably going to have to be pantheists
But he's like I'm not really quite sure what this means
So he starts thinking about it, but he doesn't quite 
set it forth
That's what this work is trying to do
- And do you feel like this would have- would
it have radical political ramifications?
- I my certainly my hope would be that it
could have radical ecological ramifications
The there's a historian of ideas, Lynn White,
who argued toward the late 1960s
He wrote a piece called The Historical Roots
of Our Ecological Crisis
And what he was saying was that the problem
with ecology dates back to the overcoming
of paganism by monotheism
He says, you know, in a pagan world, if the
rocks are alive, the trees are alive,
if the rivers have personalities
You can't just take them, you can't just cut
the trees down with impunity if they have
spirits, if they're living things
You can't just remove mountaintops if the
mountain is a sacred living being
You have to at least ask a river before you
pollute it, right?
But he says that the problem with the triumph
of monotheism is that what monotheism does
is it reserves all agency and all life for conscious beings,
God and then humans who are made in God's image
Everything else is just dead matter - animals,
you just use them with impunity,
rocks, rivers, trees, who cares, right?
So I'd like to think about - if we are thinking
about rocks, rivers, trees, bacteria, mushrooms,
as animate, as getting stuff done as in some
way having agency and even maybe personality,
which is what a lot of animists teach us that
they have personalities
I think it'll be a lot harder to say frack
the earth for natural gas if that earth were
a living animate thing and perhaps even sharing
in what we think of as divine
So that's that's kind of the hope
The hope is to reanimate the landscape
I'm not the first person to do this
There are new materialist philosophers who
are doing this constantly who were sort of
cobbling together different ontologies to
see the way that we can think of even like
lead and steal as animate and certainly that
what we call the landscape is animate
What I'm trying to argue is that we can use
this work to start also tearing down the concept
of divinity as again enshrining the importance
of humanity and sort of human comfort
over everything else
- And would you go as far as seeing consciousness
and in all beings in the rocks and the rivers and the trees
- Right! So here's the thing
Yeah, I guess I could say yes
But then I get worried about consciousness,
because consciousness is the thing that we
have- the power, the faculty that we've traditionally
reserved for human beings
Right?
So I can see this sort of generosity in saying,
look, not only are dolphins and dogs and whales
conscious, but also rocks and rivers and trees
are conscious particles are conscious,
quarks are conscious things like that
But I worry a little bit about the way that
that kind of remakes the whole universe in
the image of the human
So I'd like to talk, I guess, a little more
about them having a personality or agency
which or animosity, which feels a little less
like it's taking the stuff that is supposed
to distinguish us and seeing ourselves 
everywhere in the universe
But sure, I know that that's the position
known as panpsychism - the idea that everything
down to the level of the quantum has a kind
of consciousness or proto consciousness
Yeah, I affirm the panpsychic viewpoint as
as helpful and as useful
I guess I just worry that it then ends up
reestablishing a kind of chain of being where
photons and electrons have a kind of proto
like primitive consciousness and then bacteria
have like a little more consciousness and
then, you know, who knows about viruses?
Maybe they have a little more-
And then you work your way up and you work
your way up and finally, humans have like
serious conscious where you get that same
establishment of that hierarchy of being if
you're trying to see consciousness all the way down
So that would be where I would depart from the panpsychics
- And what would be- where should the focus
be on sort of raising awareness of pantheism?
Should it be in raising awareness of how sort
of the God in the sky ideology has sort of
structured society?
Or do you think we should be sort of writing
new myths based on pantheism?
Where is it taking you?
- Wow Yeah, I think it's important to do both
of these things at the same time
I think it's important to do the critical
work of showing the damage that the God in
the sky has traditionally done
That's very important
And then at the moment where I think a lot
of us these days are starting to say, like,
all right, no, forget it we're atheists, at
that point to say but this doesn't mean we
don't get to have stories
It doesn't mean we don't get to have even
sacred stories and sacred myths
And if you're interested in doing that, again,
start at any place around you, start anywhere
around you in the natural technical world
Start with the way that cameras work
Start with the way that daffodils work, right?
And kind of go from there
See what it is that made that thing itself
Right? What is it?
What are the sets of materials that go into
making a camera a camera?
What's the like the human labor?
What's the animal labor?
What's the- right in the case of the camera,
you kind of start from any object and see
all the stuff that goes into it
Then you'll begin to see this sort of relational,
multi agential process by which anything becomes itself
And then ask yourself what it means to call
that whole set of productions itself a kind
of participation in divinity
That's one way to do it
