The Varieties of Scientific Experience

CHAPTER NINE

CS: There was one question that was sent to me in a letter to my hotel, which was signed, "God Almighty." Probably just to attract my attention. It said that the writer's definition of a miracle would be if I would answer the letter. So to show that miracles can happen, I thought I would answer the question. The question was a straightforward and important one, often asked: "If the universe is expanding, what's it expanding into? Something that isn't the universe?"

Well, the way to think of this is to remember that we are trapped in three dimensions, which constrains our perspective (although there's not much we can do about being trapped in three dimensions). But let us imagine that we were two-dimensional beings. Absolutely flat. So we know about left/ right and we know about forward/back, but we've never heard of up/down. It is an absolutely incoherent idea. Just nonsense syllables. And now imagine that we live on the surface of a sphere, a balloon, let's say. But of course we don't know about that curvature through that third dimension, because that third dimension is inaccessible to us, and we cannot even picture it. And now let's imagine that the sphere is expanding, the balloon is being blown up. And there is a set of spots on the balloon, each of which represents, let us say, a galaxy. And you can see that from the standpoint of every galaxy all the other galaxies are running away. Now, where is the center of the expansion?

On the surface of the balloon, the only part of it that the flat creatures can have access to, where is the center of the expansion? Well, it isn't on that surface. It's at the center of the balloon in that inaccessible third dimension. And, in the same way, into what is the balloon expanding? It is expanding in that perpendicular direction, that up/down direction, that inaccessible direction, and so you cannot, on the surface of the balloon, point to the place into which it is expanding, because that place is in that other dimension.

Now up everything one dimension and you have some sense of what people are talking about when they say that the universe is expanding. I hope that that was helpful, but considering the auspices of the writer, you should have known it anyway.

Questioner: A program from the Reagan administration was over the television last week. Mr. Paul Warnke stated that Star Wars [the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI] would fail.

CS: Well, maybe I should just say a few words about Star Wars. Star Wars is the idea that it's dreadful to be threatened with mass annihilation, especially at the hands of some people you've never met, and wouldn't it be much better to have an impermeable shield that protects you against nuclear weapons, to simply shoot down the Soviet warheads when they're on their way here? And as an idea it's an okay idea. The question is, can it be done? And let me not quote the legion of technical experts who believe that it is nonsense. Let me instead quote its most fervent advocates in the American administration, in the Department of Defense. They say that after some decades and the expenditure of something like one tr-Well, they don't actually say the expense, but it's an expenditure of something like one trillion dollars, that the United States might be able to shoot down between 50 and 80 percent of the Soviet warheads.

Let us imagine that the Soviet Union does nothing in the next few decades to improve its offensive capability; it leaves everything (a very unlikely possibility) at its present offensive force- that's ten thousand weapons. Ten thousand nuclear warheads. Let us give the benefit of the doubt to the exponents of Star Wars and imagine that instead of 50 to 80 percent they can shoot down 90 percent of the warheads. That leaves 10 percent that they cannot shoot down.

Ten percent of ten thousand warheads is (an arithmetical exercise accessible to everyone) one thousand warheads. One thousand warheads is enough to utterly demolish the United States. So what are we talking about?

The advocates say it can't protect the United States. And there are many other things that could be said about it, but I think that is a key point. Its advocates think it won't work. And it will cost a trillion dollars. Should we go ahead?

Questioner: Do you think that your people will go ahead?

CS: Why do something so foolish? A very good question. And here we are getting into murky issues of politics and psychology and so on, but I don't believe in ducking questions-I'll tell you what I think. I think that the alternative is abhorrent to the powers that be. The alternative is that you negotiate massive, verifiable, bilateral reductions in nuclear weapons, which would be an admission that the entire nuclear arms race has been foolish beyond belief, and that all of those leaders-American and Russian and British and French-for the last forty years, who bought this bill of goods put their nations at peril. It is such an uncomfortable admission that it takes great character strength to admit to it. So I think that rather than admit to it we are looking at a desperate attempt to have still more technology to get us out of the problem that the technology got us into in the first place. The ultimate technological fix. Or, as it is sometimes called, "the fallacy of the last move." Just one more ratchet up the arms race, please let us have it, and then everything will be fine forever. And if there's anything that's clear from the history of the nuclear arms race, it's that this isn't the case. Each side, generally the Americans, invents a new weapons system, and then the other side, generally the Soviets, invents it back. And then both nations are less secure than they were in the first place, but they've spent a charming amount of money and everybody's happy. Now, there's no question that if you wave a trillion dollars at the world aerospace community, you will have organizations, corporations, military officers, and so on interested in it, whether or not it will work.

And I'm sure that this is a part of it. But it's not the main part. The main part is a tragic reluctance to come to grips with the bankruptcy of the nuclear arms race. In the United States, it's eight consecutive presidents, something like that, of both political parties, that have bought it. Most of the people who run the country are advocates of the nuclear arms race, or have been in the past. It's very hard to say, "Sorry, we made a mistake," on an issue of this size. That's my guess.

Questioner: I think for the first time yesterday President Reagan offered to share the technology of SDI with the Russians.

CS: It's not the first time. He's been saying that all along.

Questioner: Yeah, but isn't it perhaps preferable that the joint efforts of the great powers be extended for perhaps defensive matters rather than the offensive weapons that have occupied them for so long?

CS: No, I don't agree. We're talking about a shield. Let's imagine another kind of shield, the contraceptive shield. Let's suppose that the contraceptive shield lets only 10 percent of the spermatozoa through. Is that better than nothing, or isn't it? I maintain that that's worse than nothing-among other things, for giving a false sense of security. But on the idea of sharing the technology, this is an administration that will not give an IBM personal computer to the Soviets. And we are asked to believe that the United States will hand over the eleventh-generation battle-management computer, which is decades off, and which will be so complicated that its program cannot be written by a human being or any collection of human beings. It can be written only by another computer. It cannot be debugged by any human being. It can be debugged only by another computer. And it can never be tested except in a nuclear war itself. And this we will hand over to the Russians? In either case, if we believed it would work or if we didn't believe it would work, I can't imagine the Russians saying, "Thank you very much. We will now have this as the principal mainstay of the security of the Soviet Union, this program that the Americans have very kindly just given over to us."

Nor can I imagine that the United States, after taking a sober look at this idea, would turn over the security of the country to this mad scheme. A system that has to work perfectly to protect the country and which can never be tested. Trust us. It'll be fine. Don't worry about it.

Questioner: Can religious beliefs adapt to the future?

CS: Well, it's certainly an important question. My feeling is, it depends on what religion is about. If religion is about saying how the natural world is, then to be successful it must adopt the methods, procedures, techniques of science and then become indistinguishable from science. By no means does it follow that that's all that religion is about. And I tried to indicate at the end of my last lecture some of the many areas in which religion could provide a useful role in contemporary society and where religions, by and large, are not. But that's very different from saying how the world is or came to be. And there the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions have simply adopted the best science of the time. But it was a long time ago, the time of sixth-century B.C., during the Babylonian captivity of the Jews. That's where the science of the Old Testament comes from. And it seems to me important that the religions accommodate to what has been learned in the twenty-six centuries since. Some have, of course, to varying degrees; many have not.

Questioner: [inaudible]

CS: The god that Einstein was talking about is completely different, as I've tried to say several times in these lectures, from the standard Judeo-Christian-Islamic god. It is not a god who intervenes in everyday life, no microintervention, no prayer. It's not even clear that this god made the universe in the first place. So that's a very different use of the word "god" than what is, I gather, your attempt to justify the existing religion. That we have to use our sense organs and our intellectual abilities to comprehend these issues, I think, is apparent. Perhaps they are limited, but it's all we have. So do the best with what we have. Don't foist, I say, our predispositions on the universe. Look openly at the universe and see how it is. And how is it? It is that there's order in there. It's an amazing amount of order, not that we have introduced but that is there already. Now, you may choose to conclude from that fact that there is an ordering principle and that God exists, and then we come back to all the other arguments: Where did the ordering principle come from? Where did God come from? If you say that I must not ask the question of where God came from, then why must I ask the question of where the universe came from? And so on.

Questioner: Professor Sagan, I'd like advice, please. Is there anything you think an individual could do to change in some way the world situation, or should we just sit back and accept it?

CS: Nope, you don't have to sit back. I think if we let the governments do it, we will continue in the very desultory direction we have already been going for forty years or more. I think the first thing, in a democracy, where there is at least some pretense about the people controlling government policy, is that every democratic process ought to be used. You can make sure that those whom you vote for have rational views on these matters. You can work hard to make sure that there is a real difference of opinion in the alternative candidates. You can write letters to newspapers and so on. But more important than any of that, I believe, is that each of us must equip him- or herself with a "baloney-detection kit."

That is, the governments like to tell us that everything is fine, they have everything under control, and leave them alone. And many of us, especially on issues that involve technology, such as nuclear war, have the sense that it's too complicated. We can't figure it out. The governments have the experts. Surely they know what they're doing. They must be in favor of the support of our country, whichever our country happens to be. And anyway, this is such a painful issue that I want to put it out of my mind, which psychiatrists call denial. And it seems to me that that is a prescription for suicide, that we must, all of us, understand these issues, because our lives depend on them, and the lives of our children and our grandchildren. That's not an issue you want to take on faith. If ever there was a circumstance in which the democratic process ought to take hold, this is it. Something that determines our future and all that we hold dear. And therefore I would say that the first thing to do is to realize that governments, all governments, at least on occasion, lie. And some of them do it all the time-some of them do it only every second statement-but, by and large, governments distort the facts in order to remain in office.

And if we are ignorant of what the issues are and can't even ask the critical questions, then we're not going to make much of a difference. If we can understand the issues, if we can pose the right questions, if we can point out the contradictions, then we can make some progress. There are many other things that can be done, but it seems to me that those two, the baloney-detection kit and use of the democratic process where available, are at least the first two things to consider.

Questioner: [inaudible]

CS: Right. You say everyone in this room has felt aggression. Surely that's right. I'm sure it's right. There may be a few saints in the room… and I very much hope that there are. But at least almost everyone in the room must have felt it. But I also maintain that everyone in the room has felt compassion. Everyone in the room has felt love. Everyone in the room has felt kindness. And so we have two warring principles in the human heart, both of which must have evolved by natural selection, and it's not hard to understand the selective advantage of both of them. And so the issue has to do with which is in the preponderance. And here it is the use of our intellect that is central. Because we're talking about adjudicating between conflicting emotions. And you can't have an adjudication between emotions by an emotion. It must be done by our perceptive intellectual ability. And this is the place where Einstein said something very perceptive. In response-this is post-nuclear war, post-1945-in response to precisely the question you have just formulated, in which Einstein was saying that we must give the dominance to our compassionate side, he said, "What is the alternative?" That is, if we do not, if we cannot manage it, it is clear that we are gone. We're doomed. And therefore we have no alternative. Certainly untrammeled, continuing aggression in an age of nuclear weapons is a prescription for disaster. So either get rid of the nuclear weapons or change what passes for social relations among humans.

But even getting rid of nuclear weapons altogether will not solve this problem. There will be new technical advances. And already there are chemical and biological weapons that could perhaps rival some of the effects of nuclear war. So this is a very key aspect of what I was thinking when I said we are at a branch point in our history, in the sense of who we are. I maintain it's not a question of sudden change, that we have been compassionate for a million years, and it's a question of which part of the human psyche the governments-and the media, and the churches, and the schools-give precedence to. Which one do they teach?

Which one do they encourage? And all I'm saying is that it is within our capability to survive. I don't guarantee it. Prophecy is a lost art. And I don't know what the probabilities are that we will go one way or another. And no one says it's easy. But it is clear, as Einstein said, that if we do not make a change in our way of thinking, all is lost.