Ever Smaller

George said, “God is short and fat.”
Nick said, “No, He’s tall and lean.”
Len said, “With a long white beard.”
“No,” said John, “He’s shaven clean.”
Rhonda Rose said, “He’s a She.”
I smiled but never showed ‘em all
The autographed photograph God sent to me.
–Shel Silverstein

We think we know. We think we know what God looks like and what God wants. We think we know where stars are born, and how. We think we know what the stock market will do. Or the weather. We think we know which political party is right. We think there is a right...and wrong.

My mother told me once that something was against the moral laws of the universe. Wow, I thought, how does she know what the moral laws of the whole universe are?

And now I’ve learned that there may be multiple universes, or a multiverse. The cover story in the current Newsweek magazine posits the possibility of billions of big bangs, each creating a unique universe, made up of energy and matter that we might not even recognize in ours. We’ve come a long way from believing that the cosmos revolves around our flat world on the back of a turtle.

The concept of a multiverse comes as no surprise to me. I have known for years about these other universes. That’s where my keys go when I put them down and they disappear.

I marvel at people’s certainty about things. I have friends of different faiths, each so sure that their faith is the only one that leads to, well, wherever it is we want to be. One person’s faith is so detailed that she can pinpoint precisely the timing of specific events lost in the mists of history and myth, and events that will happen in the future. I asked her if it was important to believe in the details. Oh yes, she said. I asked her if members of her faith ever disagreed about any of the details. Oh no, she said. Hmmm.

I marvel at the vehement conviction of opposing political parties. Recent years of politics in the US have led up to an election year that promises little except further polarization. The parties are moving further apart at ever increasing speed just like the galaxies in our universe.

I marvel at the exponentially increasing information that is available to me in seconds with a few clicks on the computer. You might think that knowledge would increase just as rapidly as access to information. And yet, what I know for sure seems to grow ever smaller. As the universe expands my sphere of certainty shrinks until it threatens to collapse into a black hole.

The funny thing is that I’m okay with that. The less I know, the less I need to know. Frankly, it’s a relief.

My mother would probably say that’s against the moral laws of the multiverse.

related posts: I’m Right–So What; The Curiosity of Not Knowing; What I Know for Sure