Question: is there anything beyond the universe?

Dean Whittaker answered on 21 Jun 2010:

That’s what we call an existential question – meaning it’s external to our own experiences. We are in the universe and we can probe it and prod it and so on. But if there’s anything outside then we can’t really find out if it has no influence on us. For instance, what if we’re all brains in jars somewhere (or what if we’re in the matrix). There’d be no way of finding out (unless there’s a bunch of rebels trying to break us all out of it).

However, some physics theories predict a multiverse. This means several universes that may or may not be connected. Some of these theories even say that each of these universes could have different laws of physics – so gravity might not be the same. But frankly, in my mind, I think it’s not a question we can answer at all. If we can’t test it, then science can’t provide an answer (and if it doesn’t influence our universe, we don’t really need an answer!). Plus a proper theory explains something and makes predictions that we can test, these “theories” usually don’t.