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Hawking on God
September 2, 2010 - 10:36am
Physicist Stephen Hawking says God wasn't necessary for the creation of the universe.
In his new book, "The Grand Design," the British scientist says unraveling a complex series of theories will explain the universe. The book, written with American physicist and author Leonard Mlodinow, will be published Sept. 9.
In an extract published Thursday in The Times, Hawking wrote that it was "not necessary to invoke God."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/02/stephen-hawking-god-not-n_n_703...
Considering that science assumes (and I use that word specifically) that there can be no supernatural or divine causes for any natural phenomena, I would be very surprised to find any theoretical physicist claim that a supernatural or divine entity is necessary for cosmological creation.
i don't think science presumes that there is no god, but just states that since there is no evidence it would be presumptuous to claim that there is one, when we all know that there is no way any human being ever in history has any idea as to what created the universe, and we're only at the very beginnings of getting to where we understand concepts like the creation of the universe.
that the claims of the existence of god originated at a time when we had no idea what we were talking about is also a good indication that the theory of existence of "god" is pretty suspect, but besides the point.
I think that modern people should believe in the science of evolution in general, and that principles of evolution, in general, would be at work in other parts of the universe. In general, I think there that our known laws of physics apply to the material-atomic world, which scientists say represents about 4% of all matter in the known universe. But, and it's a big but, I think it's possible that evolution may also have produced other intelligent beings in other parts of this particular universe by some kind of evolutionary principles in general. We have evolved over a relatively tiny span of time compared to the age of the universe, and I think it's highly likely that we are not alone in the grand scheme of things. Lord Martin Rees has suggested that there could be advanced beings using advanced means of communications which we are not capable of detecting with our currently evolved senses or by extension of technology at this point in time. There could be "god-like" beings all around us in this particular universe who might not even be interested in talking with us right now for any particular reasons in general. And I tend not to buy into Hawking's theory that we should be quiet and listen rather than transmit friendly messages into outer space. If they were malevolent advanced beings out there, they would have conquered or destroyed us long ago. In fact, I don't even think that malevolent advanced beings would be interested in us very much at all.
Fidel, evolution is biology. Hawking is a physicist. Apples and oranges. You're making fruit salad here.
Why wasn't I invited?
Yes evolution is biology.
Evolution is one strand of David Deutsch's theory for the fabric of reality.
David Deutsch is a physicist.
Don't forget to wipe your chin.
We're not talking about Deutsch's TOE, we're talking about Hawking. So far as I'm aware, Hawking does not tie the origins of the universe to a concept of biology.
Please explain this remark.
Ask Fidel! It's his salad!
As long as he doesnt toss my salad
Physicist Stephen Hawking says God wasn't necessary for the creation of the universe
Was he there at The Begining?By that standard, CMOT, we don't know if dinosaurs ever really existed.
i think the idea that evolution is happening throughout the universe is undeniable! with that many galaxies out there, there is bound to be other planets that can support life, and if anything we know about nature rings true, if it's happening here, it's probably happening somewhere in some shape or form. there could be thousands of "earth's" out there! and if there is life it's probably evolving.
also, i think it's quite possible that there have been planets that are no longer around that had life but fizzled out millions of years ago, were consumed by black holes or collided with other galaxies.
Hawking is aware that something changed since Newtonian atomic theory was overthrown after turn of the last century. The Newtonian view of scientist as unobserved observer looking on had to be scrapped with the new quantum theory of matter. Albert Einstein tended toward the materialist view of reality, however, Einstein himself is considered the godfather of quantum physics, and yet Einstein said that he often didn't appreciate the validity of his own theories at the time they were conceived. Even believed them to be wrong at times. And since Stewart Bell, many astronomers, and physicists I believe, reject the materialist view of reality. Modern theories of quantum mechanics hold the view that scientists is an active participant in the universe he or she is observing. And the human brain is a key part of the whole. Our biological brain, evolved over millions of years, is part of the whole fabric of reality so to speak.
I think Hawking is brilliant, but he doesn't know everything he would like to. No one does. Scientists aren't going to figure out how the entire universe works down to every fine detail by tomorrow or even in this century. At least, I don't think so. I could be wrong and they could end up counting their lucky stars at the LHC near Geneva sometime within the next five or ten. But scientists will admit that they have no real hope of understanding everything there is know about everything in their own life times. Scientists tend to strive toward understanding small parts of it in their life times. And understanding small parts of reality is actually quite a life time achievement for those on the leading edge of scientific discovery. Hawking doesn't know what existed before the theoretical singularity, an infinitessimally small, infinitely hot, and infinitely dense something or other. No one knows why it existed or where it came from, just that space, time and gravity probably didn't exist outside it. Whatever it was.
Your fruit salad remark made me think about what Lord Rees said of the notion that we will probably never completely understand the universe at this point in human evolution. We're just not evolved enough. Some day maybe. Before our sun explodes, I predict we will be forced to consider that precipice, or perhaps some catastrophe which will threaten all life on earth far sooner. Perhaps global warming is the beginning of mankind's precipice moment. It's been a hot summer where I am.
And that is pretty much what hawking is saying. We don't have any clue, so when someone claims that god HAD to exist to create the universe cause you can't make something from nothing, that is a flawed argument precisely because we don't know.
And i'm not sure if it's that we're not evolved enough to be able to understand the origins of the universe, because it's probably something we could understand if someone just came out and told us, but just that we don't have the kind of access to the universe to be able to really study it and find out. We're still stuck in our galaxy. The best we can do is take pictures from inside our own galaxy and that isn't going to tell us all that much. So anyone who claims to really know the origins of the universe, as those who invoke god try and do, is purely speculating...
That is a fascinating question really. Scientists will tell us that atomic matter is approximately 4 percent of all matter in the universe. That's us, people, the earth and everything on its surface, the stars, galaxies etc. - just four percent. If our five senses evolved only to detect atomic matter, then is it possible that we just don't have the sixth sense that might allow us to understand dark matter and dark energy? Or perhaps we have the biological tools, it's just that our brains haven't evolved for the other kind of matter to register. What if the other 96 percent of matter in the universe does not react with light? Perhaps cats with their night vision eyes and sensitive hearing could detect it but have no hope of understanding what it is. We wouldn't be able to see it, so that means we could need more than our eyes to observer it. Perhaps we need some kind of high tech device to observe the other matter and energy completely uncategorized and unknown to science so far.
I think you're right. All we can do is be aware of the awe inspiring nature of the universe, and wait for them to discover new forces of nature at the LHC nr Geneva or Fermi lab nr Chicago, perhaps Sudbury, Ontario or Minnesota etc. I think it's an exciting time for scientists striving to know more about everything in general.
I never claimed that science presumes there is no god. I claimed that science presumes that god, if she exists, does not do anything.
whoops, it sounded like you meant they assume it as in they are jumping to conclusions there is no god and that's why they don't see any evidence of it in natural phenomena or cosmological creation.
By that standard, CMOT, we don't know if dinosaurs ever really existed.
I apologize Timebandit, since I immigrated to the wet coast, my brain has become mush. That having been said however, Stephen Hawking's statement is silly. We barely know anything about the Universe. We can theorize until the cows come but in the end we really don't have a good understanding of the vast blackness that sourrounds our planet . Is there a god? Maybe. If we could explore the final frontier a bit more, we could get a bit closer to knowing for sure, but right now we're not, so it's best that we avoid absolute statements about the existence of a creator.
I don't know the words to "What a friend we have in Jesus." But Baptist Minister Don Piper of Texas does. He began singing the lyrics an hour and a half after he was assumed dead!
Almost. I believe that science assumes as a starting point that god does not exist. Or, if god does exist, god has no effect on the natural universe. This assumption then explains why scientists do not see any evidence of god.
Now, this assumption plays out in different ways in different contexts. The topic of this thread is the origins of the universe, so I will focus on that.
So, since we were not actually around at the start of the universe, we make several assumptions that allow us to imagine what it must have been like then. We assume, for example, that the laws of nature were the same then as they are now. We also assume that god had nothing to do with it.
I think this is because it is impossible to test the god hypothesis. The lack of verifiability or testabilty makes it useless, from a scientific perspective. So, in order to have useful experiments that help us understand how the universe was formed, it is a waste of time to think about god doing it.
This assumption seems to have worked out well, in my opinion.
But a single assumption does not support the notion that the same assumption plays out in many ways where all scientists arrive at the same conclusion- that there is no god.
If scientists understand only the majority of physical, atomic matter comprising only 4% of all matter in the known universe, then why would they presume to know what is true of the other 96% of everything there is? For me it's like saying, we've explored 4% of all the water on earth, and we've found no evidence of fish other than Mackeral, Cod and Sardines. Therefore, the only fish in our oceans are Mackeral. Cod and Sardines. Is this good science?
I am sure you will correct me if I am wrong so ......
If you are talking about the famous (and contentiously named) dark matter - it can indeed be measured. Not directly, but in the effect it has on the 4% that can be observed. How else did physicists come up with the figure 4% (or the reverse) 96%. The computation comes from the rate at which the universe is (still) expanding - when any self respecting big bang theory would have it slowing down after the initial whump.
As I understand science it deals with what can be measured, in mass, size, colour etc. any of the physical characteristics. God may have not been needed at and for the beginning of the universe .. but it is something of a non sequitor to announce there is no God from scientific findings .... trying prove a negative is a waste of time and rather like answering the question .... "Where is Toronto?" with "Green."
Good answer, but not the answer to the question.
Oh yes .... if other varieties of fish had not been observed - I am sure their existence would be discovered by the piles of fish shit.
Good science would say "therefore, provisionally we conclude that the only fish in the oceans we've managed to explore are..."
At no point would it be good science to say "... and we also believe in a talking fish that walks on little legs and comes in rainbow colours, though admittedly nobody has seen this fish because this fish does not wish to be seen, and honestly, we're not worthy anyway".
I think that good science would say something like this. We know of three kinds of fish after looking at only four percent of water. Therefore, we expect to find all kinds of living things from here on out, and especially after we learn how to swim and hold our breath under water for minutes at a time.
i don't know if the fish comparison is apt in this case fidel. science wouldn't come to that conclusion using that language at all. I mean, we just found new deepwater species, but we don't then conclude that mermaids or sea monsters might exist, and that is the equivalent to what the god argument is saying. in fact they say "who knows what else is out there, let's keep looking."
for the god argument: sure, it's by some far out definition possible, but it is nevertheless implausible and highly unlikely given what we do know about our planet, the universe, and what we know about the origins of the idea of gods. by your definition, we would have to take into account every single ridiculous idea with no evidence or likelyhood into science just because it might by some stretch be possible including mermaids and every other thing dreamed up by people.
The point is, science does say "we only know so much, let's keep studying" but your saying that it's an error not to take god into account. But you admit we only know so much so how on earth COULD they take a "god" into account in the creation of the universe or anything else? you can't because it's neither an observable phenomena nor has there been any indication that any such thing exists, so they would be wasting their time trying to take it into account.
i can't think of a rational way they could, seems impossible. to me it's "where does the idea of god even come from" and all the evidence is people just made it up. for scientists to use that as any basis for research seems irrational to me.
What is the shiny object upper right in this photo?
who knows...an aluminum plate? a kite? aliens? gods new sedan? a yeti?
you're going to have to elaborate on what the relevance is to this discussion, which i'm sure you were already planning for your next post!
But up above you ascertained that there probably is no God and therefore no gods exist, because you've seen no proof. No proof - no god. Is that right?
But what if some race of beings out there were so advanced that they were able to build self-replicating space probes. We might refer to them as von Neumann probes for readability. And those von Neumann probes could be piloted by organic robots of a kind with intelligence levels far exceeding our own. This probe or monolith of a sort similar to the one depicted in Clarke-Kubrick's 2001: Space Odyssey, come and go from earth for a long time. Maybe they were here since apes first descended from trees and began foraging around. These probes hang around, just like in Arthur C. Clarke's story, since the dawn of man and waiting for us to make a move toward, say, the moon. At that point, they realize we're serious and send a message back to whatever or whoever created them, and perhaps their own gods who created the intelligent probes millions of years ago, will decide to wait a few thousand more years when we may or may not survive our own technological adolescence.
It's just a theory. A long shot. And remember, you have no proof for or against this wild-eyed theory of alien probes visiting earth whatsoever as you've admitted already.
And all I have, really, is that photo above as circumstantial physical evidence. And maybe there are hundreds of hours of recorded radar as physical evidence. And maybe there are tens of thousands of eye witnesses alive today who've seen similar things with the naked eye. And perhaps there are massive international government cover-ups of even more physical evidence kept from the public since, say, 1947. And that's all though. It's your dearth of evidence in contrast with my circumstantial evidence for, plus dozens of ancient cultures around the world claiming silly connections with the stars for a long time. But that's all. It's flimsy evidence really. Afterall, we are lords of atomic matter and all we survey, that four percent of everything there is. Surely any empiricist worth his weight in carbon atoms would demand real, measurable, tangible proof before jumping to any conclusions. There will be no leaps of faith in this thread. Not today. If a god makes no noise nor interferes in our earthly democracy and refuses to micro-manage each and every one of our lives daily to the point where we no longer possess the will to strive, then does she even exist? She must be a terrible and merciless god, and we should not want to be familiar with her.
It reminds me of an old Steven Spielberg movie about a five-note wonder in the sky.
Lets get to the real reason we are talking about religoin on a left winged blog.
The fact that we are under a capitalist system and economic fear resides in all of us.
It's the fear that makes people look for reasurence for somewere.
When you tell someone the believes in a God that there is not one, which there isn't. They get all freaked out because if there isn't one then they don't know how to look at the world.
Also lets be frank about what God we are all talking about here. It's the Middle Eastern God that the Jews, Christians and Muslims all talk about. We are not talking about Budda or any of the million Gods from India.
You want to end the arguement about God. Get rid of the capitalist system and bring in a sytem that makes everyone feel economicly safe.
Other wise you will be blowing hot air for ever.
No open the egg from the large end....No open the egg from the small end... no open.....