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TimBowe
- 31
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If Hawking's model is correct then the universe could be regarded as a causally closed system, uncreatable and indestrucible.
Hawking: It obviously matters because if there is an edge, somebody has to decide what should happen at the edge. You would really have to invoke God.
Why does that follow?
Hawking: If you like, it would be a tautology. You could define God as the edge of the universe, as the agent who was responsible for setting all this in motion.
You are invoking God because we need an explanatory principle for the edge.
Hawking: Yes, if you want a complete theory, then we would have to know what happens at the edge. Otherwise, we cannot solve the equations.
In the sense that you're using God, it's rather like a principle that's synonymous with the laws of the universe. It doesn 't imply a moral being.
Hawking: There would not be a connection with morality.
You're using it as a logical and causal principle.
Hawking: Yes.
You said if there is an edge, then we 'd have to invoke God. Do you think there is evidence for an edge?
Hawking: At the moment there's not much evidence either way. It seems that we can explain the present state of the universe on the assumption that there wasn't any edge.
You said earlier that, in so far as the possibility of an edge of the universe is concerned, it could go either way, and you correlated the edge with a God or some sort God-like principle.
Hawking: It's very difficult to prove that there isn't any edge, but if we could show that we can explain everything in the universe on the hypothesis that there is no edge. I think that would be a much more natural and economical theory.