Stephen Hawking on Discovery's curiosity

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around Stephen Hawking's assertions regarding the existence of a grand designer in the context of the Big Bang and the nature of time. Participants explore the implications of Hawking's arguments, the concept of time before the Big Bang, and the idea of a multiverse versus a divine creator. The scope includes philosophical implications, theoretical physics, and interpretations of cosmological models.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Exploratory

Main Points Raised

  • One participant questions Hawking's logic that a grand designer cannot exist because time did not exist before the Big Bang, suggesting that this also implies that a spontaneous event causing the Big Bang would be impossible.
  • Another participant criticizes the notion of spacetime "quantumly fluctuating" into existence, arguing that it is misleading to equate a universe popping into existence with particles appearing in a vacuum.
  • Some participants assert that science does not necessarily exclude or require a god, while others argue that the laws of physics imply there is no role for a god in the universe.
  • One participant compares asking what happened before the Big Bang to asking what is north of the North Pole, suggesting that such questions may require redefining fundamental concepts like time.
  • Another participant notes that cosmologists often state that the Big Bang was the beginning of space and time, but expresses skepticism about the validity of this claim, suggesting that there are no good reasons to believe it.
  • A different viewpoint suggests that the singularity associated with the Big Bang might not be a true singularity and that a quantum theory of gravity could reveal events prior to the Big Bang.
  • One participant reflects on Hawking's book "The Grand Design," noting that while the universe appears finely tuned for complexity, the multiverse theory proposed by Hawking raises further questions about the existence of a creator.
  • Another participant argues that positing a designer complicates the fine-tuning argument, as the designer would itself require explanation.
  • One participant suggests that the rules governing our understanding of nature may change at the singularity associated with the Big Bang, indicating that new laws may be needed to describe conditions beyond it.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of views, with no consensus on the existence of a grand designer or the implications of the Big Bang. There are competing interpretations of Hawking's arguments and the nature of time, leading to an unresolved discussion.

Contextual Notes

Some statements rely on assumptions about the nature of time and the Big Bang that are not universally accepted. The discussion includes speculative ideas about the multiverse and the implications of various cosmological models, which may not be fully substantiated.

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Stephen Hawking on Discovery's "curiosity"

I recently watched Stephen Hawking on Discovery's "Curiosity" and found his assertion that a grand designer could not exist based on the logic that there was no time before the big bang troubling.(Due to the fact that the universe before the big bang was an infinitesimal black hole, and time does not exist in the black holes that we can observe due to immense gravitational forces)

I will not pretend to understand the intricacies of the science involved in his proposition, but, I do find a flaw in his logic that I hope you can clear up for me.

Based on the assertion that time did not exist before the big bang(and therefore no creation or event could occur before that) wouldn't that same logic lead us to the conclusion that a "spontaneous" event that caused the big bang would also be impossible because of that same absence of time? It seems to me that his argument proves itself to be untrue because without time there could be no "event" to cause anything.
 
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I think the old oft-toted notion of spacetime "quantumly fluctuating" into existence out of "nothing" is a misleading concept and these media whores like Stephen Hawking, Paul Davis & Michio Kaku seem to be regurgitating it all the time = why?

Just because a particle can pop in & out of existence in an empty vacuum, how does this equate to an entire universe popping into existence out of sheer nothingness? By that same logic, it can "pop out" of existence anytime.
 


Hawking is just making a pointless and unsupported commercial for the sterile, 'godless' version of science. It has no validity. Science does not exclude, or require a god.
 
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Chronos said:
Science does not exclude, or require a god.
Actually, it does, through the exclusion principle. Basically, this says that if the laws of physics describe everything in our universe (which they do), then there is no god that has any relevance to anything we might ever do because there is nothing for a god to do. This argument applies to anything supernatural.

It should be no wonder, given this argument, that people try to stuff their own idea of a god into our gaps in knowledge, such as the birth of our universe, but this is fundamentally illogical.
 


From what I've seen, I'd goten the impression that asking what happened before the big bang, is like asking what is north of the north pole. Any answer would require redefining what "North" or "Time" even mean.
 


Algr said:
From what I've seen, I'd goten the impression that asking what happened before the big bang, is like asking what is north of the north pole. Any answer would require redefining what "North" or "Time" even mean.

The fact is that we just don't know if the instant of big bang is truly the beginning of time.
See http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/27/how-did-the-universe-start/" :

There is something of a paradox in the way that cosmologists traditionally talk about the Big Bang. They will go to great effort to explain how the Bang was the beginning of space and time, that there is no “before” or “outside,” and that the universe was (conceivably) infinitely big the very moment it came into existence, so that the pasts of distant points in our current universe are strictly non-overlapping. All of which, of course, is pure moonshine. When they choose to be more careful, these cosmologists might say “Of course we don’t know for sure, but…” Which is true, but it’s stronger than that: the truth is, we have no good reasons to believe that those statements are actually true, and some pretty good reasons to doubt them.
 
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Algr said:
From what I've seen, I'd goten the impression that asking what happened before the big bang, is like asking what is north of the north pole. Any answer would require redefining what "North" or "Time" even mean.
Well, that depends. On a few things. It is conceivable, for instance, that our particular "bang" was just the start of our region, and that our region was born from a previous one. There's also the point to be made that the singularity in our theories is an artifact of General Relativity. A quantum theory of gravity is likely to show that the singularity isn't actually singular, and that there may be some stuff that happened before the time we might infer, using General Relativity, that there was a singularity.
 


I very much enjoyed Steven Hawking book "The Grand Design" which I just finished and will reread. I had come to the conclusion myself that the Universe seems to be very finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex systems to develop and evolve. This seemed to me to be the biggest justifcation for thinking the universe to be the work of an intelligent designer. Hawking agrees but then counters with this universe is just one example of many possible universes in a Multiverse of possible universes and thus no creator is required. It makes sense but are there stronger reasons to believe in the Multiverse vs a divine Creator? Also this just passes the problem on to the next level where we can ask what created the Multiverse or in the case of God what created God. The only way out of this loop is for an ultimate Creator or God that has always existed, but this is something which I have trouble with because every time we think that a creator is necessary for something we don't understand it turns out that none is required.

It seems that Stephen is a believer in M-theory and that this is the Grand Design. Can such a theory or model ever be tested?
My one complaint is that throughout the book Stephen discusses tried and tested and known Physics, but then he moves on to modern theories, which I think gives them more credibility than they presently deserve, some being just conjecture. I would advocate a kind of rating system for Physics theories which rates how certain we currently are in them to avoid such confusions. We can't just rely on how recently they were proposed or how many papers have been written on them.
 
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Tanelorn said:
I very much enjoyed Steven Hawking book "The Grand Design" which I just finished and will reread. I had come to the conclusion myself that the Universe seems to be very finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex systems to develop and evolve. This seemed to me to be the biggest justifcation for thinking the universe to be the work of an intelligent designer.
This argument is fundamentally flawed, however, because the designer is, by definition, more complex than what is designed. So positing a designer just makes things worse in terms of fine-tuning, not better. It also doesn't help that this explanation lacks all predictive power.
 
  • #10


Algr said:
From what I've seen, I'd goten the impression that asking what happened before the big bang, is like asking what is north of the north pole. Any answer would require redefining what "North" or "Time" even mean.

But there lies, in my personal opinion, the key to solving the paradox about the pre-existence: What happens when you get to the North Pole? You reach a singularity. Not a physical singularity, but a singularity in our description of Nature, geography in this case. The rules change when the singularity is breached, so that "laws" about direction outside the singular point, become inapplicapable. Something new, something qualitatively different is required to describe the geography beyond the singular point, laws that do not contain the words "North" and "South". So too I think is the case for the Big Bang. The thread author writes:

"Based on the assertion that time did not exist before the big bang . . . wouldn't that same logic lead us to the conclusion that a "spontaneous" event that caused the big bang would also be impossible because of that same absence of time? It seems to me that his argument proves itself to be untrue because without time there could be no "event" to cause anything."

But he's relying on our rules, our laws of physics about time, events, and causes, to describe something that is beyond what I think is the singular point of the Big Bang and those terms may not be applicapable: There may be no "time" in the pre-existence but something different that is perfectally applicapable to describing it may be devised by the human mind . "Nothing" may in fact be there and can "create" "something" like our Universe by virtue of the qualitatively different state that arises through the singular breach.

In my opinion, we may not be capable of applying the current diction of time, space, matter, cause and effect, and other phenomena of our Universe to the pre-existence. Something qualitatively different may be required because it is separated from us by a singular point like the North Pole is separated from descriptions like "north" and "south".

Also I'd like to add this viewpoint resolves the paradox of "turtles all the way down:" at some point, a critical point is reached (a singularity) and the rules change. Beyond that, the concept of "turtle" and "standing on" no longer applies, and anyone that demands "something else" is simply no longer following the rules.
 
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  • #11


jackmell said:
But there lies, in my personal opinion, the key to solving the paradox about the pre-existence: What happens when you get to the North Pole? You reach a singularity. Not a physical singularity, but a singularity in our description of Nature, geography in this case.
Well, only if we use a spherical coordinate system. There are other coordinate systems that have no singularity at the north pole.

But regardless, General Relativity states unequivocally that there is a singularity in the finite past. Granted, almost nobody in physics believes General Relativity is correct here, but this does indicate that we likely need a quantum theory of gravity to describe our very early universe. The idea that it turns out to be like the north pole is a particular hypothesis for the way our universe may have begun, one of many.
 
  • #12


Chalnoth said:
Well, only if we use a spherical coordinate system. There are other coordinate systems that have no singularity at the north pole.

But regardless, General Relativity states unequivocally that there is a singularity in the finite past. Granted, almost nobody in physics believes General Relativity is correct here, but this does indicate that we likely need a quantum theory of gravity to describe our very early universe. The idea that it turns out to be like the north pole is a particular hypothesis for the way our universe may have begun, one of many.

Does GR say that the universe couldn't have ever morphed into the singularity over time- perhaps as matter ceased existing either by getting ripped apart by expansion or all of it being consumed by black holes?
 
  • #13


I am not convinced that the laws of physics describe everything, at least not correctly. The interior of a black hole comes to mind, as does the question of how consciousness arises from an arrangement of non-sentient particles. Heck, I don't even know how many dimensions we live in, nor have I heard a great explanation of what time really is or why it exists. But on that note I have to quote Yogi Berra, who when asked "what time is it?", replied, "You mean now"?
 
  • #14


dilletante said:
the question of how consciousness arises from an arrangement of non-sentient particles

That's the biggie.
 
  • #15


Chalnoth said:
Actually, it does, through the exclusion principle. Basically, this says that if the laws of physics describe everything in our universe (which they do), then there is no god that has any relevance to anything we might ever do because there is nothing for a god to do. This argument applies to anything supernatural.

Actually, the laws of physics don't necessarily describe everything in our universe. They only describe things which are empirically observable and repeatable. I see right away two areas that this leaves for God and/or supernatural forces to act.

1. Qualia, which are not empirically observable. If the Judeo-Christian God existed, he could cause us to experience things differently from how the firing neurons alone would prescribe (the mechanism of which is not described by the laws of physics, either), and any ECG taken of the patient at the time need be none the wiser.

2. Miracles, which are not repeatable under controlled conditions. If the Judeo-Christian God existed, he could do whatever he wanted to the universe - spawn matter/energy out of nothing, screw up gravity in a particular body of water, etc. Anything he does in an inconsistent manner would be classed as miracles because they can't be repeated in a controlled environment. The laws of physics do not cover inconsistent behavior such as this. If a consistency behind a certain behavior were to be discovered, it would cease to be a miracle by definition; some law would be drawn up to describe it instead.
 
  • #16


dilletante said:
I am not convinced that the laws of physics describe everything, at least not correctly.
Our current laws of physics, no. But that is irrelevant to the argument. As long as there exist some laws of physics that accurately describe reality, the argument holds.

dilletante said:
The interior of a black hole comes to mind, as does the question of how consciousness arises from an arrangement of non-sentient particles.
The interior of black holes probably needs a theory of quantum gravity.

Consciousness, however, most certainly does not require any new laws of physics, as consciousness does not access any energies even remotely close to the energy levels we have tested current physics. That we do not understand how to go from the laws of physics we know to understanding the very complex configuration of matter that is the human brain is irrelevant. We do know that our laws of physics apply at these temperatures with this sort of matter. And that is enough.

dilletante said:
Heck, I don't even know how many dimensions we live in, nor have I heard a great explanation of what time really is or why it exists. But on that note I have to quote Yogi Berra, who when asked "what time is it?", replied, "You mean now"?
These are pretty much irrelevant points.
 
  • #17


cephron said:
Actually, the laws of physics don't necessarily describe everything in our universe. They only describe things which are empirically observable and repeatable. I see right away two areas that this leaves for God and/or supernatural forces to act.

1. Qualia, which are not empirically observable. If the Judeo-Christian God existed, he could cause us to experience things differently from how the firing neurons alone would prescribe (the mechanism of which is not described by the laws of physics, either), and any ECG taken of the patient at the time need be none the wiser.

2. Miracles, which are not repeatable under controlled conditions. If the Judeo-Christian God existed, he could do whatever he wanted to the universe - spawn matter/energy out of nothing, screw up gravity in a particular body of water, etc. Anything he does in an inconsistent manner would be classed as miracles because they can't be repeated in a controlled environment. The laws of physics do not cover inconsistent behavior such as this. If a consistency behind a certain behavior were to be discovered, it would cease to be a miracle by definition; some law would be drawn up to describe it instead.
Yeah, so you're basically asking us to believe in magic? Sorry, no dice.
 
  • #18


Chalnoth said:
Consciousness, however, most certainly does not require any new laws of physics, as consciousness does not access any energies even remotely close to the energy levels we have tested current physics. That we do not understand how to go from the laws of physics we know to understanding the very complex configuration of matter that is the human brain is irrelevant. We do know that our laws of physics apply at these temperatures with this sort of matter. And that is enough.

That is ENOUGH?

My GOD, man! Are you not a SCIENTIST?
 
  • #19


Cryptonic said:
That is ENOUGH?

My GOD, man! Are you not a SCIENTIST?
*sigh*

Why do so many people have difficulty with this? If there were any laws of physics that we don't know that impact consciousness, our current tests of said laws of physics would have detected the discrepancy long ago.

This, ultimately, stems from the fact that matter is made out of particles that interact with one another in specific ways, and different particles of the same type are completely indistinguishable from one another. To put this more explicitly: our brains are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, and we know to a very high level of accuracy how protons, neutrons, and electrons behave, well up into the tens to hundreds of billions of electron-volts energy scale. But at the temperature of our brains, only interactions of a few electron volts are available for routine reactions.

You can potentially claim that there might be some additional long-distance reaction that is present in our brains, but then that interaction would have been detected long ago in our study of crystals (because it is often possible to calculate the behavior of crystals). The fact that we can't calculate the behavior of our brain from the laws of physics we know isn't any reason at all to believe we may need some new laws of physics. The experiments we have so far are utterly conclusive: our current laws of physics are sufficient. Anything else is just magical thinking.
 
  • #20


Chalnoth said:
Yeah, so you're basically asking us to believe in magic? Sorry, no dice.

No, I was simply pointing out that there are venues for a God to interact with this world (you made the claim that there was no way for a god, if one existed, to be at all relevant to this world).

As for actually believing in miracles, there are only two ways for that to happen: to witness/experience one yourself, or to hear a clear and convincing firsthand account from someone you trust. Unless one of these has happened to someone, I most certainly don't expect them to believe in miracles.
 
  • #21


cephron said:
No, I was simply pointing out that there are venues for a God to interact with this world (you made the claim that there was no way for a god, if one existed, to be at all relevant to this world).
Yes, magical venues. What you're basically asking for here is for the laws of physics, which work precisely in all areas where we have ever tested them, to suddenly stop working. And that is ridiculous.

cephron said:
As for actually believing in miracles, there are only two ways for that to happen: to witness/experience one yourself, or to hear a clear and convincing firsthand account from someone you trust. Unless one of these has happened to someone, I most certainly don't expect them to believe in miracles.
This sort of evidence is the worst sort of evidence imaginable. Our minds are far, far too mistake prone for this to be a valid reason to believe. This is so because our brains are horrible recording devices: every time we recall a memory, we modify it. See here:
http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm

What this means, basically, is that the instant the witness started to believe it was a miracle, the next time they recalled it their recollection would have been colored in that light, modifying certain details, omitting others, and potentially even making things up entirely.

To believe your own, faulty recollections in the face of all verifiable evidence ever collected is highly irrational.
 
  • #22


I stand firmly with Chalnoth on every one of these issues. The laws of nature are real and consciousness derives from them. There is no magic and no is magic needed. If there was/is a creator he is most certianly not creating of changing reality here now, unless we are all suffering from mass deception and that would reduce the Creator to being a trickster.


Here is an excellent paper on Multiverse theories and how speculative they are relatively speaking:

http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v305/n2/full/scientificamerican0811-38.html


Next I am off to learn more about model dependent realism and whether it matters whether a model actually describes reality. I agree that if the right answer is given to the right question every time then a model is good, but in addition I also really want to understand what is taking place in the real world. eg. Do quarks really exist in the real world?
 
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  • #23


Chalnoth said:
Well, only if we use a spherical coordinate system. There are other coordinate systems that have no singularity at the north pole.

But regardless, General Relativity states unequivocally that there is a singularity in the finite past. Granted, almost nobody in physics believes General Relativity is correct here, but this does indicate that we likely need a quantum theory of gravity to describe our very early universe. The idea that it turns out to be like the north pole is a particular hypothesis for the way our universe may have begun, one of many.

. . . suppose I could argue changing the coordinate system represents a qualitative change in the system.

I believe I'm close on this guys. May turn out to not be as dramatic as I suggest, some of our world physics still may apply, but still I believe something significantly different, maybe LQG, will probably be needed to go beyond the Big Bang and what we find there I suspect will be quite different than what we see now: there we may find "nothing" has no problems creating something by virtue of pasing through a critical-point.
 
  • #24


jackmell said:
. . . suppose I could argue changing the coordinate system represents a qualitative change in the system.
That would be a really bad stance to back. It's basically the same as claiming that changing the numbers on your ruler changes the physical properties of the objects your ruler measures!
 
  • #25


Chalnoth said:
That would be a really bad stance to back. It's basically the same as claiming that changing the numbers on your ruler changes the physical properties of the objects your ruler measures!

I don't know if that's appropriate. I do feel changing the coordinate systeem does represent some type of qualitative change, not in the physical phenomena being measured, but rather in the technique of measurement: a qualitative change in the technique of mesaurement has occurred. Yeah, I think that sounds ok.

I stand by my original thesis: the world is filled with shock-penomena (critical-point transitions). Based on this empirical observation, I propose the world was created by such a shock-phenomenon and those that we observe now are "ripples" from that original shock. And since we often observe qualitative change when transitioning through a critical-point, I suggest a likewise qualitative change is needed transitioning through the Big Bang.
 
  • #26


jackmell said:
I don't know if that's appropriate. I do feel changing the coordinate systeem does represent some type of qualitative change, not in the physical phenomena being measured, but rather in the technique of measurement: a qualitative change in the technique of mesaurement has occurred. Yeah, I think that sounds ok.
No, it makes no physical change whatsoever. Unless you use a bad coordinate system (one that has a singularity relevant to the measurement), your measurements of a system will always come out identical no matter which coordinate system you use.

You have to actually change your measurement apparatus to change the result of the measurement, which a coordinate change does not do.
 
  • #27


Surely some type of change is occurring: we use a system of latitudes and longitudes and conceive of ideas of direction in terms of north and south. These make sense except at the poles where they loose meaning. A critical point is reached there. In order to "pass through" the singular points at the poles, we qualitatively change the system of coordinates to say the location on the sphere x^2+y^2+z^2==1 which does not contain the old concepts of north and south. That to me represents a qualitative change although nothing physical is changing.
 
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  • #28


jackmell said:
Surely some type of change is occurring: we use a system of latitudes and longitudes and conceive of ideas of direction in terms of north and south. These make sense except at the poles where they loose meaning. A critical point is reached there. In order to "pass through" the singular points at the poles, we qualitatively change the system of coordinates to say the location on the sphere x^2+y^2+z^2==1 which does not contain the old concepts of north and south. That to me represents a qualitative change although nothing physical is changing.
Well, not really. What is normally done instead is to use a polar projection. And regardless of your coordinate system, you can still define a north and south: these are just the directions towards the north and south poles. Whether or not we make use of north/south in our coordinate system is irrelevant.
 
  • #29


Ok Chalnoth, maybe I'm loosing this one on the coordinate change.

But if I may return to the original topic: We're often confronted with paradoxes about existence, what is time, what caused the Big Bang, what existed before it, how could "something" emerge from "nothing" and other philosophical questions. In my humble opinion, my proposal that I have discussed here answers all these questions and does so with empirical grounding. It's not turtles all the way down because of critical points and anyone demanding another turtle is simply not following the rules. Nothing may be capable of giving rise to something if nothing is qualitatively different from something and a singular point is involved. "Nothing events" may occur without time on the other side of a singular point which has time on that side. Using concepts of our world such as time and cause and effect, we may only be capable of constructing ill-posed questions about the pre-existence such as the thread author proposed because concepts that were used to construct the questions, may not be applicapable to the pre-existence again, because a singular point is involved.

I really feel I'm on the right tract with this.
 
  • #30


jackmell said:
Ok Chalnoth, maybe I'm loosing this one on the coordinate change.

But if I may return to the original topic:
Fair enough.

jackmell said:
We're often confronted with paradoxes about existence, what is time, what caused the Big Bang, what existed before it, how could "something" emerge from "nothing" and other philosophical questions. In my humble opinion, my proposal that I have discussed here answers all these questions and does so with empirical grounding. It's not turtles all the way down because of critical points and anyone demanding another turtle is simply not following the rules. Nothing may be capable of giving rise to something if nothing is qualitatively different from something and a singular point is involved. "Nothing events" may occur without time on the other side of a singular point which has time on that side. Using concepts of our world such as time and cause and effect, we may only be capable of constructing ill-posed questions about the pre-existence such as the thread author proposed because concepts that were used to construct the questions, may not be applicapable to the pre-existence again, because a singular point is involved.

I really feel I'm on the right tract with this.
I have no idea whatsoever what you are trying to say here.
 

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