Stephen Hawking's did god Create the Universe discovery documentary

[Tanelorn]

Twofish said, "One of the latest ideas in cosmology is the anthropic principle. We have a problem in that it appears that the constants of the universe are "random." There's no reason why the fine structure constant is what it is. One way out of this is to assuming that there are a huge number of universes, and we happen to be in one that supports intelligent life. At that point, Occam's razor gets really dull. I don't think that you can argue and assuming a large number of alternative universes is "simpler" than saying "God did it." You might be able to invoke another philosophical principle, but it's not Occam's razor."

Yes, I agree with this and suggested similar a few messages ago.

The Universe to me sometimes seems to be almost like a living thing, it was born, grows, matures and dies off. Perhaps there are some parallels to the Gaia priniciple?
Our Universe has an inherent capability of producing ever more deeper compexity, such as life itself.
We don't know how many levels of complexity exist on scales much larger than the Observable Universe. Our Observable Universe could be the equivalent of the microbe level in our daily lives.
Perhaps the physical constants which shape our Universe in a way to be able to create life are the result of something like evolution over many cycles?

All very well and good but it still doesn't explain "the first thing" what ever that was.Coincidentally Occam's commemeration day is actually on my birthday.

 

[twofish-quant]

One point that Hawking makes which I agree with is that when we are talking about events "before the big bang" we are talking about an era in which our concepts of time may make no sense. If there is no such thing as "time", then what does it mean to be "before" or "after" something? It's possible to mathematically define a universe in which time does not exist. It's also possible to define our universe within a larger "system" in which time does not exist and there is no such thing as "before" or "after."

It appears that Hawking seems to think that this is a theological argument against God. Personally, I think this is a theological argument for God. Again we run into a problem. If we were talking about helium abundances in the big bang, we would be arguing with the same philosophical rules. We aren't.

 

[twofish-quant]

The Universe to me sometimes seems to be almost like a living thing, it was born, grows, matures and dies off. Perhaps there are some parallels to the Gaia priniciple?

Then again I could be totally wrong.

There is a very practical reason I don't think about the Big Bang when I think about religious issues. One purpose of a religion is to tell you what you should do. Some beggar asks me for change, do I give it to him or not? Do I go to church or not? I walk past an open window in a tall building, should I jump out of it or not?

I've found cosmology and science to be a *terrible* foundation for this sort of thing. I don't have any clue what happened at 10^-52 seconds after the big bang. But I need to make important life decisions *NOW*. Also physics is uncertain. Without much difficult, I can come up with a great philosophical argument that I should shoot myself. However, I'd rather not do it, because I could come back after lunch and find a flaw in that argument, which case it would be bad if I actually shot myself.

Science is all about the unknown. It would be ridiculous to change my life every thirty seconds, as we find out that everything we thought we knew yesterday was wrong. And if I can come up with a religion or religious philosophy in which what happened at the big bang *doesn't* matter, then well, what happened at the big bang *doesn't* matter.

If it turns out that the universe existed for ever, then I marvel at the fact that the universe existed forever. If it turns out that it didn't, then I marvel at the fact that it didn't.

We don't know how many levels of complexity exist on scales much larger than the Observable Universe. Our Observable Universe could be the equivalent of the microbe level in our daily lives.

It could be. Or maybe it isn't. If we don't know, then we don't know, and if we don't know.

One thing that I find interesting is the rhetorical use of the "subjunctive". Someone says we don't know something, and then says "this *could* be true." This happens a lot in finance. Will Greece default? And someone says "I don't know, but it *could* default, and then spends a dozen pages talking about it." I've always wondered what that means rhetorically and linguistically.

Perhaps the physical constants which shape our Universe in a way to be able to create life are the result of something like evolution over many cycles?

Leo Smolin has suggested this.

All very well and good but it still doesn't explain "the first thing" what ever that was.

Why must there be a "first thing"? One thing that is interesting here is that we are also talking about the limits of language and of thought and of imagination. It's possible for me to imagine a universe in which time does not exist, and in which there is no "before" or "after" (Max Tegmark's paper outlines the universe). This brings up a mathematical question. Is it possible to imagine a universe that cannot be described, and I think the answer is yes.

Tegmark and others raising the anthorpic principle is interesting because at that point there are some pretty deep questions about thought. Tegmark argues that unless you live in a 3+1 universe, intelligence is impossible, which brings up the question of whether "intelligence" requires a universe in which there is a "before" and "after".

 

[twofish-quant]

Myself, I can't think of anything off the top of my head that I actually believe as gospel anymore, as they say. I question everything I am told.

One important theological concept is "dogma". A "dogma" is something that you aren't allowed to question. Science considers "dogma" a bad thing, but I've found that "dogma" is useful in things outside of science. Why shouldn't I shoot myself? Well, I just shouldn't.

In fact I sometimes even have trouble with the CMBR leading to the BB theory itself!

One definitional issue is "what is the big bang theory?" and "what is the big bang?" Personally, I consider anything before the "pre-inflationary era" to not be part of the "big bang theory."

Also CMBR in some sense *is* the big bang. If you are looking at the CMBR, you are looking directly at the big bang. Something happened, we call that something the big bang. Now based on CMBR, you can infer a lot of stuff.

There we are. One thing that I particularly struggle with is that the Observable Universe is small compared to the whole Universe, which may in fact even be infinite, yet the BB states that the whole universe started as a singularitiy!

No it doesn't. You see the big bang from the CMBR, you ask what happens, and you can work out the details up until the inflationary era, and before that it's a big "I don't know". There are several models of cosmology (loop quantum gravity or the epryatoric universe) in which there is no singularity.

There is a terminology issue, because people often refer to the big bang to mean "event zero". I don't. I refer to the "big bang" as "that thing that you see that causes CMBR".

Twofish Cosmology and High finance - what a combination. Apparently there is no unemployment amongst Astrophysicists!

There are also interesting philosophical issues. For example, working in finance makes me doubt philosophical materialism. There is this idea that only material objects are "real". That causes people a great deal of difficulty when dealing with large sums of money.

 

[rbj]

i am really pleased that they haven't nixed this discussion. the moderators seem to do that just as it starts to get interesting.

I think he is going *waaayyyyy* beyond that statement. The argument he seems to be making (and I don't want to put words in his mouth or set up strawmen) is that "God" as defined by most major religions can be scientifically tested to be false, and therefore people that believe in God are delusional.

This comes into conflict with Stephen Jay Gould's ideas on the topic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlapping_magisteria

One thing that I do like about Dawkin's is that he is blunt. In arguments like these, one often tries to find a compromise by softening the claims or by redefining the terms or by agreeing to disagree. Dawkins is in a "take no prisoners, make no compromises" mood so, he isn't interested in this sort of thing.

twofish, i think you're being very accurate in describing the position of the author of "The God Delusion".

and while i like Gould, i don't believe that his non-overlapping magisteria quite applies to some/many religious claims. there are certainly some religious claims that intrude upon the magiseria of science. probably the foremost is resurrection which is certainly something that should never go into a physiology textbook.

That's where knowing theology is useful. One advantage that I have in arguing with young Earth creationists is that I grew up a Southern Baptist so I know the theology from Sunday School. You can come up with extremely strong theological arguments against young Earth creationism.

One interesting thing is that it's hard to come up with a scientific argument against "Last Thursdayism" but Decartes came up with a theological one. I can't (easily) scientifically prove that Last Thursday existed, but I can argue that God just wouldn't create a universe that's overly deceptive.

Coming up with a philosophical argument that the universe exists Last Thursday turns out to be tricky. The closest thing that I've been able to come up with is that since I memory Last Thursday, it must exist, if only as a memory. The other thing that I've been thinking a lot about is what can I do *now* so that I can prove to myself in two weeks that now existed.

One other point is that our ideas of what constitutes "proof" come from logical positivism and that only came about in the 1920's. It's hardly the last word on the topic.

i've never heard of the term "Last Thursday" but i looked it up. interesting.

i've known since high school that theologically Young-Earthers were on shaky ground describing a Universe and Earth that was "created with a history". terrible explanation of the astronomical and fossil record. and really crappy theology.

The problem with not discussing God is that then you get into "silence equals agreement" problems. I have theological reasons not to talk about God, but if Stephen Hawking makes statements about God and the beginning of the universe, and I don't say anything, then that may get misinterpreted as assuming that I agree with him which I don't.

i've had this problem on this very forum that when i would pipe in, rather than remain silent, the thread would heat up and a moderator would kill it.

One of the latest ideas in cosmology is the anthropic principle. We have a problem in that it appears that the constants of the universe are "random." There's no reason why the fine structure constant is what it is. One way out of this is to assuming that there are a huge number of universes, and we happen to be in one that supports intelligent life. At that point, Occam's razor gets really dull. I don't think that you can argue and assuming a large number of alternative universes is "simpler" than saying "God did it." You might be able to invoke another philosophical principle, but it's not Occam's razor.

boy, it's refreshing to read this, twofish. and before they shut the thread down.

 

[twofish-quant]

and while i like Gould, i don't believe that his non-overlapping magisteria quite applies to some/many religious claims. there are certainly some religious claims that intrude upon the magiseria of science. probably the foremost is resurrection which is certainly something that should never go into a physiology textbook.

Sure, and Mormons have issues with Meso-American archaeology.

However, sometimes science gets you out of a problem. For example, the Buddhist concept of reincarnation. Buddhists believe that when you die, you are reborn into another living organism. Now, if you confine yourself to this universe, then you can just check birth certificates, and it quickly becomes apparent that there is no reincarnation.

However, if you start thinking about multiverses, then the Buddhist concept of reincarnation no longer becomes falsified, it likely because unfalsifiable. I can prove using ordinary rules of evidence, that I wasn't reincarnated from someone in this universe (check birth certificates). Once you allow parallel universes to exist, then it becomes more difficult.

Seculari humanists like Dawkins, seems to believe that as science advances, that "God of the gaps" will disappear. But he is a biologist not a cosmologist. Something that I think is true is that a lot of the latest thinking in cosmology creates "new gaps for God." Heaven or Hell or Nirvanna doesn't exist in our solar system. But once you argue for the existence of multiverses, then you create new places for those things to exist.

But, I trying to keep my science separate from my religion. For example, I can come up with the theory of Buddhism in which Nirvanna is a place in the Western part of the multiverse. The trouble is that if I start *believing* in that and it becomes an integral part of my world view, it becomes harder to critically think that *I might be wrong*.

Personally, it seems to me that there is a set of neurons in the mid-brain that controls "belief". From personal experience, my suspicion is that "belief in God" comes from the mid-brain, and that there are neural structures that respond to "parents" and to "belief." The fact that people call God "Father" and not "rubber ducky" says that there is some neurological connection between "belief in God" and the neurons that fire when we respond to our parents. There is another set of neurons that control "belief." When I think I've discovered something, I can feel certain neurons firing.

When I do science, I try to keep those neurons from firing. When I write love poetry, I try to make those neurons go off.

i've known since high school that theologically Young-Earthers were on shaky ground describing a Universe and Earth that was "created with a history". terrible explanation of the astronomical and fossil record. and really crappy theology.

The theological arguments against creationism are as interesting as the scientific ones.

There is one thing that has changed. In the 1980's, the argument was over public school curricula. It has already been decided that US public schools were going to teach science and they weren't going to teach religion. Hence, you just had to argue that young Earth creationism wasn't science that evolution was, and you won that argument.

However, that's only part of the issue, and today when we have all this stuff on Youtube, what happens in US public schools is much less important. One reason I find myself (weirdly) on the same side as young Earth creationists, is that when I talked to some of them, their attitude was "we really aren't scientists, and our main concern is that we don't like this conspiracy to get rid of God so that's why we are screaming."

In that situation, you could just "argue a truce". I could say "we aren't trying to get rid of God." However, I was wrong about this. I'm not. Stephen Jay Gould wasn't. Dawkins was and is. One thing that makes Dawkins interesting, the young Earth creationists understood him better that I did. He really thinks that the world would be better off without the "God delusion."

i've had this problem on this very forum that when i would pipe in, rather than remain silent, the thread would heat up and a moderator would kill it.

Again. I wouldn't have said anything if Hawking didn't. Part of the truce was that we draw a line between science and religion. Scientists talk about science. Preachers talk about religion, and everyone is happy. That works for me, but it doesn't work for Stephen Hawking.

There's also a very strong US/European thing. My impression is that the idea that "religion is superstious non-sense" is an idea that's more popular in Europe than in the US. Someone mentioned that if you go to a church in England, you don't see many people there, and the people that are there are old people. Religion is *very* strong in the US.

 

[Chronos]

Hawking is a bitter man lashing out against the unfairness of his life in his declining years. I pity him. Sometimes you need to lift your eyes away from the chalkboard to see the room.

 

[Cosmo Novice]

Hawking is a bitter man lashing out against the unfairness of his life in his declining years. I pity him. Sometimes you need to lift your eyes away from the chalkboard to see the room.

I suspect he would not want nor require your pity.

 

[Chronos]

Any scientist who takes a public stance for, or against, 'god' has issues entirely unrelated to science, IMO.

 

[Cosmo Novice]

Any scientist who takes a public stance for, or against, 'god' has issues entirely unrelated to science, IMO.

Maybe so but to claim a "bitter man lashing out at the unfairness of his life" has about as much validity and authority as Hawking opinions on god.

Any scientist has a right to take a public stance on God, so long as they do not determine or promote their stance to be any more important or valid than any other stance. Then can hold personal opinions made public, at least IMO.

 

[Chronos]

Maybe so but to claim a "bitter man lashing out at the unfairness of his life" has about as much validity and authority as Hawking opinions on god.

Any scientist has a right to take a public stance on God, so long as they do not determine or promote their stance to be any more important or valid than any other stance. Then can hold personal opinions made public, at least IMO.

I agree. However, within the context of an event where he was a guest speaker, his anti-theist diatribe was irrelevant, inappropriate and potentially offensive to an audience expecting an entertaining discussion about science.

 

[Tanelorn]

"Sometimes you need to lift your eyes away from the chalkboard to see the room."

I think you are being very unfair to Hawking. He is sincerely looking for the truth and trying to show that there are natural alternative explanations instead of supernatural explanations. And he is also not persecuting others to try to get others to believe him. He could perhaps use an alternative word for God to describe whatever is responsible for creating the Universe, either sentient or not, but that is the term which most people would understand. I really don't think he is being bitter or malicious, like myself he has reached stage in life where he is able to discuss the subject freely and openly. He may have forgotten that some still find such discussion uncomfortable. I also always prefer simple natural explanations over complex or supernatural explanations, and Hawking has every right to say this at a Cosmology discussion.


twofish, to clarify what I meant, I was saying that I occasionally question whether the CMBR was produced by what we call the BB. There is an extremely small possibility that signals we receive on Earth could be being produced by another source and we mistakenly built up a huge cosmology out of it. Very advanced theories such loop quantum gravity or the epryatoric universe I have not even read so for me they are still as fanciful as supernatural type agencies.

Yes I agree not shooting oneself because we feel depressed for a day or two is a good rule for life and staying alive.

I think moderators are particularly against religious discussion, crackpoint ideas and links, and strong arguing, so let's try not to go there. One solution might be that Cosmology could split into two parts, the rigorous, mathematical, scientific, Physics, CMBR, BB analysis part (isnt this astrophysics?) and the philosphical approach outlining all known possible ways in which the Universe could have come into existence type Cosmology (metaphysics?).

twofish, If the God delusion as you put it, turns out to be correct, then I really believe it would be better to live free of all Gods in this one short life we have, than waste it living a lie, especially if there is conflict as a result. Others are free to do as they wish, and I am a pragmatist, if the world and society is better off for it one way or the other then so be it. I am from the UK and I agree that more people there tend to grow out it as they grow older and accept the world as they see it, here in the US people seem to cling to it more in quiet desperation. I have seen the birth place of all man's religions when I spent an hour inside the tomb of the great pyramid. I do not see much resemblance in any of these religions to any kind of sentient creator as we would understand one today, if one actually exists.

I am finished with religious aspects to this discussion, let's talk about other parts of this documentary. eg.

"It is a zero sum game, positive energy in matter is balanced by negative energy in space itself".
"And time slows down to zero and actually begins at the big bang singularity".

 

[rbj]

I agree. However, within the context of an event where he was a guest speaker, his anti-theist diatribe was irrelevant, inappropriate and potentially offensive to an audience expecting an entertaining discussion about science.

i think you're being a little harsh with Hawking, too. if "Hawking" were replaced with "Dawkins", i would not say you're being harsh.

but i have never been particularly impressed with Hawking's philosophizing.

 

[rbj]

...

Part of the truce was that we draw a line between science and religion. Scientists talk about science. Preachers talk about religion, and everyone is happy.

how is everyone happy if the religion preachers talk about has in it supernatural miracles such as resurrection or virgin birth? *i* am also one of those religious types and i recognize a problem of overlapping magesteria when preachers talk of that.

 

[twofish-quant]

Any scientist has a right to take a public stance on God

It's not a matter of *right* rather than of responsibility.

If you interview a famous scientist and that scientist says "drink Pepsi" that could be taken as a celebrity endorsement even if it is unintended.

So long as they do not determine or promote their stance to be any more important or valid than any other stance. Then can hold personal opinions made public, at least IMO.

There are different levels of "public." If Hawking posted his ideas on God on his personal blog, that's not a big deal because everyone can post their own blog. If he is doing on a Discovery Channel documentary, that's different because not everyone has that sort of media access.

 

[George Jones]

I have closed this thread, as it doesn't have science content.