Hawking: God Did Not Create the Universe

[kpete]

Hawking: God Did Not Create the Universe

God did not create the universe and the "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist," Hawking writes. "It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

http://www.drudge.com/news/136206/hawking-god-did-not-create-universe

for those who are concerned: NOT DRUDGE

http://www.drudge.com/

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Well, duh.

Also, Santa doesn't bring you those presents on x-mas.

[anarch]

2. yeah, well where does gravity come from then, Dr. Scientist?

does gravity exist independent of the universe itself? What the hell is gravity, exactly, anyway?

[cleanhippie]

30. Where do you think it comes from?

What do you think it is?

[uncommon]

3. Why Drudge though?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

4. maybe because the other thread on this topic

got moved to the God-Forum?

sP

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. Drudge?.... come on Drudge? Kpete..!!!! How about the Guardian

or AP Instead as a link?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gXTqqeOkfGj1m48YIY_JoiFK-q3wD9HVSV7G0

[KansDem]

6. Did God create both universes?

I read some years ago that we're on our second universe. The first universe after the Big Bang was comprised of elements like hydrogen and helium, but no carbon. It took the first universe to die off to produce carbon for the second universe to produce life.

[thereismore]

8. Carbon is a product of supernovas, which began as hydrogen blobs, so no, it's all in one Uverse. nt

[piratefish08]

10. I've read theories claiming the universe has contracted and expanded perhaps

dozens of time.

Makes more sense than gawddidit.

[anarch]

11. yeah well I read that it was turtles all the way down

but I'm still personally none the wiser. It is a Great Mystery.

[Marr]

14. It sounds like you're talking about generations of stars, not universes.

[KansDem]

16. That could be it...

Do stars' lifespans differ greatly? Can we say we're on the "second generation of stars" in the same universe?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. Yes, the lifespan of stars greatly differ.

There are many generations of stars currently active, with very few first generation stars still detectable.

[thereismore]

7. "to light the blue touch paper" what a strange British idiom. nt

[uncommon]

9. I thought that too - it's kind of cool sounding though.

[Ichingcarpenter]

12. The Blue Touch paper means this and was used by Dr. Who

Blue touch paper is a type of paper fuse for explosives. The second and third incarnations of the Doctor used small amounts of explosive wrapped in blue touch paper to destroy locks. (DW: The War Games, Spearhead from Space)

The fourth incarnation of the Doctor once used a firecracker and blue touch paper to unclog the gas pocket powering the Sacred Flame. He later gave another piece to the Sisterhood of Karn in case it should happen again. When they asked him what the strange symbols meant he told them "light the blue touch paper and stand well back". (DW: The Brain of Morbius)


http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Blue_touch_paper






If someone lights the touch paper or lights the blue touch paper, they do something which causes anger or excitement.

(BRIT, JOURNALISM)
♦ light the (blue) touch paper

This kind of remark is guaranteed to light the blue touch paper with some Labour politicians.

[zappaman]

13. If that is true

how do you explain the banana?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLqQttJinjo

[BrklynLiberal]

17. hmnmm That banana. its shape..it graspability.....so familiar....what is it???

:silly: :crazy: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[cleanhippie]

31. Please tell me you are joking.

[Hosnon]

15. Hopefully that's sloppy reporting - otherwise it is circular.

I assume Hawking is referring to our universe (one out of many). If so, it isn't entirely accurate to say that our universe created itself from nothing: our universe was created from the underlying framework in which gravity exists.

If there' just one universe or no underlying framework, then the argument is circular.

ETA: I fully expect it to be sloppy reporting. Hawking knows his stuff.

[Dappleganger]

18. Not going to click on Drudge.

[grantcart]

21. Drudge RETORT not Report

[Kalyke]

19. Yawn.

Why is this news?

[NeedleCast]

25. Because Hawking is Brilliant?

and we should listen to the smartest mo'fo in the room?

[wookie72]

29. And yet it's still all theory nt

[cleanhippie]

33. Right, just like creationism is a "theory"....

These will help get you started on understanding what is and what is not a theory. Enjoy the enlightenment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

[wookie72]

34. You're right, it's not a theory

A theory (like, say, evolution) needs empirical evidence. Hawking doesn't even have that.

BTW, there are people who disagree with Hawking that aren't raging fundamentalist yahoos. Just as there are evolutionists who reject *Darwinian* evolution.

[cleanhippie]

35. And who might those people be?

Please, be specific.

[wookie72]

36. For which?

For Dawkins, it would be Stephen Jay Gould, who did not share Dawkins views on evolutionary psychology. Gould was a Darwinian, but he was not a neo-Darwinian a la Dawkins (he had issues with the exact nature of Darwinian evolution.) For Hawking, there's Leonard Susskind and Gerard 't Hooft. It's not trivial to say that there are respected people who disagree about these things. Hawking is a *theoretical* physicist, for Pete's sake. This may surprise you, but Hawking is not a theologian, and any of his pronouncements outside his own field are just as fallible as anybody else's.

I think the reaction here shows little more than the willingness of some atheists to resort to argument from authority. "____ doesn't believe in God, and they're smart, so there."

[cleanhippie]

37. Interesting.

I had not looked at it as an argument from authority, but you do give me pause to reevaluate. Good argument.


Perhaps I accept what Hawking proposes, mostly because his ideas ARE based on solid reasoning and scientific/mathematical calculations. He does not strike me as someone to just make things up, so I accept it until a read a a compelling argument for why he may be wrong.

Regardless, Hawking himself has stated that he certainly could be wrong (I don't think he has ever claimed to be infallible, right?), so based on my very limited knowledge of *theoretical* physics, and until I have a reason to doubt him, I can accept it as the MOST correct theory for now.

[wookie72]

39. Fair enough

I wasn't trying to work in some Intelligent Design nonsense or anything like that, just to point out that scientists disagree on occasion.

[PVnRT]

43. Old news. Hawking conceded in 2004.

Now, if you can actually explain what their disagreement was about, I might be impressed.

[PVnRT]

42. Quick - gather empirical evidence that there isn't a small invisible unicorn in my garage

I'll wait.

[tama]

50. OK

It's not there anymore, the rhino with cloaking device ate it.

[cleanhippie]

32. Excellent answer....

to an idiotic question.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

38. Um, not really.

He's been rather off his rocker lately. And hasn't actually published anything important in decades.

Even if he had, that's still an argument from authority.

This is just some guy's opinion, no more or less valid than anybody else's.

[KittyWampus]

22. Things do not come from nothing. And scientific laws are not "things".

Now, if Hawkings was philosophically competent he could posit that God may defined as the Laws the govern the universe.

He'd then be close to Pythagorus and Plato.

[Taverner]

23. Exactly

Now can we stop giving all of our candidates a religious test before getting elected?

[onehandle]

24. Speaker Boehner does not care. nt

[humblebum]

26. Well, I guess that settles it. Now we know something can come from nothing.

Amazing. Then why can't he figure out what caused ...? I had better not go there. And some call the existence of the supernatural ridiculous. The man's opinion is still subjective and unproven.

[GliderGuider]

27. Yes, Hawking is brilliant, but

"The universe could not help but create itself" is semantically identical to "God did it."

You can't see through a singularity, so all speculation about what is/was on the "other" side remains speculation, no matter how brilliant the speculator.

[blueworld]

28. God says Stephen Hawking is entitled to the royalties; no hard feelings. n/t

[Angry Dragon]

40. God did create the universe

We will go with that theory.

Now prove to me that the god of the Bible is the one that created the universe.

[laconicsax]

41. Easy!

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

It's the http://www.cafepress.com/EdwardCurrent.345898393">Holy Circle of Logic

Checkmate atheists!

[tama]

44. Hawkins killed the wrong god

"From what I have understood from a discussion in Lubos Motl's blog I understand that Hawking's view about God is badly in need of updating. It is essentially the God allowed by classical deterministic physics. God dictated the initial conditions of Big Bang and lost interest on the Universe after that. This because Godly intervention would break the laws of classical physics. In quantum measurement theory we encounter the same problem: quantum measurement apparently breaks the determinism of Schroedinger equation. Now we cannot however claim that state function collapse or something equivalent with it does not occur. The irrational manner to get rid of the problem is to say that there is no objective reality at all.

In TGD inspired theory of consciousness can be seen as a generalization of quantum measurement theory in order to overcome this difficulty. It leads to a quantal view about divine as ability to recreate the whole 4-D Universe (or more precisely, their quantum superposition) again and again. This allows to understand biological evolution as something genuine and generalize the concept of evolution. Zero energy ontology means that physical states correspond to pairs of positive and negative energy states so that symmetries and conservation laws do not restrict the free will of quantum jump. Every physical state is in principle reachable from a given physical state by quantum jumps. Free will is completely consistent with the determinism of the laws of classical physics since the free will of quantum jump is outside the space-time and Hilbert space: entire time evolution of Schroedinger equation is replaced with a new one. Consistency with physics does not anymore exclude divine.

Accepting this view means also a new view about relationship between experienced time and geometric time. They are not one and same thing as should be clear already from the fact that subjective time is irreversible and geometric time reversible. Their identification can however make sense approximately and locally applying to one particular system from which the contents of consciousness of one particular conscious entity is about. Everywhere in 8-D Universe there are space-time sheets about which a contents of sensory consciousness of a particular conscious entity comes from.

In this framework there is no sense in asserting that consciousness is a kind of 3-D time=constant slice moving towards geometric future. The time slice idea is also in conflict with General Coordinate Invariance since a special time coordinate would be relevant for consciousness. And our conscious experience is not about time=constant snapshot. We have memories- even sensory ones- and the experiments of Libet demonstrated that our volitional act induces neural activity in the geometric past. The contents of our conscious experience is about 4-D space-time region, and the challenge is to understand why our sensory experience is localized to about .1 second wide interval of geometric time in the usual wake up state of consciousness.

For these reasons I do not find the classical physics view about God selecting initial conditions very interesting. Hawking should find himself more demanding challenges than killing for all practical purposes already dead God of classical mechanics;-)!"
http://matpitka.blogspot.com/

[Zebedeo]

45. Hawkings assertions are unscientific and logically fallacious

Unscientific because they are not based on the scientific method or indeed any factual evidence. Logically fallacious because gravity is part of the universe. It is the attraction between matter that varies in proportion to the mass of the matter. Matter is a part of the universe and came into existence only upon the creation of the universe. Therefore gravity cannot account for the creation of the universe, because gravity requires matter to exist, and thus it would be nonsensical to claim that gravity existed in the absence of matter and created matter. Prior to the existence of matter, there could not have been gravity.

Not to mention the fact that the "law of gravity" itself is "something." Where did it come from? If it pre-existed the universe (somehow, without matter), then how did it come into existence? Who promulgated the law of gravity?

[edhopper]

46. Why do you say who?

Your sentence insists there was a designer. Why is the absence of present knowledge immediately shown imply that God, without evidence, has a hand?
But this only forestalls the question of where did God, a being at least as complex as the Universe he made, come from.
Or do you believe something can come of nothing?

[Zebedeo]

47. The Christian God is by definition eternal.

He was not created. We know from observation that the universe is not eternal. It had a beginning - a creation moment at which it came into existence suddenly. Someone or something that exists independent of space and time had to have caused this event. Events do not occur without causes. This First Cause who exists independent of space and time and is eternal and who created the universe is what Christians call "God."

[laconicsax]

48. Prove that the Christian god exists and is as you describe it.

Prove that a singular deity is required to create the universe.

Until you do this, your above comment is meaningless.

[tama]

49. "events do not occur without causes"

... and causes are previous events on a linear unidirectional timeline (ie. in"psychological time" to differentiate from geometric time of contemporary physics).

That belief system is what many philosophers call Western Metaphysics. Immovable Mover of Aristotle, Creator God and Big Bang Singularity are all expressions of that same metaphysical belief system.

So what about gravity, for example? Some people might say that "gravity caused the apple to drop", but in standard theory "Every Planckian moment of time, the static configuration of the universe's gravitoelectric field instantaneously changes. The gravitoelectric field of the universe does not exist in time. It is time itself."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_gravity#Aberration_in_general_relativity

[pokerfan]

51. Isn't this special pleading?

"The Christian God is by definition eternal."

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/specplea.html