Hawking: God not necessary

[rjh01]

Wow! I've been outstanding all my life then.

How many times have you caused, or nearly caused, major disasters?
- Crashed mainframe (or similar) computers.
- Had your disasters reported in the paper.
- Caused people to die.
- Been reported to senior management.
- Heaps of people impacted.
- Mega $.

 

[Roboramma]

Go stand in the sunshine PS. You'll see and feel the net positive energy in the universe. Gravity isn't going to "remove" that energy.

Similarly if you see a bomb explode, and a piece of shrapnel hits you, you'll feel the net positive momentum of the bomb. The other pieces of shrapnel flying off in different directions aren't going to "remove" that momentum.

 

[theneedtoknow]

Similarly if you see a bomb explode, and a piece of shrapnel hits you, you'll feel the net positive momentum of the bomb. The other pieces of shrapnel flying off in different directions aren't going to "remove" that momentum.

Yeah, but you're looking at the effects on a single person in the universe, so the system you're considering to have positive energy is not the system that some people claim has net zero energy.

 

[DC]

yesterday there was half page article about this in one of the free newspapers we have on public transportation, a girl with headscarf sitting in front of me, and was reading that newspaper, when she read the Hawking's article her eyes kept getting bigger and she shook her head in denial, i almost laughed loud out

 

[Perpetual Student]

The universe may have net positive, net negative or net zero energy. It is clearly a cosomological question, so that local manifestations of positive or negative energy like a bomb exploding, a train moving, gravity or the sunshine on ones face are irrelevant since they would occur in any case.

 

[alfaniner]

At least the comments on CNN's site are showing a little more sense now.

 

[nathan]

bah, there was an idiot teacher on the radio this morning. 'the evidence may prove it [evolution], but I chose to believe ...' (paraphrasing). It was a classic case of wanting reality to align with beliefs.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Are we supposed to expect all this to be true because Hawking says it? I thought that Science is not supposed to have any authority. Isn't "Argument from Authority" a logical fallacy? I mean, all this sounds like supposition rather than fact or theory.

When I first heard of this, here is what I first had in mind. The musings of an old physicists who might be afraid of his soul after affairs he has had with nurses employed to take care of him, is not something I accept blindly. My first thought was that Hawking WANTS to believe that the universe is as how he hopes it is.

So the universe can create itself. Nothing has ever been its own source, but the universe is special. How is the universe irregular? Sorry, it sounds too much like magic to me. And this sort of atheism requires more faith than theism to believe. I am not expecting anyone to believe in an invisible man who lives in the sky, but what Hawking is suggesting is just as wacky to me.

 

[nathan]

Are we supposed to expect all this to be true because Hawking says it?

No.

I thought that Science is not supposed to have any authority. Isn't "Argument from Authority" a logical fallacy?

He's not arguing from authority.

I am not expecting anyone to believe in an invisible man who lives in the sky, but what Hawking is suggesting is just as wacky to me.

what is Hawking suggesting? That there is no need for a prime mover? why is that wacky?

 

[Roboramma]

Yeah, but you're looking at the effects on a single person in the universe, so the system you're considering to have positive energy is not the system that some people claim has net zero energy.

That's my point: momentum is conserved the same way energy is, yet you can still start out with a system with zero momentum and end with a system whose parts all have some momentum (some positive, some negative)

 

[Roboramma]

The universe may have net positive, net negative or net zero energy. It is clearly a cosomological question, so that local manifestations of positive or negative energy like a bomb exploding, a train moving, gravity or the sunshine on ones face are irrelevant since they would occur in any case.

Which is the point that I was making with my analogy to momentum, though perhaps the sarcasm was missed...

 

[Agular]

When you can enlighten me on how gravity causes even a single gamma rays to exist, and what offsets is "energy state" back to zero, I'll be happy to consider your ideas. Until then it sounds remarkably like a non-sequitur to me. FYI, it wouldn't be the first time he's blown it.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6151-hawking-cracks-black-hole-paradox.html

There is also the advanced lifeforms may be "nomads, looking to conquer and colonize" nonsense.

 

[Towlie]

It sounds like Bill Thompson found an old quote about Darwin, or Galileo, or Copernicus, and then substituted "Hawking."

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

So the universe can create itself. Nothing has ever been its own source, but the universe is special. How is the universe irregular? Sorry, it sounds too much like magic to me. And this sort of atheism requires more faith than theism to believe. I am not expecting anyone to believe in an invisible man who lives in the sky, but what Hawking is suggesting is just as wacky to me.

Nothing has ever been its own source, so to believe otherwise requires more faith than to believe god was its own source?

Personally I think it requires significantly less faith given that a primitive universe is considerably simpler than any god I've heard about.

 

[Perpetual Student]

So the universe god can create itself. Nothing has ever been its own source, but the universe god is special. How is the universe god irregular? Sorry, it sounds too much like magic to me. And this sort of atheism requires more faith than (a)theism to believe. I am not expecting anyone to believe in an invisible man who lives in the sky anything, but what Hawking Thompson is suggesting is just as wacky to me.

I made just a minor edit of the above statement.

 

[INRM]

What causes gravity to cause the universe to appear out of nowhere? Wouldn't gravity cause the universe to implode?

 

[Roboramma]

What causes gravity to cause the universe to appear out of nowhere? Wouldn't gravity cause the universe to implode?

I don't think the idea is that gravity causes the universe to exist, anymore than a positron causes an electron to exist, rather the fact that they cancel each other out in certain conserved quantities means that if both come into existence the conservation isn't broken.

 

[BoGardiner]

No worries. Deepak Chopra has disproven Hawking.

Chopra, the king of physics woo, is pretty frightened by this book.

Then you have comments like Dawkins that Hawking’s book “finishes off God. Darwin kicked him out of biology, but physics remained more uncertain. Hawking is now administering the coup de grace.”

So here's Chopra wading in with the big boys to do damage control.

 

[plumjam]

Hawking
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….It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

There is currently a law such as gravity in this here Universe wot I am sitting in.
If the mere existence of such a law 'can and will' spontaneously create a Universe out of nothing, then why are there not gazillions of new Universes being created all the time within the area I'm now in?

Why not interpenetrating and interacting Big Bangs all over the place?

 

[Towlie]

Yeah, and what the hell is the blue touch paper?