Science and Theology, the sequel

09/02/2010 09:48:09 AM · #1826

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by eqsite:
Physicist Stephen Hawking says God wasn't necessary for the creation of the universe.

I was reading some comments on his article earlier this morning. So many basic misconceptions: what exploded if nothing existed before the big bang (as if the Big Bang was a detonation of stuff), who wrote the laws of gravity (as if physical laws are subject to decree), what came before the beginning of time (the 'what's north of the North Pole' question), the Big Bang is "just a theory" (confusing the scientific term with a guess). Shameful.

Do you have any links to anything that discusses his spontaneous creation theory in any depth? I've only found very superficial articles such as the one I've posted.

ETA: This was an interesting, although still somewhat superficial read on the topic: //web.uvic.ca/~jtwong/newtheories.htm

Message edited by author 2010-09-02 09:59:23.

Nikon AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.8D

09/02/2010 11:56:16 AM · #1827

Originally posted by eqsite:

Well I guess THIS settles it then:

Physicist Stephen Hawking says God wasn't necessary for the creation of the universe.

At any rate, the book is sure to be on my reading list this fall.

One wonders if there is some new info (from your other post it seems the theory has been around for 15 years) or is Hawking just a good publicist? :)

Louis

Nikon D800

09/02/2010 11:57:21 AM · #1828

Yeah, that's Stephen Hawking's primary concern, promoting himself.

09/02/2010 12:08:47 PM · #1829

There are obviously a lot of questions. I'm anxious to see how well the book addresses them.

09/02/2010 12:28:22 PM · #1830

Originally posted by eqsite:

There are obviously a lot of questions. I'm anxious to see how well the book addresses them.

I'll give you a preview. Every idea about our origins (religious included) will end with one of two answers. "From nothing" or "It always was". "From nothing" will always leave room for an ex nihilo creator and "it always was" is never intellectually satisfying because it fails to answer "why" it should be so.

Sorry to burst the bubble. I'll probably check the book out too. When is it due out?

09/02/2010 12:29:44 PM · #1831

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

One wonders if there is some new info (from your other post it seems the theory has been around for 15 years) or is Hawking just a good publicist? :)

He just wrote the book; the theory's been around a while, of course.

R.

Canon 12x IS USM (S3 IS built-in Lens) -- 36-432mm (35mm EQ)

09/02/2010 12:30:01 PM · #1832

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Originally posted by eqsite:
There are obviously a lot of questions. I'm anxious to see how well the book addresses them.

I'll give you a preview. Every idea about our origins (religious included) will end with one of two answers. "From nothing" or "It always was". "From nothing" will always leave room for an ex nihilo creator and "it always was" is never intellectually satisfying because it fails to answer "why" it should be so.

Sorry to burst the bubble. I'll probably check the book out too. When is it due out?

Mid September.

R.

GeneralE

Canon PowerShot S3 IS

09/02/2010 12:30:44 PM · #1833

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

... "it always was" is never intellectually satisfying because it fails to answer "why" it should be so.

I suppose that's the problem I have with God ...

K3Master

Pentax K-3

Pentax D-FA* 70-200mm f/2.8 ED DC AW

09/02/2010 12:33:10 PM · #1834

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Why ask why? I never worry about why.

Apple iPhone 5

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 ED

09/02/2010 12:38:48 PM · #1835

This thread again? - I thought we'd already agreed that God doesn't exist.

09/02/2010 12:50:21 PM · #1836

Originally posted by JH:

This thread again? - I thought we'd already agreed that God doesn't exist.

Actually I think the consensus was that it was you who was a figment of our imagination.

09/02/2010 12:54:06 PM · #1837

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Way to dismiss with a wave of the hands one of the greatest thinkers of our time without even reading what he has to say. If his previous publications are any indication, I suspect that there will be a little more meat on the bone than that. I, for one, am very curious to see an explanation for how a particle with the mass of a pea can give rise to all of the mass in our universe. Where does that energy come from? I'm sure he's positing some sort of answer to that.

09/02/2010 01:01:09 PM · #1838

Originally posted by eqsite:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Originally posted by eqsite:
There are obviously a lot of questions. I'm anxious to see how well the book addresses them.

I'll give you a preview. Every idea about our origins (religious included) will end with one of two answers. "From nothing" or "It always was". "From nothing" will always leave room for an ex nihilo creator and "it always was" is never intellectually satisfying because it fails to answer "why" it should be so.

Sorry to burst the bubble. I'll probably check the book out too. When is it due out?

Way to dismiss with a wave of the hands one of the greatest thinkers of our time without even reading what he has to say. If his previous publications are any indication, I suspect that there will be a little more meat on the bone than that. I, for one, am very curious to see an explanation for how a particle with the mass of a pea can give rise to all of the mass in our universe. Where does that energy come from? I'm sure he's positing some sort of answer to that.

He will. "From nothing" or "it always was". ;)

I don't mean to be dismissive, but can you think of another logical answer? I'm not sure there is one.

09/02/2010 01:10:04 PM · #1839

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Originally posted by eqsite:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Originally posted by eqsite:
There are obviously a lot of questions. I'm anxious to see how well the book addresses them.

I'll give you a preview. Every idea about our origins (religious included) will end with one of two answers. "From nothing" or "It always was". "From nothing" will always leave room for an ex nihilo creator and "it always was" is never intellectually satisfying because it fails to answer "why" it should be so.

Sorry to burst the bubble. I'll probably check the book out too. When is it due out?

Way to dismiss with a wave of the hands one of the greatest thinkers of our time without even reading what he has to say. If his previous publications are any indication, I suspect that there will be a little more meat on the bone than that. I, for one, am very curious to see an explanation for how a particle with the mass of a pea can give rise to all of the mass in our universe. Where does that energy come from? I'm sure he's positing some sort of answer to that.

He will. "From nothing" or "it always was". ;)

I don't mean to be dismissive, but can you think of another logical answer? I'm not sure there is one.

Well, if time is strickly a linear dimension, that yes, those are the only two logical answers. But that piece I linked to alluded to the possibility that time may not be strictly linear:

Originally posted by article:

Time has taken on properties of space; the direction of time follows the same direction of space.

If time is non-linear, then it opens the door for other, rather mind-bending possibilities. Too mind-bending for me to grasp.

09/02/2010 01:13:37 PM · #1840

If you mean a timeline that bends back on itself somehow (whatever that means) then I'd consider that a variation of "it always was".

I will, of course, defer to Mr. Hawking and his book. This does quickly go beyond all of us.

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

09/02/2010 01:47:23 PM · #1841

Originally posted by eqsite:

Do you have any links to anything that discusses his spontaneous creation theory in any depth?

No. The book won't be published until September 9th, so there won't be much meaningful insight until at least then. I'm pretty sure it'll be related to Hawking's "multiverse" concept, which is all but inaccessible to non-physicists (including myself). I was more interested in the misconceptions people throw around while trying to refute concepts they demonstrably don't understand at even a basic level. It's the cosmological equivalent of people who profess knowledge of Darwinism and then question why caterpillars don't 'evolve into something other than a butterfly' or why monkeys still exist if we 'evolved from monkeys'.

Even if Hawking's hypotheses are mathematically workable, it would only be one possible explanation for the universe... and not necessarily the only one. Bear in mind that we didn't know anything existed beyond our own galaxy until 1923 and the Big Bang was not confirmed until 1964. Just a couple of generations ago, few people could have imagined that something as small as an atom harbors the enormous potential energy of atomic fission. I suspect that a relatively modest explanation will emerge within my lifetime, and it won't be supernatural since, "From nothing" eliminates the possibility that something already existed to do the creating and, "It always was" eliminates the need.

09/02/2010 01:55:01 PM · #1842

Originally posted by scalvert:

"From nothing" eliminates the possibility that something already existed to do the creating...

Including the natural laws that would "do" the creating? I propose that "from nothing" is a completely irrational answer. The only real answer is some variation of "it always was". The question is just what always was?

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

09/02/2010 02:22:03 PM · #1843

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Originally posted by scalvert:
"From nothing" eliminates the possibility that something already existed to do the creating...

Including the natural laws that would "do" the creating?

Natural laws aren't things. They have no will and form no entity. They are only descriptors of whatever happens in the universe. Rain falling from the clouds can be described with natural laws even though nobody is up there with a giant watering can.

09/02/2010 02:30:51 PM · #1844

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Originally posted by scalvert:
"From nothing" eliminates the possibility that something already existed to do the creating...

Including the natural laws that would "do" the creating?

Natural laws aren't things. They have no will and form no entity. They are only descriptors of whatever happens in the universe. Rain falling from the clouds can be described with natural laws even though nobody is up there with a giant watering can.

No, I understand, but follow me for a minute when we think about true Nothing.

No matter. That's easy to imagine.
No energy. That's harder and means there is nothing to work with.
No spacetime. Even harder to imagine. It means there are no causality chains.

You are correct that the Law of Gravity (for example) describes the behavior of something and doesn't "exist" in any independent manner, but if we were to answer that the Universe arose from true Nothing, then why would it arise? There is no reason for it to do so. No descriptor would exist to explain it. And if there WAS a descriptor, it would be describing Something (which is not Nothing).

Does this help explain why "From Nothing" is an irrational answer?

09/02/2010 02:49:41 PM · #1845

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Does this help explain why "From Nothing" is an irrational answer?

What it explains, if anything, is how the so-called "nothingness" from which all creation burst is beyond human comprehension. I don't think it's possible, within our language, within our mathematics, within our cosmology, for us to grasp the true nature of spade/time, so none of this has any meaning really.

You mention, for example, "causality chains". On a macro scale, this may fail as a descriptive concept. And on a micro scale as well. In what Hawkings is talking about, this little bubble thing, effectively all "time" "exists" "at once", is as close as I can come to grasping it.

R.

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

09/02/2010 03:38:27 PM · #1846

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

No, I understand, but follow me for a minute when we think about true Nothing.
No matter. That's easy to imagine.
No energy. That's harder and means there is nothing to work with.

Are they? Energy and matter are interchangeable, and until we understand dark matter and dark energy (the dominant forms), the door remains open to many possibilities.

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

No spacetime. Even harder to imagine. It means there are no causality chains.

How about curved spacetime? More mass = more curvature. What if there's a mass limit beyond which spacetime curves completely, effectively forming an event horizon to our universe, while outside mass and energy continued to accrete or be lost? From our perspective, that might yield all the characteristics of the Big Bang yet be no more supernatural than the Chandrasekhar limit.

09/02/2010 03:47:18 PM · #1847

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
No, I understand, but follow me for a minute when we think about true Nothing.
No matter. That's easy to imagine.
No energy. That's harder and means there is nothing to work with.

Are they? Energy and matter are interchangeable, and until we understand dark matter and dark energy (the dominant forms), the door remains open to many possibilities.
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
No spacetime. Even harder to imagine. It means there are no causality chains.

How about curved spacetime? More mass = more curvature. What if there's a mass limit beyond which spacetime curves completely, effectively forming an event horizon to our universe, while outside mass and energy continued to accrete or be lost? From our perspective, that might yield all the characteristics of the Big Bang yet be no more supernatural than the Chandrasekhar limit.

But do you understand that you are no longer describing "from Nothing"? I'm speaking on a theoretical level. You can't invoke our lack of understanding of dark matter and energy because even if we DID understand them, they would qualify as "something" (which would then force us to reject the "from nothing" answer).

The curved spacetime, like I already mentioned, is also not "from Nothing" but rather a variation of "it always existed" (a cyclical variation).

Robert, I don't disagree that things are beyond our comprehension, but there is a rational understanding of what "nothing" represents. Either there was nothing or there was something. There is no third option. As I pointed out, "nothing" has fatal, logical issues and "something" leads us straight to "it always was" at some point. The Singularity always was. The multiverse always was. God always was. Whatever your choice.

Message edited by author 2010-09-02 15:47:47.

09/02/2010 03:56:23 PM · #1848

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Robert, I don't disagree that things are beyond our comprehension, but there is a rational understanding of what "nothing" represents. Either there was nothing or there was something. There is no third option. As I pointed out, "nothing" has fatal, logical issues and "something" leads us straight to "it always was" at some point. The Singularity always was. The multiverse always was. God always was. Whatever your choice.

Yes, but the point is that our concept "always was" may be flawed, meaningless. Just as our concept of the linear flow of time, time as a measurable phenomenon, is probably flawed.

Who was it, Archimedes, said "give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world." Yah, Archimedes. And we don't have anyplace to STAND here, we're within a phenomenon, within a reality, that can only be fully comprehended from a vantage point outside of it. I have no problem believing such a vantage point exists, indeed that *many* of them do. It's the old "infinity in a grain of sand" saw, ya know? Every grain of sand is its own universe, and within that universe every grain of sand is a universe, and so on, recursively yours, unto the end of time, which doesn't exist anyway, that sort of hopeless babbling of the brain.

I believe that stuff, really I do. I'm in awe of how possible, even probable, it is that we just don't have a clue. I love it!

And I call that God :-)

R.