Stephen Hawking has a new book coming out (The Grand Design, with Leonard Mlodinow). Among other things, he points out that modern physics has progressed to the point where we don’t need to invoke God to explain the existence of the universe. This is not exactly a hot flash — I remember writing an essay making the same point for a philosophy class my sophomore year in college — but it makes news because it’s Hawking who says it. And that’s absolutely fine — Hawking has a track record of making substantial intellectual contributions, there’s every reason to listen to him more than random undergraduates waxing profound.
This issue is, of course, totally up my alley, and I should certainly blog about it. But I can’t, because I’m on hiatus! (Right?) So, as an experiment, I made a video of myself talking rather than simply typing my words into the computer. Radical! Not sure the amount of information conveyed is anywhere near as large in this format, and obviously I didn’t sweat the production values. I fear that some subtleties of the argument may be lost. But if we’re lucky, other people elsewhere on the internet will also talk about these questions, and we’ll get it all sorted out.
Let me know if the Grand Video Experiment is worth repeating and improving, or whether it’s just a waste of time.
Something that I should have said, but didn’t: there doesn’t need to be some sophisticated modern-physics answer to the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” The universe can simply exist, end of story. But it’s still fun to think carefully about all the possibilities, existence and non-existence both included.
Does it really matter to science if a god or gods exist? Science is about discovering natural explanations… what has God got to do with this? If, per chance, the cosmos was created by a god, there’s the whole free-will thing to take into account. If a god wants his creations to be able to choose to worship, to have free will, then every phenomenon, including the cosmos itself, must have discoverable natural mechanisms… if not, if it’s obvious that there had to be some super-dude to start it off, then how could we really chose? If he/she/it/they want us to have free will then any act of creation must include a natural explanation as well. Thus, we have science. God or no God, we have science to find the natural explanations for everything. There will be natural explanations for everything for us to find, eventually. Thus, for anything beyond a personal level, God is irrelevant.
more here:
http://fixerdave.blogspot.com/2008/06/free-will.html
http://fixerdave.blogspot.com/2008/04/science-and-god.html
http://fixerdave.blogspot.com/2008/04/debating-belief-in-god-is-wrong.html
P.S. Sorry, not interested in videos myself… takes a good car chase, with explosions, to keep me watching more than 20 seconds 😉 Maybe if you started it off with something like the first 10 minutes of Mad Max. It’s late… I probably shouldn’t hit the Submit button… oh well.
I don’t understand Hawking’s point. Or rather, since I haven’t read the book, I don’t understand Sean’s version of the point Hawking is making.
Is Hawking simply making the point that modern physics allows the possibility that we may one day understand the universe without going outside the universe, but we don’t yet know what that explanation is? From the video it sounds like he’s doing something slightly more concrete than that and arguing that general relativity combined with quantum mechanics already offers an explaination of how the universe can about.
But how do you do general relativity without a spacetime manifold? How does general relativity allow spacetime to come into existence? In what sense are you “waiting long enough” to explore the full range of quantum possibilities if you don’t yet have a spacetime to wait in? And how does the total energy of the universe being zero relate to earlier discussions about how energy isn’t really conserved in general relativity? Has Hawking or Sean solved the problem of how to measure the energy of the universe? Do they know something about its extent and boundary? Is it just the famous no boundary principle of the Brief History? Why is it useful to note that the total energy of the universe is zero if energy is not necessarily conserved, or even meaningful without spacetime?
Surely we need something more than just general relativity and quantum mechanics on their own to build a self-consistent picture of how this all came about? So there’s still plenty of room for God…
3 things …
1. I like the video!
2. “The energy of the entire universe, according to Einstein, is exactly zero” – But you’ve previously said ” I personally think it’s better to forget about the so-called “energy of the gravitational field” and just admit that energy is not conserved.” Can we really take these calculations of the energy of the whole universe seriously?
3. Define “nothing”. If we go with the definition: “if what you’re talking about has properties, then it’s something”, then it’s clear that Hawking isn’t describing creation out of nothing. Whatever it is, it has the properties ascribed to it by GR/QFT. Some quotes for you to interact with:
Cosmologists sometimes claim that the universe can arise ‘from nothing’. But they should watch their language, especially when addressing philosophers. We’ve realised ever since Einstein that empty space can have a structure such that it can be warped and distorted. Even if shrunk down to a ‘point’, it is latent with particles and forces – still a far richer construct than the philosopher’s ‘nothing’. Theorists may, some day, be able to write down fundemental equations governing physical reality. But physics can never explain what ‘breathes fire’ into the equations, and actualised them into a real cosmos. The fundemental question of ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ remains the province of philosophers. And even they may be wiser to respond, with Ludwig Wittgenstein, what ‘whereof one cannot speak, one must be silent’. (Martin Rees, Just 6 Numbers)
The concept of a universe materializing out of nothing boggles the mind … yet the state of “nothing” cannot be identified with absolute nothingness. The tunneling is described by the laws of quantum mechanics, and thus “nothing” should be subjected to these laws. The laws must have existed, even though there was no universe. (Alex Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One)
Dear Sean, you say “Stephen Hawking Settles the God Question Once and For All”. I say ‘no he has not’.
Is Hawking (or you) a theologian? No
Does Hawking (or you) know how God works? No
Then how can he (and you for that matter) say that science does not need to invoke God as a cause for creation?
When will you learn that theology and science are different endeavours, different approaches, which seek the truth, and as such cannot be in conflict. Even your philosophy of science is lacking. For heaven’s sake Sean read some Pierre Duhem or Fr Stanley Jaki!
The God vs science theme sells books and newspapers.
I like also Kim Griest’s little talk about the subject on UCTV:
The Mystery of Empty Space
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-vKh_jKX7Q
Since I’m a lay person, who can’t do the math, I am relegated to finding scientists who have the skill to eloquently translate the math to comprehensible English, and take the time to do so for the general public.
As I understand it, the “nothing” being referred to here is what Griest is calling the “vacuum energy” in his talk. According to Griest, string theory can be solved in such a way that shows that the vacuum energy is unstable.
In other words, as long as the equations work out so that both sides eventually can be resolved to zero, you can go through as many perturbations as you want . As I understand it, the concept of virtual particles in the quantum soup means universes can fluctuate in and out of existence. Furthermore, since there is no absolute timescale, each universe can have it’s own time encased in itself.
Meaning that what looks like a 13.7 billion year old, infinitely expanding and accelerating universe from inside that universe can look like a virtual blip lasting 10 to the -33 seconds from outside of it. Or not visible at all from outside, since no light or energy would be escaping from it.
In a nanosecond, an infinity of universes can be happening right in front of you and you’d never know it, but from inside any one of those universes it would seem very expansive and take 10s of billions of years of time.
As understand it, Hawking and others are simply saying you can solve the equations without invoking a divine power (that is, without having to introduce a random, inexplicable and unquantifiable variable) to make both sides of the equations eventually balance out and resolve back to zero.
That’s a little bit different than the old philosopher’s discussion about whether God exists or not.
But if you want more hits on the internet, which headline will grab more attention?
a. “Scientists say God Isn’t Needed”
or
b. “Physicists Solve String Theory Without Invoking Unquantifiable Variables”
I think we all know the answer to that.
Sorry if you’re left feeling a little bit sucker-punched by a sexed-up headline. Me too.
The “Grand Video Experiment” is not very accessible to someone who is deaf. I hope if you repeat the experiment in the future that you or someone else will post a transcript.
🙁
Can’t access video from work.
Sean,
I don’t mean to be a problem with this question, but I would really appreciate it if you would address it as I believe you are well equipped to. I am confused how you say something came from nothing when actually something comes from something: quantum gravity.
And I don’t think it is a foolish concern because you went to great lengths to demonstrate how something comes from nothing. But you don’t have the universe springing from nothing, you have the unexplained existence of quantum gravity leading to the creation of the universe.
And if you feel the concern isn’t important I find that odd as much as I find odd any claim that something just exists without explanation. (It’s like some form of an anthropic argument to me. )
Ian: Is Hawking (or you) a theologian? No
Does Hawking (or you) know how God works? No
Then how can he (and you for that matter) say that science does not need to invoke God as a cause for creation?
Do theologians know how God works? Can you establish somehow that there is anything for theologians to have expertise in, outside of a historical view of what other theologians have said?
—
RE the video: I would prefer text, but if you do more videos,
1) Better sound please. Lose the echo.
2) Keep it short. I may watch a 3 minute video, but I may not watch a video over 5 minutes, and certainly not one over 10 minutes.
Hawking is right of course. The universe self-creates under a single set of physical law.
Hawking did not say God (or gods) do not exist. They do. Because all gods are created by the imagination of man. So in the minds of the believer, God (or gods) are real enough. Each god follows the rules created by the believer to serve their interests.
Gods are part of human sociology. Both are part of the universe.
There is a problem with the ‘imaginary friend exists!… as a thought in theists’ heads’ argument; this is like saying a giant three-horned hippopotamus exists because some person dreamt it up. By this train of logic, everything conceivable by the human mind exists, even contradictory things. This makes no sense.
I’m an atheist but I don’t think Hawking’s argument resolves the question of “something” instead of “nothing”. The idea of “nothing with the potential for quantum fluctuations” is still “something”.
The fact that “laws of nature” exist is itself puzzling. The true definition of “nothing” would be no physical world, no quantum fluctuations, and no laws of nature. If there is “nothing” then there should be no need for any laws of nature since there is nothing to describe.
As soon as you invoke “laws of nature” you automatically begin to describe “something” and one can always say that “God” designed the laws of nature.
I’m more inclined, personally, to say that gravity and the fundamental forces just happen to be just so (and am fairly satisfied with that explanation; the notion that they are set by something else strikes me as a little presumptive without further evidence).
As Ann Druyan and Richard Dawkins aid, we can have a religious experience understanding without needing God, but I add we might want this larger thing than any one of us believing in us.
Just because you want it doesn’t mean it exists.
If the existence of the universe is necessary (which I think it is), there must be an explanation to ground its necessity and justify our asserting it as so. With one obvious difference, stating that the universe exists, end of story, is akin to stating that God exists, end of story.
What makes you think the existence of the universe is necessary? It’s a little anthropomorphizing to insist that something’s existence must have a point.
Dear Sean, you say “Stephen Hawking Settles the God Question Once and For All”. I say ‘no he has not’.
Is Hawking (or you) a theologian? No
Does Hawking (or you) know how God works? No
Then how can he (and you for that matter) say that science does not need to invoke God as a cause for creation?
When will you learn that theology and science are different endeavours, different approaches, which seek the truth, and as such cannot be in conflict. Even your philosophy of science is lacking. For heaven’s sake Sean read some Pierre Duhem or Fr Stanley Jaki!
The God vs science theme sells books and newspapers.
I like to think of theology as bullsh*t dressed up in a good deal of rhetoric – sophistry. You postulate this deity of yours without any particular reason to except the writings of a good deal of crazy, uneducated Roman Empire-era Middle Easterners who were merely repeating a cultural meme facilitated by the relative lack of scientific knowledge of the age (this was PRE-Middle-Ages, remember – the Romans knew mostly engineering and very little science; they had to import most of their doctors from Greece, who wasn’t that great medically anyway, and their subjugated peoples were even less knowledgeable about the sciences).
You have all this cargo-cult philosophy and cargo-cult science that you do – a whole discipline you’ve got – built up on completely ridiculous assumptions.
I just finished reading “The Grand Design” and it shines with Hawking’s usual wit, dry humor and amusing and revealing analogies.
I enjoyed the video. I usually prefer shorter videos – less than 5 minutes – prefer in the 3 min. range.
I will say this about video. When a subject is too complex – I understand things better when I listen rather than read. I have no idea why.
This wasn’t one of those subjects, but occasionally when you write about some new theory my mind just turns to mush.
Peter, “stating that the universe exists, end of story, is akin to stating that God exists, end of story. ” Only in the sense that stating that bread exists, end of story, is akin to stating that leprechauns exist, end of story. We have evidence for the former and none for the latter.
Ian, The title refers to the existence of a creator god. Why should theology have any bearing on the cause of the cosmos? It’s not a theological question, it’s a scientific one. Hawking’s whole point is we now understand entirely natural mechanisms by which the cosmos could come into being, a point that as clearly eliminates the gap filled by a creator god as Newton eliminated the gap filled by a sky god or as Pasteur eliminated the gap filled by a disease god or as localized brain damage eliminated the gap filled by the soul. Of course there are still gaps for your theology to insert a god into, so Hawking doesn’t settle all god questions, just creator god questions.
And btw Ian, theology starts with the assumption that a god exists, and then tries to plug god into any mystery that remains, sometimes even going so far as to turn knowledge back into mystery so as to have a place to plug god into. Theology does not seek truth. Truth is not even irrelevant to theology. Truth is the enemy of theology. Please do not ever say “theology and science are different ways of seeking the truth” again. What a vile, disgusting lie.
HATE, HATE, HATE the video format.
You see, I’m deaf.
Not only does your video exclude me, but whatever it is that you said in it is now unsearchable by google, untranslatable by BabbleFish or other tools that non-English speakers might use, and generally a lot less useful to the world than a real blog entry.
Literacy is one of humanity’s greatest accompllishments. Please don’t forsake it for videos, podcasts, and other oral throwbacks to a pre-literate age!
I never understood religion, I never understood the idea of God. Can anyone define it please? What is God? And no, I dont want to hear any idiotic theological BS.
And why we speak of something we can’t define even. Its just a ridiculous, pointless, laughable concept. “Opium for the masses”, which brought nothing but mass murder throughout the history.
Ian, the title of the post seemed clearly facetious to me.
I haven’t read the book, but from the articles I’ve read it seems that the main argument is just an application of Occam’s Razor, combined with an explanation for the existence of the universe that does not require a creator. It’s the same argument that prefers evolution with natural selection to “intelligent design”, but on a cosmic scale.
Eujin, I too would love to know what “waiting long enough” means in this context.
Sean,
It sounds like you used the mic on the camera, in a room with mostly hard walls.
It would sound much better if you used a highly directional mike (e.g., supercardioid, not just cardioid and especially not omnidirectional) so that you come in loud and clear and most of the echoes don’t.
Better yet, use a lavalier mike clipped to your lapel, rather than mounted on the camera.
Either will usually dramatically improve the audio.
Ob physics: since the sound energy decreases with the square of the distance, getting the mike, say, 4 times closer to you makes the direct sound 16x stronger, which brings it way up above the ambient echoey stuff coming from all around. Close miking is technique #1 of clean audio recording; even a very cheap mike up close sounds lots better than any not-highly-directional mike far away.
Sean,
I like it and plan to replay it a few times.
As for production problems, you might use some acoustic treatments to tame the echoes.
(A mind experiment: assume your walls are mirrors, your voice emanates from a light bulb and you see the light from the point of view of the microphone. You see reflections of your voice coming from many directions. Hang sound absorbers over the brighter images on the walls, floor and ceiling. Don’t overdo it.)
Ian (28), if science and theology are different endeavors why can’t they say it? You did. It is the topic of the discussion.
No video, please. But come back to blogging.
Sean, bearing in mind the enormous respect that I have for you, I think you’re wrong on this one.
Hawking doesn’t settle the question – at most he might influence the views held by the general public. And if that view becomes predominant in the society, then that doesn’t make it right.
It’s a philospohical question that cannot be answered but is to be debated – that’s what philosophy is. Because it’s not a scientific question, or more generally it is a question about personal view rather than establishable fact, it cannot be settled by anyone voicing their opinion, and certainly not for all.
Left wing kooks have an overwhelming need to glorify themselves and their own “brilliance.” Saying and believing that the universe has no beginning point requires just as much faith as believing there is a God. I’ll become an atheist when I see some physicist create something out of thin air. I’ll settle for a stick of Juicy Fruit gum. I’m not holding my breath.
What a load of self important nonsense. Hawking has said the same thing for more than 20 years. I also doubt that any atheists posting here were “believers” before anyone was able to solve string theory equations (string theory is still in doubt by the way) without “Invoking Unquantifiable Variables” and I doubt that any would have seen their position as being a mere opinion since equations could not balance! Very much the contrary in fact.
Hawking has tried to “prove” atheism for decades, so I don’t know why people imagine this is a “change of mind” as it most certainly is not. No serious scientist, certainly no serious physicist (including Newton, and he was not an atheist) invokes “God” or “gods” or “sentient spirits” to solve any equation, or any physical law. The most that he can do is say that it is possible to not invoke a deity in origin theory for THIS UNIVERSE (assuming a multiverse). I get the impression of a man desperate to justify his belief – not sure why he needs to, it isn’t as if we live in 17th century Italy like Galileo. Perhaps he wants to be the one who “proved” there is no god, which is the next thing to being a god. However I don’t see why anyone needs Hawking’s approval to justify their position, and I don’t think he says anything new, or offers new evidence either.
I’d prefer to read, but if it means you can explain more physics, I’m all for the video format.
I like the video. But let me echo Reginald’s observation about the sound (see what I did there?). You need to get a new microphone, or change the settings on your mic, or filter the audio track somehow. The video sounded like it was recorded in the shower.
Here are my thoughts about the first argument discussed in Sean’s video. This argument works if, somehow, someway, the laws of physics have any sort of meaning or existence by themselves even when no universe exists. This is something we, obviously, have no reason to believe. If NOTHING exists, then there are NO laws of physics, no quantum mechanics, no general relativity, no notion of “energy” or the uncertainty principle, NOTHING. Therefore, NOTHING will result. You’ll need a pre-existing universe in order for another universe to be born, because only with a pre-existing universe do you have laws that are capable of describing a situation whereby another universe comes to be.
Therefore, I think the only way this can work is if there is a multiverse. Of course, if the multiverse has any sort of “beginning”, then one may get away with invoking God. But since there is no evidence, yet, of a multiverse, we can all still go along believing God has something to do with this reality.