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.
XPT
Unusual response!
You could try http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/162/4/823
from the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Do a little more research and please control yourself!
Alan
Certainly there is abundant evidence for memes, Gordon
There has not be a single piece of evidence, certainly not of the kind you’re promoting as the only valid sort, produced which supports memes. What “evidence” I’ve seen produced could constitute a sort of materialist “a-theology” of the most scholastic sort.
The idea is so fundamentally flawed, especially in Dennett’s exposition of the it, that it is shocking that so many of the self-appointed guardians of science take to it. My guess would be that his clear hatred of religion has blinded them to the irrational aspects of that, though few of the ones who I’m aware of have been have been real scientists.
I wonder how Sean Carroll would like to have to incorporate Dennett’s ideas into the most subtle of physics. I haven’t thought about it until now but having to wade through a sea of ill defined memes in order to get at a view of the mechanisms of the physical universe free of a bias imposed by the parochialism of our species would seem to give even the topic of his video a few hurdles that no one could get over.
Your designation of my point about the idea which is hugely popular among many trendy atheists, that they can base science on assertions about the unobserved behavior of our ancestors in the Paleolithic period, being 100% evidence free, as a straw man, is only evidence that you need to find a new substitute for actual refutation. That kind of practice among those who recite “evidence” as a mantra couldn’t be more relevant to this discussion.
Gordon, guessing that you might not like what I just said and having a full schedule today, you might want to read this.
http://bostonreview.net/BR21.3/Orr.html
You might read Dennett’s vitriolic retorts and the the resultant go rounds with Orr and others but if you do you really should read their responses to that as well. I notice, in looking around a bit, that the self-appointed rationalists don’t seem to be interested in the entire record of those discussions, often giving their champion a last word that he often didn’t get in reality.
149, 151: Alan,
I’ve read some of Ian Stevenson’s studies, suggestive of reincarnation, a few decades ago.
They are interesting, but could hardly be considered robust proof.
Also, I fail to see the relevance of the multiverse concept, for if the concept of reincarnation means anything, it should operate within one universe.
Finally, if reincarnation is a physical event, its timing seems to depend on culture: In Buddhist countries, Stevenson’s case studies seem to indicate that the reincarnation generally seems to have taken place 9 months after the death, or later; whereas among the Druse in the Middle East, it has taken place about simultaneously with the death. Each of these is in accordance with the religious/cosmological expectations of the respective cultures.
Neal @ 154
Certainly not complete proof of an afterlife but perhaps a fair pointer. The cases involving birthmarks are particularly fascinating, where the birthmark correspond closely to the wounds which had lead to the death of the previous personality. He has a fair number of these, well documented.
I suppose re the multiverse, if reincarnation works in our universe then is that a property of our universe that gets “generated” or evolves from some deeper physics? Universes get generated by the science behind the multiverse. If the observations are valid for reincarnation, there should be a deeper explanation, i.e. why does our universe have such properties that allow such phenomena to exist? Certainly a valid question, though it seems a little like coffee-table talk! And observations first, always. If reincarnation and an afterlife are true then physics has some serious explaining to do, surely, and at all levels of the physics.
I am afraid I have to read up on the cultural aspects, but it is the the individual cases which I find interesting, many of which seem quite strong. On the whole he has amassed thousands of cases of varying strength and the work continues at the University of Virginia under Prof. Jim Tucker and his team. They seem to be on to something.
And if the the AWARE study under Sam Parnia get some powerful results but from a different direction, near-death experience research, then things will get very interesting.
Sometimes I wonder if the mulitverse idea isn’t just what happens when you bump your head against a limit in the tools and abilities of people to get any farther. Maybe it’s an artifact of the limits of mathematics to penetrate any farther.
I don’t know anything about reincarnation other than that I don’t like the idea so I won’t comment on it.
The question “Is there a God?” cannot be answered by science because it is not falsifiable. Hawking has not answered it. No man can answer this question.
We humans continually confuse religion and God. Religion is a product of man. It was created by man. It has been warped and modified by the decisions of men for their own benefit. Its fallibility is a byproduct of the fallibility of the men who have shaped it over thousands of years. The same can be said for any system of man, be it economic, social, etc. Using religion to prove or disprove the existence of God is no better than using science.
Belief in God need not be inconsistent with belief in science. Science requires observation. There are many things that we theorize that we can never observe, yet we believe they exist: Multiple universes, tachyons (faster-than-light particles), the inside of a black hole are just a few. Why force God to become observable in order to exist?
Belief in God does not require proof any more than multiple universes require proof in order to exist. Belief in God requires faith. If you have faith, no proof is required. If you have lost your faith, no proof will ever be enough.
Belief in God does not require proof any more than multiple universes require proof in order to exist. Belief in God requires faith. If you have faith, no proof is required. If you have lost your faith, no proof will ever be enough.
But in this particular story, which prof Sean Carroll’s video is about, the question is more than about faith against science, i would say.
Carroll claimes, together with Hawking, that creation of the universe can be made by physics laws only. Something can come out from totally absolutely noting (no space, no time, no mass) thanks to quantum laws.
But then the question is: Where did those quantum laws apply when there was no ‘where’/’here’/’there’ at all?
Cecilia, or a “when”, which seems to have been not not-there either. I’m no physicist but how do these laws function without a when?
I’d still like Sean Carroll to tell if there is a single object of which physics has a comprehensive and complete knowledge. And if it doesn’t have that complete knowledge about an object how it could have it about anything else.
What we can rely on with science is important but trying to turn science into a total system of everything seems to be a premature effort.
Anthony McCarthy: Maybe when scientists like Carroll or Hawking talk about ‘nothing’ they don’t refer to a total philosophical nothing. They might assume a superspace from which the universe(s) form, take shape, become.
But in that case i wouldn’t call it “The universe created itself from nothing”,
because a superspace is something.
Professor Carroll,
with all respect, a theory of everything would not prove that the universe created itself from absolutely nothing, and that there is only room to believe in a god who doesn’t have anything to do with our universe.
Because that physics theory has not taken care of the question of where/when those laws applied when there wasn’t any where/when at all.
The current deist fad among atheists in physics is just like the one that tries to explain away religious belief as a product of evolution (on the basis of absolutely no evidence) ignoring the fact that people who believe in a creator-god believe that God created everything, including those genes, molecules, atoms etc. that they think are, somehow, immune from that created everything that they are a part of.
It’s a pretty big oversight based on the ignorance most sciency atheists have about the literature of religious thinking over the centuries. They look at the crudest recent statements about religion and figure that serious thinkers on the subject wouldn’t have taken the things studied by physics into account. As I pointed out in my first comment on this thread, beneath all of the variable ideas that have developed from it, at the bottom of the belief in a creator is the belief that the universe AS IT IS, INDEPENDENT OF CURRENT HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, was created by God. The changeable understanding of human beings of that universe is a product of human limits. That we aren’t in full possession of a comprehensive knowledge of the physical universe is not a surprise since if there’s one thing noticeable about human beings, we aren’t omniscient. While I wouldn’t claim that some religious figure hasn’t claimed full knowledge of the universe, in most religious traditions that idea would be considered to be absurd and irreligious.
I think the new atheism is a product of ignorance just as biblical fundamentalism is a product of ignorance. And of bigotry, the twin of ignorance. Though there is a lot of frat boy style clique bonding and arrogance involved in a lot of it too.
it looks like bla bla
Yes, it’s fun to think you’re superior to other people but they’re not under any obligation to agree with you.
The Multiverse vs. God. The irony. She burns.
Low math, the multiverse is fully accepted throughout the world population of physicists as settled? Oddly enough, I seem to recall some rather atheistic sounding skeptics doubting it, citing their favorite law of parsimony, among other things. And, of course, where’s that gold standard of materialist fundamentalism, THE EVIDENCE.
See @161.
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/
I feel a white hot burning now.
And from the same blog, you might want to pursue this:
For more recent research on the multiverse, see philosopher Klaas Kraay’s Theism and the Multiverse, where he argues that:
theists should maintain that the world God selects is a multiverse. In particular, I claim that this multiverse includes all and only those universes which are worth creating and sustaining. I further argue that this multiverse is the unique best of all divinely-actualizable worlds.
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=668
Taking notice of a name familiar to the readers of this blog in the full text.
And, especially apropos to Hawking’s proud boast about religion=authority whereas science = evidence, there is this comment by Woit here:
Some parts of particle physics (string theory) and some parts of cosmology (the multiverse) just inherently don’t predict or explain anything (using “explain” in the scientific sense, which carries with it a requirement that your explanation of how the world works be testable by experiment). The amount of attention and effort that has gone into such theories over the last quarter century is remarkable and very unusual in the history of science. Horgan more than ten years ago was one of the first science journalists to notice that something funny was going on.
As more and more time goes on, and some serious physicists start engaging in more and more speculative behavior, getting farther and farther from any hope of testability (see, the Landscape and the multiverse), the argument that there’s a problem here is getting more and more traction. Among serious physicists these days, I don’t think this is even any more a very controversial claim, with many of them prepared to admit that parts of the subject are in a bit of a crisis.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/03/15/science-and-unobservable-things/#comment-38194
Of course, all I said was that the idea wasn’t universally held to be settled science, though the part about jettisoning the requirement for evidence in the first place sort of refutes Hawking’s proud boast rather definitively.
I have been trying to be polite, Sean.
Oh, and getting back to the idea of ideas that damage science @96, there was this interesting idea:
Ouch…and to save money, the government will soon be “rationing funds by quality”.
So what does this have to do with Stephen Hawking and M-theory?
Physicists need the backing of the British public to ensure that the funding cuts don’t hit them disproportionately. This could be very difficult if the public think that most physicists spend their time arguing about what unproven theories say about the existence of God.
The challenge, of course, is how to make the public aware of all the fantastic work done by other British physicists.
http://physicsworld.com/blog/2010/09/by_hamish_johnstonstephen_hawk.html
Who am I to question the idea that M-theory and Hawking’s authoritative declaration conflicts with the practice of science in Britain?
This is really really sad Sean. You should know better than to claim such great accomplishments for science. We _know_ nothing about the laws of physics at the moment of the bang. We _speculate_ all we want, but nothing has been tested. The laws we have evidence for break down completely in such environments.
To claim that science has answered the question of the origin of the universe or that we somehow have anything other than rampant speculation for the so-called multiverse is a fraud and a lie. And you know it.
I can’t figure out where you went off the rails. I guess the your taste of mainstream publicity has messed with your head.
Too bad you didn’t take Feynman’s spirit as well as his seat: it is OK to admit that we just don’t know some things.
The laws of physics before and during the bang… WE JUST DON’T KNOW. The multiverse: just a bunch of SPECULATION. Claiming either as evidence that modern science has it all figured out and therefore God couldn’t have created the universe or even act in it: ABSURD CHARLATANRY.
I guess Sean Carroll isn’t going to answer that question. Is there another physicist reading this who will say whether or not there is a single object which is comprehensively and exhaustively known to physics? I’d really like an answer to that question, though, as seen in the discussion of the multiverse it’s possible there will be more than one answer.
Further to my comments on Fr Robert Spitzer’s SJ book – he will be appearing on Larry King Live (CNN) this Friday night (Sept. 10) along with Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinow, who co-authored “The Grand Design” with Stephen Hawking.
Not sure what Chopra will add.
Anthony McCarthy: I’ve obviously come onto this discussion late, but I wanted to thank you for taking your logic bat in hand and trying to knock some sense into otherwise sensible people.
I’ll have to save this discussion thread the next time this issue pops up.
I hate to bring up an old post, but how would you refute the “pink unicorns” argument? I don’t think it holds water, but I haven’t found a reliable way to counter it (which only means that I haven’t researched it enough).
If you’re still around to answer this, I’m thankful.
Long ago, my story goes, a caveman was relaxing after a hard day, when one of his children began bothering him with questions. “Why does rain fall, Daddy?” The caveman thought for a minute, then said, “Because the Rain God makes it fall.” “You’re so smart, Daddy,” the caveboy continued, “Why does fire burn?” “Because the Fire God makes it burn! Now go play with some bones and stop bothering me!”
Later we learned that rain and combustion are natural processes in our universe, which happen both to the just and the unjust, and cannot be influenced by sacrifices or prayers.
Science now tells us that creation of new universes by quantum fluctuations in empty space is also a natural process, not one that requires the personal manipulation of any god or gods.
Die-hard theists are still free to assume that that some agency which happens to love them was responsible for designing the natural processes such that after who knows how many spawnings of universes within universes, and billions of years within one of the latest universes, finally evolution produced a creature wonderful enough to justify all this effort (namely themselves). (And they call atheists arrogant.)