In his latest book, The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking claims that the concept of God is not needed to explain the existence of the universe. The answer, according to him, is spontaneous creation: the universe created itself, by itself, spontaneously. Spontaneous auto-creation doesn't call for a creator.
In saying this, Hawking doesn't speak like a scientist: he speaks like a (speculative) philosopher. Scientists cannot say whether we "need" a God to explain the way the world is; all they can say is that science (and here mostly they mean physics) can (although so far it hasn't) find equations that account for all the laws of nature. Such a "theory of everything" would account not only for all the laws of nature, but for all the things that are governed by the laws of nature, that is, for the way all things are in space and time. And even for spacetime itself. This would be equivalent (Einstein said) to reading the mind of God. Only Hawking now says that God is not involved: as Laplace said before him, it's a hypothesis for which we no longer have any need.
But this is an old story -- an old fallacy. Hawking claims that the universe created itself by "spontaneous creation." But how come that the universe -- our particular universe -- created itself just the way it is? Was that "spontaneous creation" a lucky fluke? Pure serendipity? Could it not be that the universe has been created so it would create itself the way it is? Scientists know that our universe is a most unlikely place; statistically, it's entirely improbable. According to quantum string theory, there could be about 10500 possible universes (this is the number 1 followed by 500 zeros). Only a handful among this staggering number of possible universes could bring forth life, not to mention so-called higher forms of life where beings who consider themselves intelligent claim they and their world came about by serendipity.
To answer "why" our universe "created itself" the way it did is beyond science. To say that it did so spontaneously is not an answer: it's an excuse for an answer. When Hawking says that the spontaneous self-creation of the universe "out of nothing" is evidence that a creator was not involved, he is not speaking as a scientist. He is not making a scientific statement. His statement is pure theology -- of the negative kind typical of atheists.
To deny the existence of a transcendental creator is just as much an act of faith as to affirm it. Of course, we can speculate on this question, and we should speculate: who says that the limits of science must be the limits of human inquiry? But we should not claim that when we speculate we speak as scientists, even if we happen to be the author of the mind-boggling equations that account for the behavior and ultimate end of black holes.
In a recent post, "Why Some Religious People Fear (and Fight) Science -- And Why It's a Sad Mistake," I said that the religious have no reason to fear science, and I stand by that. I should point out, however, that I meant "science," and not -- and certainly not all -- "scientists."
Follow Ervin Laszlo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ErvinLaszlo
Deepak Chopra: A New Creation Story: Beyond Religion and Science
Stephen Hawking on God, Science and the Origins of the Universe ...
God did not create the universe, says Hawking - Yahoo! News
Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe - CNN
Quotes on Religion - Stephen Hawking
I don't need to waste time reading another tract asserting infinite regression. If it's really a scientific work, I'll pick it up.
If you're saying that you don't need any explanation for science, then that's ok and it's your personal choice. In that case, asking for a theory of everything is certainly not a part of science. It's mere luxory.
If you're saying that science explains itself out of itself, with no mystery and nothing mysterious going on, then what you're saying is flat out wrong. You cannot even explain mathematics in this manner. Certainly not why it evolves and how.
Science is a human endeavour. It is strongly erratic and very unpredictable. It is also the most rational human endeavour. But already the fact that there's no contradiction in that should make you think twice.
Hawking is right that science doesn't need God or faith; it only needs science. But neither does God need validation from Hawking.
The second and third are virtually identical, you're just trading in myths, but saying that evidence is the eye of the beholder is a fail. Evolution proves change over time. The big bang gives us a starting point in our universe. The evidence for each is inescapable and irrefutable.
This evidence cannot be randomly interpreted as if you're reading the bible. Also, being ignorant of the evidence doesn't make it weak, flexible or adaptable to whatever view a person may have. This is why you have religion, so you can interpret your biblical evidence into whatever dogma you desire. You cannot do that in science.
Your last point on God doesn't need validation from Hawking. Why not? This God requires validation from all of us. We all must recognize Jesus as our savior. We all must worship this God as validation of his awesome sauce and power. This is exactly what you Christians claim your God wants. Why does Hawking get a free pass?
My first scenario is accurate because I've read/heard an awfully lot of people (religious and non-religious) say stuff like that. True, some of that comes from misunderstanding of the atheist viewpoint. Also, I didn't say God was needed in evolution or the rapid expansion or our universe. (To the contrary, it's my unprovable and highly unscientific belief that God was needed for that.) But God cannot and should not be considered a factor in scientific inquiry. Theories about God should not drive theory because they can never be tested. We can always find a natural cause for any natural process, from subatomic to universal.
As for scenarios 2 and 3, they're vastly different because one is not willing to look at the evidence while the other looks at the evidence and is awe-stricken by it. And regarding your assertion that Christians claim our God requires that we recognize him as savior, that's what you're hearing about Christian beliefs from a loud, vocal subset of Christians. I don't believe that.
I've encountered one person who thinks that the singularity proves there's no God because "where would he fit" ... like God is supposed to be physical. Odd! :)
How was God created?
The universe is independent and had no beginning. There. No god necessary.
if Mr laszlo learns TM he'll probably experience what John Hagelin is experiencing; namely the unified field deep within ; beyond the quantum level
if Stephen Hawking asks Dr Hagelin to teach TM to him he'll also benefit physically , health wise
distinguishing between science and scientists is important dr Jekyll Frankenstein is not science it is mucking around with sacred space
John Hagelin [ and Colleague John Fagan ]has written about the dangers of GMOs [ fragmented approach , very partial ] they advocate vedic engineering , holistic systems approach
i emailed MR laszlo's website about Einstein's : ' knowing that ulitmate equation TOE form which all others are derived is like seeing the mind of God'
listening to several hours of Hagelin speaking of unified field , superstring field E8XE8 heterotic string , i've concluded that his Lagrangian of the superstring [ a huge equation ] is that one equation from which all others can be derived and are derived by him
another point about hawking's spontaneous creation : if we accept spontaneous generation of universe, then shouldnt we accept spontaneous generation of species
I know this will be difficult to follow but science is about probabilities.
whoops after I reread entire comment not sure what you meant.
too difficult to follow.
lets try this one. the god the religious worship does not exist. that god is a god made in their image full of jealousy, wrath, perfect love but demands atonement, has chosen people, has chosen nations, takes sides in a war, and favors one religion over another.
the necessity of infinite is to express.
we are living proof of that expression.
the ever changing universe is living proof for all to see of that expression.
now what we see is phenomena.
there is an underlying reality to that phenomena that has remained hidden from most of the best intellectual minds in the world.
a few scientific seekers are able to break away from their materialistic paradigm and seek that underlying reality. very few. paradigms are that powerful.
if you dont believe they are check out religion.
"To deny the existence of a transcendental creator is just as much an act of faith as to affirm it."
Spoken like a true philosopher. On a lesser degree, this is like saying atheism is a religion, atheism is a belief or a worldview. It's an attempt to couple atheism with philosophy, which would place atheism on an archaic religious level.
To say that it takes faith to disbelieve is also saying there is a 50% chance that God exists. As an atheist, this smells like philosophical nonsense. It flies in the face of reality and it works outside of objective experience.
Atheism isn't subjective. It's not even a denial. Atheism is disbelief in theism. Disbelief due to no evidence to convince a person to believe. Evidence can be convincing but without it there can be no persuasion.
The way you label and generalize atheists is very poor.
Spoken like a true philosopher."
If so it would be a poorly educated amateur. There is no real symmetry here and the arguments that make that plain are old and well rehearsed. (Russell's Celestial Teapot)
Yes they can actually. If science can explain something without using God to do it, then we don't *need* God to explain that something. It is that simple.
And talking about the need for a "theory of everything" is nothing more than invoking the God of the Gaps. Please do better, because that's just a ridiculous approach. If there's any tiny little detail we haven't figured out yet well then, that's where God lives! That right there is the thing God is doing that we need him to do to explain everything! Until next month, or year, or decade... when we've figured that thing out.Then God relocates to some other area of the universe we've discovered we don't completely understand yet and becomes responsible for that.
"But how come that the universe -- our particular universe -- created itself just the way it is?"
Hmmm... I tossed a deck of cards in the air and they scattered across the ground *just* *exactly* *this* *way*. WHY? That was so amazingly ridiculously unlikely!!! Something just had to make that happen!
Bah. People making this type of argument simply do not understand probability. ALL complex random processes produce unlikely outcomes. That is what they do. It doesn't require some mystical explanation or magical guiding super-entity.
We are talking about the above happening several million times *in succession* for complex organisms after all.
The issue is not whether there are events which are astronomically unlikely but rather there are gigantic numbers of such unlikely events and sequences of events and that one of them happens.
"We are talking about the above happening several million times *in succession* for complex organisms after all."
I don't understand your rational for this at all.
No, we are not talking about anything even remotely resembling the above happening. Not even close, not in the vaguest sense. you are talking about having some predetermined specified outcome of a random process being repeated again and again and again. That is competely and totally different from just coming along after an event has occured, looking at the outcome, and saying "Aha! Unlikely! Therefore not random!!!"
ALL outcomes of complex random events are unlikely, the unlilkelyhood of an outcome has *absolutely no relation at all* to the likelyhood the process that produced it was random.
If you want to say the emergence of life was not simply unlikely (which is true of ALL complex random outcomes)... but unlikely *to have been the process of random processes*, then you need to show me where the emergence of life was specified in advance as the single desired outcome of the process. Show me that. If you can do that you have a point, if you can't you're just demonstrating you don't understand probability.
Whether a multiverse exists or not is immaterial as far as it goes for the existence of God. Furthermore, the prediction that this multiverse exists is also subject to subjective interpretation. Who are we to say that the incomprehensibly high values pointing to a multitude of possibilities do not point to the complexity of God? Why should we assume that the numbers are representative of a material existence beyond our perceptual field and not something else?
It may be entirely possible that the two hypotheses are simultaneously true, but neither relies upon the other for internal consistency. Indeed, Hugh Everett proposed the Many-Worlds interpretation at least a decade before anyone had even begun work on string physics (contrary to popular parlance, it is not yet a theory, but remains a hypothesis).
Oh, and John Cramer is not a string physicist, so I have no idea why you're conflating M-theory with anything he's ever done let alone poor old M. J. Adler's work.
and Hawking never said otherwise. So what?
And is it possible for the theologically incorrigible to continually reinvent and redefine god so that he is forever "behind" the latest theories? Of course.
If Hawking ever says this, I'l have to come back and read this article.