Why do ppl like Stephen Hawking so much

[wynn]

Wynn, I would like to introduce you to Wynn. You are looking for your glasses while you're wearing them. Common mistake, my grandmother does it all the time.

Buddhas don't play games.

[spidergoat]

That's all they do. Because they have to trick you into waking up. You already have everything you need, you just have to realize it. Buddhism itself is a joke. That's why enlightenment is often accompanied by laughter. Only part of it is relief from the human condition. The other part is how funny the pursuit of enlightenment was, like looking for your glasses while wearing them.

But people don't want to be emptied, they want to be filled up. You don't want what I can give you because it will leave you empty, and you already told us lack of purpose is incompatible with your worldview. You want meaning, purpose, you want expectations fulfilled. The essence of Buddhism is the opposite of that. It will take your preconceptions and dash them against the rocks.

[wynn]

That's a good start. And you presume me to be ... a demon?

No.

Hero? Genius? Tenacious? And you don't think he lights the lamp in their projector?

No.

I would like to think that this is a distributed phenomenon, that there is a collective activity, mostly subliminal, but also seen in the cheery effusively bubbly personas among us, your lotus perhaps, spread out among countless living breathing people who are sentient universals. And this is where affection arises, not in a selfish power, but one that is generous. I see in him that generosity that garners affection. His particular interest in black holes and the big bang singularity is the stuff of buddha I would think. Not a fat round faced jolly Buddha, but a slobbering hulk, ravaged by the nature he desperately clings to, while defying the fatal illness for ... almost 50 years now?

You're forgetting the countless people who are helping him - Stephen Hawking did not build his special chair, nor his voice box, nor his computer. He can't feed himself, he can't wash himself, nor clothe himself. Other people have to take care of all his needs. Other people have to make sure that he can express his needs at all.
The phenomenon "Stephen Hawking" is rather a "group project."

This gets bandied about all the time. Science oriented folks (SOFs) like to address best evidence and revisit facts and information to plug holes in weary brains etc. Maybe it's a holdover from social grooming, who knows. But as soon as some factual tidbit is on the table, truth has some reference point from which SOFs can gravitate. You seem to be saying you're not interested in trivia, you're here to address the Big Picture. But as soon as you bring that to a SOF, you're likely to evoke the answer that this is all there is and when it's over it's forever over. Maybe that's a turn off for you. But the SOF will likely answer: that is the Absolute Truth.

And I will likely challenge the SOF.

I guess - since I'm just another SOF - I would have to ask you why it's not right under your nose. Do you own a microscope? Just look at what's crawling around all over the microcosm that you know is there, but which you may not find relevant in terms of that Big Picture. This is probably what derails SOFs in the exchanges with you. We want that truth, too, and we want it now.

I subscribe to this usage of enlightenment (in place of wielding it like a sword). SOFs probably also see this as a distributed activity. There are some remarkably bright contributors here who are excellent teachers even if it's not enlightenment in terms of the Big Picture you may be after. Here again I would encourage you to invest in sky watching or anything else you like to do that connects you to the present unfolding, insofar as I think that's what the SOFs are after, and in moments of awe and wonder all you have to do is tell yourself this is it, the Absolute Truth is a ripple on the timeline, a now that ever advances, cognizant of every other now that ever was or ever will be (at least conceptually) and put that in your pipe and smoke it. It may not be at all what you are trying to say to me but that's my take on it.

If I have to tell myself "this is it," then it quite clearly, it is not it.

[Fraggle Rocker]

I've corrected the thread title, because it's been bugging me. The man's name is Stephen Hawking, not Steve Hawking and not Steve Hawkings.

Oh thank you thank you!

Over the years, I have consistently fought on three fronts: 1. against simplistic theism, 2. against simplistic atheism, 3. for true religion (even though I'm not sure what that would be, so I approach the issue ex negativo). I don't simply take sides. Sometimes, I agree with the theists and disagree with the atheists. Other times, I agree with the atheists and disagree with the theists. It all depends on what the topic in question is.

Well then, same to you: three thank-yous for finally telling us where you're coming from.

But apparently, many posters here are unable or unwilling to understand this, and would prefer a simplistic black-and-white division into opposing camps.

Or perhaps it's because this forum has about twenty atheists for every religionist so you find yourself more often confronting atheist arguments that you don't like than religionist arguments of that nature. Surely you can see how your responses to that majority of the membership give the impression that you're a religionist.

If your life and your outlook are so superior, so great, so true - then why the need for a helium bag in the end?

I'm just covering all the bases. It's certainly not a plan I expect with anywhere near 100% certainly. But it's one of those things which, despite its low probability, has a high impact, and therefore from the standpoint of rational risk analysis and management, I must deal with it. If my wife dies first, which is statistically unlikely, and if I end up lying in a hospital bed in psychological agony, physical paralysis, or worst of all an apparent coma while actually being conscious and aware of my surroundings but unable to move or speak--I demand the right to prepare for this by having legal documents drawn up allowing my attorney or other caretaker to end my suffering, and in the bargain, prevent the predatory "care" facility from siphoning off my entire estate so the relatives, friends and charities to whom I have willed it end up with nothing.

Actually helium has nothing to do with this, it's just a generic stand-in for taking charge of one's own end since it's been in the news. However, if I do end up in a state of consciousness and mobility but with a condition that is going to put me in one of those institutions shortly where I will no longer have the power to control my destiny, I'd certainly have the helium ready.

This has nothing to do with the quality of my life and the salutary nature of my outlook. It's all about said quality and said nature at the end of life, which is usually much different if one is not fortunate enough to suffer a coronary fifty miles from the nearest ER.

I assure you that when you're approaching 70 you'll start thinking about these things in much more detail, even if you don't reach the same conclusions my wife and I have. You can be proud of what you've accomplished and at peace with your life, but still want it to end before it turns horrible.

Clearly, that doesn't work for everyone. That is a fact.

Fair enough.

But if you are so compassionate, so understanding, so civilized, so intelligent, so superior as you imply to be. . . .Why then do you ignore the concerns of all those people who don't find your kind of outlook comforting?

Like most of us I adopt a rather one-dimensional personality on SciForums. When I'm invited to dinner and the family says grace, I bow my head and think of someone like Martin Luther King. Or perhaps Sheryl Crow. I don't start arguments with my neighbors when I see them heading off to church. I have a couple of friends who are devout Christians and we have spirited discussions, but they've never felt insulted or demeaned.

Why do you openly hate them?

Even Christians say, "hate the sin but love the sinner." Despite my over-the-top rhetoric on a website that incites that sort of rhetoric, the only religionists I hate are the small minority who whip their flock into a frenzy of righteousness and try to curtail my rights or the rights of others such as my friends who are, for example, gay, Muslim, or burdened with a problem pregnancy.

Uh. The "rotting molars" is a reference for the aging and decaying of the whole human body and its abilities. Do you really believe that the aim of religion is to heal or ease the problems the human body faces as it ages and gets ill???

Regardless of the messages in their holy books, the various religions as they are practiced in real life have many aims. That's certainly one of them for a lot of people. As I noted earlier, (sincere) prayer releases endorphins and endorphins are powerful analgesics.

If I was facing slow painful death, I think I'd fear death then. But you know, I'm not afraid to die.

That's a reasonable attitude and one that's not at all uncommon. A sensible person accepts the inevitability of death. But nobody wants to feel pain and everybody will go to reasonable lengths to avoid it. (Well almost everybody, there are the cutters and other masochists.) This is obviously the point of the furore over end-of-life issues as the elderly become the dominant demographic in American politics and culture. We would rather die now than suffer and die in a few days, weeks or months anyway.

If all there is to our life is those 70 years or so . . . .

Choose youre words carefully when talking to someone who will turn 69 in a few months.

. . . . and if in the grand scheme of things, we are irrelevant, then it is simply a matter of consistency to conclude that whatever we do, in our lives, on a moment by moment, hour by hour basis, is irrelevant too.

No no no no! Once again, you seem to be completely blind to the magnificence of civilization. This is what we do that matters. The hundred billion human beings who have lived on this planet (estimates vary but that's more-or-less the right order of magnitude) started with no clothes, no tools, no language; nothing more than a brain considerably larger than the chimpanzee-like creatures they descended from. They lived very much like those creatures, hunting and gathering across the landscape with no permanent home.

In a couple of million years (yes I'm including a few ancestral species with smaller brains than ours but their numbers don't have much impact on the total) they have invented clothes, language, controlled fire, stone tools, agriculture, cities, metallurgy, industry and electronics. Who knows what our descendants will accomplish over the next couple of million years?

I'm enormously proud to be part of this project. I know that (so far) I have left the world a very slightly better place than I found it. Because of me, everyone who comes after me will have a slightly better life than those who came before me. Well on the average anyway; there will always be winners and losers because there will always be luck.

And if that is the case, then why bother?

Because I care about all those people who will come after me. Hell, I care about all the ones who are alive right now. That's why I vote, teach, write, take out my trash, and natter away on SciForums.

I'm a pack-social animal just like my ancestors. I'm programmed to care for my pack-mates. So are you!

Or, as Camus said it: There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterward. These are games; one must first answer.

I'm not familiar with Camus. Mrs. Fraggle is the literary scholar in the family; I get my sound bites from song lyrics and no, I never agreed with "Hope I die before I get old." Still I doubt very much that when he wrote that he was concentrating on people lying in hospital beds attached to tubes and forced to endure a pointless, painful and degrading stage of life, just because our technology can extend that stage of life for many agonizing months longer than the doctors of Camus's day could have done.

We're still dependent on our nature.

Yeah, but to a qualitatively much lesser extent than out ancestors. We have been transcending nature since the first Australopithecus discovered how to make a knife out of a piece of flint.

GRB's and Wayward objects that may impact the Earth- We're not a protected species. We're going to have to fend for ourselves and we're not even grown up enough to do that, yet. So that puts us at pretty high risk that we not make it to our tweens. Or beyond- as adults, roaming the galaxy.

I disagree. I think that risk is almost immeasurably small. I don't know how many planets there are in our galaxy, although there are people who have a pretty good estimate. How many of them get smashed in, say, a million years? Six? This strikes me as even sillier than focusing our national politics on protecting ourselves from terrorists, who kill the same number of us as peanut allergies.

It all might end ten years from now. We'll be gone and no one will know.

Dude, you're getting down the the level of probability that the religionists are right after all, and some supernatural creatures are going to show up with croquet mallets and use the Sun's planets as their balls.

And guess what? Maybe in the Grand Scheme of things... it won't matter.

We each get to define our own Grand Scheme.

I want to meet a buddha.

Sorry, Mrs. Fraggle doesn't like this website at all and is not even a member.

Buddhas don't play games.

That's a tough question to Google so I haven't been able to confirm your answer. Where did you learn that? Considering the huge number of Buddhists who play go (my favorite game), are you saying that every one of them is denied the path to becoming a buddha?

[Neverfly]

I disagree. I think that risk is almost immeasurably small. I don't know how many planets there are in our galaxy, although there are people who have a pretty good estimate. How many of them get smashed in, say, a million years? Six? This strikes me as even sillier than focusing our national politics on protecting ourselves from terrorists, who kill the same number of us as peanut allergies.Dude, you're getting down the the level of probability that the religionists are right after all, and some supernatural creatures are going to show up with croquet mallets and use the Sun's planets as their balls.

Rather, in our current state: If anything (Aside from ourselves) threatened us on a global scale, we are unable to do anything about it.

See: Touchy Feely Disney's Armageddon, starring Bruce Willis. The movie was fun, but unscientific- We'd be powerless against what they described.

[Trippy]

I have come to the conclusion, and at this point I suspect Mrs Fraggle is about the only person I would consider entering into a discourse with over this, that in discussions such as this, Budhism is misrepresented.

[Grumpy]

Neverfly

Rather, in our current state: If anything (Aside from ourselves) threatened us on a global scale, we are unable to do anything about it.

That depends on the threat and on how much time we have. Asteroids we could divert, simply land a mass driver on the rock and slowly change it's orbit. Comets we could deal with the same way but would need much more lead time(their velocities are orders of magnitude greater in most cases). A very large star going supernova would need to be one hundred light years away or less to affect Earth, none are currently that close. The same goes for possible GRBs. Man, for the first time has the technology to do quite a lot about some things that just 100 years ago might not even be noticed before they struck. If we had the need we have adequate technology.

Grumpy

[lightgigantic]

wynn


lightgigantic



The only "substitute" for growing old is death.

Hence ... "meanwhile your molars rot"

If you live your life waiting for the next one(if it even exists)then you have never lived at all.

Good recipe for raising a child to be an idiot in adulthood

[Neverfly]

Hence ... "meanwhile your molars rot"


Good recipe for raising a child to be an idiot in adulthood

You really are trolling at this point.

It's well established that "our molars" rot. It's established we will succumb to death.
Do you have an actual POINT?

[lightgigantic]

You really are trolling at this point.

It's well established that "our molars" rot. It's established we will succumb to death.
Do you have an actual POINT?

that the insurmountable material nature rolls on even if you pretend you are not affected by it or declare advancements in technology as sufficient to live within the confines such a state ... which tends to explain precisely what is conspicuous by its absence in the treatises of Hawking et al

[Neverfly]

that the insurmountable material nature rolls on even if you pretend you are not affected by it or declare advancements in technology as sufficient to live within the confines such a state ... which tends to explain precisely what is conspicuous by its absence in the treatises of Hawking et al

You commented to this quote:

A lot of people hate my skepticism, and I think I understand why. The psychics offer wonders and endless possibilities in a world that often seems difficult and mundane. They promise health, wealth, wisdom, eternal life. But if you examine the record, it's not the psychics but the hard-nosed scientists who have actually delivered the things that improve human life. And, to me, science describes a world far more interesting than any psychic fantasy. It's a good world - not perfect - but it's ours. So we'd better learn to live with it, the way it is."
—James Randi

with:

Meanwhile your molars rot.

Explain how an inability to defy death or aging has anything to do with Randi's statements.
The fantastical offers no help for death or aging. And talk about 'pretending to not be affected...' I can think of no greater pretense than "Eternal Life beyond Death."

[lightgigantic]

You commented to this quote:


with:


Explain how an inability to defy death or aging has anything to do with Randi's statements.
The fantastical offers no help for death or aging. And talk about 'pretending to not be affected...' I can think of no greater pretense than "Eternal Life beyond Death."

its simply fantastical to think that the problems of death, old age and disease can be glossed over by computer technology etc

[Neverfly]

its simply fantastical to think that the problems of death, old age and disease can be glossed over by computer technology etc

Ah, ok I understand now... You think that belief in the supernatural is not fantastic but acceptance of medical advances is.

Got it.

[lightgigantic]

Ah, ok I understand now... You think that belief in the supernatural is not fantastic but acceptance of medical advances is.

Got it.

only if one thinks medical advancements are adequate solutions to the problems of rotting molars and other such bench marks of old age visited on the path of inevitable death

[Aqueous Id]

You're forgetting the countless people who are helping him - Stephen Hawking did not build his special chair, nor his voice box, nor his computer. He can't feed himself, he can't wash himself, nor clothe himself. Other people have to take care of all his needs. Other people have to make sure that he can express his needs at all. The phenomenon "Stephen Hawking" is rather a "group project."

I think his mind - where it's been - overrides that.

And I will likely challenge the SOF.

And then I came and asked you something different. I asked you about being present to nature, particularly its most mysterious and profound aspects. Does that raise a challenge, too, if so, what?

If I have to tell myself "this is it," then it quite clearly, it is not it.

I think "this" divides into two kinds. There's the buddha's mudane "this", then there's the Hawking's supramundane "this"... matter coexisting as radiation, the bending of space and time, the mutual influence of objects at a distance, virtuality, timelessness, etc. The contemplation of timelessness alone, to me, juxtaposes the mind of Hawking and the perfected mind.

[Aqueous Id]

That's all they do. Because they have to trick you into waking up. You already have everything you need, you just have to realize it. Buddhism itself is a joke. That's why enlightenment is often accompanied by laughter. Only part of it is relief from the human condition. The other part is how funny the pursuit of enlightenment was, like looking for your glasses while wearing them.

But people don't want to be emptied, they want to be filled up. You don't want what I can give you because it will leave you empty, and you already told us lack of purpose is incompatible with your worldview. You want meaning, purpose, you want expectations fulfilled. The essence of Buddhism is the opposite of that. It will take your preconceptions and dash them against the rocks.

You never cease to amaze me. I always enjoy your posts, even when you're fending off nonsense. But this is great. What a great voice and what a great expression of this concept.

[Grumpy]

lightgigantic

only if one thinks medical advancements are adequate solutions to the problems of rotting molars and other such bench marks of old age visited on the path of inevitable death

They are, after all, the ONLY effective methods man has found so far to EASE those affects, there are no others that offer more. Our current life expectancy is about 80 yrs. on average, but that means some die at 45 and some die at 100. Before medical science existed the average was closer to 40, with many dying before 5 yrs. and a few living past 60. And they had ZERO dentistry to treat those rotting molars you're so worried about, many died of abcessed teeth and sepsis. We do have adequate dentistry so it is almost unknown for that to happen today, at least in industrialized countries. But our teeth evolved to last us long enough to exhaust our reproductive ability, in Nature you were then expected to die having fulfilled the only function you evolved to do(IE about 40 years). Without scientific medical advances we would still have a life expectancy of 40 years. The flu pandemic following WW1 illustrates how it used to be. The troops spread the virus worldwide and one out of three people died, worldwide. Today we complain if our flu shot gives us some cold symptoms. The Mideaval plagues were even more deadly, we can cure that now in most cases.

So what is it you are babbling about(again)?

Grumpy

[Trippy]

...And fine, if you wish to
Glorify Krishna and Vishnu
In a post-colonial, condescending
Bottled-up and labeled kind of way
Then whatever, that's ok.
But here's what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant lump of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short
And unimportant
But thanks to recent scientific advances
I get to live twice as long
As my great great great great uncleses and auntses.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine...

-Tim Minchin, Storm. (Disclaimer: Language may offend some of our more sensitive readers).

[gmilam]

...And fine, if you wish to
Glorify Krishna and Vishnu
In a post-colonial, condescending
Bottled-up and labeled kind of way
Then whatever, that's ok.
But here's what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant lump of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short
And unimportant
But thanks to recent scientific advances
I get to live twice as long
As my great great great great uncleses and auntses.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine...

-Tim Minchin, Storm. (Disclaimer: Language may offend some of our more sensitive readers).

That is awesome! Thank you.

[wynn]

They are, after all, the ONLY effective methods man has found so far to EASE those affects, there are no others that offer more. Our current life expectancy is about 80 yrs. on average, but that means some die at 45 and some die at 100. Before medical science existed the average was closer to 40, with many dying before 5 yrs. and a few living past 60. And they had ZERO dentistry to treat those rotting molars you're so worried about, many died of abcessed teeth and sepsis. We do have adequate dentistry so it is almost unknown for that to happen today, at least in industrialized countries. But our teeth evolved to last us long enough to exhaust our reproductive ability, in Nature you were then expected to die having fulfilled the only function you evolved to do(IE about 40 years). Without scientific medical advances we would still have a life expectancy of 40 years. The flu pandemic following WW1 illustrates how it used to be. The troops spread the virus worldwide and one out of three people died, worldwide. Today we complain if our flu shot gives us some cold symptoms. The Mideaval plagues were even more deadly, we can cure that now in most cases.

If you think that the actual problems of aging, illness and death are the decaying health, decaying tissues, infections, fractures and such,

then you are operating out of a very limited - and misleading - understanding of the problems of aging, illness and death.

So what is it you are babbling about(again)?