There are plenty of models in physics which go "beyond" the Big Bang and can "explain" all this stuff. Just don't expect them to "make sense" in terms of your finite, everyday human intuition. Whether any of these models are actually correct is another matter entirely. The whole issue should have been that God was never necessary from the start, no one's ever proven a need to postulate her, it's always been a matter of personal choice.
Stephen Hawking: God NOT Needed For Creation
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There are plenty of models in physics which go "beyond" the Big Bang and can "explain" all this stuff. Just don't expect them to "make sense" in terms of your finite, everyday human intuition. Whether any of these models are actually correct is another matter entirely. The whole issue should have been that God was never necessary from the start, no one's ever proven a need to postulate her, it's always been a matter of personal choice.
How can you say, our questions should have been that God was not necessery from the start. As far as Hawking is concerned, along with the tens of thousands of physicists on the planet, we have absolutely no idea how the universe sprung into existence - the best we can verbally-master is ''it simply did'', which is somewhat... redundant, would you not agree?
If we do not know if a singularity existed, or even if we did, how that singularity came into existence, then what can we state about the initial conditions of the big bang? No matter how precise our measurements become, there is a huge degree of uncertainty concerning these initial conditions.
When someone says to me, God was not required for creation, I feel somewhat cheated, as though they know something about these ''hidden instants'' of the beginning and I have no clue of them, for if I did, I surely would be making bold and absolute statements very similar.
Not really. Hawking is claiming he does have an idea of how the universe sprang into existence, and he says it doesn't require a God.
We have lots of precise measurements. Currently what we lack is a really good theory that can apply to the first few moments after the big bang.
Fair enough.
I find this to be a good answer to Hawking's claim:
Comment: The Stephen Hawking Delusion - By Hamza Andreas Tzortzis
Comment: The Stephen Hawking Delusion - By Hamza Andreas Tzortzis
to which we can add it to the historical continuum of ideas about how the universe doesn't require a god
too which we can add to the historical continuum of lackings in such ideas
:shrug:
It seems to me that if you sprinkle the word 'god' liberally into 'academic texts' these days you guarantee yourself a best seller....
Anyhoo...
It (also) seems to me because, obviously, I've thought about these things really, really deeply is that there are actually simple answers to these very elementary questions (which are fruits fallen naturally but not very far from 'Who am I and where did I come from, Mum?' tree). Ergo, 'what came before' and 'what caused the big bang' are 'something' and 'something else' respectively. Sheesh it isn't exactly rocket science.
Humans with their enormous brains will not be satisfied with such simple answers, however, and so will continue to search for the finer details and so on and so forth until one of these fine days we may get to know an approximation of the answer and then for we, the eternally dissatisfied, it'll be 'but what came before that?' and the search will continue well into infinity and beyond.
And the god botherers and athiumses will continue unabated with their
oke:
But what actually intrigues me more because I have toyed with the idea that it may not actually be possible ever 'to know'. So and from this consideration and until such time as all is known I feel bound to ask:
What if we never know?
And consider the implications of an answer which is more than a little annoying, isn't it?
I fear I may have broken a few rules here by starting sentences with 'Ands' and 'Buts' and the odd 'So'. Hoping it doesn't detract anything.
Anyhoo...
It (also) seems to me because, obviously, I've thought about these things really, really deeply is that there are actually simple answers to these very elementary questions (which are fruits fallen naturally but not very far from 'Who am I and where did I come from, Mum?' tree). Ergo, 'what came before' and 'what caused the big bang' are 'something' and 'something else' respectively. Sheesh it isn't exactly rocket science.
Humans with their enormous brains will not be satisfied with such simple answers, however, and so will continue to search for the finer details and so on and so forth until one of these fine days we may get to know an approximation of the answer and then for we, the eternally dissatisfied, it'll be 'but what came before that?' and the search will continue well into infinity and beyond.
And the god botherers and athiumses will continue unabated with their
oke:But what actually intrigues me more because I have toyed with the idea that it may not actually be possible ever 'to know'. So and from this consideration and until such time as all is known I feel bound to ask:
What if we never know?
And consider the implications of an answer which is more than a little annoying, isn't it?
I fear I may have broken a few rules here by starting sentences with 'Ands' and 'Buts' and the odd 'So'. Hoping it doesn't detract anything.
If I might also add:
If nothing can come from nothing then isn't anything possible?
I mean isn't this the same kind of difficulty presented to god botherers when they say 'god created everything' and the scientist riposte is 'well what caused god?' and there is that tumble weed moment when there's a lot of mumbling and muttering but no sane answer is forthcoming.
and the atheists notch up a point
A question hangs here ?
If nothing can come from nothing then isn't anything possible?
I mean isn't this the same kind of difficulty presented to god botherers when they say 'god created everything' and the scientist riposte is 'well what caused god?' and there is that tumble weed moment when there's a lot of mumbling and muttering but no sane answer is forthcoming.
and the atheists notch up a point
A question hangs here ?
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"God never began to exist, so it doesn't apply. "
Pathetic COP OUT.
That blogger is a failure.
Hi James
An idea is not an absolute certainty. Stating God is not required for the creation of existence is a statement of absolute certainty.
The two do not work well.
In his new book Hawking asserts that "philosophy is dead".
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But it doesn't matter how much or little we know about the origins of our universe. No one's ever established that a creator deity is the only possible explanation. I think there's something very strange and counterintuitive underpinning our origins, if we even have an origin to speak of, but to call it "God" is what I consider most redundant.
Well as I elaborated above, I think you misunderstand my claim as well as possibly Prof. Hawking's claims too. Saying God is needed for the Big Bang is as unnecessary as saying Zeus is needed for lightning. Just because we haven't found an explanation, and possibly never will, doesn't mean that an explanation doesn't exist. So we can speculate based on what we observe in the here and now, and that speculation can include a deity if you like, but speculation is no substitute for fact.
No one has given a logical, causality-based explanation for our universe that includes God without running into logical paradoxes of their own, i.e. if God made the universe, then what created God? For Stephen Hawking's own part, I believe he is merely stating that there now exist theories which explain the known universe in its entirety, at all moments in its existence, provided you accept that certain natural laws have always existed. Doesn't mean these theories are correct or explain anything in a way human intuition could ever fully grasp, it just means we can now speculate on a mathematical level as well as on a philosophical or spiritual one, and plugging in a deity has never been of any practical use in this search.
I certainly never hinted that the idea of God was the only possible explanation - far from it. In fact, I weighed the non-biased approach, by stating no one can absolutely state that, and in your words ''God was not necessery from the start'' - this statement cannot be falsified, and it's in fact one of the most brass statements a scientist can make knowing that unfalsifiable theories are considered to be unpopular. To state God is not needed is again, something which cheats the world, by assuming we know how the initial set up of the universe began.
Seems I touched a nerve.
I called your logic stupid. If you can't tell the difference between that and something you seem to think I've said like "You are stupid in everything you do and you're ignorant of everything" then I suggest you grow a thicker more rational skin.
The reasoning you used is formally known as 'argument from ignorance'. Its the "I can't explain it therefore X" argument. Commonly employed by religious people along the lines of "Science can't explain X therefore God did it". Yes, if you want to push it I would say that I called your position on that matter 'ignorant', in that you formed an view not based on fact but on "I don't know therefore X".
Saying your logic is flawed is not 'rude', it's a statement of fact. If you think that's 'rude' then you think being told the truth is 'rude', even when it is nothing but a simple statement. Now while I can understand that I can come across as abrasive and perhaps I should word my posts a little nicer if you think someone saying "Your reasoning is poor" is 'rude' then you're in for a very rough adulthood.
You don't like it when someone supposedly goes overboard with insults but you're more than willing to dish it out. Fortunately I have a thicker skin than you.
Really? I think you should learn what harassment is. Rough Adulthood? I don't hit people. I just insult the people who insult me. You just piss me off that's all. Just learn how to respond to other people reasonably. Or maybe I am being unreasonable then maybe I may stop ignoring you from now on. Which is highly unlikely.
Hawking also bites the same bullet since he requires a self causal situation
:shrug:
Just another way of stating "society is dead"
though most of these seem to just push the issue back a stage. Where did the multiverse come from. Why was there the potential in the nothingness for a universe to arise and so on.
I don't.
Right, they are speculative.
The problems of asserting there is a God do not explain away Hawkins problem for asserting his ideas mean there is not one. What I said still stands: there should be a complete explanation of origins before one can start listing what was not necessary.
I explained this to Bork as well. I don't think he or she quite grasped why it's important. I think it's quite evidently clear.
Another approach we could take on the issue is to say
'why now?'
what changed so that Hawking thought
'now I shall assert this to the press'
It is not as if we achieved a complete view. 10 years ago physicists knew many things, their models did not have God, they looked like good models, they were incomplete, however.
That description still fits. So something other than an achieved completeness led to his announcement. And whatever that was was not science.
yes, he is claiming this.
Which many physicists do not seem to believe was the beginning of 'everything' anyway, the Big Bang that is.
Countering what you consider speculation with speculation guised as certainty is hardly good role modelling if you think taking speculation as fact is a problem.