Why do ppl like Stephen Hawking so much

Honestly, this IS the one important question. Why bother? I have given this question thought before, many times.

For the record, I do feel that in the grand scheme of things we are irrelevant. The universe is going to do what it's going to do.

So, why bother? We'll all be dead soon enough, and death appears to be permanant - no need to hurry to it. I didn't exist for the eternity before I was born, and I've got eternity to not exist after I'm dead.

I happen to enjoy my life. I have friends and family who love me and I love them. I have musician friends that I get together with and make those magical sounds that can evoke tears and/or laughter - sometimes simultaneously. I derive pleasure from that - and it seems that others do too. Throw in a good meal and glass of well crafted beer...

Sad that people look this gift horse in the mouth and say, "Is that all you got?" They ignore, deny and even curse the gift that's right in front of them while using the short time they have dreaming of something better.

 

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Irrelevant whether you say you are afraid of death.

If rotting molars cause you a problem its fair to say death does.
:shrug:

 

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Maybe it isn't fair for you to assume things such as that- if so, see post #100.
Rotting Molars won't be enough for me to need fairy tales to feel better.

 

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I don't blame you.
Fairy tales don't do much for me either ... regardless whether they are about the brilliance of ceramic teeth and science or red riding hood
:shrug:

 

wynn

Because life is for living, not dying. Living your own live can not possibly be irrelivant to any cognizant creature. The Universe may not care, but you must.

Actually, historically, the main aim of religion has been to control the behavior, thinking and loyalties of groups of humans, for good or ill.

Neverfly

I have been dealing with this issue for some time and have come to the conclusion that I do not fear death, but I do fear excruciating pain, disability, loss of cognizance, loss of control, loss of memory, etc. Sooner than I would like(I don't fear death, but I enjoy life and would not give it up willingly)I will face a descision about whether continuing with life is worth the continuous suffering of these things. At what point does the balance tip(as it inevitably will)? Will I lose my ability to choose whether I will continue to suffer before I make that choice on my own? That is what I fear much more than the end of life! I watched my father die by inches as his mind slipped away, the last few months he was a zombie, not even recognizing his wife of over 50 years, hanging on by fingernails to a life of no worth to him, or to anyone else. Religion told him and my mother that it is wrong to end such suffering, religion is dead wrong on this. Death is often a mercy and a relief to all involved.

Grumpy

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lightgigantic

So typing on this result of science is a fairy tale and you are simply having the delusion that you are posting on a ficticious internet? There are many fairy tales that people believe, at least science produces results, repeatable, fact based, logical and substantive results. Fairy tales of supernatural beings? Not so much.

Grumpy

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Utopia, if you remember, wasn't all that it's cracked up to be. In any case, my rotting - and yours - will never actually complete. In terms of parasites alone we are a veritable rain forest of opportunity for the little vermin. As rigor mortis sets in all kinds of flora and fauna sprout in a sort of parasitic rebirth. When it's all done, the victuals (as it were) will be returned to the local consumers, to feed all sorts of critters that will reconstitute us into little strands of DNA and bits of notochord or yolk sac and the like.

Who would want to impede that wonder and beauty with cheesy ceramics and synthetic innards? In fact, forget the box, put me in the ground as I came, the agglomeration of billions of years of natural chemical processes all interacting with one another through the wonderful elementary principle of electric charge, bonding and breaking bonds, absorbing and releasing energy, falling apart and falling together until something clicks and locks into place, having achieved equilibrium, or stability, or repeatability.. all the qualities for success rolled up in one exceedingly ubiquitous formula, DNA, the paragon of excellence, as it were, because it can, and will, reproduce.

No, Utopia is here and now, riding that wave as it crashes forward. You can have all your post-dated rain checks in that neo-utopian afterlife thingy you're so hopped up about. Who knows? Maybe you'll bite the dust first, and the next day I'll be administered the new apoptosis regulating serum that tacks on another 20,000 bonus miles, enough to lollygag around in Maui or Copacabana with beach bums who pull graveyard shift down at the landscaper's where they feed composted critters to all the hungry azaleas and orchids.

C'mon, man - ain't life great? You gotta admit, there sure is a heck of a lot to learn about it. Aren't you even curious? What's really going on, man? Did somebody mess with your mind back in a science class somewhere?

BTW, if you wanna swing back over to Hawkinsville (Alabammy no doubt) we can groove on the X-rays coming out of black holes, or maybe even the singularity that kicked off this whole she-bang in the first place. Your call. I mean after all, you're all snug as a bug up there in the sniper's nest. The rest of us... well we're just scratchin' in the dirt, gettin' our fingernails black an' havin' a mighty fine time playin' with the jigsaw puzzle pieces we dug up. You can come down any time ya want.
:wave:

 

Hey Grumpy, haven't crossed your path lately. What a pleasant surprise to see what you'd posted by the time I'd composed my prior post:

Hey, great minds think alike. We have a question pending from Gravage about the content of Hawking's contributions. I think that discussion could play an interesting counterpoint to this other one about afterlife.

 

only if one thinks its an adequate substitute for the inevitability of rotting molars, pummeled by old age and the like ...

 

No. I'm not here to make chit-chat.

I want to meet a buddha.

Whether here at Sciforums, or anywhere else. I am using this opportunity at these forums to train myself in questioning and challenging.

 

If I am to seriously consider that the Universe might not care,
then why should I care?

If I am to seriously consider that the Universe might not care,
then how could I possibly be able to care?

 

By not presuming myself to be a saint.

They like him for what they hold dear, what they project into him.
Stephen Hawking may have many powers, but, like most humans, it is not within his power to control the affections of others.

I have made it very clear that I am addressing those who claim to have superior knowledge of The Truth, of The Absolute Truth.

I've no issue with people who claim to have superior knowledge of Italian grammar, the biology of flea reproduction or Michelangelo's art.

Exactly. And this is what I am looking for, in regard to the topic of Absolute Truth.

A true buddha actually has the capacity to enlighten others.

 

You know come to think of it there isn't all that much infighting between great minds, is there? If anything you might see huge differences in their analysis and conclusions. More often than not, they are drawing upon one another.

I like to think that Hawking represents the exact opposite of what the anti-science folks call the Conspiracy, which they often associate with atheism, a topic (as Herc noted) that is completely irrelevant to the substance of the science itself. But instead of a conspiracy you see a severely disabled individual who must have all kinds of side issues with symptoms, but he rises above all of that, quite heroically actually. And through all of that he cultivated his mind better than most people on Earth. And against all odds he made some breakthoughs in theoretical physics, with an interest in the really big (literally big) question surrounding black holes and the big bang event which he attributed to a singularity.

As for your actual question, I would answer this:

Einstein referred to the cosmological constant as his "biggest blunder". What was yours?

I used to think that information was destroyed in black holes. But the AdS/CFT correspondence led me to change my mind. This was my biggest blunder, or at least my biggest blunder in science.​

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328460.500-stephen-hawking-at-70-exclusive-interview.html

 

A disclaimer like that makes it really hard to take seriously what you said that followed said disclaimer.

 

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

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

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?

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.

Or any of the many trivial pursuits here either, then. The SOFs want to be present to this now even if it takes them tripping though some curiosity about the mite that inhabits the eyelash of a flea, or the mass of stone used to carve the Pietà, or even what was going through his mind that he was able to pour out so much angst into a chisel. Somehow all of this adds up to that Absolute Truth, at least as the SOF is concerned.

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 we ever get around to the ideas of Stephen Hawking, and happen on land on the ideas of relative time - particularly timelessness - that's where the really Big Picture rolls in and eclipses all the trivia. At least that's my take.

 

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.

 

wynn

Because the only alternative for you when you do not care for yourself is death. Learn or die.

lightgigantic

The only "substitute" for growing old is death. If you live your life waiting for the next one(if it even exists)then you have never lived at all.

Aqueous Id

Great to be ABLE to be here, it was touch and go for a bit lately. I really hate getting old, but it sure does beat the alternative(at least, so far).

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Grumpy

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Steven Hawking is a great man. Many afflicted by comparable disability would withdraw from productive work and none of us would think less of them for doing so, but he chose to use the one thing his disease left him, his intellect. And he did so brilliantly, not only discovering much about Black Holes but writing books that make his esoteric knowledge available and understandable by almost anyone. "A Brief History of the Time" is the greatest primer on the history of the Universe I have ever encountered. In science it is irrelivant what your physical disabilities are if the quality of your work is so high, the fact that he produced such a wide panorama of quality work while suffering constantly is amazing to me. He receives the accolades and respect he receives because he has more than earned it, academically and as an example demonstrating that one need not be perfectly, optimally, nominally, or even peripherially able to help advance human knowledge, that it is our minds that make us human, not our bodies.

Grumpy

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And how's that working out for you?

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Millennia of philosophy down the drain, again!

Much better than you think.


Although there is probably only a handful of people here who are familiar with this reference -

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