Enter the unraveling of this mystery…
Stephen Hawking like most scientists who take such a positional view, may err in failing to apply science to understanding their own reasoning and its fallibility. Observation and evidence requires interpretation to guide scientific reason, and both interpretation and reason are prone to human error. In short, he as other scientists (people) are prone to first taking a view and then setting out to prove it. When you have already concluded on one side of a false dilemma, it can skew your reasoning ever the more. It would be interesting to see the results if Hawking were to apply the evolutionary perspective of the brain to help explain his own reasoning.
In his book The Grand Design, Hawking explains how philosophy, the old tool for answering life’s questions failed to keep up with science – and that philosophy is dead. I couldn't agree more. But he uses philosophy in his positional view. Theoretical physics is in reality the application of math to philosophy – and the field rarely gets much direct observation – just little nuggets. Once a key observation is made the rest of the involved theory is accredited including all the details that are until elaborated later, merely feelings from non-conscious mindsets and perspectives that underpin the theory.
Hawking’s biggest error however, is taking the position he has. Science is about reducing questions to the most fundamental that can be answered and tested. The question, “Does God Exist?” cannot be tested scientifically. But latest advances in physics – to which he contributed significantly – has taken us much closer to showing God can exist.
Hawking’s biggest error however, is taking the position he has. Science is about reducing questions to the most fundamental that can be answered and tested. The question, “Does God Exist?” cannot be tested scientifically. But latest advances in physics – to which he contributed significantly – has taken us much closer to showing God can exist.
In his explanation of the new view of the universe, which is called the multiverse (series of parallel universes each with possibly different laws of physics), he says now he can show that the universe didn’t need God to create it. But science can never offer evidence that God does not exist, and will always have to infer the big picture. The new theory called M-Theory actually opens the doors to scientific explanation of a spiritual existence – life before and after death in this life.
But even classical physics is not in opposition to creation, unless your view is the universe is 6,000 years old and was created in 6 days. Even the bible and ancient commentary on Genesis alludes to the 6 days not being our 6 days – rather “generations” of creation (see Gen 2:4). Classical cosmology offers the theory of an originating explosion (Big Bang) that of course involves matter moving away from each other at the speed of light at first and gradually slowing down. Given the evidence called CBR – cosmic background radiation, we have extrapolated about 15 billion years back to this event.
If I lost you by now, here is the punch line. According to classical physics (law of relativity), the first 24 hours then is about 8 billion years in our time today. The next 24 hours is about 4 billion years our time. The next 24 hours, about 2 billion, and so forth. If you follow the account of creation, it fits with scientific consensus including the archaeological record (and yes the bible does refer to dinosaurs). This shows how creation was “generations” rather than just 6 days. Wonder if Hawking ever considered this. Perhaps not if he has already concluded there is no God.
One way to look at it is did God just think and everything existed? If so, then why did He rest on the “7th day”? The bible alludes to it being hard work and as the bible evidences, God obeys and works through His own laws of nature. It would then make sense that creation was not an event but a process - a process including evolution (and the bible evidences this as I mentioned).
Here’s an analogy to help illustrate this model. In 1953 Stanley Miller and Harold Urey conducted an experiment where they created an environment isolated from their own, and caused the building blocks of life to produce spontaneously from that environment. If they knew how (and had millions of years to do it), they might have discovered how to get more complicated in that process so to cause to develop complex combinations of amino acids that became a beginning transcription for DNA.
Most would consider graduate students intelligent beings, and the abstract of what they did is to create an environment very different and isolated from their own, then set the stage and manipulated the environment for the formation of amino acids (caused electric sparks in that environment to simulate lightning). Read here to learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment
Here’s an analogy to help illustrate this model. In 1953 Stanley Miller and Harold Urey conducted an experiment where they created an environment isolated from their own, and caused the building blocks of life to produce spontaneously from that environment. If they knew how (and had millions of years to do it), they might have discovered how to get more complicated in that process so to cause to develop complex combinations of amino acids that became a beginning transcription for DNA.
Most would consider graduate students intelligent beings, and the abstract of what they did is to create an environment very different and isolated from their own, then set the stage and manipulated the environment for the formation of amino acids (caused electric sparks in that environment to simulate lightning). Read here to learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment
If graduate students could do this, then why not God? Let’s see if Hawking's science supports this…
M-Theory generally allows for the following explanation: Through gravity (which moves matter and can travel between universes) an intelligent being in one universe with different laws of physics (different environment) could have manipulated the formation of this universe, including setting the conditions for the creation of amino acids – the building blocks of life. By doing so it is apparent this intelligent being is much more versed in the truths of the laws of the multiverse and could use gravity (gravitons) to guide evolution just enough through millions of years to cause us to evolve the brain structures for a consciousness. As Hawking put it, “For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination.” Science can only infer what that something was.
Hawking also errs by falling victim to the science-religion false dilemma. If he were to delve as deeply into spirituality as he has science, he might have a different view. The unfortunate mindset that prevails in the public consciousness – some more than others – is the inability to separate religion from spirituality and stuck with the past “Hatfield-McCoy” science-religion feud – the false dilemma that originating in the misguided authority of the ancient church.
Fortunately, revolutionists such as Descartes offered humankind the ability to reconcile science and theism as long as science stayed away from the human mind (then deemed the soul). This view prevails in the public consciousness today. In fact, this mindset was key in why the failed social sciences model of the 20th century emerged dominant, which involved bashing down advancements in thinking about the human mind that should have started in the 1800s. Today it is obvious (though ignored) that Descartes erred in his belief the mind and brain are unrelated barring the most basic and primitive functions. However, his introduction of that belief then was not in error.
On the flipside Hawking has been crucial to advancement in scientific thinking. Perhaps his disbelief in life after death has been his strength to continue, thus giving the world incredible insights that might not have occurred if he just accepted his horrible lot in life in anticipation for a perfect afterlife. In fact, without perhaps realizing it, his contributions and that of others to the field of theoretical physics may have opened doors to scientific explanation of the spirit realm – intelligent life outside this universe.
This developing advancement that Hawking is contributing to may be the last discovery needed to end the debate – if someone were to connect the dots and the public were to become exposed to it. Can you imagine the results if public opinion turned to believing in God because science has proven He can exist?
People's views of God are often limited by their conceptions of what God should be. The age old question of "If there is a God and he is good and loves us, why is there so much suffering?" can bring some to the conclusion there can not be a god or such suffering would not exist. A profound tragic event: surviving a car crash in a disabled state, or on a larger scale the recent tornados in NC, AL, and now Joplin, Mo. can have a dramatic effect on your belief in God. Our faith takes a back seat to our reason as we ask ourselves how can God permit such things to happen? Depending on how they answer that question, survivors may experience a complete loss of faith, or a dramatic increase in faith.
ReplyDeleteAs Mr Hawking comtemplates the universe in his broken body, I can't help but wonder if he isn't following the very human path Mark presented above and simply setting out to prove his belief/assessments which were established first, and possibly based on those first unanswerable questions he postulated as to how a loving God could allow him to exist in such a feeble state.