"The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions."
The laws of science are statistical formulations. I honestly don't know what the hell is he talking about, and doubt if he does either. His grasp of metaphysics seems rudimentary at best.
"Statistical formulations"?
ReplyDeleteUm, no. (Wondering where that came from. . . .)
The laws of science are principles, which can be expressed in words or in equations, that describe and predict physical behavior in the physical universe. For example, the law of gravity is that mass attracts other mass.
For example, the second law of thermodynamics, which essentially describes how energy must be expended to produce work, and energy that is expended to do work involves heat-transfer, which is impossible to make 100 percent efficient. So this law of science applies to entropy (which is the idea that systems become disorganized over time, and that heat differentials will tend to reach equilibrium), and also applies to friction, to engineering, and so forth.
The laws of science are evidenced and verified by experimental data, but in no way are they just statistical formulations.
verification word : doommes
LOL
They are not laws in the sense in which we usually use the term law. A law of science is generalized body of observations. They are such solely from the perspective of the observer, not from the perspective of the lawgiver, should such there be. To say that the sun always rises is merely to say that it always has. And recently someone has seriously challenged the law of gravity. See http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/gravity/.
ReplyDeleteSo I think, Art, if you look at how Hawking phrases his statement, it is quite easy to wonder what the hell he is talking about. He is another person who knows what he knows and little else -- and doesn't bother to learn anything else.
I am surprised that Hawking would give such an illogically loaded question. Let me flip it around:
ReplyDeleteQuestion: Was the way the universe began determined by a law of science, the reasoning of which we cannot understand, or was it chosen by God?
Such flipping of his question displays some of how he loaded his "question". His questions assumes that we have answered all questions, knowing now full well how the universe was determined. Either that, or we certainly are capable of it. The other side is that we will never understand why some personal God would have done it. So much for scripture.
While we are at it, this personal God of Hawking's seems to be his "personal" God, concocted in the sense of making him or her or it some personal hallucination, or maybe delusion, as it were.
But the other side of his loaded question, the use of the word "or", assumes that this personal God who did not create the universe, had nothing to do with creating laws of science either. It is a stupid personal God that created something he or she or it could not understand--even though scientists such as Hawking can.
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.”
ReplyDeleteBut where did the law of gravity come from, if you are starting with "nothing"?