Stephen Hawking: "God didn't create universe"

I don't mean to say that it proves that there God caused the universe. What I am saying is that drawing "God" as a conclusion to the beginning of the universe is not irrational just because it cannot be tested by the scientific method.

Apparently people seem to think that science is the only way to knowledge, which I believe is false. Don't get me wrong, I think science is a great way to knowledge, but it has it's limitations. For instance, if I were to ask a scientist why water was boiling, they would tell me about temperatures, and boiling points and things of that nature. But what if the answer I was looking for was that the water was boiling because I wanted a glass of tea? Science cannot prove this, but it is no less a reasonable response.

And why should we expect to be able to prove anything scientifically before the big bang? Nothing existed. Science operates inside our natural universe, and before the Big Bang, there was no natural universe. Now once again, if by science someone figures out that the universe had no beginning or that the universe somehow brought itself into being, then what I have said means nothing. But as the evidence stands now, the universe can be traced back to a point of singularity, and before that point we know nothing about the universe. This suggests a beginning, which suggests a cause, which suggests something outside of our universe. That is all that I am saying.

 

If the determination that there has to be a cause is an assumption of the human perspective, so what? What other perspective do we have to go on? The way we as humans perceive things determine what we think about them. If we aren't allowed to use our assumptions of the human perspective, then we cannot test anything, as what we conclude might be true only to our human perspective.

But since we have perceived that everything that begins to exist has a cause, I think it is perfectly justifiable to conclude that everything that begins to exist has a cause.

And whatever your definition of time is, it was still created at the Big Bang. So I don't really see what point you were trying to make.

 

That should be obvious. Hawking asserts that the universe -- matter -- sprang up from nothing. If that is true, the equation is zero equals one -- that is, something from nothing.

Since his is supposedly a "scientific" conclusion rather than a belief system, all I ask is mathematical or physical "proof."

 

Newtonian physics work well with the assumptions of the human perspective, but Quantum physics do not. The guys with the big brains, big imaginations and big math skills were able to break out of the human perspective to describe things on the subatomic level and may well do it on the extra-cosmological level (I just made that term up). But you and I won't.

 

I'm not asking for anyone here on the board to come up with the proof. I am saying Hawking, using quantum physics -- which still obeys the laws of physics and mathematics -- must offer the proof if he wants to make the assertion from a scientific standpoint.

 

That was for Havoc.

But on Trough The Wormhole last night, the Brane guys said that the proven existence of gravity waves or proven lack of gravity waves would go a long way in determining which direction is more correct.

A new satellite is up 100 times more sensitive than the one that plotted the WMAP map and may produce the needed evidence.

 

LOL, I meant that for Havoc and hit reply to your post. That comes from being half blind and old.

 

You prove mathematical propositions. Scientific theories can't actually be proven, though they may be in part based on mathematical proofs. You can argue why what is being theorized is not physically or logically impossible; you can go further and give arguments as to why you think it is likely; and you can attempt to carry out experiments or collect data to support those arguments.

Also, perhaps this will address your concerns about a universe being created from nothing:

http://www.astrosociety.org/pubs/mercury/31_02/nothing.html

[rquoter]
by Alexei V. Filippenko and Jay M. Pasachoff

Insights from modern physics suggest that our wondrous universe may be the ultimate free lunch.

Adapted from The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium, 1st edition, by Jay M. Pasachoff and Alex Filippenko, © 2001. Reprinted with permission of Brooks/Cole, an imprint of the Wadsworth Group, a division of Thomson Learning.

In the inflationary theory, matter, antimatter, and photons were produced by the energy of the false vacuum, which was released following the phase transition. All of these particles consist of positive energy. This energy, however, is exactly balanced by the negative gravitational energy of everything pulling on everything else. In other words, the total energy of the universe is zero! It is remarkable that the universe consists of essentially nothing, but (fortunately for us) in positive and negative parts. You can easily see that gravity is associated with negative energy: If you drop a ball from rest (defined to be a state of zero energy), it gains energy of motion (kinetic energy) as it falls. But this gain is exactly balanced by a larger negative gravitational energy as it comes closer to Earth’s center, so the sum of the two energies remains zero.

The idea of a zero-energy universe, together with inflation, suggests that all one needs is just a tiny bit of energy to get the whole thing started (that is, a tiny volume of energy in which inflation can begin). The universe then experiences inflationary expansion, but without creating net energy.

What produced the energy before inflation? This is perhaps the ultimate question. As crazy as it might seem, the energy may have come out of nothing! The meaning of "nothing" is somewhat ambiguous here. It might be the vacuum in some pre-existing space and time, or it could be nothing at all – that is, all concepts of space and time were created with the universe itself.

Quantum theory, and specifically Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, provide a natural explanation for how that energy may have come out of nothing. Throughout the universe, particles and antiparticles spontaneously form and quickly annihilate each other without violating the law of energy conservation. These spontaneous births and deaths of so-called "virtual particle" pairs are known as "quantum fluctuations." Indeed, laboratory experiments have proven that quantum fluctuations occur everywhere, all the time. Virtual particle pairs (such as electrons and positrons) directly affect the energy levels of atoms, and the predicted energy levels disagree with the experimentally measured levels unless quantum fluctuations are taken into account.

Perhaps many quantum fluctuations occurred before the birth of our universe. Most of them quickly disappeared. But one lived sufficiently long and had the right conditions for inflation to have been initiated. Thereafter, the original tiny volume inflated by an enormous factor, and our macroscopic universe was born. The original particle-antiparticle pair (or pairs) may have subsequently annihilated each other – but even if they didn’t, the violation of energy conservation would be minuscule, not large enough to be measurable.

If this admittedly speculative hypothesis is correct, then the answer to the ultimate question is that the universe is the ultimate free lunch! It came from nothing, and its total energy is zero, but it nevertheless has incredible structure and complexity. There could even be many other such universes, spatially distinct from ours.[/rquoter]

 

Has anyone mentioned the bible yet?

 

Science absolutely can tell you that the water is boiling because you wanted tea. Physics can explain how you put the pot on the burner, how you put the water in the pot, and how it was all started by some neurons firing in your brain, making you think that you should have some tea.

 

If you're referring to LISA, that's not actually up yet. And it's much more comparable to LIGO than to WMAP.

 

Using mathematics and physics Einstein proved that matter and energy are different forms of each other. He did the same while proving that gravity bends space and time. The speculation above is a theory with, IMO, less weight that the theory that God created the universe.

To make the statement above, mathematical proof must be offered. "Ideas" like Einstein's ideas, such as string theory for example, all are based on mathematics, which is the governor of physics and physical laws. Hence, the assertion still boils down to a proof of 0 = 1.

 

There is no scientific theory that God created the universe.

 

I understand, and I really do appreciate your efforts to defend your position in a reasonable way (seriously). Many posters would be very reactionary in their response, yet you haven't been. Thank you!

Having said that, I think you're drifting from science into philosophy. The idea that God exists may or may not be "irrational": that largely depends on one's point of view. But this is the difference between philosophy ("I believe God does/does not exist") and science ("I can prove God does/does not exist"). Science does not find facts to support conclusions: it forms conclusions based on facts. There are no facts to support the idea of God, therefore we cannot conclude God exists. And no, the idea that "everything that exists has a cause" is not a fact. It is a philosophical argument, primarily pumped up by an evangelical preacher, that has been widely criticized both within the philosophical and scientific communities.

No, it is not a "reasonable" response. Your desire to make tea did not make the water boil. I can sit on the couch and want to make tea all day long, but until I get off my butt and apply heat to water, it ain't happening. You're confusing "purpose" with "cause". Science couldn't care less about your purpose for boiling water. Science's goal is to determine what caused the water to boil. The purpose for boiling water exists only in your head, and that's the realm of philosophers, not scientists.

Kalam again. Kalam is a poor example of philosophy, and completely inadequate when it comes to science. It uses the basic misunderstanding of a scientific theory ("that which begins to exist must have a cause") to draw a conclusion that is complete unscientific ("God began to exist without cause"). There are pages and pages of material about this, and I won't flood the BBS with them, but they're out there if you want to look:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/#4.1
http://www.amazon.com/Losing-Faith-Preacher-Atheist/dp/187773313X/
http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Theism-Arguments-Against-Existence/dp/019824682X/
Dan Barker - Essay: Cosmological Kalamity
Graham Oppy - Essay: Reply To Professor Craig

 

Isn't that the textbook for non-science majors?

 

But I wouldn't say these were proofs. He made certain assumptions about the physical world using a heck of a lot of imagination and intuition, and then used math to derive the consequences. It looks like his assumptions were largely correct, based on experimental data. But these aren't laws in a pure, mathematical sense. Nothing that science claims about the physical world is certain.

 

Agree. As I stated earlier, faith in God is a belief system which cannot be proved. Hawking and his supporters are not making the argument as a belief system (which I could accept as opinion) but as cosmic theory, making the assertion based on science. Under that speculation, I am just saying I want the mathematical proof.

 

So once you see the mathematical proof (which you probably wouldn't understand unless you're a PhD physicist or mathematician) you'll accept that this theory holds more weight than the theory that God created the universe?

 

I would be forced to re-think some personal beliefs, but I do not believe I'm in much danger of having to do that. Although I scored in the 98th percentile in mathematics on my SAT many years ago, I would send the proof to one of my college friends, a mathematical whiz who makes his living at it.

 

God is not out of the question...


Zues and Jesus are... imo