No, not really RWP (no surprises there I'm sure!!!). You would need to demonstrate how an accident can be the source of persistent, universal order in the face of astronomical odds against such a possibility. And then you would have to show how an accident can produce something that is immune to any further accident. I.e., if an accident is responsible for universal laws, then why could not another accident come along and wipe out the product of the first accident, and set up new laws?
I reject any assertion of 'astronomical odds' without some minimally rigorous way of computing such odds.
We have actually no idea how complicated the irreducible set of physical laws is. But take a look at quantum mechanics. It's reducible to a very limited state of fundamental postulates. Add conservation of energy, Maxwell's laws, and the Coulomb equation, and you have enough to construct every molecule in the universe, from H2 to human chromosome 23.
Unimaginable complexity can come from a very sparse set of initial conditions. It might indeed be true that only a limited set of such initial conditions can lead to complexity, but at present we don't know how limited the set is, since we're biased by living in a set of conditions that permits our own complexity.
if an accident is responsible for universal laws, then why could not another accident come along and wipe out the product of the first accident, and set up new laws?
This is not an area I'm expert in, but I gather people theorize that the present set of conditions was set at the time of the big-bang, or very shortly thereafter, by a phenomenon called 'spontaneous symmetry breaking'. In general, as you lower the energy of a system, its symmetry tends to drop; you see this when you cool isotropic gases to better-ordered liquids and finally to crystals with highly ordered lattices. So, if you start with a empty universe, the most minimal way to reduce its symmetry is to create a point particle. A point particle creates what is in essence a one-dimensional space, since the only meaningful coordinate is distance from the particle. The symmetry can then be lowered further by splitting the single particle into many particles.
I gather cosmologists have a far more complex representation of this. One isn't just lowering the symmetry of space, but also the symmetry of particles and of forces. But that, they believe, is how you get order from nothingness.
Under the right conditions, stuff - almost any stuff - spontaneously orders. Trillions of snowflakes can't be wrong.
PatrickHenry: I take that to mean that it's "unsatisfactory" to have a problem with no solution. So they strive for further understanding. That's how science reacts to any problem. It's not necessary to assume a theological -- or rather, anti-theological -- intent on such curiosity.
The purpose of Hawking’s lecture is ”to discuss whether time itself has a beginning”.
Time is troubling to the metaphysical naturalist worldview simply because it means there is not an infinity of opportunity. In infinity, one can always use the “it was an accident” argument because in infinity we may presume ”that anything that can happen, will.”
Hawking’s imaginary time speculation looks just as kluged to me as Einstein’s cosmological constant, i.e. faced with inconvenient evidence, what formula or factor can be used to make it “go away.” That approach is like putting the cart before the horse. A Platonist would insist that the evidence be followed to its conclusion and that whatever it is makes sense.