Stephen Hawking lays out case for Big Bang without God

NBC News ^ | 04/19/2013 | Rod Pyle

[SeekAndFind]

PASADENA, Calif. — Our universe didn't need any divine help to burst into being, famed cosmologist Stephen Hawking told a packed house here at the California Institute of Technology Tuesday night.

Many people had begun queuing up for free tickets to Hawking's 8:00 p.m lecture, titled "The Origin of the Universe," 12 hours earlier. By 6:00 p.m. local time, the line was about a quarter-mile long.

A second auditorium and a Jumbotron-equipped lawn, which itself was jammed with an estimated 1,000 viewers, were needed to handle the crowd. At least one person was observed offering $1,000 for a ticket, with no success.

Stephen Hawking began the event by reciting an African creation myth, and rapidly moved on to big questions such as, Why are we here?

He noted that many people still seek a divine solution to counter the theories of curious physicists, and at one point, he quipped, “What was God doing before the divine creation? Was he preparing hell for people who asked such questions?”

After outlining the historical theological debate about how the universe was created, Hawking gave a quick review of more scientific cosmological explanations, including Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold’s steady-state theory. This idea hypothesizes that there is no beginning and no end and that galaxies continue to form from spontaneously created matter.

Hawking said this theory and several other ideas don't hold up, citing recent observations by space telescopes and other instruments.

After giving a brief historical background on relativistic physics and cosmology, Hawking discussed the idea of a repeating Big Bang. He noted that in the 1980s, he and physicist Roger Penrose proved the universe could not “bounce” when it contracted, as had been theorized.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Worthless.

Why was all matter concentrated at time=0?

An object at rest stays at rest until acted upon by an external force. Why did the matter “bang”. Why didn’t it just stay at rest concentrated?

Who made the matter and concentrated it at time=0?

Nothing Hawking has ever said speaks to these basic questions. If I can pick his argument apart in 3 questions, people much smarter than me can destroy him.

IF all matter was concentrated at time=0, that is proof of a Creator. Nothing else is scientifically feasible.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Nicely said. Atheism takes a serious leap of faith that nothing is out there. It is not even logical.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

I pride myself to be a reasonably educated person in the sciences with acceptable reading comprehension, but I confess I could not understand most of that post, upon several re-readings.

Some of it seems to say that each cycle would cause losses that would diminish subsequent cycles, and so it could not be everlasting.

My biggest problem with the cycles theory is that there are no forces to recollect all the matter that disperses to its outer limit of the cycle. I’m sure these theories postulate some impenetrable outer boundary for some reason, or else the outer limit is also the centerpoint so that all matter flows back into the center even as it breaches the outer limit.

It is all preposterous to me.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

I thought the big bang theory was falling out of favor because of the new evidence that the physical position and movement of some heavily bodies contradict a model with all matter generated from a midpoint. Eg, we have discovered heavenly bodies that are aligned in long walls among themselves that defy an alignment and motion that suggests they came from one centerpoint.

I thought that is why the big bang theory is becoming outdated. I though the scholars now can’t support the theory that all matter was propelled from one centerpoint radially, uniformly in all directions, as the origional big-bang theory would suggest.

[A Navy Vet]

"Atheists fail to understand that having faith does not magically prevent a person from wanting to know about the universe around us."

Good point. However, as an agnostic, I simply can't shut down my mind and believe in some "faith" (take your pick) that I should worship some god that needs such self-esteem. Really? Is he 7 years old? He/she/it is that petty? Worship and pray to creator of the Universe while our world tears itself apart numerous time, and he ignores said prayers?

As an agnostic I believe there is something behind all this, but pearly gates and heaven and are superstitions from people who thought the world was flat. My 63 years have shown me that a benevolent all-loving god either doesn't exist or has given up on us, or it is all beyond our comprehension - which is most likely the case.

Please tell me where my reasoning is flawed and please don't quote Bible scripture written by people who thought the Sun revolved around the Earth. They thought floods, plagues, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, locusts, et al were god's will for sins against his ego. That does not equate for a god of the universe. Tell me something new that makes since and I can believe in - I want to believe in something better and beyond human-kind.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Hawking claims that the universe comes into being "from nothing." Yet he also says there is something prior to this nothing, which he calls "the laws of gravity and quantum theory." Since they exist, they have being. But they are themselves immaterial. So Hawking postulates that the universe was created by an immaterial being.

Let's assume that he wasn't serious when he said, "from nothing," but that he meant only "from no matter." So Hawking says that once upon a time the universe [space-time manifold] did not exist. There is a "beginning" or "finiteness" to time," and therefore an "outside" to time. And the laws of physics somehow exist outside of time. He equates the "creation of the universe" with the "becoming of matter." And logically prior to this "becoming" stands a principle, a set of laws described by quantum theory. (This is logically prior, not prior in time. Time commences with the becoming of matter.)

So: Law precedes Matter and is the cause of it. This makes the Law the formal cause - i.e., "the form-specifying principle" - of that which would otherwise be formless. By bringing form to "formless matter" the Law brings matter as we know it into being. And we're back to Aristotle!

Formless matter, the πρώτη ὕλη (prote hyle),is incorporeal because it is no actual body -- though it is the necessary underlying condition for bodies. So the prime matter is formless or chaotic and because it has no physical existence we can call it a "void."

So according to Hawking, there was a beginning; and in the beginning was the Law and the Law was all there was; and without the Law nothing came to be. And the Law was an immaterial being that was pure λογοϛ. And this Law gave form to the void of pure potency, prime matter.

Wait a minute.....

Something about that sounds awfully familiar. Didn't someone say all that and say it more poetically a long time ago?

But I don't think Hawking realized he was paraphrasing that.

Heh.

BTW, I radically shortened and simplified this from Mike Flynn's Journal.

Making heads and tails of Flynn's much fuller and more painstakingly logical presentation, he concludes that Hawking proves the existence of God. Great fun! So, quantum this:

http://m-francis.livejournal.com/168500.html

[A Navy Vet]

"Smart people who refuse to believe in God work very hard to justify to themselves their beliefs."

No, logical people look at what we know and wonder why. There may be a benevolent god. My question is: Where has he been? Jesus Christ (a known good man) and the Bible? That's little proof written by men who thought the world was flat and the Sun revolved around the Earth. So where is God? In a bright pillow cloud in Heaven behind the Pearly Gates? Strange we have been in outer space and yet to see it other than stars. I so want to believe - give me a logical reason.

[frogjerk]

The universe does not necessarily behave in accordance with the human concept of cause and effect.

Where did I say I was referring to the human concept of cause and effect? I am speaking about the laws of motion. Does this physicist accept Newton's Laws of Motion or does he only accept them when it suits him?

[A Navy Vet]

"In a short time, Hawking will meet his creator. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” won’t hardly cover the damage he has done."

And so your benevolent all-forgiving god, but low self-esteem god who needs to be worshiped, will condemn him to eternal damnation for asking questions that your own god gave him the gift of intellect? Isn't that how it works? God gives all?

Great god you got there. And exactly where is god going to send Hawking to? Purgatory? Hell? Oblivion? The moon circling Alpha Centauri? You don't know, do you? No one knows. I believe in something bigger. You take all your religions and shove them. They have been the cause of too much misery on this rock.

[Rocky]

There is life after death. There is a God. He’s not your enemy.

[albionin]

The big bang theory was never a theory to try and explain everything. It was proposed as a result of the observation of the expanding universe. It could never explain what happened before the big band. The multiple universe theory is a higher level concept that says That the big bang and expansion of the universe could have been caused by two separate universes colliding. It could also explain why gravity is as weak as it is in ours. I did see an interesting documentary about a group of scientists who found a quasar in an arm of a galaxy that appears to have a very different red shift than the galaxy it is attached to, throwing into question the expanding universe model and thus the big bang theory. They were saying that new galaxies were born out of the center of older ones. I am sorry but I don’t remember the title of the show. They put forward some compelling evidence though.

Of course the test of the validity of a theory is whether it corresponds to reality and it has to be falsifiable. I don’t know how scientists could detect other universes but I believe anything that exists can be discovered and proven by science eventually.

[A Navy Vet]

"I think it is more than a little interesting that Hawking concedes everything the Bible says about "the Beginning," and that most anything is possible, except he is emphatically certain that God "dint do it. Go figure."

I believe his point is that the superstitious men of the Bible could be correct in some of their writings, but he stands by his theory that matter (at least protons) instantaneously appear and still extrapolates that to the "singularity", therefore no need of a god. I personally, don't believe his theory.

[YHAOS]

"I personally, don't believe his theory."

Personally, I don't think Hawking believes his own theory.

[CodeToad]

“But fundamentalist young-earthers? Ummm.....nope.
“

Gotta agree with you there. Unfortunately, liberals put all people of faith in that camp. Talk about liberal ignorance.

[CodeToad]

The Masons have it right: They believe in “something” bigger and better than humans, that there is a creator of some sort. Define that as you wish: A God to some, a spiritual fabric to others, but unless someone can answer all the questions of time, matter, and space then there is something out there that we do not understand.

Not all that pray to God pray to the God of the Jews and Christians. Many pray to whatever is out there. They are called Deists. They believe there is something out there but that something does not control or interfere in our lives.

There are lots of views on this, but the arrogance of atheists to denounce faith, and therefore religion, in place of their faith and religion in the belief of nothing but the laws of physics, is nothing but childish arrogance. It also concludes things not in evidence and therefore their conclusions are not as scientific as they believe themselves to be.

[mike_9958]

“(did I go too far?”

Probably - don’t go out in public.... :)

[DManA]

They accept Newton’s laws as a good approximation at low speeds of the relativistic universe.

[spirited irish]

Atomism, or scientific materialism as it’s known today, has not changed much since the time of Greek and Buddhist Atomists. Having scrubbed the cosmos clean of every trace of God and ‘self’ (soul/spirit) it was not until our own age that the fools discovered they could no longer account for life either. This is why Francis Crick and some other materialists have moved away from abiogenesis toward the idea of panspermia.

Materialism is metaphysical nihilism, meaning that without God, soul/spirit and an ultimate source for life, all that is left for Hawkings, et al, is the unreality of existence.

[A Navy Vet]

"There is life after death. There is a God. He’s not your enemy."

May be, but I just don't believe the religious faiths have any clue what that after-life is. My intellect tells me that it so beyond yours and my understanding as to be incomprehensible. I hope there is life after death to join the great white light and love and acceptance, even for the Dahmers and Mansons.

My thinking is that we are not aware once we cease to exist (dead) - think deep REM sleep without dreams. You don't know you are in bed asleep. Or...think prior to your birth when you were just cells dividing. You knew nothing. That was also like being non-existent.

I'm okay with the above and can still have morals, as in, "Do Unto Others". Humans have compassion and empathy and intelligence that guide us, at least us conservatives..haha.

Yes, maybe it's part of the plan. I don't know any more than you. What I do know is what works for humankind. Ask me about that...

[xzins]

I think it is more than a little interesting that Hawking concedes everything the Bible says about "the Beginning," and that most anything is possible, except he is emphatically certain that God "dint do it."

Go figure.

It is a matter of will. Hawking resists any notion of God and he's standing by his decision, no matter that his decision about everything coming from nothing is also a religious statement.