Sensible Erection | Stephen Hawking decides that there is no need for God

Thursday, 2 September 2010

Stephen Hawking decides that there is no need for God

quote [ British physicist Stephen Hawking's latest book is already making waves with his observation that science can explain the universe's origin without invoking God. ]

Repost fix-- the original was hard to search for-- see extended for that. It was an update about the extent of culturally approved sexual abuse of young boys in Afghanistan but some would flag it "repost". See extended for the links.

There's news about a new explosion on an oil platform in the Gulf but I don't see it yet.

I changed the post because of this:
http://sensibleerection.com/entry.php/80217

Here's the former post
One of Afghanistan's secrets-- widespread sexual abuse of young boys
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/28/INF21F2Q9H.DTL

[by maryyugo@3:47pmGMT] [+10 Interesting]

Comments

arrowhen said @ 4:05pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:2]
Another fucking oil rig exploded in the Gulf this morning. At least no one was killed this time, and there was only one injury. No word yet whether there's any oil leaking.

maryyugo said @ 4:07pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Yeah, couldn't find anything yet on it but heard it on the morning news on the radio. Remember radio? It's like video but without the picture.

arrowhen said @ 4:13pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
I can't easily post links from my phone, but I found it just by Googling "gulf oil news".

And, yeah, radio. NPR is pretty much on 24/7 in my house.

maryyugo said @ 4:17pm GMT on 2nd Sep
This is one link. It deserves it's own post because regardless of how it turns out, there's probably going to be a huge "fallout" in terms of regulations and inspections and restrictions of drilling.

arrowhen said @ 7:41pm GMT on 2nd Sep
I hope you're right!

ralfmaximus said @ 4:22pm GMT on 2nd Sep
So it's like a podcast? Can I download this 'radio' from iTunes?

Next you'll be telling me they print this stuff on paper or some ridiculous shit.

maryyugo said @ 5:04pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Oh, it gets better. They used to print little rectangles of paper and people used to exchange those for goods and services just like we now use credit cards, PayPal and on line banking for.

ralfmaximus said @ 5:30pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Damn. People were stupid back then.

maryyugo said @ 6:03pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Yup. Next you'll be telling me people still trade little pieces of yellow metal for stuff.

Rainbow Randolf said @ 3:49am GMT on 3rd Sep
You mean virtual yellow metal? Like in WoW?

Chinese Gold Farmer said @ 4:33am GMT on 3rd Sep
What do you mean, "virtual"?

maryyugo said @ 4:07pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
I have to admit I'm amused by sensibleb (and probably others here) who think/will think the article about Afghans fucking boys because the religion prevents them from accessing girls is flamebait. It's fact. Very sad, very dismal, very distressing fucking FACT.

maryyugo said @ 4:15pm GMT on 2nd Sep
I might add that countries controlled by Catholics in which young people are forcibly restrained from having sex by laws and customs also have huge problems with abuse of young boys. Mexico used to be a poster child for this issue and grown men seducing and screwing young boys was not considered homosexuality as long as the person doing it was the penetrator. I think there are similar problems in many countries where there is repression of normal courting, sexual exploration, and non-reproductive sex by religion.

mrklipp said @ 5:09pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Yep, no arguments there.

Sex drive reminds me of the bit about how you can't compress a liquid. Try all you like to control it and squeeze it down and it's just going to squirt out somewhere else.

mrklipp said @ 5:11pm GMT on 2nd Sep
And yes, I know you can actually compress a liquid a very tiny bit, under truly extreme pressure, but even then it's an incredible amount of effort for almost no measurable effect, so the analogy still holds.

sua_sponte said @ 7:20pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:-1 WTF]
Yeah, but see, Mary, you didn't post about Catholics.

You posted about Muslims. Again.

From you, that's flamebait.

maryyugo said @ 4:40pm GMT on 3rd Sep
I love the way some people judge people rather than issues. Typical of illogical thinking, BTW.

ralfmaximus said @ 4:31pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Regardless of how awful things might be in Afghanistan, it's dangerously politicized terrain right now.

Say "Afghanistan" to somebody -- anyone -- and they will think you're trolling for anger on any number of topics. It's hard to consider the situation and remain calm, no matter your political/social/religious orientation.

You gotta deal with the emotion if you want a conversation on the topic. So yeah, it's flamebaity.

arrowhen said @ 5:34pm GMT on 2nd Sep
It helps if you don't have a reputation for hysterical Muslim-bashing.

willrogers said @ 7:38pm GMT on 2nd Sep
I think his point it that you are implying that pedophilia is an inherent part of Islam or that Islam itself is responsible for pedophilia.

That Afghan pedophilia is likely also due to other cultural and social factors mixed in with Islam and not just the religion itself, much the same way pedophilia is in Catholic nations.

Sexual repression irrespective of the specific religion usually causes problems, but your post history indicates a particular fondness for going after Islam in general.

kang said @ 4:26pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:5 Funny]
Just to clarify, in the new post, is Stephen Hawking or God the brown person this time?

foobar said @ 6:40pm GMT on 2nd Sep
God, but he's an Israeli so that's ok.

yevishere said @ 4:58pm GMT on 2nd Sep
I have no need for that hypothesis.

balzac said @ 5:09pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Clever.

mwoody said @ 5:04pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Interestingly enough, God doesn't really do a much better job than science at explaining the origin of all things. Yes, science has a "*POP* heeeeey, look - stuff!" moment (which Hawking seems to be indicating is a function of the law of gravity, applied to empty space - interesting stuff). But then, when people explain that God created the universe, the natural question - that I've never had answered to my satisfaction - is "what created God?" It all boils down to the same question, that of what preceded the described system.

maryyugo said @ 5:29pm GMT on 2nd Sep
It's a great question and one I never tire of asking religious people who usually just re-iterate the nonsense that "God was there all the time" so why wouldn't the universe have been there all the time. What came before the start of the universe may not be answerable and I'm not sure it matters a whole lot or even makes sense to ask it.

arrowhen said @ 5:38pm GMT on 2nd Sep
You never tire of asking religious people a question that may not matter or even make sense?

Krutz said @ 5:51pm GMT on 2nd Sep
If it doesn't matter or make sense, why are they so hot to teach it in our schools?

crom said @ 5:51pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
It matters if their position is that there must be a God because science can't explain what came before the universe.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 12:58am GMT on 3rd Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
science can't explain what came before the universe.

No, it's more that what came "before" the universe doesn't even make sense. It's like asking what's "under" the center of the Earth, or what's "north" of the North Pole.

arrowhen said @ 1:36am GMT on 3rd Sep
Doesn't even make sense like a fox!

the circus said @ 3:24am GMT on 3rd Sep
Exactly.

Or for people who don't quite get it I try to explain it thusly:
The universe encompasses everything that exists. If something *exists* before the universe, then it is a part of the universe and not something *before* it.

Or, to explain the necessity of why there is anything (without making an appeal to gods), imagine that instead of existence there was just nothingness. If there was nothing, how long would it stay that way? Since time is change (if *nothing* changed, then no time has passed), there has to be something to change for any time to pass. The amount of time that could pass until something existed (to allow change to allow there to be the passage of time) would be none, absolutely no time. That's how long nothingness can last, until it changes and there is some form of existence. So even if there isn't anything, it instantly changes to there being existence.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 7:23am GMT on 3rd Sep [Score:1 Interesting]
Eh, the idea that no time passes if nothing is happening is somewhat dubious. Consider the following thought experiment.

Suppose that the entire universe consists of three planets, all inhabited, which we'll call A, B, and C.

Through some quirk of this universe's physics, planet A only exists during years that are not multiples of 3--that is, it exists for two years, then vanishes for a year, then reappears as if nothing had happened. The denizens of planet A do not observe any time passing from disappearance to reappearance, but people on planets B and C can observe (through telescopes or whatever) the absence of planet A during years that are multiples of 3.

In a similar fashion, planet B only exists during years that are not multiples of 5, and planet C only exists in years that are not multiples of 7. The planets can communicate with each other, so they all know about the details of the phenomenon; for instance, natives of planet A understand that the third, sixth, ninth, etc. years are in fact passing, even though they themselves can't observe them.

So what about year #105? All three planets would disappear, so for that year absolutely nothing happens--indeed, nothing exists--in the entire universe. But would we say that that year didn't pass at all?

willrogers said @ 9:33am GMT on 3rd Sep [Score:1 Funny]
Time is a lot different than we normally think it is.

Time actually exists all at once and isn't actually divided into past, present, and future by anything other than human perception and even that is shitty.

Consider communicating with another person.

You see another person, but what you actually see is the light reflected off of them, which means you are seeing lights that bounced off of them before traveling to your eyes. This means you are seeing a past image of what they looked like, even though the time difference is so small that it is negligible to human perception, but it is still their past and your present.

And then they speak to you and the same thing happens. They generate sound and vibrate the air molecules while travel to your ear, so that you are actually hearing their past even though it is your present.

Thus, past and present are technically existing both at once for you.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 6:41pm GMT on 3rd Sep
I don't see how that means "past and present are technically existing both at once." If I get a letter in the mail that was sent three days ago, is the past of three days ago existing when I read it? Sure, the effects of events in the past (a letter being written, or photons bouncing off of a person's skin) are detected in the present; that doesn't mean the present and past are coexisting.

On the other hand, if you want to get into special relativity, things get really weird. Suppose there are two events, event A and event B.

(For purposes of special relativity an "event" can essentially be thought of as a set of (x,y,z,t) coordinates, as it has a location in space and time, and no other event has those same coordinates.)

Intuitively, we would like to think either that the events are simultaneous (t_A=t_B), or that A happens before B (t_At_B). However, these can in fact be interchangeable depending on the velocity of the observer. Moving at very high speeds causes spacetime to appear to "tilt," changing the (x,y,z,t) coordinates of every event. Two events that seemed simultaneous when the observer was at rest will no longer seem simultaneous when the observer is moving, and events that appear to occur in a definite order may occur in a different order depending on the observer's velocity.

Analogy: imagine two points on an xy-plane, one above and a bit to the left of the other. Now rotate the axes. The relative height of the two points changes; in fact the one that was highest may now be lowest.

There is an important constraint, though: if events A and B are further apart in time then they are in space (meaning in this case that a beam of light emitted from the earlier event would be able to get to the second event's location before or when the second event happens), then their order could only be reversed if the observer is travelling faster than lightspeed, which is impossible. This category of event-pairs includes all in which one event causes the other, because any transmission of information isn't going to go faster than light. Thus we at least have the consolation that if A causes B, then A will appear to occur before B to ALL observers, regardless of speed.

the circus said @ 6:34am GMT on 4th Sep
I like the three planet story and can see using it as another way to explain my point. In what way is it not in support of it?

By your own story what happens in year 105 is, nothing. The clock strikes midnight on year 105, and then a second later it strikes one second after midnight. In what sense has a year suddenly passed without anything changing, any more than a million years without anything changing or no years? That's kind of like claiming that five minutes ago isn't five minutes ago but one year and five minutes ago but in that year nothing changed (or a million years or a billion or whatever) (5+0=5). Unless there's a fourth point from which to reference the passage of a year, in what sense of time has time passed?

The misleading part of the story, or perhaps the merely allegorical, is the imposition of a pattern which only exists in the mind of the story teller and listener. If I was faced with 10 doors, and I opened the first 9 doors to discover that nothing was behind each odd numbered door but there was a tiger behind each even numbered door, I might expect there to be a tiger behind the tenth door but that expectation has absolutely no influence on what actually is behind door number 10. If I were also to have the knowledge that there are only 4 tigers left in all of existence then I can be even more confident in disregarding the observed pattern.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 7:20am GMT on 4th Sep
The misleading part of the story, or perhaps the merely allegorical, is the imposition of a pattern which only exists in the mind of the story teller and listener.

All right, suppose that it's not just a hypothetical pattern. Suppose the reason that planet A skips every third year is because the engineers on planet A have built some sort of phasing engine that causes the phenomenon, and likewise the engineers on planets B and C have produced similar devices calibrated to different time scales. Are you saying that in year #105 their devices don't work? If so, why?

the circus said @ 3:26pm GMT on 4th Sep
You're describing two different effects. One is the phasing engine causing the planet to skip a year, in relation to the rest of the universe. The other is the use of three phasing engines to cause the entire universe to skip a year in relation to nothing. In the first you're describing a magical but meaningful effect for the purposes of argument. In the second you're not describing any effect at all. By your own terms you're having the engines counter the effects of each other. I myself happen to have a light switch that doesn't effect any light but whenever I flick it the entire universe skips a year without anything changing. I flick it all the time. Notice anything?

Furthermore, I can say for the sake of argument that I have a time machine and can go back in time and kill my father before I was born... Or for the sake of argument I can say that the following sentence is true. However, for the sake of argument, I can say that the preceding sentence is false. I believe that you are in error in constructing hypothetical situations that are already false/paradoxical/contradictory and attempting to use them to make a point.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 12:56am GMT on 5th Sep
I suppose it does depend on whether the phasing engine skips an "absolute" year (whatever that means) or skips a year relative to everything else, and whether there is any actual difference between the two. The idea of the phasing devices cancelling out when used together makes sense.

CompletelyIrrelevant said @ 7:31am GMT on 3rd Sep
Have you looked into William Lane Craig's reworking of the Kalam Cosmological Argument?

Deals rather closely with what you're discussing, and it's not exactly straightforward.
Just curious, you may be interested.
Cheers =)

snowfox said @ 6:55pm GMT on 3rd Sep
I came across this often. When I explained to other kids in school that their explanation was really no more satisfying than the big bang due to the lack of a preceding event, they would just kinda stare at me stupidly and then get upset.

arrowhen said @ 7:49pm GMT on 3rd Sep
Religion isn't about satisfying answers, it's about *easy* answers to distract you from thinking about scary things.

maryyugo said @ 6:04pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Yup. It's fun to watch them fumble for some response.

radioelectric said @ 12:21am GMT on 3rd Sep [Score:2 Insightful]
When it comes to the big questions about the universe, anybody who isn't fumbling is probably full of shit.

arrowhen said @ 12:46am GMT on 3rd Sep
Or playing Devil's Advocate, or just pushing the point hard to see where it starts to crack rather than couching it in a bunch of "what ifs" and "possiblys" and "one might argues".

gozar said @ 5:09pm GMT on 2nd Sep
[IMG]http://i775.photobucket.com/albums/yy33/humanbraininrobotbody/8-years-old-dude.jpg[/IMG]

gozar said @ 5:09pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:1 Funny]
*sigh*

Fenny said @ 5:11pm GMT on 2nd Sep
We use html here :)

sherlock said @ 7:18pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:2 Insightful]
I think it may be better that "8-years-old-dude.jpg" was not visible.

lilmookieesquire said @ 5:41pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Oh! Great! Glad we sorted that out then...

Chop-Logik said @ 6:31pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:1 WTF]
Unrelated: Pixelated pussy

theolypse said @ 6:50pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Japan am play God.

xgp007 said @ 7:57pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Thanks for such an insightful observation, Mr. Hawking...

Roulette1337 said @ 8:12pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Is he implying time is linear with a definite beggining and end? I thought that was still up in the air.

donnie said @ 8:32pm GMT on 2nd Sep

crom said @ 9:06pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing

So it sounds like he has divorced "the universe" from the physical laws that govern it? To my mind this is really just redefining the words that make up the question and not doing a damn thing about answering it.

Krutz said @ 9:19pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Not really, from what I gather. For one, at whatever one wants to call "the beginning," the physical laws of the universe weren't entirely in play yet, or were still coming to the state we exist in (hence, the problem with giving it a point in "time" since that, as we measure it, doesn't completely apply).

Also, quantum mechanics posits that quantum particles are coming into and out of existence all the time, so "something" from what we call "nothing" isn't that far-fetched.

devadar said @ 9:11pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Nothing physically is not necessarily nothing metaphysically or ontologically. Hawking needs classes in philosophy of science and epistemology.

Krutz said @ 9:22pm GMT on 2nd Sep
That's a bit like saying someone trying to explain how an internal combustion engine works needs to couch it in terms of a Robert Frost poem.

ralfmaximus said @ 9:55pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:5 Funny]
Combustion ignited, from a spark
Measured swallows of petrol and air;
To the manifold the gasses came
Past sensors in the dark
Pistoning cans of metal and oil
Turn crankshafts swiftly
In endless toil

lilmookieesquire said @ 2:09am GMT on 3rd Sep
*tears up*

donnie said @ 11:37am GMT on 3rd Sep
...woman is a danger cat

danshyu said @ 10:28pm GMT on 2nd Sep
Sorry Mr. Hawking. But I'll have to mod you -1 Old.

puravida said @ 10:40pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:2 Insightful]
I noticed something strange: Isn't it weird the headline reads, "Hawkings says God's not needed" and not "a god is not needed"?

I mean, it sounds it's a guy we all know, like Tom, Richard, or Jason. "Hawkin says Jason's not needed". If they're exploring whether the existence of a god is necessary, "a god" makes much more sense than the more personal, first-name version, "God".

I can't help but imagine the author in a room by himself, chuckling, saying, "Can you believe it God? I know, right!? He doesn't believe in You. That's crazy, right? Man, some people...."

Azoth said @ 10:40pm GMT on 2nd Sep [Score:1 Underrated]
It's nice to be alive during a point in history when leading thinkers can, after decades of research and theorizing, finally come right out and state the obvious.

cb361 said @ 10:47pm GMT on 2nd Sep
I bet that 'Investor’s Business Daily' now wish that Hawking hadn't been kept alive by superior American healthcare, but had been born in Britain where the NHS would have had him smothered at birth.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 1:03am GMT on 3rd Sep [Score:1 Underrated]
Why would he have been smothered at birth? He was pretty healthy until his early 20s.

Polyphemus said @ 1:16am GMT on 3rd Sep
And he was born in britain under the national health system

Barnabas_Truman said @ 7:24am GMT on 3rd Sep
Does Britain's NHS encourage smothering healthy children at birth?

Silent said @ 9:50am GMT on 3rd Sep
Some nations send their young out into the wild, we send our young into the pillow fields to hunt the great smothering pillow.
We find it makes a real "New Labour" man out of the youth.

cb361 said @ 9:02am GMT on 3rd Sep
Yes, I know, but the IBD doesn't - that's the joke.

Not Cricket Noises said @ 9:06am GMT on 3rd Sep
Thanks for explaining that.

cb361 said @ 6:29pm GMT on 3rd Sep
Sorry. I never press strange buttons on the internet. Even when they write "Press the Fart Button. You know you want to," on them.

Distant Coyote Howl said @ 4:01am GMT on 4th Sep
That's an excellent point. I really have a lot of respect for you now.

cb361 said @ 12:36am GMT on 5th Sep
Yeah, right. I'm really going to click on whatever that link is.

Stephen Hawking said @ 11:33pm GMT on 2nd Sep
I'm not saying God's *not* real, I'm just saying I could totally take him in a fist-fight.

valen85 said @ 4:30pm GMT on 3rd Sep
STEPHEN HAWKING BY WHEELCHAIR ARMBAR!

graham said @ 12:54am GMT on 3rd Sep
Stephen Hawking's British?

They gotta change that voice synthesizer accent or something.

danshyu said @ 2:14am GMT on 3rd Sep
In one of the interviews he stated that's one of his biggest complaint about the synthesizer. That it got rid of his British accent.

donnie said @ 11:41am GMT on 3rd Sep
More accurately that it was what he originally disliked about it. I think after a time it grew on him and he has, if I recall, politely refused upgrades as they became available because of having become accustomed to the voice as "his".

valen85 said @ 4:30pm GMT on 3rd Sep
The American accent has allowed him to be accessible by American faggots.

Dioxin said @ 1:18am GMT on 3rd Sep
maryyugo said @ 3:37pm on 26th Apr [Score:2 Funny] - moderate/reply
What's the matter with you? Why do you hate brown people?

lilmookieesquire said @ 8:43am GMT on 3rd Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
re: Afghan boys... wasn't this totally practiced in Roman/Spartan culture?

kang said @ 2:37pm GMT on 3rd Sep
I thought they were going Greek.

Naruki said @ 3:53pm GMT on 3rd Sep
Once you go Greek, you go back.

erich wiess said @ 11:42am GMT on 3rd Sep [Score:1 Original]

Naruki said @ 3:51pm GMT on 3rd Sep [Score:2 Funny]
Hey, erich, just wondering how long you are going to keep up your revenge modding spree. I noticed a few new ones today, so I thought I'd ask. You are fit to beat atter_cobb's record, you know.

Oh, and your mother still sucks dick for two dollars. She only charges you 50 because you're retarded. Have a nice day now. :-)

crom said @ 4:12pm GMT on 3rd Sep [Score:1 Insightful]
I came back to this post to read this?

Naruki said @ 5:25am GMT on 4th Sep
Why? His mom is all diseased, dude. I recommend you keep little crom far away from her.

the circus said @ 3:33pm GMT on 4th Sep [Score:1 Funny]
Heh heh! You have records for people hating you? I don't know whether to congratulate you or just shake my head in disapproval.