
Stephen Hawking: God did not create Universe - jacquesm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11161493?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
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pbhjpbhj
>he concludes the Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of
physics

The laws of Physics then, how were they created.

Seriously with all respect to Hawkings great achievements in Physics/Cosmology
this is not a question that can be answered by Physics.

When we talk about creation within our universe we're always talking about
transformative action on existing matter/energy never on _ex nihilo_ creation
(I don't consider particle-antip pairs, like in Hawking radiation to be _ex
nihilo_ ). There is no example in science of creation from nothing except the
supposed big bang (for which there are many dissenting and conflicting
theories, some of which - brane theory say - are quite handy looking).

The final quote is weak, "It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue
touch paper and set the universe going", and doesn't address the question.

It's not necessary that there was a watch factory that created my watch but
it's as close to certain as one can get that that is how it was created.

Aside: I wonder, quite cynically, if Hawking has done his time, made his
[massive] contribution and now is clawing for attention. Certainly these 2
last stories - God and aliens - appear to be rather out on a limb.

~~~
Retric
_I don't consider particle-antip pairs, like in Hawking radiation to be ex
nihilo_

That's an odd thing to say. What do you think creates them? And more to the
point what evidence do you have for this.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
They're fluctuations in the vacuum in a naive sense but in Quantum Field
Theory (QFT) I recall we considered the vacuum to be basically a soup of
particle-antip pairs; in Bekstein-Hawking radiation one considers either that
the antip falls in from the area of the event horizon or that the particle
tunnels out from inside the horizon - I can't really do the full evidence bit,
that's just standard physics though.

Indeed, I'm rather out of the loop now, but I don't think there's experimental
evidence to support Hawking radiation yet and that there's an alteration that
is more predictive in some way.

In _ex nihilo_ creation the vacuum itself (I know!) is being created, the
space into which the stuff sits, the energy in fields pervading the space, the
unseen dimensions (total dimensions is 10 in superstring theory, 11 in brane,
IIRC) and, along with that vacuum, time is created too.

Indeed taking a standard physics approach it's hard to see how you can model
change before time exists as something that doesn't exist can't change and if
time isn't changing then within our physics nothing else is. Creation of the
human-perceived time dimension seems to require another time like dimension if
it's to be modelled in some type of meta-physics (by which I don't mean the
philosophical discipline).

~~~
Retric
First off "standard physics" is wrong. Newtonian physics if full of holes, but
so is QM at the edges. However, in QM you really have to take that approach
that energy is only conserved _on average_ otherwise things like quantum
tunneling don't work or require time travel etc. From what I can tell,
conservation of energy for large system is simply the most probable event, but
it’s not the only option.

Secondly the only meaningful way to talk about this stuff is with math or
data. When the experimental data fits the calculations you have a working
theory, but you can't intuit this stuff. Talking about a "ocean of virtual
particles" sounds right but it's not accurate.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I'm aware that the Standard Model is provably not accurate in many instances
(that's not what I meant by "standard" and I certainly didn't mean Newtonian
as I thought was plain from the context; perhaps something like exoteric is
closer to my intended meaning). I don't think I attempted to pass of anything
Newtonian as current thinking, indeed I thought my slightly hand-wavy dealing
of QFT made it clear that I understood how such things that give rise to
Heisenberg's UP allow tunnelling phenomena.

>Secondly the only meaningful way to talk about this stuff is with math or
data.

I've been out of theoretical physics for some time, in any case I don't
suppose that I'm going to give a treatise on Hawking radiation in a HN post
(even if I could). Indeed, as I thought - and have now checked there is a
variation of the theory for quantum gravity that seems to have more predictive
power, but that doesn't mean that Hawking radiation is not a working theory.
That would be like saying Newtonian mechanics is not a working theory - it
works as a non-relativistic approximation. Just as general relativity is
considered a low energy approximation of an unknown gravitational QFT.

>Talking about a "ocean of virtual particles" sounds right but it's not
accurate.

I subscribe to physical laws and unfalsified theories being the best
description of reality and not being reality themselves. As such, in the
context, it made sense to me to consider the vacuum as particle-antip pairs as
it aids ready understanding of the assumed mechanisms taking place in
Bekenstein-Hawking radition.

Malcolm Browne, "New Directions in Physics" (as quoted on Wikipedia) >
_"According to quantum theory, the vacuum contains neither matter nor energy,
but it does contain fluctuations, transitions between something and nothing in
which potential existence can be transformed into real existence by the
addition of energy.(Energy and matter are equivalent, since all matter
ultimately consists of packets of energy.) Thus, the vacuum's totally empty
space is actually a seething turmoil of creation and annihilation, which to
the ordinary world appears calm because the scale of fluctuations in the
vacuum is tiny and the fluctuations tend to cancel each other out."_

Anyhow, these esoteric details aside I'm at a loss to see where this is
relevant to the matter at hand?

------
cpr
It's always amusing to see physicists, no matter how bright, step into
metaphysics without the slightest idea of what they're doing, or even that
they're doing it.

The universe does not necessarily exist. Something or someone had to create it
from nothing at some point (which we can call the beginning of time).

Even the concept of time is a function of a changing material universe (time
is a measure of change).

Aristotle figured all this out about 3000 years ago. Even though his physics
was crude, I wonder why people ignore his metaphysics? I suppose simply
through ignorance and neglect, and lack of modern attention to the topic.

My brother has started an Institute for the Study of Nature
(<http://isnature.org>) to address exactly these issues, and has found some
very encouraging support among modern scientists, fairly thinly scattered
about various fields.

<http://isnature.org/about.htm> is a good summary of this new exploration.

(He also started it after becoming disillusioned with the intelligent design
movement, which has become both a-scientific and anti-philosophical. Or, at
least, that's my weak understanding of what he's told me.)

~~~
lazyant
"The universe does not necessarily exist. Something or someone had to create
it from nothing at some point (which we can call the beginning of time)."

Not necessarily. The universe could have been existing "forever". If something
created it, who created the creator? if this creator is "special" why not the
universe?

~~~
cpr
Now you are using the "uncreated creator" argument of Aristotle, who proved
that there must be, at the back of all creation, one unmoved mover, one
uncreated creator, etc.

~~~
lazyant
He didn't "prove", it's just an argument. The "all things have a mover"
doesn't have to apply to the universe. (If it was proven then there would be
no atheists right?). Also the "unmoved mover" could be the universe itself,
why not?

I can perfectly imagine the universe being forever the same as a creator being
forever (if anything the first is easier since we have no evidence of the
latter).

~~~
cpr
Yes, if everyone thought very carefully and honestly about the contingency of
material beings and what that implies about the existence of the universe,
they'd all be at least theists. ;-)

------
scottjad
Summary of the article:

The Universe could have been created without God therefore the Universe was
created without God.

Not sure how much of the bad argument is the BBC's fault.

------
chunkyslink
5 hours ago (3 hours before jacquesm), I submitted the same story with a
slightly different title (and with a clean URL)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1655658>

An example of A/B testing on hacker news submission titles! Or perhaps just
having a more recognized username?

~~~
pmjordan
Yours was probably just submitted at an unfortunate time with little user
activity from the Americas.

~~~
chunkyslink
Yes thats true, but I think it does highlight an issue with submitting 'dirty
urls' (I realise this is a strong term)

Based on what has just happened, I could look for a submission that is doing
ok and resubmit it with a different title when the Americas wakes up. Of
course I'm not saying that is what happened its just a possibility.

Would make for a lot of duplicated stories.

~~~
pmjordan
There's not a lot you can realistically do about it in an automated way.

------
duck
I saw on this page a link to another story titled "Hawking warns over alien
beings" and it made me wonder... do most people that don't believe that God
created the universe believe in aliens? And if not, why?

~~~
jcl
There are people for whom aliens fill the same "unknowable higher power" role
that deities typically fill. But these people usually also believe that aliens
have played some active role in life on Earth.

Hawking, on the other hand, believes that intelligent life _could_ exist
somewhere else -- that terrestrial life isn't that special. That's not quite
the same thing as "believing in" aliens. It's like the difference between
"believing God exists" and "believing God could exist".

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Is there any way to show that aliens haven't played an active role in life on
Earth though? We consider terra-forming (there was a story about Darwin doing
something akin to it on Ascension Is. IIRC) as a natural way we could extend
our reach to other planets. If there is intelligent alien life, or was, could
it not have terraformed our planet.

> Interesting parallels to various theologies and running start theories go
> here <.

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steve19
"Stephen Hawking warns over making contact with aliens"

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8642558.stm>

(Also from his new book)

------
superk
And yet nothing changes.

