| Current Replies for "All the ansswers?" |
|
 |
| |
All the ansswers?
Richard
Posted: 6/9/2010
|
|
|
|
The UK’s Guardian newspaper carried a piece on the 2nd September 2010 which revealed that a new Steven Hawking book is on its way. Hawking is quoted as writing: ‘Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.’ The great man alludes also to ‘spontaneous creation’ and repudiates his former claim that, if we are to find a complete theory of everything, it will be necessary to accept the existence of a god. According to Hawking, M-theory will one day provide us with all the answers.
It is a blessing that Hawking has abandoned theism but his new position is still deeply unsatisfactory. How can the law of gravity exist in ‘nothing’? In a response to the book , Paul Davies (Guardian, 4/9/10) points out the absurdity. He writes: ‘What is the source of these ingenious laws that enable a universe to pop into being from nothing?’
Alas the Davies piece then predictably lapses into multiverse theory. He suggests that: ‘Our universe is just one infinitesimal component amid this vast – probably infinite – multiverse that itself had no origin in time.’
Davies goes on to explain that the hypothetical multiverse depends on the existence of ‘meta-laws’ which; ‘...remain unexplained – eternal, immutable transcendent entities that just happen to exist and must simply be accepted as given.’ Tellingly he goes on: ‘In that respect the meta-laws have a similar status to an unexplained transcendent god.’
Oh dear. Round and round we go! As argued rigorously on this website, the invocation of ‘infinity’ is a retreat into mysticism. The term is un-cashable; it alludes to nothing real. Thus there cannot be an infinity of universes. If we stick to the surely semsible policy of using the word ‘universe’ to refer to all existence then it might be the case that there are zillions of thus far undetected sub-sections in the universe but the evidence for their existence seems to be scant indeed. Whatever happened to Occam’s razor?
There’s obviously no scientific escape from the ‘where did everything come from?’ conundrum. As several letters in the Guardian of the 4th of September argued, Hawking’s thesis is deeply flawed. Nothing can come from nothing. It is interesting though that Hawking proposes that the universe ‘can and will’ (my italics) create itself from nothing. Why the use of the future tense? Has he been visiting this website?
But of course Alphomism doesn’t claim that anything came from nothing. Existence has to be taken for granted , the universe must be finite and the energy process has to be circular. Whilst we are locked in the temporal, evolutionary, process, we can get but the most fleeting glimpses of timelessness. In Alphoma things will be very different; then we’ll understand.
Postscript
On the same day as the Hawking book-announcement piece appeared, the Guardian carried, presumably coincidentally, an article in which author Nicholas Humphrey declares that he doesn’t believe that science holds all the answers to our existence. In the context of a discussion about the relationship between mind and body Humphrey claims that the majority of psychologists; ‘agree that there will eventually prove to be some sort of satisfactory theory of mind-brain relationship.’ He goes on: ‘But at present there is really very little consensus about the form, let alone the substance, of this theory to come.’
Well, of course. As argued on this site, science relies utterly on objectivity. How can the subjective ever be objectified?
Quoting from the cover of his new book Humphrey writes: ‘Consciousness...is nothing less than a magical mystery show that we stage for ourselves inside our own heads. This self-made show lights up the world for us and makes us feel special and transcendent.’
I haven’t yet read the book but an immediate reaction to this pronouncement is one of puzzlement as to how we can ‘invent’ a magical mystery show unless we are already conscious. No doubt all is satisfactorily explained.
To return to terra firma; the three fundamental Alphomist axioms to be taken from this flurry of newspaper talk are:
1. ‘Infinity’ is unreal
2. There can be no ‘first cause’
3. The link between the subjective and the objective is complementary, not causal
For those who dissent it seems like a moment for some newspeak, namely:
‘Get real!’
Richard.
|
|
|
|
|
