Hawking his theory

[Gob]

No, it's a reasoned deduction based on scientific theory. "Faith" exists in the absense of proof.

[loCAtek]

Which is what Hawking had; no proof of origination or relationship to other forces. So, he claimed it [gravity] spontaneously created itself. Hence by your/my definition: faith.

[Gob]

Which part of "scientific theory," are you struggling with here?

scientific theory

systematic ideational structure of broad scope, conceived by the human imagination, that encompasses a family of empirical (experiential) laws regarding regularities existing in objects and events, both observed and posited. A scientific theory is a structure suggested by these laws and is devised to explain them in a scientifically rational manner

.

faith   
–noun
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in god or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6. the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7. the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
8. Christian Theology . the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.

[tyro]

As stated, we know what gravity is: greater mass attracts lesser mass; the earth attracts you whether you're standing atop it, or any height above it.

It seems it is my lot in life to be pedantic, but:

We have a good understanding on how gravity behaves. Both you and the earth at your feet are attracting each other and with a force that is proportional to your mass.

We don’t have much of a clue as to what gravity is. Other forces like magnetic and electrostatic are able to manifest a force at a distance, but we can block or dampen these forces by putting objects in between the source and the object being affected.

You can’t shield gravity.

And if they did solve the unified field theory we would still be just as clueless as to how gravity works, all we would have are some new equations that provide no insight into the real world.

But back to Hawking:

I’m reasonably confident that he was referring to that part of his theory that says that the laws of physics were created along with the big bang and that everything after that was pretty much a never-ending billiards break.

Note that he isn’t denying the existence of God, he is only saying that we don’t need to infer the hand of a god to explain what is.

[loCAtek]

Spontaneous creation is not

scientific theory

.


It is

faith   
–noun
2. belief that is not based on proof: [Hawking] had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

because:

We don’t have much of a clue as to what gravity is.

[Big RR]

Lo--I think his statement about "not knowing what gravity is" is not based on a lack of understanding of the nature of gravity on a large scale level (such as across large distances in the universe), but in satisfactorily being able to explain it on a quantum level. Physicists have postulated for years that all interactions in the universe could be described based on four forces--gravity, electrostatics, and the strong and weak nuclear forces; the last three are explained by quantum theory, gravity is only explained by classical physics (in terms of its basic effects) adn, as i recall, Einstein's special theory of relativity. To form a unified theory of universal action, the nature of gravity would have to be understood on a quantum level, and this has been the stumbing block.

M-theory has attmepted to breach this by describing quantum gravity, and, from what I have read, a consequence of the math of describing an n-dimentsional system is that two negative systems combined will produce a positive result (the old "minus times minus equals plus; the reason for this we needn't discuss), which gives us a mathematical basis for creating something spontaneously from nothing. Now the math is only a model, and is not in any way binding on reality, but this is a way of looking at creation from nothing into something without the intercession of a creator. Note: this is a pretty simplistic and rough explanation--there are many good sites describing M-theory in much more detail.

How this negates the existence of a creator is beyond me, but it negates the need for one to correspond with our theoretical understanding of the universe and its creation, which I think it fine. As I have said many times, science should proceed from the assumption that a creator/god does not exist, if only because it is too easy to dodge the difficult questions by saying "that is the province of the divine". My guess here is that Hawkings, a self promoter along the lines of Carl Sagan, is just overstating what has been shown or reasonbly inferred, and inject opinion to be provocative and get coverage in the general press. Kind of like what others did when they termed the Higgs-Boson the "god particle".

[loCAtek]

Very well good points gentlemen, tyro, BigRR, thank you.

At the quantum level, things can get quite mind-bending, philosophical and funny too!

I recommend the whole book, but you might enjoy this excerpt;

I'm not really here.

[tyro]

At the quantum level, things can get quite mind-bending, philosophical and funny too

That is the real purpose of quantum mechanics.

It’s the poetry for those who are both wondering and lost. At last the world can be explained in ways that no one understands, and it can be done in any room with an adequate supply of paper, pencils and at least one cat in a box.

[Big RR]

at least one cat in a box

Alive or dead?

[@meric@nwom@n]

"Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.

Actually that does respond to a big question I have always asked: If there is a God what made him/her/it?

Hawking would have to be right, something can come from nothing.

[thestoat]

Hawking would have to be right, something can come from nothing.

This phenomena has been observed in the lab. All to do with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

[thestoat]

If there is a God what made him/her/it?

God as a quantum fluctuation. I think that needs a forum section on its own

[Big RR]

Hawking would have to be right, something can come from nothing.

This phenomena has been observed in the lab. All to do with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Stoat--do you have a link to anything describing this? I would think it would be revolutionary as spontaneous generation of matter or energy violates, at the very least, the first law of thermodynamics (Energy/matter cannot be created or destroyed). Heisenberg merely states that one cannot accurattely determine the position and energy of any particle at any time, leading to the conclusion that a particle may be in two places at once (just as Schreedinger's cat can be both alive and dead); perhps this is cited to show that matter may be spontaneously created and not detected? I would love to read more about it.

@W--I guess the easy answer would be that god always existed, having no beginning or ending. One could imagine many scenarios in which this would be possible, especially if our limitations orf time and space were insignificant parameters in n-dimensional space. Is this what happeed, who knows. somehow i doubt we'll be able to create god from nothing in the lab (although imagine the spectacle of fights between these created-gods--the arenas would be full ). At a fundemantal level i don't think it matters that much because any theory would not be subject to test; one might be able to say that spontaneous generation is possible within our theoretical framework, but that's a far cry from saying it actually does (or did) occur.

[thestoat]

Stoat--do you have a link to anything describing this

There is a high level view of it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling

Quantum theory gets really really difficult really really quickly. It has been a while since my physics degree, but the idea is something like you can borrow energy "from nowhere" for a set amount of time. The problem is, the more you borrow, the less time you can borrow it for. The product of energy borrowed and time equates to the Plank Constant, of the order of 10 to the power minus 34. As I say, this has been observed in the lab. The first law of thermodynamics isn't broken, from what I remember, since the system as a whole starts and ends with the same energy. Just a little blip in the middle. But as I say - it has been a while, and judging from the conversations around physics in this forum, I am sure there are a lot of you out there who would be able to refresh my memory

Now - imagine that the universe itself is a quantum fluctuation. It has been around billions of years (or since yesterday if you listen to some creationists), which is an enormous amount of time! Thus its total energy must be very close to zero, which it could be if half of it was made up of negative energy. I used to love those chats

[thestoat]

Just found the following here http://library.thinkquest.org/27930/uncertainty.htm

While the position/velocity relationship has proven important in theoretical physics, there is another manifestation of the uncertainty principle that is even more influential. This is the relationship, also quantified by Heisenberg, between the precision of a measurement of energy and the amount of time it takes to perform the measurement. This implies that energy held by a particle can fluctuate provided that it does so within a brief enough time. The shorter the time of the fluctuation, the more drastic the fluctuation (the greater change in energy), and vice versa. Therefore, quantum mechanics allows a particle to temporarily "borrow" energy provided that it is relinquished within the time determined by Heisenberg's equations.

[Big RR]

Thanks Stoat--Thanks, I haven't read about tunnelling for uite some time, and your description of "borrowing" energy to breach a barrier squares with my recollection--the laws of thermodynamics are not violated if the system energy remains constant. This has been observed and, as the article notes, is a problem with VLST devices. But since the energy does remain constant, I think this is more a rearrangement of the energy/matter within the sytem than spontaneous creation of more, wouldn't you agree? It definitely shows that behavior in the quantum region is quite different from what would be described by classical physics, and I would think shows that spontaneous generation at the quantum level is possible (just as Schroedinger's cat can be both alive and dead when sealed in the chamber), but I don't think it proves or disporves the existence of a god as Hawking claims (anymore than realizing that all events in our universe occur based on a stochastic or probability level does--einstein may have said that god doesn't throw dice, but maybe he spins a roulette wheel? ).

YEah, I miss these chats as well; have had very few since college and grad school. BTW, if you enjoy this sort of discussion, I recommend seeing the play Copenhagen if you ever get a chance. I saw it a number of years back in London, and it is based on a meeting between Neils Bohr and Hesienberg while Bohr was in Denmark and HEisenberg was trying to conivnce him to work with him for the Nazis--or maybe not to, the play is petty vague in a lot of respects (Borhr defected to the US shortly after the meeting). It's filled with quantum phsyics jokes and references, although sometimes I was one of the only ones laughing in the theater (I guess that's why it didn't last all that long). their discussions of "Schroedinger's damn cat" were priceless.

[thestoat]

Hi Big RR

I think this is more a rearrangement of the energy/matter within the sytem than spontaneous creation of more

I'm not sure, because in that instance I don't see where the energy was borrowed from. My understanding was that the energy literally came out of thin air. I'll dig around - it is interesting stuff (if mind bogglingly complicated).

I don't think it proves or disporves the existence of a god as Hawking claims

I don't think he said that it disproved a god's existence, only that a god was not required for the universe to be created.

Copenhagen - thanks for that. I shall certainly try to look out for it

[loCAtek]

Loved those chats, or cats? ?

[Sean]

So, if gravity's effects can be felt through out the known universe but can not be explained
-does that make Gravity=God and God=Gravity?

To answer this from a way back...

No it doesn't Loca. You ask the question implying that God's 'effects' can be undeniably felt and demonstrated by everybody on this planet. This is simply not the case.

[loCAtek]

Self-awareness. We all experience it: "I think therefore I am."


Where did you come from?


...not your body, your soul. The unique person who isn't an organic machine, but thinks, loves and wonders in whatever body it holds. Biology says your individual cells die off and are completely replaced every seven years (your mileage may vary).

Meaning: You are not your body.

If you're not your body, what are you?

Saying your mind is just an organic computer, doesn't explain Love, that would be illogical.
Not only the love of your family; your mate and offspring; which would be biological reproduction- but love of strangers: helping others.
Love of other species (pets), How is that evolutionarily advantageous?
Love of music and art, What purpose does that serve?

A: It nurtures the spirit.




If you have no spirit nor self awareness; why do you care to consider these things?

Were you unaware or nonspiritual, you would not demonstrate any comprehension of these things.