Hawking: Philosophy is Dead and has been replaced by Physics. God Never existed and now we have M-theory

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Is this a marketing tactic to ruffle feathers and get attention? If I buy the book, I would buy it used in Amazon so as not to give him more money. He fell in love with money with A Brief History of Time. Should I buy the book? Is it a good read? Would you say he was philosophizing when he made such a deduction? He also says that God never existed and now we have M-theory anyway - so there is no need for a ‘god’ to understand/explain creation. He annoys me because of his attitude towards theists which is like we are some kind of orangutans that must believe in the existence of a god in order to make sense of the universe. He is so cocky, to the point of obnoxious. I think he indulges with these attitudes because they get him attention ($$$). He claims he is providing what Einstein wanted to but failed - an explanation of everything. Here is a little review: youtube.com/watch?v=UZpfCNT_Opc

Years ago, I actually had a cup of coffee with him and asked him a couple of yes or no questions. I forget what they were.

What’s your take?
 
I really don’t pay any attention at all to him.

I know he’s a famous physicist and has ALS.

Other than that, I’m baffled as to why he is constantly cited as an authority on Life, the Universe, and Everything.
 
Hawking is the poster boy for a personal worldview driving one’s “scientific” discoveries. M theory is nonsense, a self-creating universe is nonsense and Hawking’s determination that “philosophy is dead” is nonsense, least of all because such a pronouncement IS a philosophical statement. Everything that Hawking does is an attempt to rule out the existence of God.

If you want an accurate measurement of what modern science thinks of classic scientific and theological thought, I recommend David Berlinski’s The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions. Berlinski is an agnostic Jew, yet he is a brilliant intellectual who sees the worth of self criticism and exposes the nonsense that people like Hawking peddle on an unsuspecting public. What is truly amazing is how precariously many of the accepted scientific “truths” hang in the balance. Theoretical physicists like Hawking spend great amounts of time and effort devising equations and formulating theories that can never even be tested, much less proved. One could make equally convincing arguments about the existence of unicorns and fairies.

Also, a fascinating look at the current state of the scientific community in regards to those who hold theological positions of faith is the Ben Stein movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. It is on youtube and is a powerful testament to the abandonment of open-mindedness and contempt for dissenting opinion.
 
He’s a media personality. I’m pretty sure he would not get the attention were it not for a human fascination, like at accident scenes, with our human frailty, as well as the deserved admiration for the courage he demonstrates in facing and overcoming his disability. It is also quite remarkable, and probably related psychologically, how he personifies the black holes he’s written about, falling ever deeper into himself, the event horizon of his bodily connection to the world diminishing. Like all of us as we get older, our more fruitful years behind us, we have to struggle with our losses. Some people seem to get a little weird vying for the attention that had earlier come so naturally. I’m pretty sure there’s a certain amount of pity by some for my having fallen into Catholicism. But, as his world collapses into itself, may that singularity explodes into a new being of light.
 
Hawking knows nothing about philosophy or religion, which is why he can say stupid things like that.

It is like someone saying, “Now that we have invented arc welding, we no longer need cooking or the Sun!” Total non sequitur.
 
Abba said:
He claims he is providing what Einstein wanted to but failed - an explanation of everything.
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Funny you mention this because David Berlinski tells of the purely anecdotal story that Einstein refused to accept Edwin Hubble’s discovery of the red shift, which denotes that everything in the universe is moving away from everything, meaning that the universe is expanding and that it is, therefore, finite, because it did not correspond with his desire for an infinite, closed universe. For the universe to be finite, there must have been a “time” when it did not exist. Oh, what a host of questions this realization exposes!
 
Mintaka said:
Hawking knows nothing about philosophy or religion, which is why he can say stupid things like that.
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The same can be said for Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Laurence Krauss and even Bill Maher. It is amazing to me that these men can be so passionate about a subject and yet, be so obliviously ignorant of what it is they criticize.
 
The problem with the idea that philosophy has been replaced by physics is that it limits human thinking to that which can be seen or observed and measured scientifically.
As the earlier poster stated, Hawkings may actually be closer to God than he realizes. He continues to search for the “unknown God” as the Greeks called the God we worship.

Within the one volume “Christian Prayer” I found the petition beginning “God, source of our science…” I have not forgotten this although I now have the four volume LOTH with the Office of Readings included. Every book has an author, a fact that led one atheist to accept the existence of God and ultimately Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Steven Hawkings is likewise an intelligent man. C.K. Chesterton often pointed to the fact that faith is not devoid of reason. Indeed reason supports faith.
Science always begins with a hypothesis. Hawkings’s hypothesis is that is that there is no God. Yet the logic behind that statement is flawed and so he continues to write books and to search within a limited natural realm. To make the leap that God might indeed exist can be a scary proposition as it goes against the general scientific method. It means that man is not the center of his own solar system.
Knowing how light penetrates a prism to create the different colors of a rainbow does not disprove the existence of God. Has anybody explored why those same colors form a bow in the sky?
 
DebChris said:
Hawkings’s hypothesis is that is that there is no God.
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Actually, I believe that Hawking was much more agreeable and open to the possibility of God in A Brief History of Time but in the years since has gone completely down the atheist trail.
 
I wouldn’t give him credence on any topic other than physics.

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
I wouldn’t give him credence on any topic other than physics.
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I’m not sure anyone should pay attention to him even in physics. They certainly shouldn’t if they actually believe what he says. If philosophy is dead then reason is not real. If he is right then you can’t actually read his works, deliberate their content and learn from them.
 
I think Hawking is angry at God. This probably started a line of reasoning early on in his head we hear so often, “If God is truly loving, how could He make someone with profound disabilities?” Now couple that with the fact he can get more attention and more money by appealing to popular culture which seems to want to hear that there is no God.
 
Deus_tecum said:
. . . “If God is truly loving, how could He make someone with profound disabilities?” . . .
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I’m not sure that would be the argument. I think we care more for people who need our help. It’s not a matter of love but who has our back. So, If God doesn’t give me what I want, doesn’t that make Him irrelevant? The answer, of course, has to do with not so much in our fickle wants, but in what will truly satisfy and make us happy. That is what God wants for us. Hawking is a model of stick-to-itness, courage and fortitude. Too bad his words detract from that message. They eminate from pride and demonstrate the paradox that is human nature.
 
Abba said:
What’s your take?
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Is Hawking wrong? I’m not defending him but this thread has plentiful attacks on his character, some more fanciful than others, with scarce logical rebuttal of his arguments. Doesn’t that help his case that philosophy has nothing left to say?
 
However much we may disagree with Stephen Hawking, let us at least give him some credit for those remarkable acchievments, recognised by the Vatican.

I find much to admire and respect about him, especially since seeing the film " The Theory of Everything".
 
Regarding M-Theory, it is too limited. The dual nature of photos, quantum entanglement, the actions of atoms cooled to near absolute zero, atoms which can be subdivided into still smaller parts/states. Advances in materials science.

Philosophy: “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.” This is still relevant.

Somehow, I believe major discoveries await.

Ed
 
inocente said:
…with scarce logical rebuttal of his arguments. Doesn’t that help his case that philosophy has nothing left to say?
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Unless he has some scientific evidence to back it up, the statement that “philosophy is dead” is a philosophical statement. Besides, what “logical rebuttal” does one need for such a simplistic, nonsensical statement? Hawking and the usual suspects do not even have the rudimentary basics to address the classic Western philosophical tradition. I saw a debate in which Laurence Kraus ridiculed and hurled spurious accusations against Leibniz’s ontological argument for the existence of God when it was openly apparent that he did not grasp the fundamentals in the argument. Of course, this comes from a man who wrote a book explaining how something came from nothing in a purely materialist manner by simply redefining what “nothing” actually is. Richard Dawkins is on record in a debate with the Archbishop of Canterbury as to not having a clue as to basic theological concepts presented by the archbishop. The moderator, a little old professor of philosophy, had to explain to Dawkins exactly what the archbishop meant, to which Dawkins replied, “well, I just don’t see where it makes a difference.” Good grief. One would think that a person would at least know the subject which they argue so earnestly against. Hawking is no different.
 
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