Hawking: Philosophy is Dead and has been replaced by Physics.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

[inocente]

How do the physical constants come into being?

They are fudges, fined-tuned by observation to make equations give the right answers. In each case they indicate an unknown where further research is needed.

It’s as if we only knew Pi by experiment, and did not yet know how to calculate it from first principles.

 

[tonyrey]

The higher level multiverses are simpler because they eliminate the need to specify initial conditions and physical constants.

“higher” presupposes a comparison with other possibilities and it still doesn’t explain the existence of the multiverses. Are they supposed to be eternal or to have emerged from a void? If the latter is there any explanation of how they created themselves?

 

[tonyrey]

Based on this man’s logic, having never met him, it is more correct for me to say, “There is NO Hawkings!” than to say “There is no God.”

Cute!

 

[Aloysium]

The higher level multiverses are simpler because they eliminate the need to specify initial conditions and physical constants.

How do the physical constants come into being?

They are known from experiment. The exact numerical value of dimensional physical constants is going to depend on the units you are using.

I didn’t communicate my point well. It was in response to your post, which I did not understand. You were speaking about multiverses. Presumably they would be linked by singularities, like turtles sitting upon another turtle into infinity, or perhaps like flaming bits of magnesium from a sparkler. If that is the case, or whatever it is, where is Avogadro’s number (if you are into chemistry), Pi (mathematics), the speed of light (physics) when everything is a singularity. See what I’m getting at? Time begins to manifest itself in the birth and development of the universe leading to this point where matter behaves as it does and we can understand and more clearly be aware of the structure that need not exist at all, but does. As you and I contemplate and discuss such matters, individual expressions of humanity, where were we, meaning humankind, at the beginning? How does all this come into being?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Good of you to admit you invented the whole thing.

Invented what whole thing?

M-theory? No, that is Witten’s invention supported by Hawking.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Because its philosophy, based on rational argument. C.f. some posts on this thread.

That makes Aquinas an existentialist. No objection here.

 

[Tomdstone]

You were speaking about multiverses. Presumably they would be linked by singularities, like turtles sitting upon another turtle into infinity,

More like a mandelbrot set.

 

[Tomdstone]

… where were we, meaning humankind, at the beginning?

The real line has not beginning. We can specify a point on it.

 

[Aloysium]

The real line has not beginning. We can specify a point on it.

We use Mathematics to represent and understand some elements of reality.
One cannot assume that the real line, imagined by us, tells us anything about the flow of time other than moments are before or after others.
The fact is that we were not and now we are. The real line describes what specifically about us, more than that.

 

[PRmerger]

The real line has not beginning. We can specify a point on it.

It sounds like this ^^ is advocating for an eternal universe.

Skeptic David Hume put that to rest when he said this: “An infinite number of real parts of time, passing in succession, and exhausted one after another, appears so evident a contradiction, that no man, one should think, whose judgement is not corrupted, instead of being improved, by the sciences, would ever be able to admit of it.”–David Hume

 

[lynnvinc]

Strawman argument. I suppose that Hawking is saying that the advances in our recent understanding of the universe have come mostly from science, and not so much from philosophy. Generally, the idea is that there has been no progress in philosophy since philosophers today wrestle with the exact same problems the ancient Greek or ancient pre-Socratic philosophers did.
Do you see any progress in philosophy over the last century?
I see:
Post-modernism
Radical feminism
Deconstructionism, Social Constructivism, post-structuralism, sociology of scientific knowledge.
New ethical questions arising from advances in technology, such as the ethics of drone warfare, climate change, carbon emissions, fake or slanted news, stem cell research, etc.

Clifford Geertz (anthropologist) explained it this way – while science progresses and advances, anthropology (you could include philosophy) only improves in the precision with which we vex each other.