Thanks. Even though you are not impressed with ontological proofs …it appears, based on your previous postings, that you think that there is a connection between mathematics and God - at least, God as the author of a creation governed by mathematical laws. What do you think of Hawking’s latest book, The Grand Design, which argues that God is not necessary to explain the universe?
Sorry, I have not read Hawking’s The Grand Design, all I know is that even many atheists find it to be an embarrassment for Hawking, the philosophical arguments made are amateurish. Not surprising really, mathematical physicists are a lot like professional athletes in that they are at their peak in their twenties and then it’s downhill from there, even Einstein did his most important work in his twenties, less in his thirties, and by the time he was in his fourties he was “over the hill” as far as breaking new theories. Hawking has been like that for a few decades now. You’d be better off reading Roger Penrose, who is Hawking’s fellow Brit, is just as smart, but didn’t have the wheelchair and computer voice that gave him a Yoda like persona.
Penrose earlier on argued against a superficial reduction of consciousness to a machine, a computer - that there was something much deeper involved. But then he started talking about consciousness as a quantum effect. I’m finding it hard to understand. I think of consciousness as sui generis, not a motion of material particles, even “overlaid” with quantum mechanics . And I think that mathematical laws in physics point to God as their author. But Penrose doesn’t seem to fall into this camp. I wonder what he thinks of the strong anthropic principle, or the design movement.
who is gogfrey hardy?it remains to be seen whether he will attempt to justify it…
Of far more significance are the fascinating ideas about mathematics to which you referred us…
I think this might have something to do with it: from Revelation: He is cast out of heaven. With his tail he drags after him one-third of the stars.