Stephen Hawkings' Grand Design

[MindOverMatter2]

Because our ‘logical implications’ are deduced from our experience from inside the complex array of physical phenomena that make up our conscious awareness.

That does not change the fact that our experiences also logically imply that we are more than physical events. Unless you are willing to believe that logic has no objectivity; in which case your attempt to justify your position rationally is meaningless and hypocritical. Yet your mere acceptance that there is a physical reality because you “experience it” is a rational act and thus an acceptance that logic can tell us about what necessarily or probably exists in objective reality; and that it is reasonable to accept it. I am doing no different to what you are doing.

We don’t know everything there is to know about the nature of physical phenomena, so it seems premature to claim that physical phenomena can’t explain our conscious experience.

It seems like denial to ignore the fact that our experiences of freewill logically implies that we are more than physical events. Your choice to accept physical experiences over those experiences that logically imply non-physical existences, seems to be caused by nothing more than the whim of your fancy.

I accept my experiences. I experience freewill just as much as i experience physical events. I accept the logical implications of the fact. Thus i accept that my conscious will is more than simply physical events.

Again, from the inside. You discount the fact that we are subject to influences of which we may not be aware.

You are the one thats discounting transcendence of the physical, influences which you choose not to be aware of.

 

[Curious_Seed]

breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.4f8ccccd2e38de074f4c1305131c47e4.491&show_article=1

Does anybody know what Hawkings is talking about when he says there is no longer any need for the concept of God due to recent developments in physics? :confused

No one on this forum has a clue about the mathematics presented by Stephen Hawking.

Not a clue.

Not a modicum of a clue.

Now, that is with respect to the mathematics, in his physics.

The rest (the non mathematical part, the non-physics part), including Hawking’s own definition of God, is as wayward as an atheist can move from Christ.

 

[Sair]

It seems like denial to ignore the fact that our experiences of freewill logically implies that we are more than physical events. Your choice to accept physical experiences over those experiences that logically imply non-physical existences, seems to be caused by nothing more than the whim of your fancy.

What’s a nonphysical existence? How does anything in our experience logically imply nonphysical existence, as opposed to some aspect or property of physical existence of which we are unaware or do not yet understand? And how free is your free will? Are you free to ignore or defy physical laws and cause-and-effect relationships?

 

[Brenlae]

I just finished reading The Grand Design, and I have to say, there are many compelling arguements in there. Although, one can always say “it’s only a theory”.

 

[CopticChristian]

No one on this forum has a clue about the mathematics presented by Stephen Hawking.

Not a clue.

Not a modicum of a clue.

Now, that is with respect to the mathematics, in his physics.

The rest (the non mathematical part, the non-physics part), including Hawking’s own definition of God, is as wayward as an atheist can move from Christ.

No one would include you since you are in this forum.

 

[Protector]

The only way to make predation intrinsically evil is to suppose it was the intention of a being who had the power to make things otherwise.

Mind you, the Genesis account states that ALL were “herbivores” originally, is that not so mon ami? :
“And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.” Gen.1:30
So then, how do we of the Christian faith explain such a radical change?

Protector

 

[Protector]

You assume that a great deal of suffering in the world could be prevented without explaining how this feat could be achieved. The immense complexity of life lays the burden of proof on you because it is by no means self-evident that there is a facile solution. People often suggest piecemeal improvements but that is a vastly different proposition from designing an entire universe devoid of drawbacks, disasters, deformities, disease, death and destruction….

Isn’t that so very true. Many politicians promise an end to poverty if only you will vote them in, which promise is completely at odds with a statement by Christ, “For the poor you have with you always,…” (Matt.26:11,) Douay-Rheims.

Protector

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Belief in a Multiverse model would appear to lead inexorably to Theism.

If an infinite number of universes with an infinite number of possibilities exist, it would seem that at least one of those universes would contain a being , or a “personalized force” that would have the classic ontological features we associate with God - omipotent, omniscient, omnibeneficent, infinite.

In an Anselmian fashion, an infinitely powerful God in one universe could not be constrained within one universe, but would expand a sphere of influence across the infinitude of universes.

That might not be *our * conception of God, but it should be close enough to trouble the sleep of Multiverse theorists.

More troubling might be Professor Hawking’s assertions in “Grand Design” of an anti-realist philosophical stance, namely that the universe is ultimately unknowable, and that all theories of realities are simply models, with the more useful models being preferable but neither able to be described as “true,” or that we create our own ontological realities - and all this from someone who declared that Philosophy is dead…