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Stephen Hawking has died

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Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#331

Post by mgolawala »

joshumax wrote: post #45

For a second I just couldn't believe this was real. Stephen Hawking was one of those people that inspired me towards a career in science, as well as a pursuit of discovering what mysteries of the universe I could uncover within my (cosmically short) lifetime. He did this not through some major life-altering speech I heard from him (although his talks and lectures were quite interesting), or through some grand quote t…

I agree completely.

Who will take his place? Who will be the Stephen Hawking of my children's generation?

As a society we should work hard to find, celebrate and give a platform to the Stephen Hawking-s and the Carl Sagan-s of tomorrow. The impact of such "celebrity scientists" (I do not use that term pejoratively) is far greater than the measure of the work they have done. It is how they inspire an entire generation to seek out knowledge, understanding and fill us all with a sense of humility, awe and wonder.

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#332

Post by Omnus »

mikekchar wrote: post #210
fhayde wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a good way to say it might be: I'm not afraid of death, I'm afraid of not existing.

I do not fear non-existence. For most of the history of the universe, I did not exist. I have considerable experience with that. Dying appears to be unpleasant, though.

This is a common sentiment that fails to take into account the fact that, once you DO exist, you have a desire to continue existing which you did not have prior to your existence.

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#333

Post by scraft »

You ignored what life presented you, And strived to achieve your goal. You took the time to share with us, The universe, big and small.

You reminded us what makes a man, Comes from deep inside. With your wicked sense of humour, And your persistence to survive.

We thank you for all that you did, And for all that you will do. You may no longer live amongst us, But we will still look up to you.

RIP Stephen Hawking, 1942-2018.

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#334

Post by 3pt14159 »

eloff wrote: post #326
jsolson wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I would like to attribute my desire to live "forever", at least to some extent, to cosmic perspective. One day the universe might make me bored, but today is not that day, and I suspect tomorrow isn't either. I don't ever expect that day to come, but if I thought it was near I'd be very afraid indeed.

Right now the only thing that somewhat limits the accumulation of wealth by the wealthiest in our society is that they eventually die. Even if they pass it on to their offspring, those offspring are often ill-equipped to run their parent's business empire. Eventually the dynastic wealth fades away and others can take their place. If people could live forever there would be no limits on how much wealth individuals cou…

Ultimately, we should just have a redistributive, progressive wealth tax with a basic income and optional state provision of staples like Healthcare. It's the only longterm stable system that sets incentives correctly. We should also completely ban negative things that cause feedback loops, like high net worth individuals subverting the political process via money.

But if Steve Jobs clone 2.0 is 400 years old and still turning over his $200b at 10% per year, and 9% of that is getting redistributed while the average person is generating 1% then that's still ultimately better for humanity. The reason it needs to be a progressive wealth tax is to limit power accumulation.

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#335

Post by justmyopinion1 »

I always felt like God saw SH and felt like he is going too fast in his discoveries toward God and may end up discovering God which God obviously doesn't want to happen and so wen he saw that at SH's age of 21 he hit the motor neuron switch off and just left his life and mind on so that everyone can know what SH has done so far.

RIP SH.

Wherever he has gone, if there is any remote possibility to contact us back, i am sure he will figure it out. Am just gonna keep waiting to hear back from him...

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#336

Post by darkerside »

PaulHoule wrote: post #329

At risk of being voted down I will say that the time in which Hawking has worked has been a "dark ages" for physics in my mind. (As a physics PhD; and I don't blame Hawking for this, rather the rest of the environment.) Circa 1970 the number of physics PhD's produced has outstripped the number of permanent jobs in physics, sometimes by a factor of 30:1! One result of that is that physicists have to make it through a…

I'm a tech worker not a scientist, but I think I understand. What frustrates me more than groupthink itself is when a group of people who consider themselves truth seekers somehow considers themselves immune to groupthink.

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#337

Post by cgriswald »

matte_black wrote: post #314
mikekchar wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not fear non-existence. For most of the history of the universe, I did not exist. I have considerable experience with that. Dying appears to be unpleasant, though.

For most of the universe’s history you did exist, but were dead, scattered into atoms all across space. The thing is, after a mere billions of years, you managed to consolidate into a form and became alive. Not a bad deal. But to be dead, is to wait a trillion years for something to happen, only for it to turn out at the end you have to wait a trillion years more, and then you have to continue this forever .

Are we talking about atoms when we are talking about ourselves? I don't think so. I am not the same collection of atoms from moment to moment. There may not be an atom in my entire body that is original to my body; and there are vastly more atoms in my body now than then. When I say "me" I don't really mean my body or even my brain, even if that's where "me" is. We are really talking about our consciousness.

It's been awhile since I read it, but ... In The Zen of Physics, David J. Darling argues that if some other collection of atoms has a consciousness like our own, that is no different than ourselves. (His idea of consciousness is something like patterns in the brain, which is distinct, if reliant, from a collection of atoms.) We would have no memory of our past experiences, but in a real sense we would be alive again. His arguments are a bit more elegant than I have presented here. And there is some question to whether an identical consciousness with different memories is really you or me, but it would mean that waiting for trillions of years isn't necessarily the case.

This, of course, assumes that consciousness is an emergent phenomena. It is possible that consciousness is not emergent from brain processes, but is a fundamental property of the universe that the brain has somehow harnessed because it is an evolutionary advantage. (Physics of Consciousness: The Quantum Mind and the Meaning of Life by Evan Harris Walker is a fun read on this idea.) In which case, in some form you would exist as long as the universe exists, and always have.

As an aside, for those without consciousness (i.e. the dead and the unborn) time does not exist, so both "to wait" and "forever" are impossible. :)

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#338

Post by spullara »

fhayde wrote: post #192
jsolson wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I would like to attribute my desire to live "forever", at least to some extent, to cosmic perspective. One day the universe might make me bored, but today is not that day, and I suspect tomorrow isn't either. I don't ever expect that day to come, but if I thought it was near I'd be very afraid indeed.

I think a good way to say it might be: I'm not afraid of death, I'm afraid of not existing.

My daughter, when she was 6, said it best. "I don't want to lose my sights."

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

#339

Post by l9k »

intenseSpec wrote: post #295
drawkbox wrote: post #268

Sometimes the RNG of the Universe creates people with intelligence, innovation and insight that are one in a billion that make the world better than it was before in immense ways, Stephen Hawking is one of those mountain movers. People like Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Nikola Tesla and even Elon Musk today, that make us look up, innovate and think way out there, bring us together and remind us we are all on this plan…

Serious question, why is Elon Musk lumped in with Tesla, Hawking, and Sagan? Musk's achievements are assisted by the fact that he has tens of thousands of engineers at his companies and he gets credit for every one of their ideas, all their work, and all the life they give up for his dreams. He didn't found Paypal (his company merged with it), he didn't found Tesla (kicked out one of the original founders), and he di…

People who "make us look up, innovate and think way out there, bring us together and remind us we are all on this planet together and can do amazing things if we choose to put our energy towards it."

Musk is definitely one of those, just in a different way.

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