Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe • Hacker News Board

Re: Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe

#61

Post by Groxx » Fri, Sep 03, 2010, 7:43 PM UTC

Dove wrote: post #57

Groxx wrote: post #7

> And, indeed, he argues, any form of intelligent life that evolves anywhere will automatically find that it lives somewhere suitable for it. Definitely deserves a "well, duh", but so many people seem averse to this line of thought. I can't count the number of times people have argued in my vicinity for God's existence based on how nicely our planet suits us... while in the same breath demonstrating that they underst…

I find the anthropic principle unpersuasive. It is entirely irrelevant to the question it tries to answer. Imagine applying it in a different circumstance. Imagine two people coming upon a computer terminal, upon which was typed an elaborate love letter addressed to one of them. "What's this? John has written me a love letter!" "Nonsense, it's just noise. Probably a stack dump or something." "What? The odds are clear…

Certainly, but "God created it" is the ultimate wild-card explanation. It's identical to saying "because." In what way is that simpler?

I can balance this equation: x = x + 1. The solution is to add God to both sides. Simple!

The quote is primarily meant to point out that we wouldn't likely exist in a location that isn't nigh-ideally suited for us, both because we require it to continue and because we adapt to match it. Using it to prove God exists strikes me as a greater misuse than using it to prove it's possible God doesn't, given any comprehension of large numbers and evolution.

Re: Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe

#62

Post by Groxx » Fri, Sep 03, 2010, 7:46 PM UTC

Dove wrote: post #58

Dove wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the anthropic principle unpersuasive. It is entirely irrelevant to the question it tries to answer. Imagine applying it in a different circumstance. Imagine two people coming upon a computer terminal, upon which was typed an elaborate love letter addressed to one of them. "What's this? John has written me a love letter!" "Nonsense, it's just noise. Probably a stack dump or something." "What? The odds are clear…

As a further friendly jab to atheists in present company, I've always found cosmological discussions funny. Here they are, willing to believe in an infinity of infinities of parallel universes, with varying physical laws and constants. They cannot detect them, they cannot describe them, they cannot say anything about them other than that there must exist enough of them for the probabilities to work out. Bazillions up…

Atheists probably think you believe in things which require you to disbelieve in other things which appear to them to be identical. You believe in X, but not in Y where Y is isomorphic to X.

Re: Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe

#63

Post by Groxx » Fri, Sep 03, 2010, 7:51 PM UTC

eavc wrote: post #59

Groxx wrote: post #7

> And, indeed, he argues, any form of intelligent life that evolves anywhere will automatically find that it lives somewhere suitable for it. Definitely deserves a "well, duh", but so many people seem averse to this line of thought. I can't count the number of times people have argued in my vicinity for God's existence based on how nicely our planet suits us... while in the same breath demonstrating that they underst…

Well, that's only the localized version of that argument. The better argument is concerned with the capacity for the universe itself to hold any life whatsoever. The relationship between the fundamental forces (strong, weak, gravity, etc.) and certain other constants in physics that, were they slightly different, would rending the whole of existence something entirely different. This leads to one of three conclusions…

>The relationship between the fundamental forces (strong, weak, gravity, etc.) and certain other constants in physics that, were they slightly different, would rending the whole of existence something entirely different.

As we know it, and are you sure it's possible for them to be different? Given that evidence grows that they're all related, they may simply be a single force, which is why they all seem to be "finely tuned".

I've heard the first-mover argument, and I think it's the best anti-atheist argument. It neatly turns the whole argument into "God just exists" or "the Universe just exists", and as we have no conclusive proof for either, it comes down to your choice / belief.

Re: Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe

#64

Post by eavc » Fri, Sep 03, 2010, 8:40 PM UTC

Groxx wrote: post #63

eavc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's only the localized version of that argument. The better argument is concerned with the capacity for the universe itself to hold any life whatsoever. The relationship between the fundamental forces (strong, weak, gravity, etc.) and certain other constants in physics that, were they slightly different, would rending the whole of existence something entirely different. This leads to one of three conclusions…

> The relationship between the fundamental forces (strong, weak, gravity, etc.) and certain other constants in physics that, were they slightly different, would rending the whole of existence something entirely different. As we know it, and are you sure it's possible for them to be different? Given that evidence grows that they're all related, they may simply be a single force, which is why they all seem to be "finel…

If someone could show that there is no way for those forces/laws to have been otherwise, that would mean that every possible universe would be conducive to life, and that would remove the need for infinite universes and for god in explaining how this universe is conducive to life.

It still leaves an existential question, of course, but it changes the metaphysics conversation in the same way that the discovery of other suns and worlds did for the initial argument.

Well, it's more like, "something eternal exists outside of the universe," or "there are infinite universes," but in general, yeah. Of course, that argument doesn't happen in a vacuum. There are relevant arguments about ethics, evil, personhood, etc. that come to bear on the discussion as well.

Re: Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe

#65

Post by lotharbot » Fri, Sep 03, 2010, 8:49 PM UTC

Groxx wrote: post #61

Dove wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the anthropic principle unpersuasive. It is entirely irrelevant to the question it tries to answer. Imagine applying it in a different circumstance. Imagine two people coming upon a computer terminal, upon which was typed an elaborate love letter addressed to one of them. "What's this? John has written me a love letter!" "Nonsense, it's just noise. Probably a stack dump or something." "What? The odds are clear…

Certainly, but "God created it" is the ultimate wild-card explanation. It's identical to saying "because." In what way is that simpler? I can balance this equation: x = x + 1. The solution is to add God to both sides. Simple! The quote is primarily meant to point out that we wouldn't likely exist in a location that isn't nigh-ideally suited for us, both because we require it to continue and because we adapt to match…

"God created it" and "large numbers and evolution" are both ultimate wildcard explanations, when used carelessly. Both can be equivalent to adding infinity to both sides of your equation.

> "we wouldn't likely exist in a location that isn't nigh-ideally suited for us"

Right, but that only answers a weak variant of the argument. The stronger variant is that the universe shouldn't have any locations suited for the evolution of any form of intelligent life. The fact that we're here indicates that there is a location suited for the evolution of intelligent life, which requires an explanation.

There are lots of approaches you can take to provide an explanation. "We wouldn't be asking if we didn't exist" is a weak and unsatisfying approach.

Re: Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe

#66

Post by lotharbot » Fri, Sep 03, 2010, 9:16 PM UTC

lelele wrote: post #51

avar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why specifically can't you believe that it evolves. And what do you have to back up the assertion that "natural selection does not work like that", when all the evidence and consequently the consensus of the scientific community is that it does. The idea you're advocating has a name, "Irreducible complexity"[1], and has been debunked time and time again as pseudoscience. I won't go into debunking specific assertions…

Thank you very much for letting me know about "Irreducible complexity". I'll investigate the argument. My objections to evolutions do not fall into such a realm. Yes, millions of years make difficult for us to think about things. There are only speculations. > Why specifically can't you believe that it evolves. Because: 1) "natural selection" - as I understand it - narrows down variations, it does not expand them. If…

> ""natural selection" - as I understand it - narrows down variations, it does not expand them."

The simple answer is that natural selection often reduces variability, but that does not mean it will reduce a species all the way to a single variation. Sometimes natural selection actually increases variability by favoring outliers (specialists) over the average (generalists).

Consider a population with two food sources that require slightly different characteristics to access, for example, food sources at different water depths. They'll be most easily accessed by creatures whose neutral buoyancy puts them at that depth of water. Natural selection may favor individuals who are most able to generalize (that is, those who float right in between) or those who are most specialized (those who float right at the level of one food source or the other), depending on various details of the system.

If you have the relevant mathematical background, you may want to look up some of the recent models of "adaptive speciation" (Ulf Dieckmann and Michael Doebeli have done some great work in this area; their book [0] has some great examples.)

[0] http://books.google.com/books?id=Z-gCf7TD9-MC&lpg=PP1&#3...

Re: Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe

#67

Post by Groxx » Fri, Sep 03, 2010, 9:46 PM UTC

lotharbot wrote: post #65

Groxx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly, but "God created it" is the ultimate wild-card explanation. It's identical to saying "because." In what way is that simpler? I can balance this equation: x = x + 1. The solution is to add God to both sides. Simple! The quote is primarily meant to point out that we wouldn't likely exist in a location that isn't nigh-ideally suited for us, both because we require it to continue and because we adapt to match…

"God created it" and "large numbers and evolution" are both ultimate wildcard explanations, when used carelessly. Both can be equivalent to adding infinity to both sides of your equation. > "we wouldn't likely exist in a location that isn't nigh-ideally suited for us" Right, but that only answers a weak variant of the argument. The stronger variant is that the universe shouldn't have any locations suited for the evol…

>Both can be equivalent to adding infinity to both sides of your equation.

Admittedly very accurate, but not quite the same. To pull from another oft-repeated quote, time + randomness will never create a pocket watch, because there is not a series of changes which leads to it within dumb evolution. God / intelligence can. What evolution+time describes is very much a strict, significantly-smaller subset of a God's capabilities.

Re: Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe

#68

Post by _polos_ » Fri, Sep 03, 2010, 10:32 PM UTC

It should clearly be announced here:

Hawking is doing a really bad job to atheists here: he's becoming as anti-scientific as one can get...

Science has its very defined principles, as they are: they don't have to contradict all of: philosophy, mathematics, physics, (and so on...).

This is a really sad story: he simply seems to be a really sad and angry person (personally, I would be worse, in his actual state...), and this seems to influence all of his excogitations...

Re: Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe

#69

Post by Dove » Sat, Sep 04, 2010, 12:52 AM UTC

Groxx wrote: post #61

Dove wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the anthropic principle unpersuasive. It is entirely irrelevant to the question it tries to answer. Imagine applying it in a different circumstance. Imagine two people coming upon a computer terminal, upon which was typed an elaborate love letter addressed to one of them. "What's this? John has written me a love letter!" "Nonsense, it's just noise. Probably a stack dump or something." "What? The odds are clear…

Certainly, but "God created it" is the ultimate wild-card explanation. It's identical to saying "because." In what way is that simpler? I can balance this equation: x = x + 1. The solution is to add God to both sides. Simple! The quote is primarily meant to point out that we wouldn't likely exist in a location that isn't nigh-ideally suited for us, both because we require it to continue and because we adapt to match…

Certainly, but "God created it" is the ultimate wild-card explanation. It's identical to saying "because."

Not at all. It could be used that way by lazy and irresponsible thinkers, but that is not an inherent property of the explanation.

To return to my earlier analogy,

"You know, just because John could have written that letter is no reason to suppose he did. John could have done just about anything to your computer; if you're willing to invoke him as an explanation for whatever you find, you'll never learn anything about how computers work."

"Nonsense, I'm not saying John wrote the letter because I don't have any alternative explanation. I'm saying there's positive evidence he wrote it: Look, he signed it. Plus, he's my boyfriend, and this is how he writes, and this is the sort of thing he would do. Why make it complicated?"

We constantly deal with intelligent agents who have great power -- roommates who could do arbitrary things to our living areas, other human beings who can create nearly arbitrary literary output on our computers. And we are able to intelligently distinguish between what these beings can do and what they did do based on the available evidence: what they claim to do, their habits and tendencies and methods, what we know about natural laws.

Reasoning about what God did is no different. "God did it" is one of a number of competing explanations for any event, subject to evidence and revision just like any other explanation. There is no a priori reason attributing an event to divine intervention need be evidentially vacuous. The correct statement in the absence of evidence is not "God did it" but "I don't know."

(Note even my line of reasoning above followed this trail -- a God I already believe in claims to have created the universe, he seems to be capable and credible, and the natural evidence seems to back up the claim: the universe begun, and it looks pretty clearly designed. It even looks like his handiwork. So from my perspective, why make it complicated?)

Re: Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe

#70

Post by lotharbot » Sat, Sep 04, 2010, 1:54 AM UTC

Groxx wrote: post #67

lotharbot wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"God created it" and "large numbers and evolution" are both ultimate wildcard explanations, when used carelessly. Both can be equivalent to adding infinity to both sides of your equation. > "we wouldn't likely exist in a location that isn't nigh-ideally suited for us" Right, but that only answers a weak variant of the argument. The stronger variant is that the universe shouldn't have any locations suited for the evol…

> Both can be equivalent to adding infinity to both sides of your equation. Admittedly very accurate, but not quite the same. To pull from another oft-repeated quote, time + randomness will never create a pocket watch, because there is not a series of changes which leads to it within dumb evolution. God / intelligence can . What evolution+time describes is very much a strict, significantly-smaller subset of a God's c…

> What evolution+time describes is very much a strict, significantly-smaller subset of a God's capabilities.

The rational numbers are a significantly-smaller subset of the real numbers. Yet adding a countable infinity to both sides of your equation is just as useless as adding an uncountable infinity.

Similarly, "God did it", "there are a lot of universes", "we wouldn't be able to ask if we weren't here so it doesn't need explaining", and "evolution + time" can all be very unsatisfying answers to the stronger variant of the argument I described above. They're all essentially big wildcards, though some are bigger than others. Whichever argument you choose needs a LOT more detail before it becomes better than simply adding infinity to both sides of the equation.