http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11161493



I'm not impressed, I tend to find his philosophical pet theories unconvincing. This is a good example, gravity can only operate in spacetime, without spacetime it cannot exist. So I bet he is using a clumsy definition of nothing than does not correspond to "not anything".

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing."

This confused me. If there is... nothing, no mass at all, gravity simply does not exist...

I suppose he assumes that gravity caused all the pre-big bang particles to come very close to each other and become compressed, thus leading to the big bang.

But the statement on it's own is, in my opinion, wrong.

I expected better from you... You've earnt my respect with your knowledge of all things related to discussion, but on this subject, you seem to lose your objectivity due to religion. So much so that you have already passed judgment before reading the book, and only have a few lines that have been fed to you by the media, not even from the horse's mouth.

Are you done trying to make yourself sound smart? Cause it's rather embarrassing... You're making the same mistake as Villerar, but without managing to be intelligent about it. You're talking about a world renowned theoretical physicist and cosmologist, I'm pretty sure his understanding of gravity is a bit higher than the high school stuff they crammed down your throat. And I certainly think that you shouldn't be an idiot about it and pass judgment before EVEN READING FURTHER THAN THE FIRST LINE. Christ, is it religion that is making you so blind to common sense, or just rampant stupidity?

I might look into this book, just to see if he can prove it. Of course, it won't make any difference outside of scientific circles if it does.

he probably can't prove it, but he can make it really f*** convincing

I agree. After all, it is purely theoritical. We'll have to read the book to find out what he bases those theories upon.

I agree with Hakker. I was honestly really surprised when I found out you were religious, Villerar. I'd always found you quite intellectual.
Then again, Colbert is Catholic and he's a genious.

But more on topic, I probably won't read it but will look up some of the more interesting stuff it talks about.

Religious <> Mindless

Heck, I've heard Atheists defend Atheism with retarded logic just as much as I've heard Christians poorly defend Christianity.

And yeah, I too can't comment on the book until I've read it, which I'll probably do after my exams.

I'm well aware of this, I know plenty of intelligent religious people.

theories are a bunch of facts and logic and s*** that lead to a conclusion, so if you think you can completely disregard something just because it's a theory (lol evolution) you're stupid

Theories generally have some evidence backing them and are considered to be either true or very close to true, but have not been rigorously proven enough to make it solid fact.

As "CLAG-" said, the theory of evolution is an example of this. The theory is pretty much accepted in the scientific community, but there hasn't been a proof to put the nail in the coffin.

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Thanks for bringing this up, Ville. I'll definitely check this book out.

Darwin called, he said you should shut up.

Intelligence and religion can go hand in hand, it's just never a good thing when you allow religion (or anything, for that matter), to colour your view.

Ummm...

When did I mention disregarding? I just said that I found what you said, not being able to prove it, correct, since it would be impossible to simulate nothingness.

darwin's dead, hakker...

called from the heavens*
oh wait lol

That is assuming I am completely new to his line of thought. I do not claim to have objectivity nor to retain objectivity, so I doubt I have lost it. I am quantum mechanically an observer, not merely an object.

Small exerpts from it have been all over the media. Clearly I have not read the book, but one can reject a silly thesis if one comes across it.

I am not making any mistake whatsoever here anyway.



This is just basic philosophy. Stephen Hawking suffers the opinion that science can explain the metaphysics that underlie science. But gravity cannot explain gravity nor can it explain the spontaneous creation of the universe. The first part of that means that the existence of the world cannot explain why the world exists. So it would either have been caused or exist necessarily, like rational and mathematical relations. We can only tell that the laws of physics only hold in this universe in special cases. It is odd at least for the man who is known for his ardent belief in the Theory of Everything (which is basically unification of the explanation of the weak force, the strong force, gravity and the electromagnetic force) to postulate. Furthermore, gravity has to act on something (or rather, it has to distort something). If there is no universe, there isn't anything for gravity to act upon (or to distort).

He furthermore appears to rather slyly equate nothing with a quantum vacuum. ("Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.") That that is wrong should he know very, very well, since he has done plenty of groundbreaking research in that area. The notion of the quantum vacuum is that a very low level of energy can give way to a process in which matter forms from... a quantum vacuum. However, this does require space and time and from the understanding of spacetime from general relativity theory, these do depend very heavily on the presence of matter (in general relativity, gravity is actually the distortion of spacetime by mass). So even if the existence of matter is explained (though there are still problems with this of course), the existence of spacetime is not. This is not to invoke a God of the Gaps, but to point out that the lacunes in thought are far too huge for triumphalistic declarations.

Making churlish comments on religion cut no ice. It seems you are not aquainted with the fact that Hawking is rather infamous for his misinformed philosophy, what this basically is. Merely suggesting it is science is fairly detrimental to science.

The professor of mathematic John Lennox (who has also been active in physics) discusses some objections here.
http://johnlennox.org/index.php/en/reso ... ng_and_god
It really is not me just having a cheap dig at one of Britain's finest physicists.