[Avodah] Stephen Hawking and God

[Micha Berger]

There is much todo in some circles about Stephen Hawking's latest
book. Co-written by Leonard Mlodinow, but it's Hawking's name in science
and sheer genius that gives the book its gravitas, not Moldonow's
explanatory abilities.

Here's one sample review from The Washington Post
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302118.html>
(shortened to <http://bit.ly/bVZCBn>. A snippet:
    [They] have taken on that ultimate question in a somewhat more
    rigorous form by asking three related ones:

    Why is there something instead of nothing?

    Why do we exist?

    Why does this particular set of laws govern our universe and not
    some other set?
    ...
    With that background, Hawking and Mlodinow get to the real meat of
    their book: the way theories about quantum mechanics and relativity
    came together to shape our understanding of how our universe
    (and possibly others) formed out of nothing. Our current best
    description of the physics of this event, they explain, is the
    so-called "M-theories," which predict that there is not a single
    universe (the one we live in) but a huge number of universes. In
    other words, not only is the Earth just one of several planets in
    our solar system and the Milky Way one of billions of galaxies,
    but our known universe itself is just one among uncounted billions
    of universes. It's a startling replay of the Copernican Revolution.

    The conclusions that follow are groundbreaking. Of all the possible
    universes, some must have laws that allow the appearance of life. The
    fact that we are here already tells us that we are in that corner of
    the multiverse. In this way, all origin questions are answered by
    pointing to the huge number of possible universes and saying that
    some of them have the properties that allow the existence of life,
    just by chance.
    ...

As USA Today quotes from the book:
    Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than
    nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to
    invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

Since this book brings to public discussion an issue I've mentioned here
before, I'm going to repeat myself for da mah lehashiv purposes.

M-theory is not a theory. Here they more accurately describe it as a
set of theories -- but that set is open. There is as of yet no testable
prediction that can be experimentally verified.

(M-theory grew out of string theory, and it's not a theory in the
scientific sense either. For other problems with both, see Roger
Penrose's review in the Financial Times at
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bdf3ae28-b6e9-11df-b3dd-00144feabdc0.html>.
Penrose is another major physicist who made a name for himself writing
popularizations.)

Second, the whole explanatory power of M-theory is not the features of
the M-dimensional branes (from the word "membrane") that it involves.
Rather, it's from the concept of a multiverse -- the notion that our
universe is just one "corner" of a far grander idea.

So, IOW, Hawking's claim that one doesn't need to invoke G-d to explain
the origin of a universe that supports sentient life involves a concept
that is (1) not scientifically provable or disprovable, and that (2)
involves positing the existence of an infinity can not be reached
empirically. Epistomologically and topically, he's talking religion.

Hawking didn't so much replace the need for G-d in the argument by design
as posited his own kind of deity.

One that lacks purpose and values, and thus poses no demands on the
individual.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet
micha at aishdas.org        about things most people don't watch even on
http://www.aishdas.org   Yom Kippur.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter