[Avodah] Stephen Hawking and God

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Sep 07, 2010 at 09:52:47AM -0700, Harry Maryles wrote:
: I see no new explantaion here that eliminates God in explaining our
: existence. Stating that there are multiple universes just increases
: the numbers. Big deal! Why does it matter how many universes there
: are? So what if some of them contain life sustaining conditions...

If there is a logical reason for there to be an infinite number of
different laws of physics all coexisting in different places, then there
is no surprise that some of them support life, produced life, and that
that life reached sentience.

The numbers allow one to apply evolution-like arguments to the laws of
physics. Something is unlikely, but if you roll the dice enough times,
even the unlikely will happen.

: assuming that is true - Who created them? It is illogical to say that
: they created themselves - spontaneoulsy! WRT the origins of the universe
: (or multiple universes) - what makes M-theory any different than a single
: universe theroy?

A variant of your question:

M-theory is saying that given the existence of anything, and given that
that anything obeys some kind of laws of physics, the fact that one of
its universes includes laws of physics that eventually led to us is
explicable without invoking design.

But what about the existence of laws altogether? Or even the meta-laws
from which those laws arrived?

This answer gives Hawking a way to explain why the physical constants
are tuned to such perfect values. But not why there are constants to
begin with, nor why it involves these constants, these forces, these
symmetries, etc...

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
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter