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 Topic: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe

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  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #30 - September 02, 2010, 03:07 PM
    that's the post of the month right there ^
    At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
    Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
    Downward to darkness, on extended wings. - Stevens
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #31 - September 02, 2010, 03:58 PM
    Quote from: z10 on September 02, 2010, 02:02 PM
    do you think the beauty and majesty of the cosmos can be reduced to the locomotive collisions of primal, inert matter? perhaps even, do you think that the human mind can be reduced to being the affect of such random collisions?


    What do I think? I think we are hurling through space and time, clinging onto this ball of rock, fumbling around in the swarm, pondering our theories and philosophies, trying to find some poetic supposition for chemical imbalances, trying to explain, pursue, or repress innate biologically vectored behaviour, led by the desire for interaction so we can impress our wants and needs upon others, or deny them theirs. We are the sum of our parts, the alchemy of wisdoms and experience, the feelings and gentle urges that form our conscience.

    I think humans are a beautiful creature, unique in that they will romanticise hot chemical fever in the blood and call it love, and the stirring in our loins we will call lusts, and all our animal appetites shall be desires, and we will always and forever apply our alphabets of feeling and emotion to the unimaginable, wonderfully unfathomable, vast and unknowable cosmos.

    I think we should take all the credit for making this primal and wild world beautiful, because we invented beautiful, we invented the word for it, and we describe it to each other in beautiful ways, and differ over it, and think it to ourselves, and we are it. We are beauty.
    Too fucking busy, and vice versa.
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #32 - September 02, 2010, 04:09 PM

    Ishina has landed on COEM like the meteorite that landed on Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs.

    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #33 - September 02, 2010, 04:14 PM
    I don't know why, but "Ishina" brings the Turkish word "ışık" to my mind. It means light.
    German ex-Muslim forum — My YouTube — List of Ex-Muslims —
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  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #34 - September 02, 2010, 04:14 PM
    Great post Ishina! I love it  Smiley
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #35 - September 02, 2010, 04:15 PM
    Quote from: Ishina on September 02, 2010, 03:58 PM
    What do I think? I think we are hurling through space and time, clinging onto this ball of rock, fumbling around in the swarm, pondering our theories and philosophies, trying to find some poetic supposition for chemical imbalances, trying to explain, pursue, or repress innate biologically vectored behaviour, led by the desire for interaction so we can impress our wants and needs upon others, or deny them theirs. We are the sum of our parts, the alchemy of wisdoms and experience, the feelings and gentle urges that form our conscience.

    I think humans are a beautiful creature, unique in that they will romanticise hot chemical fever in the blood and call it love, and the stirring in our loins we will call lusts, and all our animal appetites shall be desires, and we will always and forever apply our alphabets of feeling and emotion to the unimaginable, wonderfully unfathomable, vast and unknowable cosmos.

    I think we should take all the credit for making this primal and wild world beautiful, because we invented beautiful, we invented the word for it, and we describe it to each other in beautiful ways, and differ over it, and think it to ourselves, and we are it. We are beauty.

    Post of the month
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  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #36 - September 02, 2010, 04:17 PM
    Quote from: Ishina on September 02, 2010, 03:58 PM
    What do I think? I think we are hurling through space and time, clinging onto this ball of rock, fumbling around in the swarm, pondering our theories and philosophies, trying to find some poetic supposition for chemical imbalances, trying to explain, pursue, or repress innate biologically vectored behaviour, led by the desire for interaction so we can impress our wants and needs upon others, or deny them theirs. We are the sum of our parts, the alchemy of wisdoms and experience, the feelings and gentle urges that form our conscience.




    The ideas of primal matter are just as much an abstraction as the idea of beauty. They are both symbols attached by us to the world in an attempt to explain it or interpret it. However, the crux of the matter is whether this conception of random collisions amongst inert matter can completely explain the totality of all reality in this universe.

    The conception of matter is a quantitative one. Particle A is different from Particle B because it has different quantitative values for charge/ spin/ mass etc. Now, do you think it is possible to explain any part of human experience using just quantitative difference? If for instance, you were to be told the different wavelengths of different colours could you, from that information alone, extract the experience of seeing those two different colours or would you need more than a quantitative value to experience them? If you do require more, then there must be more to the basic ontology of reality than just primal, inert, and mathematicaly exhausted matter - matter must somehow explain experience.
    At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
    Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
    Downward to darkness, on extended wings. - Stevens
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #37 - September 02, 2010, 04:20 PM
    Quote from: abuyunus2 on September 02, 2010, 01:30 PM
    “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.”

    I think he has a book coming out or it may be out already, so it would be interesting to hear the scientific mechanism he proposes for this, if he proposes one at all. Currently I haven't heard any theoretcial physicist propose a scientific mechanism of how the Universe would create itself from nothing, so should be interesting to hear what the great man has to say. But the part of the sentence that catches my attention is 'Because there is a law such as gravity'. Why is there a law such as gravity? why in fact are there laws for there for electromagnetism? or quantum mechanics? These are incredibly inticrate and mathematically beautiful laws - are we to assume that they simply have always existed? It's taken ceturies and a lot of genius to figure these laws out - but are we taking for granted that they simply happen to exist?

    I thought his explanation was a bit off a cop-out also when I read it (but I dont know if he goes into further detail in his book).

    He says it can create itself out of nothing, but he puts in the caveat about the laws of gravity already being in place.  So its not really coming out of nothing.  The only way I manage to rationlise it is in the same way as theists do with their Gods, i.e. that they've always been around.
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  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #38 - September 02, 2010, 04:21 PM
    Quote from: billy on September 02, 2010, 04:09 PM
    Ishina has landed on COEM like the meteorite that landed on Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs.




    baah, as much as i wanted to use the kneel emoticon, this was a lame way to do so.
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #39 - September 02, 2010, 04:29 PM
    Quote from: osmanthus on September 02, 2010, 02:16 PM
    Yeah but inflation is post-BB so wouldn't have any bearing on pre-BB stuff, unless I'm missing something.

    I have a suspicion that either what Hawking said wasn't quite what he was reported as saying, or else he just made an off the cuff comment in an attempt to dumb it down and it came out a bit dumber than it should have.

    Call me cynical, but perhaps he's just saying something to spark off curiosity & controversy in order to sell his book.
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  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #40 - September 02, 2010, 04:31 PM
    Quote from: Ishina on September 02, 2010, 03:58 PM
    I think we should take all the credit for making this primal and wild world beautiful, because we invented beautiful, we invented the word for it, and we describe it to each other in beautiful ways, and differ over it, and think it to ourselves, and we are it. We are beauty.


    does that mean humans are quite special?
    ''we are morally and philisophically in the best position to win the league'' - Arsene Wenger
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #41 - September 02, 2010, 04:32 PM
    Quote from: billy on September 02, 2010, 04:09 PM
    Ishina has landed on COEM like the meteorite that landed on Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs.


    I wonder who you are referring to as the dinosaurs Wink
    At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
    Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
    Downward to darkness, on extended wings. - Stevens
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #42 - September 02, 2010, 04:34 PM
    Quote from: abuyunus2 on September 02, 2010, 02:32 PM
    humans or monkeys or cats should potentially be able to understand anything in the universe - but the fact that it appears that we humans actually do posess the intelligence for this, i personally think is quite amazing and when i think about it deeply, strikes me as a little strange i guess

    Yes we do, but dont forget the animal world can do things that we cant do either.  We're all good & specialists at something or other - thats what evolution is all about.  

    If we were the same as everything else, we'd never have got to this stage, and they wouldnt have either.

    Heck, I pidgeon can find its home when its blindfolded & driven hundreds of miles away.  Does this remarkable ability strike you as strange too?
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  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #43 - September 02, 2010, 04:35 PM
    Quote from: z10 on September 02, 2010, 04:32 PM
    I wonder who you are referring to as the dinosaurs Wink


    probably all the muslims, hehe
    ''we are morally and philisophically in the best position to win the league'' - Arsene Wenger
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #44 - September 02, 2010, 04:36 PM
    Quote from: RIBS on September 02, 2010, 02:49 PM
    Cheesy this was just few mins ago from the life chat with Dawkins on the subject:


    Brilliant - thats going in the quotes section  Cheesy
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  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #45 - September 02, 2010, 04:41 PM
    Quote from: z10 on September 02, 2010, 04:17 PM
    The ideas of primal matter are just as much an abstraction as the idea of beauty. They are both symbols attached by us to the world in an attempt to explain it or interpret it.


    Beauty is a fickle and subjective concept - a man-made, intangible entity. Unlike matter.
    Too fucking busy, and vice versa.
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #46 - September 02, 2010, 04:41 PM
    Quote from: abuyunus2 on September 02, 2010, 04:31 PM
    does that mean humans are quite special?

    No, it means only we call ourselves beautiful, to the universe we are just a irrelevent collective mass of atoms.
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  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #47 - September 02, 2010, 04:43 PM
    Quote from: IsLame on September 02, 2010, 04:34 PM
    Yes we do, but dont forget the animal world can do things that we cant do either.  We're all good & specialists at something or other - thats what evolution is all about.  

    If we were the same as everything else, we'd never have got to this stage, and they wouldnt have either.

    Heck, I pidgeon can find its home when its blindfolded & driven hundreds of miles away.  Does this remarkable ability strike you as strange too?


    i think you misunderstood me and i've discussed it on another thread here before (with Os I think) so i won't go into it again
    ''we are morally and philisophically in the best position to win the league'' - Arsene Wenger
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #48 - September 02, 2010, 04:43 PM
    Quote from: Ishina on September 02, 2010, 04:41 PM
    Beauty is a fickle and subjective concept - a man-made, intangible entity. Unlike matter.


    matter is just as much of a man-made concept - it is an idea used to explain the world, whether it is right or wrong doesn't change the fact that man invented the idea of matter as a tool of understanding.
    At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
    Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
    Downward to darkness, on extended wings. - Stevens
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #49 - September 02, 2010, 04:44 PM
    i see, z10 is an idealist?
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #50 - September 02, 2010, 04:45 PM
    Quote from: z10 on September 02, 2010, 04:32 PM
    I wonder who you are referring to as the dinosaurs Wink


    To be honest, I thought of that from a piece of Islamic graffiti on a desk in a lecture hall when I was at University. It was scrawled in black ink deep into the wood and said "Islam came to earth like a comet 1600 years ago with fury and energy cleansing humankind!", something along those lines.

    Beside it the beardo-weirdo had carved an image of a metorite crashing to the Earth.

    I wish I had thought of something good as a comeback to scrawl under it at the time, but, what the hell, doesn't matter, I got to twist and use it for Ishina later.

    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #51 - September 02, 2010, 04:45 PM
    Quote from: abuyunus2 on September 02, 2010, 04:31 PM
    does that mean humans are quite special?


    It means you're all gorgeous! 001_wub
    Too fucking busy, and vice versa.
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #52 - September 02, 2010, 04:47 PM
    Quote from: billy on September 02, 2010, 04:45 PM
    To be honest, I thought of that from a piece of Islamic graffiti on a desk in a lecture hall when I was at University. It was scrawled in black ink deep into the wood and said "Islam came to earth like a comet 1600 years ago with fury and energy cleansing humankind!", something along those lines.

    Beside it the beardo-weirdo had carved an image of a metorite crashing to the Earth.

    I wish I had thought of something good as a comeback to scrawl under it at the time, but, what the hell, doesn't matter, I got to twist and use it for Ishina later.




    awesome, I guess you could have called the result a nuclear winter but that would be just as sensationalist...
    At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
    Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
    Downward to darkness, on extended wings. - Stevens
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #53 - September 02, 2010, 04:48 PM
    Quote from: Ishina on September 02, 2010, 04:45 PM
    It means you're all gorgeous! 001_wub

    According to ourselves, certainly not other animals.  Well apart from my mates dog that was trying to rub off on my leg.
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  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #54 - September 02, 2010, 04:49 PM

    Quote
    I guess you could have called the result a nuclear winter but that would be just as sensationalist...


    But satirically effective  Afro
    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #55 - September 02, 2010, 04:49 PM
    Quote from: z10 on September 02, 2010, 04:43 PM
    matter is just as much of a man-made concept - it is an idea used to explain the world, whether it is right or wrong doesn't change the fact that man invented the idea of matter as a tool of understanding.


    No, the word 'matter' might well be a concept, but the actual phenomenon it is used to describe isn't.
    Too fucking busy, and vice versa.
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #56 - September 02, 2010, 04:50 PM
    Quote from: Ishina on September 02, 2010, 04:49 PM
    No, the word 'matter' might well be a concept, but the actual phenomenon it is used to describe isn't.


    That is what my reply above was addessed to. Do you think the concept of matter that we have is sufficient to explain experience?
    At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
    Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
    Downward to darkness, on extended wings. - Stevens
  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #57 - September 02, 2010, 04:51 PM
    Quote from: billy on September 02, 2010, 04:45 PM
    To be honest, I thought of that from a piece of Islamic graffiti on a desk in a lecture hall when I was at University. It was scrawled in black ink deep into the wood and said "Islam came to earth like a comet 1600 years ago with fury and energy cleansing humankind!", something along those lines.

    Beside it the beardo-weirdo had carved an image of a metorite crashing to the Earth.

    I wish I had thought of something good as a comeback to scrawl under it at the time, but, what the hell, doesn't matter, I got to twist and use it for Ishina later.



    You neednt have written anything, just put a strike through the second half of the sentence

    "Islam came to earth like a comet 1600 years ago with fury and energy cleansing humankind!", "
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  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #58 - September 02, 2010, 04:52 PM

    I wasn't that quick thinking back then, guys  Roll Eyes
    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
     Reply #59 - September 02, 2010, 04:53 PM
    the vague mix of science, philosophy and common sense on this thread is causing my brain to overload Smiley
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