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Post details: Stephen Hawking's new book
09/06/10
Stephen Hawking's new book
In a USA Today article...
click here for a link to article
it is claimed that...the universe blasted itself into existence spontaneously, following M-theory's rules to create physical laws that we call gravity, magnetism and so on, purely by chance. "He's (Hawking) pointing to a crucial and fascinating feature of Einstein's general relativity (law of gravity): universes are free!" says Caltech physicist Sean Carroll in an e-mail. He's the author of From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time. "It costs precisely zero energy (and zero anything else) to make an entire universe. From that perspective, perhaps it's not surprising that the universe did come into existence."
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What is that "fascinating feature of Einstein's general relativity" that allows something to come from absolutely nothing? Or is it not really absolutely nothing, but, in fact, "something" from which the universe arrives. As pointed out by those in the know...it is assumed that the space-time continuum can be created in an inflationary big bang while maintaining zero net energy. If true, the universe might be the ultimate example of a free lunch. If not, then the quantum vacuum state might be the "something" from which the universe sprang as a physical entity. It has yet to be demonstrated that a quantum vacuum with the right energy density and growth rate can accompany the birth of a general relativistic, big bang universe. It is merely an article of faith on the part of some theoretical physicists that it can be so. One of the present issues is that the quantum vacuum energy density is about 120 orders of magnitude different from what can be reconciled with the apparent rate of acceleration of the expanding universe. But too many physicists don't want to let that stubborn fact get in the way of a good, just-so story.
It is clear that chance has no being (ontology); therefore chance is powerless. Chance turns out to be a label we give for processes we don't understand. If Parmenides was correct (ex nihilo nihil fit), and chance is powerless, then Hawking and Sean Carroll are wrong, as was John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell. With regard to the infinite regress, it is not "everything must have a cause", but rather, "every effect must have a cause". For example, the Judeo-Christian God is eternal, and not an effect, therefore, God (the intelligent designer?) was not caused.
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More critique of Hawking's ideas found...
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