God, Physics, and Philosophy

I came across this (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100902/lf_nm_life/us_britain_hawking) article a few days ago via a friend's Facebook status update.  My initial thought was that it was not that interesting and actualy rather "dumb."  However, it is needless to say that I later went back to read the article and two emotions came over me.  I was, at the same time, very intrigued by the concept (of God not being necessary for the creation of the universe(s), and that the creation of our universe was an unavoidable outcome of the laws of pysics) and annoyed to the point where I wanted to dig through countless research in an attempt to propose a rebuttal.  As the book has not been released yet, and my "research" only numbering a few hours this blog post arose as a pre-reading analysis of The Grand Design.  I have no intention of purchasing the book, so I will have to wait until a local library has it on the shelves before the post-reading part two of this blog is posted.  However, if my interest in this topic lasts it may very well turn into my next 25-page paper; or (as physics, especially at this level, is far outside my usual academic topics) it may be as concise as two lengthy blog posts.

I)  When I first came across the article I thought the name Stephen Hawking sounded familiar but couldn't recall where I had heard the name before.  Nedless to say that I had absolutely no idea who Leonard Mlodinow (the book's co-author) was.  A biography of Prof. Hawking can be found here (http://www.hawking.org.uk/index.php/about-stephen).  The Grand Design is set for release tomorrow, September 7th, 2010 in the United States and September 9th in the U.K.

II)  There are, to my knowledge, three philosophical proofs for the existence of God.  On a side note it is irrelevant here to begin a debate over whether the term "God" specifically refers to the Christian God or some other almighty diety.  For the general purposes of this post and its content "God" is referring to God the Creator.  The previously mentioned arguments are "the first cause", "order from nature", and the "ontological" argument.  The theory that God is a first cause was instituted to stop the progression or rather regression of an infinite regress.  That is to say that in physicis it is (or was prior to Hawking) thought that matter is neither lost or gained and thus everything must come from something.  The trouble then is that the cycle never has a starting point.  God is sometimes instituted as the first cause and the cause of all further actions.  I do not recall the philosopher who first instituted this idea at the time of this post.  The second theory, that of order from nature, is that nature is such a complex thing and yet so precisely ordered that only God could have made it so.  Again, I do not recal the exact person who deduced this theory.  The third argument has gone trough a bit of a progression from Descartes to Anselm to Aquinas, and that is the ontological argument.  Anselm believed God to be the sum of all the greatest goods while Descartes held that you could not think something out of existence and if you thought and clearly percieved the definition of God, then God did exist.  Interesting enough, all of these arguments come along with a myriad of loopholes, controversy, and shortcomings... in other words, they all fail.

III)  I recally hearing in a philosophy lecture a while back that a man named William Dembski (http://www.discovery.org/p/32) had calculated the mathatmatical odds of impossibility.  That is, the event that is so improbable that mathematicians have deemed it literally impossible.  To my memory Dembski's number was 1 x 10 (to the 23rd).  I could not find any convenient sources to back up this information other than my own memory at the time of this post.  Howver, I did find a great wealth of controversy surrounding Dembski on both the intelligent design and mathematician sides of the argument.  Which leads me to my next person of interest.

IV)  My research on Dembski lead me to Roger Penrose (http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Penrose.html) and this (http://faizani.com/news/news_2003/math_impossibility.html) article.  The article references The Emporers New Mind by Penrose and Michael Denton's article in The New York:  The Free Press titled "Nature's Destiny."  The article puts into leman's terms what Penrose has calculated to be the probability of a universe being created that can produce and sustain human life.  Those odds are 1 out of 1 x 10( to the 10th to the 123rd).  That number is a bit unimaginable so allow me to assist.  One trillion is one million squared, one septillion is one trillion squared, one quindecillion is one ceptillion square, one untrigintillion is one ceptillion squared or a 1 with 96 zeroes following it.  The next largest number is one duotrigintillion which has 100 zeroes.  A googol is 1 followed by ten duotrigintillion zeroes.  A googolplex is 1 followed by a googol zeroes.  Penrose's number is 1 followed by a googolplex + 23 zeroes.  To save a lot of headache let me quote the article and say, "Even if we were to write an 0 on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the entire universe -and we could throw in all the other particles for good measure- we should fall far short of writing down the figure needed."  The article also states that "in practical terms, in mathematics, a probability of 1 in 10 (to the 50th) means "zero probability."  Penrose's number is more than a trillioni trillion trillion times less than that."  In short, even if multiple universes exist (containing billions of galaxies inside them and billions of solar systems inside each galaxy) the odds are VERY slim for any of them supporting human life.  Interstingly enough Penrose is a close friend of Hawkings.  For a list of "Names of Large Numbers" see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers .

V)  I have read from various press releases containing exerpts from the book that the authors start by talking about the Ancient Greeks and how the posited Gods and stories to explain the world around them.  I believe that there are a few interesting paradoxes here.  The first being that the ancient greeks saw a world around them and establised their religion a posteriori to their beliefs of the natural world, in contrast I find that many Western and/or Christian thinkers have begun their quest for knowledge with the a priori notion that God already exists or with their belief system already in place.  The result being that one gets their Gods from the natural world and the other gets the natural world from their God.  The next paradox I see is that with the advancement and acceleration of technological advances (in medicine, science, industry, etc.) things that once seemed very "supernatural" have a very taken for granted "common sense" or "well-duh" expected knowledge about them.  Medicince is a fantastic example of this.

VI)  In the debate of multiple universes two options came to mind on how this would happen.  I believe (from my limited reading of astrophysics) that the theoretical idea is that black holes (which are known to exist in varying sizes) comume all matter around them including light, the posess mass, and grow.  The theoretical inverse is a white hole in which nothing can enter.  The bridge between the two is the (again) theoretical wormhole which creates a seam-like protal through time and space.  A universe destroyed by blackholes and born through white holes.  The options I see here are either that there is one initial universe which spawns a second, from the second a third, and so on.  This reverts to the philosophical notion of a first cause, which universe was begotten and not made and who begot it?  The second option is that there is one "mother" universe which spawns many universes from it, the same questions are valid here, who created that which creates or begets what is begotten and not made?

VII)  It is assumed that the physics of our world hold true in others, and that they will in other solar systems, and galaxies and even  universes.  Or is it?  One article in the LA Times (http://latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-stephen-hawking-20100905,0,2573263.story ) says that one of the aurthors' primary questions concerns this matter.  The issue being that "one set of scientific laws might be appropriate to oune universe, or even galazy, while not quite fitting another.  Even laws we have taken for granted, like those relating to the speed of light, might be at odds in different realms of a near-infinite set of universes."  The article says that the authors are concerned with three primary questions, "If nature is governed by laws... what is the nature of those laws?  Are there exceptions to the laws (miracles)?  Is there only one set of possible laws?"  My primary question here is who created, wrote, or placed such laws in effect?  It is one thing to learn to play the piano and then memorize the notes to a symphony by Mozart, it is quite another to be the half-mad-half-genius musician who composed the piece "out of thin air."

VIII)  What is the impact of this on religion?  I believe that it is very little actually.  Hawking's book seems to treat the symptoms of creationism rather than conqur it at its roots.  For example, if our universe was indeed created out of another then the question only shifts from, "who created this universe?" to "who created that universe?"  That is more on the techincal side of things.  I believe that the practical side is even less influential and far more circumstantial.  I do not recall Kierkegaard's writings off the top of my head, but I found this website helpful (http://wutsamada.com/modern/kierkegaard.htm).  In short Kierkegaard says that somethings is not faith if it can be proven and that is because it has to be believed in.  This is particularly true for Christians.  The site cites Kierkegaard as saying that "a religions belif's truth depends on the subject's relation to it rather than on its relation to its object" and "it's true if it's believed passionately, unconditionally, absolutely, without inner reservation or doubt" and finally "it's not what it says (whether it's accurate) but how it's held ... that makes (a belief) true."  This book may assist in answering the fundemental question "where did we come from?" or "how did we get here?", but it gives no insight as to WHY are we here, WHERE are we going, HOW am I supposed to live, WHY am I supposed to live that way?  All of these are attempted to be answered by various religious systems, not by science.

IX)  There are many technical terms found in the previous and following links, so a dicitonary or specifically a physics dictionary will be quite handy.  The sources I counsoulted but have not cited thus far are as follows.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302118.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11161493
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/02/hawking.god.univers/index.html?hpt=c1

A Shot of Bourbon

Life's like a shot of bourbon.
It's short and sour
And after long enough
It's sure to kick your ass,
But somehow we find a way to enjoy it

It burns all the way to the end
Leaves you with a bitter grimmace,
But there's a moment to be held,
To be cherished,
Just before the sigh of relief
When you finish.

Knock back a few too many,
And get knocked down a few too many times.
Just when you're flying high
You feel the gravel in your guts
Because you're empty, like that bottle, inside.

Your head hangs heavy
Atop smoke filled lungs.
Wait for the sun to rise before you hang it up.
Chased below the label,
You'd undo it all if you were able.

Turned upside down to pull the last drop,
Drink it up and dedicate the good stuff.
Like a hollow play, puppets play and glasses clang.
It won't last too long.
It's bittersweet and cumbersome.

However burned and gray, broken and beaten up
We'll still pour another one.
A slow burn and a subtle hurt;
For better or worse, we've enjoyed it.