Forget, “It’s turtles all the way down”;
now it’s multiverses all the way down
Keeping in mind that his previous theories relied on “imaginary time”; hot off of the press is the latest from Stephen Hawking along with Leonard Mlodinow.
Apparently, many atheists are happy because a book tells then that God need not exist.
For my parsed essay about creation, God, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Invisible Pink Unicorns, et al. I received an interesting comment responding to the statement that everything that begins to exist has a cause:
Why does something beginning to exist have a cause?
This is a Theological argument on cause and effect… which derives from Newtonion laws of physics. However, it has already been shown that Newtonian laws of physics did not exist until the big bang occurred, therefore before the big bang, an effect did not necessarily have a cause, so your argument is flawed and we are here because we are… simple [both ellipses in original]
I would appreciate it if my attention were directed towards something that began to exist without a cause. Now, the commentator does not know that the universe began un-caused yet,—even if I deny that everything that began to exist necessarily had a cause—I can still assert that it is far more sensical to conclude that it had a cause. Consider that the alternative is that “we are here because we are” which is logically, philosophically and scientifically bankrupt. Appealing to the “it just is” of the gaps is merely a killer of science and philosophy. By the way: applying the commentator’s very own “logic” they end up proving that God exists as; God is because God is (in the essay I explain why to assert God’s eternality is not merely an appeal to the “it just is” of the gaps).
Seems like Bertrand Russell’s ghost is haunting my machine. Some may be aware that Bertrand Russell’s erudite elucidation of this matter was expressed thusly, “The universe is just there, and that’s all.”1
On the M-Theory issue; I highly recommend the article,
The Grand Design~Hawking on Gravity and Creation-and William Lane Craig on More posted by (Big) PapaGiorgio.
Also, see my section on cosmology for info about the multiverse, the universe’s beginning, etc.
The AP reports:
Hawking likes the tale of the old lady who accused a lecturing cosmologist of talking nonsense: She knew for a fact that the whole universe lies on a flat plate, borne on the back of an enormous turtle. “What does the turtle stand on?” the lecturer asked. “Another turtle,” she replied. “It’s turtles all the way down.”
For some readers, the answer from Hawking, known for his work on black holes and author of the best-selling “A Brief History of Time,” and physicist Leonard Mlodinow, may not be much more satisfying.
The “grand design,” says Hawking, is to be found in M-theory, an idea launched in the mid-1990s…
“According to M-theory, ours is not the only universe. Instead, M-theory predicts that a great many universes were created out of nothing. Their creation does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god,” the book says. “Rather, these multiple universes arise naturally from physical law.”…
Hawking writes that M-theory is a unified “theory of everything” that Albert Einstein was looking for but never found.2
Of course, at this point we encounter a qualifying term which should rightly accompany any theory, any work in progress: a big “If.”
“If the theory is confirmed by observation, it will be the successful conclusion of a search going back more than 3,000 years. We will have found the grand design.”