"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. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."
Stephen Hawking
4 comments:
Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time.
I thought exactly that, Kirsty! Also, is there any evidence that the universe can and will create itself from nothing? Even if it could, is that reason enough for us all to exist?
Neil - I think his previous quote was a lot more scientific. I have a lot of respect for highly intelligent people who are willing to say 'I don't know' or even 'I don't think we can know'.
Fiona - Yes, there seems a bit of an illogical jump from 'can' to 'will'. 'Can and did' would make logical sense; 'can and will' seems to be suggesting a determinism (is that the right word) which suggests a purpose which starts heading towards God (or similar) again.
But I'm aware that I don't know much about what he said, so I may be taking it out of context.
Kirsty - didn't realise you had a blog - looks great. I look forward to catching up with the back catalogue in due course.
On post - JT makes a good point at Cave Adullam that those who mocked us for believing the Virgin Birth apparently have no problem with getting something from nothing after all!
Post a Comment