Sunday, 21 October 2018

More on Stephen Hawking

I'm sick of hearing in the past few days that Hawking said that there's no role for God since the Universe can be explained by physical laws alone. How is his reasoning different from the following.

Let's suppose there were an experiment where a wad of £20 notes was placed on the ground outside.  We observe that every single person who see the notes stoop quickly down, put them in their pocket, and furtively look around.  So we can formulate a natural law that all human beings act this way.  There are certain patterns to their behaviour which always pertain.

Then a Hawking comes along and says we understand completely why £20 notes, initially lying on the ground, end up in peoples' pockets.  It's because of a law which says that when people see a wad of notes they will stoop down and place them in their pockets.  There is no need to appeal to any supernatural explanations -- that is there is no need to appeal to peoples' intentions, desires, motivations.

Obviously this reasoning is utterly asinine.  But it's *EXACTLY* the same as Hawking's reasoning! (as well as most scientists). 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments must relate to the blog post or they will not be published. Edit to add: I have no ads on here, and it should be obvious I also don't want people linking to pages selling goods or services. They will not be published.

Bizarre Beliefs

Many philosophers and scientists have some truly bizarre beliefs. But undoubtedly, the denial of consciousness  is the most bizarre. Indeed,...

Popular Posts