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).
Mostly philosophical topics, especially pertaining to the philosophy of mind and whether an afterlife makes sense.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Bizarre Beliefs
Many philosophers and scientists have some truly bizarre beliefs. But undoubtedly, the denial of consciousness is the most bizarre. Indeed,...
Popular Posts
-
Note: This response is approximately 13,000 words long. I have a shorter version of approximately 5,000 words that I have called A Review ...
-
1. Preliminary I recently finished reading The Soul Fallacy by Julien Musolino for the second time, and I thought I'd pen down some of...
-
I read an article by Ralph Lewis M.D entitled: Is There Life After Death? The Mind-Body Problem He attacks any possibility of an afterlife....
-
1. Introduction I read this article a couple of weeks ago by a professor of philosophy called John G Messerly. He says: There has b...
-
5/11/2019 Edited to add: For an expanded and superior consideration of this issue, see my A Causal Consciousness, Free Will, and Dualism . I...
-
Introduction This is the first part of an intended series of posts addressing alleged problems with the concept of reincarnation. Perhaps ...
-
People ask what's the point of life, what's the point of the Universe, and even if there's an afterlife, what would be the point...
-
1. Introduction Common sense holds that what has been labelled the secondary qualities , such as colours, sounds and odours, exist out there...
-
Introduction I want to make it clear at the outset that when I refer to consciousness, I’m primarily thinking about qualia in its br...
-
Most people seem to take it for granted that the brain produces consciousness and they surmise this because when the brain is damaged, the p...
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.