>>> Michael Pollak
> Actually, Holt is wrong about Hawking. In his book, *A Brief History
of
> Time*, Hawking wrote that if "the universe is really self-contained,
> having no boundary or edge, it would have no beginning nor end, would
> simply be. What place then for a creator?" (p. 157).
Leaving aside the fact that this depends on the concept of imaginary time (Hawking agrees that the universe we inhabit has a beginning in real time -- in fact he is one of the main guys whose work made this into the accepted wisdom), Hawking also famously says in the same book that if we could find a solution to the Theory of Everything (aka a scientific answer to the question of why anything exists) we would have "seen into the mind of God." Which many people have taken to imply a belief in what has been called the god of Spinoza and Einstein. Which many people would take to be the original model of Western pantheism (Spinoza, that is).
^^^^^ CB: That doesn't seem like a one God.
I thought that was interesting when I was reading Hawkings' Theory of Everything. This everything is what Engels holds we can't know ! A thing-in-itself is knowable. Everything, absolute truth is unknowable. Hawkings seems to think we can know everything.
^^^^^
But to get back to the original point, these meanderings of Hawking or
Vilenkin and other top cosmologists aren't evidence that god exists or is even a useful concept. But they are evidence that, FBOW, many of the scientists most qualified to pronounce on the subject don't find any fundamental incompatibility between a physical universe understood entirely in scientific terms and various possible conceptions of god.
^^^^^ CB: Yes, but it is not compatible with the some of the main and most famous conceptions of God, like monotheistic conception and unknowable mystery conception, and anthropomorphic conception and creator conception ?
^^^^^^^^
That doesn't mean you can't make a case for such incompatibility. But it does seem to mean that you can't claim this incompatability is so obvious and certain that you're a blind idiot if you don't see it. Clearly it's a topic on which (very) intelligent people can disagree.
Michael ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk