--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "emptybill"
<emptyb...@...> wrote:
>
> Very few scientists have any training in Western philosophy,
> much less Eastern. The same goes for training (or even
> basic classes) in the philosophy of science. Most of
> them look even more foolish when they open their mouths
> and demonstrate how totally ignorant they are about
> theology. They show a lot of arrogance and do so without
> any sense of self-reflection
You make a good point IMO!
Hawking says this apparently:
"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," Hawking writes.
"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch
paper and set the universe going."
There seems to be a lack of curiousity about what kind of
thing a *law* might be. If so, that's very negligent from a
philosophical point of view! In this physicist's tale, the
*law* appears to *be* some kind of *thing* whose existence is
in some sense *prior* to that of the universe. What a puzzle
of ontology!
This kind of thinking about laws seems to me to be just
another "turtle"-style explanation for the existence of
everything-as-we-know-it (ironic really, as Hawking refers to
this in his "Brief History of Time"). Just replace "turtles"
by "laws":
----
William James, father of American psychology, tells of meeting
an old lady who told him the Earth rested on the back of a
huge turtle. "But, my dear lady", Professor James asked, as
politely as possible, "what holds up the turtle?" "Ah", she
said, "that's easy. He is standing on the back of another
turtle." "Oh, I see", said Professor James, still being
polite. "But would you be so good as to tell me what holds up
the second turtle?" "It's no use, Professor", said the old
lady, realizing he was trying to lead her into a logical trap.
"It's turtles-turtles-turtles, all the way!"
----
Then again, as well as the ontological headache, philosophy
geeks will feel the need to scratch that darn epistemological
itch triggered by talk of *laws*. A *law* implies some kind of
non-trivial *necessity*. How could we ever *know* neccesity
except in the trivial sense - when something is true by virtue
of the meaning of words ("all bachelors are unmarried men" is
necessarily true, but does not tell us anything about
*reality*. only about the meaning of some words in English).
I guess Hawking would say that his *law" (laws?) are
mathematical *things*, and the necessity of the fundamental
laws of physics is the reflected glory of the necessity that
the laws of mathematics appear to possess (is this so far from
Plato?). But rather like 'turtles upon turtles', all this
achieves is to shove the mystery of that peculiar thing
"necessity" one level on i.e. from physics to mathematics.
'Cos when it comes down to it, our *knowledge* of mathematics
is a very odd, puzzling thing indeed! (IMO of course, and only
if you have an inclination to be bothered by such things.
Probably better to just chop wood and carry water?).
