From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated,alt.atheism
Subject: "A Brief History of Time"
Followup-To: alt.atheism.moderated
Summary: Trust the followup-to line, please. I know what I'm doing.
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 92 18:15:21 BST
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

[Cross-posted to alt.atheism.]

I have recently read Stephen Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time".
Whilst the science in the book was interesting, I found the philosophical
discussion somewhat disappointing.

In chapter 8, Hawking seems confident that science will provide all the
answers, and that religion will be embarassed once more. He writes:

"[...] I attended a conference on cosmology organized by the Jesuits in the
Vatican. [...] At the end of the conference the participants were granted an
audience with the Pope. He told us that it was all right to study the
evolution of the universe after the big bang, but we should not inquire into
the big bang itself because that was the moment of Creation and therefore the
work of God. I was glad then that he did not know the subject of the talk I
had just given at the conference -- the possibility that space-time was
finite but had no boundary, which means that it had no beginning, no moment
of Creation."

He goes on to explain his theory. It's certainly a subtle and elegant bit of
science -- or mathematics, if you like. In a nutshell, he proposes that the
universe exists in imaginary time. This removes the mathematical distinction
between time and space, and makes spacetime Euclidean. This allows for the
possibility that spacetime is finite in extent but with no boundary or edge;
or as he less-than-helpfully puts it, "like the surface of the earth, only
with two more dimensions".

He seems pleased by this result; as he explains:

"There would be no singularities at which one would have to appeal to God or
some new law to set the boundary conditions for space-time. One could say:
'The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary.' The
universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything
outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE."

Hawking goes on to talk about families of possible histories which satisfy
the boundary condition of having no boundary, and which result in a universe
like this one. He argues rather vaguely that given his theory, a universe
like ours is not especially unusual. Perhaps he has a good mathematical proof
of this which is too complicated for public consumption, but it seems to me
that he's just speculating.

He then goes on to talk about why such a universe would result in our 
perceiving time the way we do. All interesting stuff, but by the time he
reaches the final chapter his enthusiasm for the philosophical completeness
of his scientific theories seems to have waned. He admits that even if the
theory is right, we are still left with unanswered questions, such as "[...]
why there should be a universe for the model to describe." As he succinctly
puts it, "Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?"

After reading the final chapter, I felt profoundly disappointed. It seems to
me that after all that theory, Hawking is no closer to answering the real
philosophical questions about the origin of the universe.  Yet he criticizes
philosophers for having an inadequate knowledge of science.

In "A Brief History of Time" we go from "How and why did the universe begin?"
to "Why does the universe exist?"; if anything, a retrograde step. The book
is perhaps the ultimate digression, a scientific and mathematical shaggy dog
story.

So, some thoughts which occur to me, in no particular order:

Are Hawking's theories more convincing and philosophically satisfying to
those who have the mathematical background to consider them in full
scientific detail?

Was I being hopelessly naive in hoping that perhaps science had come up with
some philosophically sound explanation of why the universe exists?

What did others who have read the book think of it? So far I've only talked
to one person about it, and he also found the final chapters disappointing. I
find myself wondering how many of the people who have bought the book
actually read it all the way through. I'm not exactly scientifically
illiterate, and I still found it heavy going in places.

So, thoughts please folks.


mathew
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-- 
Down, boy!  There's a good dogma.

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