This week Stephan Hawking, a prominent world renowned physicist, has declared that the creation of the universe did not require the hand of "god". He states that pure scientific methods such as gravity could by themselves have created our world without any external intervention. He states this with confidence and lucidity. Unfortunately this declaration, a surprise to many, perhaps indicating Mr. Hawking is not quite as confident and lucid as he might hope. I have read 2 of Stephan Hawking's books and totally enjoyed them, once I reread portions multiple times until I finally came to grasp the complexity of what he was saying.
Quite simply his books examine our phyiscal world, theoretical physics, and the infinite possibilities still waiting for man to discover. It should be noted that no where in Mr. Hawking's books does he completely rule out all possibility of some form of external involvement, forces, or intervention in our universe. He consistently says "never say never" when speaking of the forces out of man's control. And there's the rub with his new statement. It seems to be the "atheist spin readers digest" verison of his previous written works. Mr. Hawkings has always left the door open for the possibility of some external involvement. He seems in this statement to be trying to close that door. Let me see if I can explain my perspective on this complicated issue as layman, non-physicist, and non-god observer of the universe.
1) The universe exists. I think we can all agree on that.
2) We have theories of how it was created such as the widely accepted Big Bang Theory. But that is only a theory based on our current understanding of the laws of physics, and the possibilities of theoretical physics.
3) Theories like the Big Bang sound reasonable. We trace back each object's (planet, star, moon, etc.) path till we find the common origination point of all major objects often called the "singularity of infinite density". Everything in the universe was condensed into a single point, and when that exploded it created the universe by hurling matter in every direction (360 degrees) from the point of singularity.
4) Our universe is currently expanding everyday away from that point of singularity.
5) But now some theoretical problems downplayed by Big Bang physicists appear. Simply put the expansion of the universe is not slowing down as is required by the laws of physics. In fact the expansion is increasing in speed. This directly contradicts the laws of physics (Force = Mass X Acceleration) where acceleration decreases over time eventually causing the object to slow down and stop. An object's decreasing acceleration energy can be caused by friction, gravity, etc. For an object acceleration's energy to increase means that forces external to that object are increasing it's energy causing it to expand faster (gravity, magnetism, etc.). Where energy increases acceleration increases. So the major commonly accepted theory of universe creation, the Big Bang, DOES NOT follow one of our basic laws of physics. Somewhere, something is excerting forces on all the objects to increase the speed of expansion. As yet those external forces are undefined and at this time unknown. What this means is that only theoretical physics can be used to describe how the universe was created. Scientific real world physics cannot explain the behavior. Which causes a big problem when trying to prove a theory.
6) There's the rub. Our all encompassing, accepted as gospel, scientific truths, all inclusive, complete, exact, proven science laws of physics, our fixed set of laws predicting the entire physical world cannot explain the current Big Bang theory of how that world was created. That is most troubling for the Big Bang theory.
7) Physicists are working on explaining the external forces causing the faster expansion. I bet soon they'll have a theoretical explanation soon. But regardless of what they deduce, induce, and produce there is only one thing for certain. There is some external force(s) effecting all expanding objects within our universe. Since that force is external to the universe then it is undefined by our sciences and tools, and cannot be measured by physics. Since it is undefined means it could be an alien civilization's power source, an infinite structure of entangled particles, or something we might call god. Note: entangled particles is a recently discovered phenomenon where forces on an object cause remote forces on another object that should be completely out of range of first object's forces. No definitive explanation has be found for these entangled particles. It's kind of like the instantaneous teleportation of force(s) from one object to another remote object with no visible wires. Now that sounds really cool, doesn't it ?
8) OK, so that's the current state of man's knowledge of the Big Bang creation theory. Now let's look at the bigger picture definition of what creation really means.
According to most physicists the Big Bang theory is a valid possibility of the creation of the universe. Unfortunately I completely disagree. The Big Bang theory describes the transformation of matter from one form to another form, from one place to another place, but it does not define the original creation of that matter. Before the Big Bang all matter, as we assume it, already existed in that infinitely dense point of singularity. The action of the Big Bang merely instantaneously, we assume, scattered the matter existing within itself to the vast reaches of space in a debris field of 360 degrees from the massive explosion at the point of singularity. But during the Big Bang matter was not created. It already existed in another form within the infinitely dense singularity.
How and why the Big Bang occurred is another interesting situation. Did the singularity exist for millions or billions of years and then suddenly something triggered the explosion ? Is the universe constantly forever repeating compression of all matter at the singularity (gravity forces), and then explode the singularity, and when matter gets a certain far distance away the forces for compression phase to the singularity point starts all over. Could this be going on every couple of billion years ? An constant expansion and compression forever ?
It's possible, and that could mean that the location and type of life in the universe could be different for each scattered debris field because it is based on the specific physical conditions at locations (objects, planets, stars, moons,etc.) within the debris field. Which might make us realize that we are not so unique, this was just our turn for life in the debris field. Next expansion some other location will have life. This also implies that life is random. An exploding singularity is not capable, we assume, of controlling the specifics of what matter goes where in the universe. I am not a believer in lots of life all over the universe. In my opinion life requires such a complex and exact set of conditions and circumstances between planets, Suns, Stars, Moons, planet inner core conditions , planet's abundance of water, and a vast array of chemicals in certain amounts, that the chance for life is statistically impossible. And yet here we are. And yet, whenever there is a lottery, which is statistically impossible to win, someone always wins it. So much for statistically impossible conditions. But back to creation.
If the matter already exists in the singularity before the Big Bang, then where and when was that matter created. This is the reality. At some point for creation, there's first nothingness, which also requires a place to actually be (where?), and second there must be the undefined appearance of non-nothingness, or matter. The miraculous creation of brand new complex atomic structured matter is not explained by any science known to man and it is required for our universe. So when, where, and how was all that matter created for the singularity ?
Now I know that a lot of atheists are taking what Stephan Hawking's stated as proof of no god. They might be right, although I think premature. But from my perspective, some miraculous set of conditions occured that created something from nothing. That set of miraculous conditions is undefined by science and therefore all options are a possibility including an external set of forces that can be, for lack of a better word, god. Does god exist ? I don't know but our very existence depends on the miraculous creation of matter out of nothing. It must take some talent to pull that one off.
As fas as Stephan Hawking's Beau Geste to Atheism. It is just that. A wonderful gesture, but in reality it is an empty promise that has no scientific facts supporting it. Because until you can define how matter magically appears, we are all just microscopic matter in the universe's vast expanding debris field.
