Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'

reply to post by onequestion


You cannot divorce your ideas from their voice. If you had said anything that shone with some glow of insight I would certainly have reacted differently.

Originally posted by onequestion
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

But in this instance... wouldn't your brain also be responsible for the experience of the others confirming for you the identity of the sofa?

So what then does that make the other person and the sofa?

Outside individuals confirming the basis of reality.
You insinuate earlier that reality is basically your brain manufacturing it...and thats all well and dandy so long as there is not a single other person in the universe with conflicting perceptions.

If I accept myself as someone in existance, and I can see little difference between you and I, then I must also conclude that you are also in existance..so, if we both see the sofa as a sofa, then we can confirm it is indeed just a sofa...however, if I see the sofa as a monster, and you see it as a sofa only, then we need a 3rd person in here...then majority rules. This applies to the physical.
As far as things that cannot be measured, such as the "soul" of the sofa..well, since it cannot be measured, then everyones view is equally valid...meaning any factual statements is invalid because there is nothing measured that can be agreed upon...even if 7 billion other individuals collectively believed the sofa had a soul and I alone did not think that, my view is equal to theirs until they provide proof,

but, as far as the material world goes...reality is mutually agreed upon measurements...my perception will not change the nature of objective reality.

reply to post by v0ice0freas0n


Either participate in whats happening or don't. Either fully explain your position or have no position period.

Your position that i offer no insight is found completely baseless. If you don't understand the insight i have to offer, then mybe your not asking the right questions or participating in a thoughtful manner.

If i refuse to understand something and am off base, upon further investigation of my ideas, then show me how or where.

He is an intelligent man who is entitled to his opinion. But someone cannot physically prove if heaven exists or not, so it isn't really Mr. Hawking's place to say whether or not it does with such certainty. Because, simply put, he does not know.

It makes me wonder if a life subjected to so much objectivity and science has molded his outlook on things of a spiritual nature in a biased way that is negative.

reply to post by SaturnFX


I pretty much agree with that. Sprinkle on a little many worlds theory for posterity's sake.

reply to post by onequestion


Actually, the more I read what your saying, the more I realize you and I are not on the same wavelength...I think you may be off topic here as it doesn't really pertain to the discussion...if I am reading you right.

however, you could just be talking a bit in yoda-speak and I missed how its connected.

reply to post by SaturnFX


But if my brain is the interface module of experience for the observation of my mind, then my brain is creating you along with the sofa. It is more then likely also creating the objectivity of you based off of past experience and how, through my mind you experience the sofa subjectively. I mean essentially i have a record of you in my mind in order to remember you in the first place.

You understand what i mean?

reply to post by onequestion


I already explained myself fully, but your response (regardless of the misspelling, which yes, ultimately, is semantics) seems to indicate that you don't understand the main thesis of my statement. Regardless, I think we're all more or less defending the same concept with a different vocabulary.

I think its on topic because we are discussing the heart of the issue proposed by the OP and the content of the thread. If i am wrong, i will gladly step aside.

reply to post by onequestion


en.wikipedia.org...

is this what you're driving at?

Originally posted by onequestion
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

But if my brain is the interface module of experience for the observation of my mind, then my brain is creating you along with the sofa. It is more then likely also creating the objectivity of you based off of past experience and how, through my mind you experience the sofa subjectively. I mean essentially i have a record of you in my mind in order to remember you in the first place.

You understand what i mean?

the initial understanding is that you have faith (hate that word) that what you experience is real.
Yes, we could all be in the matrix experienceing nothing but subjectivity...this is one of the rare cases when faith is actually used in order to just carry on.
Yes, I could be in a dream and you, this keyboard, and everything is simply manifestations of my brain that is currently laying catatonic somewhere...however, its a very good program if that is the case...props to the designer, very convincing job.

This is really starting to bug me. He's a smart guy, sure, but he's not the freaking oracle!!

And while I love a good 'is there an afterlife' discussion as much as the next guy, I really think this thread should be about why exactly do we care what Hawking thinks about the subject?

I will admit that the area of spirituality and the soul probably overlaps with quantum physics to a certain degree, but not enough that someone like Hawking can reach a solid conclusion on any of those subjects.

Where's the article about what Simon Cowell thinks of the existence of the afterlife. Ultimately, it would hold as much merit.

I would recommend smoking some '___' and re-activating the Pineal Gland before making ANY decisions or judgments on religion or death.

Stephen Hawking sounds like your typical atheist. They have this irrational blind spot of hatred towards religion and it clouds their judgement.

Hawking is debating religion not spirituality. You can be spiritual without following a particular religion. Most atheist never stop to ask is the afterlife something that occurs naturally. As you can tell, Hawking is concerned with debating Heaven so his real target is religion.

A person can find spirituality in things like non locality and entanglement. They can say an interconnected oneness produces these universes and this interconnected oneness is God.

An atheist can't say wether this is true or not, they can only be secure in their own beliefs and live their life. When some scientist make these silly, grand proclamations based on nothing but their personal belief system, they look bad.

Originally posted by PlanetZorch
I would recommend smoking some '___' and re-activating the Pineal Gland before making ANY decisions or judgments on religion or death.

I would recommend not using mind altering drugs to make decisions about the nature of reality.

My first comment in a while. I guess I'm over do here.

Scientists like Hawking have accomplished some extraordinary discoveries, and I enunciate the word discovery. While he may not have found conclusive evidence for a heaven he hasn't created anything.

Read '___': The Spirit Molecule by Dr. Rick Strassman. That's a book with some scientific explanation of spiritual phenomena , and he is arguing for it. It is a very enlightening book from a scientific setting granted by the FDA, and DEA.

Back to my original point. Hawking has discovered his concepts but look at the most beautiful man made creations and the perspectives of their creators.

Woody Allen once said that Mozart's Symphony 41 proved the existence of God. Certainly, a symphony of such grandness and scale had, until the summer of 1788, never before been seen in the musical universe. Its implications for the direction of music in the future, and its influence on future composers is immeasurable. What makes Mozart's Jupiter symphony worthy to share the name of the most powerful god of the Roman world? The answer to this question comes in the Molto Allegro, and more specifically in its coda, (8:09-8:36). In the coda, Mozart takes the five musical themes or melodies that had been developed throughout the final movement, and does something that no one has ever achieved to the extent that he did, not even the illustrious Beethoven. What Mozart does is take these five themes and combines them to create a fugato in five-part counterpoint. That is, he takes the five melodies and simultaneously plays them in a variety of combinations and permutations. Imagine five separate melodies, all with their own notes, being played simultaneously, but each constantly changing. It's impossible for the human ear to focus on the enormous amount of notes that this simultaneous playing and constant changing entails. The effect is that the music seems to encompass an infinite amount of sound. With lesser two or three-part fugues, it is occasionally possible to sense everything that is going on. Once you get to four voices, it's nearly impossible to detect all of the nuances of the melodies. With five, well, only God could completely grasp its profundity.

Science may explain nature but scientists have no match for the brilliance of the creators such as those that created these masterpieces. Their perceptions on spirituality vary far greater off than Hawkings.

Originally posted by Matrix Rising
When some scientist make these silly, grand proclamations based on nothing but their personal belief system, they look bad.

I agree with that

just that.

the rest of the atheist rant was just that...a rant.
his statement of being no afterlife or whatnot is not an atheist position...atheists may also not believe in one, but should they state there is none, then they crossed from an agnostic atheist, to a gnostic atheist.

So, in that moment, he was acting as a gnostic...he "knows"

reply to post by v0ice0freas0n


Source...

Im not sure exactly how i feel about the wave function collapse.

This is where it gets tricky because this is where observation meets beliefs and the road starts to blend in with the forest.

I say this because having have stated my previous position on how the brain creates an interface module for the self. I think there is more to this system of beliefs we carry that affect the outcome of the observation.

So does the wave function want itself to collapse in order for you to understand the meaning of the wave function? I guess is what it really comes down to right?

reply to post by elfulanozutan0


All of those are just bad
sounds like a bunch of pipes screeching together mixed with bangs and clashes.


perception...isn't it a grand thing
(was making a point, I like classical music, but not sure how creative endevors have anything to do with scientific persuits...if I need to figure out the trajectory required to launch a satellite that circles around jupiter, I won't be listening to beethoven for coordinance...comparing apples to cats.)

reply to post by SaturnFX


Without a proper grasp of music theory, it's hard to make a profound statement on the topic.

Music is very much a science, sometimes those who aren't properly educated on the subject don't understand it's ramifications.

Sound is the medium of language, and music is the language of that medium.

The language of music was placed in nature and humans happened to discover it and some have utilized it properly.

Talking about science and music. Did you know that the law of the octave (a musical term) led to the discovery of the periodic table of elements? Read the Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly Palmer Hall, particularly the sections on the schools of Pythagorean Thought. Bach called his music a science and rightly so. Music is the utilization of sounds (acoustics/physics) A very mathematical language with of theory been able to be scientifically proven. Modern music theory was organized nearly 1000 years ago and modern scientific technology was able to confirm it centuries later. Thank God for Pythagoras.

There is also a correlation of light and sound 7 colors in a rainbow 7 colors in the diatonic scale. Very long reading and I'm reciting from memory here, all my research was lost on my old laptop. Still working on the thread. The esoteric research is rather insightful.