Stephen Hawking claims a belief of heaven or an after life is a "fairy story"

[gibran2]

Ahh...I see it over and over--there's no escaping it: "If you can't prove my idea is WRONG, then my idea is just as PRESENTABLE as any other idea."

Well, that may be nice for those who wish to present wacky ideas...

...but those of us who wish to come to KNOW things, and WORK with knowledge (rather than only babble) need to try to WADE THROUGH the mystery of existence and try to DISCERN the true from the false (and never forget: an INFINITY of false things constantly vies for our attention. Apparently, only the human mind can create ENTIRELY FALSE THINGS and intrude them into our consciousness).

So, when science (through a LOT of careful work--NOT just "squishing" brains) says it finds a one-to-one correlation between the matter of the brain and the manifestation of consciousness...well, it's perfectly DEPENDABLE (based on the history of science) to INFER that the form and function of the brain is what generates consciousness, and (and here's the important bit), begin to construct FURTHER HYPOTHESES and experiments from that inference. After all, the brain is SHOCKINGLY complex in it's form AND function. It's quite reasonable to suppose that complexity might serve to generate SOMETHING quite extraordinary.

Ahh...but there's a GAP, isn't there! Science can't PROVE that the material of the brain is what generates consciousness! No. But that's what science is WORKING ON; and it has made significant progress. Until there's ENOUGH progress, however, those who look for scientific GAPS so they insert their GODS into them, will continue to pretend they have something useful and meaningful to say on the matter; even when they have no good BASIS to say what they say--but instead have only a wish for reality to be the way they personally want it to be.

Here’s something I’ve said before in other threads, but it’s worth repeating here:

The only thing we know for certain to be real is that “something” has conscious experiences, and we ordinarily call that something “self”.

Science is the study of the content, structure, patterns, and relationships of our own conscious experiences. Conscious experience seems to be all we have and all we are.

Science doesn’t study the physical world. The physical world as we know it is an abstraction used to make sense of the stream of our own conscious experiences. We cannot say whether or not a physical world exists outside of consciousness. (Which also means we can’t say whether or not our physical bodies exist.)

So we can be certain that our own conscious experience exists, yet we can’t be certain that physical reality exists.

If one accepts the “primacy of matter” paradigm, then everything you have to say makes perfect sense. But there is no reason to believe that the primacy of matter paradigm is correct. You know that your consciousness exists, but you believe that the content of your conscious experiences has an independent existence, and you call that independent existence “physical reality”.

There are no scientific tests that one can perform to prove existence of physical reality, yet we believe that physical reality has some sort of independent existence.

There are no scientific tests that one can perform to prove existence of consciousness, yet we know we have conscious experience.

 

[jamie]

Im sorry SWIMfriend, but what about the context of my statement did you not understand? I think I made it quite clear that I was referring to the fact that you cannt extend that statement beyond it's relevance to religious views that are obviousily bread out of dogmatic beliefs informed by iffy texts that have been retranslated over and over. Hawking is not saying anythign new or revolutionsary here and thats why I said it is something any kid could say with equal confidence.

You keep taking little parts of my post and quoting me with them and then arguing some point of yours againt them when they arent even relevant to what I was saying in the context of my post. This is not a debate against science and I wont arugue with someone who can't even read into the context of something.

I never ever made an arugement for or against wacko religious ideaologies, I am not into religion or god. My whole point was that only in the context of these weird religious ideologies as they are usually represented can such statements be accepted as well, true enough. We have enough evidence to rule out for the time being ideas of some man called god making women out of some guys rib etc..but not to say that we know there is nothing after death, and then even such things as "life after death" are open to interpretation since 10 different people can give you 10 different definitions of what such a thing might mean to them, and the brain might have entirely nothing to do with a given definition.

 

[SWIMfriend]

Wanting to believe is important and useful. At one time long ago our ancestors were completely at the mercy of having to live on the food the immediate environment presented to them. But one of them wanted to believe differently. He (or she) wanted to believe that plants made seeds, and it was the seeds that became new plants, and that if one collected many seeds they could plant them all in one place, and have a PLENTITUDE of food at hand! I'm sure there were hunter-gatherer "realists" who tried to discourage that dreamer; but the dreamer prevailed, and now we have agriculture, which makes the modern lives we live possible.

So "wanting to believe" is useful, and of course the imagination associated with that is the source of creativity.

Useful...except when what you want to believe is "false."

I think modern people entirely MISS the magic of science. They might want to jet down to South America for the magic of an ayahuasca ceremony, and never think about the SORCERERS who dig in the earth for minerals, and refine them in sacred fires to produce shiny metals; and their apprentices who shape the metal, with great, roaring machines, into shapes and pieces of all kinds. Let's not forget those BRUJOS who dig up gooey black muck, and transform it into pure ENERGY. Finally, WIZARDS in offices manipulate magic symbols to divine the sacred formulas for putting together the metal pieces and the energy from the black muck...to assemble the jet you fly in. All through the incantations of the science religion.

But an UNsophisticated person EASILY RECOGNIZES the magic of the scientists. Have a look at the believers of the Cargo Cult. They have SEEN the magic of science--these aren't just people, after all, who MAKE THINGS UP! They know what they see, so their BELIEF in jet magic is actually well grounded--far better grounded than those who believe in a "heaven" as a place to go to after dying! And so they have an EARNEST BELIEF that by building runways and control towers they can beckon jets filled with cargo to them. These people aren't fools from a fair, objective (but unsophisticated) perspective. They have SEEN the magic, and they attempt to INVOKE IT, as they see others doing.

So, to be effective--and not WASTE ENTIRE LIFETIMES in fruitless pursuits--one must carefully BALANCE a "desire to believe" with a willingess to be "realistic" about the world around us.

At present, the practice of science has very effectively found the "sweet spot" between those two conflicting tendencies. In fact, "science" (loosely defined as observation, analysis, testing, and refinement) has been the ONLY METHOD WE HAVE EVER FOUND to find new truths and utilize them. And science has constantly created MAGIC.

I think many (even today, even in highly sophisticated societies) can benefit by reminding themselves of that history and those facts.

 

[jamie]

^ While I agree with your post and what you outlined in it, I still dont know how it is so relevant to the way this discussion has been going. Noone here is making a direct arguement against the validity of science SWIMfriend. We all knoe science does alot of things for us and that it definatily has it's place..I dont think anyone here would disagree with all of that.

I dont think anyone here is "wanting" to believe anything. People have simply stated that there just is not enough evidence to discredit certain ideas. To imply that people then "want" to believe in those ideas is sort of dumbing down what they are saying in an attempt to prove your point, of which I dont think anyone is argueing against anyway.

 

[SWIMfriend]

^ While I agree with your post and what you outlined in it, I still dont know how it is so relevant to the way this discussion has been going. Noone here is making a direct arguement against the validity of science SWIMfriend. We all knoe science does alot of things for us and that it definatily has it's place..I dont think anyone here would disagree with all of that.

I dont think anyone here is "wanting" to believe anything. People have simply stated that there just is not enough evidence to discredit certain ideas. To imply that people then "want" to believe in those ideas is sort of dumbing down what they are saying in an attempt to prove your point, of which I dont think anyone is argueing against anyway.

Simply, any scientist would instantly dismiss a report of "heavens" as an empty and useless assertion. That is all that Stephen Hawking has done--through the initial process of science, the very first step attempts to gauge whether an assertion is in alignment with, or is in conflict with, knowledge that has been supported, and whether it presents a TESTABLE assertion. Assertions about "heavens" do not meet any reasonable criteria as being "interesting" or "useful" for examination. They can be, and SHOULD BE, dismissed outright (in any attempt to find truth), as Stephen Hawking has done.

 

[gibran2]

In fact, "science" (loosely defined as observation, analysis, testing, and refinement) has been the ONLY METHOD WE HAVE EVER FOUND to find new truths and utilize them. And science has constantly created MAGIC.

There are certain basic beliefs that we must all accept, and there is no way to prove whether or not these beliefs are true or false. You say that science allows us to find truths, but those truths exist within an existential context.

--- For example, suppose I hold the solipsistic belief that all of reality as I experience it is merely my dream, and that at some point in my existence (after death? before death? doesn’t really matter) I will awaken from the dream.

Does this belief conflict with science? Not at all. If this belief is true, then science, the scientific method, scientists, scientific discovery, the Earth, the universe, you, everything I’ve ever seen or heard or touched or smelled, are all parts of my dream. The “truths” discovered by science would in fact be truths that I created in my vivid imagination – true only within the context of my dream.
Is there any way for me to prove (while still alive of course!) that this belief is true or false? No.

--- Now suppose someone else believes that the physical universe has a solid, physical existence, more or less as we perceive it and independent of consciousness. Let’s ask the same questions:

Does this belief conflict with science? No.
Is there any way to prove that this belief is true or false? No.

--- Now let’s get crazy, and assume that we exist in a computer simulation of some sort – like in the “Matrix”. We’ll ask the same questions:

Does this belief conflict with science? No – physics as we know it is “programmed” into the machine.
Is there any way to prove that this belief is true or false? No.


The point I’m making with these examples is that they are all equivalent. One may seem more “sensible” than the others, but in fact they are all the same. They are the same in the sense that none of them conflict with our observations and none of them can be proven true or false. And since we can’t prove any one of them to be true, we can’t accept any one of them as fact.

So the question is: Why choose one belief as superior over the others?

 

[polytrip]

I sometimes feel i'm being tossed, or rather, that my mind is being tossed around between feeling strongly the way swimfriend does and the way gibran, fractal and entropyman do.

Some things entropymancer and gibran2 have said could have come right out of my mouth. Just as some of the things SWIMfriend has said.

Let's say i am familiar with both positions.
And that there is nothing that can be said to convince someone to change sides, because BOTH sides have equally strong arguments and often even apply the same line of argumentation, but from a different perspective.

I can say that on the one hand, believing in something in a religious way can be dangerous. It makes people blind for even the most obvious facts. (religious) People have a tendency to look down on the material world and to see 'material' reductionist explanations for psychological and spiritual phenomena as an insult almost to their entire being, an insult to life itself. They often feel science reduces anything to a lifeless machinery.

Too often, science is being dismissed by (religious) people. But it's hard to deny that for instance there is a relation between the brain and the mind. Claims that the soul must be an immaterial phenomenon are plainly contradicted by facts that are just as real as real can be. A person's character, a part of a persons soul can change as the result of brain damage. How could the soul be unrelated to anything material if a two-fists sized blob of fat and proteïns is in controll of how it behaves and what it's traits of character are?

When we look at these religious assumptions about the soul, god, the afterlife, we must admit that there is no way of knowing anything and all assumptions we can make are just that...assumptions. Things often claimed by religious people as 'evidence' like near-death-experiences are no real evidence: all of our equipment is inadequate to measure everything that goes on within a dying brain. There are good reasons to assume, on the other hand, that there is still a lot of activity going on within the brain of a patient who's just been diagnosed as 'braindead'.

And on top of all that, religious people not only make assumptions wich are objectively speaking nothing but random assumptions. For them one assumption is also the foundation for the next assumption, untill they've made a whole series of assumptions: God exists, he created earth, then he must also have created homo sapiens, than he must also have created man before he created women, then as the 'logical result of that' he must also consider men to be of higher importance than women, than, as a 'logical result of that' he must also be opposed to women in positions of power, so then, as the next 'logical result of that', he must also be against education for women, and as the next 'logical consequence' he must want people to blow-up schools that offer education to girls, and so on....

So religious assumptions make people blind for obvious facts and tend to cloud their sense of reason.

But then there is the other side of things.

After all that science has done for us, it still offers no explanation for all of the basic questions.

It offers answers on how counsiousness is structured but it doesn't offer answers on what counsciousness is and how there even can be something like counsciousness.
It doesn't offer an answer to how a universe can pop into existence 'out of nothing'.

It's like opening a clockwork and analysing it's mechanism, knowing every piece in it, knowing everything about it to the tiniest detail, but not ever being able to answer the questions about time.

And at the end you'd have to realise that science also relies on assumtions. It has to be said that they are the best of assumtions. They're called axioms, and their power lies in the innevability of them. But they're assumptions still, and every now and then we stumble upon something and we find that the reality behind some of those assumtions may be a little different than we always thought it was.

If modern physic's has proven anything, it would be that we have not the faintest clue what space and time realy are. About the most basic things there can be to rely on, and we don't have ANY theory that's solid enough not to break when we hammer on it.

The point is that you can only agree that there are things that science doesn't explain, if you 'see' those things. You must be willing to see what questions about counsciousness science doesn't answer and you have to 'see' what questions on space and time are left untouched by science.

So the obvious answer would be that this 'seeing' is all in the mind. But the point is that it's a seeing that's just as basic as accepting the axioms wich are the foundations of the empire of science. It's a little more abstract, but just as basic and essentially (especially when no alternative is offered) just as valid.

 

[smokerx]

you load it, you smoke it , you see it ... but hay its not true, it does not exist cos Stephen Hawking said so

do you get it ? it does not matter what Stephen Hawking think about what ever. he will never see the world through your eyes my friends.

hug to all

 

[SWIMfriend]

I sometimes feel i'm being tossed, or rather, that my mind is being tossed around between feeling strongly the way swimfriend does and the way gibran, fractal and entropyman do....

I don't actually think there needs to be a conflict. One can get one's ideas and information from ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE. I, for one, think ideas from the Buddhist tradition of thought have much of value to offer.

NEVERTHELESS,

1) In one's life, one must attempt to DISCERN the true from the false, in order to move ahead into (what one hopes is) ever greater, and more meaningful, TRUTH.

2) When one wants RESULTS in the real world, one quickly finds that scientific methods and logical/rational thought processes work VERY WELL INDEED to get those results.

PS: We already know that PERCEPTION can vary (and be altered), sometimes to very useful effect.

 

[Entropymancer]

Yes SWIMfriend, I think that's roughly what it boils down to. Personally, I have no patience for solipsism. I can't disprove it, but who really cares? I'd rather meet reality on its own terms, regardless of whether I can prove that it's reality. Whether my consciousness exists in somebody's dream, in the matrix, or in consensus reality is completely irrelevant to me. As long as it keeps treating me as real, I'll keep treating it as real.

 

[gibran2]

Yes SWIMfriend, I think that's roughly what it boils down to. Personally, I have no patience for solipsism. I can't disprove it, but who really cares? I'd rather meet reality on its own terms, regardless of whether I can prove that it's reality. Whether my consciousness exists in somebody's dream, in the matrix, or in consensus reality is completely irrelevant to me. As long as it keeps treating me as real, I'll keep treating it as real.

Yes, I agree with this. In the end, we don't need to know what “reality” is in order to experience it.

But when someone like Stephen Hawking says that the concept of an afterlife is fantasy, he’s making a claim to knowledge that he can’t possibly have. When making such claims, how is he any different than the people he criticizes?

It’s interesting that you reject solipsism. (I neither reject it nor accept it – it’s just another possibility in an endless list of possibilities.) However, if we look only at the evidence, I think we might have to conclude that “I” am the only one who exists. After all, the only thing of whose existence you can be certain is your own consciousness.

@ SWIMfriend – it is not possible to know the ultimate truth. And if one somehow comes to know ultimate truths, it is not possible to know if there are still deeper truths. All truth exists in a context, and outside of that context that truth is irrelevant.

 

[Entropymancer]

It’s interesting that you reject solipsism. (I neither reject it nor accept it – it’s just another possibility in an endless list of possibilities.) However, if we look only at the evidence, I think we might have to conclude that “I” am the only one who exists.

I believe I've read (though I can't recall where) that the proper philosopher's reply to this conclusion, if one has a face-to-face encounter with someone espousing it, is to smack them upside the head. As logically impeccable as the conclusion may be, it simply doesn't function well in practice.

I don't reject it in the sense that I claim to know that it's untrue; I reject it in the sense that it's simply not functional, and I do not find its moral implications to be consistent with the way I think human being ought to treat one another (i.e. as entities with intrinsic value).

 

[gibran2]

It’s interesting that you reject solipsism. (I neither reject it nor accept it – it’s just another possibility in an endless list of possibilities.) However, if we look only at the evidence, I think we might have to conclude that “I” am the only one who exists.

I believe I've read (though I can't recall where) that the proper philosopher's reply to this conclusion, if one has a face-to-face encounter with someone espousing it, is to smack them upside the head. As logically impeccable as the conclusion may be, it simply doesn't function well in practice.

It doesn't function AT ALL in practice. :lol:

 

[smokerx]

"God is Dead" , Stephen Hawking

"Stephen Hawking is Dead" , God

 

[Rising Spirit]

"God is Dead" , Stephen Hawking

"Stephen Hawking is Dead" , God

Hahaha... now this clever jest is just the comic relief I've been waiting for in this discussion. I would extend this sentiment one or two steps further and suggest that the existence of both, God the Almighty and Dr. Stephen Hawking, are aspects of this incredible process, self-awareness, which we all observe/witness in our own limited manner. And so, in accordance with the working of our individual minds, attempt to label and sort out.

I'm glad that gibran2 posted the link to his brilliant Marbles in a Box Principle. Otherwise, I was going to do it myself. Is it not the height of vanity to believe that any of us can spit out absolutes, when we are realistically perceiving merely the tiniest of fractions of what is possible to perceive? But that's the human condition in a nutshell.

Whether we agree or disagree about Stephen's beliefs about the absence of an Indivisible, Omnipotent Consciousness (The Cosmic Grid) and/or the possibility of existence after the physical universe is disconnected from said witness' external sensory receptors... is truly a personal issue. And since its is such a personal issue, I feel compelled to believe my mind and my own realizations about reality and this seemingly solid universe we cohabitate within. The whole time acknowledging that most of my understanding is born of illusion and that I will never really know anything beyond my ability to conceive of. Nobody could possibly be correct in this regard, for everyone else, for we all perceive slightly different transmissions of data. Thus, there is no constant and ultimate law, there are an infinity of alternate possibilities.

I also find it most amusing that anyone would bother discussing what an overtly left-brained humanoid like Stephen, has to say about anything beyond his range of perceptual data. Like was already stated, "I can't see it, so it cannot exist" is a rather childish attitude and one based on the basest form of egotism and an iron-clad adherence to purely logical conjecture. This is a very, very tight little universe to operate within, eh? I argue that much of this is simply ideological projection and cannot be of any real worth, as it offers nothing by way of an alternative explanation. Random chaos never seemed like a worthy explanation to me.

As we have recently discussed here on the Nexus, the "nothingness" which physicists and Zen Buddhist refer to, is not an absence of anything. It is an absence within our own understanding of nothingness, which is the primary point. There are many places which the logicians can never go to. So too, the mystic can hardly be expected to utilize abstract mathematics to merge into the Clear Light of the Void. Apples and oranges? Make mine kiwi fruit, cause I don't fit comfortably into either polarity.

Ultimately, we stand on the frontiers of a new awakening, collectively, we much each find the balance with our own cosmology. So, I respect the honesty of agnostics, more than the atheists or blind-faith believers. It's good to keep an open door to all possibilities. We much always question things ourselves or we are merely lemmings. If the lens of reason cannot reveal the living presence of Spirit, and it cannot, we must utilize another lens altogether. Intuitive contemplation is perhaps the only sane way to approach the concept of God. And yes, this may only be true for myself but that's what I have come to find.

No insult intended out of any ideological polarity here, but Dr. Hawking is not a well-balanced individual. He is an extreme rationalist and materialist. I feel he CANNOT believe in any God, because he lacks the equipment to receive the data. Neither would I spent too much time considering what Sri Ramakrishna had to say about Darwin's' Theory of Evolution (both contemporaries of one another), as his experience told him that something greater was at play, Brahman dreaming of not being Brahman.

I would liken it to an analogy. What does a blind person see and what does a deaf person hear? And should we value their perceptions of what they are limited to comprehend, as insightful? Obviously, they are ill-equipped to process much of the data which they cannot perceive. Right? So why debate what an astronomer has to say about something he has never experienced, nor will he ever likely experience?

Before I cause WWIII or something silly like that, I just want to say that most of the psychonautical community who do believe in God/Spirit/Tao/The Divine, do not share the same view as those bound to dogmatic religious ideologies. We see what we see... and it defies any rationale. :shock:

Moreover, my hope is that we can find creative ways to unite the inquisitiveness of modern Science, with the intuition that reveals a totality which Sages and Shaman's consider common place events, in their daily rituals. Again, we are the frontiersmen and the challenge is to SEE into those realms hidden from our reason, without becoming dogmatic and fixated on metaphysical extrapolations. This can take one far from this very moment, the here and now. Eternity calmly sits before us, it is we who are forever trying to fit everything into neat little packages. The Great Mystery will always regenerate itself beyond our futile grasp. So how shall we spend our time, chasing dualities or enjoying the party? :idea:

 

[fourthripley]

But where do all the toasters go?

 

[SWIMfriend]

But when someone like Stephen Hawking says that the concept of an afterlife is fantasy, he’s making a claim to knowledge that he can’t possibly have.

No, he's making a PRECISELY correct claim: concepts of "afterlife" are fantasies/myths that people have created. As far as anyone (that I'm aware of) knows, such claims have NO OTHER source.

Afterlife assertions may turn out to be TRUE, but I agree with Hawking that it's worth restating (for the benefit of people who don't think much about these things), that the ONLY information about "the afterlife" we currently possess is information found in fairy tales.

 

[MooshyPeaches]

however it all is, is how it is. done.

 

[Rising Spirit]

But when someone like Stephen Hawking says that the concept of an afterlife is fantasy, he’s making a claim to knowledge that he can’t possibly have.

No, he's making a PRECISELY correct claim: concepts of "afterlife" are fantasies/myths that people have created. As far as anyone (that I'm aware of) knows, such claims have NO OTHER source.

Afterlife assertions may turn out to be TRUE, but I agree with Hawking that it's worth restating (for the benefit of people who don't think much about these things), that the ONLY information about "the afterlife" we currently possess is information found in fairy tales.

Are not all concepts projected by the frailty of human intellect? Even in kindergarten level metaphysical philosophy, the nature of reality is challenged as a completely subjective speculation. Before life, living in the material world, afterlife... all illusory phantoms, when seen in relation to the unfathomable nature of the Infinite. For while we believe what we think we know is sound, by way of our reasoning, how can we be so sure that what we perceive is actually the way things truly are?

Is this not just another variation of blind faith? Meaning, we have no way to be certain that this earthy existence is not some "fairy tale" dreamed up by another kind awareness, on another frequency of being? Again, I refer to the Hindu conception of Brahman (Indivisible consciousness) dreaming the entire universe of duality in being. The entire time, the whole drama is but a mirage flickering across the empty expanse of the Void.

 

[MooshyPeaches]

question: is the past and future also concepts fantasies/myths that people have created?

i would love to have some objective inconclusive proof of the past/future.

edit- im getting off topic, thats worthy of a whole new thread

edit edit- rising spirit i like your words