“But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?”

One might argue that the universe IS the creator. The question then would be whether it has awareness of itself and of what it is doing. Is it just a vast mass of matter and energy – with life and consciousness emerging as the product of an astonishing series of accidents – or does it have an intelligence of its own?

You know my answer. The universe is intelligent. But I wonder about the Hawking quote above. If the universe is expanding from a central point, however it started: Bang, quantum fluctuation, etc., then our space-time is expanding like a big balloon into whatever IS NOT out there, i.e., nothing. Space time is flat, according to the latest findings. However if we try to reach an edge we will simply curve back on ourselves within our universe. We can 'see' out to the area of 300,000 years after the Big Bang (if I may use that term advisedly). At that 'place' we pick up the background radiation from the 'Bang'. How do we make that measurement if there is no 'edge"? And finally, from Leibnitz, 'why is there anything?', and Hawking can't answer that any more than I can. And finally Hawking (Cambridge) and Lenox (Oxford) violently disagree. One vocal mathematician, like one snowflake, doesn't make a comfirmative snowstorm.

BBella, referring to various Hawking quotes supplied by Matt, quite rightly points out that she had long ago mooted the idea of a universe without beginning and without end, that simply IS and always has been.

Put in these bald terms, the theory is not exactly new, but you should indeed have your back patted, and I’m proud that AgnosticWeb is the vehicle that has carried your message to the ends of the earth – or at least to the happy few that occasionally log on!

I’ve just checked my own edition of Brief History (1988) – (if only to show you all that I’ve got one!) – and am surprised to see (p. 50) that Hawking and Penrose actually “proved” the big bang singularity in 1970, but then Hawking changed his mind: “It is perhaps ironic that, having changed my mind, I am now trying to convince other physicists that there was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe – as we shall see later, it can disappear once quantum effects are taken into account.”

And yet a couple of months ago, we were talking as if the big bang was still the “in” theory, and we were treated to learned discourses on how nothing can go bang. However, we still have to face the fact that none of these theories or networks of theories tell us anything except what might possibly have happened (or not happened), and of course they shed no light on the origin of life or consciousness. Matt’s brilliantly chosen quotes (thank you) give us a clear summary of “the quantum theory of gravity” full of conditional clauses. As BBella says, it’s all “if”. The M-theory/network seems to be no different. However, let’s just consider Matt’s final quote from Brief History:

“But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?”

One might argue that the universe IS the creator. The question then would be whether it has awareness of itself and of what it is doing. Is it just a vast mass of matter and energy – with life and consciousness emerging as the product of an astonishing series of accidents – or does it have an intelligence of its own (which some would call God)? BBella, you are our prophetess. Perhaps you can remind us of your theory of intelligence and its relationship to matter and energy.

ROMANSH: "Assume I had an unconscious want or will, and let's assume that this could be satisfactorily demonstrated that it independent of my environment and of the universe. Then this particular want could not be described as "free will" because it was an unconscious want, is this your intent?”

I wish you would make your example more concrete, but as it stands, I have no idea what you are trying to prove. This may be my fault, in which case I apologize in advance, but I will give you my response and you can then correct any misunderstandings.

First of all, I don’t like your attempt to equate want with will. I take want to mean desire, whereas in this discussion we are using will as the part of the mind which takes conscious decisions. Your use of these terms can only confuse the issue.

Secondly, I don’t see how any want, conscious or unconscious, can be satisfactorily demonstrated to be independent of the environment or the universe. What might I want consciously or unconsciously that is not within the universe? But that has nothing to do with the independence of the will. The will may determine whether or not a want is to be satisfied. To answer your question, if the want remains unconscious, then I certainly can’t relate it to free will, which I believe can only work on a conscious level. It might, however, affect decisions made consciously. For instance, I may be offered a choice between chocolate and ginger, and although I have no idea what subconscious forces have fashioned my taste, I will feel that my choice of chocolate is made freely.

I’d like to return to the problem I raised in my post of 7 September at 12.37, as this post seems to reinforce it. (Again, though, that may be because I’ve missed your point.) You strongly agree that consciousness is integral to free will, and yet you’re clinging to your own definition which excludes consciousness - my own definition of which you have accepted - as well as the internal factors that separate the owner of the ability from his/her/its environment. Furthermore, your phrase “independently of the environment or of the universe” seems to me far too ambiguous. On one level, nothing in life can be independent of the environment and the universe (hence your belief that you have defined free will out of existence), but on another the phrase can be interpreted as meaning actions or choices made independently of the direct influences imposed, for instance, by the laws of Nature or of society (hence David’s initial acceptance of your definition, and see also my example of chocolate and ginger). I must admit that the discussion is immensely stimulating, and you are making me think very carefully about the subject, but I feel we are now going round in circles attacking/defending your definition when we could be digging deeper into the complex implications of my own. For instance, you have argued that if we do not have free will (i.e. if it is impossible – using my terms – to make conscious decisions independently of constraints beyond our control), “then our perception of consciousness is not what it seems.” This cries out for further explanation. You wrote: “If we have no free will then what is my “self” that rattles around in my brain that thinks it does have free will?” That question alone may shed light on the degree of influence exercised by the uncontrollable constraints (e.g. our genetic make-up, the laws of Nature). We did run a thread on the subject of “identity”, but I suspect that you and the rest of us can add a great deal to this. Time, then, to move on?

A couple of Hawking Quotes:

...space- time was finite but had no boundary, which means that it had no beginning, no moment of Creation.

..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.

... if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be.

Who is quoting who? Stephen quoting me or I him? Of course these are all "if's" but they were my if's first (jk)! Obviously he and I run along the same space time continuum wave but he with better language and motor skills to express how he "see's" what IS, as well as a larger audience.

Patting the dust off my unpatted back.

bb

To save writing this all out twice I give a link to my article in Hastings Humanists:

http://hastingshumanists.blogspot.com/2010/09/hawking-ditches-god.html

You can't now read the Times on line without paying a fee.

The Guardian has a lot of comment on the same subject.

Very nice web design, by the way!

As for the content on the blogpost, it's kind of... well I've heard Hawking talk before that he has referred to God only as the initial creation event, and not at all as a physical/metaphysical entity. So it's kinda misleading to say he's "ditched God." In my eyes that ship has well sailed.

I really must say again though, well done on the site!

I never thought Hawkings literally meant 'the mind of god'. He is like Einstein I think. I must second the 'well done'. Thanks for showing us the site. well worth following. By the way, Maimonides used only the first six verses to describe the Big Bang Theory about 900 years ago. Rabbi Sachs refers to all 36 verses for origin and I don't know why. Genesis really included origin and subsequest events.

A couple of Hawking Quotes:

"...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 didn't 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. I had no desire to share the fate of Galileo, with whom I feel a strong sense of identity, partly because of the coincidence of having been born exactly 300 years after his death! [Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), pp. 115-16.]"

I get the feeling here that here that he's definitely not a theist of any description...

Or: [emphasis added]

"The quantum theory of gravity has opened up a new possibility, in which there would be no boundary to space-time and so there would be no need to specify the behavior at the boundary. There would be no singularities at which the laws of science broke down and no edge of space-time 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. [Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 136.]"

And finally:

"...The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe. With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started -- it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwork and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator? [Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 140-41.]"

OK let's try this for the sake argument:

Assume I had an unconscious want or will, and let's assume that this could be satisfactorily demonstrated that it independent of my environment and of the universe.

Then this particular want could not be described as "free will" because it was an unconscious want, is this your intent?

May I, as a non-scientist, ask two silly questions: 1) what does it expand into? 2) If the universe appears to be finite, is there any way in which we can possibly know what lies beyond its boundaries?

As the universe expands it makes a larger space-time inside. Outside: void, nothing, other universes? And if we could look to the edge "wall" we could not look through it as light would curve back on itself. We are bound to know only what is in this universe.

ROMANSH: The definition I’m using defines free will out of existence. […] Alternatively we can define free will in a way which defines it into existence, by giving it properties (or a definition) that are a reflection of our experience of free will.

I don’t know why you think either definition entails existence or non-existence. Your definition (“the ability to act or to make choices independently of the environment or of the universe”) was originally approved by David, who believes in free will! You only say you’ve defined it out of existence because YOU don’t think it’s possible to act or make choices independently. My own definition (“an entity’s conscious ability to make decisions independently of constraints beyond the control of that entity”) is similarly non-committal. You can say there’s no such thing as an entity, consciousness is “imponderable”, we are dependent on chemistry, genetic make-up etc. and so free will does not exist. A conventionally religious person who believes in the “soul” will argue that his soul does have this conscious ability and can override the constraints, and therefore free will does exist. David believes in the self and in what I take to be a limited conscious ability to make decisions independently. None of these views invalidates the definition.***

When you say you find “road blocks” in your search for free will, I can’t say I’m any different. There’s no end to the chain of cause and effect (read Tristram Shandy!) and it’s impossible to draw a line that will establish independence of all constraints. But that is reason talking, and since reason (of which I take science to be a supreme form) has so far failed to solve most of our mysteries, like the origin of life, will, consciousness, emotion, memory, imagination etc., I remain sufficiently sceptical to allow intuition to have its say. Intuition leads me to FEEL that when I make a decision, it is MY decision – not that of my cerebral cortex, or my grandmother’s chromosomes, or Pisces, or the guy that set off the Big Bang. At present, I don't know whether reason or intuition has the right answer. Eventually science may tell us.

*** I have just read your extraordinary response to Matt: you strongly agree that free will can’t exist without consciousness but have avoided it in your definition, because if we conclude that we do not have free will, “then our perception of consciousness is not what it seems”. If you agree, how can you leave it out of your definition? Once we have a consensus on what we mean by “free will”, we can discuss whether or to what extent we have it, and what are the implications, especially for the “self” that rattles round our brains. The implications, of course, are enormous, but aren’t they the purpose of the discussion?

Abandon false definitions, my friend,
And follow an argument through to its end.
(Thus Spake dhw)

Many thanks to George for the references to various websites and blogs (especially the excellent Hastings Humanists) concerning this, the latest science sensation. The reviews that I’ve read have been mixed, and if the interview with Mlodinow is anything to go by, I’m not surprised. No-one quite seems to know what M-theory is all about, or indeed whether it is a theory or a “network of theories”. Amid various coulds and cans, we are told:

“You can’t ask which of the theories in the network is more “real”.”
“The universe has many histories and not one.”
“The vagueness of the past is the vagueness of things unmeasured in the past.”

Is this science or mysticism?

At the end of the interview Mlodinow is asked whether the grand design is unknowable.

MLODINOW: No, we believe that humans CAN understand it. That’s the great triumph and the great miracle of the universe.

The fact that we exist and that we have powers of understanding is indeed a great triumph and a great miracle. Can M-theory tell us whether the triumph and miracle are the product of blind chance or of a “grand designer”? The argument that once we know how it all happened (which we don’t), a designer becomes unnecessary will only convince those who are prepared to believe that the grand design unconsciously designed itself. One faith in place of another. I’m getting more and more solidly stuck on my fence.

I’m also grateful to George for giving us his views on the Krauss talk. Apparently it implies that the universe is finite, and is only infinite in the sense that it goes on expanding. May I, as a non-scientist, ask two silly questions: 1) what does it expand into? 2) If the universe appears to be finite, is there any way in which we can possibly know what lies beyond its boundaries?

No one knows. All mediated by chemistry and the production of ions.

So are you saying there may be a neuron or synapse that does not respond to cause and effect? Well I suppose this is testable, but I'm not volunteering for that experiment.

I doubt that synapses refuse to respond, unless an impulse from another neuron blocks the response, which raises another issue of complexity. What is beyond doubt at this moment is no one knows what consciousness is in relation to the brain. It 'seems' to arise from the brain, but at a level that makes it 'feel' separate from the brain, as each of us experiences it. it must be a quantum effect involving spookiness at a distance, a la Einstein. Nothing else feels right.

No one knows. All mediated by chemistry and the production of ions.

So are you saying there may be a neuron or synapse that does not respond to cause and effect? Well I suppose this is testable, but I'm not volunteering for that experiment.

And I might add, what is one's willingness to be an autodidact?

A reflection of one's environment. What else?

Quite
But then again which neuron in my brain is not behaving according to the same laws of mass action - chemistry?

With 100 billion neurons, and who knows exactly how many branching axons, the branching mediated in part by what one has learned and concluded, no two brains are the same, ever! How many gazillion synapses? No one knows. All mediated by chemistry and the production of ions. And that despised measure I.Q., is definitely elevated depending on how you are approached by Mum, how many words in her vocabulary, how many books are read to you before school, and the attitude toward learning embued by your parents.

And I might add, what is one's willingness to be an autodidact?

From what I have read of him, he is anything but a post modernist, and I would agree he would be liberal in some aspects, as I suspect as are you. I used to think I was conservative until I started measuring myself against political criteria.

I don't know if it has been posted here before, but this is a bit of political fun.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
I scored about -5,-5 ... and I thought I was conservative.
May be worth a new thread.

I am libertarian right, according to the site, mildly so at 1.63 an 1.33. The book I wrote 10 years ago was strictly libertarian.

Quite
But then again which neuron in my brain is not behaving according to the same laws of mass action - chemistry?

Could this be described as intelligence that is completely different to ours?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18391-intelligent-oil-droplet-navigates-chemical-...

The pH difference described in the article is the same as a dog on a leash. Neither is an example of intelligence. Now the dog off the leash performs a trick he has been taught: simple intelligence. Now the dog spots my 'going-out' hat and runs to hide so as to avoid his kennel. A higher integrative form of intelligence. Obviously your question leads to a spectrum of definitions.

I have defined free will as "an entity's conscious ability to make decisions independently of constraints beyond the control of that entity".

MATT: No - I didn't mean to forget you, but I would say your definition certainly encompasses the criteria I set forth. It gives us an upper and lower bound.

Thank you. The main stumbling block between Romansh and myself seems to be the inclusion of consciousness in the definition. I find the whole concept of free will inconceivable without it, but it would be interesting to know if others agree.

Agreed.

Actually, having just listened to the last part of Krauss's talk I was a bit disappointed with it. He left out some bits that he was going to say and ended up with a question about infinity, which he answered with the Hilbert's Hotel story. All the rest of his talk seems to me to imply that the universe is finite. It is only infinite in the sense that the universe goes on expanding, and doesn't come to a definite big crunch type end.

The latest studies in astronomy using gravitational 'lensing' has confirmed that space is flat and will expand forever, confirming Krauss. I noted this in a previous entry within the past two weeks.

http://fixed-point.org/index.php/video/35-full-length/164-the-dawkins-lennox-debate

Review of Hawking by Penrose

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bdf3ae28-b6e9-11df-b3dd-00144feabdc0.html

Interview with his co-author Mlodinow

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/09/03/5040535-is-the-grand-design-within-our-...

It includes a video by Lawrence Krauss about something from nothing,
and a lot more physics and cosmology!

Peter Woit's and Lee Smolin's books would strongly disagree. Seems as if Hawking is using a faith as strong as mine. M theory is totally unproven theory with beautiful math.

Seems as if other British scientists recognize the true role of philosophy of science as it relates to conjectures by Hawking, and puncture his balloon.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1308599/Stephen-Hawking-wrong-You-explain-uni...

Review of Hawking by Penrose

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bdf3ae28-b6e9-11df-b3dd-00144feabdc0.html

Interview with his co-author Mlodinow

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/09/03/5040535-is-the-grand-design-within-our-...

It includes a video by Lawrence Krauss about something from nothing,
and a lot more physics and cosmology!

Peter Woit's and Lee Smolin's books would strongly disagree. Seems as if Hawking is using a faith as strong as mine. M theory is totally unproven theory with beautiful math.