theophiles.org - Hawking: Heaven is a fairy story

Written by holmegm

Tuesday, 24 May 2011 14:19

From The Sun:

Renowned physicist Hawking, 69, admitted his views were partly influenced by his long battle with motor neurone disease, which has left him wheelchair-bound.

He said yesterday: "I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do. I regard the brain as a computer that will stop working when its components fail.

"There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers - that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

Comments

emperorbma

|2011-05-25 03:22:44

Oh, really? So, it is proven, now, that every now broken computer that has ever existed has had no afterlife? On what basis, pray tell?

Surely Hawking will be able to offer proof of his visit to the "broken-down computer" in its purported oblivion and his measurements and analysis of its "non-afterlife?" Where is our hard scientific proof that nowhere in any parcel of reality can a computer have a continued existence after breaking? Surely nobody could take its broken components and rebuild it, even?

The computational model (i.e. Turing machine) of diagramming human thought, which Hawking is clearly relying upon here, is by no means a complete perspective of human consciousness either. Funnily enough, Alan Turing had a similar idea in mind when he conceived of the Turing machine... to displace the notion of a soul. It doesn't work then, and it doesn't work now. In fact, while the Church-Turing model is useful in some respects, including being the foundational theory of modern computing, evidence suggests that the neural network is actually a far better description than your normal Turing-complete computer system would be for human brain. There is absolutely no reason to assume that all subsets of possible Turing-machine must lack a spiritual existence. As far as we who do believe in such things can say, we are one member of the subset that does. (Damn straight, "Conceiving of the Spiritual Machine..." is the next step to disputing this errant notion of anti-spiritual rhetoric)

By what basis are we, then, to be called deluded about our own experiences? Just because some people don't want to agree with us? What a fine basis to assume someone is deluded. Call everyone you do not agree with "crazy?"

It's funny how afterlife deniers like to throw out the whole part about "extraordinary claim demands extraordinary proof," isn't it? So why is it that we afterlife believers aren't allowed to use the same demand? Frankly, I see no basis to believe his assertion would be any less fantastic than the claims he's suggesting we discount. The fantastic aspect, in this case, being how he came to acquire the omniscience needed to be able to make such a conclusive determination. Even more hubrised in light of the myriad of humans who, on the basis of their own experiences, believe in some sort of spiritual reality that permits the possibility of afterlife. Neither majority nor minority appeals should be treated as compelling. I merely state this because it's one thing if he says he doesn't believe it, which is a statement of his personal conclusions and an inevitable statistical fact that some people would take that position. It's another thing to claim it's impossible that it could happen and anyone who believes otherwise is deluded. Of course, any perspective at all will deny alternative possibilities and it's certainly understandable. I provide this discussion simply as a means of disputing his conclusion from my own observations.

Science is only limited to empirically testable knowledge and, therefore, can only test the parts of reality that are empirically observable. Science exists to create explanatory models of reality which can give useful predictions about the processes that happen. However, science does not cause these processes to exist. It merely categorizes, analyzes and describes them. To fail to distinguish the scientific model from the observed reality is a failure, not on the part of the scientific model, but on the part of the person who failed to make the proper distinction between model and reality.

Reality is still reality regardless of whether our science has a model for it or not. Space and time were affected by matter and gravitation long before Einstein's theory linked the two. The brain was still the seat of human intelligence long before medicine knew that it was. When we assume the model is reality, we fundamentally limit the ability of science to learn and to take a new approach to observed data. It is this same ability to take a new approach to data that was what made science the powerful modernizing force it has been, but if we were to follow the proposed approach, then we would castrate Science as the Greek myths tell that Zeus castrated Uranus.

Science is based upon empirical knowledge. As far as religious belief is concerned, it operates on from a different aspect of knowledge. Namely, it is based upon revelatory knowledge. If, as we believe, reality actually includes what our revelatory knowledge has described, then it matters not whether science has a model for it or even whether it can have a model for it.

I contend that it is likely that Hawking is playing to the common assumption among those who believe in an afterlife that only humans have a "soul" and expecting us to make the quantum leap deduction to reach the same conclusion he has. That's not going to happen because the revelatory knowledge directly contradicts it and empirical knowledge has literally no way to even approach the topic. One need only compare the empirical approach to the question of "what is red?" to the revealed approach that one finds in basic communication where red is conceived in terms of what one experiences red as to see that the question domain is rather different. So, why should this claim even be considered compelling in light of the absence of empirical requirement and considering the presence of revelatory knowledge to the contrary? The only reason it would be compelling is if someone has been convinced to entirely lobotomize their approach to knowledge so that it only relies on empirical knowledge.

In many ways, provided we believe what our Christian religion teaches, we have ample evidence by which to say that his claim is more fantastic as far as we are concerned. Namely, because we have not only the testimony of someone who is capable of observing the entirety of existence, including whether or not there is an afterlife, but also the same someone who personally experienced the afterlife Himself and reported its existence to us through said revelatory knowledge. Obviously, that only applies if one accepts the Christian faith, but this fact is already admitted. Science has absolutely no requirement that revelatory knowledge be denied, only that it cannot be relied upon as the basis of a scientific model due to the abject difficulty of testing it in a falsifiable manner. This is an acknowledged and well-attested difference in approach, but a different approach does not necessarily signify a lack of validity.

On the other hand, anyone who accepts Stephen Hawking's claim only because he said something, can be easily seen to be simply taking it on the basis his "authority." If an atheist comes to their conclusion themselves, then it is their conclusion and the only person that can answer for why they believe as they do is themselves. Similarly, the believer who believes based on his or her experiences of God's presence that the revelation of their faith is true will only have themselves and God as the answer for what they believe since it is they who experienced God's presence. There are very reasonable people who simply don't think the domain of "real knowledge" is limited to only empirical knowledge. So, can we get over ourselves and stop treating religion like it's a bunch of scared sheep running from a storm? It's not doing any favors except to make atheists look like jerks.

Sure, he believes that he is right and wants to advertise it for some reason. We, believers in an afterlife believe we are right and advertise for our own reasons, as well. (i.e. we advertise our own positions out of concern for others' wellbeing as per what we believe.) However, you do yourselves no favors by belittling those whom you intend to advertise to. Moreover, I don't see how there is the same compulsion for the afterlife-denier since it wouldn't make a bit of difference about the outcome as everyone will end up in the same state. It just seems like a rather curmudgeon-like behavior by those who are disappointed by their own conclusions and want to drag others into that disappointment as well...

PerpetualAgnostic - TMs vs. NNs

|2011-05-25 08:52:38

Quote:

In fact, while the Church-Turing model is useful in some respects, including being the foundational theory of modern computing, evidence suggests that the neural network is actually a far better description than your normal Turing-complete computer system would be for human brain.

Not to nitpick, but (digital) neural networks can be completely simulated using TM's. So it would be a big stretch to say that NN's are capable of expressing anything that a TM can't.

Not that that was your main point, of course.

emperorbma

|2011-05-25 13:53:20

PerpetualAgnostic wrote:

Not to nitpick, but (digital) neural networks can be completely simulated using TM's. So it would be a big stretch to say that NN's are capable of expressing anything that a TM can't.

That's fine. As I had intended it, Neural Networks weren't meant to be understood as an antithesis to Turing machines but, rather, an extension of them that adds features not found in Simple Turing Machines by importing concepts from biology. This point was added rather early in writing my post and well before I had begun down the line of thinking that included the potential of Turing machines with a spiritual existence. I intuitively grouped it with the point, since I felt it would be conducive to my point.

In that vein, we don't really know what adding a "spiritual existence" component would entail so we cannot really speculate on the ability of a Turing machine to simulate it or the triviality of implementing such an ability. A Neural Network, for example, may be modeled with a standard Turing Machine, but it is demonstrably less efficient than the biological implementation. Still, it might be possible that a spiritual existence is capable of being simulated by a simple Turing Machine if the process were complex enough. We really don't have enough knowledge (be it revelatory or empirical) to deny the possibility that we might be able to decipher how it was done by God. (for those of us who believe in Him, of course)

[...and if we did decipher the method, I fully anticipate a similar backlash to the one against reproductive technologies by some people (those who consider it tampering) while others might just consider it a different way of "being fruitful and multiplying."]

Anyway, if I had hashed that out a little better, perhaps it might have been a more cohesive argument. Hindsight is 20/20 after all. :)

SteveGus

|2011-05-25 22:35:51

I have every confidence that when I get to Heaven, I will be reunited with my C=64.

PerpetualAgnostic

|2011-05-26 13:24:12

Should I end up in hell, I expect my Timex/Sinclair 1000 to be waiting for me.

holmegm

|2011-05-27 08:49:59

Am I going to have to start believing in purgatory, to see my Atari 600XL?

PerpetualAgnostic

|2011-05-27 13:56:58

Quote:

Am I going to have to start believing in purgatory, to see my Atari 600XL?

No, agnostics get 600XL's.

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Our valuable member holmegm has been with us since Thursday, 03 April 2008.

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