“Our universe and its laws appear to have a design that both is tailor-made to support us and, if we are to exist, leaves little room for alteration. That is not easily explained, and raises the natural question of why it is that way.”
― The Grand Design
― The Grand Design
“The example of the jet engine can help us to clear up another confusion. Science, according to many scientists, concentrates essentially on material causation. It asks the “how” questions: how does the jet engine work? It also asks the “why” question regarding function: why is this pipe here? But it does not ask the “why” question of purpose: why was the jet engine built? What is important here is that Sir Frank Whittle does not appear in the scientific account. To quote Laplace, the scientific account has “no need of that hypothesis”.29 Clearly, however, it would be ridiculous to deduce from this that Whittle did not exist. He is the answer to the question: why does the jet engine exist in the first place?”
― God and Stephen Hawking
― God and Stephen Hawking
“Do not fear your enemies. The worst they can do is kill you. Do not fear friends. At worst, they may betray you. Fear those who do not care; they neither kill nor betray, but betrayal and murder exist because of their silent consent.”
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“Furthermore, there are weighty voices within science that are not as enthusiastic about the multiverse. Prominent among them is that of Sir Roger Penrose, Hawking’s former collaborator, who shared with him the prestigious Wolf Prize. Of Hawking’s use of the multiverse in The Grand Design Penrose said: “It’s overused, and this is a place where it is overused. It’s an excuse for not having a good theory.”44 Penrose does not, in fact, like the term “multiverse”, because he thinks it is inaccurate: “For although this viewpoint is currently expressed as a belief in the parallel co-existence of different alternative worlds, this is misleading. The alternative worlds do not really ‘exist’ separately, in this view; only the vast particular superposition…is taken as real.”45”
― God and Stephen Hawking
― God and Stephen Hawking
“The issue between the atheist and the believer is not whether it makes sense to question ultimate fact, it is rather the question: what fact is ultimate? The atheist’s ultimate fact is the universe; the theist’s ultimate fact is God.”68”
― God and Stephen Hawking
― God and Stephen Hawking
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