Al Owski’s Reviews > On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking's Final Theory > Status Update

“His parting message… encapsulates it all: "When we see the earth from space we see ourselves as a whole; we see the unity and not the divisions. It is such a simple image, with a compelling message: one planet, one human race. Our only boundaries are the way we see ourselves. We must become global citizens. Let us work together to make that future a place we want to visit."”

“By revoking the view from nowhere, Stephen's final theory offers a powerful kernel of hope.”

“When the later Hawking outlined our post-Platonic cosmology at the Vatican, in November 2016, there were no more battles with God or the pope to be fought. Quite on the contrary, Stephen found a strong and moving resonance with Pope Francis in their shared goal of protecting our common home in the cosmos for the benefit of humanity today and tomorrow.”

“Freed from any claims on absolute truth, top-down cosmology provides space for a multitude of spheres of thoughts, from art to science, each serving different purposes and spurring complementary insights. If our top-down thinking does contain the seeds of a new worldview, then it is a thoroughly pluralistic one.”

“This is where Hannah meets Stephen. That is, the later, top-down Stephen. Hawking's final theory frees cosmology from its Platonic strait-jacket. It brings the physical laws in a sense back home. Adopting an inside-out perspective on the universe, the theory is rooted in what Arendt would call our earthly conditions.”

“At the core of Arendt's argument lay the idea that science and technology could only truly add to the stature of man in as much as we desire to be at home in the universe. "Earth is the very quintessence of the human condition," she held. Whatever we find out about or do to the world are human discoveries and endeavors.”

“This is the paradox. In our attempt to find the ultimate truth and absolute control over our existence as humans on Earth, we risk ending up smaller, not larger.”

“Our pride in what we can do would dissolve into some kind of mutation of the human race, transforming us from subjects of Earth to mere objects. If it should ever reach this point, Arendt concludes her essay, "the stature of man would not simply be lowered by all standards we know of but will have been destroyed." That is, we would lose our freedom. We would cease to be human.”

“Arendt argued that if we begin to look down upon the world and our activities as if we are outside it, if we begin to lever ourselves, then our actions will ultimately lose their deeper meaning. This is because we would begin to see the Earth as an object like any other and no longer as our home.”

“Physicists were told to "shut up and calculate" and not to worry about the ontology of quantum theory. But Arendt did exactly that and pointedly noted that it was as if the sciences, with the advent of quantum theory, did what the humanities knew all along but could never demonstrate, namely, that humanists were right to be concerned about the stature of man in the new scientific world.”