Recently, the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has announced that the universe was not created by God, and basically there is no God needed to create the universe. Hawking claims that “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.” He also says: “I regard the brain as a computer which 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.”
As a layman, trying to understand this new scientific finding, I struggle to come to terms with it. I am not a religious person by any stretch of imagination, but accepting the idea of “complete” Nothingness after my departure and going away the same way as a piece of plastic may go away is, kind of, hard to swallow. But hey, it is what it is!
So, I guess you and I will be eventually going to end up in the same place as our forefathers, Gandhi, Hitler, the recently deceased termites in my neighbor’s house and my used condom ended up in! Not cool, but I guess I can accept that! Before my exciting and hopefully “timely” departure however, I have one question;
Does the fact that the universe was not created by a “personal, paternal, all powerful, angry, kind, judgmental, vengeful, loving and hateful” religious God, automatically negate the possibility of any type of existence beyond the roam of our physical universe? Why?
I personally think that there is, and has been, throughout human history, signs and evidences to suggest that there might be phenomenon existing beyond humans’ understanding of the fabric of space-time. These evidences expand from all human cultures to even personal experiences. Even if these signs are faint and minimal, science should explore them.
For a scientist to not consider the possibilities and only think within the confined box of the physical universe is, sort of, … unscientific! Don’t you think?
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Radius Jan
by The Prince on Wed Mar 21, 2012 05:40 PM PDTWhat I said was a joke! Eideh baba!! Take it easy.
The question is not whether there is a God or not, but rather, what works best for you? If believing in a God helps you to be good and do good, and elevates you as a human being, then does it really matter whether he exists or not? What is in your heart is Gold. The rest, just noise!!
mans vs. gods work
by radius-of-the-persian-cat on Wed Mar 21, 2012 03:49 AM PDT@ Prince
"If it wasn't just proven that he did not exist, I would say that this can only be the work of God!!! "
Unless God has a username here at IC, the long thread of this discussion following your initial post was definitly mans work.
but who is doing the evil?
by radius-of-the-persian-cat on Mon Mar 19, 2012 02:13 AM PDTDear Soosan Khanoom and Prince,
I few days ago the discussion went around then issue whether or
not the world was in harmony before mankind arose on earth. I think
that harmony is clearly a category invented by human judgement. There
is no good or evil in nature, since there is nobody with a good or
bad intention. Therefore, I would have no reason to doubt in the
existence of god. In fact, the biggest miracle (and one that no
scientist or philosopher has any idea how to solve this) is why there
exists anything at all ? What is the "purpose" of the
presence of any matter, un-animated or animated, nobody knows.
According to a generally accepted principle of parsimony (or Ockhams
raisor or Pursue for simplicity) , every process in nature adopts a
state of minimal complexity. It is just not clear then why there exists
anything at all (the world would in fact be in perfect harmony if there would be nothing !!)
In this sense, I understand the poem that you posted. The mere
existence of anything, whether it is an ant or a skyscraper or a
ray of light is a miracle itself. And I could imagine that this where
different people use simply different words to describe this miracle.
Some call it god, some call it divine essence, Plato called it the
«first causation» or «world spirit». My
problem with believing in god is perhaps related to the fact that he
is often associated with doing something intentionally good to
people. Than I ask myself, what was his intention when he invented
plague, when he sent the crusaders to kill all non-christians, when
he seeded hate between catholics and protestants to start a 30 year
long war that killed half of the European population, when he let the
nazis build Auschwitz and organise the holocaust, when he let
scientist build atom-bombs to kill 150 000 japanese civilians (but
spare the generals and gouvernment), why he allows that young
children die due to fatal diseases, but war-criminals all over
the world get «fair trials» and live in
pensioner-residence houses till the end of their days ? This is what
stops me from considering «god» anything to praise or to
warship. I dont see any good intention, I only see a big mystery.
And if we are pleased and enlightend by the beauty of the world, be
it a horse, or an ant, or a skyscraper in Boston or the skills of
your tailor, than dont forget the beauty lays always in the eye of
the observer.
With people, however, I am much more optimistic. At least
sometimes you really see good intentions, when a doctor fights for
the live of sick kid, or when Bill Gates donates most of his money to
fight malaria, or when some privat initiatives in Israel and
Palestine try to break the circle of violence. And here I have the (maybe naive) hope that people get more educated and more reasonable and learn from their mistakes. And I am also more
inclined to see bauty in the skills of a tailor, or a skyscraper, or
Hafez poems or music played by Shirin on this website, than by
natural objects such as flowers, birds or the nocturnal sky.
Whereas the later might be considered divine creations, the
first ones are clearly results of humans creativity (with the clear
intention to produce something beautiful).
Prince, you seemed to be a bit
disappointed that this discussion is not longer among the featured
blogs. But it is the subjective decission of the Admin what to put in
this category and when to remove it. Usually, every «featured
blog» is taken off this list after a couple of days, to make
space for new content. But I consider it is much more amazing that this
blog meanwhille ranks among the top 3 of the «most discussed».
And this list is an unbiased indication of the interest that this
discussion attracted. Very satisfying to see, that it has long ago
beaten topics like «Shahs of Sunrise» or AIPAC.
Wow!!
by The Prince on Sun Mar 18, 2012 11:21 PM PDTAfter a few days of being absent, tonight I visited IC and decided to review my old blogs. I was astonished to see that this blog is still going!! It is not featured any longer and it is barried under tens of other blogs by now. How do people still find it to read and comment on it?!! It is as if it has got a life of its own!! I am surprized and at the same time amazed by the interest in people about this subject!! It is inspiring, to say the least.
If it wasn't just proven that he did not exist, I would say that this can only be the work of God!!!
Eideh Hame Mobarak!!
Dear Radius ..
by Soosan Khanoom on Sun Mar 18, 2012 07:29 PM PDTSorry I haven't yet replied properly. Just got carried away by other things .. .. perhaps later ...but I enjoyed reading your valuable points.
You mentioned brain vs. heart and that reminded me of Ann Sexton's poem.... I love her poetry and this one is simply the best .of hers.
I cannot walk an inch
Without trying to walk to God.
I cannot move a finger
Without trying to touch God.
Perhaps it is this way:
He is in the graves of the horses.
He is in the swarm, the frenzy of the bees,
He is in the tailor mending my pantsuit.
He is in Boston, raised up by the skyscrapers.
He is in the bird, that shameless flyer.
He is in the potter who makes clay into a kiss.
Heaven replies:
Not so! Not so!
I say thus and thus
And heaven smashes my words.
Is not God in the hiss of the river?
Not so! Not so!
Is not God in the ant heap,
stepping, clutching, dying, being born?
Not so! Not so!
Where then?
I cannot move an inch.
Look to your heart
that flutters in and out like a moth.
God is not indifferent to your need.
You have a thousand prayers
but God has one.
Watch this video about history of brain
by Disenchanted on Sun Mar 18, 2012 12:37 AM PDTjust a name for the unspeakable
by radius-of-the-persian-cat on Sat Mar 17, 2012 03:12 PM PDTYes, because we always like to give name to things we dont understand yet. Personality, character, consciousness, mind are not sufficient to understand what makes up a human being.
It is more likely that martians completely discover how a TV set or GPS works, or that the chinese rebuilt it by reverse engineering than man will understand how consciousness works.
"soul", TV & martians! :-)
by Disenchanted on Sat Mar 17, 2012 05:01 PM PDTThe weight of our soul
by radius-of-the-persian-cat on Sat Mar 17, 2012 05:03 AM PDTDear Soosan Khanoum,
I suspect there wont be any consistent definition of what means "soul". Perhaps everybody understands something different. Some strange scientists even tried to find out the weight of the soul, by measuring the bodyweight of a person before and after death: And they came out with 15 g reduced weight after death, and claimed that this was the equivalent of the soul that left the dying body. This is very funny in my view. I guess it is better to listen to music or read some poetry or good books to understand where the soul is located.
About the neuro-psychological disorders I understand that they have a physical cause. But the way the cause such dramatic alterations in a persons personality usually prompts the relatives, friends, colleagues etc. to view it as a change or illness of the soul.
Btw., "radius" would be easier, and just recently a friend told me that it can also be seen as an anagram of "darius".
radius-of-the-persian-cat
by Soosan Khanoom on Fri Mar 16, 2012 12:21 PM PDTHooray ... most discussed ... good points by the way ...
I shall write more later in reply to your brain/mind/ soul ... discussion ..
But for now just would like to mention that all the disorders that you have mentioned are physical. Even if they are psychological they are still dealing with the physical body. They have nothing to do with soul and cannot be Catagorized as the soul disease.. but more on that later ...
: )
P.S Can you give yourself an easier name so I do not have to copy and paste the entire thing all the time ... Or I may just call you " Persian cat "
"Lets talk about god" ranks among the "Most Discussed" posts
by radius-of-the-persian-cat on Fri Mar 16, 2012 11:45 AM PDTTo see that a deeply intellectual discussion made it on the highly competitive list of "Most Discussed " on IC, and even scores higher than subjects such as "Shahs of Sunset" let me beliefe that mankind is not lost yet.
Where the soul is at home
by radius-of-the-persian-cat on Fri Mar 16, 2012 07:47 AM PDTSoosan Khanoum,
very important that you introduced the brain to the discussion here. I consider the brain as the house where the soul/mind/conscioiusness are located, i.e where that what we call "soul" resides.
But how do you think about the more poetic notion that our soul resides in the heart ? Just an allegory ? Sometimes we also consider the eyes or a nice voice beeing very much associated with the soul. But these are clearly only sublimations of our understanding that a persons sou/mind/consciousness requires to express itself in order to be recognised by others. Therefore, I dont see any particular soul in an eremit who spends all his life in a cave or of a yogi who lives in self-choosen quiescence and isolation. In my view, the only indication of something that comes near to a soul is human creativity.
The brain as our souls home may have prompted some poets to see it rather as a cage (from which the soul can only escape under certain conditions, like during love or meditation or playing music). What you thing about this ??
An important scientific observation that indeed supports the idea of the brain being the house of the soul are the following. Severe brain injury to the socalled frontal lobe (i.e. the part located directly behind our forehead causes dramatic changes in personality (or soul), whereas injuries of similar size but to other parts of brain dont have a similar consequence. Some mental illnesses like Alzheimer, Autism or Depression were not only classified in earlier times as "Soul Diseases" (which we know today have a lot of typical abnormalities in the brain), but are also viewed by relatives or friends of these patients as leading to changes in the patients soul.In my recent post I suggested that soul and consciousness have a lot in common. I have to say, however, that what people use to call SOUL is more than consciousness: at least it also includes the unconsciousness.
Hmmm .... Poetry mood !
by Soosan Khanoom on Thu Mar 15, 2012 07:53 PM PDTI blogged an old poem of mine here which is very much related ...
Enjoy : )
Teahouse Poems
Oh Yes Yes
by Soosan Khanoom on Thu Mar 15, 2012 07:20 PM PDTNow you are talking... Khayam is happy too
; )
کس نیست که این گوهر تحقیق بسفت؛
Siamak AsadianThu Mar 15, 2012 07:13 PM PDT
haha ... Should Israel attack Iran?
by Soosan Khanoom on Thu Mar 15, 2012 06:52 PM PDTgood question , though ...
It depends .. I am hoping that BiBI has some soul left in him and decides that he should NOT. But giving the history of the state of Israel I am not sure of that ... Interesting enough this soulless state call itself " the chosen one" ...The very same ones who worshiped the Golden Cow are the Banksters of today's world. They are still hurting their own prophet and throwing all his teachings away.
We have Banksters ruling the world. And we have clergies in Iran destroying the religion ... couldn't get any better !!
you are right now is important ...
Well said Red Wine
by Soosan Khanoom on Thu Mar 15, 2012 06:40 PM PDTAnd what is spring? Isn't it coming back to life after death? Fresh and beautiful that you almost forget that there was a season called winter(death ) We Iranians are so smart that we celebrate this new life as our new year...
radius-of-the-persian-cat
by Soosan Khanoom on Thu Mar 15, 2012 06:29 PM PDTIn the Socratic tradition the soul is equated to consciousness as a product of the mind.
Science cannot comprehend " the mind ". Science only emphasizes on the brain instead. A machine for example can play music or be stimulated by it but it cannot comprehend the music like a human does. You are relating this to the consciousness and you are separating it from soul but that does not deny the existence of the soul...
I understand that there are some allergy to certain words like God and soul. What word we use does not matter. What matters is that there IS something in us which we know not much about and we can not deny .....
"...دیدنِ خدا و حس کردنِ وجودش کارِ هر کس نیست"
DisenchantedThu Mar 15, 2012 08:03 PM PDT
...
by Red Wine on Thu Mar 15, 2012 06:30 PM PDTدیدنِ خدا و حِس کردنِ وجودش کارِ هر کس نیست ...
این روزها تعدادِ مَحجوب الحَضرات فراوان گشته است ، حیف بر اینان؛ که بهار در راه است و جشنِ طبیعت نزدیک و اینان لطفِ یَزدان را هیچگاه شاهد نباشند.
با سپاس .
.
I like the SK version better...
by Disenchanted on Thu Mar 15, 2012 06:01 PM PDTDisenchanted, as Rumi says:
by Soosan Khanoom on Thu Mar 15, 2012 06:01 PM PDT“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”
Oh NO NO
by Soosan Khanoom on Thu Mar 15, 2012 05:58 PM PDTجمعی متفکرند اندر ره دین
جمعی به گمان فتاده در راه یقین
می ترسم از آنکه بانگ آید روزی
کای بیخبران راه نه آنست نه این
جمعی متفکرند اندر ره دین
Siamak AsadianThu Mar 15, 2012 03:36 PM PDT
جمعی متفکرند اندر ره دین
جمعی به گمان فتاده در راه یقین
چشم خردت باز کن و روی زمین
زیر و زبردو گاو مشتی خر بین
Good & evil are human constructs!
by Disenchanted on Thu Mar 15, 2012 02:29 PM PDTSoul or Consciousness
by radius-of-the-persian-cat on Thu Mar 15, 2012 12:15 PM PDTDear Soosan Khanoom,
Would you agree that the rather vague term of "soul" (too often misused by religions) could have a more contemporary equivalent in the term "consciousness" ? Not only will this include many aspects of our personality (like emotions, intelligence, wishes, memories, creativity etc) but in contrast to the very static term "Soul" (which you explained yourself as being already present at birth in a baby) "Consciousness" is something that growth and develops during the entire lifetime. Whereas a baby has the huge potential to develop consciousnes, its "soul" as you described it is already fully expressed from the beginning. And I think that creativity, artistic or scientific talent, empathy, humor and similar characteristics unique to humans only form during the life time, and hence are more associated with "consciousness" than with a pre-existing "soul".
Btw., I would not make such a big separation between science and arts (literature,poetry,music,painting, craftswork etc). In my view, they are all equally expressions of the human desire to produce something that is beyond its material value.
Disenchanted
by Soosan Khanoom on Thu Mar 15, 2012 06:37 AM PDTYou can't find everything on the science club .... check out the poetry club once in a while ... lol
Universe is not violent as you have described it. There are laws that explain everything which happens in it and to accept those laws and to follow them, no question asked, is to be at harmony with nature.
The only creature in the universe with " free will " is human but sadly that freedom of choice has not always been good.
Outside that everything is GOOD and nothing is BAD..
There is NO EVIL outside the human thoughts and minds. Sadly, Evil only and only is the direct result of the human's action.
Now on the subject of black hole... I may write more later ... I am so fascinated with the entire thing but today I'd rather spend more time in the poetry club.
: )
Harmony in the universe?! Hardly!
by Disenchanted on Thu Mar 15, 2012 02:48 PM PDTDear Soosan,
Dear Disenchanted
by Soosan Khanoom on Wed Mar 14, 2012 09:02 PM PDTI am not in my scientific mood lately but i guess I dedicated a blog on this topic long time ago ... but let us talk about soul ?
Dervishes are actually under the influence of something all the time... I like to have whatever they are smoking : )
I believe every single baby that is born to this world has been touched by the soul. So, there is a soul inside of us all but some people just do not hold to it as they age and they eventually become soulless.....
Did you know that outside the human nature everything is in harmony with each other? Look at every other creature in the wild...look at the universe...the galaxies ...Everything is in harmony with each other but only us , the humans. Inside us things are not in harmony. There is a war going on inside and then we transfer that miserable state of ours to the world and to the others ... we destroy everything and we cause wars and destructions...
But there are some of us that hold on to that soul, they are in constant state of peace and harmony within and without .. They become one with the universe .. I believe that was meant here.... Why we look further then while we can find that treasure inside?
Something beyond ...
by radius-of-the-persian-cat on Wed Mar 14, 2012 05:26 AM PDTThe question if other physical (real) items might exist beyond the world as we experience it was already raised by Platon in his allegory of the cave //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave. But in fact one does not has to learn ancient greek and read his "The Republic" to understand that how far our technology and our knowledge will ever develop, we might understand more and more of the world, but never in its completeness. Nevertheless, there is no field where human wisdom and couriosity has to surrender. Whereas in Platons allegory the observers could only see shadows of figures which themself were invisible behind a wall, generations later people might have invented mirrors, X-rays, ultrasound and whatsoever to study and understand what appeared initially as invisible.
Imagine that 150 years ago you would demonstrated to somebody a microwave oven or an induction cooker. This person would observe how from virtually nothing (no fire, no mechanical aggitation etc) water in a cup begins to heat up and boil. This person 150 years ago would be absolutely right to state that there exists something beyond the empirical world, something mysterious that is doing mysterious things. For us, just 150 years later these are all easily understandable processes which children learn in school and do experiments about. If we would meet somebody today who would suggest that a mobile phone works by witch-craft, or that a GPS route finder is operated with the help of some heavenly angels, or that lightning is an expression of gods anger, we would consider him really weird. What I would like to say is that not everything that seems enigmatic for us today does not has the chance to be discovered by tomorrow. But because the world is unlimitted in its complexity and in its dynamic changes, the process of studying, understanding and creating wisdom will never be completed. And my believe is that whatever is the result of this process of understanding the world, products of human creativity such as books, movies, music, poems, pictures, operas, blogs etc. this is what remains after death.
I dont really care about the probablity of gods existence. Did never experienced a situation that needed a divine explanation.The ultimate chalenge of mankind, of course, will be to overcome death. It might still sound a bit utopic, but generating life in a test tube was also pure phantasy some 40 years ago, but 1978 a team of british scientists and medics were sucessfully generating the first human "test-tube baby". There is scientifically no reason to assume that death is inevitable.
Have to admit, that when I red the first comments this debate I was extremely happy to see that IC provides a platform for such serious issue.