The Prince

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Good blog...........very good......superb comments too...even the deleted ones!...........let's the record show that the question has still remained  unanswered..........Search more my confused friends.........Gods are amused by your theatrical passion for Truth....................

Well, Dear Soosan this just doesn't make any sense :-)

Respectfully I found the author to be under some influence, WUI (writting under influence!) :-) 

" ...and I valued this veil that prepared for me the vision in seen all souls as my soul, and realized my soul as the soul of all. And what bewilderment it was when I realized that I alone was, if there were anyone; that I am whatever and whoever exists; and that I shall be whoever there will be in the future. Verily, I am the seed and I am the root, and I am the fruit of this tree of life."

   Is he saying my soul and that of Saddam, Madona, Satorum and JJ is one & same?! :-)

   I think a better quote is that of Wittgenstein:

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Thanks Prince for this thought provoking blog

 " I first believed without any hesitation in the existence of the soul, and then I wondered about the secret of its nature. I persevered and strove in search of the soul, and found at last that I myself was the cover over my own soul. I realized that that in me which believed and that in me which wondered, that which was found at last, was no other than my soul. I thanked the darkness that brought me to the light, and I valued this veil that prepared for me the vision in seen all souls as my soul, and realized my soul as the soul of all. And what bewilderment it was when I realized that I alone was, if there were anyone; that I am whatever and whoever exists; and that I shall be whoever there will be in the future. Verily, I am the seed and I am the root, and I am the fruit of this tree of life. "

From Bowl of Saki

Hawking may stop by Playboy mansion too!

• The question is not what he is sayng. The real question is what took him so long to figure these things out?! :-)

High Five

If you read the blog, you'd see that it is about Hawking's unscientific approach!!

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This blog is not about the exitence or belief in GOD!!

Be khoda!!

On a lighter note, Stephen Hawking will be here in SoCal, appearing on Big Bang theory, the nerdy show that I like. Perhaps I'll just drop in and grill him on this!!!

//news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57396495-71/stephen-hawking-to-appear-on-big-bang-theory/

Well., even without death still there would be...

religion/or God was born from people's fear of death

...according to Deepak Chopra. which makes a lot of sense. if people didn't fear death then there'll be no God!

Joubin jaan, thanks for the quotes from TLP

I was just joking about " Doof bleibt...."

Too bad Dirty Angel is not around, she was a big Wittgenstein fan.

At the cost of sounding a bit stubborn, I still think, if you can't express it, it doesn't exist. As far as our emotions, in the final instance we also express them in words, and last but not least, lets not forget Raymond Williams contribution with the concept of:

Structure of Feeling

//www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9780631207535_chunk_g978063120753522_ss1-37

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YOU LIVE IN THE UNIVERSE YOU HAVE NOT THE ONE YOU WANT! :-)

• The point is denying the evidence or rational for assuming things out of thin air or rather wishful thinking! All those who talk about God, soul, afterlife, day of reckoning and all things beautiful & nice, have to be riminded of one fact: YOU LIVE IN THE UNIVERSE YOU HAVE NOT THE ONE YOU WANT! :-)
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• P.S. Enjoyed Joubin's writtings despite the disagreemnt. Very nice expansion of Wittgenstein quote. Loved it! 

Siamak Jaan

I cordially disagree regarding the essence of the quote. My reading of the statement is Gödelian: Given that language is a formalism, and, given that thoughts are not (in the totality of the phenomena) language based (for example "feelings"), then the rational mind would not venture to put into words that which (by definition [1]) is unspeakable

[1]: We are clearly deeply entangled in that which we wish to fully "comprehend"...

(aside: fully enjoyed your pointing out the roots of NIAC the other day -- well done!)

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Think Clearly, Speak Straight, and Act Decisively.  Only then will you be an Iranian.

Some argue "Doof bleibt doof, da helfen keine Pillen,"

was the original quote!

The essence of the quote remains the same, i.e. :if you can't talk about it coherently, you don't know what you're talking about.

BTW Joubin jaan, whay can't one just be a human being, someone like Nima Youshij? Remember what he used to say:

"The world is my home."

Irrelevant

The point remains:  If the matter under consideration is occult (in the precise sense of the word) it is the height of duplicity to cloth one's musings in guise of science.

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Think Clearly, Speak Straight, and Act Decisively.  Only then will you be an Iranian.

Well again,

•    Belief in God has also created lots of beautiful art works and literature etc. As a matter of fact no other notion may have contributed to so much art and creativity. All it can tell us is about human minds and power of the memes! Disenchanted means disillusioned, hence the choice! :-)
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That is not what he said

You have the LW quote wrong.  It is from TLP and it says:

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

[TLP:7] 

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Think Clearly, Speak Straight, and Act Decisively.  Only then will you be an Iranian.

Disenchanted.

I think you only see the half empty of the proverbial glass. Perhaps that is the reason for your name my friend! "Human history is history of ignorance! History of myths. The personal experiences you point to has us where we are! Billions of maniacs divided in hundreds of groups killing each other!"??!  What about, beauty, love, freedom, democracy, Rumi, Mozart, Ipad, Cancer research, Monica Belucci.... etc. Human history is not all doom and gloom.

"The continuity of consciousness beyond embodied manifestations."  Thank you Jubin for putting it so elequently!  

"existence beyond the fabric of sapce-time"

Yeah Prince, we used to witness "existence beyond the fabric of sapce-time," on a regular basis, and lots of "out of body expereinces" as well, back in school days.

It usually occured on Friday and Saturday nights, and also on Saint. Patrick's Days, after lots and lots of drinking and...

Back on planet Earth, we would remiss if we forget to mention the old saying of Wittgenstein: "What cannot be imagined cannot even be talked about."

//en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein

P.S. Couldn't help but notice you sound so much like SK.

Well...

•      The state of the universe as we find it, its history , history of life on earth and other evidence point to a universe that is pointless! Steven Weinberg has it: "The more the universe seems comprehensible the more it also seems pointless." 
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•     In principle I think you may have a point to separate God from the sese of purpose in universe, etc. I think however your statement: "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." Is without merit! Human culture & history is history of ignorance! History of myths. The personal experiences you point to has us where we are! Billions of maniacs divided in hundreds of sects killing each other!

Time and Consciousness

The critical issue at hand is sentience and the nature of consciousness.  I agree with Prince on principle: whether the material realm is purposive or not; has a first cause or not; is irrelevant when one considers the question of the continuity of consciousness beyond embodied manifestations.

To discuss "evolution" in this context is clearly an error of bias. We simply do not understand the nature of 'Time' and Consciousness. (c.f. Quantum Mechanics.)

As for Steve, he is clearly speculating (and rather poorly at that) and equally clearly he is not in a position to support his belief according to the requirements of the scientific method. His musings are no more worthy of consideration (or perhaps even less) than your local green grocer on this topic.

Here are the opinions of a former holder of the Lucasian Chair on this matter. Rather regrettable that men of integrity such as Sir Isaac Newton are rare events. 

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Think Clearly, Speak Straight, and Act Decisively.  Only then will you be an Iranian.

Disenchanted

This has nothing to do with the difference between the death of a human or a fly. Although I personally think that if your life is different, so should be your death. Not less important, just different. But that is just me and my wishful thinking.  

Back to your point though, I am merely asking that we should consider other possibilities and again not put a blanket of denial on everything. If Hawking had just said that no God created the universe, I would be totaly fine with it. But when he went further and completely denied everything and said that because there is no God, nothing else is beyond this physical world either, I just had to ask; "how do you know?"  Non-existence of the God as we know him, does not negate the other possibilities.  

Consider life of a fly and repeat your questions!

Yes, to a point...

But remeber that pretty much everything that is a part of science now, used to be, at one point in time, the thing that we did not see or understand  and only philosophers talked about it.   

The thing is that you cannot just categorically deny and ignore all possibilities. This is what Stephen Hawking did and this is what I have an issue with. His approach is surprisingly very unscientific!! 

We can almost look to the

We can almost look to the end of universe in all directions and all we can see ( seeing is believing) is materie and energy in all sort and forms. What we cannot see can be left to religeon and philosephie to sort out!!

Arash jan

Says who?! Why cannot be any other possibility? For an atheiest, you are having a pretty religious approach to this, I am afraid!

your question is metaphisics

there is either a God or there is none. There is no other possibility.

Why is noone hearing me?!!

I am not saying that God created the universe. As a matter of fact, I am somewhat relieved that he didn't!!

All I am saying is that just because there is no God and he did not create the universe should not mean that there is no possibility of any type of existence beyong the fabric of sapce-time. To assume that and ignore all possibilities and evidences, however minimal, would be unscientific. Whatever happened to thinking outside of the box?!!

Your struggle to understand

"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........."

Why is it so hard to accept that humans, this planet and this solar system is but a microscopic speckle of dust in the grand scheme of universe? The notion that there's an "intelligent designer", i.e., god is humankind's futile attempt to answer why we are here. Unfortunately, it is a weak and incomplete answer.

God is a convenient answer to what we do not know. If you say god created all this makes it all easy to move on and not have to look at the sky above and wonder all the time.

 Your struggle to understand is mankind's struggle and hence the reason we have all these religions and the reason most people tend to believe in fairy tale books of scripture.

Next time you wonder if god created the universe, ask yourself who created god?