Premises 1659 - 1704
Draft 03 November 2023; reading time approximately 20 minutes.
Edited versions will be dated when those corrections are posted.
Last update 03 November 2023
Physicist Stephen Hawking’s Scientific Theory of Cosmogony
Common sense advisory: if something is beyond belief, don’t believe it.
Hawking’s Fatal Infinite Regress Category Error
I sum up the reigning theory of cosmogony in physics and mathematics of physics in one very short sentence: the universe created itself out of nothing. That statement is irrational, in other words, it is necessarily false; it could not, not be false.
English physicist Stephen Hawking (1942 – 2018) was founder of the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge, where he remained director of research until his death. I have the greatest respect for Stephen Hawking’s brilliance in physics and mathematics, but we must not assume brilliance in one academic discipline automatically translates into brilliance in other disciplines.
Hawking’s Straw-man God
Dr. Hawking uses his consciousness (which he denies exists) to invent a strawman god (which he denies exists).
i. …strawman is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one. Wikipedia1, “Straw Man”
You can imagine Hawking’s strawman god being like the image of Michelangelo’s fierce white man pointing his finger in the sky, “The Creation of Adam.”
Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam,” Italy, public domain, Wiki-commons2, “The Creation of Adam”
That strawman god is not just made-up by Hawking, it is virtually the same as in early Christian theology. That image has lost most of any theological credibility it ever had. Consider the criticism from English mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead.
i. Perhaps his [Alfred North Whitehead] most famous and pointed criticism of the Christian conception of God is…God as primarily a divine king who imposes his will on the world, and whose most important attribute is power. Wikipedia3, “Alfred North Whitehead” [brackets added]
Whitehead’s concept of eternal is quite different from mine. I suggest an identity condition of eternal, is that it exists without beginning, but identity condition of physical is that is exists with beginning. Therefore, eternal and physical are distinctions of kind, not degree, and we must acknowledge that physical is not eternal, nor is it infinite.
i. Whitehead saw God as necessary for his metaphysical system. Wikipedia4, “Alfred North Whitehead”
ii. According to Whitehead5:
· It is as true to say that God is permanent and the World fluent, as that the World is permanent and God is fluent.
· It is as true to say that God is one and the World many, as that the World is one and God many.
· It is as true to say that, in comparison with the World, God is actual eminently, as that, in comparison with God, the World is actual eminently.
· It is as true to say that the World is immanent in God, as that God is immanent in the World.
· It is as true to say that God transcends the World, as that the World transcends God.
· It is as true to say that God creates the World, as that the World creates God...
Hawking tears his strawman image (and the theory of creationism) apart, actually believing he is saying something important about the existence of God. Dr. Hawking’s metaphysical comments, certainly including his comments about cosmogony, are incoherent and irrational. His incoherence is revealed with reference to a set of natural a-priori axioms. For example, axiom: eternal exists. Irrational is revealed with reference to his claims our universe created itself out of nothing and our universe is nothing.
i. …traditional theism maintains the doctrine of the necessary existence of God… Donald Viney6
Hawking replaces actual eternal, which must necessarily exist, with exactly nothing, which does not describe anything that could possibly or actually exist. Axiom: nothing does not exist because something does.
This Hawking statement is strawman nonsense.
i. Science is increasingly answering questions that used to be the province of religion… Nowadays, science provides better and more consistent answers, but people will always cling to religion, because it gives comfort, and they do not trust or understand science. Stephen Hawking7
In his book Brief Answers to the Big Questions, Hawking makes a number of statements that seem to be non-controversial. For example, his statement (1668i) that laws of nature are unchangeable and universal is not controversial. That statement is science-based and coherent. I agree with that statement, except he spoils it when he prefaces the statement with “everything can be explained.” He also incorrectly claims the “universe is a machine…”
i. …everything can be explained…by the laws of nature…there are certain laws that are always obeyed… The universe is a machine governed by principles or laws—laws that can be understood by the human mind… The laws of nature are a description of how things actually work in the past, present and future… these physical laws, as well as being unchangeable, are universal…what role is there for God? Stephen Hawking8
Hawking: “God does not exist” – The Deep Dive into Nothing
Not everything can be explained by laws of nature, and while the universe behaves like a machine, for instance mechanistic deterministic physical causality, that is not even close to logically permitting saying the universe is actually a machine. I suggest the universe is a single whole live organism = GAIA.
By saying the laws of nature explain everything, that logically leads Hawking to ask, “What role is there for God?” For instance, if everything happens automatically and the future is perfectly predictable based upon knowledge of initial conditions and a coherent set of laws of physics, what is left for God to do? His answer is that there is no role for God. Hawking is a professed atheist, like many of his professional peer physicists and mathematicians. According to Hawking’s
theory of cosmogony, God is irrelevant and does not exist.i. …it’s my view that the simplest explanation is that there is no God. Stephen Hawking9
The first step in his cosmogony is that Hawking replaces God with “laws of nature,” and his conclusion is that inviolable laws of nature leave nothing for God to do.
i. I use the word ‘God’ in an impersonal sense, like Einstein did, for the laws of nature… Stephen Hawking10
ii. So God would have no freedom at all. Stephen Hawking11
Hawking does not stop with saying laws of nature are what God actually is; he goes much further than that. Hawking is smart enough to ask the most fundamental ontological question, what existed before that; what existed before the laws of nature; what existed before laws of physics? When he answers that question he takes the second step in his
theory of cosmogony. His answer to that fundamental question is nothing. I do not mean he does not have an answer, rather, his answer is nothing is something that existed before the universe began, and our physical universe created itself “out of nothing.”i. I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science. Stephen Hawking12
There are only three possible interpretations of Dr. Hawking’s use of the term nothing, to explain his
theory of cosmogony, and each is a fatal logical contradiction of infinite regress, because none of the possible interpretations answers the question, what existed before that; what existed before the universe began?First interpretation of Hawking’s nothing: 1) Nothing is a constituent of our physical universe; what our universe is made out of, like atoms are made out of quarks. That interpretation is so incoherent we can dismiss it out of hand.
Second interpretation of Hawking’s nothing: 2) Nothing is, well, actually nothing. In this interpretation, it is self-evidently obvious; nothing can do absolutely nothing at all, because nothing is not anything that could possibly or actually exist. In order to do anything, that which does it must actually exist. We are logically forced to reject this second interpretation of Hawking’s
cosmogony theory, because something, for instance a universe, would have to already exist in order to create itself.Third interpretation of Hawking’s nothing: 3) Nothing is somehow actually something, contrary to the universal definition of nothing. In this interpretation, the something that nothing actually is, actually caused the universe to begin. We are logically forced to draw that conclusion because everything with a beginning must be caused to begin by something else that already exists. The only thing Hawking acknowledges existed before the universe began is nothing. We are logically forced to reject this third interpretation of Hawking’s
cosmogony theory, because it is irrational to suggest nothing can be an active agent to cause anything.What could coherently explain what existed before the universe began that could have caused the universe to begin, without invoking the fatal logical error of infinite regress?
a. Axiom: the universe exists.
b. Axiom: the universe is physical.
c. Axiom: everything physical has a beginning.
d. Axiom: everything with a beginning must be caused to begin.
e. Axiom: eternal exists without beginning.
f. Axiom: nothing does not exist, because something does.
g. Sound deductive logic: eternal caused the universe to begin.
Premise 1677 a-g avoids the fatal logical category error of infinite regress because eternal exists without beginning. There is no other rationally logical explanation, because eternal is by common definition the only thing that exists without beginning.
I hope you can appreciate Hawking’s irony replacing God with nothing (nothing is Hawking’s strawman), while claiming he is presenting an important scientific explanation for beginning of our universe. He really does believe he has a
scientific theory of cosmogony, and he has a lot of company including Rovelli, Tegmark, Siegel, Arkani-Hamad, and virtually any other physicist you could name at random.Hawking actually believed saying the universe created itself out of nothing, was a rational statement. This is one of the highest-ranking, and most admired, scientists of all time, making that statement. I do suspect many accept his explanation without question, simply because of the intellectual authority of the author, certainly not because of the rationality of the logic.
i. I do not want to give the impression that my work is about proving or disproving the existence of God. My work is about finding a rational framework to understand the universe around us. Stephen Hawking13
Remember, Dr. Hawking was not only a physicist and a mathematician, he was also one of the top cosmologists in the world during his tenure at Cambridge.
i. The one remaining area that religion can now lay claim to is the origin of the universe, but even here science is making progress and should soon provide a definitive answer to how the universe began…asking if God exists is a valid question for science. After all, it is hard to think of a more important, or fundamental, mystery than what, or who, created and controls the universe. Stephen Hawking14
ii. The basic assumption of science is scientific determinism. The laws of science determine the evolution of the universe, given its state at one time [initial conditions]. These laws may, or may not, have been decreed by God, but he cannot intervene to break the laws, or they would not be laws. That leaves God with the freedom to choose the initial state of the universe, but even here it seems there may be laws. So God would have no freedom at all. Stephen Hawking15 [brackets added]
Hawking’s Recipe for Creating a Universe out of Nothing
According to Hawking, creation of the universe was easy-peasy; nothing (apparently an active agent capable of taking some kind of action, say to cause something to exist), would just follow a simple recipe, like a human being making a cake.
i. Despite the complexity and variety of the universe, it turns out that to make one you need just three ingredients…imagine…some kind of cosmic cookbook. Stephen Hawking16
The three ingredients are, according to Hawking: matter, energy and space.
i. …you need just three ingredients…The first is matter…The second…is energy…The third…is space. Stephen Hawking17
ii. At the moment of the Big Bang, an entire universe came into existence, and with it space. It all inflated, just like a balloon being blown up. So where did all this energy and space come from? How does an entire universe full of energy, the awesome vastness of space and everything in it, simply appear out of nothing? Stephen Hawking18
That is not all, Dr. Hawking puts icing on his universe cake, when he claims we get the universe delivered fully baked, all for “free.” Free is the icing on Hawking’s universe cake.
i. …now, after a lifetime of work, I think that actually you can get a whole universe for free. Stephen Hawking19
Hawking claims, his theory of cosmogony is a
scientific explanationof how a universe could create itself out of nothing, or alternately interpreting his description to mean, how nothing is an active agent that creates a universe for free. “Free” means no thermodynamic energy bill is presented along with the universe delivery.i. I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science. Stephen Hawking20
There are two parts to Dr. Hawing’s
scientificcosmogony.The first part of Hawking’s
scientificcosmogony, is this. Apparently, thermodynamics fundamental laws of physics, are part of this free package. All laws of physics are part of the free package. In the first part of Hawking’stheory of cosmogonytheory of cosmology, there is no apparent violation of these natural laws, because they did not exist before the universe began. In other words, no energy was necessary to create our entire universe (rather it came to us free of charge), because energy is mass and mass is physical, therefore did not exist before the universe began.In Hawking’s
cosmogony theory, all laws of physics, come to us, gratis, with no energy bill attached. Thermodynamics is not violated if all the energy of the universe (which quantity is known to be conserved intact from the first instant the universe began to the present moment, and by assumption to the end of the universe), came to us, free, in an instant, shorter than the shortest measurable Planck unit of time. Free means all that energy was a gift from the active agent, nothing. However, a rather obvious logical contradiction is, how can laws of science govern beginning of the universe, if those laws did not exist, but only began to exist, complete (= all-at-once), at the first instant the universe began?i. …the universe…in all its mind-boggling vastness and complexity, could simply have popped into existence without violating the known laws of nature. Stephen Hawking21
The second part of Hawking’s
scientificcosmogony, depends upon a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics. The quantum mechanics part of Hawking’sscientificcosmogony, itself also has two parts.The first part of Hawking’s quantum mechanics cosmogony, is that positive energy (inclusive of two of his three necessary ingredients; matter and energy), is perfectly mathematically offset by negative energy of empty space (his third necessary ingredient). Mathematically perfectly offset, according to Hawking means, energies with the different mathematical symbols + and - exist in exactly equal quantities, and when you add them together, they cancel each other to zero quantity. He declares this is another law of nature. Thus, he claims according to this law of nature “everything adds up to zero,” which I interpret to mean everything physical must disappear, because zero always means the absence of something, not the presence of anything. If that is correct, then all the energy dissolves into not-energy, whatever that could physically mean (it means incoherent to me). To make sure we get it, he adds “this is hard to grasp, but it’s true”.
i. When the Big Bang produced a massive amount of positive energy, it simultaneously produced the same amount of negative energy. In this way, the positive and the negative add up to zero, always. It’s another law of nature…space itself is a vast store of negative energy. Enough to ensure that everything adds up to zero. Stephen Hawking22
According to the first part of Hawking’s quantum mechanics cosmogony, not only did the universe create itself out of nothing, the universe is itself also nothing, for instance “everything adds up to zero” (1690i), and “the universe adds up to nothing” (1691i).
i. So what does this mean in our quest to find out if there is a God? It means that if the universe adds up to nothing, then you don’t need a God to create it. The universe is the ultimate free lunch. Stephen Hawking23
I want to make three preliminary observations about the ontological status of mathematics, about which I will have more to say later in this manuscript.
1) Putting a + sign or – sign onto physical energy is a mathematical abstraction description; those signs are not intrinsic to physical energy. The same is true of all numbers; attaching a + or – sign onto any number is certainly useful information, but that mathematical operation does not change the absolute value of any number. The absolute value of +5 and -5 both equal exactly 5.
I do not accept Hawking’s interpretation that if positive energy is perfectly offset by negative energy (assuming they exist in exactly the same quantity), that the resulting actual physical condition of total net energy in our universe is zero. Nor do I accept, even if that were true, that it would mean our physical universe is “nothing.” Rather, it would mean the destruction of our universe. It would mean our universe would cease to exist in any form that could sustain human conscious life forms.
2) Adding and subtracting energy quantities that Hawking is describing is a mathematical operation which could not refer to any actual physical process that can be empirically observed.
3) Mass is defined in quantum mechanics in two forms, fermion matter mass and boson energy mass. Total mass (= matter mass plus energy mass), is conserved (not cancelled), and is certainly not zero. The absolute value of the quantity of total mass is conserved, ignoring the mathematical symbols (+ and -) human beings attach to it. Matter mass and energy mass are equivalent; each transforms into the other, therefore suggesting generic mass unit, say stem mass unit, is one thing taking two forms. We know that gravity is spacetime bending in proximity to mass. Therefore, a condition of zero total energy would delete gravity because energy is mass.
Whatever Hawking means when he says the universe is nothing, it is impossible that it actually means the universe does not exist.
Every application of the word nothing by Hawking introduces another logical contradiction to his
scientifictheory of cosmogony. Four such contradictions include the three contradictions in premises 1673 - 1676 (= three interpretations of our universe created itself out of nothing,) and the fourth in premise 1691i (our universe is nothing).You cannot logically add and subtract physical objects in the same way you can add and subtract number quantities. Just because you create a function and an equation and make calculations of quantities does not mean you are saying anything coherent about actual physical reality. I admit, my brain is more than a bit confused about what it actually means that positive energy and negative energy are added together, and furthermore that addition apparently results in zero total quantity energy, and according to Hawking that means “everything adds up to nothing,” which he interprets to mean, the universe is nothing. I do not know what any of that actually means. I believe those statements are incoherent, which if correct means no brains could understand what those statements actually mean.
Ontology is an attempt to explain what actually does exist. For example, adding an actual physical object into physical space, say adding a bundle of nuclear waste into some local physical space, means either, create it for the very first time, or if it already exists, you get it from whatever remote location where it can be found. Subtracting an actual physical object, say a bundle of nuclear waste, means you remove it from where it is, and either destroy it somehow (known to be impossible with nuclear waste), or relocate it to another place (really the only option with nuclear waste). If you get the waste from somewhere else, or remove the waste by changing its location, you have not gone from some quantity of nuclear waste to zero quantity of nuclear waste, except locally (some particular location within the whole universe). However, remember that Hawking is not describing anything local, rather, he is talking about the entire universe, which is global. He is referring to net zero energy for the entire universe.
Since we are speaking about the entire universe (= global), that means the only option to get more waste you must create it, and to remove nuclear waste you must destroy it. If all we had to do was use a mathematical operation, for instance subtract nuclear waste quantity cardinal number, that would mean we could solve the nuclear waste problem instantly, but of course that is incoherent logical nonsense. Therefore, we must conclude that 5 – 5 = 0, tells us nothing about how actual physical objects come into or go out of existence, nor does it tell us anything about what a thing actually is, other than that it exists in some quantity, or that something that could possibly exist, is actually absent.
A quantity of something actually tells us nothing about any intrinsic property of any actual physical object. That is the reason we can use the abstraction of number, say 5, to refer to any physical object whatsoever; 5 fish, 5 marbles, 5 buffalo, 5 planets, etc. No mathematics, for example, no numbers, no functions, no equations, no mathematical operations, definitions (even mathematical axioms), and no mathematical descriptions can change any actual physical object in any possible way.
Another issue with Hawking’s
theory of cosmogony, is that he implies (without stating it directly), that the universe is mathematics, which would literally mean that the universe is just numbers and equations, which is also physicist Max Tegmark’s major career-defining thesis. I discuss Tegmark’s theories in more detail below. This interpretation follows directly from Hawking’s quantum mechanics description of zero total net energy. There can be no dispute that 5 – 5 = 0 is actually true, and if that were all the physical universe actually is, then Hawking’s statement (zero total net energy) would be coherent. The interpretation that our universe is mathematics is the current interpretation of a relatively large number, though still a minority opinion, among professional physicists and mathematicians. I deal with that question in detail in other parts of this manuscript.Therefore, to claim the universe is nothing, because the quantity of positive energy added to the quantity of negative energy, means zero total energy, is incoherent. Even if it is a fact that quantity of positive energy is exactly equal to the quantity of negative energy for the total universe, that tells us nothing about how the two kinds of energy could simply obliterate each other, or if that actually happens, exactly what it means. It is absurd to suggest a mathematical zero energy means actual physical empirically observable energy in the universe is nothing. It certainly does not mean our universe is nothing.
Wiki-commons, “The Creation of Adam”
Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, New York: The Free Press, 1978, pp. 347–348, 351.
Donald Viney, “Process Theism”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Section 2
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 30.
Stephen Hawking Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, pp. 30-31.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 37.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 32.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 32.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 32.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 30.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 32.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 32.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 32.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 33.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 33.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 33.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 32.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 33.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 34.
Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, “Is There a God?” Bantam Books, 2018, p. 34.