This is a short commentary on the documentary, The Hawking Paradox, which I Tivo’d on Sunday, 22Oct06 on the Science Channel. I want to clarify that I am a pastor, not a physicist. Perhaps we could get some comments from Sojourn’s resident physicist regarding Stephen Hawking and some of the theories he has proposed. I would like to see a running commentary started.
Stephen Hawking is one of the note-worthy physicists of the twentieth century. In 1975, he gave a foundation-shattering claim to the scientific world. Hawking introduced the Black Hole Information Paradox. This theory claimed that black holes could completely destroy matter, and therefore, information.
This went against many scientific laws, including the First Law of Thermodynamics. This law states, In any process, the total energy of the universe remains constant or, put another way, energy cannot be created or destroyed.
Hawking had many opponents, including John Preskill and Kip Thorne, who refused to believe his theory. In 2004, he conceded that he had been wrong and presented a unique answer to the conundrum. He stated that the information that black holes destroyed was taken to parallel universes. This stunned many physicists as unfounded conjecture.
I do not believe there are parallel universes attached to our black holes. That deduction is actually irrelevant to my commentary. What I propose is that there are points where theory enters the realm of faith. These faith steps do not have to be toward the God of the bible. However, they do transcend the abilities to measure and control.
Hawking is quoted to say, The whole history of science has been the gradual realisation that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired. I do not know if this was a cynical comment or if it was said in earnest. I do believe that it crystallizes the riddle of knowledge.
Psalm 19 begins, The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. God reveals Himself throughout all of His creation. We should press forward in the realms of micro- and macro-sciences. The further, deeper and smaller we look we will find the signature of God.
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David Thew
Sojourn Founding Pastor
__________________________
David Thew
Sojourn Pastor
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Augustine said “Credo ut
Augustine said “Credo ut intelligam” - translated, “I believe in order that I may understand.”. This is a Latin phrase first put forth by Augustine, then popularized by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109). Augustine’s full statement was “I don’t understand so that I might believe, but I believe so that I might understand.” This idea gives emphasis to the priority and necessity of belief in the Christian’s intellectual pursuits. One cannot truly and fully understand spiritual matters unless one believes them to be true.
While specific to the issue of spiritual matters, this principle may also be applicable to other intellectual pursuits as well. In Romans 1, Paul warns of the inevitable outcome of those who willingly supress the truth that God reveals to them ->, i.e, a propensity to worship the creation instead of the creator.
When confronted with the fantastic complexity of creation, one will either see the fingerprints of God and bow in humble, awestruck adoration of the Creator - or ultimately worship the creation itself. Carl Sagan comes to mind ….. from the introduction to his Cosmos series: “The universe is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”
Yes, Christians need to actively pursue intellectual knowledge. Sir Issac Newton, whom even the secular Encylopedia Britannica acknowledges as probably the greatest scientific mind of all time, is a good example. Most people don’t know that he was also an avid theologian and pursued the discoveries he is so famous for, because of a conviction that God had created a structured, ordered cosmos.
At the end of the his life when queried about the numerous discoveries which had made him famous, Newton said “I must confess to a feeling of profound humility in the presence of a universe which transcends us at almost every point. I feel like a child who while playing by the seashore has found a few bright colored shells and a few pebbles while the whole vast ocean of truth stretches out almost untouched and unruffled before my eager fingers.”
The link I posted earlier is a blog that speaks to this very subject: http://www.ttpstudents.com/content/blog/mjsawyer/LovingGod
Here’s an extract from this article: “We must first recognize that American Evangelicalism does not reflect our heritage as Protestants or the worldview of the Bible. While the Christian medieval worldview downplayed the importance of the created order and drew the contrast between heaven and hell, the Reformers saw the world as created by God and as a good gift to be enjoyed and to be understood. They abolished the distinction between the secular and the sacred. However, like the medieval worldview, some in our own day still distrust any truth not grounded in Scripture. John Calvin, the father of Reformed Theology (and the fountainhead of the tradition that bears his name: Calvinism), recognized and endorsed the fact that people can and do learn truth through the study of the works of nonbelievers.”
Bach, generally acknowledged as the greatest musician of all time, made no distinction between secular and sacred music. He believed that all music should be for the glory of God. “The aim and final reason of all music should be nothing else but the Glory of God and the refreshment of the spirit.” (Johann Sebastian Bach)
Live life to the fullest doing everything for the glory of God!
Bob
__________________________Fides Quaerens Intellectum
Bob Pratico
Fides Quaerens Intellectum
(my Sojourn blog)
David said, “What I
David said, “What I propose is that there are points where theory enters the realm of faith.”
Absolutely. One of the best examples is the Ontological (theoretical) Argument put forth by Anselm. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) was the outstanding Christian philosopher and theologian of the eleventh century. (Faith for Anselm is more a volitional state than an epistemic state: it is love for God and a drive to act as God wills.)
In the 11th century A.D., Anselm sought to justify faith through the use of logic and reason alone. Inspired by Augustine, Anselm believed that to be most effective in reaching unbelievers, he must support his arguments using methods employed by them. His major contribution to apologetics and theology is now called the “Ontological Argument”, which, essentially, is a set of reasoned steps independent of Scripture to “prove” that God exists. One thousand years later, his argument is still regarded as a masterpiece of theoretical logic; it’s a powerful line-of-reasoning. His argument is ingenious but can be difficult to grasp when first confronted with it.
In his Proslogion, Anselm derives the existence of God from the concept of a being than which no greater can be conceived. Anselm reasoned that, if such a being fails to exist, then a greater being — namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists — can be conceived. But this would be absurd: nothing can be greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived. So a being than which no greater can be conceived — i.e., God — exists.
The argument is given below in it’s original form (translated by Jonathan Barnes) …..
From the Proslogium
Therefore, Lord, who grant understanding to faith, grant me that, in so far as you know it beneficial, I understand that you are as we believe and you are that which we believe. Now we believe that you are something than which nothing greater can be imagined.
Then is there no such nature, since the fool has said in his heart: God is not? But certainly this same fool, when he hears this very thing that I am saying - something than which nothing greater can be imagined - understands what he hears; and what he understands is in his understanding, even if he does not understand that it is. For it is one thing for a thing to be in the understanding and another to understand that a thing is.
For when a painter imagines beforehand what he is going to make, he has in his undertanding what he has not yet made but he does not yet understand that it is. But when he has already painted it, he both has in his understanding what he has already painted and understands that it is.
Therefore even the fool is bound to agree that there is at least in the understanding something than which nothing greater can be imagined, because when he hears this he understands it, and whatever is understood is in the understanding.
And certainly that than which a greater cannot be imagined cannot be in the understanding alone. For if it is at least in the understanding alone, it can be imagined to be in reality too, which is greater. Therefore if that than which a greater cannot be imagined is in the understanding alone, that very thing than which a greater cannot be imagined is something than which a greater can be imagined. But certainly this cannot be. There exists, therefore, beyond doubt something than which a greater cannot be imagined, both in the understanding and in reality.
——-
To help you grasp this, here is Anselm’s argument Point By Point:
1) God is defined as the being in which none greater is possible.
2) It is true that the notion of God exists in the understanding (your mind.)
3) And that God may exist in reality (God is a possible being.)
4) If God only exists in the mind, and may have existed, then God might have been greater than He is.
5) Then, God might have been greater than He is (if He existed in reality.)
6) Therefore, God is a being which a greater is possible.
7) This is not possible, for God is a being in which a greater is impossible.
8) Therefore God exists in reality as well as the mind.
——-
Wow. Jesus says in Matthew 22:37, “And He said to him, ’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ” (emphasis added)
God … help me to grow in wisdom and understanding of both Your wonderous cosmos and You that I might better love You, and better serve You and others. Help me to be a faithful steward of truth.
Bob
__________________________Fides Quaerens Intellectum
Bob Pratico
Fides Quaerens Intellectum
(my Sojourn blog)
Being the resident physicist
Being the resident physicist for Sojourn I will try to illuminate this all absorbing subject. But first let me inject a couple of scripture references that I find are often stuck in my mind regarding man’s knowlge. The first is Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”. While the context for this verse is prayer, I have often taken this verse as a mandate from Jesus to seek and receive knowledge of God’s creation, and that nothing is hidden from us if we are willing to ask the questions and search for the answers. None the less, I also look to 1Cor 1:27 “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” to keep me humble, because regardless of how smart i.e. wise I think I am there is always going to be something that will confound me, stump my understanding and make me humble.
To the topic which is the proposed Hawking Information paradox. The paradox is based upon the unproven theory of Hawking radiation. This theory proposes that black holes can evaporate below is a short synopsis
“Black holes are sites of immense gravitational attraction into which surrounding matter is drawn by gravitational forces. Classically, the gravitation is so powerful that nothing, not even radiation or light (hence why it is black as no light is reflecting from it), can escape from the black hole. However, by doing a calculation in the framework of quantum field theory in curved spacetimes, Hawking showed that quantum effects allow black holes to emit radiation in a thermal spectrum.
Physical insight on the process may be gained by imagining that particle antiparticle radiation is emitted from just beyond the event horizon. This radiation does not come directly from the black hole itself, but rather is a result of virtual particles being “boosted” by the black hole’s gravitation into becoming real particles.
A more precise, but still much simplified view of the process is that vacuum fluctuations cause a particle-antiparticle pair to appear close to the event horizon of a black hole. One of the pair falls into the black hole whilst the other escapes. In order to fill the energy ’hole’ left by the pair’s spontaneous creation, energy tunnels out of the black hole and across the event horizon. By this process the black hole loses mass, and to an outside observer it would appear that the black hole has just emitted a particle.”1
Bear in mind that what we are talking about here is physics at the quantum level. I believe that most all physicists would tell you that if a book containing information were thrown into a black hole they would admit that it was gone and destroyed without much argument. The information we are talking about is on the quantum level, and the information we are talking about is more like is the particle spin up, spin down or spin 0. Like the three states of a top, it can spin clockwise counter clockwise or be not spinning at all. The virtual particle creation in the theory Hawking Radiation lends its self to thought about another oddity of quantum physics quantum entanglement. Since the particles are virtual pairs they have the property quantum enganglement.
“Quantum entanglement is a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which the quantum states of two or more objects have to be described with reference to each other, even though the individual objects may be spatially separated. This leads to correlations between observable physical properties of the systems. For example, it is possible to prepare two particles in a single quantum state such that when one is observed to be spin-up, the other one will always be observed to be spin-down and vice versa, this despite the fact that it is impossible to predict, according to quantum mechanics, which set of measurements will be observed. As a result, measurements performed on one system seem to be instantaneously influencing other systems entangled with it. Quantum entanglement does not enable the transmission of classical information faster than the speed of light”2
Despite prohibitions on clasical information transfer quantum entanglement is the source for the concept of faster than light quantum information transfer. (that is another topic). What we have though, is since the virtual particle pairs are created at the edgeof the event horizion they by their nature are quantum entangled which leads to the thought problem on Information loss.
“In 1975, Stephen Hawking and Jacob Bekenstein showed that black holes should slowly radiate away energy, which poses a problem. From the no hair theorem one would expect the Hawking radiation to be completely independent of the material entering the black hole. However, if the material entering the black hole were a pure quantum state, the transformation of that state into the mixed state of Hawking radiation would destroy information about the original quantum state. This violates Liouville’s theorem and presents a physical paradox.
More precisely, if we have an entangled pure state and we throw in one part of the entangled system into the black hole while keeping the other part outside, we get a mixed state after we take the partial trace over the interior of the black hole. But since everything within the interior of the black hole will hit the singularity within a fixed finite time, the part which is traced over partially might “disappear”, never to appear again. Of course, we don’t really know what goes on at singularities once quantum effects are taken into account, which is why this is conjectural and controversial.
Hawking was convinced, however, because of the simple elegance of the resulting equation which ’unified’ Thermodynamics, Relativity, Gravity and Hawking’s own work on the Big Bang. This annoyed many physicists, notably John Preskill, who in 1997 bet Hawking and Kip Thorne that information was not lost in black holes. In 2004 Hawking had to pay out to Preskill when Hawking conceded that Preskill was in fact correct.”3
Bear in mind that “Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.” –Richard Feynman
1 Hawking Radiation - Wikipeda
2 Quantum Entanglement – Wikipeda
3 Black Hole Information Loss – Wikipeda
Your fellow Sojourner
__________________________A. Edwards
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Fellow Sojourner
A. Edwards
Cowabunga! Reading your post
Cowabunga! Reading your post Andy brings Ps 131:1 to mind. Thanks for a great post.
The more I learn, the more I realize just how little I really know. Quite humbling.
Bob
__________________________Fides Quaerens Intellectum
Bob Pratico
Fides Quaerens Intellectum
(my Sojourn blog)
An upcoming study adds to
An upcoming study adds to this long history, suggesting black holes, now almost taken for granted, never actually come fully into existence, and that the solution to a decades-old black hole paradox may be simpler than supposed.
Black Holes: : Just beyond the event horizon
’ … we may be “watching the gravitational collapse of matter, and we may never see effects associated with a black hole event horizon,” concludes the study. “Only effects occurring during the gravitational collapse itself appear to be visible.” ’
Bob
__________________________Fides Quaerens Intellectum
Bob Pratico
Fides Quaerens Intellectum
(my Sojourn blog)
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