The mind of God? The problem with deifying Stephen Hawking
prospectmagazine.co.uk
prospectmagazine.co.uk
Lol, I must have been such a freak of a kid. I found this book in the library when I was 11yo and read it in a couple of weeks.
Couldn't do it these days. We didn't have internet back then.
From memory it wasn't too hard of a read.
Yeah, I'm surprised to hear now that the book is notorious for sitting on shelves while never being read. It didn't need a degree, it just needed some patience and imagination.
When considered among others in its genre, neither did it stand out. With rare exception, all of the "science for the public" books seem to be written at a 12 year old reading level (exceptions I know of are The Tao of Physics (requiring a slighting higher reading level) and especially Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (does anyone understand this!?))
Neither more nor less that 99% of other science books for the general public (aside from the ones aimed at kids).
The opening section quotes an anecdote about Hawking referring to his chances of winning a Nobel:
"Most doubtless saw this as an example of Hawking’s famous wit. But in truth it gives a clue to the physicist’s elusive character: shamelessly self-promoting to the point of arrogance, and heedless of what others might think."
Or, more likely, given the context - he was actually being funny and poking fun at his own reputation, as it appears.
Deified might be an extreme way of putting it but Mr. Hawking once attended my university to give what looked like a fairly ordinary physics lecture, and not only was the room full to a brim, three other rooms where the lecture was projected were, and people were sitting outside on the grass and watching it on a projector.
If another physics professor of similar caliber had given the lecture I can tell you they would have had trouble to attract a few dozen people.
He undoubtedly was a major celebrity, which I guess in our modern secular times is somewhat like deification. I mean at that time you wouldn't have been able to tell the uni campus apart from a new age cult event. There were people intently listening to the lecture who I know for a fact had not the slightest idea what he was even talking about and just soaking it in like if they were listening to some preacher reciting ancient scripture.
This mystification of science which Hawking stood for always reminds me of a Ted Chiang short story: https://www.nature.com/articles/35014679
That doesn't mean he was deified, or was self aggrandising, or that he stood for the 'mystification of science' - whatever you mean by that.
E.g. Siri in blindsight — if I recall, and don’t mix novels, he was a character whose role was as one of a group of people who interpret the post human for the merely human. He was a (meta?)synthesist. Forgot the exact language.
"Hawking became “as much a brand as he was a person,” says Seife. Billionaire entrepreneurs traded on his name, from Yuri Milner to Richard Branson and Jeffrey Epstein (whose vanity conference on gravity in the Virgin Islands the physicist attended in 2006). In exchange, Hawking was taken on zero-gravity flights and invited to glitzy events and launches. This hawking of Hawking continues today: for a mere £19,000 you can buy a gold watch inlaid, like some medieval jewel-encrusted reliquary bearing a shard of Christ’s cross, with wooden disks “taken from the desk at which Hawking contemplated the mysteries of the universe.”
Not just in the literal sense (Pharaohs and some Roman Emperors were actually deified, not Hawking), but also in the metaphorical sense.
Hawkings just had a very striking visual presense and story which was easy to remember (alas, because of his health issues mainly), and so became a stand in for "famous scientist" the average Joe knew, and the press could use a a common interviewee, reference, etc, when talking about physics.
Otherwise people (whether into science or not) didn't care that much about him, nor they had particular esteem for his various views (unlike e.g. with Einstein).
For some brands it is. I can think of the "Jesus phone".
Did he say he wanted a Nobel? To me it sounded like he made a joke.
> “People have searched for mini black holes… but have so far not found any,” he intoned with his trademark voice synthesiser. “This is a pity, because if they had I would have got a Nobel Prize.”
It shows a certain lack of context awareness to mark a guy down for vanity when he's spent most of his adult life in a wheel chair living a life that exists only in the mental sphere, with no prospects for physical release ever until the day he dies.
The issue with Hawking (based on my understanding as an enthusiastic novice) is that Hawking Radiation can't be measured because it would be necessary to find Black Holes that are significantly less than 1 Solar Mass, and such things don't exist in our Universe as far as we know. And this in turn is why Hawking Radiation can't be tested.
But, it's also true that Einstein never won a Nobel for SR or GR.
Suggesting that famous people traded on his name may not go far enough. Was Hawking, post-~2000, merely a vehicle through which his inner circle of students/collaborators/children got access to an audience?
Who had access to his voice synthesizer, and could it could be overridden remotely? Hardly anything he said would have been "live" other than simple yes/no answers or, in less formal contexts where people would wait for them, short phrases. His talks were certainly not live communication; they were pre-written (raising the question, by whom?) even if nobody was using him as a puppet in realtime. At what point did any of it, any of his interactions, stop being live or genuine? Who would know about and reveal any unethical behavior, especially if it meant revealing their own abuse of access to gain an audience for their own work or interests?
As the years went on, the answers got increasingly long, compared to Hawking’s communication.
I got the impression Hawking was saying something like, “Give them #43.”
Well, can't please everyone.
He deserved his celebrity status and it detracts nothing away from his status as a top notch scientist.
Maybe he capitalized on the brand a bit more than others, but I can't find a standard to hold him to. How can I say how I'd act in his shoes when I would fight to my last breath just to not be in his shoes?
Maybe we do need "to judge" as the reviewer says, but I don't have the stomach for it. I guess it's "thanks and good job" to the people who do?
The editor dropped the ball by not titling the review "Hawking Hawking Hawking". I also got a pop-over to subscribe, which puts us at "Hawking Hawking Hawking Hawking".
I also feel that medical technology has advanced in staving off the secondary- and side-effects of ALS, including cognitive decline, even though it cannot prevent or cure it. And if, in the end, it actually made no difference, I don't feel that would be relevant to my attitude to how Hawking lived his life.
My list of diefied physicists would probably more be einstein and maybe feynman
It's all very silly really, and clearly a projection of dogmatic belief in religious authority onto science as some kind of monolithic book of knowledge rather than the rickety, slowly-less-wrong process that it is.
Science is a process, not an end - treating current theory as the final truth (to the extent that science priests even relay current theory rather than just provide fun accessible notions for entertainment purposes) is a fool's errand.
How many people have learned about Shannon's information theory from their deep understanding of Hawking radiation, thanks to Hawking appearing on Big Bang Theory?
There's a huge divide between actually having any understanding of science and science-worship, and science-worship actively detracts from understanding science.
After all, what's most beautiful about science is not the people involved in its discovery, but the vast majesty of nature and reality. The people involved would always tell you that they themselves are merely vehicles. So I always end up wishing that these pop culture distillations of science would focus more on the nature side of the story and less on the people. Is it just the nature of the beast of pop culture to do just the opposite?
Plus the fact that the promotion of science in the media seems more for entertainment and ingroup-signalling (ie, politics) than genuine truth-seeking.
The people involved are sometimes exceptional on their own merits. Sagan for had an incredible personality and was an exceptionally good host, and as a celebrity it's not surprising to find a cult of personality building around him.
Yeah, the people who worship them seldom have an actual interest in science. What of it? The people who worship Stacy Abrams seldom have a genuine interest in politics, and kids who worship teenage boy bands seldom have a genuine interest in their music. Celebrity culture is generally toxic, news at 11.
Though I like what you're pointing out regarding people jumping ship from religion to atheism but still needing a "guiding voice" so to say. I guess it's a lack of self confidence.
Well, let's hang on a second, and think about that a little more because I think you've touched on an interesting wrinkle. I don't think that celebrities (by virtue of functioning in the original "thought leadership" role) must necessarily have this relationship with their followers. I am reminded of the critical tension in the dharmic religions between Buddhism and the hierarchical Vedism which came before it; Buddhism gained a significant amount of power as a referendum on Vedism.
We can of course talk about what that means from an abstract sense versus concretely, and it's obviously not always so black and white. But celebrities as cultural leaders have agency. Can't they choose whether they are using their power to reinforce an egalitarian adept/novice apprenticeship structure rather than some sort of perpetually hierarchical one of divine providence? The latter is of course more common over the course of history but it is certainly not the only option.
I suppose (to circle back to my original point) that the challenge here is that the cultural leaders do not exist in a vacuum; it is not just up to them but the society they exist within to determine their popular conception, which may not even be one to which they ascribe -- the tabloid example is evergreen. But is it then the vocation of celebrities to engage with these kinds of entities, and eventually emerge victorious -- being able to present their own views to society on their on frame, without being cowed or twisted or distorted by the rest of society at large, including its entrenched interests?
I don't know. I'm still inclined to say yes, historically speaking.
Do I want to know the latest and greatest on how philosophers or theologians interpret reality and meaning? Then I'll listen to any number of my favorites on these subjects.
There are world-class experts in both areas and they address different needs.
https://qz.com/627989/why-are-so-many-smart-people-such-idio...
The #1 thing that strikes me is that any characteristics shared by religion and science only exist because of human behavior, while the fundamentals could not be more different.
Scientism is the fetishisation of science.
The definition and history of scientism is also more complex than "basically a religion".
Meanwhile, a large and growing group of people truly believe that science is religion in a very literal sense, and they're using that belief to reject the reality of climate change, peddle anti-vaccine viewpoints, etc, and that has nothing to do with scientism.
If you're going to worship something at an altar, it's better if that thing isn't real.
This is not a good take.
It is hard to estimate the magnitude of the harm done by even a single religious leader who preaches a message of hate and fear. A leader who deeply instils into his congregation a belief system that has undertones of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and authoritarianism.
I don't personally believe in the god my parents did, and while you're right that it doesn't really matter if who they believe in is real, it does matter that they choose to follow the teachings of the church in the name of that god.
Religion reminds people of their fallibility. When you forget your own limitations, you deify yourself, and nothing good comes of that.
Mind pointing to some citations? Genuinely curious.
> Religion reminds people of their fallibility.
I don't need religion to remind me of my fallibility. I'm reminded of that on a daily basis when I screw simple things up.
> When you forget your own limitations, you deify yourself...
First, it's a huge stretch to claim that forgetting limitations leads to deification. But secondly, when I forget my own limitations, I'm quickly reminded again by screwing up again.
Religion is not necessary to stay grounded. And not every religion is focused on the fallibility of humans. Do some people find that religion helps them stay grounded? Sure. If that works for you, great.
You're describing something that some religions may do.
I understand the scientific process as well as any non-scientist could expect to (ie, in theory if not in practice). I studied physics in college (not that that's some big credential, but I do have some exposure to the idea).
My issue with scientism is it aims to credit "the pop scientists" as an authority rather than encouraging scientific skepticism and scientific literacy. It also promotes science as the only way to glimpse truth, but that's a separate and more complex issue.
Hero worship of scientists as a class (let alone individual scientists, or TV presenters in some cases) as being the holders of truth is not a good thing, but I'm excited to hear your arguments for why it is.
Scientism is a real thing but I think you're being unfair in blaming this on people who happen to be good ambassadors for science.
In reality, it means stuff like "You should not buy homeopathic cures because it's exactly the same as water."
I'm OK with science being the arbiter of truth when it has evidences.
Edit: Also, in my opinion, Hawking's A Brief History of Time is one of the best books that explained basic ideas of cosmology (and how it is worked on) in terms that laypeople can understand. If that makes him worthy of a special mention of criticism, I don't know what to say.
It was a "scientific fact" that smoking didn't cause lung cancer, for far too long.
Both believing in homeopathy and believing junk science can be avoided with the application of critical thinking and some basic scientific literacy. Because in reality, science is a human endeavour and is as full (if not more) of shady dealings as any other human endeavour. The process gets us further from untruth (as opposed to closer to truth) as it is applied honestly and diligently, but plenty of conducted science is neither, and science reporting doubly so.
But if people are encouraged to cargo-cult "believe scientists always", they're just as gullible as ever.
Not everything is a bourgeois conspiracy to oppress the proletariat.
Where the bourgeois and proletariat come into play, is when I look at the stark differences between someone like MLK and Kenneth Copeland. I'd not expect any MLK type to emerge from a theology like Kenneth Copeland's. And we know that the billionaire class does attempt to distort information on all kinds of things if those things are giving them immense power.
I'm reminded of how they did that with climate change for 50 years and various nutritional debates over the years. And many other things. The intention being to poison the public discourse long enough that they can exploit more.
Does this mean there was a concentrated effort to poison atheist v religion discussion as well? I've never been privy to conversations at that echelon of wealth so I can only point out that the results speak for themselves even if the results were never the goal. But personally if I hated humanity and wanted to keep my power to exploit, I'd do whatever it takes to make sure there's other interpretations of Christianity besides MLK's for example.
I'll put on a serious face: Marx would say that religion reduces the psychological pain of capitalist alienation, so it is bad, because it reduces the impetus for revolution. Whereas scientism would generally help to advance dialectical materialism -- the definition of good and bad in terms of material class interests. So your argument that religion helps class consciousness, while not without precedent (Christianity, notably from Quakers, helping to end slavery; certain parts of American Christianity in the Civil Rights movement; monotheism as a source of universalism more broadly...), is 180 degrees from Marx himself.
Probably religion is better for building solidarity across classes than it is at cultivating one class' resentment of another. You get some voluntary redistribution instead of violent revolutionary redistribution. You get a kind of "we are all children of God" classless consciousness, instead of a class consciousness.
And, in reality, I think you'll find billionaires of varying degrees of religiosity.
But, nice post.
[Edit: Later, I see that you are serious, and not just doing a highbrow kind of joking-around. Well -- then I think you'll see that I basically agree with your point. The only quibble is about the idea of "class consciousness" (or "race consciousness", or whatever "subgroup consciousness" is relevant). Religion creates something other than class consciousness. Rather than dividing people along existing sociological lines, it unifies across them. This isn't free: It can create new conflicts with those outside the religion. But when we consider fault lines of class or race, I would say that monotheism tends to unify rather than to divide. You could call this "solidarity", but not "class consciousness". It's a bigger solidarity than class.]
Well, I would flip that adage and say that "Marx was a follower of Jesus." They overlap enough that it's not uncommon to go on r/atheist and see people saying "Jesus would have been a Marxist" so I think it's fine to flip it this way.
It's possible Marx was just targeting the Pharisees of his time. Or he liked what Jesus' had to say on matters of cooperation and economics enough to base a secular worldview on it. :)
I don't see how serious study of history would lead one to think religions reduce the impetus for "revolution" or social improvements. The printing press was a revolution and it was primarily driven by the desire to mass-print Bibles so that the clergy couldn't just interpret reality for everyone. (Look up the Gutenberg Revolution).
In any case, I'm not sure what the difference is between "we are all children of God" classless consciousness and the idea of "class consciousness." Because on Marx's worldview, things should trend towards a classless society. You may be interested in Acts 4:32-35 which is the economic model followed by the first church.
32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
I think you would find many in agreement with your interpretation of Marxism and of Christianity -- ranging from "social gospel" Catholics, to progressive/activist Episcopalians in the US and UK, to Thomasite Christians in Kerala voting for the local honest-to-goodness Communist party complete with hammer-and-sickle flags.
To your Acts 4:32-35 quote, you could also add the end of Galatians 3, or the miracle of the loaves and the fishes (say, Mark 6:31-44).
That said, your interpretation is a departure from Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, and it sands off some sharp edges.
Mainly, I think you discount violent revolution too much. Historical Marxism wasn't only about a "spiritual revolution" that would lead to voluntary sharing like that described in Acts 4:32-35. It was about classifying people socioeconomically and dealing with them accordingly -- using violence.
I actually agree that religion often spurs social "revolution" and material improvement. But I don't think that's what Marx thought, or how either Soviet or Maoist Communism has worked. You say that Marx' "opiate of the masses" quote refers only to "Pharisees", but, in light of the whole development of dialectical materialism (a system of morality that actively rejects the spirit), the dismissal of "sentimental bourgeois morality" in favor of class-interest calculations, and the dogmatic enforcement of state-sponsored atheism, I disagree. Granted, you might blame Lenin rather than Marx for the worst of this stuff. But the fact that there's some overlap with Christianity doesn't mean they're the same thing.
But yeah, I'd definitely ask how much of a role Marx's writing had in what happened in the Soviet Union or Maoist China. Was it Marx's fault, or could those people have adopted MLK's approach instead and seen much more success rather than collapse? I honestly am not equipped to know the answer to this question, but as I study MLK and Malcom X post-Mecca I think the entire discussion around Marxism (at least in the fundie parts of the world I've lived in) conflates Marxism with the Soviet Union and Maoist China too much. MLK and Bernie Sanders and AOCs borrow from the Marxian framework. Even America did - we've already implemented many of Marx's list items in his manifesto, after all. :) Would anyone say MLK or Bernie advocate for violence? Or that they're any less Marxian if they don't?
You definitely know more about the depth of Marxism than I do - I've never gotten into dialectical materialism or the Hegel/Marx beef. Primarily because the Manifesto is tiny and has enough of the vision in it that it is sufficient for my purposes. And also because as an engineer and a technologist I see that material needs will be obviated by technology soon. Does that eliminate the need for that deep dive into dialectic materialism?
But to address your point and the edit that you brought to my attention since I missed it: It does sound like we do agree! I'm limiting myself too much by calling it "class consciousness" rather than "solidarity." I realize now that the vernacular has to be updated to reflect exactly what you said about post-class schisms like race and culture. My view on this is that when understood at their most charitable, religions do accomplish exactly this. A "bigger solidarity than class" like you said. I'm reminded of what Paul wrote when he described the blanket with all kinds of meat on it.
I do like calling it solidarity instead of class consciousness and I will change my approach. Thank you so much, this is immensely valuable and you are a brilliant mind.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/18/private-jets...
I will not discuss his capabilities as a scientist since I'm not qualified to speak on hard physics at all - but this relationship between these people has me very skeptical of their truest intentions.
But you're right that Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson were not in the same class as Richard Dawkins or Lawrence Krauss in particular. I'd include Sam Harris in this group too.
Amongst the physicists, Einstein is deified as the epitome of human intellect. He is perceived as such because he had the ability to explain extremely complex subjects with layman's terms. But even Einstein would have been just a minor celebrity if he wasn't a jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany. We can observe that his popularity was a project because Einstein didn't have the character of a showman.
I bet if Feynman fled the Nazis and came to USA, we would have a real deity!
I don’t know him well but don’t rate him highly
The Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems made us realize that black holes are ubiquitous in general relativity. It played a big role in the community's acceptance of their reality.
He discovered that quantum field theories on curved spacetime generically predict that different observers will see different matter and radiation in the same region of spacetime, depending upon their state of motion. This includes Hawking radiation from black holes.
His work with Hartle on cosmology helped open our eyes to what a wild variety of phenomena are possible in the early universe.
If you don't know Hawking's work, then you don't have an opinion about it. Not rating it highly isn't an option.
Also, while it's good that you admit your bias, "don't think highly of him" while you don't even know the basics of his field (never mind of his career), it's nonetheless a bias.
I don't think he (or, well, his legacy) should be striving to prove something to you, rather the opposite. You should be striving to evaluate it if you want to have an opinion about it (even if it's a negative one after the evaluation), as opposed to randomly have opinions and feelings about it.
The important thing is did it move the field forward? Did it get us closer to the "Truth" of the universe.
There's a certain sense that newtonian mechanics isn't "true" (with relativity and what not), but its still obviously an important contribution.
P.s. this is physics not math. You don't prove things of the natural world, you check if they are the best explanation of emperical observation. This is very different from proving sonething in the math sense.
But it's just similar - Hawking radiation relies on a mashup of GR in a strong regime and quantum field theory extravaganza, it's something you would very much want to observe for real as those theories don't normally fit together very well. I'm not sure you'd want to be close enough to observe it though :)