Perspective is everything, for everyone…even Stephen Hawking, and God

The newspaper headline reads, “God did not create Universe: Hawking.”

Hawking is not immune to being a respected error-maker and now I may add him in second place to my all-time favourite: Descartes, who declared “I think, therefore I am.”

“I am..” comes before the thought “I am a thinker.” There must be Knowing before thinking. As a result of this mistaken identity of being a thinker, many people have, in essence, come to worship the thinking mind, and their thoughts as truth.

It would be closer to the truth to say “I am, therefore I think.” Oh well, to err is human, and other brilliant thinkers once concluded the earth was flat. Perspective is everything.

What Hawking does not say is what’s pre-supposed in his theory, like that God is a separate being, that he (Hawking) is a separate being, and that the universe is separate from God, and him, and everyone and everything else.

I wonder if Hawking ever wondered if God *IS* the universe–but that would require a different starting perspective. (Of course, if God *IS* the universe, then God did not make the universe, and that would make Hawking right!)

For a few years now, since beginning to release my firm grip on the legless ideas which society handed-down, my perspective shifted. I no longer see from the same, separated, limited perspective. Just look around; if you look long and close enough (with brutal honesty and direct purity, and without beliefs to fog your view) at the world you move through, you can’t help but see the proof everywhere, right before your eyes. And your ears. And your tongue. And your skin. And your lungs. There is nothing that is separate from you. Everything directly “touches” everything else: the air, the light, the sound waves, the water, the gravity. You don’t need anything to connect you; you don’t even need a “unifying field,” because nothing is disconnected.

You are either seeing, or experiencing, and knowing from a separated viewpoint—or from a seamless one. The scientific method itself is founded on the original, most fundamental error made even before man created time (another separation): the idea of separation itself.

The scientific method has served its purpose, but if human-kind is to make what many are calling a necessary, radical, and rapid evolutionary leap, this viewpoint must change. The article says, “Hawking argued earlier this year that mankind’s only chance of long-term survival lies in colonizing space, as humans drain Earth of resources and face a terrifying array of new threats.”

How ironic that today friends took me to see “Hubble 3D” in the IMAX theater. While I enjoyed the perceived experience of flying through space and a glimpse of the scope of endless space and stars, I was not overly impressed with the state of space science, and I wonder if space travel is helping or hindering human-kind. We go to great effort and risk, and invest massive amounts of money—and all we can do is take pictures. While we have the earth and people on earth needing our attention and resources, we are out floating in space above the earth, taking pictures. And it does not seem that space travel is evolving fast enough to save the human race anyway, if it needs saving.

The article continues, “God no longer has any place in theories on the creation of the Universe due to a series of developments in physics…” Hahaha!…Sorry, I find this statement ridiculous, or pompous. Have we lost track of what is theory and what is reality? Scientific conclusions are always changing, but that does not mean that reality changes.

According to Hawking, the article says, these new “developments” are the discoveries of, “…a planet orbiting a star outside our own solar system.” This is presented as proof, “…as a turning point against Isaac Newton’s belief that the Universe could not have arisen out of chaos.”

So I guess the conceited idea was that if our solar system was one-of-a-kind, amongst innumerable solar systems, that we could not have been an “accident.” I fail to see how, out of innumerable solar systems, how we could even believe ours is the only one—and how would being the only one (or not) mean there is/is not a causal intelligence? All of this sounds highly unscientific. (Not that I have ultimate faith in the scientific method.)

While I have seen many science documentaries exploring the natures of experience and self-recognition also form conclusions from the same separated perspective, this article I could just not let go. Why? –Perhaps because of the often blind trust and faith that society puts into our revered scientists and doctors and the serious impact this can have.

A number of years ago I had to have foot surgery, and I did my research to find the best surgeon. Everyone said she was the best, and I waited over a year to get to see her, only to be told that even if I have surgery, I will never run again. It was not the “news” that shocked me (I did not believe it for a moment), but that an intelligent person would hold such a limiting belief, and expect or want me to buy it. There have been stories of people who were diagnosed with a terminal illness and given three months to live as part of the diagnosis, who actually died three-months-to-the day of the diagnosis! Was the doctor that good? No, but people tend to believe them, even to their deaths. Beliefs are not science, but they are powerful. Ethically, scientists, especially high-profile ones, should not be dropping their personal beliefs upon others. Scientifically, to make space for knowing beyond what we think we know, human arrogance must be replaced by the purity of innocent curiosity.

Just yesterday I saw a story of a newborn child which doctors announced dead after attempts to save it. They gave the body to the parents to grieve over, and the mother brought the babe to her skin and spoke to it, to connect in any way they could in those last precious moments. The baby’s body moved but doctors left, saying it was just bodily reactions and the child was dead. Minutes later the child opened its eyes and began to suckle. The parents requested the doctor’s return but he refused, believing the parents were imagining things. Finally they sent the message that they had accepted the baby’s death, and the doctor returned, to be shocked to see the live infant. Scientists and the public would do well to remember that that which we know is irrelevant compared to that which is unknown.

After several meetings, I realized that my surgeon was trying to dissuade me from even wanting to run again, for fear of the surgery being deemed a “failure” or worse, resulting in a lawsuit. With that discovery I was able to move forward with the surgery, recognizing that she did not have to believe I would run again—only I did. She just needed to be the best surgeon. And she was. Four months after my surgery I was running again, and now I am back to running 5km a couple times a week.

I know what my doctor’s purpose or motive was in downloading her unsubstantiated beliefs (we can only speculate what Hawking’s is). Most people don’t have a motive; they just have inherited unquestioned beliefs, which can seem better than nothing. However these, if investigated into, just trigger more unanswered questions.

As the article further quotes, Hawking speaks from a point of separation, from a belief that the universe is separate from God, and required “creating” by something, and if not by God, then he indicates gravity, “‘Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist,’ he writes in ‘The Grand Design,’ which is being serialized by The Times newspaper.”

True to the structure of a legless belief—just a few last questions, please. Why is there a law such as gravity? What or who created that? Gravity is not nothing, is it? If God were some thing, then what created God? And…could God be that “nothing” you speak of  from which all things sprang? Oh my…I digress to questions from my childhood, the greatest, most innocent, purest, not-knowing space from which all possibilities lay and spring from. Just like nothing.
Perspective is everything for everyone, even Stephen Hawking, and God

The newspaper headline read, “God did not create Universe: Hawking.”

Oh well, to err is human, and other brilliant thinkers once concluded the earth was flat. Perspective is everything. What Hawking does not say is what’s pre-supposed in his theory, like that God is a separate being, that he (Hawking) is a separate being, and that the universe is separate from God, and him, and everyone and everything else.

For a few years now, since beginning to release my firm grip on the legless ideas which society handed-down, my perspective shifted. I no longer see from the same, separated, limited perspective. If you look around long enough and close enough at the world that you move through with brutal honesty and direct purity, and without beliefs to fog your view, you can’t help but see the proof everywhere, right before your eyes. And your ears. And your tongue. And your skin. And your lungs. There is nothing that is separate from you. Everything “touches” everything else: the air, the light, the sound waves, the water, the gravity. You don’t need anything to connect you; you don’t even need a “unifying field,” because nothing is disconnected.

You are either seeing, or experiencing, or knowing from a separated viewpoint—or from a seamless one. The scientific method itself is founded on the original, most fundamental error of separation made since before man created time (another separation): the idea of separation itself.

The scientific method has served its purpose, but if human kind is to make what many are calling a necessary, radical, and rapid evolutionary leap, this viewpoint must change.

The article notes: “Hawking argued earlier this year that mankind’s only chance of long-term survival lies in colonizing space, as humans drain Earth of resources and face a terrifying array of new threats.”

How ironic that today friends took me to see “Hubble 3D” in the IMAX theater. While I enjoyed the perceived experience of flying through space, and a glimpse of the scope of endless space and stars, I was not overly impressed with the state of space science and I wonder if space travel helping or hindering. We go to great effort and risk, and invest massive amounts of money—and all we can do is take pictures. While we have the earth and people on earth needing our attention and resources, we are out floating in space above the earth. It does not seem that space travel is evolving fast enough to save the human race, if it needs saving.

The other astounding thing is that we are out there, trying to figure just what “out there” is, from our tiny, separated perspective, and we do not even know who or what we are. A short-cut to the answer to the universe would seem to be to know the observer of it.

The article continues, “God no longer has any place in theories on the creation of the Universe due to a series of developments in physics…” Hahaha!…Sorry…Science’s conclusions are always changing, but that does not mean that reality changes.

According to Hawking, the article says, these new “developments” are the discoveries of, “a planet orbiting a star outside our own solar system.” This is presented as proof, “…asa turning point against Isaac Newton’s belief that the Universe could not have arisen out of chaos.”

So I guess the conceited idea was that if we were one-of-a-kind, amongst innumerable solar systems, that we could not have been an “accident.” I fail to see, out of innumerable solar systems, how we could possibly believe we could have the only such system—and how would being the only one (or not) mean there is/is not a causal intelligence? All of this sounds highly unscientific. (Not that I have ultimate faith in the scientific method.)

While I have seen many science documentaries exploring the natures of experience and self-recognition also form conclusions from the same separated perspective, this article I could just not let go. Why? –Perhaps because of the often blind trust and faith that society puts into our revered scientists and the impact this can have. A number of years ago I had to have foot surgery, and I did my research to find the best surgeon. Everyone said she was the best, and I waited over a year to get to see her, only to be told that even if I have surgery, that I will never run again. It was not the news that shocked me (I did not believe it for a moment), but that an intelligent person would hold such a limiting belief, and want me to buy it. There have been stories of people who were diagnosed with a terminal illness and given 3 months to live as part of the diagnosis, who actually died three-months-to-the day of the diagnosis! Was the doctor that good? No, but people tend to believe them, even to their deaths. Beliefs are not science, but they are powerful. Scientists, especially high-profile ones, should not be expounding their beliefs.

Just yesterday I saw a story of a newborn child which doctors announced dead after attempts to save it. They gave the body to the parents to grieve over, and the mother brought the babe to her skin and spoke to it. The baby’s body moved but doctors left, saying it was just bodily reactions and the child was dead. Minutes later the child opened its eyes and began to suckle. The parents requested the doctor’s return but he refused, believing the parents were imagining things. Finally they sent the message that they had accepted the baby’s death, and the doctor returned, to be shocked to see the live infant. Scientists and the public would do well to remember that that which we know is irrelevant compared to that which is unknown.

After several meetings, I realized that my surgeon was trying to dissuade me from even wanting to run again, for fear of the surgery being deemed a “failure” or worse, resulting in a lawsuit. With that discovery I was able to move forward with the surgery, recognizing that she did not have to believe I would run again—only I did. She just needed to be the best surgeon. And she was. Four months after my surgery I was running again, and now I am back to running 5km a couple times a week.

I know what my doctor’s purpose or motive was in downloading her unsubstantiated beliefs. Most people don’t have a motive; they just have inherited unquestioned beliefs, which can seem better than nothing. However these, if investigated into, just trigger more unanswered questions.

As the article further quotes, Hawking speaks from a point of separation, from a belief that the universe is separate from God, and required “creating” by something, and if not by God, then he indicates gravity, “‘Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist,’ he writes in ‘The Grand Design,’ which is being serialized by The Times newspaper.”

True to the structure of a legless belief—just a few last questions, please. Why is there a law such as gravity? What or who created that? Gravity is not nothing, is it? If God were some thing, then what created God? And…could God be that “nothing” you speak of from which all things sprang? Oh my…I digress to questions from my childhood, the greatest, most innocent, purest, not-knowing space from which all possibilities lay and spring from. Just like nothing.