RIP Stephen Hawking

Why include aliens?

why not?

I was just looking at the quote from Hawking that Dave provided above.

“I believe the simplest explanation is, there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization that there probably is no heaven and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe and for that, I am extremely grateful.”

It really is/was a pretty banal 'piece' from a person of his intellect. The first two lines, his opinion, that's okay.

The third line...."This leads me to a profound realization that there probably is no heaven and no afterlife either." Profound ? realization that there is therefore no heaven etc ? What's profound about that, children have such thoughts.

And then he adds, "We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe....

Design ? Who designed it ? I thought he preferred to believe that it all came about by chance from nothing ?

Finally he ends with "....and for that I am extremely grateful"

Grateful to whom or what ? Grateful to a universe from nothing ? And who is grateful ? He never really existed just as he doesn't exist now according to his philosophy.

Of course, there was the 100 billion neurons in the top portion of his body, making electrical and chemical exchanges with each other, but that's all there was (in his opinion). So where was he while he thought he was here ? He wasn't ....just as Susan Blackmore often reminds us with a cursory tap of her skull..."there isn't really anyone in here !"  

If that offends anyone, I don't care and the reason is that Hawking quite probably persuaded a great many people who were searching for meaning that life was ultimately meaningless. For no good reason.

why not?

Nevermind.

Nevermind.

absolutely  

Focus on the totality of what I wrote rather than on a single word.  

So, my most respectful wish for him today is that he has, at last, made the ultimate discovery: that he was wrong.

Wait till he meets up with Carl Sagan.

If that offends anyone, I don't care and the reason is that Hawking quite probably persuaded a great many people who were searching for meaning that life was ultimately meaningless. For no good reason.

For every good reason. He supplied an opposing and different perspective from which we can decide if we prefer his way of thinking or not. I believe that was his soul's mission. Mission accomplished.

A couple of things are for sure.  If we DON'T survive death we won't know that we didn't survive it.  All bets will be off, all talk about life eternal, simulations, God, alien cultures and involvement etc. meaningless, just so much jibber-jabber.
 
If we DO survive death we may get to find out how wrong / how right our ideas were.  Exactly similar for nobodies like myself as it is for somebodies like Stephen Hawking. 

I wouldn’t have thought many scientists expected to be right all the time. I agree - he is simply a person like you or I.

https://mobile.twitter.com/thetweetofgod...6583587844

https://mobile.twitter.com/thetweetofgod...6583587844

Now that is comedy gold  

https://mobile.twitter.com/thetweetofgod...6583587844

Thank God the quality of debate here is a step up from Twitter!

Isn't it?