In these two paragraphs Hawking will disabuse you of all your misrepresentations.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0602/0602091v2.pdf
Here hawking explains that if you work with the standard model that we have the universe is carefully fine tuned or you have to invoke the notion of eternal inflation (infinite universes.)
1.
In fact if one does adopt a bottom-up approach to cosmology, one is immediately
led to an essentially classical framework, in which one loses all ability to explain
cosmologyâs central question - why our universe is the way it is. In particular a
bottom-up approach to cosmology either requires one to postulate an initial state of
the universe that is carefully fine-tuned [10] - as if prescribed by an outside agency or it requires one to invoke the notion of eternal inflation [11], which prevents one
from predicting what a typical observer would see.
Here - Hawking disabuses Stu of his other bullshit. We see Hawking clearly speak of alternate universes.
2. page 2.
Here we put forward a different approach to cosmology in the string landscape,
based not on the classical idea of a single history for the universe but on the quantum
sum over histories [12]. We argue that the quantum origin of the universe naturally
leads to a framework for cosmology where amplitudes for alternative histories of the
universe are computed with boundary conditions at late times only. We thus envision
a set of alternative universes in the landscape, with amplitudes given by the no
boundary path integral [13].
Quote from stu:
You think taking Hawking out of context is a good way to read Hawking in context. sheesh.
About the bottom-up model which he does not advocate, he says it either requires one to postulate the universe that is carefully fine-tuned by an outside agency OR requires one to invoke the notion of eternal inflation. Fine-tuning is disposable even there, by simply chosing an alternative.
In the top-down model which he does advocate, non of the above is necessary.
You agree with Hawking when he says things you've taken out of context or which he doesn't actually say , but if you really did agree with Hawking, then you would agree with... It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.
The fine-tuning you wish for implies a tuner. Unnatural ones like God or Pixie Poo don't explain anything, except perhaps the sadness you portray in expecting them to. Whereas Gravity and Spontaneous creation ......the reason there is something rather than nothing.... why the universe exists...why we exist... explains a whole lot.
