Hawking, Math and the World

A quote from Stephen Hawking earlier today via Biltrix surprised me:

“This may sound odd, but according to the laws of nature concerning gravity and motion, laws that are among the oldest in science, space itself is a vast store of negative energy – enough to ensure that everything adds up to zero. I’ll admit that unless mathematics is your thing, this is hard to grasp, but it’s true.” 

This is a quote from Steven Hawking (through a narrator) in the video below – starting at 28:19, ending 28:47. Later on:

“Imagine a man wants to build a hill on a flat piece of land. The hill will represent the Universe. To make this hill, he digs a hole in the ground and uses that soil to build his hill. But, of course, he’s not just making a hill. He’s also making a hole – in effect, a negative
version of the hill. That stuff that was in the hole has now become the hill. So it all perfectly balances out.” 

Well Stephen, I have a few problems with this view.


First, and most importantly you are confusing mathematics and ontology. Many times mathematicians like you reify equations instead of understanding that they are merely ways of describing the world around us. Just because there is an “=” sign between two things, that does not mean that they are ontologically equal. The equation provides some kind of insight into the related beings but in no way speaks about their beings as such. Just because they have the potential to be converted (go from potential to actual), described by E=MC2, does not mean they ARE the same thing. Matter and Energy are different and so is your supposed description of “existence and “anti-existence”. 


The point in this is that in the statement above, Hawking is, as Sich says, confusing the map with the territory.  The map described the territory but is not the same thing as the territory. If there is an equal amount of 'nothing' or 'anti-matter' that balances out the matter, does that really mean that when you reduce both sides of the equation, reality is also reduced to the same thing—nothing or as Hawking says–“everything add's up to zero?” In reality or in your equation? Of course I am not anywhere near as advanced in mathematics as Hawking is, but someone doesn't have to be a mathematician or a physicist to understand that equations abstract certain aspects of our experience of the world around us–but that cannot be reversed such that math dictates what we should or should not experience, it can only correct certain illusions of change that our senses may not pick up on. 


Secondly, essentially what Hawking is doing with his “great cancelling” is removing the distinction between act and potency, the same thing that is done when equivocating matter and energy in the E=MC2 equation. This negative energy of which Hawking speaks (of course it has never been observed even empireometrically) may or may not exist. My point is that if it does exist is that nothing in the equation itself describes what type of being it is and how it behaves. It only describes, perhaps by inference of a lacking variable to balance the equation, that it is out there. So without knowing its nature how can we claim that 'all is zero'? This is almost as absurd as 41 being the answer to the universe— (6x=2(3)x) is the same is 0=0—mathematically. But in the universe, I can tell you for sure that Hawking himself is not a zero, just because he has the potential and the nature to die and cease to exist. 


The Copenhagen interpretation is silly. 


I would recommend taking a look at the second half (or heck even the whole thing) of this video: