RIP Stephen Hawking

Today we had the AGM of our local MND Association and remembered Professor Stephen Hawking, the most famous man with Motor Neurone Disease and patron of the MNDA, who died this week. He’s widely considered one of our greatest scientists, the author of A Brief History of Time and the subject of the Oscar-winning The Theory of Everything. His MND was unique – or highly untypical – in that it lasted for 55 years rather than the average 14 months from diagnosis. He had a great dry sense of humour and an inextinguishable zest for life, despite the disease leaving him without a voice and without use of his limbs as it progressed. He claimed to have become a more convinced atheist over the years. Only once did I dare to disagree with him. In an interview in 2011 an interview with him was headlined, “Stephen Hawking: ‘There is no heaven; it’s a fairy story.’”  Which gives a beautiful picture which has circulated on social media by Australian artist, Mitchell Toy, particular poignancy.

The interview provoked me to suggest an alternative rational view, which was published in The Guardian, and as I recall attracted a quantity of hostile comment on line. I would like to think that my view and the vision of Mitchell Toy is nearer what Professor Hawking will experience than the bleakness of his own expectations.

Here is my article:

Like Stephen Hawking, I have been living with Motor Neurone Disease.  Like him, I’m one of the lucky few not to have died within months of diagnosis.  I’m nine years younger than him and have had the symptoms of the disease for only ten years, compared to his 49.  However for those ten years I’ve “lived with the prospect of an early death” also.  Unlike Professor Hawking I am not a superstar scientist.  I’m simply a small-time writer, who used to be a teacher and a vicar. 

It seems to me that, while some things Stephen Hawking says in the interview as it’s reported are unarguably true, some are also admitted hypothesis, and some are merely tendentious.  One of the features of MND both for him as for me is that it affects your ability to speak and hence pares down what you say to the bare bones. (That’s not of course the case when you have time to type a script.)  Hence sometimes you are frustrated by your inability to nuance your ideas.  And so it may be that his very categorical answers are the nub of his opinion, but not the full expression.

For example, there’s something of ‘nothing-buttery’ about his comments about death: “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”  It’s unarguably true that there’s no heaven for broken down computers, as I have found to my cost when I poured fruit juice over my laptop.  The brain may be nothing but a most remarkable computer, yet there’s something generically different from a computer in a brain which, when it starts to malfunction as happens in MND, can begin to love Wagner’s music and “enjoy life more”.  That, I would say, is irrational, but not uncommon.  Human beings, it would appear, are something more than machines.  Maybe science will one day describe what the difference is.

Hawking tells us that “The universe is governed by science.”  I think I understand what he means.  It is certainly discoverable by science.  Scientific theories which don’t fit with the evidence of the universe fail.  In simple terms science is governed by the universe, not the other way round.  What’s interesting is that this is in effect what Hawking says talking about the beauty of science.  It’s “beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations”, citing the double helix and fundamental equations in physics as examples. 

I find myself admiring and agreeing with much of what Professor Hawking says, but I find his ethical deduction and his quasi-religious observation sadly lacking.  “So here we are.  What should we do?” he’s asked.  The question sounds similar to ones posed to great religious teachers of the past.  His answer is disappointing: “We should seek the greatest value of our action.”  It’s certainly thought-provoking (What exactly does that mean for this or that action?) and it is a principle which is reinforced by the experience of life-threatening illness.  One could say, “Don’t waste your life.”  Yet as a rule for life, it lacks both the impact and the practicality of the great Judaeo-Christian answer to that question, “Love God above yourself, and love your neighbour as yourself.”  Even those who are unwilling to subscribe to the first part can understand the second part and usually admit its validity.  It might conceivably be argued for on the Darwinian grounds, that those societies which have lived by altruistic principles have survived, but that very admission raises the question of the origin of that surprising pre-scientific insight.

Finally Stephen Hawking’s headlined observation about death, that an after-life “is a fairy-story for people afraid of the dark” is both sad and misinformed. His proposition that there is no heaven reminds one of Gagarin’s alleged dismissal of God because he did not see him in space.  Openness to the theoretical possibility of there being eleven dimensions and fundamental particles “as yet undiscovered” shows an intellectual humility strangely at odds with writing off the possibility of other dimensions of existence. 

For someone “facing the prospect of an early death”, with probably an unpleasant prelude, the idea of extinction holds no more fear than sleep.  It really is insulting to accuse me of believing there might be life after death because I’m afraid of the dark.  On the contrary, sad though I shall be to leave behind those I love, I suspect the end of life, whatever happens, will be a relief.  And, like Pascal making his wager, if it is dark, I really won’t mind, because, of course, there won’t be a me to mind.

Strangely enough, my theory that there is a form of life after we die is not some sort of wishful thinking.  It’s based on evidence.  If the brain is a computer, then, when I was studying where Stephen Hawking now teaches, I came on a mass of data of which the most convincing, the neatest, explanation was that death is not the end of life.  It wasn’t the most comfortable nor most obvious of conclusions, but the forensic case was forceful and beautiful, providing “simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations”.  The best exposition I found was by the then Director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London, Professor Sir Norman Anderson, in The Evidence for the Resurrection (afterwards republished as part of Jesus Christ the witness of history (IVP 1985)).  My disturbing conclusion was that, if it happened once, as seemed beyond reasonable doubt, then I needed to revise my whole world view.  What you see is not all you get.

One may wish to dismiss Jesus Christ, or Julius Caesar, as fairy stories, even as bunk, but, until one has examined the evidence in Anderson’s forensic manner, that’s a premature judgement.  I suspect many do that.  As for the idea that belief in an afterlife is a consolation, it is not just about heaven.  Most faiths in fact have a notion of judgement, which is hardly comfortable for anyone, although it does focus the motivation not to waste one’s life.  Moreover in our situation Professor Hawking surely knows better than that some notion in your head, whatever that notion might be, makes the frustrations and pains of a terminal illness somehow more bearable.  That’s the nonsense of those who’ve not been there.  I can’t prove it of course, but on good grounds I’d stake my life on it, that beyond death will be another great adventure; but first I have to get finish this one.

RIP Stephen Hawking.

Hope or nothing?

On Wednesday evening, when Sir Terry Pratchett was yet again "Facing extinction" on the BBC, I chose to read a remarkable book we'd been lent by a medical student (via her mother), called Proof of Heaven. It's written by Dr Eben Alexander, an eminent American neurosurgeon. He inexplicably contracted the vanishingly rare e coli meningitis, which rendered his neocortex effectively "dead" and sent him into deep coma from which his colleagues expected him never to emerge. Clearly he did emerge and live to tell the tale, and his story is remarkable. As a neurosurgeon he knows what he is talking about when it comes to brain function and he has seen patients in all states of consciousness. He describes himself as having been a convinced scientific sceptic about all things spiritual. However what he experienced in his coma and what he describes with as much scientific objectivity as possible completely changed his mind.

I have certainly read accounts before of near death events (NDEs), which frankly I found anecdotal and somewhat fanciful. I have heard one person talking about experiencing heaven, to whom I was inclined to give some credence in the light of the impact it made on her life, though I suppose some people might describe her as "flakey". However, I basically held the sort of view that this man of science had before his coma: "I doubted their veracity, mainly because I had not experienced them at a deep level, and because they could not be readily explained by my simplistic scientific view of the world.
"Like many other scientific skeptics, I refused to even review the data relevant to the questions concerning these phenomena. I prejudged the data, and those providing it, because my limited perspective failed to provide the foggiest notion of how such things might actually happen. Those who assert that there is no evidence for phenomena of extended consciousness in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, are wilfully ignorant. They believe they know the truth without needing to look at the facts" (p.153).

Well, in his fairly unique sort of coma (with the entire neocortex not functioning) he experienced what he could only afterwards conclude was an experience of consciousness completely independent of the brain. What's more, this experience was extremely vivid and detailed, but has none of the naïveté and self-referential aspects of other NDE survivors' accounts whose comas have been less complete. He gives an astonishingly objective account of the experience, in terms which make sense to the modern mindset, for example about the huge number of dimensions and the ability to comprehend without words. It does of course present him with a problem when he tries to describe the indescribable in language! However having made it his first priority after his medically improbable recovery to note down his memories as fully as possible, he gave himself the data to provide a coherent account. He experiences three regions or states, the muddy darkness of "the Realm of the Earthworm's View", the green brilliance of "the Gateway" and the black but holy darkness of "the Core".

At one point, he concludes, "love is, without doubt, the basis of everything. Not some abstract, hard-to-fathom kind of love but the day-to-day kind that everyone knows - the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children, or even our animals. In its purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or that ever will exist, and no remotely accurate understanding of who and what we are can be achieved by anyone who does not know it, and embody it in all of their actions.

"Not much of a scientific insight? Well, I beg to differ. I'm back from that place, and nothing could convince me (otherwise than) that this is not only the single most important emotional truth in the universe, but also the single most important scientific truth as well....

"It is my belief that we are now facing a crucial time in our existence. We need to recover more of that larger knowledge while living here on earth, while our brains (including the left-side analytical parts) are fully functioning. Science - the science to which I've devoted so much of my life - doesn't contradict what I learned up there. But far, far too many people believe it does, because certain members of the scientific community, who are pledged to the materialist worldview, have insisted again and again that science and spirituality cannot coexist.

"They are mistaken...." (pp. 71-73).

I can't help being struck by the contrast of the different views of reality and, therefore, meaning presented by Eben Alexander and Terry Pratchett. Strangely Alexander's seems to me to invest the present with the greater significance - it is part of a greater reality. What you see is not all you get. And the certainty that "love, unconditional love, is the basis of everything" invests existence with an unparalleled luminosity.

At this point this week it is good to have a scientist's testimony that we do not all face extinction when our brains finally pack up, but that our souls, our essential selves, will survive. As St Paul said, "If in Christ we have hope for this life only, we are of all people to be pitied. But in fact...."

PS Dear BBC, How about giving some air time to Dr Alexander's hope, instead of the diet of gloom you seem so fond of? And before you dismiss the idea, do you dare read the book with an open mind, right to the end, where the final evidential proof comes? It's available on Amazon and Kindle.

PPS Eben Alexander's version of what he experienced will not please a lot of Christians or people of other faiths, as he is not propagating a party line. He is simply trying to describe his experience and understand it in his terms. I think it's worth reading because of who he is and the profound impact his experience made on him - and because it brings the possibility of hope nearer. For me, nonetheless, the final and best proof of life after death remains what we celebrate tonight and tomorrow. "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep."

Having a ball in Blackpool

LMS poster outside our room - note Jane & me on left

from benandstefanie.com

As you'll have gathered, we enjoyed our taste of the Blackpool Dance Festival 2011. I do hope there'll be dancing in heaven, probably not of the Rumba type, and, if there is, I hope there'll be as many free lessons as you need - and that I'm cured of my two left feet inter al! Although we were watching amateurs, I'm aware that hours and years of practice lie behind those beautifully coordinated and expressive movements. I read on one dancer's profile (Ben Taylor) that he'd started dancing aged 8 and his partner (Stefanie Bossen) at 5. 15 years' dedicated practice!

Our day wasn't quite over when we left the Winter Gardens. Next stop the Ashley Victoria Hotel, where, you may remember, Nikki Duckworth of the Lancashire & Blackpool Tourist Board had fixed us up instead of the disabled-unfriendly original place. From the start it was good news. Wally, our host, had kept a parking space for us right in front of the hotel and helped us to our room on the ground floor. I'll have more to say about being disabled in Blackpool. It's enough to say that Nikki had found an ideal place for us. It was clean, nicely decorated and unpretentious.

Our next move was finding somewhere to eat. We tried Frankie & Benny's, but we'd have to wait 3/4 hour for a table. Having sat for 5 minutes listening to rather too loud music, we decided to cut our losses and headed across the car park to McDonalds, where the music was quieter, the food cheaper and the tables dirtier. But, to be honest, we didn't need more. And so to bed, anticipating the excitements of another day.

Monday dawned cool and damp, though the hotel heating kept us warm plus a full English breakfast at a very civilised hour! Then it was out to explore the delights of the North Beach Promenade. I couldn't help noticing the generously proportioned profiles of many of the holiday-makers - perhaps it was just a contrast with the super-fit dancers of the day before! For some reason, Jane wasn't attracted by the Fun Palace. Trade at that time was slow. No doubt it had picked up when the sun came out in the afternoon. We looked at the hats, and the rock and candy-floss, but weren't tempted. Jane quite liked one of the tee-shirts, but then we remembered our age....

The Big One

Fairhaven Lake, Lytham St Annes

Having exhausted the delights of the north, we headed south in the car, passing the Pleasure Beach with The Big One in action. By an exercise of immense will-power, we resisted going in, and drove on south. On the Lytham road, there was a reminder of the changing face of tourism - a shut-down and decaying holiday village. Perhaps one day a use will be found for it. Driving into Lytham St Annes brought us into the other face of Lancashire's seaside holiday industry. Very polite (mainly). Home of the Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf course when next year's Open is scheduled. Great sand dunes, which seemed unsuitable for a wheelchair, and so we settled instead for Fairhaven Lake, a park-cum-nature-reserve, with a very wheelchair-friendly path right round the perimeter. While we were there, the sun came out.

St Annes Pier

We moseyed around looking for postcards and came across the St Annes' pier - a rather half-hearted affair, especially as the sun-deck at the end was closed. This is clearly where the Lythamites let it all hang out. Sad to see there's a clairvoyant here as well as few in Blackpool - what a waste and blot on the landscape! There was one redeeming feature here, however.

At Tiggis, Lytham St Annes - highly recommended

We thought we'd look out for somewhere to eat in the evening, and ended up having a cappuccino and a mocha in Café Nero. Jane's experience from Cornerstone came in handy there. There were some dark chocolate brownies on display. When we asked for one, they apologised but said they were still frozen. "Could you give it a few seconds in the microwave?" Jane suggested. So they did - and it was worth it. Yummy! Cornerstone, Grove, teaches Café Nero, Lytham St Annes a useful wrinkle! In return they recommended the local Tiggis for our evening meal - which proved an excellent tip. Very good food, excellent service, and good disabled access. A great finale to an fun- and action-packed day.

As we drove back to the hotel, along the Golden Mile under repair, a solitary figure was gazing out over the sands as the sun set.

Nuttiness and sanity

Last week I had the dubious distinction of appearing on the Atheist United Front facebook site.  It was of course because of my article about Stephen Hawking's dismissing heaven as a "fairy story for those afraid of the dark", which was so much commented on. I did look at what the seven people on facebook had to say, which frankly wasn't much. Some had a pavlovian reaction to the headline only, one dismissed my view because I used an Apple (! - apparently a sign of deficient intellect!), one suggested I should write a book about the evidence for the resurrection (he apparently hadn't noticed I'd cited one. Sorry, I'm not inclined to reinvent the wheel. Read JND Anderson, Jesus Christ the evidence of history. You can still get copies via Amazon.), one appeared to have read my article and complimented it on being well written, while still disagreeing with me.

Normally I'd feel quite honoured to have been singled out for mention, but I say it was a "dubious distinction" because they also had it in for one Howard Camping. In fact they, and extraordinarily, our major news outlets such as the BBC majored on him. You'll be aware that he is the octogenarian President of Family Radio (the Californian Christian radio station) who predicted the end of the world for 6 pm (his time, I think) with a cataclysmic earthquake. I think I buy into the theory that it made the headlines because it's the first such nutty prediction to have hit the internet - and sadly there are a lot of gullible Christians out there. The odd thing, of course, is that the only thing the Bible, from where Mr Camping gets his ideas, says about the time of 'the end of the world' (as it's popularly known) is
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24: 36). I'm a bit irked that the likes of the pastor expose faith to such universal ridicule. He'd already got it wrong once before in 1994 - "miscalculated". It's sad that he didn't learn from his mistake.



On a more cheerful note, the Queen did a rather good job in the Irish Republic. There was a rather good piece about her in Friday Night Theology just eight days ago, which pointed out that she is now the second longest reigning monarch in British history. "Fewer than 1 in 6 Britons will be able to remember a time before Elizabeth...  For everyone else, she has always been – unobtrusively but reliably – there. As indeed has her Christian faith. Queen Elizabeth has made it clear in various broadcasts over the years that her faith in Jesus Christ is extremely important to her; a foundation stone of her life of duty. That is obviously a delicate message to convey if you are head of state, there being ample opportunity to offend or alienate those of no or different religious faith, and it is to the Queen's great credit that she has managed it so well.


"Her Christianity serves a good example of the nation's. Discreet, unassuming, but subtly pervasive, Christianity has shaped and defined the United Kingdom, just as has its monarch, for far longer than anyone can remember." 


The article finishes with mentioning the influence of the Bible, "the single most important influence on our national politics". "This is not to say that it has been the only influence or that it has always been a positive one. It hasn't, rather it is to point out that our political life is shot through with ideas and convictions that are grounded in our Christian heritage. Why are we committed to the idea that all humans are of equal worth? Why are we convinced all, no matter how rich or powerful, are equal under the law? Why are we prepared to tolerate differences in religious opinion? Why is freedom of religion and of conscience so important? Why do we (or, perhaps, some of us, now) believe that government is justified by its commitment to the common good? Why do we think that the people should have a voice in selecting their political rulers?


"These beliefs are grounded ultimately in our historic Christianity. It is impossible to say whether they would have developed without those Christian foundations, just as it is impossible to say whether they will be maintained if we persist in eroding those foundations. But it is possible - indeed, today, sadly necessary - to say that they did develop in, through and because of the nation's Christianity and not, as some like to claim, in spite of it." Jennie Pollock, who wrote that, it seems to me, is a good deal more sensible than Howard Campling - but less newsworthy in the world of sensation-seeking media.