I too have not read Hawking's book, but from reviews I've read Hawking's argument is based on a theory of multiple universes he develops as an application of brane cosmology, which is an application of membrame theory (or M-theory), which itself is a theoretical development from string theory. In extremely general terms, this theoretical perspective seeks to explain the physical constants and physical laws in our universe by appeal to the diversity of physical and constants throughout the set of universes within the "multiverse," which is conceived of something like a set of separate space-times each governed by a different physical laws and constants. Hopefully panelists with expertise in these esoteric areas can chime in with more details, but with respect to the "God question" the reviews I have read represent Hawking as arguing that the "structure" of the multiverse provides a satisfactory explanation of the existence of a space-time that contains the physical laws and constants of our...

To follow up on my earlier response: In the February 10, 2011 edition of the New York Review of Books , Steven Weinberg has an excellent review of Hawking and Mlodinow's book. The review, which is also published online at URL http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/feb/10/universes-we-still-dont-know , addresses some aspects of your question -- and also contains some good information about the theories that Hawking and Mlodinow are attempting to popularize.

I agree that there is some utility in this way of thinking about formal education, but I also think that this perspective is so shallow that individuals who learn to adopt a richer perspective may learn more and may be able to do more with their learning. First, I think it can be useful to reflect on the benefits of learning that have nothing to do with social status or employability. Is there intrinsic value in learning and in learning how to learn? Does a high-quality learning make one a better person in addition to increasing social status and employability? Understanding those benefits may improve motivation to work hard and effectively as a learner. Second, I think it can also be useful to reflect on a more sophisticated manner on the instrumental value of education: those who view a degree program simply as a means to a credential fail to internalize a narrative of self-development and growth (self-consciously directing one's education to increase skills, insight, and wisdom, for example),...

For a sophisticated discussion of this question--and for a more detailed discussion of several of the issues that Eric raises--see G.A. Cohen's If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich? (Harvard University Press, 2000).

To the questioner: My sense is that either you are reading a mis-representative sample of philosophical writing or you are exaggerating the use of 'she' and 'her' because you have internalized the normative use of 'he' and 'his' and so examples that resist that norm stand out and perhaps wrankle. When I was an undergraduate in the mid 1980s, there was pressure to resist that norm -- but I don't have a sense that this resistance was completely successful in either philosophical or most non-philosophical writing. Certainly I don't see widespread use of gender-neutral pronouns and Louise's suggestion still sounds ungrammatical to my ear. In my own writing, I simply try use a mixed balance of gendered personal pronouns.

With respect to your feeling guilty or not, my first response is that you need to find a way to evaluate the regard that you show or don't show for others in a more holistic and comprehensive way -- all things considered, and in light of whatever obligations you think you have to assist those who are less fortunate than you are, have you lived your life in a way that you believe fulfills the obligations to those who need the assistance of charity? No matter how you treat this individual purchase, if (1) you recognize that you have a substantive obligation to help others and (2) you believe that you are not living your life in a way that meets that obligation, then you will probably experience guilt or shame or other significant discord about the way you are living your life. But, of course, all this is mute on the question of whether you properly understand the obligations to those who are less fortunate -- if it turns out that your own feelings of guilt are unreliable guides, then in the worst case...

I don't know whether many people are interested in those philosophical topics before they start studying philosophy, and I don't have a strong sense that people ought to show that sort of interest -- I think it takes some effort and time to come to appreciate the philosophical point of celebrated doctrines from the history of philosophy, and I wouldn't expect the sorts of doctrines you mention to be of immediate interest to many. That said, I do think that more people ought to be interested in studying philosophy academically, which of course could cause them to become interested in those doctrines. The reason why I believe this is that studying philosophy is a superb way to gain knowledge, insight, and skills. With respect to knowledge, I think it is useful to understand some of the leading philosophical ideas and doctrines that have played important roles in the development of the cultures in which they were developed. I also believe that reflecting on philosophical topics and texts can help one to...

I think it is important to distinguish intelligence from sentience. As you suggest, it is possible that there exist beings that are much more intelligent than humans are just as, for example, humans are much more intelligent than, say, dolphins. On the other hand, I don't think it makes sense to treat sentience in this way: it isn't the case that a being much more intelligent than us is also much more sentient than us. Rather, I think it makes more sense to say of any being that it is either sentient or not -- and then perhaps also note that differences in mental lives, sensory apparatuses, etc. mean that different types of beings are "differently" sentient (but not more or less sentient). This distinction is important because sentience could be taken to be an important criterion for moral considerability: one might well believe that the moral claims of sentient beings are stronger than the claims of non-sentient beings. If this were the case, then all sentient creatures, no matter how intelligent,...

I think there is no simple or objective way to determine this (say, by counting cites in Google Scholar) for the simple reasons, first, that what counts as a good work of philosophy depends on the exact reasons why you wish to read philosophy in the first place and, second, that there are many, many different reasons why someone might want to study philosophy in a serious way. As an example, let's consider the value of historical texts. One way to understand the value of a particular thinker or of a particular work is to understand its historical context (was the thinker or text addressing problems that it was important to answer at that time, and in a manner that engaged other significant thinkers and texts in important ways?) and historical legacy (did the thinker or text influence significantly future work on important philosophical issues). If you, as a reader, are especially interested in the "local history" of a particular philosophical concept or question or problem as it was understood at a...

I'm not sure what Aristotle would say, but I note that many contemporary thinkers see nothing wrong with thinking that the matter that constitutes our brains and nervous systems is the "that out of which" our mental states are created. (If you want to know more about some of the extremely interesting contemporary work done on this and related topics, this encyclopedia entry on supervenience is a good place to start: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/supervenience/ .) If those contemporary philosophers are right that, say, physical brain matter can cause immaterial thoughts, is it any more mysterious to say that the various components of a electronic storage device are the "that out of which" a computer file is created? Indeed, I think your example may be a lot less mysterious than mine. I note that you used scare quotes when attributing a non-physical ontological status to the computer file. Is it really the case that the information we store on physical electronic media has a non-physical...

I don't know of any society where parents can teach their children whatever they want without regard to laws and social norms. With respect to laws, for example, a parent could not teach a child that it was okay to act out sexually in a way that the law would regard as involving incestuous sexual abuse. And, similarly, with respect to social norms I think that most people would say that parents have no right to teach their children a virulent racism that promoted the children to treat schoolmates horribly. Both of the examples I gave involved teaching extreme thought that led to unacceptable action, and these cases show that exist significant limitations to parents' rights to teach their children as they see fit. Are there cases where there are limits on what parents could teach their children to believe even when the children do not act on those beliefs? The incest case, I think, shows that there are strong social and perhaps legal limits on teaching "mere" thoughts -- the incest taboo is so strong...