The Crisis in Cosmology
By Alex Steiner
Lately we are hearing more and
more dissident voices from within the community of theoretical physics challenging
the dominant view that has defined cosmology for the past 30 years. That
paradigm, known as “eternal inflation”, has many variants, but all of them
paint a very odd picture of our universe.
The most popular model of eternal inflation hypothesizes that the Big
Bang was the start of everything, including Time. The universe was born in a
flash –in a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. Even more
fantastic is that the inflation which got the ball rolling cannot stop and
therefore countless numbers of other universes have since come into existence. Thus eternal inflation theory argues that we
live in a multiverse, i.e., our physical world is just one of countless
universes none of which have any interaction with other universes. This idea, while derived from physics, is in
all respects the same as that old chestnut of science fiction stories – the
phenomena of parallel universes. And it
is not accidental that some commentators have dubbed the theory of eternal
inflation and the multiverse “postmodern physics”. The most radical proponent
of the multiverse, the theoretical
physicist Andrei Linde, claims that in fact there is no such thing as a
“universe” at all. The belief in a
universe, according to Linde, is little more than a prejudice we have acquired
as a result of the limitations of our imagination. If Linde is right, then the philosophical
implications are staggering. As one
writer observed,
If the
multiverse idea is correct, then the historic mission of physics to explain all
the properties of our universe in terms of fundamental principles—to explain
why the properties of our universe must necessarily be what they
are—is futile, a beautiful philosophical dream that simply isn’t true. Our
universe is what it is because we are here.
[1]
 |
| Andrei Linde, supporter of the multiverse thesis |
One might think that such a
radical theory of the origins of the universe that has gotten so much support
within the community of theoretical physicists comes with an impressive list of
observations backing up its findings.
One would think that but one would be wrong. There is in fact no confirmation of inflation
theory and it is arguable whether such confirmation is even possible in
principle. [2] Not only that, but the
picture of the universe – or multiverse – drawn by inflation theory overturns
some very basic ideas about space and time.
If inflation theory is right then the most fundamental concepts
that scientists and philosophers have
employed to comprehend the world must be thrown out. We can no longer even maintain that the
totality of everything, the universe as a whole, is a viable concept. If the
multiverse hypothesis is true, then we would have to say that there are an infinite
number of realities and all of them are in principle “unknowable” except the
one we inhabit. Philosophically, this is
a close cousin of the arguments of subjective idealists.
Both subjective idealists and proponents of a
multiverse stake out a claim that there is no single “objective” reality but
rather an infinite number of such realities.
The main difference would be that the subjective idealist would identify
“reality” with his own subjective experience and suggest that every subject has
their own version of reality, one that is unique for each individual. Since each individual experience is unique
and cannot be shared it is therefore impossible in principle to reference a
single objective reality common to all. The inflation theorist, on the other
hand, while also positing a multitude of possible universes, derives his
beliefs, not from an act of reflection on his individual experiences, but from
the mathematics of quantum theory.
Rather than identifying reality with experience as the subjective
idealists do, inflation theorists are closer to the spirit of Plato and suggest
that experiences provide us with but a vague “shadow” of reality. The Platonic tradition maintains that the
underlying structure of reality cannot be grasped by experience but only
becomes accessible to us through timeless mathematical laws. Inflation theorists therefore may seem to be
more scientific and more “objective” than the subjective idealists in the
tradition of Berkeley. But despite these
differences, the conclusions drawn by inflation theory lead one philosophically
into a position not so different than those of the subjective idealists. For if reality is fragmented into a
multiverse there is no longer any philosophical justification for claims about
objective reality since it is not at all clear what “objectivity” means in a
multiverse. After all, to put forward the
proposition that a multiverse exists implies that somehow we are able to climb
outside of our own universe and take a god’s eye view of everything including
other universes. But the ability to step
out of our universe is precisely what the multiverse proposition denies.
 |
| Alan Guth: founder of eternal inflation theory |
The contradictory nature of
claims about reality as a whole was first explored by the German philosopher
Immanuel Kant in his Antinomies of Pure Reason. An example was Kant’s
discussion of the whether the universe had a beginning. He first assumes that it does have a beginning
and from there by a series of logical steps proves that this premise leads to
absurdities. Therefore, by indirect
proof, he concludes that the universe could not have had a beginning. But this opposite premise also leads to
absurdities. So Kant concludes that the
question of whether the universe had a beginning or not is an illegitimate
question because it asks something that is beyond the limits of our
understanding. Hegel, commenting on this
discussion of Kant’s, noted that Kant here came to the very threshold of the
dialectic, but like Moses looking out on the Promised Land, could not cross
over to it. Hegel thought that the
contradictions introduced by these antinomies can be resolved, but only if one
gave up the rigid dichotomies of the understanding that sees a beginning as an
absolute point in time completely different than the continuous flux of
physical processes.
The problem that
Kant encountered was that the categories that are adequate to explain phenomena
when considering a part of reality isolated from the whole break down when one
is trying to apply them to the whole.
 |
| Immanuel Kan |
A great deal of the progress of
modern physics has been as a result of thinking about systems isolated from
their larger environment. In that way we can study the effects of certain
properties upon other properties while disregarding other factors. This method
has been called “doing physics in a box” and in its own terms it is perfectly
legitimate. The problem comes in when that method is applied to a study of the
universe as whole. This point was eloquently expressed a number of years ago by
Stephen Toulmin,
Our cosmological
ambitions have, in practice, too often deceived us into accepting fallacious or
nonsensical inferences, incautious extrapolations, premature generalizations,
or sheer confusion of category. The
whole expanse of Space, for instance, is not just one more volume, which simply
happens to be larger than all other volumes.
Nor is the totality of Time just one more historical period, longer than
all other periods, but otherwise comme
les autres. So we cannot just extrapolate our familiar ideas about smaller regions
of space and shorter periods of time and apply them directly to Space and Time “as
wholes”. Nor, for that matter, can we use our everyday discoveries about each
and every limited particular kind of thing as a secure foundation for conclusions
about “the All” or “the Whole.” [3]
When you theorize about the universe as a
whole, the categories that one employs to describe different parts of the
universe are no longer adequate and the attempt to conceive of the universe as
a whole in terms of those categories leads to contradictions. This is exactly what Kant discovered in his
discussion of the cosmological antinomies.
But he drew the wrong conclusion from it – citing the antinomies as
proof that it is illegimate to speculate about the universe as a whole.
Cosmologists have in practice
ignored Kant’s injunction since they do think it is legitimate to ask questions
about the Universe as a Whole. One of the questions Kant asked, whether the
universe had a beginning in Time, is in fact one of the most widely discussed
questions among cosmologists today. Hegel, contrary to Kant, maintained that it
is legitimate to think about an all inclusive reality -ie. the Universe as a Whole, but that endeavor cannot be
successfully accomplished by employing the non-dialectical categories borrowed
from thinking about the parts in isolation from the whole. Contemporary physicists, with few exceptions,
have adopted a number of logically incoherent theories in the past few decades,
of which eternal inflation is a prime example, because they have not thought
through the epistemological and ontological consequences of the models they have
developed.
But if we are to take seriously
the demands of reason, namely that there is indeed one reality, a universe, an
idea that has been the guiding thread of all
scientific and philosophical discovery up till now, then we must conclude
that something has gone terribly wrong in the direction of modern physics in
the past 30 years. It seems that physics
has become unmoored not only from empirical observation but also from logical
coherency.
And this is precisely the point
that a number of dissident voices have begun to raise both within the community
of theoretical physics as well as among philosophers who are concerned with
fundamental problems of the natural sciences. One of the first of the
dissidents was Lee Smolin, who in his 2007 book, The Trouble With Physics, first raised the alarm about the tendency
of physicists to ignore fundamental questions of philosophy. He noted that all the great pioneers of the
revolution in physics of the earlier years of the 20th century,
Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Planck, were concerned with fundamental
philosophical questions and looked to philosophers like Leibniz for
insights. By way of contrast, most of
the physicists of the last 50 years have been concerned less with speculation
about fundamental laws and concepts than with the resolution of practical
problems. While he grants that both
tendencies have made contributions to physics, he thinks that the pendulum has
swung too far away from concern with philosophical issues and his book can be
viewed as a call to arms for his fellow physicists to return to the concerns that
motivated Einstein and the other pioneers of the earlier part of the 20th
century. He argued that the near total exclusion of philosophical concerns from
theoretical physics has led to a dead end whereby theories are brought forth
strictly as a result of their mathematical coherence with no concern for their
conceptual or empirical validity. The
result has been in his view the kind of absurdities that Kant exorcised in his
Antinomies of Pure Reason. And nowhere are those absurdities more apparent than
in the branch of theoretical physics that deals with the universe as a whole,
cosmology.
 |
| Lee Smolin, a critic of the turn away from philosophical considerations by physicists |
Still another voice raised in
opposition to the prevailing views among physicists as well as philosophers of
science has been Thomas Nagel’s 2014 book, Mind and Cosmos. Nagel approached these problems as a
philosopher rather than a physicist. And
his focus was not cosmology, but the overall question of how the contemporary
philosophy of scientific naturalism conceives of consciousness. He is led to
speculate that there is a fundamental inadequacy in the way our current
scientific materialist outlook conceives of reality. His indictment of the near sighted dogma of
his fellow philosophers recalls Smolin’s indictment of his fellow physicists.
In both cases, there is a recognition of a basic epistemological crisis that
hampers further progress.
And just this month, an essay
appeared in the online periodical Aeon
that once more questions the viability of the paradigm of eternal inflation and
suggests that the failure to illuminate speculation about cosmology with the insights
gained through the history of philosophy leaves scientists prey to the very
same kind of antinomies described by Kant.
The article, In the Beginning, written
by Ross Andersen, quotes the dissident physicist Paul Steinhardt, who was one
of the pioneers of eternal inflation theory and is today one of its chief
critics.
‘The last 30
years is a very unusual period in the history of fundamental physics and
cosmology … There’s confusion, and maybe even a certain amount of fear. People
are wedded to these ideas, because they grew up with them. Scientists don’t
like to change ideas unless they’re forced to. They get involved with a theory.
They get emotionally attached to it. When an idea is looking shaky, they go
into defensive mode. If you’re working on something besides inflation, you find
yourself outside the social network, and you don’t get many citations. Only a
few brave souls are willing to risk that.’ [4]
When asked what should be done
about this state of affairs, Steinhardt replies,
‘I wish the philosophers
would get involved.’
 |
| Paul Steinhardt, critic of inflation theory |
And this indeed is the
issue. Yet there is a rich tradition in
the history of philosophy that offers the kind of conceptual tools contemporary
cosmology requires to overcome the paradoxes into which it has become enmeshed. That tradition is the one identified with
philosophers such as Heraclitus, Leibniz, Hegel. It is the tradition of the dialectical
philosophy of nature that was championed by Frederick Engels. It is this
tradition that provides the only consistent account of motion and change and
provides the necessary corrective to the illusion of an eternal, static and
timeless reality first championed by Plato. And in recent years a number of
contemporary scientists and philosophers who are reflecting about the Universe
as a Whole have turned to that tradition, if not always consciously and
deliberately. We will have more to say on this topic on another occasion, but
for now we wish to encourage some thinking on these issues. For that reason we
are publishing a few excerpts from the recent essay In the Beginning and encouraging readers to follow the link to the
entire essay.
[1] The Accidental Universe: Science’s crisis of faith By Alan Lightman, Harpers, December, 2011.
[2] The sole piece of evidence adduced for it so far is the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating rather than slowing down as previously thought.
[3] Stephen Toulmin, The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature, University of California Press, 1982. Page 1,2.
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In the Beginning
Cosmology has been on a
long, hot streak, racking up one imaginative and scientific triumph after
another. Is it over?
One crisp day last March, Harvard professor John Kovac
walked out of his office and into a taxicab that whisked him across town, to a
building on the edge of the MIT campus. People were paying attention to Kovac’s
comings and goings that week. He was the subject of a fast-spreading rumor.
Kovac is an experimental cosmologist midway through the prime of a charmed
career. He did his doctoral work at the University of Chicago and a postdoc at
Caltech before landing a professorship at Harvard. He is a blue chip. And since
2009, he has been principal investigator of BICEP2, an ingenious scientific
experiment at the South Pole.
Kovac had come to MIT to visit
Alan Guth, a world-renowned theoretical cosmologist, who made his name more
than 30 years ago when he devised the theory of inflation. Guth told Kovac to take
the back steps up to his office, to avoid being seen. If Guth’s colleagues
caught a glimpse of the two men talking, the whispers swirling around Kovac
would have swelled to a roar.
The science of cosmology has achieved wonders in
recent centuries. It has enlarged the world we can see and think about by
ontological orders of magnitude. Cosmology wrenched the Earth from the centre
of the Universe, and heaved it, like a discus, into its whirling orbit around
one unremarkable star among the billions that speed around the black-hole
centre of our galaxy, a galaxy that floats in deep space with billions of
others, all of them colliding and combining, before they fly apart from each
other for all eternity. Art, literature, religion and philosophy ignore
cosmology at their peril.
But cosmology’s hot streak has
stalled. Cosmologists have looked deep into time, almost all the way back to
the Big Bang itself, but they don’t know what came before it. They don’t know
whether the Big Bang was the beginning, or merely one of many beginnings.
Something entirely unimaginable might have preceded it. Cosmologists don’t know
if the world we see around us is spatially infinite, or if there are other
kinds of worlds beyond our horizon, or in other dimensions. And then the big
mystery, the one that keeps the priests and the physicists up at night: no
cosmologist has a clue why there is something rather than nothing.
To
solve these mysteries, cosmologists must make guesses about events that are
absurdly remote from us. Guth’s theory of inflation is one such guess. It tells
us that our Universe expanded, exponentially, a trillionth of a trillionth of a
trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. In most models of this process,
inflation’s expansive kick is eternal. It might cease in particular parts of
the cosmos, as it did in our region, after only a fraction of a second, when
inflation’s energy transformed into ordinary matter and radiation, which time
would sculpt into galaxies. But somewhere outside our region, inflation
continued, generating an infinite number of new regions, including those that
are roaring into existence at this very moment.
Not all these regions
are alike. Quantum mechanics puts a slot-machine spin on the cosmic conditions
of every region, so that each has its own physical peculiarities. Some contain
galaxies, stars, planets, and maybe even people. Others are entirely devoid of
complex structures. Many are too alien to imagine. The slice of space and time
we can see from Earth is 90 billion light years across. Today’s inflationary
models tell us that this enormous expanse is only one small section of one tiny
bubble that floats along in a frothy sea whose proportions defy comprehension.
This vision of the world is wondrous, in its vastness and variety, in the sheer
range of possibilities it suggests to the mind. But could it ever be proved?
John Kovac had come to
MIT to deliver good news. In 2009, Kovac and colleagues installed a telescope
at the bottom of the Earth, and with it caught some of the oldest light in the
Universe. He’d come to tell Guth that this light bore scars from time’s violent
beginning, scars that strongly suggested the theory of inflation is true.
