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The Philosophical Problems of Cosmology

A deep-dive into the foundations of cosmology

22nd September 2021
| Emeritus distinguished professor of complex systems at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He co-authored “The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time” with physicist Stephen Hawking, and is one of the world’s leading theorists in cosmology.
7,473 words
Read time: approx. 37 mins

Cosmology has made extraordinary progress in recent decades. Yet it now faces some fundamental physical problems and mathematical issues. In addition to these scientific challenges, much of modern cosmology relies on philosophical assumptions that are unnoticed, untested or unreliable.

In this far-reaching survey of the philosophical foundations of cosmology, George Ellis highlights the critical issues that underpin physical cosmology before outlining his metaphysical approach to understanding the nature of the cosmos.

 

1 Introduction

2 Physical Cosmology

2.1 The universe is evolving with time

2.2 There is nothing to compare the universe to

2.3 The vast size of the universe restricts our ability to test it

2.4 We are not at the centre of the universe

2.5 We have a very successful model, but it has multiple issues

3 Cosmologia

3.1 Astrobiology issues

3.2 The anthropic issue

3.3 Metaphysical issues

4 The nature of the cosmos

4.1 Possibility spaces

4.2 The relevant data

4.3 Meaning and purpose

4.4 Four possible views

 

 

Cosmology has made huge strides as a physical science since Einstein proposed the first quantitative cosmological model in 1917 when even the nature of galaxies was unknown. 

On the one hand, cosmology has evolved into a mature science with sophisticated mathematical and numerical (computer) models supported by a large array of observations and data analysis. We now understand a great deal about the expansion and evolution of the universe. On the other hand, cosmology necessarily involves pushing the nature of scientific investigation to the limits, where philosophical assumptions rather than experiments and data start to shape theories.

George Ellis
22nd September 2021

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Bud Rapanault 26 July 2022

This tired apologia for the Standard Model of Cosmology is completely falsified by a straightforward observation made early in the article:

"Because light travels to us at the speed of light (3 x 108 m/second), we can’t see things as they are today. For instance, we see the Andromeda galaxy as it was 2.5 million years ago."

What that means is that according to well established, basic physics, it is impossible to have any knowledge of the current state of the "Universe", the "Universe" as it is "now". "Now" is always and everywhere as far as we can tell a local condition; "now" has no cosmological meaning. That in turn means that the concept of a simultaneously existing "Universe", one that can be observed, detected, or measured in any way, has no scientific basis. The "Universe" of the standard model is simply an artefact of some erroneous cosmological assumptions made 100 years ago at the dawn of the modern cosmology era. There is no rational, scientific reason to believe in such a "Universe".

Modern cosmology is an unscientific mess, that is fully defined by unobservable entities and events: the Big Bang, Inflation, Expanding Spacetime, Dark Matter and Dark Matter. The Standard Model of Cosmology is nothing but a misguided, mathematical fever dream; it is not a scientific model.