Cosmology’s grand ambition is to describe the universe in its entirety. But critics argue this project is doomed from the start. To describe everything, we would have to step outside the universe and perceive it from a “God's eye view.” Furthermore, any theory of everything would itself be part of the everything it seeks to describe, and would need to account for itself. And the challenge is no longer only philosophical. Cosmologists can make observations about the visible universe, but cannot justify claims about the whole, which include regions far beyond observation. While quantum mechanics may impose a fundamental ceiling on cosmological ambition, the leading theories require an external measuring device, yet nothing, by definition, lies outside the universe, and so nothing can possibly provide a measurement of the universe as a whole.

Should cosmology abandon the idea of the universe, the idea of a single thing we can isolate, corner off, and speak about? Should we abandon the dream of a single, objective account and settle instead for a patchwork of partial models? Or might new theories—perhaps aided by the raw computing power of AI—one day deliver the ultimate, single, cosmic map?