Ultimate Explanations of the Universe

Michael Heller (auth.)3642021026, 978-3-642-02102-2, 978-3-642-02103-9

We humans are collectively driven by a powerful – yet not fully explained – instinct to understand. We would like to see everything established, proven, laid bare. The more important an issue, the more we desire to see it clarified, stripped of all secrets, all shades of gray. What could be more important than to understand the Universe and ourselves as a part of it? To find a window onto our origin and our destiny? This book examines how far our modern cosmological theories – with their sometimes audacious models, such as inflation, cyclic histories, quantum creation, parallel universes – can take us towards answering these questions. Can such theories lead us to ultimate truths, leaving nothing unexplained? Last, but not least, Heller addresses the thorny problem of why and whether we should expect to find theories with all-encompassing explicative power.

Table of contents :
Front Matter….Pages i-xi
Front Matter….Pages 13-13
Ultimate Explanations….Pages 1-11
Problems with the Eternity of the Universe….Pages 15-22
A Cyclical Universe….Pages 23-31
A Looped Cosmos….Pages 33-42
Continuous Creation Versus a Beginning….Pages 43-55
Something Almost Out of Nothing….Pages 57-63
The Quantum Creation of the Universe….Pages 65-73
Front Matter….Pages 75-75
The Anthropic Principles….Pages 77-82
Natural Selection in the Population of Universes….Pages 83-89
The Anthropic Principles and Theories of Everything….Pages 91-97
The Metaphysics of the Anthropic Principles….Pages 99-105
Tegmark’s Embarrassment….Pages 107-113
Front Matter….Pages 115-115
The Drive to Understand….Pages 117-121
The Metaphysics and Theology of Creation….Pages 123-132
Creation and the Perpetuity of the Universe….Pages 133-138
Controversies Over the Omnipotence of God….Pages 139-143
Newton’s World….Pages 145-150
Leibniz’s World….Pages 151-160
The Initial Singularity and the Creation of the World….Pages 161-168
Creation and Evolution….Pages 169-176
Front Matter….Pages 115-115
Leibniz’S Question….Pages 177-184
Back Matter….Pages 1-31