Abstract
The concept of the universe is used in physical cosmology differently from the usual meaning of the term, naively considered as the entire reality. Traditionally, thinking about the whole led to logical contradictions. Taking as reference the Kantian antecedent, different contemporary philosophical notions of the universe are analysed in the first part of this paper, including realist and constructivist approaches, as well as a notion of the universe as a physical object. In the second part, the specific notion from the standard physical cosmology is discussed. Although modelling the universe as a physical system provides a specific way to define some global properties, the universe as a whole remains empirically inaccessible. Hence, the discussion about the under-determined global properties depends ultimately on philosophical preferences. Under these circumstances, it is argued that the realist interpretation of such properties becomes problematic because it leads to unstable conclusions. Finally, it is argued that the notion of the universe as conceived in standard cosmology is not necessarily consistent with an approach that considers it to be a physical object.
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For instance, the standard scientific approach assumes that local laws are universally valid and can be reasonably extrapolated to large scales. Far from perceiving these requirements as necessary, they are premises within the current model. On the contrary, local effects are caused by global physics in some Machian approaches. An epistemological inversion is given under these frameworks, in the sense that global features of the universe could be inferred from local observations.
As a matter of fact, Kant claimed Euclidean geometry to be an a priori notion preceding all possible representation. From this point of view, the three dimensions of space are now seen as apodictic (Kant 2000, 176).
In Munitz’s words: “[T]he problem of determining spatial metrics of any continuum is independent of the successive acts of apprehension of some mind” (1951, 332). According to this author, the Kantian discussion about the antimonies is completely subordinated to his distinctive transcendental idealism, as well as the Newtonian framework. In consequence, once foregone those, his arguments are not useful to the current scientific debate.
Furthermore, Stevenson (2012, 139–140) points out that such a theory would not be an actual theory of everything because it would presumably require in turn a set of initial conditions to be specified. Additionally, the theory could not explain itself (i.e. why the ultimate laws are those instead of others).
That is certainly not to argue that all potentially viable cosmological models should be limited in this way. For instance, cosmological frameworks built from MOND approaches are expected to be able to make predictions about some aspects of individual galaxies (Merritt 2020, 40–41).
In this sense, although it does not aspire to account for the entire reality, a cosmological model is not epistemologically bounded. Because past stages of the system concern all states of matter, any future physical discovery will fall within its domain.
Smeenk (2008, 20) is critical of this conception of scientific laws on the basis that a specific phenomenon is never a pure instance of a law. On the contrary, the laws are applied to particular phenomena in specific ways, taking into account the involved particularities.
In this context, a universe is seen as a space–time region in which a specific set of physical laws governs.
In fact, within the standard approach, there would be empirical consequences of a multiverse if two bubbles collided within our observable universe. However, such a collision would only occur in very specific circumstances. In addition, if the universe were sufficiently small, some observational pieces of evidence might rule out the multiverse hypothesis. Unfortunately, none of those seem to be the case (see Ellis 2014, 14–15).
As a matter of fact, the possibility of providing an alternative explanation based on some intrinsic properties of individual galaxies was considered, for instance, under the interpretation of the redshift pattern as a kinematic effect. The usual explanation based on cosmic expansion is preferred in terms of consistency and unifying power.
Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that new physics is proposed within the standard model (for instance, dark energy). Of course, this is also the case within many non-standard cosmological approaches, such as the Milgromian models, in order to avoid some widely-assumed auxiliary hypotheses. Eventually, such proposals might enrich our understanding of the world. In addition, new physics might imply epistemological changes, such as within those approaches aspiring to include the Mach’s principle allowing cosmologists to infer global properties from local observations.
“[B]oth accounts [of universality] rely on the constitutive circumscription of the world as given. Whereas Galileo excludes mediation in physics through the void, Descartes excludes it in metaphysics through the cogito” (Ekeberg 2019, 67).
“In the age of ‘Big Science’, the primary purpose of research is to produce more research” (Ekeberg 2019, 122).
Following Ekeberg, something is thought in autological terms if it is conceived as “actually existing, which we may not be able to know but for which there is necessarily a reason” (2019, 49). For instance, it is the status of force in Newtonian physics. In contrast, the metalogical is what is postulated beyond the autological regime. It is present in the statistical reasoning, and it is the inherent logic of statistical physics and quantum mechanics, in the sense that “is acausal (…) ‘nonlocal’, not linked to a specifiable, localizable causal trajectory” (2019, 87). Within this logic, for instance, irreversibility is no longer attributed to the passage of time, which becomes illusory, but to a statistical conception of possible state configurations.
As Neves (2019, 862) points out, a predicted phenomenon within modern science may become cognition (in a Kantian sense) only after particularly complex data interpretations. Cognition is no longer exclusively based on pure and empirical intuition; theoretical entities also play an important role in the interpretation of experiments. In a similar sense, Munitz (1951, 334) claimed that, given a cosmological theory, empirical experience of the universe as a whole is no longer required, as long as its validity can be empirically tested.
Starting from this view, Boyce (1972, 68–69) rejects Kantian arguments because an infinite synthesis could only be potentially realised.
However, whereas the observational consequences from models in other disciplines can be tested in countless instances, the standard cosmology has to deal with only one realisation. In principle, other universes only exist potentially, for instance, as the set of mathematically consistent models.
For instance, Ijjas, Steinhardt and Loeb (2017, 39) have even stated that cosmic inflation is not a scientific theory on the basis that, in their opinion, it is always possible to adjust their parameters in order to fit the observations.
The way in which ‘effectiveness’ is taken here is similar to Merritt’s application of conventionalism (Merritt 2017).
Using what is known as the ‘hole argument’, Earman and Norton (1987) ruled out an ingenuous substantivalist approach for space–time, in which a realist notion of space–time events leads to a local indeterminism. However, according to Rynasiewicz (1996, 304), this approach does not take into account the physical qualities attributed to space–time. In fact, it is common that cosmologists show a realist attitude towards the space–time manifold. As Rynasiewicz (1996, 295–299) showed, Einstein himself conceived of space–time in terms of an ether. Another example is Friedman (1983, 259–261), who, in a similar vein as Ellis, advocates in favour of a realist interpretation of the space–time manifold on the basis of its unifying power. However, it should be noted that cosmological models would provide just an effective characterisation of this entity; in particular, its appearance at large scales. According to many authors, space–time could be an emerging concept from a more fundamental notion (e.g., Musser 2018), although there is still no well-established framework providing such an explanation.
Even from an exclusively theoretical point of view, the global nature of the universe is not completely determined. For instance, FLRW models have nothing to say about topology (e.g., Ellis 2014, 9).
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Partial financial support for this study was provided by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI, MICIU) under the Project with Reference ESP2017-83921-C2-1-R, co-funded with EU FEDER funds.
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Fernández-Cobos, R. The Concept of the Universe in Physical Cosmology. J Gen Philos Sci 52, 523–542 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-021-09561-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-021-09561-7