Related papers: New remarks on the Cosmological Argument
The Doomsday argument and anthropic reasoning are two puzzling examples of probabilistic confirmation. In both cases, a lack of knowledge apparently yields surprising conclusions. Since they are formulated within a Bayesian framework, they…
The expansion of the observed universe appears to be accelerating. A simple explanation of this phenomenon is provided by the non-vanishing of the cosmological constant in the Einstein equations. Arguments are commonly presented to the…
The problem of time of quantum gravity has been argued to make canonical approaches unsatisfactory. In this article I study how it affects quantum cosmology and reach the same conclusion. The advantage of studying the cosmological case is…
Teaching cosmology at the undergraduate or high school level requires simplifications and analogies, and inevitably brings the teacher into contact with at least one of the pedagogical interpretations of the expanding universe. The by far…
The principles of General Relativity allow for a non-vanishing cosmological constant, which can possibly be interpreted at least partially in terms of quantum-fluctuations of matter fields. Depending on sign and magnitude it can cause…
Possibility of gravitational repulsion in General Relativity is discussed and astronomical data in favor of cosmological acceleration are described. The problem of vacuum energy is emphasized and possible ways of its solution are indicated.…
The old cosmological constant problem is to understand why the vacuum energy is so small; the new problem is to understand why it is comparable to the present mass density. Several approaches to these problems are reviewed. Quintessence…
The basic features of the complex canonical formulation of general relativity and the recent developments in the quantum gravity program based on it are reviewed. The exposition is intended to be complementary to the review articles…
We revisit the causal backreaction paradigm, in which the need for Dark Energy is eliminated via the generation of an apparent cosmic acceleration from the causal flow of inhomogeneity information coming in towards each observer from…
It is generally argued that the present cosmological observations support the accelerating models of the universe, as driven by the cosmological constant or `dark energy'. We argue here that an alternative model of the universe is possible…
According to general relativity, the present analysis shows on geometrical grounds that the cosmological constant problem is an artifact due to the unfounded link of this fundamental constant to vacuum energy density of quantum…
In this paper we investigate the links between instantiated argumentation systems and the axioms for non-monotonic reasoning described in [9] with the aim of characterising the nature of argument based reasoning. In doing so, we consider…
There is some evidence that the Universe is presently undergoing accelerating expansion. This has restored some credit to the scenarios with a non-vanishing cosmological constant. From the point of view of a theory of fundamental…
There are now two cosmological constant problems: (i) why the vacuum energy is so small and (ii) why it comes to dominate at about the epoch of galaxy formation. Anthropic selection appears to be the only approach that can naturally resolve…
First, this paper broaches the definition of science and the epistemic yield of tenets and approaches: phenomenological (descriptive only), well-founded (solid first principles, conducive to deep understanding), provisional (falsifiable if…
We highlight the fact that the lack of scale invariance in the gravitational field equations of General Relativity results from the underlying assumption that the appropriate scale for the gravitational force should be linked to the atomic…
In this paper, the theoretical terms of contemporary cosmology are examined as intellectual artefacts. An ontology and methodology are introduced for this purpose, which includes defining the concept of a hypothetical object. Introducing a…
We historically trace various non-conventional explanations for the origin of the cosmic microwave background and discuss their merit, while analyzing the dynamics of their rejection, as well as the relevant physical and methodological…
It was shown recently that replacing classical geodesics with quantal (Bohmian) trajectories gives rise to a quantum corrected Raychaudhuri equation (QRE). In this article we derive the second order Friedmann equations from the QRE, and…
The cosmological constant problem is seen as a symptom of the ambiguity of the Riemann curvature in general relativity. The solution of that ambiguity provided by Nash's theorem on gravitational perturbations along extra dimensions…