Related papers: The Multiverse: a Philosophical Introduction
Theoretical physics is the search for simple and universal mathematical descriptions of the natural world. In contrast, much of modern biology is an exploration of the complexity and diversity of life. For many, this contrast is prima facie…
Our laws of nature and our cosmos appear to be delicately fine-tuned for life to emerge, in a way that seems hard to attribute to chance. In view of this, some have taken the opportunity to revive the scholastic Argument from Design,…
In this dissertation the question of the unification of quantum theory and general relativity is treated. Based on the conceptual structure of these theories and under incorporation of certain ideas from classical philosophy there are…
An introductory account is given of the modern understanding of the physics of the early Universe. Particular emphasis is placed on the paradigm of cosmological inflation, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the…
The rich body of physical theories defines the foundation of our understanding of the world. Its mathematical formulation is based on classical Aristotelian (binary) logic. In the philosophy of science the ambiguities, paradoxes, and the…
Based on a new theory of causality [1] and its development to the theory of the Universe [2], we show, in this paper, new ideas for building a theory of everything.
We investigate the most general phase space of configurations, consisting of the collection of all possible ways of assigning elementary attributes, "energies", to elementary positions, "cells". We discuss how this space defines a…
The theory of probability and the quantum theory, the one mathematical and the other physical, are related in that each admits a number of very different interpretations. It has been proposed that the conceptual problems of the quantum…
Einstein initially objected to the probabilistic aspect of quantum mechanics - the idea that God is playing at dice. Later he changed his ground, and focussed instead on the point that the Copenhagen Interpretation leads to what Einstein…
The many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics poses a simple question. What would reality look like if everything evolved in time according to the same quantum equations? There is an attractive consistency to treating…
The mathematical universe discussed here gives models of possible structures our physical universe can have.
The "new standard cosmology", based on the theory of inflation, has very impressive observational support. I review some outstanding problems of the new cosmology and the global view of the universe -- the multiverse -- that it suggests. I…
Can multiverse hypotheses ever receive empirical support? Critics argue that multiverse scenarios posit unobservable entities, face severe underdetermination, or fall outside the bounds of science. This chapter challenges that view by…
This is an introductory set of lecture notes on quantum cosmology, given in 1995 to an audience with interests ranging from astronomy to particle physics. Topics covered: 1. Introduction: 1.1 Quantum cosmology and quantum gravity; 1.2 A…
I give a pedagogical explanation of what it is about quantization that makes general relativity go from being a nearly perfect classical theory to a very problematic quantum one. I also explain why some quantization of gravity is…
We consider the multiverse in the intrinsically quantum mechanical framework recently proposed in Refs. [1,2]. By requiring that the principles of quantum mechanics are universally valid and that physical predictions do not depend on the…
In this thought-provoking book, Richard Healey proposes a new interpretation of quantum theory inspired by pragmatist philosophy. Healey puts forward the interpretation as an alternative to realist quantum theories on the one hand such as…
It is proposed that space is a four-dimensional Euclidean space with universal time. Originally this space was filled with a uniform substance, pictured as a liquid, which at some time became supercooled. Our universe began as a nucleation…
A physical theory of the world is presented under the unifying principle that all of nature is laid out before us and experienced through the passage of time. The one-dimensional progression in time is opened out into a multi-dimensional…
I know better than to come between the experts here assembled and their research programs, so I confine these remarks to lessons to be drawn on the state of our subject from the histories of research in three Windows on the Universe:…