Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-07406-4 - The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time: A Proposal in Natural Philosophy Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin Frontmatter More information The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time A Proposal in Natural Philosophy Cosmology is in crisis. The more we discover, the more puzzling the universe appears to be. How and why are the laws of nature what they are? A philosopher and a physicist, world-renowned for their radical ideas in their fields, argue for a revolution. To keep cosmology scientific, we must replace the old view in which the universe is governed by immutable laws by a new one in which laws evolve. Then we can hope to explain them. The revolution that Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin propose relies on three central ideas. There is only one universe at a time. Time is real: everything in the structure and regularities of nature changes sooner or later. Mathematics, which has trouble with time, is not the oracle of nature and the prophet of science; it is simply a tool with great power and immense limitations. The argument is readily accessible to non-scientists as well as to the physicists and cosmologists whom it challenges. roberto mangabeira unger is a philosopher, social and legal theorist, and politician. His engagement with cosmology and natural philosophy in this book deepens and generalizes ideas that he has developed in False Necessity, The Self Awakened, and The Religion of the Future, among other writings. lee smolin is a theoretical physicist who has made important contributions to quantum gravity. Born in New York City, he was educated at Hampshire College and Harvard University. He is a founding member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. His earlier books explore philosophical issues raised by contemporary physics and cosmology: Life of the Cosmos, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, The Trouble with Physics, and Time Reborn. Unger and Smolin have been collaborating for eight years on the project that this work brings to fruition. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-07406-4 - The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time: A Proposal in Natural Philosophy Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin Frontmatter More information © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-07406-4 - The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time: A Proposal in Natural Philosophy Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin Frontmatter More information The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time A Proposal in Natural Philosophy roberto mangabeira unger and lee smolin © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-07406-4 - The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time: A Proposal in Natural Philosophy Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin Frontmatter More information University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107074064 © Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin 2015 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2015 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Unger, Roberto Mangabeira. The singular universe and the reality of time : a proposal in natural philosophy / Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Lee Smolin. pages cm ISBN 978-1-107-07406-4 1. Cosmology. I. Title. BD511.U54 2014 113–dc23 2014016833 ISBN 978-1-107-07406-4 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-07406-4 - The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time: A Proposal in Natural Philosophy Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin Frontmatter More information Contents The nature and scope of this work page x roberto mangabeira unger and lee smolin Part I Roberto Mangabeira Unger 1 1 The science of the one universe in time 5 The singular existence of the universe 5 The inclusive reality of time 7 The selective realism of mathematics 15 The first cosmological fallacy 18 The second cosmological fallacy 23 Causality without laws 32 2 The context and consequences of the argument 46 The argument and recent physics and cosmology 46 The argument and the physics of the first half of the twentieth century 49 The argument and natural history 54 The argument and social and historical study 67 Reinventing natural philosophy 75 What is at stake 89 3 The singular existence of the universe 100 The conception of the singular existence of the universe introduced 100 Arguments for the singular existence of the universe 116 Implications for the agenda of cosmology 141 The finite and the infinite at the beginning of the universe 144 The initial conditions of the history of the universe 147 The unexplained constants of nature 156 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-07406-4 - The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time: A Proposal in Natural Philosophy Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin Frontmatter More information vi contents 4 The inclusive reality of time 162 The problem presented: How much of nature exists in time? 162 The argument in science and natural philiosophy 170 Time as the transformation of transformation 222 Attributes of time: non-emergent, global, irreversible, and continuous 226 The proto-ontological assumptions of this view of time 239 The idea of the inclusive reality of time restated 245 From being to becoming 249 5 The mutability of the laws of nature 259 Changing laws 259 The conundrum of the meta-laws 275 The problem of causation in the early universe revisited 277 The best hope for resolving the conundrum of the meta-laws 280 From speculative conception to empirical inquiry 288 Implications of the inclusive reality of time for some fundamental ideas 292 6 The selective realism of mathematics 302 The problem 302 Mathematics as discovery and mathematics as invention 303 The attributes of mathematics 305 A natural-evolutionary conjecture 323 The history of mathematics reconsidered: soaring above the world without escaping it 325 The history of mathematics reconsidered: right and wrong in Hilbert’s program 342 Adeflationary and naturalistic view of mathematics 345 Part II Lee Smolin 349 1 Cosmology in crisis 353 The crisis introduced 353 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-07406-4 - The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time: A Proposal in Natural Philosophy Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin Frontmatter More information contents vii Temporal naturalism 361 Naturalism is an ethical stance 362 2 Principles for a cosmological theory 367 The roots of relationalism 367 The Newtonian paradigm 373 The failure of the Newtonian paradigm when applied to cosmology 373 The failure of the Newtonian paradigm to satisfy the principles for a cosmological theory 377 The failure of the Newtonian paradigm for elementary events 379 Reductionism and its limits 379 The uniqueness of fundamental events 382 Relationalism and its limits: relational versus intrinsic properties 385 Two relational paths to general relativity: Einstein and shape dynamics 386 Relational purism 388 Impure relationalism: a role for intrinsic properties 388 Dynamical pairings and relational versus intrinsic properties 389 The Newtonian paradigm from the viewpoint of temporal naturalism 391 3 The setting: the puzzles of contemporary cosmology 393 The message of the data from particle physics 393 The message of the large-scale astronomical data 395 What questions are imperative, given the data? 399 What features of the standard cosmological model are unconstrained by the data? 400 What happened at very early times? 401 Brief review of the singularity theorems 402 The meaning of the singularity theorems 405 What will happen to the far future of our universe? 407 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-07406-4 - The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time: A Proposal in Natural Philosophy Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin Frontmatter More information viii contents What is very far away from us, outside the cosmological horizon? 410 The options: plurality or succession 412 4 Hypotheses for a new cosmology 414 The uniqueness of the universe 414 The reality of time 415 Does a real time conflict with the relativity of simultaneity? 418 5 Mathematics 422 A new conception: mathematics as evoked reality 422 The reasonable effectiveness of mathematics in physics 428 The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in mathematics 430 The stages of development of mathematics 431 Why is mathematics effective in physics? 445 6 Approaches to