Ultimate Explanations of the Universe
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 secret
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Michael Heller
ULTIMATE EXPLANATIONS OF THE UNIVERSE Translated from the Polish by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa
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Michael Heller ul. Powstan´c´ow Warszawy 13/94 33-110 Tarn´ow Poland [email protected]
Original Title: Ostateczne Wyjas´nienia Wszechs´wiata # TAIWPN UNIVERSITAS
ISBN 978-3-642-02102-2 e-ISBN 978-3-642-02103-9 DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-02103-9 Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009933880 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Cover design: deblik, Berlin Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
PREFACE
The longing to attain to the ultimate explanation lingers in the implications of every scientific theory, even in a fragmentary theory of one part or aspect of the world. For why should only that part, that aspect of the world be comprehensible? It is only a part or an aspect of an entirety, after all, and if that entirety should be unexplainable, then why should only a tiny fragment thereof lend itself to explanation? But consider the reverse: if a tiny part were to elude explanation, it would leave a gap, rip a chasm, in the understanding of the entirety. Every, even the smallest, success scored by science is a step in the right direction, a sort of promise that somewhere along that direction, maybe still a very far way off beyond a runaway horizon, lies the ultimate explanation. Only rarely are such thoughts, or rather such moods allowed to come to light in the enunciations scientists make. But they linger in their sub-conscious, suppressed by declarations that all that scientists are interested in are the results of research; empty speculation they leave to philosophically-minded dreamers. However, as we know, a repressed sub-conscious gives rise to a variety of pathological conditions, and in the sphere of ideas pathologies are particularly dangerous. It could be said that by addressing the issue of ultimate explanations in science I have decided on a course of psychotherapy, above all for myself. The ideas allowed to stray into the margins of my scientific papers have finally to be brought to order, put down on paper and submitted to public discussion a
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