The Multiverse Conjecture: Whitehead’s Cosmic Epochs and Contemporary Cosmology
Recent developments in cosmology and particle physics have led to speculation that our universe is merely one of a multitude of universes. While this notion, the multiverse hypothesis, is highly contested as legitimate science, it has nonetheless struck many physicists as a necessary consequence of...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
University of Illinois Press
2011
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| In: |
Process studies
Year: 2011, Volume: 40, Issue: 1, Pages: 5-24 |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Recent developments in cosmology and particle physics have led to speculation that our universe is merely one of a multitude of universes. While this notion, the multiverse hypothesis, is highly contested as legitimate science, it has nonetheless struck many physicists as a necessary consequence of the effort to construct a final, unified theory. In Process and Reality (1929), his magnum opus, Alfred North Whitehead advanced a cosmology as part of his general metaphysics of process. Part of this project involved a theory of cosmic epochs which bears a remarkable affinity to current cosmological speculation. This paper demonstrates how the basic framework of a multiverse theory is already present in Whitehead’s cosmology and defends the necessity of speculation in the quest for an explanatory description. |
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| ISSN: | 2154-3682 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Process studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/44799115 |