The universe through the eyes of science and philosophy. Evolution of ideas: The Universe through the eyes of Man

The grandeur and diversity of the surrounding world can amaze any imagination. All objects and objects surrounding humans, other people, various types of plants and animals, particles that can only be seen with a microscope, as well as incomprehensible star clusters: they are all united by the concept of “the Universe”.

Theories of the origin of the Universe have been developed by man for a long time. Despite the absence of even a basic concept of religion or science, in the inquisitive minds of ancient people questions arose about the principles of the world order and about the position of man in the space that surrounds him. It is difficult to count how many theories of the origin of the Universe exist today; some of them are studied by leading world-famous scientists, others are downright fantastic.

Cosmology and its subject

Modern cosmology - the science of the structure and development of the Universe - considers the question of its origin as one of the most interesting and still insufficiently studied mysteries. The nature of the processes that contributed to the emergence of stars, galaxies, solar systems and planets, their development, the source of the appearance of the Universe, as well as its size and boundaries: all this is just a short list of issues studied by modern scientists.

The search for answers to the fundamental riddle about the formation of the world has led to the fact that today there are various theories of the origin, existence, and development of the Universe. The excitement of specialists looking for answers, building and testing hypotheses is justified, because a reliable theory of the birth of the Universe will reveal to all humanity the probability of the existence of life in other systems and planets.

Theories of the origin of the Universe have the nature of scientific concepts, individual hypotheses, religious teachings, philosophical ideas and myths. They are all conditionally divided into two main categories:

1. Theories according to which the Universe was created by a creator. In other words, their essence is that the process of creating the Universe was a conscious and spiritual action, a manifestation of will
2. Theories of the origin of the Universe, built on the basis of scientific factors. Their postulates categorically reject both the existence of a creator and the possibility of conscious creation of the world. Such hypotheses are often based on what is called the mediocrity principle. They suggest the possibility of life not only on our planet, but also on others.

Creationism - the theory of the creation of the world by the Creator

As the name suggests, creationism (creation) is a religious theory of the origin of the universe. This worldview is based on the concept of the creation of the universe, planet and man by God or the Creator.

The idea was dominant for a long time, until the end of the 19th century, when the process of accumulating knowledge in various fields of science (biology, astronomy, physics) accelerated, and evolutionary theory became widespread. Creationism has become a peculiar reaction of Christians who hold conservative views on the discoveries being made. The dominant idea at that time only strengthened the contradictions that existed between religious and other theories.

What is the difference between scientific and religious theories?

The main differences between theories of various categories lie primarily in the terms used by their adherents. Thus, in scientific hypotheses, instead of a creator, there is nature, and instead of creation, there is origin. Along with this, there are issues that are covered in similar ways by different theories or even completely duplicated.

Theories of the origin of the Universe, belonging to opposite categories, date its very appearance differently. For example, according to the most common hypothesis (the big bang theory), the Universe was formed about 13 billion years ago.

In contrast, the religious theory of the origin of the Universe gives completely different figures:

• According to Christian sources, the age of the Universe created by God at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ was 3483-6984 years.
• Hinduism suggests that our world is approximately 155 trillion years old.

Kant and his cosmological model

Until the 20th century, most scientists were of the opinion that the Universe was infinite. With this quality they characterized time and space. In addition, in their opinion, the Universe was static and homogeneous.

The idea of ​​the boundlessness of the Universe in space was put forward by Isaac Newton. This assumption was developed by someone who developed a theory about the absence of time boundaries. Taking his theoretical assumptions further, Kant extended the infinity of the Universe to the number of possible biological products. This postulate meant that in the conditions of an ancient and vast world without end and beginning, there could be an innumerable number of possible options, as a result of which the appearance of any biological species could actually occur.

Based on the possible emergence of life forms, Darwin's theory was later developed. Observations of the starry sky and the results of calculations by astronomers confirmed Kant’s cosmological model.

Einstein's Reflections

At the beginning of the 20th century, Albert Einstein published his own model of the Universe. According to his theory of relativity, two opposite processes occur simultaneously in the Universe: expansion and contraction. However, he agreed with the opinion of most scientists about the stationary nature of the Universe, so he introduced the concept of cosmic repulsive force. Its effect is designed to balance the attraction of stars and stop the process of movement of all celestial bodies to maintain the static nature of the Universe.

The model of the Universe - according to Einstein - has a certain size, but there are no boundaries. This combination is feasible only when space is curved in the same way as it happens in a sphere.

The characteristics of the space of such a model are:

• Three-dimensionality.
• Closing yourself.
• Homogeneity (absence of center and edge), in which galaxies are evenly distributed.

A. A. Friedman: The Universe is expanding

The creator of the revolutionary expanding model of the Universe, A. A. Friedman (USSR), built his theory on the basis of equations characterizing the general theory of relativity. True, the generally accepted opinion in the scientific world of that time was that our world was static, so due attention was not paid to his work.

A few years later, astronomer Edwin Hubble made a discovery that confirmed Friedman's ideas. The distance of galaxies from the nearby Milky Way was discovered. At the same time, the fact that the speed of their movement remains proportional to the distance between them and our galaxy has become irrefutable.

This discovery explains the constant “scattering” of stars and galaxies in relation to each other, which leads to the conclusion about the expansion of the universe.

Ultimately, Friedman's conclusions were recognized by Einstein, who subsequently mentioned the merits of the Soviet scientist as the founder of the hypothesis about the expansion of the Universe.

It cannot be said that there are contradictions between this theory and the general theory of relativity, but during the expansion of the Universe there must have been an initial impulse that provoked the retreat of stars. By analogy with an explosion, the idea was called the “Big Bang”.

Stephen Hawking and the Anthropic Principle

The result of Stephen Hawking's calculations and discoveries was the anthropocentric theory of the origin of the Universe. Its creator claims that the existence of a planet so well prepared for human life cannot be accidental.

Stephen Hawking's theory of the origin of the Universe also provides for the gradual evaporation of black holes, their loss of energy and the emission of Hawking radiation.

As a result of the search for evidence, more than 40 characteristics were identified and tested, the observance of which is necessary for the development of civilization. American astrophysicist Hugh Ross assessed the likelihood of such an unintentional coincidence. The result was the number 10 -53.

Our Universe contains a trillion galaxies, each with 100 billion stars. According to calculations made by scientists, the total number of planets should be 10 20. This figure is 33 orders of magnitude less than previously calculated. Consequently, no planet in all the galaxies can combine conditions that would be suitable for the spontaneous emergence of life.

The Big Bang Theory: The Origin of the Universe from a Tiny Particle

Scientists who support the big bang theory share the hypothesis that the universe is a consequence of a grand explosion. The main postulate of the theory is the statement that before this event, all the elements of the current Universe were contained in a particle that had microscopic dimensions. Being inside it, the elements were characterized by a singular state in which indicators such as temperature, density and pressure could not be measured. They are endless. Matter and energy in this state are not affected by the laws of physics.

What happened 15 billion years ago is called instability that arose inside the particle. The scattered tiny elements laid the foundation for the world we know today.

In the beginning, the Universe was a nebula formed by tiny particles (smaller than an atom). Then, combining, they formed atoms that served as the basis of stellar galaxies. Answering questions about what happened before the explosion, as well as what caused it, are the most important tasks of this theory of the origin of the Universe.

The table schematically depicts the stages of formation of the universe after the big bang.

State of the Universe	Time axis	Estimated temperature
Expansion (inflation)	From 10 -45 to 10 -37 seconds	More than 10 26 K
Quarks and electrons appear	10 -6 s	More than 10 13 K
Protons and neutrons are produced	10 -5 s	10 12 K
Nuclei of helium, deuterium and lithium appear	From 10 -4 s to 3 min	From 10 11 to 10 9 K
Atoms formed	400 thousand years	4000 K
The gas cloud continues to expand	15 Ma	300 K
The first stars and galaxies are born	1 billion years	20 K
Star explosions trigger the formation of heavy nuclei	3 billion years	10 K
The process of star birth stops	10-15 billion years	3 K
The energy of all the stars is depleted	10 14 years	10 -2 K
Black holes are depleted and elementary particles are born	10 40 years	-20 K
The evaporation of all black holes ends	10 100 years	From 10 -60 to 10 -40 K

As follows from the above data, the Universe continues to expand and cool.

The constant increase in the distance between galaxies is the main postulate: what makes the big bang theory different. The emergence of the Universe in this way can be confirmed by the evidence found. There are also reasons to refute it.

Problems of theory

Given that the big bang theory has not been proven in practice, it is not surprising that there are several questions that it cannot answer:

1. Singularity. This word denotes the state of the Universe, compressed to one point. The problem with the big bang theory is the impossibility of describing the processes occurring in matter and space in such a state. The general law of relativity does not apply here, so it is impossible to create a mathematical description and equations for modeling.
   The fundamental impossibility of obtaining an answer to the question about the initial state of the Universe discredits the theory from the very beginning. Its popular science expositions prefer to hush up or mention only in passing this complexity. However, for scientists working to provide a mathematical basis for the Big Bang theory, this difficulty is recognized as a major obstacle.
2. Astronomy. In this area, the big bang theory faces the fact that it cannot describe the process of the origin of galaxies. Based on current versions of the theories, it is possible to predict how a homogeneous cloud of gas appears. Moreover, its density by now should be about one atom per cubic meter. To get something more, you cannot do without adjusting the initial state of the Universe. The lack of information and practical experience in this area become serious obstacles to further modeling.

There is also a discrepancy between the calculated mass of our galaxy and the data obtained by studying the speed of its attraction to. Apparently, the weight of our galaxy is ten times greater than previously thought.

Cosmology and quantum physics

Today there are no cosmological theories that are not based on quantum mechanics. After all, it deals with the description of the behavior of atomic and The difference between quantum physics and classical (explained by Newton) is that the second observes and describes material objects, and the first assumes an exclusively mathematical description of the observation and measurement itself. For quantum physics, material values ​​are not the subject of research; here the observer himself is part of the situation under study.

Based on these features, quantum mechanics has difficulty describing the Universe, because the observer is part of the Universe. However, speaking about the emergence of the universe, it is impossible to imagine outside observers. Attempts to develop a model without the participation of an outside observer were crowned with the quantum theory of the origin of the Universe by J. Wheeler.

Its essence is that at every moment of time the Universe is split and an infinite number of copies are formed. As a result, each of the parallel Universes can be observed, and observers can see all quantum alternatives. Moreover, the original and new worlds are real.

Inflation model

The main task that the theory of inflation is designed to solve is the search for answers to questions left unanswered by the big bang theory and expansion theory. Namely:

1. For what reason is the Universe expanding?
2. What is a big bang?

To this end, the inflationary theory of the origin of the Universe involves extrapolating the expansion to time zero, confining the entire mass of the Universe at one point and forming a cosmological singularity, which is often called the big bang.

The irrelevance of the general theory of relativity, which cannot be applied at this moment, becomes obvious. As a result, only theoretical methods, calculations and deductions can be applied to develop a more general theory (or "new physics") and solve the problem of cosmological singularity.

New alternative theories

Despite the success of the cosmic inflation model, there are scientists who oppose it, calling it untenable. Their main argument is criticism of the solutions proposed by the theory. Opponents argue that the solutions obtained leave some details missing, that is, instead of solving the problem of initial values, the theory only skillfully drapes them.

An alternative is several exotic theories, the idea of ​​which is based on the formation of initial values ​​before the big bang. New theories of the origin of the Universe can be briefly described as follows:

• String theory. Its adherents propose, in addition to the usual four dimensions of space and time, to introduce additional dimensions. They could play a role in the early stages of the Universe, and at the moment be in a compactified state. Answering the question about the reason for their compactification, scientists offer an answer that says that the property of superstrings is T-duality. Therefore, the strings are “wound” into additional dimensions and their size is limited.
• Brane theory. It is also called M-theory. In accordance with its postulates, at the beginning of the process of formation of the Universe, there is a cold, static five-dimensional space-time. Four of them (spatial) have restrictions, or walls - three-branes. Our space acts as one of the walls, and the second is hidden. The third three-brane is located in four-dimensional space and is bounded by two boundary branes. The theory envisions a third brane colliding with ours and releasing large amounts of energy. It is these conditions that become favorable for the appearance of a big bang.

1. Cyclic theories deny the uniqueness of the big bang, arguing that the universe moves from one state to another. The problem with such theories is the increase in entropy, according to the second law of thermodynamics. Consequently, the duration of the previous cycles was shorter, and the temperature of the substance was significantly higher than during the big explosion. The likelihood of this happening is extremely low.

No matter how many theories there are about the origin of the universe, only two have stood the test of time and overcome the problem of ever-increasing entropy. They were developed by scientists Steinhardt-Turok and Baum-Frampton.

These relatively new theories of the origin of the Universe were put forward in the 80s of the last century. They have many followers who develop models based on it, search for evidence of reliability and work to eliminate contradictions.

String theory

One of the most popular among the theories of the origin of the Universe - Before moving on to a description of its idea, it is necessary to understand the concepts of one of its closest competitors, the standard model. It assumes that matter and interactions can be described as a certain set of particles, divided into several groups:

• Quarks.
• Leptons.
• Bosons.

These particles are, in fact, the building blocks of the universe, since they are so small that they cannot be divided into components.

A distinctive feature of string theory is the assertion that such bricks are not particles, but ultramicroscopic strings that vibrate. At the same time, oscillating at different frequencies, the strings become analogues of various particles described in the standard model.

To understand the theory, you should realize that strings are not any matter, they are energy. Therefore, string theory concludes that all elements of the universe are made of energy.

A good analogy would be fire. When looking at it, one gets the impression of its materiality, but it cannot be touched.

Cosmology for schoolchildren

Theories of the origin of the Universe are briefly studied in schools during astronomy lessons. Students are described the basic theories about how our world was formed, what is happening to it now and how it will develop in the future.

The purpose of the lessons is to familiarize children with the nature of the formation of elementary particles, chemical elements and celestial bodies. Theories of the origin of the Universe for children are reduced to a presentation of the Big Bang theory. Teachers use visual material: slides, tables, posters, illustrations. Their main task is to awaken children's interest in the world that surrounds them.

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In another aspect, the same difficulty takes the form of another doubt. The God of religious faith, the source of personal salvation, must necessarily be a living person. But, apparently, of all the categorical forms in which the central philosophical concept of the fundamental principle of being can be thought of, the least suitable is the form of a living personality . Whether God is conceived in philosophy as the substance of the world or as its first cause, as the all-united eternity or as the creative force of development, as the world's mind or as life, he is, in any case, something impersonal, to a certain extent always pantheistic. a world-encompassing principle in which philosophy, without changing its task of comprehending and logical comprehension of existence and without artificially adapting to the requirements of religious feeling, cannot discern the anthropomorphic features of a living, punishing and loving personality necessary for a religious attitude towards God. Fatally, regardless of the content of a particular philosophical system, the God of philosophy bears the stamp of his dependence on the needs of abstract thought and that is why for religious feeling there is only an illusory surrogate of the true God - a dead stone instead of bread that satisfies the hunger of the religious soul, or, at best , a useless, foggy, ethereal shadow of that truly existing one, which direct religious faith already possesses in all the fullness and vitality of Its reality. The basis of both doubts ultimately lies, as already indicated, in one difficulty; and we must admit that this is a truly serious difficulty - one of the deepest and most important philosophical problems - in contrast to the easily resolved contradiction with which we dealt above and which resulted only from superficial and completely false banal ideas about the essence of philosophy and religion. This difficulty boils down to the question: can philosophy, which is the comprehension of being in the logical form of a concept, at the same time not be rationalism? It is noteworthy that this question is decisive not only for the harmonization of philosophy and religion, but also for the possibility of philosophy itself. In fact, philosophy, on the one hand, is the comprehension of being in a system of concepts and, on the other hand, the comprehension of it from its absolute and comprehensive fundamental principle. But a concept is always something relative and limited; How is it possible to express the absolute in the forms of the relative, to master the infinite, catching it in the network of the finite? How can one - simply put - comprehend the incomprehensible? It would seem that we are faced with a fatal dilemma: either we are looking for the absolute itself, going beyond the limits of everything finite and - thereby - logically expressible, and then we cannot really comprehend and logically fix; or we are looking only for a logical system of concepts and then we are always in the sphere of only the relative, particular, derivative, without reaching the true fundamental principle and integral unity of being. In both cases, the task of philosophy remains unfulfilled.

Many philosophical systems have collapsed due to this difficulty. But in its main line, philosophy has long since taken this difficulty into account and fundamentally overcome it. Philosophy comprehends - and thereby clearly logically expresses - the absolute through direct perception and logical fixation of its eminent form, which exceeds the logical concept. We are deprived of the opportunity to give here a detailed logical explanation of this deepest and at the same time axiomatically self-evident relationship; We can only in a few words guide the reader’s thoughts to the connection revealed here. The insight into the absolute, all-encompassing nature of being, going beyond the limitations and relativity of everything logically fixed, is precisely its logically adequate insight. Or, in other words: it is logically mature thought that has reached the final clarity, seeing the inexhaustibility and infinity of the absolute, its fundamental difference from everything rationally expressible, humbly recognizing, therefore, the limitations of the achievements of reason in the face of true being, precisely in the open and clear consciousness of this relationship and only in it alone, overcomes the limitations of the mind and masters an object that surpasses its strength. Where a person, indulging in the pride of knowledge, imagines that he has exhausted the subject with his knowledge, there is no precisely the first condition of knowledge - a clear vision of his subject; for where there is this vision, i.e. where - thereby - there is knowledge, there is also an obvious perception of the incompleteness and incompleteness of knowledge. Truly discerned knowledge is always accompanied by the feeling that was classically expressed by the brilliant creator of the mathematical system of the Universe, Newton, in the words that he seems to himself to be a child collecting individual shells on the shore of a boundless and unexplored ocean. And on the contrary, that stupid conceit, to which existence seems to be a limited and flat folded picture, easily and completely exhausted in a few formulas, not only contains an unlawful exaggeration of the significance of any achieved knowledge, but is simply complete blindness, in which even the first step of knowledge. This clarification of the conditions of possibility of philosophy itself immediately eliminates at least the first of these two doubts regarding the relationship between philosophical knowledge of God and religious feeling. No matter in what terms abstract philosophical thought expresses its knowledge of God, its basic intuition and thereby its highest and supreme concept remains the purely religious idea of ​​the immensity, inexhaustible depth and mystery of God; and, in essence, the entire rest of the system of concepts has its final purpose to bring thought closer to grasping precisely this super-finite and super-rational nature of God, constituting His absoluteness. A common misconception in understanding the relationship between philosophy and religion at this point is that the sense of mystery seems to be a condition blocking cognitive penetration, and, conversely, the passion for knowledge is a force that destroys the humble sense of mystery and therefore favors the conceit of atheism. In reality, on the contrary, the religious sense of the mystery and depth of being is the first and necessary condition for the development of philosophy, while the conceit of atheism radically kills the very instinct of philosophizing and is as much a negation of philosophy as of religion. The possibility and even special cases of intermediate forms - the insufficiency of philosophical energy due to which thought, not penetrating to the last depth, stops halfway, sets itself the last limits here and, simplifying being, favors semi-unbelief or poverty and the schematic character of religious consciousness - of course, does not refute, but rather confirms the basic relationship we have explained. The ongoing battle between the minds, so to speak. deep, that is, feeling the depth and infinite complexity of life, and flat minds, imagining that life can easily be taken apart, like a house of cards, and put back together at your own discretion, there is as much a struggle for the religious as for philosophical, worldview.

This also provides the path to resolving the second doubt. True, since we express it in a rough and logically solid formula, according to which the God of faith is a humanoid personality. The God of philosophy is an impersonal absolute; it seems completely irresistible. But this is only due to the one-sidedness and logical simplification of the formula itself. Neither the God of religion, nor the God of philosophy is the simple and unambiguous content to which this formula reduces Him, precisely because He is, first of all, unsearchable depth and inexhaustible richness. He is the completeness of all definitions, for he stands above each of them separately; and therefore one definition does not contradict another in Him - under the condition that each of them is taken in the proper sense, not as exhaustive adequate knowledge of His very essence, but only as an understanding of one of His sides, which has - due to the fundamental unity of His essence - only symbolic meaning for defining the whole. After all, the God of religious faith also contains - at the very first attempt at any one-sided definition of Him - many contradictions, which in reality are not contradictions, but antinomies, agreed upon in a higher, suprarational unity. On the other hand, philosophical knowledge of God is only imaginaryly chained to the indicated impersonal and seemingly formless concept of God as some kind of only all-encompassing principle. The apparent inevitability of this trend follows only from the one-sided limitation of the task of philosophy to theoretical comprehension of the world. If we remember and keep in mind that the task of philosophy is not exhausted by this, but requires a holistic understanding of existence in all its living fullness and depth, which embraces, as one of its main moments, the reality of spiritual life with all its moral and religious demands and problems, - if we remember the necessity of such philosophical problems as the problem of good and evil, theodicy, the relationship between the moral ideal and reality, freedom and necessity, reason and the blindness of natural forces, then we will understand that the highest clarifying unity that philosophy seeks is not one only impersonal unity. ordering the picture of objective world existence, but truly the holistic unity of life in the deepest and most comprehensive sense of this concept. The whole point is that a genuine philosophy that can fulfill its purpose must proceed from a real, that is, absolutely complete and concrete unity, and not from an imaginary, essentially only partial and abstract unity of the system of objective being. And this means that the last source and criterion of philosophical knowledge is only the dispassionate, purely contemplative intuition of objective existence, and the holistic living and spiritual experience - meaningful experiential exploration of the last depths of life. The whole set of painful doubts, quests and achievements of religious experience, united in the theme “about the meaning of life” - the problem of guilt, retribution and forgiveness, personal responsibility and human powerlessness, predestination and freedom, the reality of evil and goodness of the Existing One, the fragility of empirical existence and indestructibility personality - is included as a legitimate and necessary topic in ontology, which deserves its name as a doctrine of being. One has only to remember this primary and fundamental being, concentrate on it and see it as the final criterion of knowledge, so that the whole relationship, which at first glance seems confusing and almost insoluble, becomes - at least in principle - self-evidently clear. There are not two truths, but only one - and it is where there is maximum completeness and specificity. The main thing is to have a living experience of reality itself. Only where religion accepts the dogmas of faith not as symbolic and mysterious designations of the divine nature, but as complete and exhaustive adequate revelations of Him, turning them into one-sided logical definitions, or where philosophy imagines that in an abstract system of ready-made formulas it is possible to completely determine the final depths of reality, - only there are possible - and even inevitable - conflicts between philosophy and religion. The internal connection and intimate affinity of philosophy and religion were most clouded by naively daring attempts to rationalize the dogmas of faith, which compromised both philosophy and religion. Mysterious and significant religious intuitions - the fruit of the spiritual experience of religious geniuses and conciliar religious consciousness - almost inaccessible in their depth to the inexperienced experience of the average person, are sometimes discussed - both in their substantiation and in their refutation - as simple truths, the meaning of which is accessible to common sense and can be established by simple logical analysis. Philosophical knowledge in its achievements necessarily lags behind the achievements of direct religious penetration into the depths of being. There are significant reasons for this, rooted in the very nature of both spiritual activities. First of all, religious faith, being a living, direct sensation and experience of the Divine, does not need for its achievements the hard mental work of rational explanation and substantiation of its truths. In addition, although religion, as indicated above, necessarily contains, as its main supporting point, the moment of immediate personal judgment of truth, it does not at all require that this direct judgment extend to the entire content of religious faith. On the contrary, it is characteristic that this moment of immediate evidence is inherent in the perception of truthfulness, the unconditional truth of the source of revelation - whether there will be that same Deity or this or that mediator between God and man, - due to which the content of revelation acquires the indirect reliability of truth, communicated by a self-evidently reliable witness. Therefore, the property of personal faith can be - and even necessarily happens - the content of conciliar religious experience, with all the achievements of religious geniuses included in its composition. This achieves the possibility of completeness, richness and depth of religious revelation, completely unattainable for philosophical knowledge. For although there are no fundamental barriers to philosophical knowledge here and the possibility of endless achievements is open, the logical unity of content required by the nature of philosophical knowledge makes it practically impossible for it to use in one system the entirety of the religious experience of mankind. Only the completeness and diversity of the philosophical achievements of human thought, in principle, can become at the level of its religious achievements - but this completeness can only be given to spiritual-historical intuition, but is not adequately expressed in any single system. A philosophical system that tries to express and logically record the entire religious experience of mankind is an idea similar to an attempt to draw a geographical map on which all the diversity of geographical reality would be marked. And here, on the other hand, we are again convinced that the correct relationship between religion and philosophy is possible only on the basis of that “wise ignorance” which is the most mature fruit of true enlightenment. A truly philosophical frame of mind in its volitional structure coincides with a religious frame of mind: in both - contrary to superficial opinion, which seems impossible - humility is combined with the boldness of creativity, and, moreover, not in such a way that each of these volitional tendencies restrains and limits the other, but that each of them, on the contrary, nourishes and strengthens the other.

3. Scientific constructions of the Universe and philosophical ideas about the place of man in the world.

The problem of the beginning of the universe is like the old question: which came first, the chicken or the egg. In other words, what force created the universe. And what created this force. Or perhaps the universe, or the force that created it all, has always existed, and had no beginning.

The universe is infinite in time and space. Every particle of the universe

has its beginning and end, both in time and in space, but the entire Universe is infinite and eternal, since it is eternally self-moving matter.

The universe is everything that exists. From the smallest grains of dust and atoms to huge accumulations of matter of stellar worlds and stellar systems. Until recently, scientists tended not to address issues in such areas because they belonged to metaphysics or religion rather than to science. However, recently a doctrine has arisen that the laws of science may even exist at the beginning of the universe. In this case, the universe could be determined entirely by the Laws of Science.

Thus, scientists were faced with the problem of choosing between faith in God and material faith. They did not yet know the root causes of the origin of the universe, since they did not have a sufficient scientific base at that time. Belief in God was more preferable. Historically, Christianity was older than science and naturally few took science seriously, but over time it gained strength, and more and more people turned their heads in its direction. A mystery in science is something that science cannot explain, just as it cannot explain what happened before the big bang. After all, everything that happened before the emergence of the universe, the point of singularity, is not discussed - this is dogma. And the unknown in science is a mystery that cannot be revealed in the near future.

At the moment that was called the Big Bang, the density of the universe was equal to 1000,000 g/m (cube), and the temperature was 10 to 32 degrees C. This moment was called the point of singularity, that is, there was a point, there was a beginning, a mass arose, absolute space and all the laws that the universe now obeys.

God created the world in six days, but based on the Big Bang theory, the age of formation of the universe is approximately 15-20 billion years. Now theoretical physicists are trying to somehow collapse the universe in order to more accurately determine its age. But for us, the very fact that the universe had a beginning is important.

Based on the facts, the Big Bang theory seems very convincing, but since we still don't know what came before it, it casts a little fog on the issue. But still, science has advanced much further than it was before and like any revolutionary theory, the Big Bang theory gives a good impetus to the development of scientific thought. The “hot” Universe model, coupled with the “Big Bang” concept, is the most widespread at present and requires special attention and understanding.

According to the Big Bang concept, the universe arose from a single point

radius equal to zero, but with density equal to infinity. What is this point called singularity, how does the entire inexhaustible Universe appear out of nothing and what is beyond the singularity - the supporters and propagandists of this hypothesis are silent about this. The "Big Bang" occurred 10-20 billion years ago (the exact age depends on the value of the Hubble constant entered into the corresponding formula). This quantity, in turn, can have different values ​​depending on the methods used to measure the distance from the Earth to galaxies.

It seems that in the current intellectual climate the great advantage of Big Bang cosmology is that it is an affront to common sense. When scientists fight against astrological nonsense outside the walls of the “temples of science,” it would be nice to remember that within these very walls the worst nonsense is sometimes cultivated. Within the framework of the “Big Bang” theory, the eternity and infinity of the Universe is denied, since the Universe had a beginning in time and, even after a maximum period of 20 billion years, managed to expand (inflate) over a limited distance. What is beyond the radius of the expanding Universe is also a taboo topic for discussion. Usually they get off with statements that don’t explain anything, the meaning of which is something like this: The Universe is like this because it follows from mathematical formulas.

So, the “Big Bang” model is just one of the possible imaginary constructions, the fruit of a game of theoretical thought.

Philosophical ideas about the place of man in the world.

Philosophers of antiquity, especially natural philosophers, viewed man as an image of the cosmos, as a “small world,” a microcosm. This point of view, of course, on a new basis, is reproduced today. Man is truly part of the cosmos. It is no coincidence that magnetic storms cause us so much trouble. We are people of the Sun, without the Sun we feel bad. But it shouldn't be too close to us. Scientists predict that the Sun will reach the “red giant” stage in its development and engulf the Earth. What will happen to the human race?

Description of work

The philosophical teachings of George Berkeley are aimed at refuting materialism and substantiating religion. For these purposes he used the nominalistic principles established by William of Occam: "Everything that exists is singular." This nominalistic principle serves as a starting point for Berkeley, from which it follows that nothing corresponding to reality can be non-singular and abstract concepts are false concepts. But they, according to Berkeley, are not only false, but also impossible, these are philosophical phantoms. Berkeley distinguishes between general and abstract ideas.

Introduction

The world around us is large and diverse. Everything that surrounds us, be it other people, animals, plants, the smallest particles visible only under a microscope and giant clusters of stars, microscopic atoms and huge nebulae, makes up what is commonly called the Universe.

The Universe is a strictly undefined concept in astronomy and philosophy. It is divided into two fundamentally different entities: speculative (philosophical) and material, accessible to observation at the present time or in the foreseeable future. If the author distinguishes between these entities, then, following tradition, the first is called the Universe, and the second is called the astronomical Universe, or Metagalaxy (recently this term has practically fallen out of use). The Universe is the subject of study of cosmology.

The origin of the Universe is any description or explanation of the initial processes of the origin of the existing Universe, including the formation of astronomical objects (cosmogony), the emergence of life, planet Earth and humanity. There are many points of view on the question of the origin of the Universe, starting with scientific theory, many individual hypotheses, and ending with philosophical reflections, religious beliefs, and elements of folklore.

There are a large number of concepts about the origin of the Universe.

Such as:

· Kant's cosmological model

· Expanding Universe model (Friedmann Universe, non-stationary Universe)

· The Big Bang Theory

· Big bounce

· String theory and M-theory

· Creationism

The purpose of this essay is to consider the concept of “Universe” and study the basic concepts (theories) of origin.

Main objectives of the abstract:

)Consider the basic concepts and definitions of the “Universe”.

)Consider the formation of objects in the Universe.

)Explore the basic concepts of the origin of the universe.

1. Evolution of the “Universe”

The Universe is the entire material world around us, including what is outside the Earth - outer space, planets, stars. This is matter without end and edge, taking on the most diverse forms of its existence. The part of the Universe covered by astronomical observations is called the Metagalaxy, or our Universe. The dimensions of the Metagalaxy are very large: the radius of the cosmological horizon is 15-20 billion light years.

The Universe is the largest material system, i.e. a system of objects consisting of matter. Sometimes the concept of “substance” is identified with the concept of “matter”. Such an identification can lead to erroneous conclusions. Matter is the most general concept, while substance is only one of the forms of its existence. In modern understanding, three interconnected forms of matter are distinguished: matter, field and physical vacuum. Matter consists of discrete particles exhibiting wave properties. Microparticles are characterized by a dual particle-wave nature. The physical vacuum and its properties are so far known much worse than many material systems and structures. According to the modern definition, the physical vacuum is zero fluctuating fields with which virtual particles are associated. Physical vacuum is discovered when interacting with matter at its deep levels. It is assumed that vacuum and matter are inseparable and not a single material particle can be isolated from its presence and influence. In accordance with the concept of self-organization, the physical vacuum acts as an external environment for the Universe.

The structure and evolution of the Universe are studied by cosmology. Cosmology is one of those branches of natural science that, in their essence, are always at the intersection of sciences. Cosmology uses the achievements and methods of physics, mathematics, and philosophy. The subject of cosmology is the entire megaworld around us, the entire “big Universe,” and the task is to describe the most general properties, structure and evolution of the Universe. It is clear that the conclusions of cosmology have great ideological significance.

Modern astronomy has not only discovered the grandiose world of galaxies, but also discovered unique phenomena: the expansion of the Metagalaxy, the cosmic abundance of chemical elements, relict radiation, indicating that the Universe is continuously evolving.

The evolution of the structure of the Universe is associated with the emergence of clusters of galaxies, the separation and formation of stars and galaxies, and the formation of planets and their satellites. The Universe itself arose approximately 20 billion years ago from some dense and hot proto-matter. Today we can only guess what this ancestral substance of the Universe was like, how it was formed, what laws it obeyed and what processes led it to expansion. There is a point of view that from the very beginning protomatter began to expand at a gigantic speed. At the initial stage, this dense substance scattered, scattered in all directions and was a homogeneous seething mixture of unstable particles that constantly disintegrated during collisions. Cooling and interacting over millions of years, this entire mass of matter scattered in space was concentrated into large and small gas formations, which over the course of hundreds of millions of years, approaching and merging, turned into huge complexes. In them, in turn, denser areas arose - stars and even entire galaxies subsequently formed there.

As a result of gravitational instability, dense “protostellar formations” with masses close to the mass of the Sun can form in different zones of the formed galaxies. The compression process that has begun will accelerate under the influence of its own gravitational field. This process accompanies the free fall of cloud particles towards its center - gravitational compression occurs. In the center of the cloud a compaction forms, consisting of molecular hydrogen and helium. An increase in density and temperature in the center leads to the disintegration of molecules into atoms, ionization of atoms and the formation of a dense protostar core.

There is a hypothesis about the cyclical state of the Universe. Having once arisen from a super-dense clump of matter, the Universe may have given birth within itself to billions of star systems and planets already in the first cycle. But then, inevitably, the Universe begins to tend to the state from which the history of the cycle began, the red shift gives way to violet, the radius of the Universe gradually decreases, and in the end the matter of the Universe returns to its original super-dense state, mercilessly destroying all life along the way. And this is repeated every time, in every cycle for eternity!

By the beginning of the 30s, it was believed that the main components of the Universe are galaxies, each of which on average consists of 100 billion stars. The Sun, together with the planetary system, is part of our Galaxy, the bulk of whose stars we observe in the form of the Milky Way. In addition to stars and planets, the Galaxy contains a significant amount of rarefied gases and cosmic dust.

Is the Universe finite or infinite, what is its geometry - these and many other questions are related to the evolution of the Universe, in particular to the observed expansion. If, as is currently believed, the speed of “expansion” of galaxies will increase by 75 km/s for every million parsecs, then extrapolation to the past leads to an amazing result: approximately 10 - 20 billion years ago the entire Universe was concentrated in a very small area . Many scientists believe that at that time the density of the Universe was the same as that of an atomic nucleus. Simply put, the Universe was then one giant “nuclear blob.” For some reason, this “drop” became unstable and exploded. This process is called the big bang.

With this estimate of the time of formation of the Universe, it was assumed that the picture of the expansion of galaxies that we now observe occurred at the same speed and in an arbitrarily distant past. And it is precisely on this assumption that the hypothesis of the primary Universe is based - a giant “nuclear drop” that has come to a state of instability.

Currently, cosmologists suggest that the Universe did not expand “from point to point,” but seemed to pulsate between finite limits of density. This means that in the past the speed of expansion of galaxies was less than now, and even earlier the system of galaxies was compressed, i.e. The galaxies approached each other with greater speed, the greater the distance separating them. Modern cosmology has a number of arguments in favor of the picture of a “pulsating Universe”. Such arguments, however, are purely mathematical; the most important of them is the need to take into account the actually existing heterogeneity of the Universe.

We cannot now finally decide which of the two hypotheses - the “nuclear drop” or the “pulsating Universe” - is correct. Much more work will be required to solve this one of the most important problems of cosmology.

The idea of ​​the evolution of the Universe seems quite natural today. It wasn't always like this. Like any great scientific idea, it has come a long way in its development, struggle and formation. Let us consider what stages the development of science about the Universe has gone through in our century.

Modern cosmology arose at the beginning of the 20th century. after the creation of the relativistic theory of gravity. The first relativistic model, based on a new theory of gravity and claiming to describe the entire Universe, was built by A. Einstein in 1917. However, it described a static Universe and, as astrophysical observations showed, it turned out to be incorrect.

In 1922-1924. Soviet mathematician A.A. Friedman proposed general equations to describe the entire Universe as it changes over time. Stellar systems cannot be located, on average, at constant distances from each other. They must either move away or come closer. This result is an inevitable consequence of the presence of gravitational forces, which dominate on a cosmic scale. Friedman's conclusion meant that the Universe must either expand or contract. This resulted in a revision of general ideas about the Universe. In 1929, the American astronomer E. Hubble (1889-1953), using astrophysical observations, discovered the expansion of the Universe, confirming the correctness of Friedman's conclusions.

Since the late 40s of our century, the physics of processes at different stages of cosmological expansion has attracted increasing attention in cosmology. In the G.A. put forward at this time. Gamow's theory of the hot Universe considered nuclear reactions that occurred at the very beginning of the expansion of the Universe in very dense matter. It was assumed that the temperature of the substance was high and fell with the expansion of the Universe. The theory predicted that the material from which the first stars and galaxies were formed should consist mainly of hydrogen (75%) and helium (25%), with an insignificant admixture of other chemical elements. Another conclusion of the theory is that in today's Universe there should be weak electromagnetic radiation left over from the era of high density and high temperature of matter. Such radiation during the expansion of the Universe was called cosmic microwave background radiation.

At the same time, fundamentally new observational capabilities appeared in cosmology: radio astronomy arose, and the capabilities of optical astronomy expanded. In 1965, cosmic microwave background radiation was observed experimentally. This discovery confirmed the validity of the hot Universe theory.

The current stage in the development of cosmology is characterized by intensive research into the problem of the beginning of cosmological expansion, when the densities of matter and particle energy were enormous. The guiding ideas are new discoveries in the physics of the interaction of elementary particles at very high energies. In this case, the global evolution of the Universe is considered. Today, the evolution of the Universe is comprehensively substantiated by numerous astrophysical observations, which have a solid theoretical basis for all physics.

2. Concepts of the origin of the Universe

universe astronomical planet

Kant's cosmological model

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, when Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity arose, the generally accepted theory in the scientific world was an infinite in space and time, homogeneous and static Universe. Isaac Newton ((1642-1726) - English physicist, mathematician, mechanic and astronomer, one of the founders of classical physics, made the assumption about the boundlessness of the Universe), and Emmanuel Kant ((1724-1804) - German philosopher, founder of German classical philosophy, standing on borders of the Ages of Enlightenment and Romanticism) developed this idea, admitting that the universe has no beginning and no time. He explained all processes in the Universe by the laws of mechanics, described by Isaac Newton shortly before his birth.

Kant's initial position is a disagreement with Newton's conclusion about the necessity of a divine “first push” for the emergence of the orbital motion of planets. According to Kant, the origin of the tangential component is unclear as long as the solar system is viewed as unchanging, given, outside its history. But it is enough to assume that interplanetary space in distant times was filled with rarefied matter, the simplest, elementary particles interacting with each other in a certain way, then there is a real opportunity, on the basis of physical laws, to explain, without resorting to the help of divine forces, the origin and structure of the Solar system. However, Kant is not an atheist, he recognizes the existence of God, but assigns him only one role - the creation of matter in the form of initial chaos with its inherent laws. All further development of matter occurs naturally, without the intervention of God.

Kant extended his conclusions to the field of biology, arguing that the infinitely ancient, infinitely large Universe presents the possibility for the emergence of an infinite number of accidents, as a result of which the emergence of any biological product is possible. This philosophy, which cannot be denied the logic of conclusions (but not postulates), was the fertile ground for the emergence of Darwinism (Darwinism - named after the English naturalist Charles Darwin - in the narrow sense - a direction of evolutionary thought, whose adherents agree with Darwin’s basic ideas on the issue of evolution, according to the main (although not the only) factor of evolution is natural selection).

Observations by astronomers of the 18th and 19th centuries of the movements of the planets confirmed Kant’s cosmological model of the Universe, and it turned from a hypothesis into a theory, and by the end of the 19th century it was considered an indisputable authority. Even the so-called “dark night sky paradox” could not shake this authority. Why the paradox? because in the model of the Kantian Universe the sum of the brightnesses of the stars should create infinite brightness, but the sky is dark! The explanation for the absorption of part of the starlight by clouds of dust located between the stars cannot be considered satisfactory, since according to the laws of thermodynamics, any cosmic body eventually begins to give off as much energy as it receives (however, this became known only in 1960).

Expanding Universe Model

In 1915 and 1916, Einstein published the equations of general relativity (it should be noted that this is the most fully and thoroughly tested and confirmed theory to date). According to these equations, the Universe is not static, but is expanding with simultaneous deceleration. The only physical phenomenon that behaves this way is an explosion, which scientists have given the name “Big Bang” or “hot Big Bang.”

But if the visible Universe is a consequence of the Big Bang, then this explosion had a beginning, there was a First Cause, there was a Designer. At first, Einstein rejected such a conclusion and in 1917 put forward a hypothesis about the existence of a certain “repulsive force” that stops movement and keeps the Universe in a static state for an infinite time.

However, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) proved in 1929 that stars and star clusters (galaxies) are moving away from each other. This so-called “galactic recession” was predicted by the original formulation of general relativity.

Einstein's model of the Universe became the first cosmological model based on the conclusions of the general theory of relativity. This is due to the fact that it is gravity that determines the interaction of masses over large distances. Therefore, the theoretical core of modern cosmology is the theory of gravity - the general theory of relativity.

Five years later, in 1922, the Soviet physicist and mathematician Alexander Friedman, based on rigorous calculations, showed that Einstein’s Universe could not possibly be stationary and unchanging. Friedman did this based on the cosmological principle he formulated. It is based on two assumptions: the isotropy and homogeneity of the Universe. The isotropy of the Universe is understood as the absence of distinguished directions, the sameness of the Universe in all directions. The homogeneity of the Universe is understood as the sameness of all points of the Universe, making observations from which we will see an isotropic Universe everywhere.

Today, most scientists agree with this principle. The results of modern observations show that the structural elements of distant stars and galaxies, the physical laws to which they obey, and physical constants are the same throughout the observable part of the Universe, including the Earth. In addition, it is known that matter in the Universe is collected into “clumps” - stars, stellar systems and galaxies. But the distribution of matter on larger scales is uniform.

Friedman, based on the cosmological principle, proved that Einstein’s equations have other, non-stationary solutions, according to which the Universe can either expand or contract. At the same time, we were talking about expanding the space itself, i.e. about the increase in all the distances in the world. Friedman's universe resembled an inflating soap bubble, with both its radius and surface area continuously increasing.

Evidence in favor of the expanding Universe model was obtained in 1929, when the American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered, while studying the spectra of distant galaxies, the red shift of spectral lines (a shift of lines towards the red end of the spectrum). This was interpreted as a consequence of the Doppler effect - a change in oscillation frequency or wavelength due to the movement of the wave source and observer relative to each other. The redshift was explained as a consequence of galaxies moving away from each other at a rate that increases with distance. According to recent measurements, this increase in expansion rate is approximately 55 km/s per million parsecs. After this discovery, Friedman’s conclusion about the non-stationary nature of the Universe was confirmed, and the model of an expanding Universe was established in cosmology.

The recession of galaxies that we observe is a consequence of the expansion of space in a closed finite Universe. With such an expansion of space, all distances in the Universe increase, just as the distances between dust grains on the surface of an inflating soap bubble increase. Each of these grains of dust, like each of the galaxies, can rightfully be considered an expansion center.

The Big Bang Theory

The Big Bang is a generally accepted cosmological model that describes the early development of the Universe, namely the beginning of the expansion of the Universe, before which the Universe was in a singular state.

It is common now to automatically combine the Big Bang theory and the hot Universe model, but these concepts are independent and historically there was also a concept of a cold initial Universe near the Big Bang. It is the combination of the Big Bang theory with the theory of a hot Universe, supported by the existence of cosmic microwave background radiation, that is considered further.

Modern ideas of the Big Bang theory and the theory of the hot Universe:

According to modern concepts, the Universe we now observe arose 13.7 ± 0.13 billion years ago from some initial “singular” state and has been continuously expanding and cooling since then. According to the known limitations on the applicability of modern physical theories, the earliest moment that can be described is considered to be the moment of the Planck epoch with a temperature of approximately 1032 K (Planck temperature) and a density of approximately 1093 g/cm ³ ( Planck density). The early Universe was a highly homogeneous and isotropic environment with unusually high energy density, temperature and pressure. As a result of expansion and cooling, phase transitions occurred in the Universe, similar to the condensation of liquid from gas, but in relation to elementary particles.

Approximately 10−35 seconds after the onset of the Planck epoch (Planck time is 10−43 seconds after the Big Bang, at which time the gravitational interaction separated from the other fundamental interactions), a phase transition caused the exponential expansion of the Universe. This period was called Cosmic Inflation. After the end of this period, the building material of the Universe was quark-gluon plasma. As time passed, the temperature dropped to values ​​at which the next phase transition, called baryogenesis, became possible. At this stage, quarks and gluons combine to form baryons such as protons and neutrons. At the same time, an asymmetric formation of both matter, which prevailed, and antimatter, which mutually annihilated, turning into radiation, occurred simultaneously.

A further drop in temperature led to the next phase transition - the formation of physical forces and elementary particles in their modern form. After which came the era of nucleosynthesis, in which protons, combining with neutrons, formed the nuclei of deuterium, helium-4 and several other light isotopes. After a further drop in temperature and expansion of the Universe, the next transition point occurred, at which gravity became the dominant force. 380 thousand years after the Big Bang, the temperature dropped so much that the existence of hydrogen atoms became possible (before this, the processes of ionization and recombination of protons with electrons were in equilibrium).

After the era of recombination, matter became transparent to radiation, which, spreading freely in space, reached us in the form of cosmic microwave background radiation.

The history of the development of ideas about the Big Bang:

The work of physicist Albert Einstein, “Foundations of the General Theory of Relativity,” was published, in which he completed the creation of a relativistic theory of gravity.

Einstein, on the basis of his field equations, developed the idea of ​​space with constant curvature in time and space (Einstein’s model of the Universe, marking the birth of cosmology), introduced the cosmological constant Λ. ( Subsequently, Einstein called the introduction of the cosmological constant one of his biggest mistakes; It has already become clear in our time that Λ- member plays a vital role in the evolution of the Universe). W. de Sitter put forward a cosmological model of the Universe (de Sitter model) in his work “On Einstein’s theory of gravity and its astronomical consequences.”

Soviet mathematician and geophysicist A.A. Friedman found non-stationary solutions to Einstein's gravitational equation and predicted the expansion of the Universe (a non-stationary cosmological model known as the Friedman solution). If we extrapolate this situation into the past, we will have to conclude that at the very beginning all the matter of the Universe was concentrated in a compact region, from which it began its expansion. Since explosive processes very often occur in the Universe, Friedman came up with the assumption that at the very beginning of its development there also lies an explosive process - the Big Bang.

The German mathematician G. Weyl noted that if matter is placed in the de Sitter model, which corresponded to an empty Universe, it should expand. The non-static nature of the de Sitter Universe was also discussed in A. Eddington’s book, published in the same year.

K. Wirtz discovered a weak correlation between the angular diameters and the recessional velocities of galaxies and suggested that it could be related to the de Sitter cosmological model, according to which the recessional velocity of distant objects should increase with their distance.

K.E. Lundmark and then Strömberg, who repeated Wirtz’s work, did not obtain convincing results, and Strömberg even stated that “there is no dependence of radial velocities on distance from the Sun.” However, it was only clear that neither the diameter nor the brightness of galaxies could be considered reliable criteria for their distance. The expansion of a non-empty Universe was also discussed in the first cosmological work of the Belgian theorist Georges Lemaître, published in the same year.

Lemaître's article "A Homogeneous Universe of Constant Mass and Increasing Radius Explaining the Radial Velocities of Extragalactic Nebulae" has been published. The coefficient of proportionality between speed and distance obtained by Lemaitre was close to that found by E. Hubble in 1929. Lemaitre was the first to clearly state that the objects inhabiting the expanding Universe, the distribution and speed of which should be the subject of cosmology, are not stars, and giant star systems, galaxies. Lemaitre relied on the results of Hubble, which he became acquainted with while in the USA in 1926 at his report.

On January 17, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States received papers by Humason on the radial velocity of NGC 7619 and Hubble, entitled “Relationship between distance and radial velocity of extragalactic nebulae.” A comparison of these distances with radial velocities showed a clear linear dependence of speed on distance, now rightly called Hubble's law.

Soviet radio astronomer Tigran Shmaonov experimentally discovered noise microwave radiation with a temperature of about 3K.

American radio astronomers A. Penzias and R. Wilson discovered the cosmic background radiation and measured its temperature. It turned out to be exactly 3 K. This was the largest discovery in cosmology since Hubble's discovery of the general expansion of the Universe in 1929. Gamow's theory was completely confirmed. Currently, this radiation is called relict radiation; the term was introduced by the Soviet astrophysicist I.S. Shklovsky.

The WMAP satellite measures the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation with a high degree of accuracy. Together with data from previous measurements (COBE, Hubble Space Telescope, etc.), the information obtained confirmed the cosmological model ΛCDM and inflation theory. The age of the Universe and the mass distribution of various types of matter were established with high accuracy (baryonic matter - 4%, dark matter - 23%, dark energy - 73%).

The Planck satellite was launched and is now measuring the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation with even higher precision.

Big bounce

This interesting alternative theory to the Big Bang suggests that there was another universe before ours. Thus, if the birth of the Universe, namely the Big Bang, was considered as a unique phenomenon, then in this theory it is only one link in a chain of reactions, as a result of which the Universe constantly reproduces itself.

It follows from the theory that the Big Bang is not the beginning of time and space, but appeared as a result of the extreme compression of another Universe, the mass of which, according to this theory, is not zero, but only close to this value, while the energy of the Universe is infinite. At the moment of extreme compression, the Universe had maximum energy contained in a minimum volume, as a result of which a large rebound occurred, and a new Universe was born, which also began to expand. Thus, the quantum states that existed in the old Universe were simply changed by the Big Bounce and transferred to the new Universe.

The new model of the birth of the Universe is based on the theory of loop quantum gravity, which helps to look beyond the Big Bang. Before this, it was believed that everything in the Universe appeared as a result of an explosion, so the question of what came before it was practically not raised.

This theory belongs to the theories of quantum gravity and combines the general theory of relativity and the equations of quantum mechanics. It was proposed in the 1980s. such scientists as E. Ashtekar and L. Smolin.

The theory of loop quantum gravity says that time and space are discrete, i.e. consist of individual parts, or small quantum cells. On small scales of space and time, no cells create a divided discontinuous structure, but on large scales, smooth and continuous space-time appears.

The birth of the new Universe took place under extreme conditions that forced quantum cells to separate from each other, this process was called the Big Rebound, i.e. The universe did not appear out of nothing, as in the Big Bang, but began to rapidly expand from a compressed state.

M. Bojovald sought to obtain information about the Universe preceding ours, for which he somewhat simplified some quantum gravitational models and equations of the theory of loop quantum gravity. These equations include several parameters of the state of our Universe, which are necessary in order to find out what the previous Universe was like.

The equations contain complementary parameters that allow us to describe the quantum uncertainty about the volume of the Universe before and after the Big Bang, and reflect the fact that none of the parameters of the previous Universe were preserved after the Big Bounce, so they are absent in our Universe. In other words, as a result of an endless chain of expansion, compression and explosion, and then a new expansion, not identical, but different Universes are formed.

String theory and M-theory

The idea that the universe can constantly reproduce itself seems reasonable to many scientists. Some believe that our Universe arose as a result of quantum fluctuations (oscillations) in the previous Universe, so it is likely that at some point in time such a fluctuation may arise in our Universe, and a new Universe will appear, somewhat different from the present one.

Scientists go further in their reasoning and assume that quantum oscillations can occur in any quantity and anywhere in the Universe, as a result of which not one new Universe appears, but several at once. This is the basis for the inflationary theory of the origin of the Universe.

The resulting Universes are different from each other, different physical laws operate in them, while they are all located in one huge megauniverse, but isolated from each other. Proponents of this theory argue that time and space did not appear as a result of the Big Bang, but have always existed in an endless series of compression and expansion of the Universes.

A kind of development of inflationary theory is string theory and its improved version - M-theory, or the theory of membranes, which are based on the cyclicity of the universe. According to M-theory, the physical world consists of ten spatial and one time dimensions. In this world there are spaces, so-called branes, one of which is our Universe, consisting of three spatial dimensions.

The Big Bang is the result of a collision of branes, which scattered under the influence of a huge amount of energy, then expansion began, gradually slowing down. The radiation and matter released as a result of the collision cooled, and galaxies appeared. Between the branes there is energy that is positive in density, again accelerating the expansion, which after some time slows down again. The geometry of space becomes flat. When the branes are attracted to each other again, quantum vibrations become stronger, the geometry of space is deformed, and the sites of such deformations in the future become the embryos of galaxies. When the branes collide with each other, the cycle repeats.

Creationism

This worldview theory comes from the Latin word “creations” - “creation”. According to this concept, our Universe, planet and humanity itself are the result of the creative activity of God or the Creator. The term “creationism” arose at the end of the 19th century, and supporters of this theory claim the truth of the story of the creation of the world as told in the Old Testament.

At the end of the 19th century. There was a rapid accumulation of knowledge in various fields of science (biology, astronomy, physics), and the theory of evolution became widespread. All this led to a contradiction between scientific knowledge and the biblical picture of the world. We can say that creationism appeared as a reaction of conservative Christians to scientific discoveries, in particular, to the evolutionary development of living and inanimate nature, which at that time became dominant and rejected the emergence of all things from nothing.

Conclusion

The universe is the totality of everything that exists physically. This is the totality of space, time, all forms of matter. However, the term Universe can be interpreted as space, world or nature. Astronomical observations made it possible to establish the origin of the Universe and its approximate “age”, which, according to the latest data, is 13.73 ± 0.12 billion years. However, among some scientists there is a point of view regarding the origin of the Universe, which is that the Universe never arose, but has existed forever and will exist forever, changing only in its forms and manifestations.

On the largest scale, the structure of the Universe is an expanding space filled with a sponge-like ragged structure. The walls of this spongy structure of the Universe are clusters of billions of stellar galaxies. The distances between the closest galaxies to each other are usually about a million light years. Each stellar galaxy is made up of hundreds of billions of stars that orbit a central core. The sizes of galaxies are up to hundreds of thousands of light years. Stars are made primarily of hydrogen, which is the most abundant chemical element in the universe. There is no single point of view on whether the Universe is infinite or finite in space and volume. However, the observable Universe, which includes all locations that can affect us since the Big Bang, is finite because the speed of light is finite.

The event associated with the origin of the Universe and supposedly marked the beginning of the Universe is called the Big Bang. Based on the mathematical model of the Big Bang, at the moment when it occurred, all the matter and energy in the currently observable Universe were concentrated at one point with infinite density. After the Big Bang, the Universe began to expand rapidly, taking on its modern form. Since Special Relativity suggests that matter cannot travel the speed of light, it seems paradoxical that after 13.7 billion years in fixed spacetime, two galaxies could be separated by 93 billion light years. This is a natural consequence of the General Theory of Relativity. Space can expand indefinitely, so if the space between two galaxies "expands", then they can move away from each other at speeds or faster than the speed of light.

1) the whole world as the totality of all things (really existing objects), infinite in time and space and infinitely diverse in forms of existence; 2) the inhabited part of the world; 3) an object of cosmology accessible to astronomical observation.

Excellent definition

Incomplete definition ↓

UNIVERSE

from Greek “oikumene” - populated, inhabited earth) - “everything that exists”, “a comprehensive world whole”, “the totality of all things”; the meaning of these terms is ambiguous and determined by the conceptual context. We can distinguish at least three levels of the concept “Universe”.

1. The universe as a philosophical idea has a meaning close to the concept of “universe”, or “world”: “material world”, “created being”, etc. It plays an important role in European philosophy. Images of the Universe in philosophical ontologies were included in the philosophical foundations of scientific research of the Universe.

2. The Universe in physical cosmology, or the Universe as a whole, is an object of cosmological extrapolation. In the traditional sense, it is a comprehensive, unlimited and fundamentally unique physical system (“The Universe is published in one copy” - A. Poincaré); the material world considered from a physical and astronomical point of view (A. L. Zelmanov). Different theories and models of the Universe are considered from this point of view as not equivalent to each other of the same original. This understanding of the Universe as a whole was justified in different ways: 1) by reference to the “presumption of extrapolability”: cosmology claims to represent the comprehensive world whole in the system of knowledge with its conceptual means, and until the contrary is proven, these claims must be accepted in full; 2) logically, the Universe is defined as a comprehensive global whole, and other Universes cannot exist by definition, etc. Classical, Newtonian cosmology created an image of the Universe, infinite in space and time, and infinity was considered an attributive property of the Universe. It is generally accepted that Newton's infinite homogeneous Universe “destroyed” the ancient cosmos. However, scientific and philosophical images of the Universe continue to coexist in culture, mutually enriching each other. The Newtonian Universe destroyed the image of the ancient cosmos only in the sense that it separated man from the Universe and even contrasted them.

In non-classical, relativistic cosmology, the theory of the Universe was first constructed. Its properties turned out to be completely different from Newton's. According to the theory of the expanding Universe, developed by Friedman, the Universe as a whole can be both finite and infinite in space, and in time it is in any case finite, that is, it had a beginning. A. A. Friedman believed that the world, or the Universe as an object of cosmology, is “infinitely narrower and smaller than the world-universe of the philosopher.” On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of cosmologists, based on the principle of uniformity, identified the models of the expanding Universe with our Metagalaxy. The initial moment of the expansion of the Metagalaxy was considered as the absolute “beginning of everything”, from a creationist point of view - as the “creation of the world”. Some relativist cosmologists, considering the principle of uniformity to be an insufficiently justified simplification, considered the Universe as a comprehensive physical system on a larger scale than the Metagalaxy, and the Metagalaxy only as a limited part of the Universe.

Relativistic cosmology radically changed the image of the Universe in the scientific picture of the world. In ideological terms, it returned to the image of the ancient cosmos in the sense that it again connected man and the (evolving) Universe. A further step in this direction was the anthropic principle in cosmology. The modern approach to the interpretation of the Universe as a whole is based, firstly, on the distinction between the philosophical idea of ​​the world and the Universe as an object of cosmology; secondly, this concept is relativized, i.e. its scope is correlated with a certain level of knowledge, cosmological theory or model - in a purely linguistic (irrespective of their objective status) or in an objective sense. The Universe was interpreted, for example, as “the largest set of events to which our physical laws, extrapolated in one way or another, can be applied” or “could be considered physically connected with us” (G. Bondi).

The development of this approach was the concept according to which the Universe in cosmology is “everything that exists.” not in any absolute sense, but only from the point of view of a given cosmological theory, that is, a physical system of the greatest scale and order, the existence of which follows from a certain system of physical knowledge. This is a relative and transitory boundary of the known mega-world, determined by the possibilities of extrapolation of the system of physical knowledge. The Universe as a whole does not in all cases mean the same “original.” On the contrary, different theories may have different originals as their objects, that is, physical systems of different orders and scales of structural hierarchy. But all claims to represent a comprehensive world whole in an absolute sense remain unsubstantiated. When interpreting the Universe in cosmology, a distinction must be made between potentially existing and actually existing. What is considered non-existent today may tomorrow enter the realm of scientific research, turn out to exist (from the point of view of physics) and be included in our understanding of the Universe.

Thus, if the theory of the expanding Universe essentially described our Metagalaxy, then the theory of the inflationary (“inflating”) Universe, most popular in modern cosmology, introduces the concept of many “other universes” (or, in terms of empirical language, extra-metagalactic objects) with qualitatively different properties. Inflationary theory recognizes, therefore, a megascopic violation of the principle of uniformity of the Universe and introduces, in its meaning, the principle of infinite diversity of the Universe. I. S. Shklovsky proposed to call the totality of these universes the “Metaverse”. Inflationary cosmology in a specific form revives, that is, the idea of ​​the infinity of the Universe (Metaverse) as its infinite diversity. Objects like the Metagalaxy are often called “miniuniverses” in inflationary cosmology. Miniverses arise through spontaneous fluctuations of the physical vacuum. From this point of view it follows that the initial moment of expansion of our Universe, the Metagalaxy should not necessarily be considered the absolute beginning of everything. This is only the initial moment of the evolution and self-organization of one of the cosmic systems. In some versions of quantum cosmology, the concept of the Universe is closely linked to the existence of the observer (“the principle of participation”). “Giving birth to observers and participants at some limited stage of its existence, does not it, in turn, acquire. The universe through their observations that tangibility that we call reality? Isn’t this a mechanism of existence?” (A. J. Wheeler). The meaning of the concept of the Universe in this case is determined by a theory based on the distinction between the potential and actual existence of the Universe as a whole in the light of the quantum principle.

3. The Universe in astronomy (observable, or astronomical Universe) is an area of ​​the world covered by observations, and now partly by space experiments, i.e. “everything that exists” from the point of view of the observational means and research methods available in astronomy.

The astronomical Universe is a hierarchy of cosmic systems of increasing scale and order of complexity that have been successively discovered and studied by science. This is the solar system, our star system. Galaxy (the existence of which was proven by W. Herschel in the 18th century). Metagalaxy discovered by E. Hubble in the 1920s. Currently, objects in the Universe that are distant from us at a distance of approx. 9-12 billion light years.

Throughout the history of astronomy until the 2nd half. 20th century In the astronomical Universe, the same types of celestial bodies were known: planets, stars, gas and dust matter. Modern astronomy has discovered fundamentally new, previously unknown types of celestial bodies, including superdense objects in the nuclei of galaxies (possibly representing black holes). Many states of celestial bodies in the astronomical Universe turned out to be sharply non-stationary, unstable, that is, located at bifurcation points. It is assumed that the overwhelming majority (up to 90-95%) of the matter of the astronomical Universe is concentrated in invisible, as yet unobservable forms (“hidden mass”).

Lit.: Fridman A. A. Izbr. works. M., 1965; Infinity and the Universe. M., 1970; Universe, astronomy, philosophy. M., 1988; Astronomy and the modern picture of the world. M., 1996; Bondy H. Cosmology. Cambr., 1952; Munit!. M. Space, Time and Creation. N.Y. 1965.

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Space has been explored by scientists and philosophers since time immemorial. Modern natural science judges cosmic existence somewhat differently than in the recent past. It indicates five levels in the state of the Universe: hypoworld, microworld, macroworld, megaworld and hyperworld. In a philosophical sense, the very existence of these levels of a single material world means nothing more than their absence of absolute and insurmountable boundaries and the relative relationship between them.

Despite the undoubted quantitative and qualitative differences between the listed worlds, they are interconnected by specific processes of mutual transitions. The earth, for example, is a macrocosm. But as one of the planets of the solar system, it simultaneously acts as an element of the megaworld. In this regard, it is appropriate to recall the law of transition of quantitativechanges into qualitative ones, which indicates not only natural jumps, but also their objective conditionality. The meaning of this law is that it does not allow any mystery in the characteristics of jumps, but directly aims the thought at revealing the specific mechanism of the completely natural process of their existence, at accurately reflecting the quantitative content of qualitative jumps in scientific (physical, chemical, biological) theories.

The structure of the world has always occupied the minds of enlightened people. How did everything that exists around appear, and according to what laws does it develop? How did life originate and does it have a future? Where on planet Earth did Homo sapiens come from? Thinking humanity has asked itself all these and other eternal questions about existence throughout the history of its development. Nowadays, it is already possible to quite definitely answer the question of the origin of the world on the basis of facts and scientific hypotheses.

It has been established that the Universe is about 15-20 billion years old. Scientific and philosophical theories of the development of the world now do not disagree that the Universe was originally completely ionized, homogeneous and opaque. Naturally, there were no stars then. And the plasma did not transmit any radiation. But over time, light “came” into the Universe, and this happened, most likely, as a result of the so-called big bang. However, the question arises: what then “exploded” in the Universe? Scientists believe that some fantastically dense substance heated to billions of degrees exploded, the clot of which was very small in size relative to the current Universe. No atoms could exist in this substance. Since then, the Universe has begun to expand, structurally and functionally change. Scientists are confident that this expansion is eternal and endless. After hundreds of millions of years, stars and their clusters—galaxies—began to form from a continuously expanding cloud of hot gases.

One of the 10 billion observable galaxies is the Milky Way, home to the Solar System and one of its nine planets, Earth. This tiny planet is very far from the center of the galaxy, about 2/3 of its radius. The galaxy itself is huge - about a hundred billion stars, the diameterthe disk is 100 thousand light years (a light year is the distance a ray of light travels in 1 year at the speed of light 300 thousand km/sec.). This means that light will take 100 thousand years to cross the galactic disk from end to end in diameter. For comparison, light travels the distance from the Sun to the Earth in just 8 minutes. Several million years ago, as a result of compression of interstellar matter, the temperature in the center of the galaxy exceeded 10-12 million degrees Celsius. Then thermonuclear reactions began and the Sun, an ordinary star in our galaxy that gives us life, “lit up.” The Earth receives from the Sun the amount of heat and light necessary for the life of living organisms. Scientists believe that the Sun will have enough atomic “fuel” for about 5 billion years.

Photographs of some galaxies taken with large telescopes amaze us with the beauty and variety of their shapes: these are mighty vortices of star clouds and regular huge balls. There are also ragged, completely shapeless galaxies. And yet, for now, for earthlings, the Universe is a mysterious, sacred mass of matter (its various types). It is only known that it (according to astrophysicists) consists of approximately 93% hydrogen and 7% helium. All other elements taken together are no more than 0.16%. Hydrogen “burns out” into helium, which turns into heavy elements. This life process began to serve as a “clock” for determining the age of the Universe or its chronometer. If you believe the calculations of scientists, it turns out that our Universe is very young. This concept gave philosophers of nature a reason to judge that Newton’s idea of ​​the world as a mechanism is outdated and that it should be considered, as in early Buddhism, an organism capable of spontaneous generation, self-development, and transition to other states. This philosophical position is close in spirit to physicians, since it points to the “logic” of life of the ever-evolving organism of the Cosmos. Thus, the well-known phenomenon of “red shift” of spectral lines allows us to understand how, due to a decrease in the energy and natural frequency of photons in interaction with gravitational fields, when light moves for many millions of years in intergalactic space, new stars die and are born.

Evolutionary changes, of course, go through all the cosmic objects of the Universe - galaxies, stars, planets, including the Earth, which has gone from a “dead” cosmic body to the biosphere - the region of existence of living bodies. The activities of all living organisms and human society, the outstanding Russian scientist V.I. Vernadsky called it a powerful geological force, and he treated scientific thought as a cosmic phenomenon. In one of the previous chapters, we already talked about Vernadsky’s theory, according to which the biosphere must necessarily move into a new state - the noosphere (sphere of the mind). There are many points in this philosophical concept that deserve particularly careful consideration. The model proposed by Vernadsky gives a new assessment of the current state of the Universe and gives thinkers reason to believe that space-time has its own objective beginning and, therefore, will have its own objective end, since together with matter-radiation it is born from a certain “primary vacuum”. Then everything will either die in gravitational collapse, or the matter-radiation will dissipate in an infinitely “stretching” space-time.

Naturally, any thinking person has a philosophical question: why do scientists reject the biblical version of the creation of the world out of nothing in 7 days at the whim of the Almighty as fantastic and, without a doubt, accept as reality the birth of space-time, matter-radiation, completely by accident in a few fractions of a second? , actually as a result of the action of some “supernatural” force? This is not so much a religious question as a philosophical one, involving critical and evaluative thinking. In science and medicine, the human mind naturally further penetrates into the secrets of the laws of the Universe. In philosophy, in this regard, a fundamentally new ideological and humanitarian-moral idea of ​​​​comprehension of modern scientific knowledge about the world arose. Scientists and philosophers were faced with the task of radically rethinking established worldviews. This is the result of reflection on the information received about the world, which differs in many ways from existing natural scientific constructions. Philosophy, without replacing science and without correcting its conclusions, strives to take a worldview and axiological point of view in relation to them.

A critical (philosophical) understanding of the scientific picture of the world at the level of just emerging modern general scientific ideas is no longer sufficient today, since it identifies it with the philosophical understanding of material self-development, where a person acts as one of the fragments of the existence of matter, supplemented and at the same time limited by the social form of movement. Such an understanding of the world and man in it does not reflect all the ideological problems of integrating scientific knowledge into the modern general philosophical picture of existence. A special axiological vision is required, in which a person realizes himself not on the periphery, but in the center of an integral world, which presupposes the evolution of various structural levels of matter into a rational form of its self-motion (anthropocentrism).

In our time, when, on the one hand, in the conditions of scientific and technological progress, purely rational knowledge penetrates into the consciousness of the masses in large quantities, and on the other hand, culture itself aimlessly dissipates its precious spiritual energy, the formation of a new scientific worldview is more contradictory and much more complex. than ever before. In connection with this, too many different kinds of general reasoning, original directions and approaches to substantiating the essence and forms of “reproduction” of eternal philosophical problems arose. But still, something common is revealed in various philosophical teachings when critically understanding the problems of human existence, their social implications, which allows us to synthesize natural and humanitarian knowledge, opinions, judgments, etc. Let us recall the reasoning of the Kantians that philosophical problems from the very beginning are, as it were, “embedded” in the generic consciousness of man. They generally do not exist on their own and are a priori “given” to everyone; it’s just that for some philosophers they “sound” more sharply, while for others it’s the other way around. From this we can conclude: philosophy is a special art of the human mind to “see” and understand differently the world of nature, things and phenomena, their universal connection and interdependence.

So, philosophy, having a worldview status in spiritual culture, fills many concepts, theories and ideas of natural science disciplines, including medical ones, with a special life-affirming meaning. And being a system of the most general principles of approach to the spiritual-intellectual study of reality, it plays a methodological (orienting) role. This is a targeted desire to understand the role and significance of human mental activity in the knowledge and qualitative transformation of the Universe. It is a pity that there are people who have not yet appreciated the power of philosophy, which consists in an intense mental search for truth, awareness of goodness and comprehension of the beauty of the world. We still have to puzzle over these eternal values ​​in In the 21st century, both professional philosophers and philosophizing physicians. We are talking about the same philosophical issues of the integration of scientific knowledge, forming a holistic picture of the world, the principles and essence of the Universe, the meaning of people’s lives, the potential of the human mind. This knowledge allows us to better understand and more adequately appreciate the achievements of modern science. Today such the integration function is performed by the recently developed scientific and philosophical principles of universal co-evolution (N Moiseev) They allow a comprehensive consideration of fundamental problems of mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology and medicine

The concept of a holistic picture of the world turns into an abstract (philosophical) model that helps to understand the “logic” of the self-development of the Universe. This philosophical concept stimulates and activates the self-improvement of the human mind, comprehending the natural existence of the inanimate and living world. Philosophical understanding of the world began with the construction of a physical image of the Universe. With this, science today copes quite well But the horizons of scientific representation and understanding of the physical world of nature are continuously expanding And therefore, so far science has not been able to connect the physical world with the semantic world. And such a need is long overdue - this is recognized by philosophically minded representatives of all the exact sciences. The world is one, they rightly believe, although both multidimensional and very diverse. Its multidimensionality is clearly “visible” on the surface of phenomena and events. However, it is still not deeply enough developed from a philosophical position, not exhausting the entire volume of existence. Nevertheless, the diversity of the world presupposes only an apparent semantic inconsistency. This, one might say, is irreducible. ity and leads scientists to philosophy. The phenomenon of philosophical comprehension required an incredible feat of scientists, the development of the highest ability to create a holistic picture of the world. After all, the very concept of “picture of the world” is, in principle, natural science and includes provisions about the structure, systematicity of the Universe, but at the same time it turns out to be outside the boundaries of the natural sciences. If a scientist-philosopher strives to mentally embrace and outline the world as a whole, he must include in it not only society, but also problematic (sometimes paradoxical) worlds, cosmic intelligence and much more.

The general philosophical picture of the world contains purely human knowledge: an emotional and moral attitude to the world, its assessment from the point of view of the destinies of peoples, of humanity as a whole. It is impossible to physically calculate all the parameters of the Universe, the number of stars and planets included in it. At the most conservative estimate, it includes at least a billion billion (10 18) stars. About 10 million billion (1%) of them are similar to our Sun. If we assume that only 1 percent of stars like the Sun have planetary systems, among which there is at least one planet similar to our Earth, then it turns out that hundreds of thousands of billions of planets could be home to life similar to ours. This number is so huge that the Earth’s place in the Universe looks very modest. Here is an example of the synthesis of scientific and philosophical thought of a modern astrophysicist.

Let us now comprehend the question posed from a purely philosophical position, that is, turning to the limit of existence for human thinking. If we are ready to admit (perhaps with some doubt) the large-scale spread of life in the Universe, then it will be completely natural to mentally (philosophically) admit the possibility of the unlimited existence of the Universal Mind, albeit in different phases of its development. Considering this issue philosophically, it is logical to assume that various planetary cultures are somehow connected together in Cosmic consciousness. The psychological, spiritual predisposition of people to fantasies is capable of bringing to the point of absurdity the idea of ​​the world that is revealed to them thanks to scientific methods of cognition. It seems that human existence prescribes two opposite things to people: on the one hand, to struggle, mastering the world, to seek meaning in it, to achieve spiritual perfection, and on the other hand, to admit that the Universe, from the substance of which we originated, is completely indifferent to these searches of ours . It is soulless in its essence, destructive in its “actions”. It follows that the modern mentality of humanity will need a special way of interpreting the existence of the Universe.

It is clear, however, that the world surrounding man is radically changing in our time. It becomes much more complex and dynamic. The existing in it begins to diverge from the obvious (speculative), as in the heliocentric system of Copernicus, and therefore ceases to be explainable at the level of thinking of everyday culture and its mythological paradigmatics. This culture ceases to be sufficient for human adaptation in the new world. The static religious picture of the world with its sacred irrationalistic explanation of both natural and social existence, man’s place in it, the meaning, goals and norms of his life is also insufficient. Scientific thinking provides new explanations for phenomena that were unambiguous in their concreteness, impersonal and mechanistic. The task of modern philosophy is closely related to the scientific problem, which is based on the desire to build and substantiate a holistic picture of the world, which is designed to serve a person for orientation in it in accordance with his value ideals.

The task of philosophy is to “remind” science with its visionary vision of the really existing system of objective connections that underlie existence and human knowledge. In this sense, we can talk about certain predictive functions of philosophy in relation to the natural sciences. For example, modern scientists believe that the Universe came into being as a result of a big bang. However, it is interesting that the big bang theory was to a certain extent anticipated by the intuitionist A. Bergson back in 1907. The author of the book “Creative Evolution” put forward the assumption that the goal of evolution is not ahead, but lies in the initial “explosion”, as a result of which life processes began. In response to a number of new philosophical requests, as well as for the purpose of their updated ideological explanation, scientists made discoveries of enormous importance, which entailed nothing less than a fundamentally different vision of the Universe.

Physics of the 21st century has decisively posed the question: is it possible to construct an objective picture of the world that exists independently of human consciousness? Does the world that astronomers observe and in relation to which theoretical physics makes its calculations exist exactly in the form in which it appears to humans? Scientist M. Rewis writes: “Physicists, faced with new experimental data, forever abandoned rectilinear mechanical models of the Universe in favor of the view that the human mind plays an integral role in all physical events.” I remember that alchemists also sought, without a developed theory, experimentally, that is, empirically, to transform some substances into others. They sincerely believed that sooner or later they would discover a phenomenal substance, which they presented as a “philosopher’s stone” from which all the others could be obtained. This idea was rejected by theoretical science when it became known that chemical elements cannot be decomposed using conventional chemical methods.

Currently, the evolution of chemical elements associated with their decomposition due to radioactive processes has been discovered. This means that scientific thought has penetrated not only into large-scale areas measured in millions of light years, but also into areas on the order of trillionths of a centimeter. And here suddenly fundamentally different physical characteristics and chemical properties were discovered. Thus, according to a number of modern physicists, the presence of a certain fundamental length—a quantum of space—is possible. Considering distances less than this length is as meaningless as talking, for example, about the amount of radium being less than one of its atoms, because it will no longer be a given chemical element. Thus, scientists admit the existence of a kind of “space” of atoms. From this follows the recognition by philosophy of a minimum time, within which the concept of phase, that is, differences in time, loses its meaning. From the vast field of philosophical problems of science and options for its solutions that spontaneously arise within the boundaries of the intellectual culture of each historical era, science uses only some metaphysical ideas and principles as guiding directions. We are talking about guidelines, following which science finds ways to solve life problems that have arisen. The French writer A. France (1844-1924) wittily noted that the philosophical model of the world is as similar to the actual Universe as, for example, a globe, on which only lines of longitude and latitude are applied, is similar to the Earth itself. And with this figurative comparison, he surprisingly accurately expressed the essence of philosophy, which gives the scientist only general guidelines, but as real as parallels and meridians, not drawn by anyone on the Earth, but nevertheless objectively being indicators for orientation on the ground.

Of course, the heuristic and predictive potentials of philosophy in themselves do not remove the problem of the practical application of its ideas and principles in science. This application presupposes a special type of research, in which the categorical structures developed by philosophy are adapted to the problems of science. This process is associated with the concretization of categories, with their transformation into ideas and principles of the scientific picture of the world and into methodological principles expressing the ideals and norms of a particular science. Modern man cannot help but think about the problem of his behavior on Earth and in Space. But without competent control of the forces of nature, he is powerless to control himself. Philosophically reflecting on himself and his destiny, he seeks, through his own mind, to theoretically understand the illogical “logic” of the matter of which he consists. Man persistently studies the nature around him, life, its manifestations in Space, looks for ways to control it, wants to improve it.

Today science in its essence is becoming thoroughly anthropological. In other words, the anthropomorphic approach to the study of the Universe leads to the fact that the most fundamental scientific knowledge becomes a projection of the world of random and transitory human nature, for any scientific knowledge not only reflects objective reality, but also acts as a form of manifestation of the essential forces of man. Everything natural, right down to physical time and space, is now considered as something that has a certain meaning in relation to the position of the knower and manager. Man now truly becomes the “measure of all things.”