A closer look at the cosmological theory of origin and structure of the universe begins to crack at the seams. Look at the starry night sky. How did all these countless stars and planets emerge? Most of today's scientists are likely to answer this question, citing one of the versions of the "big bang" theory. According to this theory, in the beginning, all matter of the universe has been concentrated in one point and warmed up to very high temperatures.
At a certain point in time, there was a terrible explosion. In the expanding cloud of superheated subatomic particles gradually began to form atoms, stars, galaxies, planets, and, finally, life began to emerge. This scenario has now acquired the status of an immutable truth.
No argument, the theory of the big explosion captures the imagination and leaves few people indifferent. And since it is as if based on actual material and supported by mathematical calculations, it seems to most people more acceptable than the religious explanation of the universe. However, the cosmological theory of the big bang is only the last of a number of attempts to explain the origin of the universe from the standpoint of a mechanistic worldview, according to which the world (and man included) is a generation of matter, functioning in strict accordance with the laws of physics. Attempts of scientists to create a purely physical model of the origin of the universe are based on three postulates:
- All phenomena of nature can be exhaustively explained by the physical laws expressed in the mathematical form;
- These physical laws are universal and do not depend on time and place;
- All the basic laws of nature are simple.
Many people take these postulates for granted, but in fact, no one has ever been able to prove them to be true, and moreover, it is not easy to prove their justice. In fact, they are only part of one approach to describing reality. In considering the most complex phenomena faced by every student of the universe, scientists have chosen a reductionist approach. "Let us, they say, measure the parameters of physical phenomena and try to describe them with simple and universal physical laws.
However, strictly speaking, we have no logical grounds to reject alternative approaches to understanding the universe in advance. It cannot be excluded that the Universe is based on fundamentally different laws that do not succumb to simple mathematical expression. Nevertheless, many scientists, confusing their understanding of the universe with its true nature, reject alternative approaches in advance. They insist that all phenomena in the universe can be described by means of simple mathematical laws.
There are several psychological reasons for scientists to take a reductionist approach. If the structure of the universe can be described by simple quantitative laws, then scientists, despite the limitations of the human mind, have hope to understand this structure sooner or later (and thus gain a key to the management of the universe). They, therefore, assume that such a description is possible, and create thousands of different theories. But if our universe is infinitely complex, it will be complicated for us, with our limited intelligence and feelings, to know it.
Let us show it by example. Suppose we have a set containing a million numbers, and we have the task of describing the structure of this set with a single equation. This is practically possible if the structure of the set is simple enough. However, if its structure is extremely complex, it is unlikely that we will even be able to determine the type of formula that describes it. Similarly, scientists' attempts will be equally futile when they encounter properties of the universe that are, in principle, beyond mathematical description. It is not surprising, therefore, that the majority of scientists hold on so stubbornly to their current strategy, unwilling to recognize any other approach. In this, they look like a man who has lost his car keys on the road, but is looking for them under a street lamp, just because it is brighter there.
However, in fact, the scientists' ideas that the physical laws discovered by them in laboratory experiments here on Earth are valid throughout the universe and at all stages of its evolution, to put it mildly, are unfounded.
For example, we have no reason to claim that since electric fields behave in a certain way in laboratory conditions, they exhibited the same properties millions of years ago at a distance of many tens of light-years from the Earth. However, no attempt to explain the origin of the universe is without such assumptions. After all, we cannot go back billions of years, to the time of formation of the Universe, or get direct information about what is happening outside the solar system.