What if the problem with cosmology is not that we lack the ultimate map of reality, but that no such map can exist? Philosopher Jenann Ismael, whose work is at the leading edge of trying to connect the theories of physics to our conscious experiences of reality, argues here that there can be no complete map or model of physical facts. There can be no oracle that truthfully answers every question of fact about the world it inhabits. Drawing on self-referential arguments in mathematics, she argues that any attempt to grasp the universe as a totality from within will fail. This raises the question of whether we can speak about the universe as a single object of inquiry, whether a complete physical theory is possible, and whether it makes sense to look for quantum descriptions of the entire cosmos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What if the problem with cosmology is not that we lack the ultimate map of reality, but that no such map can exist? Philosopher Jenann Ismael, whose work is at the leading edge of trying to connect the theories of physics to our conscious experiences of reality, argues here that there can be no complete [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,2229,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology","category-mathematics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}