On the primordial miracle - essay on some philosophical issues of modern cosmology

Abstract

In the first part of this article some general philosophical and methodological questions concerning the “standard” cosmological model of the expanding universe are outlined (horizon problem, homogeneity and isotropy of space-time, infinity vs. finiteness of the universe etc.), while in the second part the main topic of discussion is the epistemological question whether the so-called “anthropic principle” as an alternative to the classical teleology of creation is really an adequate explanation of the evident “well-tunedness” of cosmological parameters for the emergence of life and consciousness, since this principle presupposes the existence of many universes (“multiverse”). The author, after having compared logical and cosmological many-worlds concepts, comes to the conclusion that the ontological reality of the “multiverse” is an even more problematic hypothesis as some revised version of the teleological causality which does not have to be a theistic explanation of creation, but also yields some kind of pantheistic explanation of our universe, life and consciousness.