Cosmic Evolution and Human Consciousness: Space, Time, and Causality in Modern Cosmology
its own nature. In many ancient mystery traditions, human evolution and cosmic evolution were considered parallel, and the development of human consciousness was nothing more than a repetition on a different scale of the phases of evolution of the entire universe.
Ultimately, this same need drives modern man. Scrutinizing the depths of sidereal distances, he wants to solve the mystery of his origin and evolution. In the end, by immersing himself in interstellar abysses, man only wants to read the answer to the fateful questions of the Sphinx that concern his consciousness.
It is therefore the unconditional love for truth and the incessant search for it beyond forms and appearances, the driving force of the scientist who studies nature to penetrate its secrets, lift the veils and contemplate the truth in them. The scientist, in the romantic vision we want to paint, appears as a watcher at dawn who has his eyes and heart stretched toward the sun of truth, waiting for its glorious rising. It is precisely this love that distinguishes him above all else, and his desire to know torments him.
This romantic vision of the scientist hides in its essence a core adhering to daily scientific reality. It is precisely this love for truth that will ensure that - hopefully - much of this book will appear, in less than ten years, as obsolete and useless. In cosmology, more than in any other science, love for truth means that in a few weeks everything that was taken for granted is abandoned in order to explain a single new datum.
So, if in all probability the frontiers of cosmology in ten years will be completely different, why bother writing a book? Let us try to describe in a simple way the meaning of this book and what the reader should expect from it. This book actually fills an editorial gap in the sector. In this book, in fact, we want to provide a dispassionate and general overview of the current situation of contemporary Cosmology which, in these years, is experiencing a period of intellectual ferment comparable to Particle Physics twenty years ago.
In this context, in my opinion, there was a lack of a book that, while being popularizing, provided each reader with the necessary tools to form his own idea on the subject. Often popular books create a clear barrier between the scientist and the reader. They inform the reader of what the scientist has elaborated for him. The purpose of this book, instead, is to transform the reader into a scientist and give him those conceptual (and possibly technical) tools that will allow him to form an autonomous idea on a subject that is still largely a matter of discussion.
Chapter 1: Time, Space and Causality
"Between the Absolute and the Universe are interposed time, space and causality which constitute the very essence of metaphysical sound." - T. Palamidessi
The totality of our life, from its most exterior and daily manifestations to the most intimate and special ones, is woven with three fundamental and irreducible realities that take the name of Space, Time and Causality. Every experience we live, whether of a psychic, emotional or simply physical character, is situated in an interior or exterior space, unfolds in a delimited time and involves specific causes. These three realities, therefore, envelop every moment of our life, yet we dedicate very little attention to them, to their study, to their understanding, often leaving them to act invisibly on our life.
From a purely epistemological point of view, Time, Space and Causality represent the most fundamental conceptual categories that every physicist places at the basis of describing the world around him. These are in fact the three pillars of modern scientific thought which aims to describe phenomena as immersed in space and time and responding to precise causal laws. The study of these three concepts is therefore the invisible center of all Physical inquiry and from their modification derive all the great changes in the foundations of science.
The idea of this chapter is therefore to highlight some clarifications regarding these concepts that, in the course of the last century, have been outlined in the field of Modern Physics and that separate it quite clearly from Classical Physics. Indeed, while Classical Physics has analyzed and considered the concepts of space, time and causality in their individuality and therefore as absolute objects, that is, in their aspect of objects independent of each other, Modern Physics, instead, has analyzed their intimate connections, highlighting their mutual relationships. It, as we will see, has linked space and time together, and to these has then indissolubly linked an energy. This new perspective of inquiry has thus led to drawing a completely different image of the reality that surrounds us. While Classical Physics, dialoguing with absolute realities free of constraints, represented natural phenomena as continuous realities,