Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

"Perhaps there is no source of things at all, no simpler form from which they have evolved, but only an endless succession of different complexities." # GeorgeSantayana # philosophy Perhaps, indeed. In modern terms, perhaps the multiverse exists in a steady-state, so that the original steady-state theorists, those of Hoyle's heyday, were wrong only by being parochial. Such a new steady-state theory would hold that a big bang in one universe is the collapse of a star in on itself, the creation of a black hole or singularity, in another universe.  Thus, universes give birth to one another and the whole system of which they are all a part needs no beginning and cannot be expected to have an end. 

The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, 'Seek simplicity and distrust it.' I like that. But simply allowing my train of association to chug along its own tracks, this thought about science brings me to the issue of cosmogony, and the issue of the apparent demise of the old steady state theory of the cosmos.  The great motivating factor of the theory was the immensity of infinity, the infinite expanse that opened in the past and presumably too in the future. The contrary Big Bang theory, with its definite moment of beginning and its threat of a heat death of the whole-she-bang, cuts one off from that lovely prospect. Also, relatedly, the Big Bang is sometimes defended as a way in which something might have come out of nothing, and THAT is a strongly counte...

Fred Hoyle, the creator of steady-state cosmology, wrote something for Harper's about his agnosticism, back in 1951. The magazine has reprinted part of it in the January 2016 issue as one of their continuing "From the Archives" series. "[I]t seems to me that religion is but a desperate attempt to find an escape from the truly dreadful situation in which we find ourselves. Here we are in this wholly fantastic Universe with scarcely a clue as to whether our existence has any real significance. No wonder then that many people feel the need for some belief that gives them a sense of security, and no wonder that they become very angry with people like me who say that this security is illusory."