Zach, fictional though he is, is not the only one interested in cosmological theories. But what form do these theories take? A Theory of Everything or TOE is a theory that intends to explain the entire observable universe using a compact specification of equations and the conceptual arguments that support them. In the modern sense, a TOE is a physical explanation of the large-scale structure of the universe. Later, we can start to expand the TOE to look for “bridging laws” that help justify other phenomena that approach the human scale.
What are our alternatives? The previous post mentioned the Catholic Church’s embrace of Big Bang cosmology as justifying Genesis. Apologist and philosopher of religion William Lane Craig also elaborately evaluates Big Bang theories as substantiating theism by supporting creation at the singularity event.
But do these notions change the underlying TOEs? No, in general. The best that they can do is accept the TOE as an input and make a deductive argument based on assumptions that are not excluded by the TOE. For apologists, that means that the singularity event provides a divide between a non-temporal pre-universe and the current universe–effectively between non-existence and existence. But that is not the only TOE available to us. There are a range of TOEs that have been devised. The following is derived from Marcus Hutter’s A Complete Theory of Everything (Will Be Subjective):
- (G) Geocentric model: Ancient notion that the Earth is at the center of the known universe.
- (H) Heliocentric model: Evolution of the model to centralize on the Sun.
- (E) Effective theories: General relativity, quantum electrodynamics, and Newtonian mechanics, but without a unifying architecture.
- (P) Standard model of particle physics: Beginning of unification that contains numerous arbitrary parameters and has yet to unify gravity.