The Singular Universe and the Reality
of Time by Roberto
Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin, CUP, 2015 brings to our attention a likely
explanation for the lack of progress in cosmology since the 1970s. The book
will be of interest to some lawyers (Unger is, among other things, a legal
theorist) for the light it may shed by analogy on some aspects of legal theory.
This is
really two books under one cover, both advancing the same general argument,
with Smolin addressing some scientific topics at a level of detail, but not at
undue length, that is beyond what general readers would understand. The first
part of the book is by Roberto Mangabeira Unger, and the second, from page 349
(if my Kindle app is accurate) by Smolin.
Both authors wrote the introductory
remarks, from p x to p xx.
“Cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole, beyond
which, for science, there lies nothing.”
(p xx).
There are
“three big questions about cosmology”, stated by Smolin (401) as:
“What happened at very early times, closer to the initial
singularity? What will happen to our universe in the far future? What is there,
very far away from us, outside our cosmological horizon?”
Cosmology can
only answer these by way of being a science. A science is (501)
“... only about what can be conclusively established on the
basis of rational argument from public evidence.” [footnoting Smolin, The
Trouble With Physics, 2006, a book that I can recommend]
Incidentally,
and I digress for a moment: in The
Trouble With Physics Smolin gives us (293) Feyerabend’s amusing observation
that he could win any argument in philosophy simply by using skills he had
acquired as an actor. “This made him wonder whether academic success had any
rational basis.” Drama-queen teachers take note!
No progress
has been made on important cosmological questions, and Unger and Smolin argue
that this is because scientists have used incorrect assumptions. Questions
include: why, when important equations have many solutions, is only one accepted
as correct? Why are there three spatial dimensions? Why do the so-called
universal constants have the values they do? Why is there life? How did the
universe come to what appears to be thermal equilibrium at a single
temperature? Why do we assume that the laws of physics apply throughout the
universe (including the part of the universe we cannot yet detect), and in an
unchanging way?
Most of us
will remember wondering why Einstein started his special theory of relativity
by assuming that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant and cannot be
exceeded. True, experiments suggested that that was so, but should those
results be applied everywhere and always? His other basic assumption was that
the laws of physics apply uniformly for all frames of reference. Do they, and
why? And his removing of time from its
role as a universal and uniform measurement may well produce results that
appear to be correct in the part of the universe we can currently detect (even
if only by measurement to a level of precision only expensively achieved), but
everywhere and always?
Unger and
Smolin reinstate time as the absolute backdrop to physical events (52), not an
accessory to space (53), they assert it is real (354) and it enables
recognition of what they assert will be found to be the evolution of physical
laws (357). It also gives meaning to causation: if time is not real, causality
(the influence that a state of affairs exercises over what follows it) cannot
be real (35). However, the uneasy reader might say, it is not explained how
this absolute time is to be measured, and how the measuring standard might
change as the physical laws evolve. Still, the point seems to be that time does
not vary within a frame of reference, or between frames of reference, or
historically compared to any measurement that is known. Where this leaves
Einstein is not made clear (at least to me, other people are probably not
troubled at all), unless the modification is confined to the unknown part of
the universe.
Three central
ideas – or perhaps we could say assertions or axioms - are developed in the
book (I summarise from pp 5-16): the solitary existence of the universe (there
are not, and have never been and will never be, mulitple universes); time is
inclusively real (nothing is outside time, everything changes sooner or later);
and mathematics is not a substitute for reality, it should be seen as
representing a world eviscerated of time and phenomenal particularity
(mathematical relations are timeless and of a general character, and indeed are
useful to a point, but they do not model a universe in which time is real).
At the very
least this book illustrates what can be done when a discipline reaches a
dead-end. Fundamental assumptions are re-examined and changed.
One of the
joys of looking at the problems that have arisen in another discipline is that
ideas applicable to law may be brought to mind. Even now, while I half-listen
to New Zealand playing Sri Lanka in a one-dayer at Nelson.
Is there an unknown law that has yet
to be perceived?
Obviously,
yes. All the things that have yet to be invented are potential subjects for new
law, and new kinds of laws. It is impossible to imagine what they may be, but
we can say that there will be laws that will apply to them. Whether those laws
will be recognisable by reference to our current criteria, or whether new
criteria for recognising law will evolve, is not known. But we can say that
there is no reason to keep our definition of law constant so that it is
temporally limited to known conditions.
Does the law apply everywhere?
Courts have
had to decide whether constitutional protections apply extra-territorially (for
example see the case discussed here
on 13 June 2008). There is increasingly a tendency for the law of one territory
to be given extra-territorial application, at least as far as the courts of the
domestic territory are concerned. And within a territory it seems there is no
room for exceptions to the obligation to obey the law; exceptions are within
the law, not extraneous to it. The law applies under the surface of the earth
and above it, extending into space. Rights may be given over territory on the
moon, and beyond. The extent of the application of the law may only be limited
by the human imagination. This means it may apply in environments that are
little known, raising the question of the extent to which the conditions for
application of law are part of the definition of law.
What is progress in law?
Social norms
do not have to be laws (see Gardner, Law
as a Leap of Faith, reviewed here
on 6 July 2013). If procedures are applied to norms, sufficient to make them
recognisable as laws, then that is what they are. But some laws are rights,
accepted as somehow being of a higher kind than other laws. If that has
happened to a norm, the progress is from a non-legally enforceable social
convention, to law, to higher law. Increasing recognition of rights suggests
increasing opportunity for progress. Law is not static in this regard. Whether
rights will continue to increase, or will reduce, is not known, but there is no
reason to think that present trends will always apply. To what extent can we
expect to be able to prevent, or encourage, change?
Is it useful to ask why a law exists?
People don’t
need laws: it is possible to imagine a community that functions without a legal
system (Gardner, above, pp 296-301, suggesting that the functions of law can be
served by conventions like morality, etiquette, games, and traditions, and law
may have different importance at different times in history, and may one day be
lost and forgotten).
So what is
law for? Convenience, obviously, in settling disputes, minimising conflict, and
preventing or making-good harm. Those functions can be achieved by means other
than law, so they do not assist in defining what law is. Law is not defined by
its use, but by the process by which it comes into existence.
What is the relationship between a law
and the environment in which it applies?
The
application of a law is different from its definition as law. A law may be a
law although the circumstances in which it could apply have never arisen. For
example, laws made to apply in the event of natural disasters or epidemics are
still laws pending those catastrophes. The law is not imaginary, although its
application is. One of the main aims of criminal law is deterrence, and it is
made in the hope – optimistic though it may be – that it will never need to be
applied.
The
environment in which a law applies may change dramatically, while the law stays
the same. But this stasis is not essential: the law may be developed, by
conventional techniques of legal reasoning, to meet new demands. To what extent
is it then the same law as before? Laws, once created, may evolve with the
environments in which they are applied.
What is the relationship between law
and reality?
Just as in
physics mathematics should not be confused with the reality which it is used to
explore, so too in law the techniques of legal reasoning should not be confused
with the reality to which law has to be applied. Conventional legal reasoning –
the techniques of statutory interpretation, the methods of arguing about case
law – will not necessarily produce the correct application of law to a
particular problem. The life of the law, as has been said, is not logic but
experience. Logic, in law, is subject to correction on policy grounds.
To what extent should legal concepts
be defined?
The fight in
physics is against uncertainty, whereas in law uncertainty can be an advantage.
The circumstances in which a law may have to be applied cannot necessarily be
wholly anticipated when the law is made, and some judicial creativity in its
application should be allowed for, if the law is to remain useful. It is not
unusual to find a statute on a subject which itself is not defined, as for
example where the Search
and Surveillance Act 2012 [NZ] does not define search.
It may not be
useful to define concepts when the law’s purpose may have to be applied in
circumstances which, at present, are not clearly perceived. We may know what we
want, without necessarily knowing when we may want it. Should this desire be
expressed as a law?
What are the premises of the rule of
law, and should they be the same everywhere?
An idea that
has emerged relatively recently is that a fundamental requirement of law is
that it should be identifiable, ascertainable, equal in its application, accessible,
and, to an extent that is a matter of some debate, consistent with the
requirements of a fair trial and other fundamental rights. The debate about
this latter point is not about whether trials should be fair, etc, but about
whether this requirement of fairness and conformity with fundamental rights is
part of the rule of law.
