Paradoxes and Metaphors of Time in Early Universe(s)

Project Information

PROTEUS

Grant agreement ID: 758145

DOI

10.3030/758145

Project closed

EC signature date 30 October 2017

Start date 1 September 2018

End date 29 February 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 418 869,00

EU contribution

€ 1 418 869,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - PROTEUS (Paradoxes and Metaphors of Time in Early Universe(s))

Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2024-02-29

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

PROTEUS studied main strategies devised by Western philosophy in representing time in cosmology. It stimulated new pathways to shape philosophical enquiries and their relationship with cosmology in light of recent scientific debates in quantum gravity and quantum cosmology, thereby boosting a new research field in history and philosophy of cosmology, resulted in the creation of the COSMOS Network. The project started with two hypotheses: 1) The history of philosophy reveals a guideline that can be traced back to Plato and that characterizes physical and metaphysical approaches to the question of the beginning of the universe in terms of a tension between fundamentality and non-fundamentality of time; 2) There is a conceptual problematic assumption in Western culture and it consists in shaping the problem of the origin of the world as a problem of thinking about the very same conditions of possibility of the origin of a process that is not in time. The project spelled out the conceptual roots of current representations of time in quantum gravity and quantum cosmology and highlighted the potential conceptual break that they provide with respect to philosophical concepts of time and timelessness portrayed in previous systems. By exploring in detail the notions of time and the paradoxes emerging in the philosophy and cosmology of Plato and Kant, PROTEUS identified the fundamental characters of emergent time in current quantum gravity theories. In identifying these fundamental features, it has been shown that philosophical investigation is complementary to the development of current theories. Thus, PROTEUS' legacy for future generations of philosophers and scientists consists in showing which aspects of the conceptual underpinnings of our current research in fundamental physics are really ground-breaking and which are built upon old schemas.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project gave rise to a unique multi-disciplinary research team including historians of philosophy, philosophers of physics and theoretical physicists.
The team successfully organized seminars in which different background intersected and raised innovative questions and debate.
Objective I (months 1-24) has been reached regarding Research Questions 1-6 and 7-11. It aimed at showing the characters of the notions of time and the paradoxes emerging in the philosophy and cosmology of Plato and Kant. On these topics two conferences were organized in 2019 at the UAB: 'Time and Cosmogony in Plato and the Platonic Tradition' and 'Kant on the Foundations of Mathematics and Cosmology. What Legacy for German Idealism and Beyond?', which gave rise to two relevant publications. The group worked on Objective II (months 25-40) consisting in identifying the fundamental characters of emergent time in current theories of cosmology and quantum gravity and underlining their breaking features with the conceptions of Plato and Kant. Objective III (months 41-66) consisted in exploring new and consistent ways of conceiving of time and timelessness in fundamental physics, by exploring different strategies in modeling time in cosmology and Quantum gravity. A final conference in July 2023 titled "Perspectives on Time and Atemporality in Cosmology and Natural Sciences" has been organized by the team, and a volume containing more than 12 contributions about this topic has been edited by the PI and two research team members ("Time and Timelessness in Fundamental Physics and Cosmology", Springer 2024).
Conferences and invited talks, as well as research seminars have been organized by the group and the dissemination activities have been implemented by taking part in tens of conferences abroad. Also activities for the general public have been organized at the University of Milan and team members, including the PI, participated in events devoted to discuss the notion of time in physics and philosophy. The creation of the digital archive and real-time forum “Timaeus and Its Legacy” is completed and available at https://www.timaeuslegacy.eu. It is remarkable that this is a result obtained by all female researchers. The archive makes available more than 490 titles of works (from Late Antiquity to the 20th Century) that explicitly show references to Plato's work or have been inspired by Plato's Timaeus. The researchers involved in the construction of the archive also produced a KER: an AI-based semantic search machine applicable to philosophical texts in both ancient (Latin and Greek) and modern languages (Italian, German, English and French), thanks to the collaboration with MAIZE s.r.l. The white paper is available at https://timaeus-prototype.celi.it and describes the ground-breaking character of the prototype for digital humanities.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

PROTEUS produced conceptual innovation in philosophy and fundamental physics, by identifying new central objects of enquiry produced in current quantum cosmology and quantum gravity (e.g. phase transitions, emergent space and emergent time) and by assessing whether and how they are able to produce a ground-breaking view with respect to previous models in portraying the conditions of possibility to think of a process that is not in time. The innovative methodology of PROTEUS consisted in showing the relevance of the history of philosophy to reach this goal. Indeed, Plato's and Kant's philosophy represent milestones to understand the conceptual underpinnings of our notions of time and its paradoxes in cosmology and their study disclose alternative strategies that one can pursue in modeling time and, more importantly, timelessness in fundamental physics. A more complex understanding of atemporality is needed in current foundations of physics, if one wants to avoid circularity or paradoxes in some Quantum Gravity approaches and in modeling black holes.
In 66 months PROTEUS achieved several objectives by relying on a research team that is a leader group in applying new research methods pursued by the actual interaction set up with historians of philosophy and physicists.
PROTEUS has also shown that philosphy is necessarily complementary to theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity, as emerges in the publications of the group and the continuous interaction with physicists.
PROTEUS ensured high impact on the two subfields of the history of philosophy of workspaces I and II, namely Plato and Kant studies, by offering a systematic interpretation of Plato’s and Kant’s works according to the hypothesis advanced by the project. More than 30 research outputs as journal articles, books and monographs have been realized spanning from the history of ancient philosophy to the philosophy of physics, the foundations of quantum gravity and cosmology.
Among the tangible results of PROTEUS, one finds the creation of the Digital Archive "Timaeus and Its Legacy" and the creation of a software to perform AI-base semantic search through multi-language texts from different epochs. Furthermore, the series of conferences on the History and Philosophy fo Cosmology and the creation of a network of cosmologists, philosophers and historians (COSMOS Network) have been created and the network counts on several collaborations worldwide. The videos of PROTEUS seminar series published on our website and our YouTube channel constitute a virtual library that is available for the next generations.

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