Alexei Nesteruk

Introduction. The paper deals with the philosophical problems of the modern dialogue between cosmology and theology. It is argued that no existential contradiction is possible between them as originating in one and the same human condition. The difference between cosmology and theology amounts to the difference in their open-ended hermeneutics of the outer world. It is from within this philosophical conclusion that the hot issue of the dialogue are discussed and some insights are proposed.Methodology and sources. The philosophical analysis is based on the discussion of epistemological issues in modern cosmology and their relevance to theological view of the world. The method is similar to existential phenomenology’s approach to the constitution of the notion of the universe in cosmology and theology as an open-ended hermeneutics of the world.Results and discussion. It is shown that no existential contradiction is possible between two types of hermeneutics as originating in one and the same human condition. It is human being that becomes the major theme of the dialogue between cosmology and theology.On the basis of the conclusions made the paper discusses some “hot” issues in the contemporary cosmology-theology discussion, including: 1) The inseparability of cosmology and theology in justification of the possibility of cosmological knowledge, 2) Fine-tuning, Anthropic principle, fitness of the universe for life, 3) The unknowability of the universe and apophaticism in cosmology, 4) Multiple universes and their ontology, 5) How much of life is in the universe: the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), exoplanets and theological consequence for multiple incarnations, 6) The origin of the universe in modern scientific cosmology and its relevance to the theologically understood creatio ex nihilo, 7) Consciousness and the universe: can cosmology account for its own possibility without appealing to the theologically understood human capacity in producing an intellectual synthesis of the universe.Conclusion. On the basis of the methods applied to the hot issues in the dialogue between cosmology and theology one concludes that the dialogue between cosmology and theology is an open-ended enterprise related to the fundamentally concealed origins of humanity and universe. The difference is hermeneutics of the universe does not create any contradiction or tension but reflects a dualistic position of humanity in the universe, being an insignificant part of it and at the same time its center of disclosure and manifestation.

Introduction. The paper deals with the philosophical problems of functioning of the most complex phenomena in the universe: creation of the universe, emergence of life and appearance of consciousness. The scientific timeliness of the research is determined by that unceasing interest to the origin of the universe and life in it. The most difficult problem is the origin of intelligence in the universe which is confirmed through the ongoing research in the SETI program. The scientific novelty of research is that the authors link three fundamental problems relates to the origins of complexity in the universe in a single intellectual cluster.Methodology and sources. The analysis is based on the issues in modern cosmology, astrobiology and anthropology treated in the context of complex systems and their radical sensitivity to the uncontrolled initial conditions. In particular, one implies the so called “fine-tuning” of the cosmological parameters necessary for the origin of life on the planet Earth. The hypothetical deviation of the numerical values of such parameters by, let say some per cents, would exclude the development of the biological systems. However the sphere of the necessary conditions for these parameters does not guarantee the fulfillment of the sufficient conditions for creation complexity and a possibility of life. Such conditions are not determined by the physical and biological context and make inevitable an appeal for their interpretation to philosophical ideas. The methodological foundation of this research is based in finding the boundaries of efficiency of the necessary conditions for emergence of complexity and attempts to provide in some cases an interpretation of the possible sufficient conditions.Results and discussion. It is shown that it is impossible to account on scientific grounds for the original conditions which launched creation of the universe, emergence of life and appearance of consciousness. Scientifically, one can formulate the necessary conditions for existence of life in the universe and hence the embodied consciousness, however it is beyond the reach of science to account for the sufficient conditions. One simple model of origin of life illustrating the dependence of its phenomenon on the uncontrolled sufficient conditions is proposed on the grounds of analogy with Bernard’s instability in complex systems. If one identifies such phenomena as existence of the universe, biological and intelligent life with the behavior in super-complex material systems, there still remains a fundamental problem in unpredictability and contingency of those “initial” conditions which predetermined the factual outcomes in evolution of these complex systems. In other words science faces a fundamental limitedness in describing the sufficient conditions (sufficient reason) for those forms of complexity in nature with which this article deals.Conclusion. A scientific description of the most complex phenomena such as the universe as a whole, biological and intelligent life demonstrate its limited scope as regards the sufficient conditions for their happening. In this sense an exhaustive understanding of these phenomena becomes fundamentally impossible, showing that science functions in the conditions of the positive uncertainty.

Introduction. The paper deals with the philosophical problems of the mathematisation of nature in modern science.Methodology and sources. The analysis is based on the issues in modern science viewed through the prism of the critique of the mathematisation of nature in phenomenological philosophy.Results and discussion. It is argued that the radical mathematisation of nature devoid of any references to the source of its contingent facticity in humanity, leads to the diminution of humanity and concealment of the primary medium of existence, that is the life world. Phenomenology shows how the life-word can be articulated through contrasting it to “nature” constructed scientifically. It is the analysis of the scientific universe as mental creation that can help to uncover the life-world when “nature” (as scientifically constructed and abstracted from the life-world), is itself subjected to a kind of deconstruction which leads us back to the life-world of the next, so to speak, reflected order.Conclusion. The life-world is articulated under the conditions that there exists a scientific explicability of nature. The life-world as it is articulated in theology does require some alternative explication of nature, but, contrary to science, it never leads to the concealment of the life-world. What is common to these life-worlds is exactly that which cannot be explicated by science, namely the underlying personhood.