Theory of Everything - Theory of Everything and Philosophy

Theory of Everything and Philosophy

The philosophical implications of a physical ToE are frequently debated. For example, if philosophical physicalism is true, a physical ToE will coincide with a philosophical theory of everything.

The "system building" style of metaphysics attempts to answer all the important questions in a coherent way, providing a complete picture of the world. Plato and Aristotle could be said to have created early examples of comprehensive systems. In the early modern period (17th and 18th centuries), the system-building scope of philosophy is often linked to the rationalist method of philosophy, which is the technique of deducing the nature of the world by pure a priori reason. Examples from the early modern period include the Leibniz's Monadology, Descarte's Dualism, and Spinoza's Monism. Hegel's Absolute idealism and Whitehead's Process philosophy were later systems.

Other philosophers do not believe their techniques can aim so high. Some scientists think a more mathematical approach than philosophy is needed for a ToE, for instance Stephen Hawking wrote in A Brief History of Time that even if we had a ToE, it would necessarily be a set of equations. He wrote, “What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?”.