The Anthropic Argument against Infinite Past and the Eddington-Lemaitre Universe

Abstract

This study in the philosophy of cosmology is a part of an ongoing effort to investigate and reassess the importance of the anthropic (Davies-Tipler) argument against cosmologies containing the past temporal infinity. Obviously, the prime targets of this argument are cosmological models stationary on sufficiently large scale, the classical steady state model of Bondi, Gold and Hoyle being the best example. Here we investigate the extension of application of this argument to infinitely old non-stationary models and discuss additional constraints necessary to be imposed on such models for the edge of the anthropic argument to be preserved. An illustrative counterexample is the classical Eddington-Lemaitre model, in the analysis of which major such constraints are presented. Consequences of such an approach for our understanding of the nature of time are briefly discussed.