The Philosophy behind Quantum Gravity Niels （量子引力尼尔斯背后的哲学）.pdf

The Philosophy behind Quantum Gravity Henrik Zinkernagel Department of Philosophy, Campus de Cartuja, 18071, University of Granada, Spain. zink@ugr.es Published in Theoria - An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science (San Sebastián, Spain), Vol. 21/3, 2006, pp. 295-312. Abstract This paper investigates some of the philosophical and conceptual issues raised by the search for a quantum theory of gravity. It is critically discussed whether such a theory is necessary in the first place, and how much would be accomplished if it is eventually constructed. I argue that the motivations behind, and expectations to, a theory of quantum gravity are entangled with central themes in the philosophy of science, in particular unification, reductionism, and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. I further argue that there are –contrary to claims made on behalf of string theory –no good reasons to think that a quantum theory of gravity, if constructed, will provide a theory of everything, that is, a fundamental theory from which all physics in principle can be derived. 1. Introduction One of the outstanding tasks in fundamental physics, according to many theoretical physicists, is the construction of a quantum theory of gravity. The so far unsuccessful attempt to construct such a theory is an attempt to unify Einsteins general theory of relativity with quantum theory (or quantum field theory). While quantum gravity aims to describe everything in the universe in terms of quantum theory, the purpose of the closely related project of quantum cosmology is to describe even the universe as a whole as a quantum system. At present, a quantum theory of gravity is