Astronomy and Civilization in the New Enlightenment: Passions of the Skies

ASTRONOMY AND CIVILIZATION IN THE NEW ENLIGHTENMENT ANALECTA HUSSERLIANA THE YEARBOOK OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH V...

Author: Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka | Attila Grandpierre

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ASTRONOMY AND CIVILIZATION IN THE NEW ENLIGHTENMENT

ANALECTA HUSSERLIANA THE YEARBOOK OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

VOLUME CVII

Founder and Editor-in-Chief: ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning Hanover, New Hampshire

For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/5621

ASTRONOMY AND CIVILIZATION IN THE NEW ENLIGHTENMENT PASSIONS OF THE SKIES

Edited by

ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA

AT T I L A G R A N D P I E R R E Konkoly Observatory, Hungary

Published under the auspices of The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning A-T. Tymieniecka, President

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Editors Prof. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning Ivy Pointe Way 1 03755 Hanover NH USA [email protected]

Attila Grandpierre Konkoly Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences 1221 Budapest Konkoly Thege u. 13-17 Hungary [email protected]

ISBN 978-90-481-9747-7 e-ISBN 978-90-481-9748-4 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

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ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA/The Theme: The Passions of the Skies

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SECTION I ASTRONOMY, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY FLOURISHING IN THE NEW ENLIGHTENMENT ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA/The New Enlightenment: Cosmo-Transcendental Positioning of the Living Being in the Universe

3

ATTILA GRANDPIERRE/On the First Principle of Biology and the Foundation of the Universal Science

19

HANS KÖCHLER/The Relation Between Man and World

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SUBHASH KAK/Observers, Freedom, and the Cosmos

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FRANCES CLYNES/The Enchanting Heavens

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MENAS KAFATOS/The Science of Wholeness

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SECTION II COSMOS SHAPING WORLD VIEWS BÉLA KÁLMÁN/Meridianae in Italy

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SEPP ROTHWANGL/The Cosmological Circumstances and Results of the Anno Domini Invention: Anno Mundi 6000, Great Year, Precession, and End of the World Calculation

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STEPHEN P. COOK/Coming of Age Under the Night Sky: The Importance of Astronomy in Shaping Worldviews

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MIKLÓS MARÓTH/Medieval Roots of the Modern Cosmology

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VLADIMIR A. LEFEBVRE/Is There Any Fundamental Connection Between Man and the Universe?

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SECTION III ASTRONOMY IN THE ORIGINS OF CULTURE STANISLAW IWANISZEWSKI/Cultural Impacts of Astronomy

v

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TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

NORMAN D. COOK/Triadic Insights in Astronomy, Art and Music

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EMÍLIA PÁSZTOR/The Social and Spiritual Impact of Sky Lore on Prehistoric Societies in Europe

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SURESH BHATTARAI/Impact of Astronomy in Nepalese Civilization

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VARADARAJA VENKATA RAMAN/Impact of Stars on Human Culture

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ALICE WILLIAMSON/The Contribution of Musical Theory to an Ancient Chinese Concept of the Universe

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NANCEY MURPHY/Cosmopolis: How Astronomy Affects Philosophies of Human Nature and Religion

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SECTION IV UNIVERSE AND LIFE HENRY P. STAPP/Mind in the Quantum Universe

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PAUL DAVIES/Why is the Universe Just Right for Life?

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CHANDRA WICKRAMASINGHE/The Compelling Case for Panspermia

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LÁSZLÓ G. PUSKÁS/Nanobionts and the Size Limit of Life

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HELENA KNYAZEVA/The Russian Cosmism and the Modern Theory of Complexity: The Comparative Analysis

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JOSEPH SECKBACH AND JULIAN CHELA-FLORES/Astrobiology: From Extremophiles in the Solar System to Extraterrestrial Civilizations

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SECTION V THE WORLD OF LIFE, ASTRONOMY AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT NICHOLAS CAMPION/Astronomy and the Soul

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WILLIAM R. STOEGER, S.J./Rationality and Wonder: From Scientific Cosmology to Philosophy and Theology

259

MARIÁN AMBROZY/Positive Contribution of Religion to Cosmology

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KATALIN MARTINÁS/Principle of Greatest Happiness

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TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

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H. MINOO AND S.M.T. BATHAEE/Astronomy: Brightest and Most Fascinating Shining Path for Mankind Future

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ANTHONY P. STONE/A Theistic Model of Physical Temporality

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ION SOTEROPOULOS/Humanity En Route to the Glorious Unity of Our Universe

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Name Index

305

Subject Index

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are pleased to welcome in our book series the collection of papers read at the World Congress of Astronomy and Civilization, held at Lorand Eotvos University, Budapest, Hungary on August 10–13, 2009 under the direction of Attila Grandpierre of Konkoly Observatory. After numerous interdisciplinary investigations in phenomenology of life punctuating great perspectives of Passions of the Earth concerning human being and his world, societal interlinking, and higher strivings, we have reached in this collection the counterpart of human’s earth-generation, that is the cosmos. The vast panorama of perspectives and insights gathered from natural sciences, with Astronomy in their center offers a rich harvest of considerations for our philosophical panorama upon issues crucial for our today’s culture about the place and future of the humans. I offer my warmest thanks to our colleague Attila Grandpierre for entrusting us these studies for publication and joining me in the task of editorship. Our authors merit our greatest appreciation. I thank as usually, Jeffrey Hurlburt and Robert J. Wise, Jr. for their faithful cooperation in editing this volume.

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THE THEME

THE PASSIONS OF THE SKIES

THE GEO-COSMIC POSITIONING OF THE HUMAN CONDITION

In the long procession of research conducted by the scholars of the World Phenomenology Institute, now published in the more than 100 volumes of the Analecta Husserliana book series,1 we have treated extensively “the Passions of the Earth.”2 With this collection of essays, we launch out into a most significant encounter with the Cosmos. An attentive perusal of the themes of the Analecta Husserliana collections and of their intuitive concatenations will trace from the source the varied paths of transformation of the Logos of Life in its vital, intellective, and creative meanderings and reveal the horizons against which our own explorations have advanced and are advancing as our own philosophical dianoesis unfolds and human knowledge expands. And so, with this collection, we now turn from the “Passions of the Earth” to the Human “Passions of the Cosmos.” In this collection of essays we will, therefore, elucidate the range of the mysteries astronomy has penetrated in the last centuries with the progress of science, ponder what it is that animates human fascination with the skies and the cosmos, and develop, what is an urgent pressing need today, our new understanding of Geo-Cosmic transcendental positioning of the Human Condition within the universe, with a particular focus on issues that throw light on the future of life and of humankind. Informing and invigorating all the branches and fresh twigs of thought in our collection are intuition and actual insight into what we as living human beings draw from the heavens for our existence. This fascination and pragmatic observation has over the millennia matured into the scientific field of astronomy. The theme of Contemporary Astronomy and Civilization unites crucial current human preoccupations and should be a theme of our philosophy. Since the Seventeenth Century, astronomy and in particular cosmology has come to assume a pivotal position in scientific inquiry; in philosophy/phenomenology it is time to duly appreciate astronomy’s contributions to a complete vision of life, the world, and matters of the spirit. Achieving a comprehensive view of the human being within his existential milieu is today a neglected aim of philosophy. It is essential long since and past time for both astronomy and philosophy to seek their mutual completion, with philosophy taking the lead in the work of interpretive synthesis. ASTRONOMY AND PHENOMENOLOGY IN THE NEW ENLIGHTENMENT

Questions: “Who and what are we human beings? How may we know and what can we know or not know? How are we intertwined with and intergenerated within our existential milieu? How did humans evolve and for what are they headed?” Such xi

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T H E PA S S I O N S O F T H E S K I E S

questions have never before in history been so pertinently asked as they are now at our phase of civilization. Life’s vital force imposes them on us, breaking through the familiar constraints of technique and philosophy. These issues come forcefully together in new insights of metaphysics and creatively stir the scientific inquiries that have dramatically developed in the last century, initiating a New Enlightenment in our civilization. We see these concerns informing astronomical probing today. The dramatic transformations we have seen in scientific theory and practice dramatically cohere with and inform the primogenital insights of our own ontopoietic phenomenology. As will be more thoroughly expounded in our own contribution to this volume, phenomenology is now framing its culminating critique of reason by turning away from the priority that Kant and Husserl gave to consciousness and bringing to the fore the logos at work in life’s genesis as evident in the cosmic interlinkage between the living being/man and life’s earthly foundations and the whole cosmos’ constitutive laws and rules and constructive unfoldings. Thus, with the stupendous development of the sciences, astronomy has come to have a cogency for us that is at once vital, psychological, social, intellectual, and creative. Understood for millennia in all civilizations as knowledge of the skies above, and sensed as well to be most intimately fused with the cycles and events of the natural world and with human destiny, astronomy has acquired a more precisely defined role in our period of world civilization. While it has lost some of the attraction of “enchantment” that it had in the past, it is a less isolated science as scientific corroboration informs it from all sides so that its pertinence to the questions posed above is ever more strikingly highlighted, questions that have prime life significance in our culture today. The scientifico-philosophic alliance not only formulates these questions more sharply, showing their crucial significance for understanding human nature and existence but it also throws new rays upon our overall vision of the world and life. We have entered into the time of a New Enlightenment shaped by and developing a new awareness of existence. And we may now consider astronomy to have an ultimate scientific significance, to be a crucial link in the unifying skeleton of and framework for the scattered pursuits of scientific inquiry. With the New Enlightenment, new light is breaking through the crevices of broken scientific frameworks (conceptual systems, methodologies, approaches, and mechanistic stringency) so that the numerous new scientific approaches to the natural world, human beings, and culture can find in astronomy foundations for a new vision of things, for a new framework for research, for fresh answers to the perennial puzzles of human existence.

T H E G E O -C O S M I C A R C H I T E C T O N I C

We will enter now into a brief presentation of the inner bond between astronomy and philosophy by introducing the phenomenologico-ontopoietic basis for the panorama of a full scientific and metaphysical inquiry. We will first of all alert the reader that we will in what follows draw throughout upon our own development of the phenomenology of life and the Human Condition,


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a condition envisaged within the unity-of-everything-there-is-alive.3 We have in this project been delving into generative beingness and gaining perspectives extending from the genesis of life’s individualizing unfolding, through the imaginativecreative swing of the human mind, to our spiritual heights, social as well as sacral; now we extend our horizons further. Secondly, and most significantly for our present purpose – the philosophical presentation of our present collection—we stress that phenomenology of life and of the Human Condition constitutes a radical revision of the “transcendental” origins of phenomenology by reassessing the critical conditions for the possibility of knowledge (see my own contribution to this collection, infra, pp. 3). Both Kant and Husserl relegate the transcendental to human consciousness. In contrast, phenomenology of life through its thematic meanderings has arrived at a geo-cosmic architectonic. It departs from Kant’s formal a priori by which the transcendental origins of cognition consist of the categories of human subjectivity that organize inchoate reality into something knowable. It also departs from Husserl’s material a priori whereby transcendental subjectivity functions as the foundation for achievements of sense. Instead, in our vision the transcendental itself consists of a positioning of human beingness itself whereby meanings (knowledge) are constituted through the progressive development of life in its various stages of organization (transcendental conditions for knowledge) culminating in the creative achievements of human life. As there is a unity-of-everything-thereis-alive, the transcendental reference of cognition consists in the principles of that unity. Life, however, also includes the organizational level of physis, such that the principles manifest in the geo-cosmic architectonic are constituents of the transcendental function. This means that geo-cosmic principles are not simply objects of knowledge—and so they are treated throughout the natural sciences, especially in theoretical physics, astronomy, and the earth sciences—but that they function within the transcendental agency of life. As the phenomenology of life must proceed by undertaking a genetic archaeology in the human being, our methodology consists in retrogressing through the levels of organization of the human soul in order to recognize those geo-cosmic principles operative within it. This is how their transcendental function and its geo-cosmic positioning are to be apprehended and explored. Since it is at the human station of life that the logos of life manifests itself in self-awareness of the logos, apprehending the transcendental requires that this architectonic be traced through the processes and structures inherent to the individuated human being. Thus our queries go beyond the province of the mind and unfold against the horizons of life and of the cosmos (Tymieniecka, infra, p. 3). Therefore in our present investigation we face two strategic aspects of the metaphysics of beingness that encounter each other diametrically: the originary genesis of beingness (the ontopoietic route taken by the Logos of Life in its work), on one side, and life’s geocentric-cosmic orientation, on the other side. Here we find an orientation that projects the design of an individualizing being not confined to any static ontological framework but sustained within the stream of the ontopoietic unfolding of the Logos of Life, and there at a distance from the constitutive absolute

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prerogative of consciousness (as a transcendental reference of constitution), we see life situated within the existential architectonics of its geo-cosmic networks. Thus is launched an inquiry in which the metaphysics of life encounters at essential junctures the parallel concerns and puzzlements of the scientific approach to the mysteries of the spheres of space, which – more than backdrop – are the ground of the story of life. These great questions that humanity is insistingly asking in our day call for answers that will ring true against multiple horizons. Not a unitary philosophical summary of the data but rather in-depth probing of concrete and varied issues, the enrichment of concepts in danger of being emptied of meaning, directions for the organization of insights, above all, principles of a higher, universal order, these are the projects of the New Enlightenment. Our overarching worldview is in need of a renewed foundation, one at once cogent and concrete, an order in which all the dimensions of reflection find a voice.

A S T R O N O M Y ’S P I V O T A L R O L E

Seeing through the prisms of the specific scientific approaches and within the perspectives of the questions that the New Enlightenment raises, we aim to introduce an order into the chaotic state of science’s proliferating directions, one that reflects their interlinkage and coalescence not only in cooperative inquiry but also the collateral constitution of nature, the world, the universe, and man per se that the yields the possibility of that linkage and cooperation. The very chaotic state of scientific inquiry, that is, its rapid diversification is giving to astronomy a pivotal role among the sciences. A focus on the crucial issues of existence impels us to discover the links between the sciences that will allow for their generative cohesion, and astronomy – given the sweep of her ramified universal realm with its horizons – promises us that order in the universe and coherence in thought is, indeed, to be found. The astronomical panorama simultaneously implies an order among the sciences and in the universe, one that extends from science to philosophy.

THE ORDER OF THE UNIVERSE AND THE UNITY OF THE SCIENCES

The primordial theme in our panorama of papers is the taking up of the issue of the universal order of the cosmos – which immediately informs the project of the universal foundation of the sciences. We find, to begin with (see Grandpierre, infra, p. 19), a complex and differentiated vision of the universe that integrates nature and most philosophy, one in which reality is differentiated into three levels: phenomena, laws, and first principles, which correspond to the different branches of the natural sciences – the physical, the biological, and the psychological. First principles play the decisive directive role in treating the becoming of the universe. Moreover,


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and most significantly, the first biological principle simultaneously entails life as it serves as the ontological basis of the universe. It also governs the origins of life, and the psychological principle accounts for unfolding intersubjective and social performance. The three principles of nature accord with ontology, metaphysics, and religion. This unity of the constitutive levels entails a comprehensive view of the universe, men, and life (Grandpierre, infra, p. 19). In this new view of the universe, the natural sciences integrate philosophy, forming together a comprehensive outline. The quest for the unity of scientific and philosophical reflection intensifies as the contemporary sciences seek out ever more minute elements of reality but cannot fathom “the deep underlying nature of the cosmos of reality” (Kafatos, infra, p. 69). Our authors offer profound scientifico-philosophical reflections on the order of the universe as well on the unity of sciences. Within the outlines of the universal order we probe the most enriching and fascinating network of ties between the cosmos and human beings and their world. Hence, within a general philosophic-theoretical perspective (Koechler, infra, p. 43),we enter into richly varied perspectives that introduce us to the breadth, depth, and intimacy of innermost personal experiences and the universal acknowledged, concrete influences of astral space on life, the human being, the world, nature, imagination, and spiritual elevation. This fabric would necessarily cover the entire spread of the existence of human beings on earth in the evolution of human groups from the elemental stirrings of culture through the history of humankind. And so we find all human, innermost concerns reflected in interpretative experience of the heavens, in imaginative reactions to the celestial experiences of humankind. To understand and grasp the human being, the universalizing tendency of philosophy seeks such concrete enrichment for the completion of our individual vision of life. With roots deep in the earth, we extend our vision to the encircling skies. This fluctuating vision of stars, planets, galaxies impresses on us the basic transformations of nature and of our own natural life. This is essential to our natural existence, to our evolving of life. Naturally, humans have felt emotionally connected in their depths to the motions of the heavens, and in their pondering and imagination have believed there to be a communication between those motions and their moods, emotions, tendencies, even searching out in them the course of events and destinies. Over the centuries the interplay between our vital, concrete groundwork in the earth and the assumed, felt, but enigmatic ties with heavens has belonged to the natural human experience of life. With the progressive growth of human knowledge, the wondrous lore of the heavens as an enigmatic cognate of our existence has developed into sober scientific exploration and intellectual theorizing matching the rest of scientific probing into nature. Whether in European, Asian, African, Mediterranean, or other cultures, human beings have found the fullness of their existential breadth expressed in the regular, moving, infinite panorama of the star-studded skies, measuring the rhythm of their own existence on earth by their revolutions. What is more natural than to seek also influences of the heavenly bodies upon our intricate, hidden personal motivations and destinies? Or to be inspired by enigmatic signs from above? Prompted by

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imagination, human beings exult in the experience of feeling ours destinies to be limned in concordant motions of the firmament. Numerous studies in our collection emphasize the common threads running through cultural developments in the early history of humankind as well characteristics specific to each culture. Living in our usual modes of being, we are usually unaware of how we have visceral bonds with the forces of the cosmos. Several of our authors penetrate the deepest grounds of our spheres of performance and discern how elementary terrestrial concerns such as the framing of measurements, the development of the sciences, and discoveries in the arts, etc. have been sidereally influenced (see Cook, Iwaniszeweski, Puskas, V. Raman, etc.). Others find profound links between the science of astronomy and the mysterious conditions of human life (see Davies, Seckbach, Chela-Flores, etc., infra). And several studies venture directly to show how the high inspirations of mankind partake of celestial influence, treating inspiration for spiritual elevation, religion, theology (Stoeger, Stone, and others, infra). If we follow the leads of the innumerable intuitions, reflections, and insights proceeding from the astronomic-philosophical conjunction to the culminating point, we will conclude that this ground for philosophy of geo-cosmic life augurs the “brightest and most fascinating shining path for mankind’s future” (Minoo and Bathaee, infra, p. 283). Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka

NOTES 1 Analecta Husserliana, The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research, Volumes 1–107; now published by Springer Media. 2 Analecta Husserliana, Passions of the Earth in Human Existence, Creativity, and Literature, Volume 71; Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 2001. 3 Analecta Husserliana, Introduction to the Phenomenology of Life and of the Human Condition, Treatise 4, Logos and Life, Impetus and Equipoise in the Life-Strategies of Reason, Volume LXX; Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 2000.

SECTION I ASTRONOMY, SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY FLOURISHING IN THE NEW ENLIGHTENMENT Astrobiology, Theoretical Biology, Quantum Physics, History of Science, Philosophy of Science

ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA

THE NEW ENLIGHTENMENT: COSMO-TRANSCENDENTAL POSITIONING OF THE LIVING BEING IN THE UNIVERSE

ABSTRACT

Modern science has grown accustomed to viewing a hazy, imprecise, fleeting reality. The fact of chaotic deterministic systems, the mix of discontinuity and stability, of mutation and enduring type, presents both a challenge and opportunity to metaphysics. To pick up the challenge presented by the sciences as well as the vital concerns of humankind and to formulate a novel conception of nature-life along the lines of life’s ontopoiesis is to indicate philosophy’s new parameters. Although the rhythm of impetus and equipoise evident in life’s ontopoiesis has come to light only recently, it brings us genuine enlightenment about the cosmos, bios, and the human being – a New Enlightenment that constitutes a critical break from the tentative searching of the philosophy of the past. The transcendental realm of the logos is revealed not as confined to human consciousness but is manifested foremost in the architectonics of the earth and the cosmos. That is to say that inchoate reality is organized not by the observing mind alone but from within itself, which organization ultimately finds expression in the mind. An archeology and/or genetics that captures the correspondences between the individual and the universe, here is the ultimate foundation that Husserl repeatedly started over again to find. The “phenomenology of phenomenology” that he sought is one that sees how human creativity chimes with the ontopoiesis operative in nature – in both the cosmos and life. THE MODERN TRANSFORMATION OF SCIENCE A N D P H I L O S O P H Y ’S S E E K I N G F R E S H M E T A P H Y S I C A L GROUNDING

Contemporary science has seen the shattering of the classical postulates of precision and exactitude by which objects and their mechanistic relations were to be isolated. The objective order of the universe that was once manifest is no longer there for us. This development is owing to the introduction of the once ignored vector of time into physics. Today the natural sciences begin to resemble the social sciences. The unforeseeable, the unpredictable is now allowed. Determinism and freedom, necessity and chance are no longer sharply dichotomous. We have moved to viewing a hazy, imprecise, fleeting reality. Even the geometry by which reality is modeled has changed. Benoit Mandelbrot’s fractal geometry is more suited to capturing the turbulence, the dislocation and irregularity, found in 3 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 3–17. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_1,

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nature. The traditional formalism of mathematics has been surpassed by an approach that allows human intuition to contribute to the representation of nature. This approach was pioneered by Poincaré. In pondering the geometric properties of the functions of differential equations, he drew on Nikolai Lobachevsky’s nonEuclidean “hyperbolic geometry,” which denied Euclid’s postulate that two parallel lines will remain parallel to infinity. Then, surprisingly, Poincaré found that through his new visualization of differential equations he could explicate the stability of the solar system, providing a resolution of the “three-body problem” in the plotting of orbits. Poincaré grasped the distribution in “phase space” of points of stability and instability that yet make up a coherent whole. He became the first person to discover a chaotic deterministic system. This has found further application in the study of all chaotic deterministic systems. Poincaré thought this mix of stability and instability to be beyond visualization when it came to more complex systems. But with the power of computers, Mandelbrot’s fractal geometry is now allowing that visualization. And mathematician René Thom built on the concept of phase space to paint a universal morphology that takes into consideration nature’s relatively stable points as well as the various types of its constructive becoming in the “regular” and “irregular” (“catastrophic”) occurrences that introduce discontinuity into the morphological progress and lead to some mutation within the type (see his Stabilité structurelle et morphogénèse [1972]). For Poincaré, Mandelbrot, and Thom visual intuition is key to our capturing reality. We may even speak of an aesthetic expansion of the discipline of mathematics. The abstract science of mathematics “humanizes” itself. Today the role of the subjective in scientific inquiry is, therefore, much appreciated. But the historical studies of phenomenologist Alexandre Koyré showed how much the element of the subjective was always there. Alexandre Kojève, having absorbed Koyré’s work and having absorbed too Niels Bohr’s interpretation of Heisenberg’s finding that being observed changes the state of whatever is observed rendering the apprehension of exact causality impossible, further elucidated the most significant factor of the “subject,” the living concrete individual who as an inquirer envisages everything around him/herself. The role of the subject is now universally recognized in physics and the rest of science. Strikingly, in his L’Idée du déterminisme dans la physique classique et dans la physique moderne (1932; Paris: 1990), Kojève saw that we should not identify the subject with a mathematical, abstract point, uniform and unchangeable, nor with its biological corporeity, nor as a psychological agent. Here we are at the threshold of our own phenomenology of life and its ontopoiesis, which has as its focus the creative condition of the investigator, whether experimenting or observing or speculating. The Creative Human Condition provides us with the Archimedean point from which the unfolding flux around us may be probed, for there is correspondence between that unfolding and our own. Indeed, our inquiry takes us beyond correspondence to convergence. It is from the point of investigation into human creative genius that it is appropriate to enter into exploration of reality.

THE NEW ENLIGHTENMENT

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Given that the subject is to be seen as belonging to the same ontological realm as the world and as interacting with it, we cannot continue to consider cognition to be the main factor in scientific experience. What is key is the creative virtualities subtending the mind – the creative imagination inspiring it and the creative act bringing that imagination to its unique fruition. For in our investigation we unroll and circumscribe the creative compass of all the spheres of reality/life in which the living creative subject has to participate in order to assume the role of the observer or experimenter, or discoverer, inventor, creator. I submit that only the creative mind of the human being can fulfill all the conditions set by Kojève, first, and most significantly, by legitimating its extraordinary vantage point and second by introducing us into the hidden spheres of reality itself. Our vision accords with that of Leibniz, for whom each living being, through a monad, reflects the entire universe. The human mind is positioned to descend into the inner workings of becoming and in the disorder there confronted recognize the wealth of rationalities projected as chance and necessity conjoin in a constructive game. The human creative act may progressively penetrate into all the spheres of existence, of life, the reality in which this station is not always openly rooted but out of which it has developed, maintaining permanent ties. Thus we may connect and harmonize the elusive, discrete, seemingly worlds apart factors of becoming. That said, ours is a different type of monad. Key here is elucidating in virtue of what the creative act of the human being may penetrate into the innermost workings of nature, existentially partaking of the interaction that the living being maintains with them. Thus, there follows here the required fresh critique of reason that is launching a New Enlightenment. In essaying this project, I am countering the tendency of analytic philosophy to turn the real around without touching it. I here take a lead from René Thom, who stressed that in the changing reality with which scientists deal there must be assumed to be some permanent givens having “a certain generativity.” Thom affirmed that “even in science ontology is necessary; metaphysics is not dead” (see his “Preface,” in Jean Largeault, Systèmes de la nature [1985]). Thus, I will not suppress the perennial metaphysical concerns of the mind. I will introduce my own metaphysical panorama. Awareness of the temporality of events, processes, transformations in the inorganic as well as organic spheres has provoked great puzzlement over the nature of “development,” that is, of the irreversible process that carry life forward. This is now the central issue of science. For as mathematician Ivar Ekeland observes, Thom’s catastrophe theory looks at the entity-in-progress only from the outside, leaving its assumed intrinsic reasons to be guessed at (see his Le calcul, l’imprevu: les figures de temps, de Kepler à Thom [1984], pp. 96–101). Addressing this issue is the grand concept of ontopoietic unfolding, which constitutes the ontologico-metaphysical axis of becoming as such as well as of becoming in its lineaments. This is the fulcrum by which the phenomenology-philosophy of life gains purchase on reality. This involves a vision of reason that breaks out of the narrow traditional framework and opens up creatively toward appreciation of the host of new rationalities

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now expounded to deal with the changeable currents of existence, to generate criteria of validity, predictability, prospects, measures. We present then the scientific investigator as an immersed conscious subject, immersed in the lifeworld, within the human-condition-in-the-unity-of-everything-there-is-alive. To pick up the challenge presented by the sciences as well as the vital concerns of humankind and to formulate a novel conception of nature-life along the lines of the above-outlined ontopoiesis of life is to indicate philosophy’s new parameters. Although the rhythm of impetus and equipoise evident in life’s ontopoiesis has come to light only recently, it brings us genuine enlightenment about the cosmos, bios, and the human being – a New Enlightenment that constitutes a crucial break from the tentative searching of the philosophy of the past. The transcendental realm of the logos is not confined to human consciousness but is manifested in the architectonics of the earth and the cosmos. That is to say that inchoate reality is organized not by the mind alone but from within, which organization ultimately finds expression in the mind. The unity-of-everything-there-is-alive has unifying principles. Hence, geocosmic principles are not simply “out there” to be discovered or mapped, but inhere in the researcher as well. An archeology and/or genetics that captures the correspondences between the individual and the universe, here is the ultimate foundation that Husserl repeatedly started over again to find. He was able to extend intentionality down to the human body, to “instinct” and “drive,” which he formerly had bracketed. But the “phenomenology of phenomenology” that he sought is one that sees how human creativity chimes with the ontopoiesis operative in nature – in both the cosmos and life – and is also open to the sacral horizon that is ours to scan.

THE ULTIMATE CRITIQUE OF REASON

Whether we simply appreciate the beauty of the sky above us or observe the motions of the stars in the changing firmament through a telescope, drawing precise conclusions, it is the experiencing subject who receives the fruit of the experience and who transforms its yield into the form of an “observation.” It is thus upon the experiencing subject’s capacities that these results depend. In the classical approach to scientific inquiry, the observed is seen as being “neutral,” to stand aloof from circumstantial conditions, to be “disinterested.” This “objectivity” of observations has seemed to be the privilege of scientific inquiry. Recognition of our experience, of how it processes the form of an observed object belongs to appreciation of the conditions of human cognition. “Neutrality,” “disinterestedness” meant in practice indifference to the inquirer, to the experiencing subject. Precisely, the research protocol determined the conditions of the inquiry’s procedure such that the inquirer as an experiencing subject had to be ignored. “Abstracted from” life, research results were meant to be “neutral.” However, this abstraction, the elimination of the inquirer in his epistemological situation, meant that the living out of the inquiry and its subject fell into a void with respect to the universal condition of human cognition.


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But this approach underwent significant transformation in the expansive unfolding of scientific research in the last century. I refer the reader to my previous presentation of the in-depth transformations that scientific inquiry underwent in the second part of the last century and which is continuing (see “The Ontopoiesis of Life as a New Philosophical Paradigm,” Phenomenological Inquiry 22 (October 1998), pp. 12–59). Here I will directly approach the transformation in appreciation of the “scientific subject” that we owe in particular to Alexandre Koyré, Alexandre Kojève, and the physicist Niels Bohr. To begin with, whether it be natural, naive observation of the skies, of nature around us, or sophisticated instrumental scanning of space, the observed is viewed in correlation with the physical position of and climatic conditions around the observer. There is besides his/her individual endowment or “powers of observation.” And the horizon of observation shifts according to the distance we assume, advancing or receding from our objective. Whether it be by our naked senses or through instrumentally augmented capacities, that is, whether the viewer uses our natural organs directly or intermediary technical devices, it remains, first of all, the case that the horizons of the object of scrutiny change, which specifies and completes the view in which it appears. And these horizons seem to be infinite in extent. And secondly, the results of observation depend on the “powers” of the observer, not only on his/her natural endowment (keenness of sensory, experiential organs, etc.), but also on the qualities of technical devices, with how the setting up, regulating, etc. of the instrument correlates with, first of all, the actual receptive capacities of the agent. In short, both natural capacities and the most developed technical tools ultimately depend on the powers and circumstances of the living conscious observer, who, in the second instance, not only obtains the measured yield of the mechanical “intermediary” but has also to estimate and appreciate them according to his/her individual powers. As pointed out, the horizons of experience are movable and infinitely extendable, depending on viewpoint, situation in space and time, and on the powers of the experiencing subject, his/her reception and appreciation. In brief, the observer is the conscious mind of a living individual. Further, his/her powers strictly depend on (are correlative to) the entire network of the experienced object, which correlation spreads through the entire sphere of experience – of cognition. Secondly, the great question arises, “Wherefrom comes this so intimate junction of experience with its object if not from the networks of constitutive reality?” Reality, which is constitutive as such, is to be correlatively cognized. Anticipating our later argument, let us declare here that between the powers of the experiencing mind and the accessible constitutive system there lies an entire constructive system of nature, earth, and universe within which this operative complex of beingness, life/soul, and consciousness/mind unfolds. That is to say that, ultimately, we have to answer this great puzzle by surmising that cognition, experiencing, soul and mind have a hidden key to their very existence in the architecture of the universe. It is, in fact, owing to an essential transformation of science (together with contemporary sociocultural changes) that we are witnessing such an enrichment of our experiential, intellectual, and spiritual resources in our time, such an expansion

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of the horizons of our spirit, that I descry in it all nothing less than a New Enlightenment, one that the phenomenology of life and its ontopoiesis, heralds. Vast extensions of our experiential reach are opening our vision. But the promise of future human experience in all its spheres, whether naturally or scientifically approached, lies in the Archimedean point of the human creative subject within the entire system of our existential coordinates. As the cognizing subject stretches through the system of its linkages, coordinates, it corresponds adequately to the system of the object it is coordinated with. The key question is that of how to find what constitutes one’s most intimate correlation with the object focused upon – what is the groundwork of their “congeniality”? In other terms, what is the groundwork of subject-object correlation, which is to ask, “What is the basic existential condition of cognition?” In brief, science with the modification of the observer’s experience and the processing of the yield of observation is going back to the basic processes and networks of human cognition so that we might get to the crux of this enigmatic correlation between the subject and object, between the life of the human mind and the ultimate cosmic horizon.

COSMIC-TRANSCENDENTAL COGNITION AND C O N S C I O U S N E S S W I T H I N T H E U N I V E R S A L NETWORK AND THE ALL The great question raised by modernity was formulated by Kant, and by Husserl after him, as the question of the possibility of knowledge/cognition. Both of these thinkers attribute the power to structure the import of empiria, of experience, to a specifically human consciousness that is understood as being “transcendental” and to exercise a dominion over the world of life that it establishes. And yet if we do not limit our cognition to the realm of the manifested world of life – the structured realm of the human mind – but consider also the vaster and more inclusive region of life enveloping it, we have to ask, “To what may we ultimately refer the possibility of cognition/constitution of reality?” Then, we would further ask, “What bounds of the transcendentally projected dimensions – planes or extensions – of the gradated evidences of the cognitive horizons may we consider to be accessible to experience, what limits may we reach beyond, and in virtue of what factors?” Here we have to put on trial the great answer given to these questions by Kant and Husserl in their focusing on the transcendental role of human consciousness. We will treat these questions anew upon the ground of our phenomenology/ontopoiesis of life. However, what we should consider first is that ultimately – and within the perspective of our first phenomenology of the ontopoiesis of life – we have to unravel the “positioning” of the living being in its existential functions, in which come together all the forces, linkages of its generation and becoming in articulations with its circumambient conditions, all of which together make up the great network of life. That is to say, we have to discover the subject’s positioning in life’s appropriately


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focusing forces, as well as its participating in their outlay, within the circumambient conditions – which extend to geo-cosmic, spiritual, and sacral horizons. To be the centralizing logos that is an individual is to express this positioning of life’s functional existence along the byways of becoming. After we have perused in fragments the ontopoietic conditioning of the universe by the logos of life in its intrinsic projection of life so as to glimpse the vision of the All, we have first to further pursue the question of the “positioning” of the selfindividualizing beingness within the conundrum of the logos of life – the arteries of the All – and then to pursue the existential roles of the innermost powers, forces, and dynamic evolutionary perspectives that our individualizing resources contain in a virtual state, ready to be actualized. We will proceed on the territory of the survival-oriented as well as creative metamorphoses worked by the logos of life. Yet, before we enter into this further exfoliation that will in turn reveal the root of the logos in its creative imaginative metamorphosis, something we have already provisorily sketched, we will raise some essential questions concerning our already outlined inquiry. First of all, we will turn to the “positioning” of the living agent within the unityof-everything-there-is-alive and within the orbit of life. We have to ponder our human cognitive situation, for it plays an essential role, one in which it has to ascertain itself existentially, to orient itself within the current of life with its logocentric compass. That means appreciating the laws, the generative rules, the logoic network of life, which allows us to posit that the self-individualizing beingness is its own “center” standing in the “light” as well as within the circumambient horizons retrieved from the “darkness.” To handle these questions we will return to the classic inquiry into the transcendental situation of conscious beingness so forcefully maintained by Kant and Husserl. We see that although we may consider the horizons of experience to be transcendental, those horizons are also to be seen in a special existential sense that contrasts with the understanding of the philosophers. We emphatically will still see the crucial role of transcendental horizons, but “transcendentality” and its operation now emerge in a different setting and with respect to further existential conditions in our full experience and vision of life, which goes beyond human intentional consciousness. Secondly, and in relation to this first inquiry, we have to peer into the innermost resources of this individualizing beingness, which in their virtual state may grow, unfold along with the constructive evolving of the individualizing self and which may throw into relief higher experiential/evidential horizons that correspond to the innermost congenital yearnings of the sentient soul. To distinguish these experiential evidences I will use a traditional term, “transcendentalia,” and will speak more particularly of existential transcendentalia. These carry evidential forces of the soul that correspond experientially to the expansions of the transcendental horizons of existential beingness, which they now maintain. While we clear the ground, we will aim at an outline of the generative existential positioning of our key notion of selfindividualization within the unity-of-everything-there-is-alive, one encompassing the existential orbit of the logos.

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T H E P O S I T I O N I N G O F T H E S E L F -I N D I V I D U A L I Z I N G BEINGNESS WITHIN THE PURVIEW OF COGNITION V I S -À-V I S T H E G E N E R A T I V E C O N S T R U C T I O N OF BECOMING For Kant and Husserl, philosophy’s basic question is that of the possibility of knowledge, a question that concerns the ultimate condition of the subject-object correlation upon which they see knowledge relying, which question goes further, therefore, to the origins of constitutive subjectivity in the world. In their terms, put into question is the ultimate transcendental origin that constitutes subjectivity. Ours, in contrast, is a primordial concern with the transcendental existential horizons that open up to subjectivity, as well as with the surging forth and range of the existential transcendentalia, that is, of the virtual resources accompanying evolving beingness in its growth and available in its experiential spheres. This positioning of the living agent as the central agency of processing life follows first from its receiving (passio) and responding (actio). Going back to Husserl and his predecessor Kant, we may agree that their conception of the transcendental possibility of knowledge/cognition relies on the basic principle of the correlation between the subject performing cognition and constituting reality, thus presenting and manifesting it, and the object on which the act of cognition-constitution is focused and the content of which that act aims to grasp. In other words, there cannot be an act of cognition without an object at which it is directed, as there cannot be a subject without its having an aim, a focal point, an object it holds in view. This is the subject-object correlation, which is codeterminant. This is the case for all possible functions of cognition: from ongoing empirical experience through all the levels of the genesis of consciousness up to the highest functioning of the creative mind and of judgment. The experiential genesis advances while offering the basis for a twofold perspective: first, constitution (construction) of the existential progress, and second, the objectification of a stepwise advancing constitution of content – with the logos being distilled stepwise in fragments and then synthesized, that is, advancing in a manifestation of reality, with cognition of it by the subject then occurring in a presentified objective form. The second perspective – that of existential constitution – makes the steps of the logoic functional constructive advance, while the first perspective takes note them as a synthesizing constructive logos evident in the completion of their sense, manifesting it as “real.” One perspectival side seemingly differentiates the other, therefore, completing it in life’s functioning; simultaneously the other side is enlarged in the manifestation of its progress. The experiential side of the logoic performance – the subjective side – makes the cognitive objective side expand by manifesting reality in its objective panorama, and vice versa. THE CROSSING The crossing from the performing attention of the subject to the figurative coalescence of the experiential objectifying of elements into a sui generis


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universalized “object” freed from subjective ties is of special significance. The question of the figurative reference of this moment is decisive. Does the figurative complex of a distinctive object as seen by Kant and Husserl depend on its ordination by the self-regulative mind and its assumed a priori categorial forms – that is, on “pure” consciousness independent of empiria and distinctly belonging to the conscious apparatus of constitution? Does this ordination hang upon the supremacy of the constitutive mind, with experiential material being directly subsumed under the intellect, even as it brings experiential cognition toward the presentation and manifestation of reality, of the common world? Does it directly subsume experiential material under the unconditioned mind or does it accompany the functional life of the genesis unfolding in the empirical material? All these questions indicate a passage from the modality of logoic constructivism to another modality. Kant with his formalism and even Husserl in his differentiation of genetic constitutive synthesis overlook constitution’s complete run. They have indeed overlooked two essential points. To begin with, we can say on the basis of ontopoietic analysis that the work of this synthesis is not an ordination of the genetic process by a supreme intellective mind applying its categorical models and principles (the noetic-noematic laws constituting eidoi, the categories, etc.) – which means in Kant the a priori status of pure reason and for Husserl the operations of pure consciousness. Second, as seen in our previous inquiries, the genetic process of originary becoming decisive for the form of this synthesis stands in contrast to formal transcendental constitution. The modalities of the synthesis are, in fact, the consequential outcome of the logos of life’s ontopoietic genesis. T H E O R I G I N A T I O N S : C O N S C I O U S N E S S -L I F E First of all, for Husserl, the “awakening” of consciousness is the move that constitutes its first achievement. For me the starting point is the outburst of the logos of life with its propensities and resources, which are manifest in life’s virtual design. Already at this point, our perspectives are at a remove from each other. In the ontopoietic perspective, life and consciousness are interchangeable. We may consider the incipient moment of self-individualizing life as consisting in the bursting forth of the “spark of life,” as the entrance into play of the logos, pregnant with its resources, endowments; here is a project of spontaneous unfolding that acts as an incipient carrier providing a sentient vehicle for a logoic outline. This spontaneous unfolding of logoic potential is, as I have numerous times emphasized, the existential manifestation of the logos of life. In it there conversely runs an outward/inward oriented press of gradated, progressively sentient/affective/fusingdiffusing, constructive genesis, which unfolds step by step with the constructive concretization of the logoic sequence while unfolding the genetic line of living beingness within this seemingly two-force line of the inward constitution of the living center. This living center, the living agent – the subject of reception from the “outside” while acting from the “inside” – designs an objective circumference of existential conditions. This subject-object differentiation intensifies with the unfolding and growth of the living being in a linea existentiae, while the

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existential steppingstones are laid down for the emerging progress of a conscious center of actio-passio – of experience – into a self-consciousness within which the logos brings together the conscious elements in a specific synthesis that ties a knot giving the acting agent the character of a center amid outwardly oriented involvements. Focusing on its progressively advancing objective environment, this center aims at the sense, the logos of the objective content of this experience-inprogress. This is a special device of the logos for conducting the origination and growth of the living agent from within in order to maintain the continuity of the objectified process aiming at its universalized objective manifestation. This center is the specific cognitive face of the process in which the objective content of the logos is formed.

THE TWINNED PHASES OF THE ORIGINARY CONSTRUCTION OF LIFE IN ITS LOGOS AND THE COGNITIVE LOGOS UNIVERSALIZED AS THE INTENTIONAL OBJECTIVE DOMAIN OF THE MIND It is at the point at which the processes of experience advance along the steps of the logos, following its constructive devices from one step to the next, timing their deployment according to its constructive completion, that these processes reach the point of tying the knot in a synthesizing objectifying act of the logos. This is, indeed, a kairic achievement of the logos. In this moment we find the accomplishment of the logos’ experiential route. This achieving of the constitution of focal objective content lies at the brink between the natural endeavors of the logos’ ontopoietic thread as it ties itself onward from step to step while processing experiential data, on the one side, and the kairic move of the already creative logos of the mind bringing about a novum in an objectified form, a universally objective logos detached from the subjective process of performance, on the other side. And yet this “novelty” in its autonomous complexity does not emerge independent and unconditioned, setting itself apart from nature as a separate autonomous self or self-reposing entity; it is, rather, a form of the living agent, with its decisive performance completing its present route of life and drawing on all its existential ties. It is through the radiating circuits of the agent’s life route that this object reaches in its complexity its universalized grasp.

THE TURNING OVER OF SUPREMACY FROM MIND TO LIFE It is actually in the first “phase” – that of the pragmatic involvement of attention carried by the sentience of the logos of life as we fixate on functional tasks at hand – that the experiential genesis carrying the functional ontopoietic course of experience proceeds; it is aimed primarily at achieving its existential ontopoietic functional constructivity. It is, however, a significantly polyvalent logos that is involved in the subsequent constitutive cognitive phase. This constitution aims at the progressively


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figurative-“objectified” form of the ontopoietic existential construct thus being constituted. This objectified content of the experiential genesis belongs essentially to the existential course of the ontopoietic undertaking, which plays a vital functional role. In rectifying our view on the genetic conditions of experience, we have to recognize that although the cognitive logoic perspective is indispensible, it does not preside over the construction/constitution of reality. Further, cognitive attention and cognitive figurative principles, models, rules are not ordained by an instancing distinct from nature, separate from empirical experience. The cognitive/conscious constitution of objectivity is convertible with the natural functional root of existential generation. In fact, these movements are inseparable, even if in abstraction they are distinct. That is to say, the distinctive figurative functions of consciousness – of the intellective creative mind – themselves stand under the ordination of ontopoietic empirical experience and its ontopoietic constructive logos, they being directed by a nucleus of sense embedded within its logoic network. It is there, then, that lies the field of a horizon that opens and spreads through the correlated evidences of the subject as they expand and intensify. The ontopoietically growing subject contains, indeed, resources for further evidences growing with its unfolding. These evidences extend the horizons of experience, force, and intuition, what I have called before “existential transcendentalia,” to which we will return shortly. To synthesize: (i) Beginning with originary generic experience, we reach through the subjectobject correlated schema a process-like thread of objectifying reality that expands as new horizons are opened with each type of act. (ii) Although the performance of the subject, in virtue of which and with the resources of which the subject is actualized, is involved in and involves further (virtually) the context of all its vital, functional engagements – its kinesthetic and wider contexts of experience, particularly those involving a rapport with other beings – nevertheless this process is oriented simultaneously toward recording and objectifying its logoic content. (iii) The line of the logos guiding the subject binds or releases according to the proximity of the aim, of the objectified intellective presencing of that aim. It is upon the point of the “maturation” of this process that all the logoic threads of experience gather into a knot, at which point the conscious apparatus actuates a further constitutive device of the logos. This is an apparatus of the logos that – in contrast to the outlook of Husserl, for whom this instance means the entrance of pure consciousness into the game – is not an independent agency of the mind unconditioned by empiria and following a presencing/objectifying intentional system whereby pure consciousness posits universalized objective contents through which the human mind brings about the spectacle of the networks of things, beings, processes, etc. that we know as reality, as the real world with its familiar rounds and its innumerable horizons. In contrast, this logoic apparatus posits itself as being existentially solidary with the vital-empirical genetic net of the logos of life.

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(iv) If we follow the ontopoietic unfolding of the experience of life – instead of shrinking its thread to cognitive achievement and leaving to the side the entire host of functions that carry it and without which that achievement would not be possible – we find, first of all, that cognitive achievement, as essential as it is for the course of the experience of life, is directed not by an autonomously devised, sui generis, constitutive schema of intentional consciousness in which the noesis-noema constitutive correlation plays the essential role, but by the architectonic-constitutive system of existence, that is, by the logoic project of life. We have thus far discussed and brought out, in classical phenomenological terms, the subject-object correlation as being the crucial point of reference by which to distinguish the generative vital logos from the cognitive logos, realizing that the latter is a sort of abstract skeleton that does not take into consideration the concrete experiential synthesis in which the concrete experiential process is clad and seeing how this centralizing skeleton, whether vitally or cognitively significant, is an abstraction. And, indeed, while the generative run of the vitally significant-empirical process consists in a centralizing absorption of experiential material within one’s own constructive and cognitive perspective, this process proceeds precisely by distilling “essential” moments and abstracting them from others. To put it in other terms, each conscious act confronting essentially distilled content withdraws from other elements that could be focused on; with this long-range attention there moves a “horizon” with hazy contours. That is to say, we agree with Husserl that each conscious act draws upon/entails material that does not come into focus in our attention. This amounts to saying that the design of the objective content that is sketched is never complete. See Edmund Husserl, Formale und Transzendentale Logik, par. 59 (Husserliana XVII, p. 96).

POSITIONAL HORIZONS AND EXISTENTIAL TRANSCENDENTALIA Our conclusion from the above is that the transcendental situation of the living being consists not in cognitive apprehension but in the vital positional situation of the living agent as the center of a band of vital attention as it pursues functional concerns – with all of its functions stemming from and oriented outwards by a “center” – a center open to receiving reactions, nourishment, etc. With this basic thrust residing within, the living agent plots its surroundings – its existential round of actio and passio – as its world. Its vistas, its psychic, intellective functioning of varying degrees of complexity all occur within the circumference of what is being focused upon, which circumference extends further our functional possibilities for actio and passio, with all being enveloped by and lying within the dim sphere of the undetermined, the agent’s horizon. We have then to recognize not only the horizons of our cognitive performances – which Husserl emphasized – but also the horizons of the whole of experience of living beingness and of all its vital functions.


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At this point the question occurs of the central position assumed to be operative in the ambit of the functional and experiential realm of living beingness. Centrality, which is differentiated in the innumerable complexes of the dynamic operations of life, is an essential characteristic of the beingness of the entire logoic schema. As the process of individualization hangs existentially upon there being posited focusing beings within the logoic network, this network organizes itself in virtue of individual centralization of basic functions.

POSITIONAL HORIZONS AND THE MAIN SPHERES OF THE EVIDENTIARY FORCES PROMPTING AND SUSTAINING THEM I have thus far emphasized the vitally significant horizons of the individualizing/generative/evolutionary phases of life. These horizons define the orbit of living beingness in the unity-of-everything-there-is-alive, differentiating into the innumerable spheres of human experience. And yet we cannot forget that they are not the “final” or “definitive” horizons of human life. On the contrary, as I have discussed in various contexts of sense, the logos of life in its intrinsic metamorphosis during the evolutionary course of the individualizing genesis of beingness unfolds numerous modalities that reach realms beyond those geared to survival and which culminate in the full-fledged unfolding of the human creative virtualities. Constantly advancing in its progress, the logos is ever strengthened and invigorated anew by existential or presentational acts from which surge new virtually present resources of force and direction. Having reached beyond the existential/evolutionary parameters of vitally significant (survival-oriented) horizons to the spheres of communal/societal life, the creative logos now throws up spiritual and, lastly, sacral horizons of experience that actually surpass the now narrow confines of the existential horizon. It is of great significance, indeed, to emphasize that perception, experience of any type of intentional performance of consciousness or mind, is never complete, but that in either its presentation or in its functional tie, in linking with the object it is aimed at, it extends beyond. The logoic context of this object, which the subject provides in its evidence, is always enveloped within a larger context, the hazy contours of which lie beyond the sphere that comes into focus in the given evidences. Nevertheless, this sphere, which extends further and further away from the focused on nucleus of the object, as its evidences wander further, remains within the radius of the subject’s “objective” constitutive system. In the ontopoietic perspective, this holds for all acts of existential functioning as well. Following Husserl, I call this context the “horizon.”

THE OVERTURNING OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL SUPREMACY OF MIND OVER LIFE At each step of the experiential genesis of the linea existentiae there progressively open numerous horizons of vitally significant experience that expand the

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vast ontopoietic realm in the numerous perspectives of its constructive functioning. The subjects of experience carry their evidences prompted by their own functioning. Pursuing the ontopoietic current backward, we dig down into experiential/preexperiential realms of the individualizing thrust and discover the geo-generic sources of life’s individualization and their intergenerative conditions. But these generative realms of the milieu of mother earth themselves lay out rules and conditions for the origination and progress of life in their intertwining, interlinking, interconditioning with cosmic laws and atmospheric and stratospheric structural coordinates. Taken together, these all constitute the enormous network of the logos of life in its dynamic strife. In brief, life in its existential spheres (as well as in its cognitive presentational realms) passes from one to another of its functional constructive phases even as it proceeds dynamically from the coordinating instrument of the logos of life, which is assumed by each living agent in its full expansion, including the highest intellective spheres of the mind. As such, life is existentially conditioned and suspended upon the cosmo-existential, geo-generic network; operating within that web, life has an ordination upon which its architectonic outline depends. Still, the sentience of the logos of life permeates its entire concrete dominion and lifts it to a unique horizon that leaves the entire orbit of the architectonics of life behind. To summarize: (i) Beneath the primordial ordination of life’s praxis in its generation and evolution and its cognitive presentational coordination, there lies the pragmatic ordination of life’s functions. However, this level of coordination at which the living subject/the living agent encounters its “objective” counterpart in the existential transaction relies on a constructive ordination that posits the agent as both a subject of actio and passio and the “object” of that ordination’s attraction, attention, objectives within the web of the unity-of-everythingthere-is-alive and ultimately within the network of the logos of life. (ii) Within the constructive outlay of the logos of life at the perceptual/experiential level, there lie individualizing generative laws that the self-individualizing sequences engaged in harnessing the flux of becoming “obey” according to their modalities. These laws coordinate their dynamic moves while dealing with the available resources, which themselves are prepared according to life’s organic/functional laws. (iii) Yet this interlinkage of the elementary preeordinations of the logos hangs upon laws and rules, that is, upon an existential architectonic that indicates, determines, circumscribes their existential positioning – the conditioning of the subject/object dynamic circuit. In short, it is the geo-cosmic system of rules, interrelations, disposition of forces that ultimately governs the specific distributions of individual beingness. The features of living individuals that we recognize as being essential to them are a genetic outcome of a constructive/constitutive progression extending back to the pragmatic levels of vital functioning, to the proto-architectonic rules positioning life within the geo-cosmic system.


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Laws of nature, the system of life, and the geo-cosmic architectural blueprint present the network of the logos of life within which the living individual may act and receive as a center of its own but one that is itself immersed in an immense dynamic network within which it is positioned as it shares, coordinates, structures at the crossroads of the primordial logoic forces, rules, and laws of the existential web wherefrom it draws its prime directions whether pragmatic (functional) or presentational (cognitive). From our brief inquiry we may state that the human mind or pure consciousness – or the living agent – is not a self-instituted independent entity. Being an integral functional processor of life, it is modeled by the logos, it having attained this level of constructivism upon the basis of the rules, the prerequisites of the logos, the furthest architectonic of life. This so powerful mind, the center of our world, is but transcendentally positioned within this dynamic network of life preordained by the forces, laws, and flow of the logos. There is no doubt that human mind/consciousness occupies a central position within our individual world and partakes as well of the world of all living beings, but in all that it is the integral fruit of this immeasurable network, it taking ordination and positioning from that network’s logos-prompted moves. The world of life that man projects around himself is indeed transcendental but not in its fundamental origins in constitutive consciousness/mind – with its specific centrality – but rather with respect to its positioning within the dynamic web of the geo-cosmic architectonics of life. It is life-transcendental. The World Phenomenology Institute, Hanover, NH, USA, e-mail: [email protected]

AT T I L A G R A N D P I E R R E

ON THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF BIOLOGY AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSAL SCIENCE

ABSTRACT

We propose to replace the present, 400 years-old scientific world picture with an updated, essentially complete model describing the architecture of the Universe. We show that three levels of reality, namely: phenomena, laws and first principles, together form the Universe. Moreover, on the basis of observable behaviour, phenomena, laws and principles can be classified into three fundamentally different branches of natural sciences: physical, biological and psychological. It is shown that the first principles have an ultimate role in the Universe, concentrating the governing potential of the Universe in a most elegant, comprehensive and fundamental manner. We define life and introduce the first principle of biology, i.e. the Bauer principle and show that it is the most fundamental of all the three first principles of the Universe. We consider the similarities and differences of our biological principle in comparison to the onto-poietic principle of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. With the help of the three first principles of natural sciences, we present arguments indicating the ultimate basis of the long awaited universal science that has a determining role for the development and perspectives of sciences, philosophy, religion, art, and the future of civilization.

INTRODUCTION. BESIDES PHYSICAL PHENOMENA AND OBJECTS, PHYSICAL LAWS AND FIRST PRINCIPLES ALSO EXIST

At the turn of the third millennium, we have a 400-year-old scientific world picture telling that the Universe is a thing to be described by physical cosmology. The universe is regarded as “the whole cosmic system of matter and energy of which the Earth is a part” (Enc. Brit., 2007, Ultimate Reference Suite, entry Universe). In this physical world picture everything is claimed to be physical, at least fundamentally, and, as the argument tells, everything consists from elementary particles and physical fields of force governed by physical laws. Yet we point out that the real practice of physics in problem solving demonstrates that the two most fundamental elements of physical reality are initial conditions (representing particular states, i.e., instantaneous slices of the observable phenomena, corresponding to the initial state) and physical laws (representing, approximately, the laws of Nature). Therefore, we can deduce an important conjecture, namely, that not only physical phenomena exist, but physical laws of Nature (which are only approximated 19 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 19–36. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_2,

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by the presently known physical laws), too. Physical laws are not merely abstract entities but really exist in the Universe (in more details see Grandpierre, 2011a). Our conjecture has a fundamental significance for the fact that all the fundamental physical laws can be derived from one, deeper law of physics: from the principle of least action (Feynman, 1994; Moore, 1996, 2004; Taylor, 2003, 2010). “The action principle turns out to be universally applicable in physics. All physical theories established since Newton may be formulated in terms of an action. The action formulation is also elegantly concise. The reader should understand that the entire physical world is described by one single action” (Zee, 1986, p. 109). The least action principle is all-encompassing and universal, representing in itself the essence of physics in the most compact and elegant manner. Therefore we call it a first principle, defined as follows: Definition of ‘first principle’: A fundamental law can be regarded as a ‘first principle’ if and only if all of the fundamental laws of the given branch of natural sciences (in physics, that of classical mechanics, hydrodynamics, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, theory of gravitation, and quantum physics, including quantum field theories and string theory) can be derived from it.

The so obtained new model of the Universe tells that the real Universe is built up from (i) phenomena, (ii) laws and, ultimately, from (iii) first principles (Grandpierre, 2011a). The fundamental consequences of this new picture are illustrated here with one example. Today it is a frequent view that the origin of the idea of infinity is an unsolvable enigma, since infinity cannot arise from a finite brain. Our model offers a natural explanation: our brain consists not only from a finite number of finite atoms, but also from laws and principles of Nature. Since the laws and first principles of Nature are unconstrained regarding their domain of application, therefore our brain consists not only from finite atoms but also from infinite laws and principles. Now since the brain works by those laws and principles, it has a natural source of infinity. In this way, the origin of the idea of infinity can be explained. Our Universe does not exhaust in physical phenomena. Instead, our Universe consists basically from phenomena, laws and principles. This result is so important that it demands a fundamental revision of the present scientific world picture, and offers new perspectives to build up an exact, quantitative theoretical biology and psychology. This means that, besides the promising new perspectives, there are some apparently embarrassing difficulties, presenting some conflicts between our present-day scientific world picture and the least action principle.

THREE DIFFICULTIES WITH THE LEAST ACTION PRINCIPLE

The first difficulty is that the least action principle is teleological, in a standard meaning of the word. Teleology is defined in the Encyclopedia Britannica (1998, entry: teleology) as “explanation by reference to some purpose or end”. Therefore, the least action principle is teleological, because it establishes a direct connection between an end state (to be reached at the final moment of the given process) and the initial state. In physics the end state is not selected by the physical object; instead, it is given by the situation on the basis of the physical laws. It belongs to the very

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nature of the least action principle that it refers to an end state. Regarding this basic fact, it can be regarded as surprising that most physicists think that teleology is alien in physics. Certainly, this type of physical teleology is different from teleology that is characteristically present in biology. In biology, teleology is characterized by action in which the end state corresponds to biological needs or ends, and the living organism can contribute to the determination of its endpoints. The biological endpoints are not determined by the physical, least action principle, but by biological needs corresponding to the biological principle. Definition of the biological principle. The biological principle tells that biological processes are driven by the principle of greatest happiness. Happiness is measurable unequivocally. The empirical tests falsify all the theoretical dejections against the greatest action principle (Veenhoven, 2007; Grandpierre et al., 2011d). Happiness is not a momentary term, but has a long timescale, and, ultimately, refers to the life-long timescale. Definitely, the greatest happiness can be achieved through maintaining the largest distance from the thermodynamic equilibrium (death). Therefore, the physical aspect of the biological principle is the principle of greatest action, expressing the physical aspect of biological behavior, which means, somewhat simplifying, to maintain as much biologically useful energy above the level of equilibrium as long as possible. We will clarify this important issue later on (section “The Biological Principle as the Ontological Basis of the Universe”). At present, the important thing for us is that a living organism can participate in determining its endpoints, and such biological endpoints are characteristically different from the endpoint corresponding to a similar physical object or to the dead state of the same living organism. Certainly, biological teleology is very different from the third type of teleology, namely, human teleology, which can include a characteristically higher degree of autonomy, and a carefully planned intent or purpose. The second difficulty is that the physical meaning of action is unknown. “It is a truism that the physical meaning of each symbol contained in any principles of physics has to be specified before the theory can be applied in practice” (Yourgrau and Mandelstam, 1955, p. 139). The fact that the physical meaning of action is unknown presents a second inconsistency. Indeed, the same authors Yourgrau and Mandelstam also acknowledge – on their next page! – that The action function is rather an invaluable mathematical aid than a means of interpretation (ibid., p. 140). The third difficulty is that the actual meaning of physical action has fundamental biological meaning. “The computation of the action is similar to that done by an accountant determining the total profit of a business for any given production strategy. The businessman naturally tries to maximize the total profit by following the most advantageous history” (Zee, 1986, p. 107). Actually, the most fundamental meaning of the action principle is that the action is a cost function (Rosen, 1967, pp. 4, 155). Indeed, the action is the sum (more precisely, the integral) of the product of the time investment and the energy investment, or the product of the energy investment of all consecutive elementary time intervals in the process, summed up from the initial state until the end state. Such a cost function is plausible in biology

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(Lengauer, 2000) since for a living organism energy expenditure and time investment are both valuable, and in reality their product is what should be engineered to be optimal. But the presence of a cost function as a central governing factor of the behavior of physical objects, when regarded as completely independent from living organisms and humans, is very unexpected and moreover alien to present-day physics, indeed. These three difficulties are the more significant since they occur at the very core of physics, in its first principle. It is even more remarkable that all these three difficulties correspond to biology. THREE ARGUMENTS INDICATING THAT THE REALM OF BIOLOGY LIES BEYOND PHYSICS

We now present three arguments indicating that the realm of biology lies beyond the basis of physics. As a first of these related arguments, we mention that the Universe is the par excellence interdisciplinary and creative entity, continually creating novelties, not only in the physical domain, but in an all-comprehensive, trans-disciplinary way. The example of the protosolar nebula shows that the initial state of the contracting nebula led to the development of the Solar System, in which Homo Sapiens is present on the Earth, developed science and philosophy in questioning the nature of the Universe. This basic fact shows that physics and biology are intimately interwoven, and in actual reality they represent two aspects of the same cosmic reality. As a second such argument, we note that in the history of philosophy, it has been recognized that Natura Naturans (i.e. creative Nature) precedes Natura Naturata (created Nature) (e.g. Aristotle, 350 BC; Augustine, 410; Aquinas, 1265–1274; Spinoza, 1677; More, 1679, p. 222). Similarly, Tymieniecka (1999, p. 27) argued that the Archimedean point that is the ground for inquiry into all existence is the creative condition, and considers the convergence between the “physical subject” of scientific experimentation (like the central role of the observer in the “reduction” of the quantum wave function into observable states) and the creative human net and the more fundamental ontopoiesis of life. This second argument is substantiated by the von Neumann interpretation of quantum physics. “nineteenth century classical physics is now known to be fundamentally incorrect: it was replaced during the twentieth century, at the fundamental level, by quantum mechanics, which denies the basic precept of “physical determinism”, or “causal closure of the physical” . . . von Neumann’s “Process 1” (the mental process formulating the question to be answered by the quantum physical experiment) is not controlled by “quantum randomness”. It is, instead, the necessary logical predecessor to the entry of the element of quantum randomness. It specifies the otherwise-ill-defined (physically undetermined – GA) set of discrete possibilities between which the logically subsequent (physically – GA) random choice will be made. The entry of this physically undetermined but causally efficacious Process 1 into brain dynamics constitutes a failure within quantum mechanics of the classical precept of physical determinism; and a failure that is logically prior to the entry


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of quantum randomness” (Stapp, this conference). Indeed, Gregory (2004) demonstrated experimentally that cognitive phenomena violate physics-based physiology. As a third argument, we emphasize that in the practice of physics the two basic elements of reality are the initial conditions and the physical laws. Most fundamentally, in the context of the philosophy of sciences, we can claim that physics is the science working between given initial conditions that together with the physical laws define the physical problem satisfactorily. Characterizing the fundamental significance of biology we point out here that, in comparison, biology is the science which corresponds to the determination of the initial conditions within which the physical processes occur. In this way, biology can harness physics, in agreement with everyday experience. Moreover, physics is a special case of biology, valid when the systematic modifications of the initial conditions are negligible. In other words, characterizing the rate of biological modifications of the input conditions to physical laws with a parameter ε, physics arises from biology when ε converges to zero. From this last argument it is evident that biology is the science beyond physics, and physics in actual reality is based on biology (Grandpierre, 2011b).

PHYSICAL PROCESSES ARE THE SHORT-TERM, NARROW-CONTEXT ASPECTS OF BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES

Looking at reality from this vantage point, physics shows up as a necessary part of reality: its surface. Everything that is already realized is physical, corresponding to the realized aspects of Nature, Natura Naturata. Yet there is a physically not realized, yet in itself real factor beyond physics, the biological principle, corresponding to the creative aspects of Nature, Natura Naturans. Of course, Natura Naturans in itself cannot be measured, since all what we can measure is Natura Naturata, i.e. the already realized processes. It seems to be general to think that therefore Natura Naturans cannot be regarded as scientifically provable. We point out that, in contrast, Natura Naturans has fundamental aspects that are scientifically proved, and thus are in this way similar to the physical laws. Physical laws are not directly observable things, since they are immaterial; yet their existence is scientifically proven by the most careful, thorough and extensive process of verification. Similarly, we can deduce also the biological laws from the observed behavior of living organisms. All biologically initiated and realized processes can be described by physics in a short enough timescale, in a narrow context. This occurs when the modifications of the conditions within which physical laws act are negligible. Therefore, for a viewpoint committed to see only the surface of reality, it may seem that the only reality is the physical reality. In actual reality the conditions within which the physical laws act can arise from a deeper and subtler biological activity. Nowadays, the nature of this biological activity may seem to be mysterious because it lies well outside the scope of the conceptual framework of the presentday natural sciences. But it is easy to illustrate it by an example. The trajectory of a bird dropped from the Pisa Tower from point A can be described by physics in each and every millisecond, from one moment to the next one on the basis of the

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initial conditions at the beginning of the time interval. Yet the actual trajectory of the living bird, from the initial point to the endpoint, cannot be determined from the initial conditions at point A of the process, on the basis of the physical laws. The prediction of physics is that A leads to the endpoint A’, according to the least action principle – to the law of free fall. Yet the bird is constantly active in changing the position of its wings and tail, in the process modifying the initial conditions of the physical laws from one moment to the next. If the dropped bird is no longer active – i.e., no longer alive – it falls to A’, in the same way a physical object would. But because the dropped bird is active, it flies like a bird to the endpoint B. Therefore, the biologically decided and consecutively physically realized and observable process of the flight of the bird dropped from the Pisa Tower leads to a physically observable trajectory which cannot be calculated from the initial conditions plus the physical laws. The related problem is: What are the processes controlling the initial conditions? We only mention here that, within the realm of physical phenomena, spontaneous processes, fluctuations, instabilities, and quantum indeterminacy are physically not (completely) determined processes that nonetheless contribute to the physical behavior, occasionally, randomly or sporadically. Still the behavior between the initial and end states corresponds to the physical principle in that the object manifests a physical behavior. The physical laws predict that initial conditions at A lead to the trajectory that culminates at endpoint A’. If the endpoint turns out to be B instead – as in the biological case of our living bird – then the physical laws as presently constituted cannot account for this. Thus we conclude that living organisms autonomously contribute to the determination of their behavior by constantly modifying the input conditions of physical laws, by controlling the spontaneous processes and physically not completely determined other processes, and so they manifest characteristically biological behavior, corresponding to – to use analogous physical language – the principle of greatest action; or, in the biological context, to the principle of greatest happiness (see in more details below).

DEFINING LIFE AND INTRODUCING THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF BIOLOGY

The twenty-first century has been declared the century of the science of biology. We have entered to a new century of biology, in which “the new frontier is the interface, wherever it remains unexplored” and “progress is based ultimately on unification” (Kafatos and Eisner, 2004). The exact biology is already founded by Bauer (1920, 1935/1967). He demonstrated that all the fundamental phenomena of life – growth, metabolism, respiration, irritability – can be derived from his fundamental principle, which he formulated mathematically. On this basis, the Bauer-principle stands out as the prime candidate for acceptance as a first principle of biology. It is usual to think that life cannot be defined exactly and exhaustively; that is, according to the laws of physics. Yet life can be understood as the universally


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common property of all living organisms. This understanding underscores the Bauer-principle’s definition of living organisms. The Bauer-principle tells: The living and only the living systems are never in equilibrium, and, on the debit of their free energy, they continuously invest work against the realization of the equilibrium which should occur within the given outer conditions on the basis of the physical and chemical laws (Bauer, 1935/1967, pp. 19, 51). We draw one important corollary: If all the fundamental physical laws can be derived from the first principle of physics, then the least action principle characterizes all physical behavior. However, since biological behavior follows the Bauer principle, requiring a systematic self-initiated work against the realization of the process that would occur within the given initial conditions on the basis of physico-chemical laws, it is evident that biological behavior as such is different from physical behavior, and thus cannot be explained on an exclusively physical basis. Therefore, biology is an autonomous science, because it has a first principle that cannot be derived from the physical principle. At the same time, theoretical biology on the Bauerean basis is surprisingly close to theoretical physics: For the first principles of both are action principles. Bauer formulated his insights into the biological principle in elegant mathematical form (Bauer, 1935/1967, p. 53), thus making his ideas universally accessible. Recently, his principle has been re-formulated as the principle of greatest action (Grandpierre, 2007). The principle of greatest action is not simply the biological counterpart of the least action principle. It would be a misunderstanding to think that the greatest action principle acts between initial and end states in exactly the same way as the physical principle. There’s a vast difference: While the least action principle prescribes the least action trajectory, the greatest action principle would prescribe the greatest action trajectory. Actually, the greatest action principle does not act on the physical level, since it acts continuously on the input conditions of physical laws; its target is the end state; it corresponds to the selection of the biologically optimal end state. For example, while the stone dropped from the top of the Pisa tower A falls down vertically to point A’, the living bird dropped from the Pisa tower A selects the endpoint B, which corresponds to the bird’s finding a trajectory that spares it from being dashed to pieces when it hits the ground, which is what the physical laws unaided predict it will do. Only a living bird can do that. The endpoint of the bird’s trajectory, B (Grandpierre, 2007), is selected by the biological principle. Nonetheless, different directions are possible from A to B, for instance, east, west, south or north; it is the bird that selects the actual endpoint to be realized. Once the end state B is selected, then the actual trajectory of the bird can correspond to the least action principle as applied to the trajectory between A and B. The greatest action principle corresponds to the selection of the end state favoring maximum survival period and maximum height above, or distance from, the level of equilibrium or death. We point out that the relation between the least action principle and the greatest action principle is not completely symmetrical. A company that builds bridges can produce the maximum number of bridges in a given year only if the cost to

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build a particular bridge is minimized. Similarly, the principle of greatest action can be carried out only with the help of the least action principle. This example indicates that the physical principle is suited to be the ideal tool of the biological principle.

THE BIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE AS THE ONTOLOGICAL BASIS OF THE UNIVERSE

In this way, the recognition of the significance of the greatest action principle sheds new light to the ontological structure of the Universe. By our result, biology in an ontological sense “precedes” physics. In other words, instead of common expectations, it is not the case that biology is a special branch of physics. Instead, these novel fundamental arguments indicate that, in an ontological sense, physics is based on biology. Our theory suggests that the physical principle is “created”, “supervised” and “harnessed” by the biological principle. Biology acts on the input conditions of physical laws, and varies these inputs in order to achieve a biologically optimal output. At the same time, our argument also indicates that the biological principle cannot be realized in the absence of the physical principle. Our results shed light on new perspectives for the development of biology. For example, it is possible to work out in detail an exact theoretical biology, similarly exact and mature as physics. It is possible to obtain general equations for the energy transfer processes of biology, as well as general equations (Grandpierre, 2007) corresponding to spontaneous targeting (Grandpierre, 1997) or biological homing (Meggs, 1998). Regarding the paramount importance of our corollary that the biological principle precedes the physical one, we can realize that biological processes ultimately can precede and determine virtual quantum processes occurring in the vacuum. Therefore, biological processes represent a level of reality beyond quantum physics. Beyond the level of quanta we find: the biological principle at work. The next step after quantum physics will be biology.

HOW CAN BIOLOGY ACT BEYOND PHYSICS?

By our theory (Grandpierre, 2008b, 2011b) the initial conditions are modified first by virtual interactions governed by the biological principle. The jump between the nonmaterial biological principle and its physical effects is through spontaneous processes and the vacuum’s virtual interactions. These virtual interactions, within suitable conditions, can generate biological couplings between different possible physical processes. As a result of these subtle virtual interactions and coupling processes, physically spontaneous processes arise; for instance, spontaneous emission, absorption, spontaneous energy transfer; and, due to the freshly generated biological couplings between energy-liberating exergonic and energy-requiring endergonic processes, active transport processes set up, such as the recharging of electric- and concentration-gradients, etc. These biological couplings between


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endergonic and exergonic processes generate biocurrents from virtual interactions, and these bioelectric phenomena can elicit, e.g., muscle responsivity, which leads to modifications of the physical conditions of the bird dropped from the Pisa Tower.

A SHORT NOTE ON CONSCIOUSNESS, SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE

The recognition of the greatest action principle can also shed light on the nature of consciousness and self-consciousness. Consciousness can be conceived as the practical aspect of sensible life. The idea that consciousness corresponds to the material aspect of sensible life has already appeared in the work of Clifford (1886, p. 274). In contrast, self-consciousness appears to be of a different order, as a highly developed aspect of consciousness that can deliberately control an aspect of behavior. Now let us propose a few thoughts regarding the nature of the psychological principle. First of all, a short note may be necessary to distinguish natural psychological behavior and putatively unnatural ones. The former is meant as interpreting the principle of greatest happiness in a concrete situation, selecting its context, its communal sphere or domain of application and the corresponding time-scales. The fundamental communal spheres of the actions of the self include the sphere of our cells, of our individual organism, of our family, nation, of mankind, of the terrestrial biosphere, of the cosmic biosphere (Grandpierre, 2004, 2011c). This means that natural psychological behavior is that which selects contexts that correspond to the principle of greatest happiness for all these scales and communal spheres: cell, individual, family, nation, race, biosphere, and the cosmic communion of all living beings. In contrast, unnatural psychological behavior is that which acts adversely against the biological interests, against the “greatest happiness,” of one or more of these communal spheres. Definition of the psychological principle. The psychological principle tells the self-conscious beings to select and interpret the context of applying the biological principle, weighing the corresponding viewpoints and time-scales. Definition of the fundamental communal contexts of the psychological principle. The fundamental communal spheres of the psychological principle are the sphere of our cells, the individual, the family, the nation, the biological race (mankind), the biosphere, and, last but not least, the cosmic kingdom of all livings. We found that the basic task of the psychological principle is to interpret the biological principle in the given situation; to select the social context of action (individual, communal, racial, biospheric, or cosmic); and then to select the suitable time scale that optimizes the corresponding processes (Grandpierre, 2004, 2011c). Moreover, the principle of greatest action is only the physical aspect of the biological principle, since the first principle of biology acts first of all on biological properties and not merely on physical properties like energy and time. Indeed, the principle of greatest action is expressed in the language of physics – that is, in terms

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of energy, time and their integrated quantity, which is action. In the actual life of a living organism, the biological principle is richer than this, and applies to the most fundamental biological property, which is happiness. Happiness is ultimate, because it stands on its own basis. We seek happiness for its own sake; the quest of money, power, success, etc., is derivative, not primary; for all such things are sought for the sake of happiness. Therefore, happiness is something like the substances we find mentioned in Aristotle, and like God as the theologians understand him: It stands on its own foot, in se, self-validating and self-containing; it contains its own final cause which is its own fulfillment. This means that in biological terms the greatest action principle is the principle of greatest happiness. The principle of greatest happiness is the first principle of biology, which we call the biological principle. Its physical aspect will be referred to as the principle of greatest action.

SOME CONSEQUENCES OF OUR NEW SCIENTIFIC WORLD PICTURE FOR PHILOSOPHY

Interestingly, our picture offers a scientific basis to the claim of More, who speaks of a spirit of Nature as an incorporeal substance that is the source of life and the physical laws of motion (More, 1679, p. 222). Indeed, we found that the biological principle has an immaterial, principal nature, and it is the source of life. Moreover, we found that the physical principle is the source of the physical laws of motion. Regarding a consequence of our new world picture for philosophy, we note that on this basis philosophy can be re-united with the natural sciences; and so, natural philosophy becomes possible on a scientific basis. Husserl considered that the main problem of philosophy is that it is not scientific, and regarded the reassessment and reestablishment of philosophy on more scientific grounds as his main task. Our result offers an unexpectedly elegant and rigorous example of the fruitfulness of such a procedure: The first principles represent the most general aspects of physical, biological and psychological existence. Another consequence of our new world picture which affects philosophy corresponds to a fundamental integration of metaphysics. In the Encylopedia Britannica (“Metaphysics” entry, 2007), four views on the nature of metaphysics are outlined. Metaphysics is: (1) an inquiry into what exists, or what really exists; (2) the science of reality, as opposed to appearance; (3) the study of the world as a whole; (4) a theory of first principles. We note that our new model of the Universe offers scientific answers unifying all these different approaches of metaphysics. Our approach tells that what really exist are phenomena, laws and principles, and there are three fundamental types of them, physical, biological and psychological, putting (1) into a scientific context. The science of first principles, laws and phenomena is itself the science of reality, offering a strict scientific interpretation for (2). Phenomena, laws and first principles together are suitable tools for the study of the world as a whole, corresponding to (3). Moreover, our approach is the theory of first principles, offering to (4) a more precise, scientific basis. In this way, our substantially complete approach to the Universe has a fundamental significance, elevating metaphysics to a


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strict scientific basis, thereby offering unforeseen, wide perspectives of potentially enormous value to the development of natural sciences. Let us now consider how our approach can shed new light on one of the, most realistic version of philosophy, the Husserlian phenomenology. Our model tells us that the Universe does not consist only from perceptual phenomena, but also from laws and principles. On that basis, we have to rephrase Husserl’s famous phrase “back to the things themselves” into “back to the phenomena, laws of Nature and, ultimately, to the first principles themselves”. The evolution of philosophy also points to the central significance of the biological principle in our scientific world picture. In the twentieth century, one of the most significant schools of philosophy was the Husserlian phenomenology. Husserl seriously hoped to supersede all the limitations of the contemporary philosophical schools and to attain the goal of a rigorous scientific philosophy by means of phenomenology. Today a leading exponent of Husserlian phenomenology, AnnaTeresa Tymieniecka, has worked out the idea that the central element of philosophy is the phenomenology of life based on the Logos of Life, on the ontopoietic principle interconnecting self-individualization and the working of Nature (Tymieniecka, 2000). The logos of life is “the first and last ontopoietic fact of beingness at large”, “life’s prompting force and the shaper of its course” (Tymieniecka, 2009, p. xix), the "prompting force (that) carries becoming onward” (ibid., p. xx). We point out that, apparently, there is a significant overlapping between the concepts of the logos of life and the biological principle. Indeed, since biology is the ultimate foundation of physics, generating the initial conditions within which physical laws act, as well as the final cause of living beings and the Universe, therefore the biological principle can be regarded as the first and last ontological fact. Actually, it is the biological principle that organizes the virtual interactions, the spontaneous processes and the biological couplings (Grandpierre, 2007, 2008a, b). Therefore the biological principle is “life’s prompting force and shaper of its course”. The biological principle acts without being a physical force, since it acts by virtual interactions organizing micro-and macroscopic spontaneous processes, such that biological couplings seem to happen “by themselves”; i.e., their occurrences do not require the imposition of physical forces, and elude all explanation as the result of physical forces. Acting through virtual interactions is not an unusual thing for a first principle, since the first principle of physics acts also through virtual interactions. At present, the best interpretation of the least action principle is Feynman’s, who worked out the idea that the action of the least action principle on matter can be conceived of as virtual interaction. In the double-slit experiment, before the quanta start on their course, they map the whole experimental situation by virtual interactions, and select their path by summing up all the quantum probabilities of each possible trajectory. Feynman’s path integral approach indicates that quanta explore all possible paths between the initial and end states by virtual interactions (Feynman, 1942; Taylor, 2003; Moore, 2004), and the resulting path is the integrated sum of all these paths. Similarly, the biological principle also acts by virtual interactions; yet in biology the quantum probabilities are weighted on the basis of biological needs. In this way, it is the biological principle that determines the timing

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and localization of biological processes, carrying out the “penultimate coordination” and the “spontaneous unfolding plan” (ibid., p. 67) of biological phenomena.

ON THE ANIMATING NATURE OF LAWS AND FIRST PRINCIPLES

It is important to point out that all laws and principles of Nature have the strange ability to initiate processes. Physical laws are able to initiate physical processes in a given situation. Physical objects do not contribute to the determination of their behavior, because it is determined by physical conditions and physical laws. We call physical objects “inanimate”, yet, in a restricted sense, it is possible to regard them as “animated”, since their actions are due to the laws of physics, and their behavior is initiated and governed by the physical laws. Initiating and activating processes reach a characteristically higher eminence and autonomy in biology. Now regarding our corollary that the first principle of physics arises from the biological principle, the animating capability of the physical laws rests on a natural basis. The biological principle represents in itself animation; and since the physical principle is derivable from it (by omitting the ability to select endpoints different from the physical one), therefore even the physical principle can be regarded as an animating principle. Thus we find the first principles are in this respect similar to the instincts of living organisms. In the depths of our inner world natural principles are in action. We can experience these natural powers through our inner perception. All processes, unconscious or conscious, occur due to these internal cosmic powers. These physical, biological and psychological principles animate the bodies of living organisms. These are the first principles that initiate the motions of physical, biological and psychological behavior. Actually, we do live with these natural, cosmic principles; we think and create with their assistance. This fundamental circumstance offers an explanation of the great enigma of how the human mind within is capable to understand natural processes outside. This is why the laws of our thoughts can represent the cosmic laws of physics, biology and psychology. We obtain also an explanation of the fact that really creative thinking is based on intuitions. Indeed, we intuitively perceive these natural principles continuously acting within our inner universe. Yet while we observe these natural laws and principles in our inner world in their animated, alive state as intimate, as active processes, as animating principles; in the external world we are faced rather with the external aspects of processes occurring in the outer world, observing phenomena – which are the results of the activity of the natural laws and principles – through our outer senses. Not only our internal world can be regarded as subjective, but also the external world as well, since this latter arises as external only for us, human observers having external senses, which are late products of evolution of the Cosmos. In reality, the external and the internal worlds are only two aspects of one and the same reality. The cosmic creative powers when experienced in our inner worlds do not show up as


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external, physical, biological or psychological laws, but, instead, as intimate, logical necessities, innate emotional conditions, lawful relations and instincts. Although we experience these creative, life-animating cosmic powers as natural laws and principles when they act in the – for us – outer world, and as lawful patterns of thoughts, emotions and instincts in our internal world, these represent only two fundamental aspects of one and the same cosmic creative powers. This means that in actual reality our inner worlds are animated by cosmic creative powers, since all natural laws and principles penetrate the whole of the Universe. Definitely, the conditions within our internal world are plastic and receptive to our personal attitudes. Thus the working conditions of one and the same cosmic powers are very different when compared to behavior manifested in the laboratories. In our inner world, most of the input conditions of the physical laws are accessible to our conscious or self-conscious interventions. The animating, internal cosmic powers, which we can experience by inner perception, manifest behavior from the depths of our inner world that is frequently different from the behavior manifested within laboratory conditions. Let us now approach the nature of first principles from another angle. How does the wind know how to blow? How does a dropped stone know that it must fall in a straight vertical line to the ground? In a certain sense, we know the answer: because they obey the physical laws. Since all the fundamental laws of physics can be derived from the least action principle, therefore, ultimately all physical objects behave in accordance to the least action principle. The question is: how are the physical objects able to behave in accordance with the physical principle? One answer is offered by the regularity theories (Swartz, 2001, 2009); another is that physical phenomena are governed by the physical laws (Roberts, 2008, p. 23). Here we would like to recall that physical phenomena and physical laws are both existing entities and they cannot exist separately from each other. Indeed, in reality, both of them are only aspects of Nature. It belongs to the nature of stones to know how to fall, and of winds to know how to blow. We can answer our question, when conceiving that natural objects as consisting from phenomena, laws and first principles. If so, then our answer to the question above is: The wind knows how to blow, because wind consists not only from atoms and molecules, but also from laws of Nature telling it how to behave in its phenomenal aspects. Not only phenomena, laws and principles form an organic unit, but also the physical, biological and psychological aspects of behavior. How can we conceive this unity? Approaching this unity within the conceptual framework of physics, we found that while physics corresponds to fixed initial conditions plus physical laws, biology corresponds to a more general case, the case of variable initial and boundary conditions. We suggest that biology is the control theory of physics. We can approach the unity of physics, biology and psychology also from the other end of this spectrum, from psychology. Conceiving humans as the most autonomous beings, we can regard that humans have the most flexible, less developed instincts; the more developed intellect coexists with less developed instincts. On that basis, one can regard animals as having stronger and more rigid instincts than humans, and plants still stronger and more rigid instincts than animals. In the spectrum,

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descending from humans to plants, corresponding to the spectrum extending from psychology to biology, we find more and more inclusive and more and more rigid instincts. It is only one step more to reach physical objects. Making this step, it is plausible to allow that physical objects have still more rigid and coercive instincts than plants. Once we regard the instincts of living organisms as corresponding to the biological principle, we reach a picture in which the physical principle corresponds to an even more inclusive and rigid form of instincts, one which can be regarded as “physical instinct”, i.e. the “instinct” of physical objects. In this way, we obtained independent arguments indicating a remarkably close relation between instincts of living organisms and the physical principle. These approaches offer to interpret the laws of Nature as being sensible, life-carrying, self-initiating powers. Indeed, instincts can be regarded as life-prompting, life-shaping factors, and, as such, as similar to the “logos of life” introduced by Tymieniecka (2009). Tymieniecka (1999, p. 43) calls the generating cornerstones of action and order as “ontopoietic”. This notion can be conceived in our scientific context as corresponding to the biological principle prescribing the end states of presently occurring biological processes, determining the corresponding initial and boundary conditions that are input elements to physical laws through virtual and spontaneous processes and the time sequence of the biological couplings of endergonic and exergonic biochemical processes leading to the prescribed biological state as the endpoint of the action principle (Grandpierre, 2007). In a sense, our biological principle concretizes the ontopoietic principle of Tymieniecka, prescribing the biologically optimal endpoints to the actual biophysical processes occurring in the organism. Moreover, the importance of individuation and the individual unfolding of living beingness in a linea entis frequently emphasized by Tymieniecka can correspond to the cosmic context inventing the individual for its own cosmic purposes, to realize cosmic sentience in a new, important aspect represented by the individual.

A SHORT NOTE ON THE PLACE OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSE

Actually, regarding the place of logic and non-manifest possibilities in our model, we can form the following expanded picture about the structure of the Universe. Logic represents the precondition of any actual existence. Therefore, logic represents an attitude towards realization of possibilities, i.e., towards the material manifestation of possibilities. Material manifestation can correspond to physical, biological or psychological phenomena. Yet we saw that beyond phenomena, the level of laws and principles is found. In this picture of possibilities and logic, we can say that laws and principles exist within the realm of possibilities. The realm of possibilities, together with logical conditions and manifested phenomena, forms a unified whole. This unified whole must be alive in order to be able to be active, self-governed and changeable. Therefore, at the most ultimate basis beyond logic (when conceived as the condition of all manifested reality) we find the possibilities


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representing the ultimate reality of the life principle. We can see that life and cosmic logic are intimately intertwined. Moreover, Endre K. Grandpierre has pointed out (Grandpierre, 2000) that the Universe is a gigantic thread of physical, biological and psychological interactions, including all known and yet unknown kinds of interactions. He also demonstrated that these cosmic interactions represent actual perceptive interactivity, and so a kind of cosmic sentience. All these results may be conceived as consistent with Tymieniecka’s result that the quintessential core of life is logoic sentience.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SCIENTIFIC WORLD PICTURE FOR THE FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION

Not only the evolution of the natural sciences, but also of the social sciences indicates the significance of biology and its first principles. The increasing rate of alienation, the problem of climatic change, and the threats to civilization all urge the formation of a world picture in which, instead of inanimate matter, life is in the very center (see e.g. Korten, 1999; Grandpierre, 2003a, b). Indeed, Korten (1999, pp. 13, 274) suggested that the problems of mankind can be solved only on the basis of a new world picture of the living Universe. What we are proposing here is a new shift in our scientific world picture, one that complements the present physicalistic world picture by an essentially complete, biofriendly one, to serve as the basis of a universal science that integrates physics, biology and psychology in an elegant and exact manner, on the basis of first principles. Perhaps surprisingly, this integrated natural science proves to be the universal science that has fundamental applications for the human sciences, including sociology as well. The proposed shift of our scientific world picture can have an enormous effect for future human societies. The significance of the previous shift in our world picture can be illustrated by the following thoughts: “Those men who created the upheaval which we now call the ‘Scientific Revolution’ called it by a quite different name: the “New Philosophy”. The revolution in technology which their discoveries triggered off was an unexpected by-product; their aim was not the conquest of Nature, but the understanding of Nature. Yet their cosmic quest destroyed the mediaeval vision of an immutable social order in a walled-in universe together with its fixed hierarchy of moral values, and transformed the European landscape, society, culture, habits and general outlook, as thoroughly as if a new species had arisen on this planet” (Koestler, 1959, p. 13). The scientific-industrial revolution of the seventeenth century transformed society and led to unprecedented technical developments. But it gave rise to an incomplete picture of the world, for it had little to say about humans and life. The physical world picture led inevitably to the rise of the consumption-centered society, which, in spite of its material wealth leads to an alienation of people. The completion of the scientific world picture with biology will lead to the unshackling of life’s genuine values, and open new vistas different than the present focus on consumption,

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vistas that open towards a more compassionate and uplifting civilization. The biological view will transform our civilization into a life-completing direction with a healthier future in which humans have a deeper relationship with the Universe. The safeguarding of the future of mankind requires a wider, more complex and deeper understanding of the Universe. We are facing a new Copernican turn; at that time the direction was not against morality; rather it uplifted morality and provided it with a valid and robust basis. Obtaining an essentially complete picture of the world, in the process founding a universal science, is a vital task of science and philosophy, because an essentially incomplete world picture, as history teaches us, leads to an unbalanced, unhealthy society. In the same way as the materialist world picture led necessarily to materialist, consuming societies, to money-centered capitalism developing material technologies, the new, biofriendly world picture will lead to life-uplifting societies developing mankind’s life-enriching, emotionally uplifting ability, developing mankind’s moral, aesthetic, social technologies, scientific and philosophical methods, increasing the width and depth of our understanding of ourselves. A healthy world picture leads to healthy societies. The world picture serves as guideline to science, to philosophy, to religion, to art; it shapes our communal life. All knowledge must serve mankind’s common good. It seems that aggression arises from the lack of knowing, appreciating and developing our best human values. Therefore, recognizing life’s central value for mankind’s future societies offers a new perspective to transform our history from “history of wars” (Machiavelli: “War and preparation for war is the normal condition of mankind”) into the history of lifebuilding societies. Biofriendly societies are natural societies building harmony with living, sensible Nature within, between and around us. The present-day mechanical societies can be replaced by natural societies, respecting natural feelings. We can learn that it is not reasonable to charge ahead for a success if, on the way to reach it, we create bad feelings. People can learn to respect feelings, and learn to avoid hurting anybody. Aggression is not based on humans’ assumed “killing instincts”, since aggression between human individuals and groups become widespread only a few thousand years ago. If mankind can find the essentially complete world picture, it will be essentially true. The present-day dominating materialistic world picture has been making an invaluable contribution to the development of sciences, yet its validity must be questioned at least in the most fundamental aspects of biology, psychology and sociology. All the essentially incomplete world pictures – when used beyond their limited domain of application, i.e., when used as actual pictures of the world as a whole – are misleading and false. It is a well-known saying that the best lie is the partial truth, because its (partial) truth lends the appearance of credibility to the part of the statement that is untrue. False world pictures lead necessarily to false societies. The birth of the first essentially true picture of the Universe, founding the universal science, indicates the possibility of a shift to a healthier society. Our perception of the world, of life, of man, of each other, of ourselves, of our cells can become more rich and complete. We can see the Sun and the stars with a more complete attention, recognizing them as our fellow beings.


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There is a direct connection between the development of modern civilization and civilization-related illnesses: physical diseases like cancer, heart-attacks etc; biological like depression, panic etc; and illnesses of reason like crimes, corruption, wars, money-cult, tension between different nations, ethnics, religions etc. An ill world picture, as we noted, leads to ill societies. In the essentially complete world picture, the cure of illnesses and harms of civilization receive new perspectives. On the scientific basis to which we shed some light here, we think that the first principle of natural societies is to respect life and the emotional integrity of individuals, groups, nations, mankind as a whole, the biosphere and the cosmic living kingdom, the Living Universe, the ancient Mother Nature. The fundamental laws of natural society are in harmony with the completion-seeking natural, human, empathic, natural and cosmic feelings. We think that music expressing natural feelings can play a much more uplifting and significant role in the natural, biofriendly societies than in the present materialist, warring and consuming society. Acknowledgment The author wishes to express his gratitude to his friend, Jean F. Drew, for continuous, decade-long inspiration, encouragement, for exchanging many exciting ideas, and lecturing the English.

Konkoly Observatory, Budapest, Hungary, e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES Aquinas,T. 1265–1274. Summa theologiae, 1-2, q. 85, a. 6. Aristotle. 350 BC. Metaphysics, Book V, Chapter 4. Augustine, 410, Epistolae 18, Sec. 2 Bauer, E. 1920. Die Grundprinzipen der rein naturwissenschaftlichen Biologie. Roux Vortrage und Aufsatze uber Entwicklungsmechanik der Organismen. Heft 26. Berlin: Springer. Bauer, E. 1935/1967. Theoretical biology(1935: in Russian; 1967: in Hungarian) Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 51. Clifford, W.K. 1886. On the nature of things-in-themselves. In Lectures and essays, 2nd ed. London: Macmillan and Co., 274 Feynman, R.P. 1942. The principle of least action in quantum mechanics. PhD thesis, Princeton University, Princeton. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, vol. 12-03, page: 0320. Feynman, R.P. 1994. The character of physical law. New York: Random House, Inc., Chapter 4, 97–100 Grandpierre, A. 1997. The physics of collective consciousness. World Futures 48: 23–56. Grandpierre, K.E. 2000. Collective fields of consciousness in the golden age. World futures. The Journal of General Evolution 55: 357–379. Grandpierre, A. 2003a, b. On the fundamental worldview of the integral culture integrating science, religion, and art. Parts 1–2. World Futures. 59: 463–483; 535–556. Grandpierre, A. 2004. Conceptual steps towards exploring the fundamental lifelike nature of the sun. Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems 2(1): 12–28, http://indecs.znanost.org/2004/ indecs2004-pp12-28.pdf Grandpierre, A. 2007. Biological extension of the action principle: Endpoint determination beyond the quantum level and the ultimate physical roots of consciousness. Neuroquantology 5(4): 346–362, http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.0601 Grandpierre, A. 2008a. Fundamental complexity measures of life. In Divine action and natural selection: Questions of science and faith in biological evolution, eds. J. Seckbach, and R. Gordon, 566–615. Singapore: World Scientific, http://www.konkoly.hu/staff/grandpierre/Complex.htm.

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Grandpierre, A. 2008b. Cosmic life forms. Published as a chapter in From Fossils to Astrobiology. eds. Joseph Seckbach and Maud Walsh. 369–385. Dordrecht: Springer, http://www.konkoly.hu/staff/ grandpierre/Cosmic.pdf Grandpierre, A. 2011a. A natural method of explanation of reality- from phenomena to first principles in two steps (to be submitted) Grandpierre, A. 2011b. The book of the living universe. (in English, to be published) Grandpierre, A. 2011c. On the first principle of psychology. (to be submitted) Grandpierre, A., Martinás, K. and Medve, N. 2011d. On the theory of human decisions. in: Complex Societal Dynamics. eds. K. Martinás, D. Matika, and A. Srbljinović, NATO Science for Peace, Series IOP, Amsterdam (in print). Gregory, R.L. 2004. Perception beyond physics? Perception 33: 895–896, Editorial. Kafatos, F.C., and T. Eisner. 2004. Unification in the century of biology. Science 303: 1257. Koestler, A. 1959. Sleepwalkers: A history of man s changing vision of the universe. London: Hutchinson, 13. Korten, D. 1999. The post-corporate world: Life after capitalism. Berrett Koehler 13: 274. Lengauer, T. 2000. Computational biology at the beginning of the post-genomic Era. In Lecture notes for computer science, ed. Reinhard Wilhelm, vol. 2000, 341–355. “Informatics: 10 Years Back – 10 Years Ahead”. Berlin: Springer. Meggs, W.J. 1998. Biological homing: Hypothesis for a quantum effect that leads to the existence of life. Medical Hypothesis 51: 503–506. “Metaphysics”, Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Ultimate reference suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010. Moore, T.A. 1996. Least-action principle. In Macmillan encyclopedia of physics, ed. John Rigden, vol. 2, 840. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. Moore, T.A. 2004. Getting the most action out of least action: A proposal. American Journal of Physics 72: 522–527. More, H. 1679. Opera Omnia. London, 1: 222. Roberts, J.T. 2008. The law-governed universe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rosen, R. 1967. Optimality principles in biology. London: Butterworths, 4, 155. Spinoza: Ethics. 1677. Trans. from the Latin by R.H.M. Elwes (1883). New York: Dover Publications, 1951. Proposition 29, Note. Swartz, N. 2001. Beyond experience. Metaphysical theories and philosophical constraints, 2nd ed., Chapter 9, Properties, 256. Toronto: Toronto University Press, http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/ beyond_experience/ (available for downloading, free of charge). Swartz, N. 2009. Laws of nature. Internet encyclopedia of philosophy, http://www.utm.edu/ research/iep/l/lawofnat.htm Taylor, E.F. 2003. A call to action. Guest editorial. American Journal of Physics 71: 423–425. Taylor, E.F. 2010. Principle of least action. Retrieved February 03, 2010, from http://www.eftaylor.com/ leastaction.html Tymieniecka, A.-T. 1999. The new paradigm. The ontopoiesis of life as a new philosophical paradigm. Phenomenological Inquiry 22: 12–59. Tymieniecka, A.-T. 2000. Impetus and Equipose in the life-strategies of reason: Logos and life, Book 4, Analecta Husserliana, LXX, Dordrecht: Kluwer. Tymieniecka, A.-T. 2009. The fullness of the logos as a key of life. Analecta Husserliana, vol. 100. Dordrecht: Springer. “Universe.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica 2007 ultimate reference_suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010. Veenhoven, R. 2007. Measures of Gross National Happiness, in: OECD Statistics, Knowledge, and Policy. Paris, 231–253. Yourgrau, W., and S. Mandelstam. 1955. Variational principles in dynamics and quantum theory. London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. Zee, A. 1986. Fearful symmetry. The search for beauty in modern physics. New York: Macmillan, 107– 109, 143.

HANS KÖCHLER

THE RELATION BETWEEN MAN AND WORLD

ABSTRACT

Human identity has traditionally been defined by way of juxtaposing man and world in a static and substantialist manner. This approach implies a false idealism in terms of ontology and creates a misleading sense of exclusivism in terms of anthropology. The relation between man and world can only be properly understood on the basis of transcendental realism, a position that acknowledges the interdependence of self-experience and world-experience in the sense of Realdialektik. Anthropology and ontology are indeed two sides of the same coin. Referring to discourses of phenomenology and transcendental philosophy, the paper analyzes the ontological dialectic of man and world, including the cosmological dimension, offers a critique of the traditional “anthropocentric” approach, and reflects on the civilizational impact of a comprehensive “ontological anthropology.”

THE ONTOLOGICAL DIALECTIC OF MAN AND WORLD

In the Western philosophical tradition, the question as to the essence of man has mostly been asked as if the human being existed in a kind of philosophical version of “splendid isolation.” Man was set apart from “nature” as the realm of mere “objects” of his reflection and volition. The entirety of material objects and living creatures was perceived as “the other” from which the human being was considered “shielded” – in a rather abstract manner – by virtue of his consciousness in which, according to this conception, the “outside world” is mirrored and which alone provided its raison d’être. This false anthropomorphism, and the voluntarism attached to it, is based on the erroneous ontological assumptions of philosophical idealism1 and on a peculiar – and literal – interpretation of the Genesis. This position is at the roots of Western anthropocentrism with its artificial, almost “synthetic,” teleology that subordinates everything natural, in fact the entire κóσμoς, to the human being’s will. It is also an assumption that is totally ignorant of the basic logical error of teleological thinking, which reverses the chain of natural causality (as Nicolai Hartmann has convincingly demonstrated long ago) (Hartmann, 1966), and that also leads to a utilitarian position in terms of ethics.

Lecture delivered at the International Conference “Astronomy and Civilization” organized by Konkoly Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Department of Astronomy, Eötvös Loránd University, Eötvös Loránd Physical Society, Budapest, Hungary, 13 August 2009 © Hans Köchler, 2009. All rights reserved. V4/18-VIII-2009

37 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 37–46. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_3,

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H A N S KÖC H L E R

As we have explained elsewhere in more detail, the question about the “essence” of man cannot be answered within a conceptual framework that is based on the assumption of an abstract hiatus between man and world, which presupposes a false (or artificial) idealism in ontological terms.2 The human being, with its unique form of self-reflection – though this is not the only such capacity among living beings –, cannot be perceived as existing independently from the real (physical) world. Not only is its identity being shaped through constant interaction with a specific natural environment (Umwelt)3 ; it is itself the product of evolution not merely in a biological sense, related to the history of planet earth, but in connection with the development of the universe. Adequately addressing the issue requires an awareness of the essentially dialectical relation4 between “self-experience” and “world-experience” that results from the interdependence between the ego (subject) and the world. In a certain sense, transcendental philosophy – in a first systematic approach towards a critical epistemology,5 if not for the first time in the history of Western philosophy – has taken into account that the “object” (of perception) cannot be defined in abstract (and artificial) distinction from the “subject,” thus paving the way for an analysis of the human being in the comprehensive meaning of In-derWelt-sein (being-in-the-world) such as the one advanced in Husserl’s conception of the life-world (Lebenswelt)6 and, preceding it, in Heidegger’s “existential ontology” (Heidegger, 1993). Transcendental philosophy, however, eventually proved to be ignorant of the material world and could not adequately interpret its ontological status. In the context of modern phenomenological thinking, this has become particularly obvious in Husserl’s “idealistic” adaptation of the transcendental paradigm.7 On the basis of this approach, “nature” was reduced to the status of a mere “object of perception” and the apriori structures of the human mind (consciousness) were analyzed in isolation from the “real” world that was essentially defined as “ideal” reality, structured by the human mind (which in turn was perceived as the “transcendental synthesis of apperception”).8 German idealism has, at least initially, continued on this path of “hypostatization” of consciousness – until Hegel’s “absolute” idealism has brought about a paradigm change that meant an interpretation of the subject (mind) in the sense of an universal ontological reality and a reading of the evolution of the κóσμoς as “appearance,” indeed self-realization, of the mind (or “spirit”) (Phänomenologie des Geistes) (Hegel, 1980). In twentieth century thinking, Husserlian transcendental phenomenology – the legacy of the later Husserl – had, as referred to earlier, again made a turn towards the ontological idealism of the “pure transcendental subject” (reines transzendentales Subjekt), which does absorb virtually all aspects of reality in a kind of nuclear selfreflexion (self-consciousness) which Husserl considered as the absolute source of reality,9 claiming that even if the outside world would disappear this would in no way affect the transcendental subject.10 However, the phenomenologically inspired idealism of the twentieth century was not the only way in which the transcendental paradigm was interpreted. This school of thought, in its exclusive emphasis on the “purity” of the mind (with apriori structures that make of space and time mere modes of perception and locate them in


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the “ideal realm”), could not appreciate what we call the Realdialektik (“real dialectics”) of consciousness, something which implies that awareness of ourselves and the reality of our subjectivity is not achieved through soliloquia, or by means of mere self-encounters of an ego that is interpreted as epiphany of the absolute transcendental subject, but only through the subject’s distinguishing itself from a real object as the “other” which is not the self. Furthermore, modern “evolutionary epistemology” has made us aware of the “real” behind the “ideal,” when claiming to have undertaken a new – indeed a second, after Kant’s initial one – “Copernican Revolution,” this time back towards natural reality. In a far-reaching effort to reevaluate the precepts of Kant’s transcendental epistemology and make them compatible with modern biology, Konrad Lorenz11 had tried to look “behind the mirror” of ideality and understand the natural origin of the (ideal) transcendental forms of perception (Anschauungsformen) and of the categories (Lorenz, 1987). This rather ambitious epistemological effort, combining philosophical and biological concepts, has resulted in a form of “realistic idealism” or “idealistic realism” which, so the evolutionary epistemologists claimed, does enable transcendental philosophy to properly explain the interdependent relationship between man and world. This approach, according to their “naturalistic” interpretation, brings transcendental philosophy in line with an understanding of the world that is informed by modern science, in particular by the theory of evolution, which places the human being not apart from the universe – or vis-à-vis the world in a strange kind of mirror-like setting –, but defines it in the midst of it, not as a “counter-pole” to it.12 As we have explained elsewhere,13 the interpretation of the Kantian subject’s “transcendental structures” as part of the real (i.e. natural) world14 has serious implications for all positions of ontological – as distinct from epistemological – idealism that uphold the “purity” of consciousness and insist on its irreducibility to the “real” world15 :

(a) “What appears as absolute (in the sense of not being subjected to change in space and time, thus: a priori) is in actual fact relative to a phase of the biological evolution (a process that, by definition, is open-ended).16 (b) What appears as structure of the subject (as irreducible element of our immaterial mind [consciousness]) is in fact the property of an object, i.e. an objective structure of nature. (Lorenz interprets the Kantian apriori in the sense of a biological organ, referring to the physiological reality of the human brain. He very distinctly speaks of the ‘Organfunktion’ of the apriori and relates it to the preservation of the species.)17 (c) The Kantian claim as to the validity of knowledge is declared without foundation; his non-relativistic program is considered [as] the futile effort of a philosopher unaware of the biological facts. Thus, Kant’s idealism is transformed into a new version of realism (‘hypothetical realism’)18 according to which the logical operating mechanisms of the human brain reflect the very structure of (natural) reality to which the brain as a biological organ has been adapted in the evolutionary process.”19

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This approach allows philosophy to transform what has been described as mere Reflexionsdialektik (the dialectic within an abstract consciousness that is set apart from the world) into a genuine ontological dialectic, which alone lets us comprehend the nature of reflexivity against the background of a cosmological “other” of which the subject itself is a part, namely an aspect of its “appearance” or self-realization (in the sense of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit). This reflective structure, in turn, creates what we earlier have called an “open horizon of unending existential self-development,”20 which is situated in a virtually infinite realm of space and time that must not be perceived as a mere product of the transcendental subject. What we have described as “irreducible interdependence” of man and world21 can indeed only be understood in view of a “cosmological horizon” on the background of which “subject” and “object,” consciousness and matter, mutually define each other. In such a context, philosophical anthropology essentially becomes part of a larger ontological project – and vice-versa.22 What we have characterized as mankind’s “deeply rooted and emotional striving toward self-constitution and self-realization in an ‘intelligible’ world,”23 cannot be seen in isolation from the “ontological reality” which modern physics and astronomy have increasingly made us aware of. Looking inward – in order to understand the nature of the human being – can only be a meaningful undertaking (particularly in terms of epistemology) if it is part of an outward-looking project of locating consciousness (“spirit”) in the evolutionary context of virtually infinite space and time. This opens a radically new – as compared to earlier anthropocentric paradigms – existential dimension of human self-reflection, because it makes the members of the human race aware of their “absolute” nature in terms of a cosmological process that unfolds before an “endless horizon”24 ; this process represents a “chain of events” of which the emergence of consciousness in different planetary systems is an integral part, and not simply a “metaphysical” end-point or a singular event brought about by a deus ex machina according to a belief system which Martin Heidegger, in his philosophy of Being (Sein), had characterized as “onto-theo-logical.”25 In this sense, one can say that every human being represents in itself a “cosmic” dimension. The virtual infinity of the universe is incorporated in the concrete psychophysical reality of every individual. Human self-reflection is thus to be understood as one, and definitely not the final, stage of the “unfolding” of the universe. In this transcendental-ontological framework, the “absolute” nature of the human being is not merely conceived of in the sense of an abstract – or artificial – “pure” consciousness that is perceived as ab-solutum in the Latin sense of the word (namely as separated from the real world and, therefore, not affected by any developments within that world). In contrast, ontological idealism that isolates the subject from “objective” reality nurtures a false sense of exceptionalism that always goes along with an anthropocentric, and effectively anthropomorphist, worldview. As an unintended consequence, the “integrative” understanding of the reality of the human being – outlined here on the basis of the transcendental-ontological paradigm – may inform an entirely novel “cosmological” perception of civilization.


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OVERCOMING THE ANTHROPOCENTRIC APPROACH

Anthropology and ontology are intrinsically connected, they are indeed interdependent systems of reflection on one and the same philosophical problem, namely that of reality as such (or Sein). In terms of human self-comprehension, what Immanuel Kant had envisaged as “the escape of men from their self-imposed immaturity”26 can only be achieved against the background of an “ontological redefinition” of the relationship between man and world. Such an approach will eventually do away with the anthropocentric paradigm and with the related illusion of a mind that came “out of nowhere,” but nonetheless can supposedly provide to the material realm (materia ´ – as “object of reflection” – and thus or λη) a chance to become form (μoρϕη) to exist, while, in actual fact, the mind (consciousness, spirit) cannot be defined by way of “abstraction” from the real world. As Martin Heidegger has aptly explained in Sein und Zeit, the question as to the real (actual) existence of the “outside world” makes no sense because the conditio humana is tantamount to, and can only be understood as, In-der-Welt-sein (being-inthe-world).27 Heidegger is eager “to point out why Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, has the tendency to bury the ‘external world’ in nullity ‘epistemologically’ before going on to prove it. [. . .] After the primordial phenomenon of Being-in-the-world has been shattered, the isolated subject is all that remains, and this becomes the basis on which it gets joined together with a ‘world’.”28 It is along these lines that, for Heidegger, the question about the nature of the human existence is identical with the question as to Being as such. What, by many, had been misunderstood as a “subjectivist” project of existential anthropology was, from the very beginning, designed as Fundamentalontologie (fundamental ontology). In Heidegger’s own words: “ontological analysis of existence [Dasein] as such constitutes fundamental ontology and, therefore, actual existence fulfills the function of a mode of being [Seinsweise] that will have to be questioned . . . as to the inert quality of its being [Sein].”29 It follows from this existential-ontological positioning of the human being in the context of the “life-world” (which, in our analysis, ultimately includes the universe) that “anthropology and ontology – when comprehended in their metaphysical implications – are . . . nothing but two aspects of one and the same philosophical approach.”30 The dialectical relationship between man and world is to be extended beyond a mere “inner-worldly” (or even “planetary”) perception and towards a truly global – or cosmological – understanding that goes beyond the horizon of human history. The hermeneutics of the “life-world,” as elaborated by the later Husserl in particular, has to be transcended towards an approach that interprets the human being against the background of a virtually infinite – or open – horizon of perceptions that are attributed to “reality as such” – what Kant had referred to as Ding an sich31 and what Heidegger had described as Sein (Being). In structural terms, the subject-object dialectic, which is at the roots of human self-awareness (or reflection), also applies to man’s positioning himself against the infinite horizon of the universe. In order to adequately understand the relation of man and world, we thus have to transcend the idealistic confines of traditional “transcendental” philosophy and perceive the “other” – in distinction from which

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man constitutes himself as a subject (an animal that is aware of itself, a ζ oν λóγoν ’ε´ χoν) – as the world as such, namely the universe, thereby integrating the subject with its object of perception in analogy to the dialectical structure of self-reflection.32 This unfolds a virtually unlimited spatial and temporal dimension of selfperception through which man should be able to emancipate himself from the “anthropocentric constraints” of traditional belief systems and “metaphysical” objectivizations, indeed from all those futile efforts at “reducing” reality as such to a system of abstract notions that especially Martin Heidegger had criticized as Onto-theo-logie (which tries to subordinate the totality of beings, indeed Being as such, to the human subject).33 The universal hermeneutics we envisage opens up a horizon of world perception beyond the history of the human race and beyond the confines of the planetary system where the human race has originated; it, thus, creates the basis for a new conceptual framework that integrates human sciences and cosmology and locates man – human civilization – in a realm beyond the traditional geocentric-heliocentric dichotomy. The historical departure from dogmatic geocentrism in terms of astronomy has to be complemented by a departure from anthropocentrism in regard to our Weltanschauung, a paradigm shift that is necessitated not only in the field of philosophical ontology, but of anthropology proper, but that has met with strong resistance over the centuries (due to the almost irresistible human tendency towards objectivization in the sense of explaining the world as mere object of the “superior” human mind and volition). Through the earlier paradigm shift in the sixteenth century, astronomy has contributed to the widening of the spatial and temporal horizon of man’s understanding of the universe and has helped the human race to emancipate itself from doctrinary positions that, to a large extent, were rooted in “vested interests” of the guardians of the traditional, institutionally entrenched, metaphysical messages. Transcendental philosophy, if it develops towards a comprehensive analysis of the “conditions of possibility” (Möglichkeitsbedingungen) not only of cognition (as in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason), but also of the ontological identity of the subject, will make the classical mind-body distinction34 – namely their juxtaposition as two distinct entities (in the sense of πoκεíμενoν, substance) – obsolete (which is, among others, the basic insight of evolutionary epistemology).35 The comprehensive approach we have outlined here, applying the subject-object dialectic to the interdependent relationship of man and world,36 teaches us that human consciousness is itself an aspect of the universe’s self-realization. THE CIVILIZATIONAL IMPACT OF A COMPREHENSIVE ONTOLOGICAL APPROACH An unintended consequence of man’s identity being “taken out” of a system of reference exclusively defined by a “geocentric life-world” (the parameters of which for many centuries had been set by the advocates of an ontological dualism of body and soul, matter and spirit) and redefined in relation to the universe, may be what can


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be characterized as the domestic unifying aspect of a cosmological understanding of man. This perception is rooted in what we have tried to describe here as “ontological anthropology” or “anthropological ontology.” Inter-civilizational conflicts would thus be perceived as mere intra-civilizational differences in a wider (cosmological) context. One practical consequence of this unifying effect, and an important contribution to global peace, could be mankind’s commitment to the exploration of space as part of the civilizational bonum commune, uniting all civilizations on planet earth in a common undertaking that subsequently may also reduce the potential for armed (intra-civilizational) conflict. Transcending the traditional “exclusivist” understanding of the human race opens up an entirely new dimension for genuine dialogue among the different civilizations existing on planet earth, an approach that may finally do away with Samuel Huntington’s famous paradigm of the “clash of civilizations.”37 In the context of the awareness of the universe, mankind may eventually be able to overcome the antagonisms that are inherent in a worldview that puts “man” in opposition to the “world” and imposes upon him the duty to shape the world according to his own image. This sense of “cosmic exclusivism,” indeed an ontological “denial of reality,” has all too often been mirrored in a kind of “civilizational exceptionalism” that juxtaposed one civilization against another and mobilized energies for conflicts that will appear futile as soon as human beings realize their “real” ontological identity. The ontological broadening of man’s self-awareness along the lines of an essentially transcendental-philosophical approach may indeed give a new lease of life to a “dialogue among civilizations” insofar as it is based on a common understanding (self-perception) of mankind in its relation to reality as such,38 bearing in mind the common fate of all civilizations on this planet not vis-à-vis, but within, the universe, including other “civilizations” as yet unknown “self-reflections” of reality in a virtually infinite continuum of space and time. The interdependent (or dialectical) relationship of man and world, which we tried to explain here, necessarily implies a “cosmological redefinition,” or “reinvention,” of civilization. Contribution to this awareness can be considered, at least in philosophical terms, as the lasting civilizational impact of cosmology and astronomy. University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria, e-mail: [email protected]

NOTES 1 In this context, “idealism” is not understood in the sense of moral philosophy, but as an ontological position. 2 Köchler (1985, pp. 275–286), esp. Chapter 2: “The dialectic relationship of self-experience and world-experience.” See also the author’s paper: “The Relation between Man and World: A Transcendental-Anthropological Problem,” in: Analecta Husserliana, Vol. 14 (1983), pp. 181–186. 3 For a detailed analysis of the interdependent relationship of man and world in the biological context see Jakob von Uexküll und Georg Kriszat, Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen. Ein. Bilderbuch unsichtbarer Welten. Bedeutungslehre. (Mit einem Vorwort von Adolf Portmann und einer Einleitung von Thure von Uexküll.) (Series Conditio humana.) Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1970.

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4 The terms “dialectical” and “dialectics” are not used here in an idealistic context, but in the meaning of “Realdialektik” which the author has worked out in: Die Subjekt-Objekt-Dialektik in der transzendentalen Phänomenologie. Das Seinsproblem zwischen Idealismus und Realismus. Meisenheim a. G.: Anton Hain, 1974. 5 We refer here to Kant’s “criticism” as expressed in what he himself had characterized as a “Copernican revolution” of epistemology. (Critique of Pure Reason, preface to the second edition of 1787.) 6 Husserl (1977). (Philosophische Bibliothek, Vol. 292.) – On the notion of “Lebenswelt” in the context of Husserlian phenomenology see, inter alia, Kern (1979, pp. 68–78). 7 For details see the author’s Die Subjekt-Objekt-Dialektik in der transzendentalen Phänomenologie. 8 Critique of Pure Reason, second edition of 1787, Part II, § 16: “Von der ursprünglich-synthetischen Einheit der Apperzeption.” – Kant’s notion of the Ding an sich (thing-in-itself) does somehow not fit into this “transcendental” framework and – not surprisingly – was dismissed by the later idealists as a relic of “dogmatic” thinking. 9 For a critique of this version of ontological idealism see Köchler (1974, pp. 183–198). – See also the author’s analyses in: Phenomenological Realism. Selected Essays. Frankfurt a. M., Bern: Peter Lang, 1986. 10 Cf., inter alia, Husserl’s apodictic statement in an analysis about the “independence” of the phenomenological judgment from natural judgment: “. . . dass es ein reines Bewußtsein gibt und dass reines Bewußtsein, wenn auch modifiziert, übrig bleibt als mein ego cogito, auch wenn die Welt nicht existierte.” (Husserl, 1992, fn. 1 on p. 57, in § 17: “Unabhängigkeit des phänomenologischen Urteils vom natürlichen Urteil.”) 11 Lorenz (1941/1942, pp. 94–125). – For a comprehensive debate of Lorenz’s epistemological “paradigm change” see, inter alia, Günther Stark, Konrad Lorenz pro und kontra. Die Welt schuf den Geist nach ihrem Bilde. Baden-Baden: German University Press, 2006. (Series “Kritik der evolutionären Vernunft.”) 12 On the merits of evolutionary epistemology in terms of its supposedly having redefined the transcendental paradigm and having exposed its “idealistic” contradictions see the author’s paper: “Transzendentalphilosophie als Anthropologie? (Bemerkungen zum universalen Anspruch der evolutionären Erkenntnistheorie),” in: G. Lücke and H. Pfister (eds.), Ivo Kohler in memoriam. Arbeiten zur Psychologie, ihren Anwendungen und ihren Grenzgebieten. (Veröffentlichungen der Universität Innsbruck, Vol. 136.) Innsbruck: Universität Innsbruck, 1988, pp. 203–216. 13 In a lecture delivered at the Third International Conference of the International Academy of Philosophy in Glendale, Los Angeles, on 30 November 2007. 14 Georg Simmel was one of the first philosophers who had introduced this “realist” interpretation of the transcendental structures, long before the twentieth century’s evolutionary epistemologists: “Über eine Beziehung der Selectionslehre zur Erkenntnistheorie,” in: Archiv für systematische Philosophie, No. 1 (1895), pp. 34–45. 15 Kant’s transcendental idealism must nonetheless not be confused with ontological idealism in the sense of the real existence of the Platonic ideas. 16 See also von Bertalanffy (1955, pp. 243–263). 17 “Kants Lehre vom Apriorischen im Lichte der gegenwärtigen Biologie,” p. 166. 18 Konrad Lorenz, Die Rückseite des Spiegels, p. 26. 19 Items a–c are quoted from the author’s essay: “Evolutionary Epistemology as a Problem of Metaphilosophy,” in: (International Academy for Philosophy, Yerevan [Armenia]/Athens [Greece]/ Berkeley [USA]), News and Views, No. 18 (April 2008), pp. 26–40. 20 “The Relation of Man and World: Existential and Phenomenological Perspectives,” p. 285. 21 Op. cit., p. 284. 22 See also: Köchler (1974). 23 “The Relation of Man and World: Existential and Phenomenological Perspectives,” p. 278. 24 The author is aware of the paradoxical nature of the combination of these two words since the original Greek meaning of ρ´ιζων points to the very limitations of our visual field, which the adjective “endless” negates.


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25 Heidegger (1957). – For a detailed analysis of Heidegger’s critique of “onto-theo-logy” see the author’s paper in Köchler (1977, pp. 751–773). 26 “Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit.” Immanuel Kant, Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? (Berlinische Monatsschrift Dezember 1784), in: Akademie-Ausgabe, Vol. VIII (Abhandlungen nach 1781), p. 35. 27 Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 11th ed. 1967, pp. 206f. 28 Quoted according to the first English edition of Sein und Zeit (1962, p. 250). 29 Sein und Zeit, p. 14. (Translated by the author). 30 Coreth (1969, p. 273, translated by the author). 31 See Adickes (1977, Reprint of the 1924 edition). 32 On the dialectical structure of consciousness see the author’s analysis: “The ‘A Priori’ Moment of the Subject-Object Dialectic in Transcendental Phenomenology,” loc. cit. 33 Identität und Differenz. – For details see Köchler (1991, pp. 31ff). – Cf. also: Köchler (1978). 34 For an analysis of this distinction on the basis of a realist approach see Seifert (1979). 35 Cf. Konrad Lorenz, Die Rückseite des Spiegels; Gerhard Vollmer, Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie. Angeborene Erkenntnisstrukturen im Kontext der Biologie, Psychologie, Linguistik, Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie. Stuttgart etc.: Hirzel, 8th ed. 2002. 36 For details see the author’s earlier analysis: “The Relation between Man and World: A Transcendental-Anthropological Problem,” loc. cit. 37 Huntington (1993, pp. 22–49). – For a critique of Huntington’s paradigm see Köchler (1999, pp. 15–24). 38 On the philosophical precepts of the “dialogue of civilizations” in the traditional “planetary” context see the author’s paper: Philosophical Foundations of Civilizational Dialogue. The Hermeneutics of Cultural Self-comprehension versus the Paradigm of Civilizational Conflict. Occasional Papers Series, No. 3. Vienna: International Progress Organization, 1998.

REFERENCES Adickes, Erich. 1977. Kant und das Ding an sich. Hildesheim etc.: Olms. Coreth, Emerich. 1969. Was ist philosophische Anthropologie? Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 91: 252–273. Hartmann, Nicolai. 1966. Teleologisches Denken, 2nd ed. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hegel, G.W.F. 1980. Phänomenologie des Geistes. Collected works, vol. 9. ed. Wolfgang Bonsiepen. Hamburg: Meiner. Heidegger, Martin. 1957. Identität und Differenz, 4th ed. Pfullingen: Neske. Heidegger, Martin. 1993. Sein und Zeit, 17th ed. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Huntington, S.P. 1993. The clash of civilizations? Foreign Affairs 72(3): 22–49. Husserl, Edmund. 1977. Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie. ed. Elisabeth Ströker. Hamburg: Meiner. Husserl, Edmund. 1992. Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie 1910/11. [Husserliana, vol. XIII.], 2nd ed. Hamburg: Meiner. Kern, Iso. 1979. Die Lebenswelt als Grundlagenproblem der objektiven Wissenschaften und als universales Wahrheits- und Seinsproblem. In Lebenswelt und Wissenschaft in der Philosophie Edmund Husserls,ed. Elisabeth Ströker, 68–78. Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann. Köchler, Hans. 1974. The ‘a priori’ moment of the subject-object-dialectic in transcendental phenomenology: The relationship between ‘a priori’ and ‘ideality’ Analecta Husserliana 3: 183–198. Köchler, Hans. 1974. Der innere Bezug von Anthropologie und Ontologie. Das Problem der Anthropologie im Denken Martin Heideggers. (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, Issue 30.) Meisenheim a. G.: Anton Hain.

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Köchler, Hans. 1977. God in the thought of Martin Heidegger. In God in contemporary thought. A philosophical perspective. A Collective Study, ed. S.A. Matczak (Philosophical Questions Series, No. 10.), 751–773. New York: Learned Publications; Louvain: Editions Nauwelaerts; Paris: BeatriceNauwelaerts. Köchler, Hans. 1978. Skepsis und Gesellschaftskritik im Denken Martin Heideggers. Meisenheim a. G.: Anton Hain. Köchler, Hans. 1985. The relation of man and world: Existential and phenomenological perspectives. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 15: 275–286. Köchler, Hans. 1991. Politik und Theologie bei Heidegger. Politischer Aktionismus und theologische Mystik nach “Sein und Zeit.” (Veröffentlichungen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Wissenschaft und Politik an der Universität Innsbruck, vol. VII.) Innsbruck: Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Wissenschaft und Politik. Köchler, Hans. 1999. The clash of civilizations revisited. In Civilizations: Conflict or dialogue? Eds. Hans Köchler and Gudrun Grabher (Studies in International Relations, XXIV.), 15–24. Vienna: International Progress Organization. Lorenz, Konrad. 1941/1942. Kants Lehre vom Apriorischen im Lichte der gegenwärtigen Biologie. Blätter für deutsche Philosophie 15: 94–125. Lorenz, Konrad. 1987. Die Rückseite des Spiegels. Versuch einer Naturgeschichte menschlichen Erkennens,9th ed. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag. Seifert, Josef. 1979. Das Leib-Seele-Problem und die gegenwärtige philosophische Diskussion. Eine systematisch-kritische Analyse, 2nd rev. ed. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. von Bertalanffy, Ludwig. 1955. An essay on the relativity of categories. Philosophy of Science 22: 243–263.

SUBHASH KAK

OBSERVERS, FREEDOM, AND THE COSMOS

ABSTRACT

Science provides partial explanations for the place of observers in the universe and the process by which the conception of the cosmos is obtained. But it uses two irreconcilable paradigms: one based on a machine-view of the material world, and the other postulating freedom and agency for the observer. These paradigms lead to problems such as why is it that the brain-machine has awareness whereas the computer does not, or what is the basis of the information paradox related to the increase in the information in the universe since the Big Bang. Recent ideas on “consciousness science” as an approach complementing that of astronomy are presented. It is shown how the astronomy of its times and specific ideas on the nature of the mind led to certain cosmological ideas of ancient India. The central role played by cosmology, relating both to the outer and the inner reality, in defining the world-view of a culture is examined. A summary of the larger issues confronting astronomy and cosmology in the contemporary world is presented.

INTRODUCTION

Science does not fully explain the place of observers in the universe. It uses two irreconcilable paradigms: one based on a machine-view of the material world, and the other postulating freedom and agency for the observer. Either freedom is illusory or the machine paradigm is incomplete in describing the world. Since science can only deal with objective associations, it can do no better than see each system as a mechanism of some kind. The brain must be viewed as a machine, but why is it that the brain-machine has awareness whereas the computer does not? Our deepest theory, namely quantum mechanics, is associated with paradoxes such as those implying propagation of effects instantaneously across space (for entangled particles) and time (as in the Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment) if one uses ordinary language to describe phenomena (Moore, 1989; Penrose, 1994). This indicates that reality has aspects that are not captured by consistent linguistic narratives. Physics deals with space, time and matter. But as observers we are more than matter at a specific location in space and time; we also have consciousness. Although it is logical to see consciousness as emergent on matter it is also tempting to see it having a more fundamental existence. Since evolution of observers is inherent in scientific law, one could see consciousness as inherent in this law. 47 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 47–60. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_4,

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If we view quantum theory as a theory of wholes, then it should apply to large aggregation of objects. More specifically, since biological organisms are entities, their behavior should be governed at some level by quantum laws. The anthropic principle has been invoked to explain the nature of laws. In one formulation of the principle, the physical laws are restricted by the requirement that they should lead to intelligent life at some stage in the evolution of the universe. Since life on earth would cease when the sun exhausts its fuel, and since evolution of consciousness cannot be in vain, the proponents of the principle argue that man will create silicon-based “conscious machines” that will seed the universe and the entire universe will become a conscious machine (Barrow and Tipler, 1986). In the archaic view, the universe is conscious. In more sophisticated versions of this archaic view, consciousness itself is the ground stuff of reality and on this ground the complex of space, time and matter is seeded. In this paper, we consider the problem of observers in the cosmos and the origin of freedom of the observers. We argue that while improbable coincidences corroborated in literature could support the view that non-material entities have independent existence they cannot establish it conclusively. The recursive nature of knowledge, which is grounded on the physical structure of the universe, is outlined. The relationship of the visions of the cosmos in the arts and sciences, which arise from the equivalence between the outer and the inner realities of a culture, are discussed.

THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The question of human freedom is connected to the problem of consciousness. The reason why consciousness is not accessible to science is that it is not objective. It is the light that the observer uses to throw on objects but this light cannot be turned upon itself. Rational science is related to associations and it must, therefore, be material and reductionist. Consciousness cannot thus be fitted in the framework of rational science. But there are indirect ways to study consciousness. Thus neurophysiological experiments have shown that the mind orders events in order to provide consistent picture and that there is a small time lag between initiation of neurophysiological function and its conscious awareness. The mind is an active participant in the creation of models of the universe (Melzack, 1989; Gazzaniga, 1995; Kak, 2004). It is argued by some that once machine become sufficiently complex they would become conscious. But since machines only follow instructions, it is not credible that they should suddenly, just on account of the number of connections between certain computing units, become endowed with self-awareness. To speak of consciousness in the machine paradigm is a contradiction in terms. If a machine could make true choices (that is not governed by a random picking between different alternatives), then it has transcended the paradigm because its behavior cannot be described by any mathematical function. One might ascribe awareness of the brain to the fact that the brain is a selforganizing system which responds to the nature and quality of its interaction


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with the environment, whereas computers can’t do that. But other ecological systems, which are biological communities that have complex interrelationship amongst their parts, are self-organizing, without being self-aware. This suggests that while self-organization is a necessary pre-requisite for consciousness, it is not sufficient. Yet another possibility is that current science, even when it considers selforganization and special structures of the brain, does not capture the essence of consciousness. Our scientific framework may be incomplete in a variety of ways. For example, we may not yet have discovered all the laws of nature, and our current theories need major revision that has implications for our understanding of consciousness. In truth, objective knowledge comes with many paradoxes. Accumulation of knowledge often amounts to making ad hoc choices in the underlying formal framework to conform to experience. Formal knowledge can at best be compared to a patchwork. Cognitive scientists and biologists have considered evolutionary aspects related to cognitive capacity, where consciousness is viewed as emerging out of language. Linguistic research on chimpanzees and bonobos has revealed that although they can be taught basic vocabulary of several hundred words, this linguistic ability does not extend to syntax. By contrast, small children acquire much larger vocabularies – and use the words far more creatively – with no overt training, indicating that language is an innate capacity. It is theorized that human language capacities arose out of biological natural selection because they fulfill two clear criteria: an extremely complex and rich design and the absence of alternative processes capable of explaining such complexity. Other theories look at music and language arising out of sexual selection. But, howsoever imaginative and suggestive these models might be, they do not address the question of how the capacity to visualize models of world that are essential to language and consciousness first arose. According to the nativist view, language ability is rooted in the biology of the brain, and our ability to use grammar and syntax is an instinct, dependent on specific modules of the brain. Therefore, we learn language as a consequence of a unique biological adaptation, and not because it is an emergent response to the problem of communication confronted by ourselves and our ancestors. Deaf children provide us a context in which the creative development of a language may be seen. When such children are not taught to sign a language, they spontaneously create their personal signs, slowly adding grammatical rules, complete with inflection, case marking, and other forms of syntax.

BRAIN AND MIND

The question of consciousness is connected to the relationship between brain and mind. Reductionism considers them to be identical – with mind representing the sum total of the activity in the brain – at a suitable higher level of representation.

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Opposed to this is the viewpoint that although mind requires a physical structure, it ends up transcending that structure. The mind processes signals coming into the brain to obtain its understandings in the domains of seeing, hearing, touching, and tasting using its store of memories. But a cognitive act is an active process where the selectivity of the sensors and the accompanying processing in the brain is organized based on the expectation of the cognitive task and on effort, will and intention. Intelligence is a result of the workings of numerous active cognitive agents. In the view that consciousness is complementary to space, time and matter, consciousness needs the support of matter and without observers it is meaningless to speak of a universe. The idea of the physical world is constructed out of mental experiences. Giving primacy to this mental experience implies idealism, while giving primacy to the contents of this mental experience is materialism. If both these are taken to have an independent existence that means dualism. If we take it that we have discovered the basic laws of nature and also accept that classical machines cannot be conscious, one must assume that quantum processing in the brain, given appropriate brain structures, leads to awareness. Different states of consciousness such as wakefulness, sleep, dream-sleep, coma have distinct neurochemical signatures, and these different states may be taken to be modifications caused by the neural circuitry on a basic state of consciousness.

ANOMALOUS ABILITIES, CREATIVITY

That cognitive ability cannot be viewed simply as a processing of sensory information by a central intelligence extraction system is confirmed by individuals with anomalous abilities. Idiot savants, or simply savants, who have serious developmental disability or major mental illness, perform spectacularly at certain tasks. Anomalous performance has been noted in the areas of mathematical and calendar calculations; music; art, including painting, drawing or sculpting; mechanical ability; prodigious memory (mnemonism); unusual sensory discrimination or “extrasensory” perception (Sacks, 1985). The abilities of these savants and of mnemonists cannot be understood in the framework of a monolithic mind. There are accounts by scientists who claim that their discoveries came to them accidently, in dream or suddenly when they were not consciously engaged on the problem. Jacques Hadamard in his The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field surveyed 100 leading mathematicians of his time, concluding many of them seem to have obtained entire solutions spontaneously (Hadamard, 1954). For example, August Kekulé claimed to have discovered the structure of benzene in a reverie or dream where he saw a snake seize its own tail suggesting to him the idea of carbon atoms in a ring. The preparation of the scientist comes in the amplification of the intuition. It is true that the creative intuition is not always correct. The scientist’s judgment is essential in separating the false solution from the true one. If one were to accept Hadamard proposition at face value and concede that deliberate thought is not always behind discovery although it is essential that the scientist


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be prepared so as to be able to recognize it for what it is, that would leave open the possibility that the domain of ideas may be different from the causal world of physical space and time. Anomalous abilities and first person accounts of discovery that appear to be spontaneous could either indicate that consciousness is more than a phenomenon based solely on matter or that these accounts are just a listing of coincidences. Conversely, there is no way to prove the veracity of the scientist’s account of discovery. It is possible that the account is one that the scientist has come to believe over time but it does not correspond to fact.

COINCIDENCES

The mainstream scientific view on coincidences is that spatially or temporally separated events, if they happen to indicate a connection that cannot be explained by a causal chain, must be entirely by chance. Scientific cosmology cannot suppose otherwise, because doing so would imply that it is not complete. Examples of coincidences that are stronger than chance include dreams that predict the future, or the thought of a long-lost friend that is followed by a phone call from him moments later. Animals seem to have surprising foreknowledge of earthquakes or their own death although there could be yet unknown scientific explanations for this. Prophecy is a part of religious belief, since it implies an order greater than indicated by ordinary life. But one cannot accept claims of coincidence at face value. They may be a result of poor observation or recall, self-deception, or deception by others. Also, we are notoriously poor judges of probability, and by the law of large numbers meaningful coincidences are bound to happen. People also tend to classify their personal experiences as showing coincidence although they would not grant that status to the same experiences by another person. Deliberately deceptive claims are made in support of cultural or religious beliefs. Coincidence events may be across space or time. In some a person may claim to obtain information from another person without the use of the currently known senses or inference, and in precognition one may claim to have knowledge of a future event. In parapsychology experiments, volunteers guess random choices that are made at a remote location to determine if these guesses deviate from chance. The sender attempts to mentally communicate a randomly chosen “target” to the receiver. The sender and receiver are in separate acoustically shielded rooms. A computer is used to choose a target from a large selection of possible targets that may be video clips, and plays that clip repeatedly to the sender. At the same time, the receiver reports out loud any thoughts or images that come to mind, and these verbal reports are recorded. Neither the experimenter nor the receiver has any idea of what target the sender is viewing. At the end of the sending period, the sender remains in his room while the computer plays four video clips to the receiver – the target plus three decoys. The receiver’s task is to compare each clip to the mentation, and to select which of the clips most closely matches it.

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If no information transfer is taking place, then we would expect the receiver to correctly identify the clip that was viewed by the sender 25% of the time by chance alone. Extrasensory or telepathic perception is inferred to have taken place if the target is correctly identified more often than chance expectation. The results of such experiments have not quite been supportive of the idea of extrasensory communication. According to researchers in the field, deviation from chance is limited to participants tested by believer experimenters; participants tested by skeptical experimenters obtain chance results! If it is assumed that the experiments are negative, they only rule out the idea of communication of images by some as-yet unknown process. There is also a basic weakness in the conception of the experiment. Unlike images stored in a computer, those presented to human subjects carry varying value and they are remembered in association with the prior memories, which are unique for each individual. SYNCHRONICITY

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung saw unlikely coincidence through the lens of synchronicity, which he defined as the experience of two or more non-causal events that occur together in a meaningful manner that is ruled out by chance. He based it on the concept of the collective unconscious (Jung, 1972). The idea of collective unconscious, as comprising of specific memories that belong to the community, cannot be reconciled to the normal understanding that memories are created out of sensory experience. Even if it is conceded that secondary memories arise out of the shared experience within a culture, the details in the chain of such memories are bound to be different. The assignment of the label of “meaningfulness”, as defined by Jung, is arbitrary since this is a subjective judgment. Arthur Koestler, in his The Roots of Coincidence, was right to criticize Jung’s idea and a separate and earlier theory by Paul Kemmerer, in the following words: “Like theologians who start from the premiss that the mind of God is beyond human understanding and then proceed to explain how the mind of God works, they postulated an a-causal principle, and then proceeded to explain it in pseudo-causal terms” (Koestler, 1972). The physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who collaborated with Jung when he was doing his work on synchronicity, proposed the extension of the principle of non-causal events from microphysics to macrophysics (Pauli and Jung, 1955). But this in itself cannot explain why such non-causal events should be “meaningful” and at the same time occur at probability that diverges from chance. To take the argument related to coincidence further, it is necessary to return to what we mean by this term. Let us first speak of events that have been generally taken to represent coincidence and see them from the point of view of the skeptic. REPEATING PATTERNS

The parallels surrounding the deaths of Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy, who were elected in 1860 and 1960, respectively, are widely known.


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Both were shot in the back of the head, on the Friday before a major holiday, while seated beside their wives, neither of whom was injured. Both were in the presence of another couple, and in each case that man was also wounded by the assassin. After both assassinations there were loud and insistent claims that the fatal shot must have come from a different direction. Each President in his thirties married a socially prominent 24 year old girl who spoke French fluently. While in the White House, each President had a family of three children, and both lost a child through death. Both Lincoln and Kennedy were second children. Both had been boat captains. Both were related to a US Senator, Attorney General, ambassador to Great Britain, and the mayor of Boston. Each had been elected to Congress in the year ’47 and were vice-presidential runners-up in the year ’56. Before each was elected, a sister died. Both were succeeded by Southerner, ex-senator, vice-presidents named Johnson: Andrew born in 1808 and Lyndon in 1908, both of whom had two daughters. Booth shot Lincoln in a theatre and fled to a warehouse. Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and fled to a theatre. Both assassins were in their turn assassinated by shooters who used a Colt revolver and fired only one, fatal shot.

Although the similarities are remarkable, it is true that these items have been chosen precisely because they match up. Many other events in the lives of Lincoln and Kennedy do not match up. Some look at these similarities as proof of repeating patterns in the world. Since patterns do repeat in the physical world of inanimate and animate objects, is it not surprising that they repeat in the world of names and events? Let us consider different kinds of events.

EVENTS AND NAMES IN A NOVEL PRECEDING ACTUAL EVENT

The fictional account of cannibalism in the novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by the American author Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) was published in 1838. It is a complicated story of adventures of Pym who, starting out from Nantucket, ends up in a shipwreck with four survivors who are in an open boat for many days without food before they draw lots to decide who should be killed so that others might live. The cabin boy Richard Parker is chosen and killed for food. Now consider the real life account of cannibalism that took place in 1884 that became a sensation in Britain. That year a 17 year old named Richard Parker ran away from home and became a cabin boy on the yacht Mignonette. The yacht with a crew of three other members was leaving Southampton on a long voyage to Australia to be delivered to the gentleman who had purchased it. The ship broke up and sank in a storm in the South Atlantic and the crew was cast adrift in an open boat 1,500 miles from land.

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After 19 days in that boat, with little food or water, the crew decided to kill Parker who was delirious after drinking sea water. The three men lived on Parker’s remains for 35 days until they were rescued by a steamship named the Montezuma. Back in England the three survivors were tried for murder on the high seas. The seaman turned approver and was acquitted but the captain and his mate were sentenced to death that was later commuted to 6 months of hard labor.

THE TITAN BEFORE THE TITANIC

The American novelist Morgan Robertson, in 1898, wrote Futility. It described the voyage of the 800 feet long transatlantic luxury liner, the Titan, with a passenger capacity of 3,000. Although it was believed to be unsinkable, it struck an iceberg in April and sank with much loss of life. In 1912, the Titanic, an 882.5 feet long transatlantic luxury liner with capacity of 3,000 and considered unsinkable struck an iceberg at midnight on her maiden voyage and sank on 15 April with great loss of life. The fictional and the real liners had other correspondences: Titan had three propellers, two masts, 24 lifeboats, 19 watertight compartments, and she hit the iceberg near midnight; Titanic had three propellers, two masts, 20 lifeboats, 16 watertight compartments, and she hit the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. The Titan was traveling at 25 knots; the Titanic at 22.5.

SEPARATED TWINS

The so-called “Jim twins” – Jim Lewis and Jim Springer – are described in Nancy Segal’s book Entwined Lives (Segal, 2000). These twins were adopted at the age of 4 weeks. Both of the adopting couples, unknown to each other, named their son James. Upon reunion, when they were 39 years old, Jim and Jim found that each was 6 feet tall and weighed 180 pounds. More surprisingly, there were the following extraordinary coincidences: • Both twins are married twice: first was a woman named Linda, and the second was Betty. • Each twin had a son with the same name although with slightly different spelling: James Alan and James Allan. • As children, each had a pet dog named Toy. • Both had taken family vacations independently at the same three-block strip of Florida beach called Pas-Grille, without ever meeting, arriving in light-blue Chevrolets. • Each had some law-enforcement training and been a part-time sheriff. • Both smoked Salems, and both savored an occasional Miller Lite beer • Both bit their fingernails, and since age eighteen both suffered from a combined tension and migraine headache. • Both scattered love notes to their wives around the house.


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The twins had some differences: one was better at writing, the other at speaking; one wore his hair straight down the forehead, the other brushed at back; one remarried a third time, to a woman named Sandy. The greater similarity in personality or behavior of identical twins compared to fraternal twins shows that we are not just a product of nurture but also of nature. The story of the two Jims caught public imagination because of the implicit belief that the parallels were due to their shared genetic inheritance. But it is possible that such parallels may have nothing to do with shared genes and they may be much more frequent in life than has been supposed. If that is the case then the explanation is that reality repeats not only physical patterns across space and time but also abstract ideas.

TWO SCIENTIFIC COINCIDENCES

Two moons of Mars. Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels (1726), makes reference to two moons of Mars. The astronomers on the flying island of Laputia, have “. . . discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve around Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the center of the primary exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost five: the former revolves in the space of 10 h, and the latter in twenty-one and a half.” Mars does indeed have two natural satellites, Phobos and Deimos, which were discovered in 1877. Phobos, is about 14 miles (22 km) in diameter and orbits the planet with a period far less than Mars’s period of rotation (7.66 h), causing it to rise in the west and set in the east. The outer satellite, Deimos, is about 8 miles (12.6 km) in diameter and its period of rotation is 30.35 h days. Swift’s guess on the periods is not that far off from the true values. But perhaps we should not see too much into this coincidence since the astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) has predicted this number correctly, based on the logic that since Jupiter had four known moons and Earth had one, it was natural that Mars should have two. The Speed of light. There is a well-known text by the medieval scholar Sayana (1315–1387), prime minister in the court of the Vijayanagar Empire, which associates the speed of 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha with the sun (or sunlight). The distance and time measures of yojana and nimesha are well attested in Indian astronomical and encyclopedic texts and this number corresponds closely to correct value of the speed of light! Note that until just over 200 years ago it was not even known in the Western tradition that light had a finite speed. In 1676, Rømer calculated the speed of light in terms of the speed of earth’s rotation around the sun, and this value, we now know, was about 8% less than the modern value. The technical issues related to this number were dealt by me in an earlier paper (Kak, 1999) where I showed that if this number was somehow guessed, it was seen as consistent with the theory of the universe then accepted in India. For those who would like a quick confirmation, here are the units of yojana and nimesha translated into modern units:

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The division of time according to the medieval Vishnu Purana 1.3.3 (Wilson, 1840) is: 1 day = 30 muh¯urtas 1 muh¯urta = 30 kal¯as 1 kal¯a = 30 k¯ashth¯as 1 k¯ashth¯a = 15 nimesha Thus 1 day = 86,400 s = 405,000 nimesha 8 In other words, 1nimesha = 16 75 s. Half a nimesha would be 75 s. It appears that half a nimesha was used in the text because that is the thirtieth part of a kal¯a in the regular sequence where the larger units are greater by a factor of 30. The yojana is defined in the Arthashastra (of Kautilya who was advisor to the Mauryan emperor Chandragupa who reigned 322–298 BC) as being equal to 8,000 dhanus or “bow” which is taken to be about 6 feet (Kangle, 1986). In other words, 1 yojana = 48,000 feet =

100 miles 11

The speed 2,202 yojana in half a nimesha is, therefore, equal to: 2202 × 100 × 75 = 187,679.5 miles per second 11 × 8 The correct speed of light, which was calculated with precision only in the last couple of hundred years, is 186,000 miles per second (300,000 km per second). The unit of nimesha has no ambiguity about it since it is division of the day. But what about yojana? How can we be certain that dhanus or bow should be precisely 6 feet? This requires that we obtain independent confirmation of the dhanus unit. This is made possible by examining ancient monuments and seeing the largest unit that maps the main dimensions of the monument in meaningful integer multiples of the unit. This has been done both for the 3rd millennium BC city of Dholavira from West India as well as from monuments of medieval India (Danino, 2008; Balasubramaniam and Joshi, 2008). It has been found that there exists continuity across ages in the use of this unit. The unit of dhanus in use in Dholavira and later India is 1.904 m. The Arthashastra speaks of two dhanus: one of 96 angulams and the other of 108 angulams, the latter being used mainly for religious purposes. The unit of angulams has been validated from scales obtained in Harappa and it 1.763 cm long. The Dholavira dhanus corresponds to 108 angulams. Therefore, the speed of 2,202 yojana in half a nimesha will be: 2202 × 8000 × 1.904 × 75 = 314,445.6 km per second 8

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We find, therefore, a good fit between the speed of light in this ancient account and the actual value. Since there was no way this speed could have been measured in medieval India, it only means that it was a coincidence. And since it is related to a number, one can only consider it a very improbable coincidence.

RECURSIVE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE

One reason we are able to make sense of the world is that we are already biologically programmed to do so and we have innate capacity for it. Our conception of the cosmos is based on the nature of our brain and mind. This idea was understood by the ancients who expressed it in the slogan that the outer is mirrored in the inner. In an elaboration of this idea it was assumed that patterns seen in the outer world characterize the inner world as well. For example, the ancient Indians has concluded using elementary measurements that the relative distance to the sun and the moon from the earth is approximately 108 times their respective diameters (Figure 1). The diameter of the sun is likewise approximately 108 times the diameter of the earth, and this fact could have been established from the relative durations of the solar and lunar eclipses. The number 108, taken as a fundamental measure of the universe, was used in ritual and sacred geometry. Each god and goddess was given 108 names; the number of dance poses in the Natya Shastra was taken to be 108, as was the number of beads in the rosary (Kak, 2008). The Hindu temple had the circumference to the measure of 180 (half of the number of days in the year) and its axis had the measure of 54 (half the number 108) (Kak, 2009).

SUN Ds

108 Ds

Moon

Dm 108 Dm Earth De

Figure 1. The sun-earth-moon system (Ds ≈ 108 De )

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Figure 2. The proportions of the city of Dholavira (2200 BCE)

The plan of the city of Dholavira (Figure 2) also has a recursive structure. The ratios are integral and the proportions of the lower town are repeated in those of the castle. INFORMATION IN THE COSMOS

Information arises out of a communication game played between a sender of signals and their recipient. For physical systems, the game may be seen as being played between Nature and the scientist. The average information obtained from a quantum system is given by the von Neumann measure, which is a generalization of thermodynamic entropy and perfectly in accord with commonsense when we consider a mixed state. But this entropy for an unknown pure state is zero even though testing many copies of such a state can reveal information about the choice that was made by the sender. The idea of zero entropy for an unknown pure state is reasonable from the perspective that once the state has been identified; there is no further information to be gained from examining its copies. But it is not reasonable if the game being played between the sender and the receiver consists of the sender choosing one out of a certain number of polarization states (say, for a photon) and supplying several copies of it to the receiver. In this latter case, the measurements made on the copies do reveal information regarding the choice made. If the set of choices is infinite, then the “information” generated by the source is unbounded. From the point of view of the preparer of the states, the information in the pure state is limited by the “relationship” between the source and the receiver, and by the precision of the receiver’s measurement apparatus. If the sender chose a polarization state that the receiver’s measurement apparatus was already synchronized with, the receiver could recognize the state quite readily.


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In a recent paper, I have investigated information obtainable from an unknown pure state within the framework of communication between source and receiver (Kak, 2007). I propose a measure of entropy that covers both pure and mixed states. In general, then, entropy has two components: one informational (related to the pure components of the quantum state, which can vary from receiver to receiver), and the other that is thermodynamic (which is receiver independent). The increase of information with time is a consequence of the interplay between unitary and nonunitary evolution, which makes it possible to transform one type of information into another. This complementarity indicates that a fundamental duality is essential for information. For a two-component elementary mixed state, the most information in each measurement is one bit, and each further measurement of identically prepared states will also be one bit. For an unknown pure state, the information in it represents the choice the source has made out of the infinity of choices related to the values of the probability amplitudes with respect to the basis components of the receiver’s measurement apparatus. Each measurement of a two-component pure state will provide at most one bit of information, and if the source has made available an unlimited number of identically prepared states the receiver can obtain additional information from each measurement until the probability amplitudes have been correctly estimated. Once that has occurred, unlike the case of a mixed state, no further information will be obtained from testing additional copies of this pure state. These ideas are of potential application in the field of quantum computing. The receiver can make his estimate by adjusting the basis vectors so that he gets closer to the unknown pure state. The information that can be obtained from such a state in repeated experiments is potentially infinite in the most general case. But if the observer is told what the pure state is, the information associated with the states vanishes, suggesting that a fundamental divide exists between objective and subjective information. This approach is consistent with the positivist view that one cannot speak of information associated with a system excepting in relation to an experimental arrangement together with the protocol for measurement. The experimental arrangement is thus integral to the amount of information that can be obtained. The informational measure discussed above resolves the puzzle of entropy increase. We can suppose that the universe had immensely large informational entropy associated with a pure state in the beginning, a portion of which has, during the physical evolution of the universe, transformed into thermodynamic entropy.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The universe may be viewed from the complementary points of view of physical structure and observers. The acknowledgement of this complementarity resolves the problem of freedom or agency in a world ordered by scientific law.

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We argued that improbable coincidences corroborated in literature support the view that non-material entities have independent existence. The most compelling of these is the speed of light in medieval literature that could not have been obtained from measurement because the science and technology to do so did not exist at that time. But such evidence, just like first person accounts of spontaneous scientific discovery, cannot be conclusive for establishing that the world of ideas has independent existence. Nevertheless, such accounts should spur research in investigating the relationship between the nature of our minds and our conceptions of the universe. Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA, e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES Balasubramaniam, R., and J.P. Joshi. 2008. Analysis of terracotta scale of Harappan civilization from Kalibangan. Current Science 95: 588–589. Barrow, J.D., and F.J. Tipler. 1986. The anthropic cosmological principle. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Danino, M. 2008. New insights into Harappan town-planning, proportions, and units, with special reference to Dholavia. Man and Environment 33: 66–79. Gazzaniga, M.S. 1995. The cognitive neurosciences. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Hadamard, Jacques. 1954. The psychology of invention in the mathematical field. New York: Dover. Jung, C.G. 1972. Synchronicity – an acausal connecting principle. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Kak, S. 1999. The speed of light and Puranic cosmology. Annals Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 80: 113–123. Kak, S. 2004. The architecture of knowledge. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Kak, S. 2007. Quantum information and entropy. International Journal of Theoretical Physics 46: 860–876. Kak, S. 2008. The wishing tree. New York: iUniverse. Kak, S. 2009. Time, space and structure in ancient India. Presented at the Conference on Sindhu-Sarasvati Valley Civilization: A Reappraisal, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, February 21 & 22. Kangle, R.P. 1986. The kautiliya arthasastra. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Koestler, A. 1972. The roots of coincidence. New York: Random House. Melzack, R. 1989. Phantom limbs, the self and the brain. Canadian Psychology 30: 1–16. Moore, W. 1989. Schrödinger: Life and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pauli, W., and C.G. Jung. 1955. The interpretation of nature and the psyche. New York: Random House. Penrose, R. 1994. Shadows of the mind. New York: Oxford University Press. Sacks, O. 1985. The man who mistook his wife for a hat. New York: HarperCollins. Segal, N.L. 2000. Entwined lives. New York: Penguin Putnam. Wilson, H.H. (trans.) 1840. The Vishnu Purana. London: John Murray.

F R A N C E S C LY N E S

THE ENCHANTING HEAVENS

ABSTRACT

According to Max Weber, the development of a rational worldview led to what he termed the “disenchantment of the world”. In the pre-modern world up to the scientific revolution, the heavens were seen as enchanted in a Weberian way. From the astral theology of Mesopotamia to Medieveal Christianity, the celestial realm had been associated with the divine. According to both Berman and Wertheim, the work of Newton and Kepler, which included the suggestion that the heavens followed the same mathematical laws as Earth, allowed people to view the celestial realm as an extension of the terrestrial realm, and it became a dis-enchanted place. The heavens ceased to be divine and became progressively more and more disenchanted. However in the twentieth century the human race sought to actually ascend into the heavens. Noble writes that the enchantment of space flight is fundamentally tied to the other-worldly prospect of heavenly ascent. In the 1950s Jung wrote that the thousands of sightings of UFOs showed the Western World, in an era of collective stress, looking to the heavens for a saviour as they always had. According to Weber, a rational world view is incompatible with an enchanted universe. Using the above examples and others, this paper asks if the heavens have become disenchanted in the way Weber used the term or if they continue to enchant as they have always done. According to Max Weber, the pre-modern world was enchanted. He described the pre-modern individual as being at one with his or her environment rather than a detached observer. To them the world was alive, divine, polytheistic and magical, and their relationship with it, was one of participation. This enchanted world, of which the celestial realm was part, was not something to be known and understood or to be mastered. But Weber believed that the world has become progressively disenchanted over the millennia. He wrote: There are no mysterious incalculable forces that come into play, but rather that one can, in principle, master all things by calculation. This means that the world is disenchanted. One need no longer have recourse to magical means in order to master or implore the spirits, as did the savage, for whom such mysterious powers existed. Technical means and calculations perform the service (Weber, 1920, p. 139).

In the pre-modern world the heavens were seen as were alive and filled with divine beings. What this paper is asking is if the heavens have also become disenchanted in the way Weber used the term or if they continue to enchant as they always have. The sacredness of the celestial realm has been a feature of cultures as far back as the third millennium BCE, in Mesopotamia, where, as described by Rochberg, astral phenomena were seen as manifestations of certain gods (Rochberg, 2004, p. 46). This association of celestial bodies with the divine was incorporated into Greek culture where the Athenian philosopher Plato (428–348 BCE) was sympathetic to 61 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 61–67. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_5,

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Mesopotamian beliefs, and supported the introduction of their pantheon to Greece (Timaeus, pp. 40A–41A, 47B–C). In the Myth of Er, Plato describes heaven as beyond concentric spheres, of which Earth is at the centre. Each sphere was associated with a celestial body (Republic, pp. 10.614–10.621). In the second century, the astronomer and astrologer Ptolemy believed that the spheres grew progressively more pure as they ascended. The further away from Earth they were, the purer and more different to the imperfect Earth they became (Almagest, p. 1.1). This system was adopted by Christianity and used by Dante in his Divine Comedy. In Dante’s description of the Medieveal view of the cosmos, heaven is in the Empyrean or tenth sphere. It is beyond time, space and matter. Each of the seven inner spheres relates to a planet and becomes progressively more perfect as Dante moves out from earth towards heaven (Paradiso, pp. 1–21). At the eighth sphere of the fixed stars he sees visions of Christ, the Virgin Mary and the saints. He believes that the power of the constellations is drawn from God. At the ninth sphere, the Primum Mobile, the abode of the angels, Dante sees God as a point of light surrounded by nine rings of angels (Paradiso, pp. 22–23) For Dante, God is at the Empyrean or tenth sphere. Just as with Plato, God is beyond the solar system, in outer space. It was into a world with a still divine cosmos that Isaac Newton was born in 1642. Newton associated space with the divine. To him it was God’s sensorium, and proved the existence of God. Space was imbued with divine spirit. Since God is everywhere, space must also be everywhere, therefore space was infinite. In his words, “This most beautiful system of the Sun, Planets and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being”, and “Since every particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment of Duration is everywhere, certainly the Maker and the Lord of all things cannot be never and nowhere” (Newton, 1729, pp. 387–393). However it would be the work of Newton, along with that of Kepler that ended the perception of the heavens as qualitatively different from earth, and thus more godlike. A 100 years before Newton wrote this, in the 1st decade of the seventeenth century, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion resulted in the celestial realm being seen as a concrete physical domain. He treated the celestial bodies as material bodies that function according to physical laws (The Harmony of the World, pp. 403–598). They were no longer qualitatively different from the imperfect Earth, and therefore no longer divine. That the work of Newton and Kepler unified terrestrial and celestial space, and thereby resulted in its disenchantment, has been argued by both Wertheim and Berman. According to Wertheim, since gravity applied to both terrestrial and celestial realms, the celestial realm ceased to be qualitatively different from the terrestrial realm so ceased to be divine. If gravity, the force that causes an apple to fall to the ground, also causes the planets to orbit the Sun, then planets must be physical matter like the Earth. She cites Kepler’s science fantasy, Somnium, in which he imagined a trip to the Moon, which is now concrete. It is an earthly place that contains mountains, rivers, oceans and animals. It is populated by creatures of a Serpentine nature who build boats (Somnium, p. 28) The heaven had lost their angels and gained more

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earth-like creatures or as Margaret Wertheim put it: “the celestial realm cannot sustain angels and boat-building serpents”. She continued, “From here on, celestial space will ring not with the songs of cherubim and seraphim, but with the roar of rockets and the woosh of warp drives” (Wertheim, 1999, p. 142). Here can be heard echoes of Weber’s “technical means” performing services once performed by spirits. Similarly Berman argued that as people begin to understand how the heavens operate, they lose their magic and mystery. Commenting on the impact of the work of Newton and Kepler, he wrote, “the heavens that confront us on a starry night held no more secrets than a few grains of sand running through our fingers” (Berman, 1981, p. 42). While as Wertheim and Berman have argued, the work of Newton and Kepler resulted in the heavens losing their enchanting magic and mystery, the twentieth century would see them apparently portrayed as devoid of any life whatsoever. The term “Cyberspace”, was defined in William Gibson’s 1984 novel, Neuromancer. In Neuromancer’s opening line, “The sky above the port was the color of a TV tuned to a dead channel”, Gibson announces two things – the death of the sky and the birth of Cyberspace (Gibson, 1984, p. 9). With this line, the sacred sky appears to have hit rock bottom. Not only has it lost its divine spirits, but now it’s lost any claim to life whatsoever. In what is arguably one of the most influential books of the last 50 years, it is being proclaimed dead. But in this line Gibson is deliberately linking the sky and technology. He is suggesting that the sky is about to be reborn in a technological disguise. The term Cyberspace was coined long before the introduction of the Internet as it is known today. With Cyberspace, Gibson created a new world that has become identified with the world entered when a person logs onto the Internet. The terms Internet and Cyberspace have become synonomous, but Karaflogka has differentiated between them. She described the network and its associated hardware as the Internet, but the place a person enters when they log on is Cyberspace, or as she calls it, “where the act of connectivity takes place” (Karaflogka, 2006, p. 17). The Internet has spread at a phenomenal rate. In June 2009 there were estimated to be over 1,668 million users, mainly in the developed world (World Internet Statistics). The question WHY is too big for a single paper and outside of the scope of this one, but the human relationship with Cyberspace appears to be imitating the human relationship with the sky. What people once sought in the sky, they appear to be seeking in Cyberspace. If this is an attempt to re-connect with the sky using technology, then perhaps as suggested by Partridge, through Cyberspace, the Western World is seeking re-enchantment. Partridge believes that, “In cultures thirsty for reenchantment, it (Cyberspace) provides a doorway to digitized sacred space from a materialism that many people find increasingly unsatisfying” (Partridge, 2005, p. 154). Gibson’s much quoted definition of Cyberspace is as follows: Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators. . .A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding. . . (Gibson, 1984, p. 67)

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In this definition he uses the terms “clusters and constellations”. At its birth, and now in the twenty-first century, Internet terminology abounds with celestial terms. Groups of network nodes are known as clusters (Aggelou, 2005, p. 120). The symbol for the Internet is a cloud, and Cloud Computing, a separate term from the cloud symbol, is the current buzzword (PC Magazine). Descriptions of the Dark Internet or Deep Internet appear similar to those of dark matter and deep space (Bergman, 2001). For example, according to NASA 96% of the universe is composed of the invisible dark energy and dark matter (NASA). Similarly, the Dark Internet, so called because it is invisible on the surface, is estimated to be at least 500 times greater than the surface accessible Internet (Bergman, 2001). The tendency to give Internet technology names already associated with the sky, suggests that in some way the Internet appears, at least to some people, to share some common characteristics with the celestial realm. This in turn suggests that humanity’s relationship with the sky and space is being repeated, consciously or unconsciously, in its relationship with the Internet or Cyberspace. In the above quote Partridge refers to Cyberspace as “digitized sacred space”. Other writers have likened it to the Christian Heaven, the Gnostic Heaven, the Heavenly City, the New Jerusalem, the Garden of Eden and Utopia (Benedikt, 1991, pp. 120–124). It has been claimed that it fits the description of religious theorist Mircea Eliade’s sacred space, in that it meets the conditions necessary for a “hierophany” or eruption of the sacred that results in the territory, in this case Cyberspace, becoming detached from its surroundings and becoming qualitatively different, as once were the heavens (Stenger, 1991, p. 55). The following quote from Nicole Stenger describing a person logged into Cyberspace, bears a certain resemblance to Weber’s description of the pre-modern individual in their enchanted world: On the other side of our data gloves we become creatures of coloured light in motion, pulsing with golden particles. . . We will all become angels, and for eternity. . . Cyberspace will feel like Paradise, a space for collective restoration of the habit of perfection (Stenger, 1991, p. 52).

The twentieth century and technology brought new developments in humanity’s relationship with the sky. Before that, while the heavens may have been seen as the abode of the gods, to human beings they were inaccessible. Technology has changed this. Noble argued that with space flight, humanity is now seeking to physically go into the realm of the sacred, in search of enchantment. He wrote, “What today we call space used to be known as heaven. From its earliest expressions, the enchantment of spaceflight was fundamentally tied to the other-worldly prospect of heavenly ascent” (Noble, 1999, p. 115). This also appears to be what people are seeking from Cyberspace. Only a few elite will ever go into space, but Cyberspace is much more accessible. From its earliest days Cyberspace has also offered the opportunity to transcend the mundane. Michael Benedikt, one of the first and most influential Cyberspace theorists wrote in 1991 that Cyberspace is, Another world, a parallel universe, offering the intoxicating prospect of actually fulfilling a dream thousands of years old: the dream of transcending the physical world, fully alive, at will, to dwell in some Beyond, and to be empowered or enlightened there, alone or with others, and to return (Benedikt, 1991, p. 131).


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An earlier example of this mix of the heavens, the divine and technology can be found in the work of Carl Gustav Jung. In Civilisation in Transition Jung wrote that the thousands of individual sightings of UFOs in the 1940s were based on emotional tension caused by collective distress and danger and a vital psychic need in the threatening situation of the post-war world. Humanity wanted to escape from the prison of an Earth that was growing too small and threatened by the hydrogen bomb so looked for help from extra-terrestrial sources since it could not be found on Earth. He wrote “Hence there appears Signs in the heavens”, superior beings in the kind of space ships devised by our technological fantasy (Jung, 1964, p. 616). He believed that it was characteristic of the time that “the archetype of the saviour should take the form of a technological construction in order to avoid the odiousness of mythological personification” (Jung, 1964, p. 624). People wanted to escape from the prison of the Earth so “looked to the heavens for salvation as they always had”, “beyond the realm of earthly organisations and powers into the heavens, into interstellar space, where the rulers of human fate, the gods, once had their abode in the planets” (Jung, 1964, p. 610). However this time when they looked to the sky for a saviour, they found technology. According to Jung “Anything that looks technological goes down without difficulty with modern man” (Jung, 1964, p. 624). Fifty years later Partridge wrote that the continued fascination with extraterrestrial life was a sign of re-enchantment (Partridge, 2005, p. 169). Extra-Terrestrials, often portrayed in fiction and film as glowing, technologically superior and with superhuman powers, bear a resemblance to the angels last met in Medieveal Christianity. So once more the heavens are populated with divine creatures. And once more people are seeking to communicate with them as their ancestors did in Mesopotamia. Weber writing about what would be termed re-enchantment, said, Many old gods ascend from the grave; they are disenchanted and hence take the form of impersonal forces. They strive to gain power over our lives and again they resume their eternal struggle with one another (Weber, 1920, p. 149).

Weber might not have agreed with the theory that space exploration, extraterrestrial life or Cyberspace are examples of re-enchantment. He referred to new forms of enchantment as impersonal forces and considered them disenchanting. He didn’t believe true re-enchantment will take place. However he argued that the process of progressive disenchantment is linear rather than either an enchantment/disenchantment polarity that exists at all times or a cycle of enchantment, disenchantment, and re-enchantment. The re-enchantment theory such as that proposed by Patridge and others, is less pessimistic and sees the urge for enchantment in the individual as signs of re-enchantment. But if we accept Weber’s premise that disenchantment is a linear process, then re-enchantment is not possible in the modern technological world. However this can be disputed. Nick Campion challenged Weber’s view that enchantment is necessarily antithetical to technology. He stated,

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To make this condition is to deny the evidence that technology can be enchanting, or an aid to enchantment. It is to elevate technology to the position of some spirit-denying role. To dismiss experiences obtained with the aid of technology as not genuine enchantment, is to adopt a position as elitist and dogmatic as that which, in the opposite direction, denies the reality of experiences of the paranormal (Campion, 2009).

According to Weber, enchantment requires magic and mystery – it must be incalculable. He argued that in a world where it is believed everything is knowable, disenchantment is inevitable. To know one must observe, to observe one must detach. It is not possible to be at one with the natural world. Therefore disenchantment is incompatible with the scientific approach. Therefore, following Weber, astronomy today seeking to understand the heavens is incompatible with enchantment. In Weberian terms you cannot have an enchanted astronomer. The following quote by astronomer David Levy, challenges that theory. Writing about a Mercury transit of the Sun, he wrote, I was filled with the sense of the solar system in motion. . .Instead of watching Mercury meander across a silent backdrop, we watched it move gracefully from one solar feature to another. . .the closest planet to the Sun is capable of putting up a marvellous show (Levy, 2007).

“I was filled with a sense of the solar system”, suggests involvement and participation with the cosmos, not detachment. This is enchantment in the Weberian sense and using technology. That people are seeking re-enchantment has been argued by Berman, Partridge and others. Cyberspace can be considered an expression of this, as it appears to be an attempt to recreate the human relationship with the sky, in a way that can be physically accessed by all. This suggests that, as argued by Campion and demonstrated by Levy, the sky continues to be a source of enchantment in the modern world. Institute of Technology, Tallaght, Ireland; University of Wales, Lampeter, UK, e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES Aggelou, George. 2005. Mobile ad-hoc networks. New York: McGraw-Hill. Anon. PC Magazine encyclopedia. http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=cloud&i= 39847,00.asp. Accessed 7 July 2009; http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=cloud+ computing&i=57964,00.asp. Accessed 7 July 2009. Anon. World internet statistics. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm. Accessed 4 Oct 2009. Benedikt, Michael. 1991. Cyberspace: Some proposals. In Cyberspace: First steps, ed. Michael Benedikt. Cambridge: MIT. Bergman, Michael K. 2001. The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden Value. The Journal of Electronic Publishing 7(1). Issue title: Taking License: Recognizing a Need to Change. Berman, Morris. 1981. The re-enchantment of the world. London: Cornell University Press. Campion, Nick. 2009. ‘Enchantment and the awe of the heavens’. Proceedings of the INSAP VI Conference, Venice, (ed. Enrico Maria Corsini). San Francisco: ASP Conference Series, October 2010. Dante, Alighieri. 2009. The divine comedy, paradiso (trans. Henry Francis Cary). London: Wordsworth Editions Ltd.


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Gibson, William. 1984. Neuromancer. London: Voyager, 1995 [Victor Gollancz, 1984]. Isaac Newton, Isaac. 1729. ‘General Scholium’, The Mathematical principles of natural philosophy (trans. Andrew Motte) (London, 1729) Jung, Carl Gustav. 1964. The collected works of C. G. Jung. In Civilisation in transition (trans: R.F.C. Hull), vol. 10. London and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd. Karaflogka, Anastasia. 2006. E-religion: A critical appraisal of religious discourse on the world wide web. London: Equinox. Kepler, Johannes. 1967. Somnium: The dream (trans. Edward Rosen). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Levy, David. 2007. Our memorable mercury transit. Sky and Telescope, May. Noble, David F. 1999. The religion of technology: The divinity of man and the spirit of invention, 2nd ed. New York: Penguin Books [1997]. Partridge, Christopher. 2005. The re-enchantment of the west. London: T&T Clarke International. Plain, Charlie. A dim light shines on dark matter. NASA website, http://www.nasa.gov/missions/ deepspace/chandra_dark_matter_halo.html. Accessed 7 July 2009. Plato. 1997a. Epinomiss. In Plato: Complete works, eds. John M. Cooper, and D.S. Hutchinson (trans. Richard D. McKirahan, Jr.). Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company. Plato. 1997b. Republic. In Plato: Complete works, eds. John M. Cooper, and D.S. Hutchinson (trans: Richard D. McKirahan, Jr.). Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company. Plato. 1997c. Timaeus. In Plato: Complete works, eds. John M. Cooper, and D.S. Hutchinson (trans. Donald J. Zeyl). Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company. Ptolemy, Claudius. 1984. Almagest (trans. G. J. Toomer). London: Duckworth. Rochberg, Francesca. 2004. The heavenly writing: Divination, horoscopy and astronomy in mesopotamian culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stenger, Nicole. 1991. ‘Mind is a leaking rainbow’. In Cyberspace: First steps, ed. Michael Benedikt. Cambridge: MIT. Weber, Max. 1920. Science as a vocation. In From max weber: Essays in sociology, eds H.H. Gerth, and C. Wright Mills (trans. and ed.), 129–156. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1947. Wertheim, Margaret. 1999. The pearly gates of cyberspace. London: W.W. Norton & Co. Ltd.

M E N A S K A FAT O S

THE SCIENCE OF WHOLENESS

ABSTRACT

Astronomy has played a key role in the development of science and in humanity’s view of the universe and our place in it. The view of the cosmos has always held a special place in the minds and hearts of cultures throughout the history of the world. In some sense, looking at the night sky reminds us of the depths of our own existence. It is not surprising then that as we attempt to search for the holy grail of science, the unification of diverse fields, that astronomy would find itself central. The universal diagrams provide glimpses of such unification and astronomical objects play a very important role. However, the future science of wholeness will need to go much further than any physical theory has gone so far and provide bold steps to unify everything in the human experience. We are referring to an approach that starts from a set of foundational principles that are universally applicable and can form the very roots of the science of wholeness. The first such steps are outlined in the present paper.

INTRODUCTION

Astronomy dates back to antiquity as the most ancient of what we would call today physical sciences. It was developed along with mathematics and impacted philosophical ideas in the ancient world, most notably Greece. There is no doubt that watching with awe the starry sky, our ancestors wondered what we are, where we came from and how we fit in the universe. Watching the regularity of the heavens, the distant and mysterious Milky Way, the arrangements of constellations, how they fit in the picture of the cosmos in ancient cultures, one cannot but notice that as we fix our gaze on the dark sky, we are experiencing a profound wholeness. It is this wholeness which is central to human experience. Mathematics was developed as order was paramount to what we observe. Music and the arts are steeped in that order and it is not an accident that mathematics, art (particularly music) and astronomy were closely related and developed: The music of the spheres of the Pythagoreans epitomizes that relationship: Music, Geometry (Mathematics) and the Heavens. To the ancients, they were all closely related, a wholeness of experience. Unlike our modern world where divisions are worshipped as fundamental, and even necessary, the alternative view of wholeness in human experience has affected the rise of civilization and formed the main tenets of ancient Egypt, ancient India, ancient China, and particularly ancient Greece. It is likely that similar tenets existed in all great ancient civilizations. Since we recognize our roots in these ancient civilizations, particularly in the Greco-Roman traditions, we must accept that we are rooted in wholeness. It 69 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 69–80. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_6,

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is important to again emphasize that astronomy may have played a central, unifying role: Watching the sky, leads to a silence which in turn gives rise to the experience of being part of something much greater, a whole beyond our limited existence and lifetime of mere years. The vastness of space points to the vastness of wholeness, to the vastness of inner experience, to the infinity of time. It is perhaps because the human mind itself is rooted in wholeness: By mind we refer to more the ancient concepts of Nous (Greek) or Manas (Hindu), rather than the modern version of limited mind. The mind is vast and unlimited, it perhaps remains in awe in front of the cosmos because it recognizes that itself is unlimited and whole. Science itself is rooted in the cosmos, it is rooted in astronomy as Henry Stapp (chapter “Mind in the Quantum Universe”, present volume) observes. It is no wonder that quantum theory, which has produced a radically different view of the universe from classical physics has both ushered non-locality and the role of the observer. Today’s science has achieved remarkable successes and is an indispensable aspect of humanity. Without science, there can be no progress. Yet, science cannot explain, it is not equipped to explain anything that is not subject to algorithmic rules, to ordinary mathematical descriptions, or in the case of physical systems, partial differential equations. It cannot explain the qualitative aspects of reality. Present science cannot completely explain not only living processes in large aggregates of cells, organisms, etc., or what we may term holistic organizations (it certainly has great success to account for molecular biochemical processes), but also noetic aspects of reality, mind and consciousness. It cannot explain or even account for the experiences of art, for the entire experience of human life, driven by the emotional levels of the psyche. And certainly it has little to say about the deep underlying nature of the cosmos, or reality, in general. We believe that present-day science needs to be extended beyond its present limits and it needs a new ontological model of reality, what we term here the science of wholeness. A revised methodology, which derives from the above ontological model will have to follow. The methodology in laying the foundations of science of wholeness would indicate that rather than pursuing distinct but separate paths in trying to understand the universe and human experience, that these realities ought to be considered together, an undivided whole. As Kafatos and Drãgãnescu (2003) have pointed out, we may not be able to account for the whole levels of life and explain noetic aspects without knowing the nature of the underlying reality. We should compare our approach to the seminal work of Bohm (1980), who perhaps more than any other physicist explored the underlying levels of reality, giving rise to wholeness, what he termed the implicate order. As such, what are the principles of this underlying reality? If such principles are to be explored, they need to be related to phenomena in the physical universe. And the principles themselves may be telling us many intricacies of the phenomenal world, as they would shine through phenomenal experience. In pursuing these principles, one would understand that the whole procedure is similar to building the foundations of mathematics, say geometry, from fundamental axioms. Such an axiomatic approach would ultimately be tied to specific theories such as quantum theory,


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general relativity, etc. But it would extend beyond them. We expect that fundamental mathematics such as category theory (Kato and Struppa, 1999; Drãgãnescu et al. 2001) will provide the requisite framework for developing the right language and methodology of the science of wholeness. These are the first “shy” steps in developing the science of wholeness. Such an endeavor would require many thinkers to join forces across different disciplines, presently not in dialogue with science. Creative processes in art and in science will have to be studied to identify common elements. The present albeit brief essay is an exercise in exploration. Much of what is here has been discussed in previous works, most notably Kafatos and Drãgãnescu (2003) and I am indebted to the many developments of these ideas by Mihai Drãgãnescu. Additional material has been added, including the challenge of survival of humanity.

FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES AND PHYSICAL THEORIES

The astronomical observation of Tycho led to Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion, coupled to Galileo’s association of gravity with acceleration, led directly to Newton’s law of gravitational attraction; in turn, this led to the idea of physical determinism. The idea of universal physical determinism is a basic precept of what is now called “classical physics” (chapter “Mind in the Quantum Universe” by Henry Stapp, present volume). We conclude that the foundational principle of determinism forms the main foundational principle of classical physics. We can now begin to explore the foundational principles of the new science of wholeness. Foundational principles are more fundamental than physical theories (Kafatos, 1998a). Still the foundational principles have to rely on a general model of existence and need to be developed in a systematic way. The entire existence has two main parts or components: a deep underlying reality (Kafatos and Nadeau, 1990; Drãgãnescu 1985, 1997/1979) and the universe (or even many universes, not connected to each other). These two components are not separable because the universe is born from the deep underlying reality and maintains contact with it. “The deep underlying reality is a matrix on which a universe develops and the substrate of a universe is also a part of this deep underlying reality” (Drãgãnescu and Kafatos, 1999). Seen from inside a specific universe the physical laws are structural. The physical laws of the deep underlying reality are, on the other hand, mainly semantic in character (Rosen, 1988; Drãgãnescu, 1990, 1993, 1996). The deep underlying reality, as part of a universe, introduces in turn the influence of its semantic laws to supplement the structural physical laws of the universe. Mental phenomena (noetic) of experience form an objective reality in itself, beyond its subjective way of manifestation in the human consciousness. Drãgãnescu (1985, using the concept of mental phenomenological sense), Chalmers (1995b, 1996), Stapp (1997), Kafatos (1998a) etc. all recognize the objective existence of the experiential phenomenon and consider that it can not anymore be neglected by science. The experiential phenomenon is one of the most fundamental phenomena of

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nature according to Drãgãnescu. He, in considering its semantic character of several phenomena, named them phenomenological, as they must be aspects of a general phenomenon existing in the deep existence and manifested in physical processes. The proposed model of the science of wholeness, as a basis of forming foundational principles in the philosophy of science, assumes the existence of a deep underlying reality and the recognition of the primacy of phenomenological sense (which in the specific case of mental phenomena can be termed as experience ), at both the physical and informational levels of reality. And a model of reality which recognizes the primacy of the phenomenological sense is a structural-phenomenological model of reality (for more discussion, see Kafatos and Drãgãnescu, 2003). In what follows, we examine a set of proposed foundational principles for the entire existence, for the deep underlying reality and for the corresponding universe(s) which are based on the above. This proposal follows the work of Kafatos and Drãgãnescu (2003, and several articles by same authors) and points the direction to be followed to develop a true science of wholeness.

PRINCIPLES CONCERNING EXISTENCE

Following an axiomatic approach, the following foundational principles which apply to the entire existence or reality as defined above are assumed: • • • • •

complementarity (Principle 1 or P1); the physical and informational nature of existence (P2); semantic laws (P3); self-organization (P4); and fundamental consciousness of existence (P5). The specifics of the above principles are summarized here: COMPLEMENTARITY

A generalization of complementarity beyond the quantum levels yields the assertion (Kafatos and Nadeau, 2000) that Complementarity is a foundational principle of existence (P1), applying at all levels, from the level of deep existence to the physical quantum and cosmological realms. Complementarity manifests itself in the whole/part behavior of reality, in the energetic/informational properties of deep reality, in the wave/particle duality in the universe, in the structural/phenomenological aspects of consciousness, in the local/non-local properties of the universe, and in the continuous/discontinuous phenomena, to just name a few (Kafatos and Drãgãnescu 2003). Applying the ontological principle of complementarity may be very useful for resolving some situations of current impasse in science in moving forward. In the description of the universe there are observational and theoretical horizons of knowledge (Kafatos and Nadeau, 1990, 2000; Kafatos, 1989). Approaching a specific horizon of knowledge, the observational data available “prevent us from


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deciding unequivocally how these tests confirm or reject particular theoretical models” (Kafatos 1989). These models represent complementary constructs, and the new concept of the universe, at that horizon of knowledge, is emerging as the boundary between these constructs. As such, horizons of knowledge are present not only in cosmology, but in other fields as well. Such generalization of complementarity was proposed early on by Bohr (1958). THE NATURE OF EXISTENCE This principle has the following subcomponents: The nature of existence is both physical and informational (P2), and The actual manifestation of nature of existence is mainly physical (P2’) Principle (P2) may be considered as a principle of an informational materialism in philosophy. Also, an important aspect of the entire existence is its “energy” (which for a physical aspect is ordinary energy). There is energy in the deep existence with specific properties and according to Drãgãnescu (1990, 1993, 1996), Energy is a universal ontological principle of existence (P2a). Also, Drãgãnescu (1990; 1993; 1996) proposed that Information is a universal ontological principle of existence (P2b). In examining the nature of existence, one concludes that matter by its nature includes both energy and information; it also contains or forms an underlying fundamental consciousness. In a particular universe (such as ours), the information is also structural (like digital information) or structural-phenomenological (as found in mind processes). Information is, therefore, a fundamental reality of all existence, and physics will be able to accommodate it only after the recognition of the existence of actual phenomenological (experiential) information. In this sense, quantum theory, more than any other scientific theory, has opened the door to the mental phenomena and the underlying structure of the cosmos, it has recognized the primacy of such phenomena (Stapp, 1997; chapter “Mind in the Quantum Universe” by Henry Stapp, present volume). But it has not resolved the fundamental issue of how to account for them, how to build a comprehensive theory of noetic processes. SEMANTIC LAWS AND TENDENCIES OF BECOMING According to the works of Drãgãnescu and Kafatos, the phenomenological aspects of the underlying deep reality, are by their nature equivalent to semantic laws because they give the tendencies of evolution (cf. Drãgãnescu, 1990, 1993, 1996). These are the most fundamental laws of existence and the principle of the semantic laws and associated tendencies of becoming (P3) is a foundational principle. The work of Stapp over the years has brought out similar ideas when quantum theory is applied to mental phenomena. The semantic laws of nature are phenomenological and have tendencies to evolve (see also Stapp, summarized in present volume). Because these laws are at the origin of the formal laws of the universe, the more recent ones are carriers of the tendencies

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of the previous ones (we emphasize here that there is an interesting analogy with the quantum mind ideas of Stapp). Therefore, tendencies of becoming are a general property of existence, and principle (P3) is ontologically universal. In our view, determinism (including the statistical determinism) and non-determinism are complementary. Perminov (1988/1979) considers that this is a generalization of the principle of complementarity of Niels Bohr. Finally, the sources of the semantic laws are the infra-consciousness of existence and fundamental consciousness (for more details see Kafatos and Drãgãnescu, 2003).

SELF-ORGANIZATION If the semantic laws of existence and the thought processes of consciousness are establishing tendencies of becoming and of evolution, they are realized in: The ontological principle of self-organization (P4). Self-organization is encountered in the structural domains of reality, and in the structural-phenomenological realms, in deep underlying reality and in the associated universe emerging from such reality. In the structural domain of the physical world, self-organization is produced due to the specific formal laws which are governing this domain or sub-domains of it. For example, gravity leads to self-organized objects like planets, stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies. Also, atoms and molecules are formed by self-organization. Nuclei are self-organized objects from quarks, etc. It has been recognized in the development of non-linear dynamics that non-linearity and processes governed by non-linear dynamics are essential for a rich range of self-organized structures. As such, self-organization is acting in structures with cellular automata, complex adaptive systems, artificial life systems, deterministic chaos processes, etc., all these forming the newest domains of the structural science. They are all important contributions to science, but are still within the realm of structural science. Phenomena of self-organization are also present at the social levels, Drãgãnescu and Kafatos (2003) (for example social insects and human society). The rapid rise of the Internet is an example of self-organization at global levels and one can only appreciate the influence that it has yielded in transforming modern society. The emergence of life in the universe is itself a process of self-organization. Life self-organizes itself. The process of self-organization once understood may be used by humans in advancing the state of societies. At deep levels of reality, the Fundamental Consciousness Itself uses the processes of self-organization to give rise to the myriad of phenomena. Self-organization builds more complex things from simpler things. Kafatos (1998b) proposed that self-organization, as well as simplicity and complexity, should be examined as candidates for foundational principles in the philosophy of (ordinary) science. The principle of self-organization is indeed as important as the other foundational principles. Self-organization is present at all levels in existence and it may be said that it is scale-invariant.


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In the structural (or realm governed by ordinary science) realm of the universe, it is known that complex structures and phenomena manifest, in many cases, on the basis of very simple mathematical equations. Chaos phenomena and fractals are apparently complex, but are simple at their roots in the basic equations. Perhaps, higher complexity is present in the Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS), a concept introduced at the Santa Fe Institute (cf. Kaufmann 1995; Coveney and High-field, 1995; etc.). Contemporary science tries to explain a great part of reality through the complexity of structural processes. A complex system must thus have non-computable models (Rosen, 1997). For example, organisms are complex entities, human consciousness is complex, deep reality is complex, and the Fundamental Consciousness of Existence is Complex. The existence in its totality is, therefore, complex. If the deep existence, which is complex, gives rise to structural domains based on simplicity, as mentioned above for the case of elementary particles, and the evolution of these structures develops complex objects with phenomenological parts, then there is a movement or flow from, to: complexity - - > simplicity - - > complexity. It may also be the case that in the deep reality, the infra-consciousness of existence, which is the most fundamental phenomenological sense of existence, or what one may term the feeling of existence itself, is very simple, like the deep energy, but at the same time all-encompassing, to generate vast numbers of complexities. In such a case, the mentioned movement or flow would be simplicity - - > complexity - - > simplicity - - > complexity.

THE FUNDAMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF EXISTENCE The idea of a conscious universe (Kafatos and Nadeau, 1990, 2000) has recently gained momentum (see e.g. Drãgãnescu, 1997), and has been amplified through the concept of the fundamental consciousness of existence (Drãgãnescu, 1998a, b) and through the proposition that this is a foundational principle (Kafatos 1998b). As such, The Fundamental Consciousness of Existence (P5) is itself a fundamental principle. Consciousness is of two general types: (a) human consciousness in a social environment, as well as forms of consciousness of other organisms, and (b) the fundamental consciousness of existence. Human consciousness is today an intense object of study. However, the problem is to identify which parts are the main principles of consciousness valid for both types, and which ones are different between them. Human consciousness is not as encompassing as fundamental consciousness and the very usage of the term “consciousness” often introduces confusion. In other words, fundamental consciousness is not anthropomorphic (Kafatos and Nadeau, 1990, 2000). Its

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existence depends mainly on the nature of the deep underlying reality, using the elements and properties of this reality, co-existing with it, and involving a plethora of possible emerging universes as structures for intelligence (Drãgãnescu, 1998a, b). The actual possibility of fundamental consciousness depends on the phenomenological manifestations of the deep reality. A phenomenological sense which assures the unity of deep reality and with it the unity of the whole existence, is one which manifests itself as the feeling of existing, or as we said above, an infra-consciousness of existence. Around this infra-consciousness, an emerging consciousness develops by using the deep levels of energy to form emerging structures (in order “to know”, to become reflexive, it must use structures to obtain intelligence). These structures cannot be anything but universes created with the help of phenomenological attributes and energy. The universes are involved in the fundamental consciousness of existence (Drãgãnescu, 1998a), under the direction or “command” of the semantic laws of reality and the command of consciousness itself. Fundamental consciousness is, therefore, phenomenological-structural, implying the entire existence, and for this reason it is a foundational principle. Human consciousness is structural-phenomenological. This is one important difference between these two types of consciousness, the order and emphasis of emergence. However, it is also the case that consciousness is fundamental in general, and is not an evolutionary accident of biology. Does it mean that existence is “alive” if it has a conscious whole? (as Kafatos and Nadeau, 2000; and Nadeau and Kafatos, 1999 have affirmed). Perhaps the attributes of life, which fundamentally also imply the inevitable mortality of every organism in a universe, are not appropriate for understanding or more appropriately experiencing the fundamental consciousness. Being immortal, outside of space and time, we might instead use the old philosophical term of Being for It, as developed in all perennial philosophies (Kafatos and Kafatou, 1991). It may be that consciousness is complementary to physical existence, and it may be said that “the Universe and Consciousness are related to each other the same way that body and mind are related to each other” (Kafatos, 1998b).

THE NATURE OF UNDERLYING DEEP REALITY AND THE UNIVERSE

The underlying deep reality is the first and the ultimate reality, existing outside of space and time (Kafatos and Nadeau, 1990, 2000; Drãgãnescu 1990, 1993, 1996). The underlying deep reality (P6) is a foundational principle in the proposed science of wholeness, and should be accepted before all else as the fundamental principle on which all other principles are based. An important phenomenon of the deep reality is the coupling, under specific circumstances, between the phenomenological information and the deep energy, which is a coupling of these components of the deep matter. P6 gives the possibility to speculate on possible models of the deep underlying reality, and to propose, in the


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future, specific foundational principles for this part of reality (for more details see Kafatos and Drãgãnescu, 2003). Finally, if a universe is generated by the deep reality and is connected to it, the principles governing this particular universe, it must be a reflection of this condition. As such, the first of these principles (Kafatos and Nadeau, 1990, 2000; Kafatos 1998b) is: Nonlocality/wholeness (P7). Non-locality manifests in the universe due to the fact that the elementary particles are wave-like in the deep reality which allows for wholeness. Non-locality is presently firmly established (Kafatos, 1998a; see the rich phenomena such as the Aharonov-Bohm effect). In the frame of the standard model of quantum mechanics (Kafatos and Nadeau, 2000), a spatial or Type I non-locality produces an entanglement of elementary particles (for instance, photons) across space-like separated regions, even over astronomical scales; a temporal, or type II non-locality, which states that a path followed by a particle (e.g. a photon) is not determined until a delayed experimental choice (per J. Wheeler or Y. Aharonov) is made, as if the past is brought together with the present. In the frame of a unified field theory, a type III non-locality (Kafatos and Nadeau, 2000) would be expected, implying the unified whole of space-time converging to the wholeness unity of the deep underlying reality. Type I and Type II non-locality are, in fact, facets of the Type III non-locality. Today it is accepted that the structural universe is fundamentally a quantum system. However, the complete universe (at least ours) is not only quantum, it is also phenomenological. Therefore, the following foundational principle (Drãgãnescu, 1998a) holds, The Universe is quantum-phenomenological (P8), which is a stronger statement than the ordinary statement “the structural universe is a quantum system” (although of course this statement is also true, but it has not the character of a foundational principle applying at all levels). In a first approximation the universe is structural, and the structural science has worked quite well with this approximation, which is otherwise very useful. As an example, an interesting feature of the structure and structural order of the universe is given by the Universal Diagrams (Kafatos, 1986; Kafatos and Nadeau, 1990, 2000; Kafatos 1998a) based on the structural laws of physics and the constants involved in these laws. The Universal Diagrams (UD) represent relationships between physical quantities (mass, size, luminous output, surface temperature, entropy radiated away, etc. ) for objects from elementary particles to atoms, molecules, sub-cellular organelles (chromosomes etc.), cells, other biological entities, industrial and man-made objects, cities, planets, stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, superclusters, etc. Principle (P8) is confirmed overall by the phenomena of experience. The way in which the universe is quantum-phenomenological is open for scientific research. However, there is a lot more work to be done to build quantum-phenomenological models of the universe. The continuous deepening of the structural quantum theory and the new efforts towards a quantum theory of the brain (chapter “Mind in the Quantum Universe” by Henry Stapp, present volume) might offer insights for a quantum phenomenological theory of the universe.

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Finally, The objects with life, mind and consciousness in a universe are structuralphenomenological (P9). This principle is defining the complete nature of these objects. The universe is structural-phenomenological because it is quantumphenomenological, and also because its phenomena of life, mind, and consciousness are structural-phenomenological. Evolving or deepening the existing quantum theory, will allow phenomenological and energy-containing sources at all levels to be explored. Concerning living objects, these structures, from the underlying biosphere itself, through self-organization, emerge and form a general property of nature on the Earth. This coupling may be the basis for explaining the “explanatory gap” of the brain-mind problem (Drãgãnescu, 1998c). This coupling is different from the coupling of energy and phenomenological information in the deep reality. It seems that there are many forms of coupling of objects and phenomena in existence.

CONCLUSIONS: SCIENCE OF WHOLENESS AND THE SURVIVAL OF HUMAN SOCIETIES

The foundational principles proposed in this paper are partly rooted in scientific facts, partly based on philosophical considerations, extrapolating new scientific concepts not yet incorporated in the existing system of science as practiced today. A mixture of science and philosophy of science may be a bridge between the old and the new science of wholeness proposed here. These principles may be used as working hypothesis for extending science, and for elaborating new scientific theories. With new advances of science, they may be refined and incorporated into the next level of development. Examining the proposed list (P1)–(P9) of foundational principles, one may ask what is the paradigm suggested by the philosophy of science encompassing these principles. Candidates for the new general paradigms are (Kafatos and Drãgãnescu 2003): • Underlying deep reality; • Phenomenological sense (experience, phenomenological information); • Fundamental Consciousness of Existence. Concerning the methodology of science, the structural science is based on theory, especially mathematical models, and measurements. Perhaps the most critical part of the scientific method today is the role of measurement in science, particularly quantum measurement theory. Today structural science is accepting indirect proofs of the theory as was the case with the theory of quarks for the structure of nucleons. These particles were not isolated and measured, but the indirect proof of their existence validated the theory. Indirect proofs became more important, even fundamental, with enlarging or deepening of the results of quantum theory, even in the structural domain. However, one has to be careful before accepting entire scientific constructs, just because they


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conveniently extend some observations that may be in dispute (such as the dark energy concept of empty space in an expanding universe). For the new science of wholeness, new methodological principles are needed. In any case, for the time being, to the methodology of the structural science, the following fundamental principle may be added to the list so far (Drãgãnescu, 1990, 1993, 1996): Structural science is insufficient and incomplete to describe the entire reality (P10) or otherwise stated, structural science is insufficient to describe objects undergoing phenomenological processes, such as living objects, mind, consciousness, as well as deep existence, the Fundamental Consciousness of Existence and, finally, the overall nature of existence. The current challenges facing humanity may be pointing to the need and urgency to develop a generalized system of science of wholeness. The recent economic collapse and the looming problem of ecosystems under stress and global climate change, both point to the direction that ordinary science by itself cannot address these challenges. A science of wholeness needs to be developed that would encompass the fundamental aspects of human experience, at all levels. We believe that the way to begin is to think about and develop what would be the underlying principles in a fundamental mathematical approach (beyond just numerics). Such principles would not only form the theoretical framework, they would also provide a practical way to develop and address what issues an effective new science would resolve. What we have outlined here is just a blueprint for how this may come about. The actual work will have to involve many people and organizations. Clearly, time is of essence. On the other hand, one cannot short circuit the process, so patience is required. Acknowledgments I am indebted to my friend and colleague Mihai Drãgãnescu for developing and working with me on many of the ideas here. Mihai unfortunately passed away this year. He is being missed.

Schmid College of Science, Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA, e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES Bohm, D. 1980. Wholeness and the implicate order. London: Routledge. Bohr, N. 1958. Atomic physics and human knowledge. New York: John Wiley. Chalmers, D. 1995a. Puzzle of conscious experience. Scientific American, December: 62–68. Chalmers, D. 1995b. Facing up the problem of consciousness. Journal of Conscious-ness Studies 2–3: 200–219. Chalmers, D. 1996. The conscious mind. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coveney, P., and R. Highfield. 1995. Frontiers of complexity. The search for order in a chaotic world. New York: Fawcett Columbine. Drãgãnescu, M. 1985. Ortofizica (Orthophysics), Bucharest. Drãgãnescu, M. 1990. Informatia materiei (Information of matter), Bucharest. Drãgãnescu, M. 1993. Principes d une science structurale-phénoménologique, Bulle-tin de la Classe des Lettres et des Sciences Morales et Politiques, Academie Royale de Belgique, 6e série, Tome IV, 7–12: 255–311.

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Drãgãnescu, M. 1996. L’universalité ontologique de l’information, préface et notes par Yves Kodratoff, Prof.,Université de Paris-Sud, Directeur de recherche au CNRS. Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române. Drãgãnescu, M. 1997/1979. The depths of existence, published in English, 1997, on the Web: http://www.racai.ro/books/doe (translation of the Romanian edition “Profunzimile lumii materiale”, Bucharest, 1979). Drãgãnescu, M. 1997. Deep reality, conscious universe and complementarity. The Noetic Journal 1.1: 114–117. Drãgãnescu, M. 1998a. Structural-phenomenological theories in Europe and USA. Paper presented at the workshop Convergences, Workshop on Convergent Ideas in the Philosophy of Science in USA and Europe, George Mason University, July 21, Fairfax. Drãgãnescu, M. 1998b. Constiinta fundamentala a existentei (The fundamental consciousness of existence), Academica, ianuarie 1998, 20–21 (I-a), Feb. 1998, 20 (II-a), Mar 1998, III-a, 28–29. Drãgãnescu, M. 1998c. Taylor’s Bridge across the explanatory gap and its extension. Consciousness and Cognition 7: 165–168. Drãgãnescu, M., and M. Kafatos. 1999. Generalized foundational principles in the philosophy of science. The Noetic Journal 2(4): 341–350. Drãgãnescu, M., and M. Kafatos. 2003. Community and social factors for the integrative science. Research paper, Institute of Research for Artificial Intelligence, Romanian Academy, Romania. Drãgãnescu, M., M. Kafatos, and S. Roy. 2001. Main types of phenomenological categories. Proceedings of the Romanian Academy 2(3); 115–122. Kafatos, M. 1986. Astrophysics of brown dwarfs, eds. M. Kafatos, R.S. Harrington, and S.P. Maran, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Kafatos, M. 1989. Horizons of knowledge in cosmology. In Bell’s theorem, quantum theory & conceptions of the universe, ed. M. Kafatos, 195–210. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Kafatos, M. 1998a. Non-locality, complementarity and cosmology. In Causality and locality in modern physics and astronomy: Open questions and possible solutions. A symposium in Honor of Jean-Pierre Vigier, eds. G. Hunter and G. Jeffers. Boston: Kluwer Academic. Kafatos, M. 1998b. Non-locality, foundational principles & consciousness, communication at the Workshop Convergences. Kafatos, M., and M. Drãgãnescu. 2003. Principles of integrative science. Bucharest: Editura Tehnica. Kafatos, M., and T. Kafatou. 1991. Looking in, seeing out: consciousness and cosmos. Wheaton: Quest Books. Kafatos, M., and R. Nadeau. 1990. The conscious universe. New York: Springer Verlag. Kafatos, M., and R. Nadeau. 2000 The conscious universe: Parts and wholes in physical reality. New York: Springer. Kato, G., and D. Struppa. 1999. A sheaf theoretic approach to consciousness. The Noetic Journal 2.1: 1–3. Kaufmann, St. 1995. At home in the universe. The search for laws of self-organization and complexity. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nadeau, R., and M. Kafatos. 1999. The non-local universe: The new physics and matters of the mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Perminov, V. I. 1988/1979. Cauzalitate (causality), Bucharest 1988 (translated in Romanian after the Russion edition, 1979). Rosen, R. 1988. Processes and natural law. In The universal turing machine, a half-century, ed. Herken Rolf, 523–538. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rosen, R. 1997. Are our modelling paradigms non-generic? ch. 14. In Time process and structured transformation in archeology, eds. S. van der Leeuw and J. McGlade J. London: Routledge. Stapp, H.P. 1997. Why classical mechanics cannot naturally accommodate consciousness but quantum mechanics can. Noetic Journal 1: 85–86.

SECTION II COSMOS SHAPING WORLD VIEWS History of Science, Philosophy of Science

BÉLA KÁLMÁN

MERIDIANAE IN ITALY

ABSTRACT

The catholic church supported astronomical observations and gave them ample financial support for several centuries. These observations were needed for studying the movement of the Sun and establishing the date of Easter. Before the use of telescopes large cathedrals served as astronomical observatories, with openings in the walls or ceilings for the sunlight and large meridian lines on the floors for observing the transit of the Sun. The author of the present paper had the opportunity to study four of the largest meridianae in Italy, and also some other instruments connected with the calendar reform of Pope Gregory XIII, and hereby summarizes their significance. There is a widespread opinion, based mainly on the cases of Copernicus and Galilei, that the catholic church was generally hostile to astronomy, and made no contribution to the evolution of this science. But actually “the Roman Catholic Church gave more financial and social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries, . . . than any other, and, probably, all other, institutions. . . . [although] the basis of its generosity to astronomy was not a love of science but a problem in administration. The problem was establishing and promulgating the date of Easter” (Heilbron, 1999, p. 3). Our present (pure solar) calendar system has its origins in the Roman one, which acquired its final form after the reform of Julius Caesar, with final touches fom Augustus. This Julian calendar contains 365 days, every 4th year (the number of which is divisible by 4) is being a leap year with 366 days, i.e. the average length of the year is 365.25 days. This calendar was used also by the Christians in the Roman empire. For them the greatest holiday in the year was Easter, the day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus died on the day of Jewish Passover, after the Last Supper (14 Nisan). The Jewish day begins at sundown, but the Roman day starts at midnight or sunrise. Jesus was buried on Friday, and the Resurrection occurred on Sunday. The early Christians therefore held Easter 1 or 2 days after the Jewish 14 Nisan. The problem was, that they had to ask the rabbi what the exact date of Nisan 14 was, as the Jewish calendar is a fairly complicated luni-solar one. Therefore a Christian Nisan, named “Luna” was introduced, and calculated from various cycles, and Easter was held after 14 Luna. The main cycle was the Metonic cycle known from the Greeks, where after every 19 years minus 1 day the lunar phases occur on the same date in the calendar. The subtraction of the 1 day was called “saltus Lunae”. As Christianity spread, two main lines developed for Easter. In Asia Easter was celebrated every year on 14 Nisan (Quartodecimans), but in Rome and Alexandria 83 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 83–88. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_7,

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Easter was celebrated on the Sunday after 16 Luna or 15 Luna, respectively. In 313 Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, and in 325 he convened the first ecumenical council in Nicea, to unify the Christian faith and suppress heresy. The quartodeciman practice was declared as heretical, and the council assigned the Alexandrians the task of computing the date of Easter, to which all Christian communities had to adhere. The 318 bishops present in Nicea observed, that the vernal equinox occurred on 21 March. In Alexandria the Metonic cycle was used, with saltus Lunae in the last year. The Alexandrians distributed their results well in advance, e.g. Bishop Cyrill for the next 95 years, 437–531. The Julian calendar had a long cycle of 532 years, a combination of the 19 year Metonic cycle and the 28 year circulus Solaris, which meant the returning of the weekdays on the same date. In Alexandria years were counted from the reign of Emperor Diocletian, the conqueror of Alexandria (Anni Diocletiani, A.D.). Thus, Cyrill’s tables ended in 247 A.D. In Rome Pope John I wanted to unify practice and in 525 he asked Dionysius Exiguus, an expert in computus (computation of Easter), to make a new table of Easters. Dionysius carried on his computations based on the 19 year Metonic cycle and vernal equinox on 21 March, but he would not want to count the years according to the reign of an emperor persecuting Christians. So in his tables, which were the continuation of Cyrill’s, he equated the year 248 Anni Diocletiani to the 532th year of Incarnation of Christ (Anno Domini). This beginning of the count of years became widespread in the Christian world after The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Beda Venerabilis, which was completed in 731. It was the need for computus that helped mathematics and astronomy to survive in the Middle Ages. By the end of the XV century the slight errors of the cycles used in computus (the real mean length of the year is 365.2422 days) had come to cause very noticeable differences between computed and real astronomical events, e.g. equinoxes. So a reform of the calendar became inevitable, which was done by Pope Gregory XIII. He, in his papal bull “Inter gravissimas” ordered two changes: (1) After 4th October 1582, the next day would be 15th October 1582, so the 10-day shift of the vernal equinox was corrected, and (2) of the years, whose number is divisible by 100, only those remain leap years, whose number is also divisible by 400. This is how we arrived at our present, the Gregorian calendar. For the calendar reform observations of the Sun were needed, to establish the date of the vernal equinox, and also the obliquity of the Ecliptic, the path of the Sun on the celestial sphere. In 1574, a Dominican monk, Egnatio Danti, has fastened two instruments onto the south-looking facade of the beautiful church Sta Maria Novella in Florence; an armillary sphere and a quadrant (Figure 1). With these instruments Danti determined the length of the year and the moment of the vernal equinox for 1574 (11 March, 22:24 astronomical) with slight errors. For more precise observations he needed larger instruments. One of these was already standing in Florence, in the Duomo (Sta Maria del Fiore). The meridiana was built by Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli in 1475, its hole is in the huge dome at a height more than 90 m above the floor. Due to its large size, it is usable for only

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Figure 1. The armillary sphere (left) and quadrant (right) on the southern facade of S. M. Novella in Florence. The quadrant as sundial has various scales for hours counted ab occasu (from sunset), ab ortu (from sunrise), also astronomical (from noon) and transalpine (from midnight). Astronomers counted the days starting from noon until as late as 1925!

a few weeks around the summer solstice. As the doors of the Duomo look to the west, the meridiana is in the north transept, in a place usually forbidden to visitors (Figure 2). Toscanelli wanted to check with this instrument whether the inclination of the Earth’s axis changes over time, but the observations were used more to control the state of Brunelleschi’s large dome, the largest brick dome in the world.

Figure 2. The short section of Toscanelli’s meridiana in the Florence Duomo (just to the right from the second row of the banks), seen from near the hole in the lantern

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Danti began to construct a meridiana in the S.M. Novella, but after Cosimo Medici’s death he was ordered to go to Bologna. There in 1576 he built a meridian line in the Basilica of San Petronio. Unfortunately this basilica is not east-west oriented, so the columns did not allow for a precise north-south line to be laid, also the leveling of the line was not exact. After a restoration, which removed the wall with Danti’s opening, the meridiana was rebuilt (this time unobstructed and exactly north-south) by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, a French successor of Danti’s chair at the University of Bologna, in 1655. With the new line San Petronio became a world-class solar observatory. The meridiana is still in use, tourists gather around it at local noon, especially near solstices (Figures 3 and 4). The other astronomically important and currently used meridiana in Italy is to be found in Rome, in the church of Sta Maria degli Angeli. This basilica was converted from the Baths of Diocletian by Michelangelo on the order of Pope Pius IV from 1561 on. Owing to its origins, this church is not east-west oriented either. In the years before 1700 discrepancies occurred between the Easter date computed by the church rules and astronomical facts, so new observations were needed. For this purpose Pope Clement XI commissioned Francesco Bianchini to build a meridiana in 1702. This instrument does not only have a southern opening for the Sun, but also a northern one for the Pole star, and various other stars are also noted on the meridian line (Figure 5). With these instruments many important measurements were made on the length of the year, obliquity of the ecliptic, refraction, and also on some stars, contributing to the science of astronomy. There were also meridianae for civil purposes, simply to show the local noon. A good example of these can be seen in the Duomo of Milan. At the end of the 1700s Lombardy, thus Milan belonged to the Austrian empire, under the reign of Maria Theresa. Count Wilczek, Governor of Lombardy, issued

Figure 3. The opening in the vault of San Petronio in Bologna (left) and Cassini’s meridian line running between the columns (right)

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Figure 4. Visitors looking at the solar image at the 2006 winter solstice in Bologna

Figure 5. Bianchini’s meridiana in the S.M. degli Angeli in Rome (left) and its southern end, with paths of the Pole star around the celestial pole for several centuries

an order according to which from 1 December 1786 the ultramontane time was to be used in Lombardy. This meant that the days were to be counted from midnight, instead from the then used Italian time (according to which the day began half an hour after sunset). For determining the moment of the local noon, he commissioned the building of meridianae in every larger town. The one in the Duomo in Milan had been ordered a year before, and was built by Giovanni Angelo Cesaris. As the Duomo is oriented east-west, the meridian line goes across the nave, parallel to the

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Figure 6. The meridiana in the Duomo of Milan, running parallel to the western facade (left) and the equinoctial zodiacal signs (Libra, Aries, right)

western wall, very near to the entrance (Figure 6). With its help, the local noon could be fixed with an accuracy of 1–2 s, but unfortunately this meridiana is not working now, the opening being covered. In our time quartz watches, radio controlled from an atomic clock have rendered the meridianae unnecessary for the keeping of time. Yet these spectacular instruments still remind us of the past centuries, when determining time required the knowledge of astronomy. Konkoly Observatory, Budapest, Hungary, e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCE Heilbron, J.L. 1999. The sun in the church. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

S E P P R O T H WA N G L

THE COSMOLOGICAL CIRCUMSTANCES AND RESULTS OF THE ANNO DOMINI INVENTION: ANNO MUNDI 6000, GREAT YEAR, PRECESSION, AND END OF THE WORLD CALCULATION

ABSTRACT

The Anno Domini yearly count, invented in the beginning of the sixth century, was influenced by mixture of ancient world concepts, astronomical aspects, calendrical cycles, and apocalyptic teleology. AD counts the years since a date of Christ’s fictitious incarnation at the former annual vernal equinox on 25th March and was presented by Dionysius Exiguus as a new Easter computus titled “CYCLUS DECEMNOVENNALIS DIONYSII”. AD was invented, because the Cosmic Year 6000 of Julius Sextus Africanus’ chronicle was reached and caused end-time fever. Based on doctrines of late antiquity like the Great Year with the eternal return, millennialism, the Gospels, and the Apocalypse the AD years focused on the world’s end at an alignment of all planets in year 2000 of the newly invented count. The date of Christ’s incarnation was adjusted by the medieval value of precession 2000 years before that alignment. This article is a work in process of the book STARTIME (Rothwangl, soon published) and demonstrates that the dating of Christ’s incarnation by the Anno Domini Years is the result of a cosmological and astrological quest for the world’s end in the world view of late antiquity and early Christianity. The aim of the quest was to find a future alignment of all classical planets, which would mark the end of the world according the Great Year doctrine. After having forecast such an alignment, due to the astrological concept of the precessional ages and by the medieval constant of precession, exactly 2000 years before that alignment the date of the incarnation by the AD-Years was established. This also explains why the ADYears, focusing on the incarnation of Jesus Christ, as established at beginning of the Sixth century by Dionysius Exiguus, diverge from historical data, such as the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC, and is not synchronized with early historiographies. If we investigate the circumstances and reasons that influenced Dionysius to invent the new Anno Domini count we find the following facts:


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S E P P R O T H WA N G L THE OCCURRENCE OF AFRICANUS’COSMIC YEAR 6000, W H I C H C A U S E D A C A L E N D R I C W O R L D ’S E N D AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTH CENTURY

The Cosmic Year (Anno Mundi) of Iulius Sextus Africanus is an early Christian temporal concept based upon interpretation of the Bible, according to which the Lord created the world in 6 days, which are equated to 1,000 years each. Ps. 90:4: For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. 2 Peter 3:8: One day is with the Lord as a 1,000 years, and a 1,000 years as 1 day. Of the Sabbath He speaketh in the beginning of the creation; and God made the works of His hands in 6 days, and He ended on the seventh day, and rested on it, and He hallowed it. Give heed, children, what this meaneth; He ended in 6 days. He meaneth this, that in 6,000 years the Lord shall bring all things to an end; for the day with Him signifieth a 1,000 years; and this He himself beareth me witness, saying, Behold, the day of the Lord shall be as a 1,000 years. Therefore, children, in 6 days, that is, in 6,000 years, everything shall come to an end. And He rested on the seventh day. This He meaneth; when His Son shall come, and shall abolish the time of the Lawless One, and shall judge the ungodly, and shall change the sun and the moon and the stars, then shall he truly rest on the seventh day. Barnabas 15: 3–5

To date the moment of creation the lifetime of Jesus and an end-time prophecy were drawn in comparison: I John 2:18: Children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come; therefore we know that it is the last hour. Writing in the first half of the third century, Origen, in his Commentary on Matthew, employed the analogy of the 12 h of the day to divide the whole of biblical history into ages. Accordingly, he locates Noah at the third hour, Abraham at the sixth, Moses at the ninth, and, finally, Christ at the eleventh hour (Declercq, 2000)

The Christian Old Testament (2. Moses 25) tells that the Ark of the Covenant was 2 1/2 cubits long, 1 1/2 cubits wide, and 1 1/2 cubits high. Irion (Hieron) of the court of Constantinople and Hippolytus both interpreted these dimensions, amounting to 5 1/2 cubits, as symbolic of the 5,500 years (Mosshammer, 2009) The first Christian Chronography of Africanus (third century) used these comparisons to date Christ’s birth to the year 5500, figuring the fictitious creation in this way: • • • • •

The world lasts 6,000 years. Christ came in the 11th of 12 h 6,000 : 12 × 11 = 5,500 Thus Christ came in the year of the world 5500. Thus Christ’s birth was dated to year 5500 since creation (Anno Mundi)

Yet the approach of the fatal Cosmic Year 6000 occurring 500 years after Christ’s birth caused end-time fever among the believers. At the turn of the fourth to fifth centuries, i.e., precisely the moment when the barbarian invasions may have stirred up apocalyptic anxieties, the North African bishop Julius Hilarianus, for instance, wrote a treatise “On the Duration of the World,” in which he calculates 5,530 years from creation to the Passion of Christ, and 369 years from that event until the consulate of Caesarius and Atticus (AD 397); there remain, so he concludes, 101 years to go before the Resurrection of the dead (Declerq, 2000)

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To avert end time fever and to sustain religious credibility several strategies were applied by the church: 1. Shifting the era of creation to the past in order to show that the dreaded year AM 6000 had long passed, as the chronicler John Malalas did by identifying the year 6000 with the passion of Christ. 2. Rejuvenating the age of the world and shifting the year AM 6000 into the future, which was the method of the fourth century chronicler Eusebius. Influenced by Jerome, Eusebius delayed the birth date of Christ by three centuries to AM 5199. 3. Starting a new counting of the years from another fictitious point in time: Christ’s incarnation. Dionysius Exiguus made the most widespread attempt at this when he created a new temporal hinge point for counting the years: Anno Domini, Year of the Lord. Dionysius created a new Easter cycle starting with AD 532 and established in this way a new yearly count, but gives no concrete hint how and why he made his invention. If we take the narrative of the Bethlehem star of the Gospel as a historical fact, we have the dilemma that Herod the Great died in 4BC, and therefore the AD years do not represent precise historical fact and in addition do not go conform with any contemporary chronologies. The Adjustment of the “anni ab incarnatione Domini nostri Iesu Christi” by Dionysius Exiguus: . . . Because the blessed Cyril began his first cycle in the 153rd year of Diocletian and ended his last cycle in the 247th year of Diocletian, we have to start in the 248th year [i.e. 532 AD] of this man, who was a tyrant rather than emperor. However, we did not want to preserve the memory of an impious persecutor of Christians in our cycles, but chose rather to mark the times with the years from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ [i.e., 532 AD], so that the commencement of our hope will appear more familiar to us and the origin of the redemption of mankind, that is the Passion of our Redeemer, will shine in a more glorious way (CYCLUS DECEMNOVENNALIS DIONYSII).

DOCTRINES THAT INFLUENCED DIONYSIUS’ ADJUSTMENT OF AD

1. The cosmological concept of Antiquity (Great Year) 2. The idea of Jesus’ return at a conjunction of all planets 3. The astrological connection of Jesus with the current new heliacal vernal equinox constellation Pisces symbolized by the acrostic ICHTHYS 4. The Apocalypse of John of Patmos and its allusion to the seven planets and precession

THE GREAT YEAR DOCTRINE OF ANTIQUITY There exist dozens of ancient cites of a common multiple of the planetary periods as for example Plato tells. This doctrine, called apokatastasis pantoon, was

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based upon the idea that, when the planets return to the same position as at the beginning, everything would repeat itself (van der Waerden, 1952, pp. 129–155), as Eudemos a pupil of Aristotle tells. From Berossos, Cicero, Seneca, Heraclitus Stoicus, Macrobius, and Nemesius we have similar citations (de Calatay, 1996) . . . and hence they [humankind] can scarcely be said to know that their [i.e. the planets’, ed.] wanderings, being infinite in number and admirable for their variety, make up time. And yet there is no difficulty in seeing that the perfect number of time fulfills the perfect year when all the eight revolutions, having their relative degrees of swiftness, are accomplished together and attain their completion at the same time, measured by the rotation of the same and equally moving [i.e. the equator, ed.]. Plato –Timaeus 39 c-d There is a common multiple of all orbital times, the large year; at its expiration all planets are again in the same place. . . . If one believes the Pythagoreans, then I will return also in the future, as everything after its number returns, and I will tell you here again fairy tales, holding this stick in my hand, while you will sit likewise before me. Likewise everything else will repeat itself. Eudemos, Aristotle’s disciple at the Lykaion at Athens Men usually measure 1 year only by using the return of the sun, thus with only one star; but if however all stars return to the same point from which they started, and repeat in long intervals the same figure of the total sky, then this is called indeed a “turning year”; Marcus Tullius Cicero, Somnium Scipionis, de Rep. VI,24 The year that is called “mundanus” is a true turning-year since it happens by the turning of the entire universe, unfolding over the longest periods of time; . . . [it] is therefore the end of the Great Year, when all the constellations and all the fixed stars so return from a known place to the very same place, that not a single star is in a place other than the one in which it was when all the others were set into motion from their places; Macrobius, Somnium Scipionis 2,11,8-11 Berossos, the interpreter of Belus, states that the courses of the planets determine the time of a fire disaster and a flood. A fire on earth will rage if all planets, which move now in different courses, will gather in Cancer, standing still in the same place (of the sky), such that a straight line can pass through all their positions. A flood, however, will come if the same group of planets comes together in Capricorn. Seneca, Questiones naturales III 29,1 Some people want the conjunction of the seven planets in one zodiacal sign to be referred to by these words of Homer, and also the universal destruction, whenever this should happen. He (Homer) alludes to the confusion of the universe when he brings together Apollo, i.e. the Sun and Artemis, whom we identify with the Moon, as well as the stars of Aphrodite, Ares, Hermes, and Zeus. In such a way as not to appear to be ignorant, we have to accept this allegory more for its persuasiveness than for its veracity. Heraclitus Stoicus, Quaestiones homericae, 53

Also, the Christian scholar, Clement of Alexandria, writes of this periodical purification by fire and water, and accuses even Plato and the Greek philosophers of being thieves and having stolen this idea from the Bible: Plato also states in like manner that the Earth is purified at certain times by fire and water: “There have been many destructions . . . the biggest ones by fire and water” . . .Then, (Plato) speaking of the flood: “But when the gods purify the Earth by submerging it, those who are in the mountains, cattlemen and shepherds, are saved, while the inhabitants of our cities are carried away to the sea by the rivers”. I have shown in the First Stromateis that the Greek philosophers deserve to be called thieves, for they have taken their main tenets from Moses and their prophets, without any acknowledgement of debt. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, V, 1, 9–10


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THE IDEA OF JESUS’RETURN AT A CONJUNCTION OF ALL PLANETS Nemesius gives a report that early Christians believed that during a Great-Yearalignment the Resurrection of Jesus was expected. According to the Stoics the conflagration and the destruction of all beings is generated, after stated periods of time, by the planets, when they come back, both in longitude and latitude, to the same sign in which each one of them was at the beginning, when the world was first shaped. Then, from the start the world is restored anew. Since the stars are brought back similarly, everything which occurred in the previous period is accomplished, without any change. There will be again Socrates and Plato and every man, with their friend and fellow-citizen. They will suffer the same things, and every city, every village and every field will be restored similarly. This restoration of everything will not take place once, but many times, or, more exactly, the same things will be restored indefinitely and endlessly. As for gods who are not subject to destruction, by having witnessed this single period, they will know all the things that will occur in the subsequent periods. For nothing will be unexpected regarding the things which occurred previously, but everything will be the same without any change, even in the tiniest details. Some people state that Christians imagine the Resurrection by way of this restoration, but those are completely wrong. For Christ’s words instruct that the Resurrection will take place once and not periodically (Nemesius, about 400 CE)

In early Christian iconography the scene of the “Meal of the Seven,” (Figure 1) found in several graffiti at the catacombs of Rome represents this cosmic moment expected by early Christians at the end of time or in the world beyond. This scene mirrors that sitting together at a common meal, which alludes to the classical Greek symposium after the creation of humankind by Prometheus. Figure 2 illustrate an alignment of the classical planet in the Ptolemaic and Copernican system.

THE ASTROLOGICAL CONNECTION OF JESUS WITH THE CONTEMPORARY NEW HELIACAL VERNAL EQUINOX CONSTELLATION PISCES SYMBOLIZED BY THE ACROSTIC ICHTHYS Early Christian iconography in catacombs of Rome shows the acrostic ICHTHYS and graffiti of a fish (Figure 3), which alludes to Jesus as the releaser of the new age of Pisces due to the precession of the equinoxes. As a consequence Dionysius dated the starting point of his years to the vernal equinox at 25th March, the former feast of Incarnation (now Annunciation). The letters ICHTHYS of the Latinized version of the Greek word IXOYS (fish) was interpreted as Iesous CHristos THeou HYios Soter (Jesus Christus, son of God, Savior). Early third century Christian writer Tertullianus alludes to Jesus Christ and the new age. . . . we, little fishes, after the image of our ICHTHYS, are born in the water (Tertullian, De baptismo).

Figure 1. Graffiti in catacombs of Rome. The scene of the “Meal of the Seven”

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Figure 2. Graphical representations of a Great Year alignment in the Ptolemaic geocentric system (left) and in the modern heliocentric system (right)

Figure 3. Graffiti from catacomb St. Callixtus, Rome

THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN OF PATMOS AND ITS ALLUSION TO THE SEVEN PLANETS AND PRECESSION As the great Franz Boll already states Revelation tells of the future cusp from one aeon to the next. Thus it tells of the shift from the Piscean age to the Aquarian age. The material . . . to interpret the Revelation of John . . . consists of texts and images. Prophecies like Apocalypse deal with images of the future. . . . The Apocalypses tell of events shortly before the end of this world, or more correctly said, before or at the beginning of a new aeon or saeculum (Boll, 1914)

In the introduction, the Apocalypse gives a hint on how to interpret it astrologically. If we identify the seven stars with the angels, i. e. the ancient deities of the seven communities of Asia minor, as Revelation itself says, we easily find an allusion to the seven classical planets. [Rev 1:20] As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lamp stands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lamp stands are the seven churches.

Revelation explains that the seven stars are the angels (deities) of the seven churches and the seven letters of the Apocalypse are addressed to these seven churches:

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Ephesus: Main antique sanctuary of Artemis = Moon Pergamon: The famous alter of Zeus = Jupiter Thyatira: The text mentions the morning star = Venus Sardis: The text deals with merchants and thieves = Mercury Philadelphia: Greek Delphi is the sanctuary of Apollo = Sun Laodicea: = Mars? Thus Apocalypse addresses the seven classical planets and makes an allusion to the value of Precession: [Rev 13:11] Then I saw another beast, which rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. [Rev 13:18] This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six.

In the Western hemisphere since the end of antiquity the usage of the precessional value 66,6y each 1◦ (equal to 666y/10◦ or 2000y/30◦ ) can be found in the writings of the following astronomers: • • • • • • • • • •

Theon of Alexandria (4th cent.) The tables of the Shah (Zij-i Shah) (6th cent.) Al-Khwarizmi, al zij Sindhind (c. 800) Tabulae probatae or az-Zig al-mumtan (c. 830) Al-Battani, called Albategnius, al-Zij (c. 880) al-Sufi, called Azophi (c. 965) Al Biruni (973–1048), al Canon al Masud Arabic fixed star catalogue of 1st Oct. 1112 CE (ed. Paul Kunitzsch) Libros del Saber von Alfons von Kastillen (1252–1284) Judah ben Verga of Lisbon (c. 1470)

There exists a strong indication that in India the value of 1800y/27◦ (Bennedik, 2007) was used even before medieval times (Pingree, 1976, p. 112), which equals 2000y/30◦ . A transfer of knowledge from India to the occident occured at the end

Figure 4. Illustration of Germanicus’ “On the Phainomena of Aratos”. Codex Basiliensis, about 800 CE


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of antiquity, as ascertained by the ninth century patriarch Photius of Constantinople, as well as by Cedrenus in the eleventh century. During the reign of Constantine in the fourth century, Metrodorus, who created a 532-yearly Easter cycle, visited India to study philosophy with the Brahmins (Mosshammer 2009, p. 199). An eighth century illustration of Germanicus’ “On the Phainomena of Aratos” in the Codex Basiliensis (Haffner, 1997) impressively confirms the mediaeval identification of the feared apocalyptical beast (Figure 4) with the upcoming age of Aquarius and shows the horned beast just between Pisces and Capricorn, where one usually expects to find Aquarius.

CONCLUSION

Due to the arrival of the year 6000 in the Anno Mundi of Africanus in a year corresponding to about 500 AD, which caused end-time-fever, Dionysius Exiguus was searching for a future date of world’s end. He searched for a future alignment of all classical planets by the hand of the commensurable planetary periods, similar to his Indian contemporary Aryabhata, who calculated backwards to such an alignment and dated there the beginning of the Indian age Kali Yuga. The same year, 3102 BCE, we find later in Persian and Arabic chronologies, such as Abu Mashar’s “Book of the Conjunctions” where it is identified as the date of the Deluge (van der Waerden, 1980, pp. 117–131) and makes evident the transfer of astronomical knowledge between India and the West. Dionysius Exiguus, after having calculated a future alignment, adjusted 2,000 years before this alignment the starting point of his “anni ab incarnatione I.C.” It has the effect that on May 5th, 2000 a rare close massing of the classical planets occurred (Figure 5). B. L. van der Waerden

Figure 5. Planetary massing of 5-5-2000 (Skyviewcafe) JDN 2451670. Right ascension: Moon 3 h 55 m; Sun 2 h 51 m; Mercury 2 h 34 m; Venus 2 h 14 m; Mars 3 h 55 m; Jupiter 3 h 0 m; Saturn 3 h 11 m

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has calculated a very minimal probability (P = 0.026) that in an interval of 6,000 years, a massing of the classical planets within 30◦ would occur. Thus it appears that Dionysius, based on the cosmological (Great Year) and religious (Six Day Creation, Apocalypse) doctrines of his age, centered his AD years towards the alignment of the year 2000 because of an expected end time together with the return of Christ. Acknowledgment

Thanks to Mrs. Joan Griffith for English corrections.

Private scholar, member of SEAC, CALENdeRsign, Graz, Austria, e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES Bennedik, Susanne. 2007. Die Siebenplanetenwoche in Indien. Dissertation, Bonn, 456, URN: urn: nbn:de:hbz:5-11153, URL: http://hss.ulb.uni-bonn.de/diss_online/phil_fak/2007/bennedik_susanne Boll, Franz. 1914. Aus der Offenbarung Johannis. Hellenistische Studien zum Weltbild der Apokalypse. de Calatay, Godefroid. 1996. Annus Platonicus. A Study of World Cycles in Greek, Latin and Arabic Sources. Institut Orientaliste, Universite Catholique de Louvain. Peeters Press Louvain – Paris. Declercq, Georges. 2000. Anno Domini. The origins of the Christian Era. Belgium: Turnhout. Haffner, Mechthild. 1997. Ein antiker Sternbilderzyklus und seine Tradierung in Handschriften vom frühen Mittelalter bis zum Humanismus. Hildesheim: Untersuchungen zu den Illustrationen der Aratea des Germanicus. Mosshammer, Alden A. 2009. The easter computus and the origins of the Christian Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pingree, D.E. 1976. The recovery of early Greek astronomy from India. Journal for the History of Astronomy 7: 112. Skyviewcafe, http://www.skyviewcafe.com/skyview.php Tertullian, Ueber die Taufe (De baptismo). 1. Kap. Lob der Taufe. Bibliothek der Kirchenväeter. http://www.unifr.ch/bkv/kapitel89.htm van der Waerden, Bartel Leendert. 1952. Das Große Jahr und seine Ewige Wiederkehr. Hermes 80, 129–155. van der Waerden, Bartel Leendert. 1980. The Conjunction of 3102 BC. Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Science and Medicine 24: 117–131.

S T E P H E N P. C O O K

COMING OF AGE UNDER THE NIGHT SKY: THE IMPORTANCE OF ASTRONOMY IN SHAPING WORLDVIEWS

ABSTRACT

A worldview, an individual’s or whole society’s conceptual framework for making sense of the world, evolves as it wrestles with such questions as “Why do I see what I see?” While telescopes and spacecraft dramatically expand worldviews in space and time, astronomy began shaping worldviews long ago. Those who watched carefully saw the universe as predictable and orderly rather than magical and chaotic – a conclusion which increased psychological security in individuals and desire for order in society. Spurred by Kepler, astronomy values humbly refining models to fit data. Spurred by Galileo urging critics to look through the telescope, astronomy promotes seeking over believing–something which unites rather than divides people. In challenging anthropocentrism, in tracing the roots of humanity to the ashes of exploding stars, in revealing an image’s “pale blue dot” to be Earth, astronomy encourages a “we belong to nature” feeling, as can the beauty of the Milky Way in the night sky. Studying planets made inhospitable by runaway greenhouse effect, investigating the stability of the Sun and nearby aging stars, and monitoring hazards posed by space debris help humankind confront real threats. Complementing astronomy’s concern with civilization’s premature end is its search for the beginning of the universe. This has long enriched discussion of, and cosmological arguments for, what many individual worldviews are built around: belief in a Creator. Astronomy continues to inspire. Contrast what seeing a comet in the night sky once meant – fear – to what it can mean today: a cause for celebration of humanity’s growing up. And someday astronomy may provide an answer to what untold generations of night sky watchers have wondered, “Are we alone?” INTRODUCTION: WORLDVIEWS AND ASTRONOMY

By worldview, I mean the conceptual framework, beliefs and values used to make sense of reality – something difficult to define.1 To me reality is everything: all structures – actual and abstract, events and phenomena – observable or not, including feelings. With these definitions, characterizing worldviews is messy. Describing the scientific world picture used to make sense of objective reality – events and phenomena that can be recorded by devices – is easier but still involved. Once understanding or experience enables it, characterizing ultimate reality will be simpler. Physicists dream of doing this: finding the theory of everything; others connect it with finding God. 99 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 99–109. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_9,

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By astronomy, I mean scientific study of the universe. It didn’t start like that – it began with eyes watching the night sky. Scientific knowledge must ultimately be reconciled with observation. The quest for it was inspired by a question, “Why do we see what we see?” Beginning in 1600, Kepler sought to answer this with respect to observed positions of Mars. His struggle to find a hypothesis or model to fit the data is a classic application of the scientific method. To me the year 1609 – when Kepler’s 1st Law of Planetary Motion was published – marks the beginning of modern science. That same year Galileo turned his telescope to the night sky. What he saw validated his belief in the Copernican worldview and challenged Catholic Church authority. This powerful institution would eventually silence him in perhaps history’s most famous clash of worldviews. Worldviews are used to answer fundamental questions like, “Why am I here?” Long ago I realized that efforts to solve the world’s most pressing problems are often stalled by fundamental differences in worldview. I began to wonder, “How can we help people develop healthy worldviews, ones that will bring happiness and promote planetary well-being?” The topic of worldviews, I soon realized, has two parts: worldview analysis and worldview development. Worldview development begins in early childhood with concept acquisition. By concepts, I mean abstract generalized ideas and understanding that replace sensory experiences and memories. For example, a young child handles different shaped objects and forms a concept of a sphere. Conceptualization involves observing, abstracting, recalling memories, discriminating, categorizing, etc. Concepts that belong together fit into conceptual schemes; these are used to build a conceptual framework or map. Your worldview is used to answer “What if. . .?” questions and to make predictions about the future. Based on feedback you receive, aspects of it get validated, negated, refined, and retested – like doing science and testing hypotheses. My worldview analysis approach attempts to cut through complexity and diversity and characterize worldviews in simplified, manageable fashion. I employ two analogies to describe it: one uses building blocks, the other playing cards. In considering how worldviews develop, the blocks I imagine being used are all different. I call them worldview themes and have eighty of them. Each has a name, number, and description – identifying beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behavior articulated in similar fashion by lots of people. Many such themes can be used (as a first approximation) in characterizing worldviews.2 As an example, consider my analysis of a typical American adult’s worldview (Cook, 2009). Using a playing cards analogy, I summarize the results as follows. The top theme cards held are: Monotheism; Belief in a Personal God; Gratitude & Forgiveness; Valuing Family; Proud Identification; Ethical Orientation; The Consumerist; The Technological Fix Mentality. As we turn our attention to astronomy’s role in shaping worldviews, with the exception of the first two and the last, none of these shall concern us. In what follows, I argue that astronomy has generally tended to encourage people incorporating the following themes into their worldviews: #1A Humbly Unsure, #4 Global Vision, #6 Scientific Method, #12 The Artistic Worldview, #13 Dancing With Systems, #18B Dispassionate, #27

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Belonging To Nature, #29A The Self Restrained Person, #30 Intellectual Freedom, #37B Global Citizen, and #46A The Technological Fix Mentality. Troubled by my claim that astronomy has promoted both science and art? Consider the following: the word cosmos is from the Greek word for order, and The Artistic Worldview (theme #12) involves human creation imposing order on chaos. And consider one of those paradoxical great truths: “The universe created humans” and “Humans created the universe.” The first half you can accept, but the second? In this regard consider a book by archeoastronomer Aveni, Conversing With the Planets. Note its subtitle: How Science and Myth Invented the Cosmos

CHANGING WORLDVIEWS: FROM 1,000,000 BCE TO 1,000 BCE

Worldviews are built of concepts. Imagine a time before concepts: the being alive experience is one of wholeness. Before people learn to abstract, to use words and numbers, they unconsciously value “the interconnected unity of [nature’s] parts and process” – they appreciate Belonging to Nature (theme #27). We relate their feeling of Oneness to “Mysticism” (theme #7A). While there may be bliss in their ignorance, there’s also painful struggle: they are both hunters and hunted. While language compromised holistic feeling, it spurred concept development and blossoming of consciousness – another difficult to define term. Some understand it by analogy: just as our body moves in real space, our mind moves through mind space. According to Jaynes (1990), “Consciousness is constantly fitting things into a story.” Before such consciousness can exist, humans needed to order events in time and gauge time intervals. (In a “humans created the universe” context, this is “the beginning of time.”) While they could do this roughly by watching living things grow, astronomy provided more precise means: using time intervals between successive sunrises (day) or full moons (month) or the sun’s changing position (year). According to Aveni, “Naming the phases of the moon and associating the course of the sun across the zodiac with seasonal activities date back into history as far as any document can reach. It would have been logical to marry the act of story telling about everyday affairs to acts of nature simply as a way to embellish and lend structure to time – to remember how to mark its repeatable cycles.” At some point worldviews began to incorporate the concept of justice. According to Jaynes, “Our sense of justice depends on our sense of time.” Aveni builds on this, writing, “There are good reasons for translating normal solar behavior into a concept of justice, for is justice not based on constancy and consistency, on dayto-day reliability?” Consider the idea of weighing both sides of a dispute as in “the scales of justice” (in the sky as constellation Libra). Certainly doing this is promoted by worldviews valuing order and dispassionate (theme #18B) self-restraint (theme #29A). Appreciation of order in the sky helped foster this. Humans both found order and, when it was lacking, they imposed it. Among the jumble of stars patterns were recognized. Imaginations saw both familiar figures and heroes to worship. These were linked to stories. The sky became a medium for

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expression of artistic creativity. At least one of these star patterns appears to be truly ancient: the Great Bear or Ursa Major. Given the similarity of Eurasian and New World stories surrounding these stars, the constellation’s origin seemingly predates migration of humans across the Bering Strait (Schaefer, 2006). According to Bronowski (1973), “the largest single step in the ascent of man is the change from nomad to village agriculture . . . since civilization on the move can never grow up.” Human beings were metaphorically once children. In the creation myths of over a hundred cultures throughout the world, their parents were the Earth and the Sky. How might these children have related to the night sky? According to Aveni, ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and even Mayans “believed that they lived in an animated universe . . . breathing, teeming, vibrant . . . They talked to the stars, listened to the planets . . . They saw themselves as mediators in a great universal discourse. At stake was the battle between fate and free will.” As reported in surviving texts from earliest human history, gods were connected with tangible, concrete, visible objects in both the sky and on the earth. A powerful feeling – fear – fostered insecurity in prehistoric people. Ever present, even in ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations, were “overtones of anxiety” which Frankfort attributed to “a haunting fear that the unaccountable and turbulent powers may at any time bring disaster to human society (Sandars, 1972).” A clue as to where many looked for guidance can be found in the origin of the word disaster, it means literally ill-starred. People looked to the sky in search of the order often lacking in the chaotic terrestrial world. Generally they found it. The “fixed” stars move in the same predictable, reassuring way . . . But there are seven notable exceptions: “wandering” stars: Sun, Moon, and five planets. Planetary retrograde motion was especially troubling. A dominant belief: one’s fate (Fatalism, theme #11A) was written in the stars. Another gave gods human emotions. If they were angry, people suffered consequences. In many cultures, astrologers, holy men, shamans, etc. were needed – both to interpret messages and to placate gods. Today, some laugh at these people and the astrology and magic (theme #7B) their worldviews were based on. Others recognize that they sought what many seek today: a healthy worldview. Fear is not healthy. People fear what they cannot understand – what they can’t predict, what doesn’t fit into their worldview. They seek to explain what they otherwise would fear. Their stories make sense of natural phenomena, unusual events, of creation itself. Contrast this view of the ancient Near East, with one of ancient Ireland. As reported by Cahill in How the Irish Saved Civilization, “In virtually all of the Irish tales . . . we come upon the Celtic phenomenon of shape-shifting . . . the ability of a being to turn itself into something else . . . There is within this worldview a terrifying personal implication: that I have no fixed identity but am, like the rest of reality, essentially fluid . . .” Stories from other cultures capture the tension between order and chaos. Navaho tradition attributes placement of stars in the sky to First Man and First Woman, who initially laid them out on a mat in front of them. Just after they’d positioned the first few in orderly, useful fashion, including the North Star, along came Coyote – that


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trickster! Grabbing a corner of the mat, he flung the rest into the sky: this is why they seem so randomly placed (Cliff, Janet M., private communication). Myths are stories typically featuring gods or demigods as main characters. Oral transmission of them declined as people began writing down sacred stories, and as religions became less polytheistic and more monotheistic. Belief in a single God can be traced to Zoroaster, thought to have lived somewhere in Iran or Central Asia around 1000 BCE. His name, in corrupted Greek, means literally “undiluted stars.” We remember him because the religion he founded, in the words of scholar Boyce (1979), “probably had more influence on mankind directly or indirectly than any other faith.” From his conception of an ongoing battle between good and evil, one can date the beginning of an important component of many worldviews: “Apocalypticism” (theme #9B). He is perhaps the first prophet to teach belief in an abstract god – one without tangible presence.

WORLDVIEWS: FROM ANCIENT GREEKS TO CHRISTIANS TO 1700

Consider another milestone in the triumph of order over disorder. An important advance occurred in the brief interval of 63 years spanning two solar eclipses. Of one he witnessed in 648 BCE, Greek poet Archilochus wrote, “Zeus, the father of the Olympic Gods, turned mid-day into night, hiding the light of the dazzling Sun; and sore fear came upon men (Steel, 1999).” Yet according to Herodotus, Thales predicted the eclipse of 585 BCE. While others – going back to Babylonian astronomers ~2000 BCE – certainly preceded them in appreciating the order they saw in nature, by the sixth century BCE, Greeks like Thales and Pythagoras were doing just that, ushering in an era that has been called the Ionian Enchantment. Christianity was influenced by both Greeks and Zoroastrianism. Monotheism can bolster another powerful feeling – comfort – as St. Patrick and later Irish monks throughout Dark Ages Europe realized. As Cahill described it, “The key to Patrick’s confidence . . . rock solid confidence on which a civilization may be built . . . is in his reliance on ‘the Creator of Creation’ Our Father in heaven, having created all things . . . will deliver us, his children from all evil.” Zoroaster’s apocalypticism also found a home in Christianity. Unlike monotheism, this can be a source of discomfort. Of Biblical prophecies, in The Prophet And The Astronomer, Gleiser writes, “[they] create a state of constant anxiety with regard to cosmic events; every shooting star, every eclipse, every comet or unexpected celestial event may be interpreted as part of the doomsday prophecy, the harbinger of the end to come.” Catholic Church teaching eventually makes Europeans forget the polytheistic pagan past. The Bible gives man dominion over all living things. Man no longer belongs to nature: he is the master of nature. Embracing Anthropocentrism (theme #25), Church cosmology puts Earth at the center of the universe. It asserts a fundamental difference between matter found on Earth and in the heavens, where perfection supposedly reigns. Its details are borrowed from Greeks such as Plato, Aristotle and Ptolemy.

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With publication of his sun-centered system in 1543, Copernicus seriously challenged this cosmology. Both cosmological models sought to make sense out of what is seen in the sky. Galileo’s observations, especially of Venus showing phases that are impossible for it to exhibit in Ptolemy’s model, dealt the ancient cosmology a staggering blow. Church authorities viewed challenges to its authority and original thinking with alarm. Many famously refused to look through Galileo’s telescope. This telescope did more than make astronomical discoveries. It struck a blow for Intellectual Freedom (theme #30) and bolstered the Enlightenment. That era, says Wilson, “brought the Western mind to the threshold of a new freedom. It waved aside everything . . . to give precedence to the ethic of free inquiry (Wilson, 1998).” By 1687, after Newton in Principia showed the same physical laws operate both on Earth and in the sky, there was no reason to assume celestial matter fundamentally differed in composition from Earth’s. A new mechanistic worldview structure replaced the old one. ASTRONOMY, HUMILITY, AND GOD

The modern connection between astronomy and humility is a legacy of Copernicus and Galileo. By asserting The Copernican Principle – human beings are not in a privileged place to make observations – cosmologists essentially turn their backs on anthropocentrism and embrace humility. With Galileo’s telescope comes humbling appreciation of the universe’s vastness and a trend begins: in our conception, the universe grows in size as years pass. Today we estimate3 it contains 70 billion trillion =7×1022 stars – more than the number of all the grains of sand on all of the world’s beaches – and has minimum size of 25–30 billion light years. The 1965 discovery of the cosmic background radiation provided evidence for a beginning: the Big Bang. We estimate that occurred 13.7 billion years ago. (In a “The universe created humans” context, this is the beginning of time!) These numbers only apply to the observable universe – our universe may be but one of many that make up the multiverse. Even of the observable universe our ignorance is great. Referring to dark matter and dark energy, in 2003 one cosmologist (Rees, 2003) admitted, “It’s embarrassing that 95% of the [observable] universe is unaccounted for.” With so much unknown, doubt seems a good word to use in describing the universe’s beginning (if it had one!) I once wrote a metaphorical account (Cook, 1990) of creation in which God said “Let there be doubt!”4 Where’d I get this? Several places. From physics’ Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle; from math’s Gödel’s theorem; from chaotic systems behavior; from looking at pictures like Voyager’s 1990 “pale blue dot” image. Of it, Sagan remarked, “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us . . . Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena . . . astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world (Sagan, 1994).” Suppose you asked people to respond to the following: “Using one word, name what your worldview is built around.” You can imagine the answers . . . Truth.


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Love. Peace. Family. Work. Survival. Many of you reading this might answer “Knowledge” or “Science.” I bet the most popular answer worldwide would be “God.” Project Worldview themes most directly tied to God are: #7A Mysticism, #8A Monotheism, #8B Belief in a Personal God, #9A Religious Fundamentalism, and #14A Moralistic God. “Are astronomers and physicists looking for God?” Yes, in an ultimate reality sense with certain constraints. As scientists, they are involved in testing the validity of scientific statements – those capable of being proved false. Many would argue a statement such as “The universe is the creation of an Intelligent Designer” is not scientific. Scientists often approach their work from different perspectives. As Holton, writing in Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought, puts it, “There have coexisted in science in almost every period since Thales and Pythagoras, sets of two or more antithetical systems or attitudes . . . one reductionist and the other holistic, or one mechanistic and the other vitalistic, or one positivistic and the other teleological.” Consider two physicists, one an outright reductionist mechanistic positivist, the other more sympathetic to holistic vitalistic teleology. The first is comfortable with Scientific Materialism (theme #5A), asserts the universe had no Creator, and argues it has no purpose. He sees life as involving physical/chemical processes – not vital spirits – and expects it to someday be created in the lab. Were he to write a book about God and physics, it might resemble The God Particle by Leon Lederman. Despite its title, God is absent from this irreverent book – except in humorous passages. Lederman’s hero is Democritus – who first imagined matter can be reduced to atoms. In this tradition, is he is searching for the God particle: the Higgs Boson. Our second physicist also values the Scientific Method (theme #6), which can involve reductionist analysis. But she is less narrowly focused and appreciates insights from chaos/complexity studies and a newer, more holistic, synthesis oriented approach to problem solving: Dancing With Systems (theme #13). Whereas mechanists believe reality is ultimately composed of one thing (matter), this physicist can conceive of it as made of two things: matter and spirit – although she might call it something else: mind, consciousness, etc. Grounded in mainstream materialist perspective, free of scientific constraints she will embrace Vitalism (theme #5B). A book written by her might resemble The Mind of God by Paul Davies. Within scientific boundaries, Davies’ book suggests he is searching for God. Dissatisfied with the worldview of our first physicist, Davies’ book has a teleological ending: “Through conscious beings, the universe has generated self awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor byproduct of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here.” While some astrophysicists are atheists, many believe in God. Those who believe the universe is infinite in space and time, and value holism, may be comfortable with Mysticism. This theme’s description begins, “While things and events appear to be separate, I believe the perception of discrete objects and the passage of time are illusions.” Believing reality is One, mystics strive to experience Oneness and search for God within themselves. Some call the ultimate mystical state cosmic consciousness; others speak of union with God.

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Those who believe the universe has a beginning may conceive of God as described in the Monotheism theme: “Creator of the universe.” Many astronomers can accept this if it’s detached from other connotations surrounding “God.” This theme goes on to describe God as “the source of the vital spark that energizes life.” Those unable to accept God doing this, but believe life is more than the sum of the chemical building block parts, may think of vital spark in terms of mind or consciousness and sign on! Belief in a Personal God presents problems. It can mean God watches over (1) the entire human species, (2) favored individuals, or both. Scientific justification for this belief is hard to find, although some (mistakenly?) use the Anthropic Principle to provide it. If worldviews settle on Monotheism and don’t extend to include Belief in a Personal God or Religious Fundamentalism or Moralistic God, divisive beliefs are avoided. Also avoided are difficult questions, such as “Where was God on September 11, 2001?” In its simplest form, monotheism is potentially a great unifying force for humanity – as is seeking not believing, as is holism not reductionism, as is looking at the night sky. Pictures of the Earth from space are another such force. Lacking boundary lines dividing nations, they inspire dreams of a peaceful world of global citizens (theme #37B) and help people appreciate the planet we all call home. After pointing out they are humble seekers, astronomers can provide two reasons why they’re uniquely qualified to shape conceptions of God. First, they study the heavens – and most people believe God dwells in heaven. Second, with their appreciation of “the big picture,” astronomers can help people move away from small, petty, childish, overly detailed, rigidly confining, exclusive conceptions, and toward grander, simpler, liberating, and inclusive ones. Progressing along the path from Moralistic God to Religious Fundamentalism to Personal God to Monotheism to Mysticism moves one in this direction. While traditionalists may challenge such mysticism, and argue “Seeing God everywhere is seeing Him nowhere,” they undoubtedly would prefer it to the emptiness of Godless materialism. Certainly mystical conceptions of ultimate reality – especially those incorporating vitalism – more naturally lead to inclusive worldviews, feelings of belonging not alienation, than purely mechanistic conceptions. I’d say someone who believes “a fella ain’t got a soul of his own, but only a piece of a big one”5 is more inclined to become a caring global citizen than an atheist. Holographic models – believing the whole universe is inside the smallest grain of sand, inside you, inside everyone – can produce similar feelings that we’re connected to each other.

ASTRONOMY, TECHNOLOGY, AND ASTROBIOLOGY

With Galileo’s telescope, Global Vision (theme #4) enters the human drama as people take a first step in using technology to extend their senses. Since then, astronomers have possessed a Technological Fix Mentality (theme #46A). Consider milestones in this history of using technology to answer fundamental questions. Comte wondered “What are stars made of?” In 1835, he predicted we’d never find out. He was wrong! Astrophysics was born in the 1860s when astronomers began to


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find an answer. They did it with a technology Comte couldn’t imagine: attaching a spectroscope to a telescope and photographing stellar spectra. By the 1930s, efforts to extend astronomers’ vision into regions of the electromagnetic spectrum besides visible light began with the first radio telescopes. In 1990, the dream of placing a telescope in space – above limitations of Earth’s atmosphere –was finally realized. The technology revolution of the last half-century has brought sweeping change to how science is done. Today we often use a systems approach and computer simulation to tackle problems too complicated to approach analytically by solving equations. In promoting global vision, long before new technology gave systems thinking a big push, astronomy encouraged an important aspect of it: choosing a system whose boundaries in space and time are big enough to include all that bears on a problem. Consider a basic question astrobiologists seek to answer: “How did life begin?” Once this field was dominated by scientific materialists conceiving of life beginning 3.5 billion years ago in terms of random processes in the “organic soup.” Seeing life as no more than the sum of its parts, many reductionists don’t extend their analysis beyond the molecular level. In contrast, systems thinkers take a broader view and imagine downward causation in which a higher level in the system representation seemingly imposes its will on a lower level. Upon random combination, they impose natural selection with global system constraints. Those who embrace panspermia believe this first happened elsewhere and life came to Earth by hitching a ride on comets. In confronting social problems, system thinkers often imagine a desired future and design a system with the desired behavior. Take the global climate change problem. Given the key role the energy balance in the Earth–Sun system plays in it, astronomers have made important contributions with studies of (1) “How constant is the energy output of the Sun?” (2) links between cosmic ray intensity, cloudiness, and global temperatures, and (3) Earth’s sister planets – Mars and especially Venus, with its runaway greenhouse effect. “How bad could global warming get?” No one wants wonderfully temperate Earth to turn into a hellishly hot Venus! Beyond technological fixes, astronomy can promote attitudinal fixes and healthy worldviews. Sagan described one context in which this might happen, “A religion that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by traditional faiths (Sagan, 1996).” Such a religion could inspire belonging to nature feelings and get people outdoors. Dark sky locations with public observatories in naturally beautiful settings could increasingly become destinations – even religious shrines! Bringing children to such places – expanding worldviews – could become a sacred duty of parents.

ASTRONOMY: COMING OF AGE

I first got involved expanding worldviews as an astronomy teacher, and eventually worked out my version of the ideal sky tour . . . On an early winter night, after initial orientation, I get to what I really want to share: part of “The Great Story” –

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our cosmic heritage: nearly 14 billion years of evolution has resulted in us gazing at the stars in wonder. Before getting to my cycle of stellar evolution theme, I start in a far away galaxy: Andromeda. I tell my audience “The light you’re seeing left 2.5 million years ago – when people were little more than animals!” Telescopic views of Andromeda find me asking them to imagine another galaxy 4.5 billion years ago – the Milky Way – and inside it a giant cloud of gas and dust, roughly 99% hydrogen and helium, 1% heavier elements. To aid imaginations, we view the Orion Nebula and describe the birth of the Sun as part of the cloud collapses. After appreciating how dependable and stable the Sun is, we consider how the Orion Nebula might look a few million years from now by looking at the Pleiades. We then consider stellar energy crises. After eons turning hydrogen into helium, a star runs low on nuclear fuel – and stellar death nears. By now we’re examining the aging red supergiant star Betelgeuse and I sing a silly song about it going supernova! I mention the new star Chinese astronomers saw in 1054, we look at the remnant of that supernova event, the Crab Nebula, and note the explosion enriched the local interstellar medium. The cosmic ecology lesson ends with the birth of the next generation of stars. I tell them “We are the ash of stellar alchemy . . . The iron bound up in hemoglobin giving our blood its red color originated in the nuclear furnace of an old star, was disbursed when the star exploded, and became part of the collapsing cloud that spawned Sun and Earth 4.5 billion years ago.” It’s both a belonging to nature and recycling story. Focus on death prompts questions as to how life on Earth will end. Here astronomy puts new life into apocalypticism, with analysis of potential cosmic catastrophes. After downplaying supernova threats, I discuss hazards posed by comets and asteroids – like the six-mile wide piece of rock that did in the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. I recall a night in 1994 at the campus observatory when we saw what happened after Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hit Jupiter. We wondered, “What if it had hit the Earth?” Comets have a long history of being associated with the wrath of God, the Devil, havoc, and death. Fear of them began to diminish after Halley successfully predicted that the comet seen in 1682 would return 76 years later – demonstrating the power of the scientific method and Newtonian physics. What will the world be like when Halley’s Comet returns in 2061? In his 1965 book, Starlight Nights, Peltier worried that our advanced civilization would end in nuclear holocaust and not make it to that year. Today we are not so pessimistic. In the spirit of the AAAS’ Project 2061, some are even hopeful. Perhaps the comet will fly by a world peopled by those whose collective worldview is healthy: they have learned to share, to be tolerant; they feel they belong to nature . . . To me this will mark humanity’s coming of age. Perhaps someday, the appearance of a comet will be a cause for celebration of humanity’s growing up. That won’t mean the human species has met all its challenges: I can think of two it may confront in the near future. The first will begin with an astronomer finding an asteroid with an Earth crossing orbit. Perhaps technology can be used to alter its course and prevent a disastrous collision. Perhaps humanity will demonstrate it


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has grown up and is capable of protecting itself from hazards lurking in space. The second will be of a different nature, but it too will involve astronomers from the outset. Its ramifications will shake the worldview of nearly every thinking person. It will come with the answer to what sky watchers have always wondered, “Are we alone?” Someday our childhood will end. Earth and Sky have been considered our parents in various mythologies. In summarizing the importance of astronomy in shaping worldviews, I credit our Sky parent with teaching us there is order in how the world works, and giving us global vision to see through space and time. As Bronowski put it, “There are many gifts unique to man, but at the center of them all . . . lies the ability to draw conclusions from what we see to what we do not see, to move our minds through space and time.” Today we honor the successes Kepler and Galileo had in doing this long ago. Someday, we’ll celebrate our species’ coming of age under the night sky. Project Worldview, Weed, NM, USA, e-mail: [email protected]

NOTES 1 2 3 4

see “Letters” Physics Today, Sept. 2009, vol. 62, #9; pp.10–15. see www.projectworldview.org for details. see Driver, Simon 7/23/2003 news item http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/07/22/stars.survey. I find this intriguing: doubt⇔uncertainty, which per Heisenberg has units of energy x time – the same units as action (as in The Principle of Least Action). Perhaps God simply said, “Action!” 5 from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

REFERENCES Boyce, Mary. 1979. Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. London: Routledge. Bronowski, Jacob. 1973. The Ascent of Man. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. Cook, Stephen P. 1990. Coming of Age in the Global Village. Russellville: Parthenon Books. Cook, Stephen P. 2009. The Worldview Literacy Book. Weed: Parthenon Books. Jaynes, Julian. 1990. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Rees, Martin. 2003. “Our Complex Cosmos and its Future” in The Future of Theoretical Physics and Cosmology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sagan, Carl. 1994. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. New York: Random House. Sagan, Carl. 1996. The Demon-haunted World. New York: Random House. Sandars, Nancy K. 1972. “Introduction” in The Epic of Gilgamesh. London: Penguin Books. Schaefer, Bradley. 2006. The Origin of the Greek Constellations. Scientific American, November: 96–101. Steel, Duncan. 1999. Eclipse. London: Headline Book Publishing. Wilson, Edward O. 1998. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

MIKLÓS MARÓTH

MEDIEVAL ROOTS OF THE MODERN COSMOLOGY

ABSTRACT

The root of the modern cosmology can be found in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, book XII. The doctrine of the Unmoved Mover propounded here has invited many comments in the Classical Antiquity and later in the world of Islam. Among the classical authors Ptolemy, Alexander of Aphrodisias and Philoponus were the most important commentators who, by commenting Aristotle’s text, transformed his theory. All these author’s relevant texts were translated later into Arabic. In the Islamic world al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı and later Ibn S¯ın¯a continued their activity and gave a new interpretation to the Neoplatonic cosmology represented by Philoponus. The cosmology developed in the Arabic philosophy served as a starting point both to Thomas Aquinas and Copernicus in Europe. I. The Arab philosophers, al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı and Ibn S¯ın¯a describe the cosmology of the celestial world in nearly identical way. The summary of their combined views runs as follows: The One is perfect, so it is that from which existence is brought about. The second being emanates from the One and it is one and indivisible, due to the Neoplatonic principle of ex uno fit unum.1 This second being is the First Intellect. It conceives three thoughts:

1. The necessary existence of its own; 2. The necessary existence of the Supreme Being; and 3. Its own contingency as compared to the One.

These are three accidents on its essential unity. The accidental threeness generates three separate beings, because ex uno fit unum. These are the Second Intellect and the first, starless sphere which consists of form and matter. The form is soul, in this case the first soul. The Second Intellect conceives 1. the necessary existence of its own; 2. That of the One; and 3. its own contingency as compared to the Supreme Being. This threeness gives rise to the fourth being, i.e. to the Third Intellect and the second sphere (that of the fixed stars, which follows the starless sphere) with the second soul. This process goes on in this way giving rise to the intellects from four to 10 with the corresponding spheres of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. The Tenth Intellect with the moon-sphere and with its form (i.e. soul) completes the heavenly world.2 111 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 111–117. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_10,

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Ibn S¯ın¯a formulates clearly that the intellect conceiving the necessity of its own existence and that of the Supreme Being generates the next Intellect and the next Soul and conceiving its own relative contingency it generates the matter of the next sphere.3 In this Arabic theory one can detect the basic concepts of the Neoplatonic philosophy: the One, the Intellect and the Soul, respectively. The concepts are identical, but they form different systems in the works of Plotinus and Proclus on the one hand and in that of al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı and Ibn S¯ın¯a on the other. In the Neoplatonic philosophy the One generates the Intellect and the Intellect generates the Soul and the Soul emanates the world of sense-perception and the vegetative nature.4 There is an obvious difference between the Greek and Arabic account of emanation. This difference is due to the combination of Proclus and Aristotle in the Arabic cosmology, to begin with. Proclus spoke in his Elementatio Theologica of a series of Intellects emanating from the One, and later of a series of Souls emanating from one of the Intellects.5 Drawing on the astronomy of his age, first of all on the works of Eudoxus and Callippus, Aristotle described the Universe in the 12th book of the Metaphysics as a system of homocentric spheres. On the basis of the geometric model given in the 8th chapter of the book the movement of the Sun, Moon and planets involves more then three spheres (i.e. orbits) in each case. According to Aristotle’s calculation the total number of spheres or orbits must be either 47 or 55. In this Universe, apart from the Prime Mover, there are unmoved movers equal in number to the spheres. V. P. Demidchik asserts that the combination of the above quoted Plotinian, Proclian and Aristotelian theories served as starting point for al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı and Ibn S¯ın¯a. Al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı having joined Plotinus and Aristotle modified their cosmology by adding his own views and he elaborated a new cosmology which was taken over and, it must be emphasised, slightly modified by Ibn S¯ın¯a.6 R. Walzer tries to throw more light on al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı’s Greek sources in the commentary accompanying his edition of the Perfect State.7 What he says in essence is that al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı’s cosmology implies the knowledge of the Late Greek philosophy. In this connection the commentary is mainly based on Sambursky’s book The Physical World of the Late Antiquity on the one hand and on the assumption that the text that served as an immediate source for al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı has been lost, on the other. Ptolemy’s Planetary Hypotheses, a work preserved completely only in Arabic translation and Simplicius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s De Coelo are the two books referred to on behalf of the Greek literature of that age. This is everything we know: Aristotle, Plotinus, Proclus and possibly some obscure Greek works of later date. II. If we want to get a deeper insight into the problem, we have to consider ¯ a» ahl al-mad¯ınat al-f¯ad.ila and al-Siy¯asat that the structure of al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı’s works Ar¯ al-madanijja is identical with that of Plato’s Timaeus. Both Plato’s and al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı’s works mentioned now describe the creation and structure of the Universe. They go on with the same method: first they give a description of the celestial regions and then descend to the world below the moon and describe the things coming to be and passing away. On the top of the earthly existence there are the human beings

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and the human society the description of which concludes the books of al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı. In Timaeus Plato does not mention the human society, though he devotes the last sections of his treatise to the human beings, i.e. after the makrokosmos he describes the ¯ a» ahl al-mad¯ınat al-f¯ad.ila and al-Siy¯asat al-madanijja mikrokosmos. Timaeus, Ar¯ belong to the same genre of the philosophical literature. But there is another work of the same genre which deserves our attention. This is a treatise of the Greek Alexandrus of Aphrodisias known only in Arabic version as Ris¯alat mab¯adiÞ al-kull (Treatise about the principles of the Universe).8 The structure and heading of this treatise are similar to that of the aforementioned books. The subtitle of al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı’s al-Siy¯asat al-madanijja, namely mab¯adi» al-maw`g¯ud¯at, rhymes with the title of Alexandrus’s mab¯adi» al-kull, and not only by chance. Alexandros begins discussing the Universe with the Supreme Beings, i.e. with intellects, souls, and describing the heavenly regions he concludes the treatise with the domain of the always changing sublunary world. If we admit that this systematic similarity cannot be ordained by chance, than we should turn to Alexandrus next. Alexandrus says that the outermost sphere moves the lower spheres with its circular movement, so it is the source of every movement in the world.9 Below the first mover which moves the first sphere we find the movers of the second, third, etc., spheres. Alexandrus does not define the exact number of the movers, but on the basis of his commentary to Aristotle’s Metaphysics he seems to have accepted the Aristotelian numbers 47 or 55.10 Referring to Aristotle he asserts that the movers form a hierarchic order.11 This statement of the mab¯adi» al-kull cannot be corroborated with any quotation from Aristotle, but, nevertheless, the Arab philosophers, too, arranged their movers hierarchically. Alexandrus writes that the movement of spheres depends on that of the first sphere and is modified by their own intellect thinking of the first mover. So becomes their movement a circular one.12 The different directions of their circular movement are due to the activity of the secondary movers.13 In an important passage Alexandrus writes as follows: In the case of the divine body it is not correct to speak of several movers, even if we acknowledge that it is correct to say that each one of the orbits has a mover and a longing part.14 The exact meaning of the terms mover (muh.arrik) and longing part (mutashawwiq) can be cleared up by another passage which reads as follows: We ought to believe that each orbit is animate and has a soul of its own. They make their natural movement by their longing. The nature of these things is the soul, because the form of the divine thing is the most perfect form.15 Speaking of the divine body Alexandrus says at the beginning of the treatise that its movement is caused by Soul and Intellect necessarily. The soul is the form of this body from the beginning. We must not believe that nature of a thing is different from its soul.16 In the same treatise Alexandrus goes on discussing the role of the Intellects.17 The essentials of the same idea are summed up in the commentary to the Metaphysics as follows: The object of longing is principle of movement. . . . This moves the Intellect and the movement of the Intellect is observation. The object of longing moves the Intellect to observation, thus the object of observation moves the Intellect. If the observation, too, moves it and makes Actual Intellect, then the object of longing

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moves it as well, so the object of observation and longing will be the same. The primary object of observation and the Intellect by its own nature are identical with the First Cause. Thus the First Cause is the real object of observation and it is the real object of intellection and longing.18 From these quotations one can gather that, according to Alexandrus, all heavenly bodies have an Intellect and a Soul. The Intellect is their mover and the Soul is their longing faculty and form. Intellects are called in Alexandrus Metaphysics theoi, i.e. Gods, because they are immaterial and eternal. These are the main points in the Arabic cosmology as well. Speaking of the form of a sphere as a soul which is longing after the Intellect and the One al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı and Ibn S¯ın¯a are in harmony with Alexandrus. The two Arab philosophers not only agree with Alexandrus but also differ in opinion from him. Alexandrus wrote in his scholia to book N of the Metaphysics that one can infer from the number of spheres the number of the secondary intellects, the number of divine beings.19 In Alexandrus’ opinion there are as many intellects as souls. The number of spheres, it means the orbits, amounts to 47 or 55, consequently, there are 47 or 55 intellects and souls. Ibn S¯ın¯a says in Kit¯ab al-naj¯at, while describing the heavenly regions, that every sphere has a mover (muh.arrik) and a longing part (mutashawwiq).20 This statement is essentially different from Ptolemy’s view quoted by Walzer which, in Simplicius’s narration, runs as follows: It is thus more correct to let each planet be a source of motion, for this is the power and activity of the planets in their proper places and round their own centre, namely the uniform motion in circle.21 In this passage, and only in this passage, Ptolemy derives motion from the inside vital power of the planets as contrasted with Alexandrus who, following Aristotle, derives it from outside intellects. The difference between Ptolemy and the Arab philosophers can be shown by the words quoted from Ibn S¯ın¯a’s al-Mabda’ wa »l-ma–a¯ d. Ibn S¯ın¯a says in a passage that each planet (kawkab) has a sphere in which it has a fixed position (yuthbatu f¯ıhi) and by which it is carried (wa »l-falak yanquluhu). According to Aristotle it is the sphere and not the planet which revolves round its centre and this is the more likely view, not that of Ptolemy.22 Walzer’s explanation summarized above is thus refuted by the evident contradiction between Ptolemy and the Arab philosophers. In an interesting passage of Kit¯ab al-naj¯at Ibn S¯ın¯a refers to the most correctly speaking man who wrote in his treatise about the principles of the universe that the heaven has only one mover though all spheres have a mover and a longing part of their own. As the texts quoted above and the title prove, this circumscription is a plain reference to Alexandrus and his treatise under discussion. In the same passage we find another reference to another philosopher who gives the best abridgment of Aristotle’s works without a deeper insight. This philosopher said that the moved thing is not an orbit (kura), but a spherical body (falak). And really, if we turn to the Greek philosopher, who became famous for his abridgments of Aristotle’s books, i.e. to Themistius, then we find an abridged version of the Met. among his works preserved only in Hebrew translation. In the Hebrew text we find the terms and which render the concept of falak and kura in the section commenting on

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1074 a 10–30. Themistius is of the opinion that it is superfluous to move the orbits instead of bodies and everything that is superfluous is unnatural.23 Thus the number of movers had been reduced by Themistius from 47 or 55 to 9. It is very likely that in the last analysis this philosophical innovation of Themistius goes back to the astronomical teaching of Hipparchus who changed the course of astronomy by adopting the theory of epicicles instead of the Aristotelian spheres.24 If one does not speak of various movements of the planets, then Aristotle’s complicated explanation becomes irrelevant. The theory of epicicles needs a different explanation. In the same chapter Ibn S¯ın¯a reports on Ptolemy’s contribution to his cosmology. Ptolemy was the astronomer who added the outermost sphere without stars ´ αστρoς ´ (αν σ φα˜ιρα) to the others described by Aristotle. It is probably the Syntaxis megalé that served as a source for the Arabs and not the Planetary Hypotheses as supposed by R. Walzer. At any rate, Ibn S¯ın¯a does not mention the latter work, but he refers to al-M¯ajist.¯ı both in Kit¯ab al-naj¯at and al-Mabda’ wa »l-ma–a¯ d.25 The assumption of a “containing body”, which is equivalent to the starless sphere, was necessitated by Aristotle’s concept of place, according to which “place” is the internal surface of the containing element. If the sphere of stars is the outermost sphere without a containing sphere, then the stars will not be in place. If the question is raised: where are the stars, the only logical answer should be: nowhere. Assuming a containing sphere one can define the place of the stars. For this reason Ptolemy introduced the concept of the starless sphere as improvement on Aristotle’s cosmological theory. (But the universe as such will be further on nowhere.). III. There are other texts, too, which bear witness to our solution of the problem. Nas.¯ıradd¯ın al-T.u¯ s¯ı names Alexandrus and Themistius, instead of describing them, in his commentary to the cosmological section of al-Ish¯ar¯at wa » l-Tanb¯ıh¯at.26 He refers to Ibn S¯ın¯a’s al-Mabda’ wa »l-ma–a¯ d as the source of his knowledge. And really, in the Chapters 25–26 of the first book we find the names of Ptolemy, Alexandrus and Themistius with a summary of their contribution to cosmology. In al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı’s cosmology the Aristotelian and Plotinian theory is completed with Ptolemy’s outermost starless sphere, with the longing souls of the spheres as their forms in Alexandrus’s treatise and with the teaching of Themistius who did not interpret the spheres as orbits (kura), but as spherical bodies (falak). And in this way he reduced their number to nine. One can thus state that all the Greek texts, which have bearing on al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı’s cosmology, are at our disposal either in Greek original or in Arabic or Hebrew translation. But there is a question to be clarified, which is neglected so far. As I mentioned previously, Intellects as immaterial, eternal beings were called “theoi” by Alexandrus. Philoponus, who was member of the Alexandrian Neoplatonic School, but at the same time the Christian bishop of the town, believed in one God, consequently he began to speak of these Intellects as angels. This innovation was taken over by the monotheist Arab philosophers too, who continued speaking of the moving Intellects as mal¯a’ika, i.e. angels. In another treatise Ibn SÐn¯a developed a theory of angelology on the basis of his cosmology, taking not only the Intellects,

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but also the cosmic Souls for angels. These were the heavenly angels, as opposed to human souls, which were taken for earthly angels.27 IV. After having finished the review of texts there is one interesting question to be answered: what was the scientific achievement of the Arabic scholars, if all constituent elements of their cosmography had been invented by Greeks? On the basis of textual evidence we can formulate our answer as follows: 1. Al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı took part of the Aristotelian tradition in the controversy with Platonism and Pythagoreanism on the origin of the celestial movement. Ptolemy was an adherent of the Platonic-Pythagorean line. Asclepius, the sixth century Neoplatonic commentator of Aristotle’s Metaphysics is our best evidence for this controversy.28 2. In the late antiquity Greek philosophers began to combine the scattered philosophical and astronomical views. Asclepius e.g., who speaks of nine spheres in his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics united Themistius’s concept of spheres (which goes back to earlier astronomers as Hipparchus and Ptolemy)29 ´ αστρoς ´ as heavenly bodies instead of orbits with the starless sphere (αν σ φα˜ιρα) of Ptolemy. This united theory of Ptolemy and Themistius is a constituent part of the Arabic cosmology, though enlarged with Alexandrus’s views. Al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı thus continued the activity of the Late Greek philosophers carrying on the Peripatetic and Neoplatonic initiations. 3. Al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı’s philosophy contains the first cosmological system known to me, which, though based on previous Greek theories, offers a new and genuine arrangement of the old material. This cosmological system was refined by Ibn S¯ın¯a and taken over by the later Arab philosophers. 4. This cosmology, as it is proven by not very old scholastic textbooks,30 transmitted by Thomas Aquinas to Europe served as starting point to Copernicus. He, on the basis of his Pythagorean conviction, changed the place of the Sun and Earth and supposed that the stars have an inside moving energy.31 Through Copernicus the roots of our present day cosmology go back to al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı. Vice-President, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1051 Budapest, Roosevelt tér 9 e-mail: [email protected]

NOTES 1 M. Horten: Die Metaphysik Avicennas, Halle–New York, 1907, pp. 597–601, etc.; Ibn S¯ın¯a: Il¯ahiyy¯at » ¯ ¯ min kit¯ab al-šif¯a , ed. Ayatull¯ ah H.asan H.asanz¯ade al-Amul¯ ı, Qom, 1995, pp. 433–442; Ibn S¯ın¯a: Kit¯ab al-naj¯at, Cairo, 1938, p. 277. 2 R. Walzer: Al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı on the Perfect State, Oxford, 1985, Chapters 4–7, pp. 106–135; Ibn S¯ın¯a: Kit¯ab al-naj¯at, pp. 262–278. 3 Ibn S¯ın¯a: op. cit. p. 277. 4 Plotini Enneades, Paris, 1855, p. 308, 3–5 lines. 5 Proclus: Elements of Theology, ed. F. R. Dodds, Oxford (Clarendon Press), 1963, prop. 21, pp. 24–25. 6 V. P. Demidchik: Kosmologiya al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı i iyo osnovnie istochniki, in: Al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı, Nauchnoje tvorchestvo, Moscow, 1975, pp. 13 – 30.

M E D I E VA L R O O T S O F T H E M O D E R N C O S M O L O G Y 7 8 9 10

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R. Walzer, op. cit. pp. 362–378. – – Arist.u¯ inda ’l- arab, ed A. Badawi, Kuwait, 19782 , pp. 253–277. Op. cit. p. 161. Alexandri Aphrodisiensis in Aristotelis Metaphysica Commentaria, ed. M. Hayduck, Berlin, 1981, p. 702, 5 sqq lines. 11 Aristu¯ –inda ’l-–arab, pp. 267–268. . 12 Op. cit. p. 268. 13 Op. cit. p. 266. 14 Loc. cit. 15 Op. cit. p. 268, 12 and sqq lines. In French translation: A. Badawi: La transmission de la Philosophie Grecque au Monde Arabe, Paris, 1968, pp. 132–133. 16 Aristu¯ –inda ’l-–arab, p. 255; A. Badawi: La transmission, p. 123, 13 sqq lines. . 17 Op. cit. p. 268, line 14–270, 9. 18 Alexandri Aphrodisiensis in Aristotelis Metaphysica Commentaria, p. 694, lines 10–15. 19 Op. cit. p. 794, lines 12–13. 20 Ibn S¯ın¯a: Kit¯ab al-naj¯at, p. 266. 21 Ptolemy: Planetary Hypotheses, II, 12 (131, 9), this work existed in Arabic translation, but the lines quoted here are quoted in Greek in Simplicius: De Coelo. Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, VII, ed. I. L. Heiberg, Berlin, 1894, p. 456, lines 23–27; S. Sambursky: The Physical World of Late Antiquity, New York, 1962, p. 142. Ptolemy in this passafe contradicts his traditional views explained in other books of the same work, see Sambursky, p. 141. 22 Ibn S¯ın¯a: Mabda’ wa »l-ma–a¯ d, ed. N¯ur¯an¯ı, Teheran, 1984, p. 68. 23 Themistii in Aristotelis metaphysicorum librum paraphrasis, ed. S. Landauer, Berlin, 1903; Hebrew text pp. 24–25, Latin translation p. 28; and especially p. 26, 21–22 lines: . . . virtutes moventes tot sunt, quot sunt corpora, quae moventur . . . . 24 S. Sambursky: The Physical World of the Greeks, London, 19602 , pp. 55–66. 25 Ibn S¯ın¯a: al-Mabda’ wa »l-ma–a¯ d, p. 62; Kit¯ab al-naj¯at, p. 267. 26 Ibn S¯ın¯a: al-Ish¯ar¯at wa »l-Tanb¯ıh¯at, ed. S. Duny¯a, vol. III, Cairo2 , p. 182; al-Mabda’ wa »l-ma–a¯ d, p. 62. 27 H. Corbin: Avicenne et le récit visionnaire, Teheran, 20052 , p. 53. 28 Asclepii in Aristotelis Metaphysicorum libros A-Z commentaria, ed. M. Hayduck, Berlin, 0988, p. 37, lines 13–18; p. 35, lines 19–27, p. 37, line 16; p. 323, line 27. 29 H. Corbin, op. cit. pp. 108–118 treats the same question paying special attention to Arab astronomers. 30 Petri Pázmány: Tractatus, Budapest, 1987, pp. 22, 52, 65. 31 K. R. Popper: Conjectures and Refutations, New York, 19682 , pp. 141 and 187. In the latter passage Popper refers to an Aristotelian text, where he speaks of Pythagoreans. In the next sentence the Pythagorenas appear in Popper’s rather arbitrary interpretation as Platonists.

VLADIMIR A. LEFEBVRE

IS THERE ANY FUNDAMENTAL CONNECTION BETWEEN MAN AND THE UNIVERSE?

ABSTRACT

A human being appears for us in two aspects, whose connection is unknown to us: as a physical process and as an object with a mental domain. In this note, we discuss a problem if the mental domain is subordinate to physical laws. Question in the title was formulated by Atilla Grandpierre two years ago when this conference was contemplated. In this notes, I will describe some thoughts of mine on this topic. I am a psychologist. The principal object of my professional studies is human being. This is why I seek fundamental connection between a man and the Universe, mainly looking narrowly at a person. A human being as a physical object has an evident link to the physical reality. He consists of organic molecules, connected into an incredibly complex system that is functioning obeying the laws of physics. However, the mystery of the link between human and Universe is not at this level. The problem can be formulated as follows: Is consciousness a physical phenomenon? Imagine that someone created a perfect robot, which is able to speak, solve problems, and cry of pain. If we have a task to dismantle this robot, we face a moral problem. The dismantling would destroy the robot, and he is begging with tears in the eyes to spare him. On the one hand, we are sure that the robot is a soulless imitator, but on the other – we are tortured with doubt: what if the robot is an animate creature similar to us, capable not only imitate sufferings but to experience them as well. Natural sciences use tests to determine the state of objects. Thus, we must find a test with the help of which we would decide if a robot is animate. Today we do not have such a test. More than that, it is not evident that such tests can exist, in principle. This means that we cannot reveal cognition instrumentally, i.e., we cannot ascribe a status of a physical object to it. So, the picture of the world in front of us is disconnected. On the one side, there is physical reality, on the other – our consciousness, our inner world, a gift, thanks to which we are human beings. What should we do in this situation? Apparently, we have to formulate more modest tasks. At the beginning we may try to understand if some laws that govern physical phenomena underlie the subjective ones, as well. Let me describe one of my works in more detail. Thirty years ago I constructed a formal model of a subject making choice. This model allows a researcher to predict human behavior in various situations.


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The peculiarity of the model is that it connects a choice with human inner feelings. The model predictions concerning choice can be verified experimentally, but the inner human feelings were not connected to any measuring procedures. On the other hand, the structure of the subject’s inner domain has clear mathematical description. So I decided to search for fundamental physical process whose mathematical description is similar to a description of a human inner domain in my model. And I have found such a process! It happened to be a chain of heat engines, such that every following engine performs work equal to the lost available work of the preceding engine. The works performed by engines correspond to feelings. Chains of engines correspond to a subject’s reflexive reasoning of the type “I know that I know. . .” From the physical point of view, each chain is a paraphrase of the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Therefore, we succeeded in creating a path between human psyche and physics. Now, we have grounds to presume that two laws of thermodynamics govern not only our body, but our consciousness as well. University of California, Irvine, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCE Lefebvre, V.A. 1997. The cosmic subject. Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Psychology Press.

SECTION III ASTRONOMY IN THE ORIGINS OF CULTURE Archaeoastronomy, History of Astronomy, Cultural Astronomy

S TA N I S L AW I WA N I S Z E W S K I

CULTURAL IMPACTS OF ASTRONOMY

ABSTRACT

Since the beginnings of humankind, the fascination with the sky has been regarded as an important element in human life and history. The regular patterns of the motions of celestial bodies enabled peoples around the world to create systems of knowledge and generations of skywatchers carefully tracked their positions to understand how to conduct the human life on the earth. Time keeping, calendars, clocks on the one hand and worldviews, cosmologies and cosmographies on the other, are the most obvious examples of cultural products attesting for the impact of the sky upon society. To avoid unnecessary repetitions, all human-celestial relationships are systematized and presented within the “lifeworld”-type model that encompasses three interrelated spheres to which the “real” reality of the universe investigated by astronomers may be added.

SESSION: ASTRONOMY AND CIVILIZATION; HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY; NATURAL SCIENCE; CULTURE HISTORY

The origin of astronomy goes back to the beginnings of humanity when man’s initial fascination with the sky was gradually replaced with his knowledge of the stars and other heavenly bodies and when this knowledge became essential to his life and culture. It can be argued that celestial events entered human’s life as part of man’s natural environment, but as its significant components they started to assume specific meanings in relation to him. It was in this way, therefore, that the regularities perceived in the motions of celestial objects provided the necessary context upon which cultural patterns regulated human activities. From the celestial vault, and from naked eye observations, ancient skywatchers gained practical knowledge of their environment and the correlations they made between terrestrial and celestial events and processes served to understand how to conduct the human life on earth. Increasingly, skywatching has been associated with calendar making, freeing humankind from the regime of irregular and unpredictable fluctuations of different environmental cycles. Indeed, for many astronomers their discipline already began when the first human beings started to look up at the skies and astronomy is often called the oldest of all human sciences (Pannekoek, 1961, p. 13; Moore, 1996, p. 9). While astronomers often see the past in such an anachronistic fashion, historians of science usually define the observations made either by prehistoric skywatchers or by ancient astronomer-priests as insufficiently scientific at most (Dicks, 1970, pp. 27–40; Neugebauer, 1975, pp. 1–2; Pedersen, 1993, pp. 5–6). While the intellectual gap 123 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 123–128. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_12,

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between sporadic glimpse and systematic observation is enormous, yet it is important to recognize that both types of activities are stimulated by the same, specifically human, needs for the generalized understanding of the events and processes taking place in the world around. Human interaction with the heavens may widely be perceived either as the practical construction and use of created celestial patterns to cope with the whole environment or as the multiplicity of symbolic meanings attached to the sky utilized to understand the world. The importance of the cultural perspective in this contexts rests on the assumption that such interactions occur through the medium of culture. Hence, the study of the role that celestial knowledge and astronomy played in human societies becomes an appropriate task for cultural astronomers rather than astrophysicists and historians of science. THE INADEQUACY OF WESTERN VIEWS ON CULTURAL IMPACTS OF SKYWATCHING Traditional descriptions of the cultural impact of astronomy can be characterized either as superficial, because they tend to interpret the phenomenon from the exclusive perspective of the dominant western culture, or as eclectic, since they provide anecdotic and nonsystematic accounts of diverse cultural-astronomical interactions. Though both, ancient skywatching and modern astronomical observations may be stimulated by some universal needs of human beings, the ways in which they explain or interpret the outer world remain very different. Modern astronomical results include ideas, concepts and facts resulting from systematic scientific inquiry being usually performed for its own sake. Celestial lore however, is not a fixed and bounded body of systematic knowledge, nor it is dissociated from all other domains of the human life. Modern astronomy dwells on the principle of universal laws that transcend any ideological, religious, political, ethnic, cultural and social frameworks, celestial lore is a culture-depended phenomenon limited by multiple social-structural constraints. So we need to distinguish between scientific methods that satisfy the need of interpreting the natural phenomena in rational and selfconsistent terms and a human spirit of inquiry, an intellectual response to the call for living a life within the meaningful and understandable lifeworld. Certainly not everyone who looks at the sky and makes use of what he perceives, can automatically be described as an astronomer. Nevertheless, prehistoric practices of stargazing are often remolded in the guise of modern observations. Ancient temples become disposed of their religious, ritual or political functions, or at least these values remain hidden somewhere in the background, while their astronomical functions are interpreted in terms of modern astronomical observatories (examples are: Group E, Structure E-7sub 2 at Waxaktun, Guatemala and El Caracol at Chichén Itzá, Mexico). Projecting modern scientific rationalities into past activities is seen by many astronomers as much unproblematic as it can be. It may be reflected in their insistence to describe astronomy as the oldest human science, the perspective that ignores the fact that the concept of “science” can hardly be applied to the practices of prehistoric stargazing, skywatching or time-keeping. The attitudes like presentism or whiggism enable astronomers and other scientists to claim that ancient


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skywatchers had the knowledge of the current science, for example, suggesting they discovered the phenomenon of precession long before Hipparchus (consult Jordan, 2006; Lefkowitz, 2006). Such theoretical perspectives usually take the validation of prehistoric observations by western scientific astronomy as granted without any serious consideration of the context in which they functioned. Here I wish to argue that the knowledge of context is absolutely critical to these interpretations as it puts limits on the extent of scientific analysis. In my opinion, the respect for context as a guide to interpretation definitely separates the field of cultural astronomy from that of scientific astronomy. The distinction made between scientific astronomy and ancient star lore not only has implications for the development of cultural astronomy but also for the implementation of the UNESCO Thematic Initiative “Astronomy and World Heritage”. Paradoxically, while in 2009 we symbolically celebrate the anniversary of the birth of modern scientific astronomy, acknowledging that the pre-telescopic astronomy was not scientific enough, at the same time, through the UNESCO initiative, we accept the idea of some kind of continuity between skywatching and scientific astronomy. As shown above, the disciplines of cultural and heritage astronomy seem to curve out quite different and even conflicting insights. By mixing them up together, by ordering individual events in an intelligible sequence pretending to demonstrate that the development from ancient to modern cosmology reveals the evolution of human consciousness we seem to re-write the human history again. MODERN ASTRONOMY, A RADICAL BREAK AWAY FROM ANCIENT CELESTIAL LORE My argument is that the scientific astronomy that emerged in seventeenth century Europe was not a natural continuation of ancient pre-telescopic astronomy, as is often supposed, but rather a radical break and repudiation of earlier celestial knowledge. This may be symbolized by Husserl’s (2006) remarks on the Copernican perception of the earth as a body in motion which, according to him, cannot be derived from the basic worldview categories or from a direct sense experience, or a lifeworld. Hence, the heliocentric model of the universe constitutes a radical change in human understanding of the world. Therefore, it seems legitimate to ask whether the specific questions raised by prehistoric skywatchers or by the scribes and scholars belonging to non western scientific communities should be elicited within the same terms, categories or epistemological frameworks as those made by modern astronomers. Apart from a reduced group of ancient and medieval thinkers (part-time astronomers?), the rest of pre-telescopic observations was performed by culturally and socially embedded observers. They all were affiliated to the culture in which they were born, so very few of them traveled, learnt foreign languages or accepted epistemologies that were totally different from their own cultural frameworks. In other words, they were incapable of transcending their cultural specificities, producing internationally valid, universal or culturally disembedded fields of scientific inquiry.

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It has been argued that explanations of the natural world in non-western societies usually depend on culturally-specific classifications which usually stem from readymade interpretative frameworks (Lopez Austin, 2005). Those frameworks rely on an unquestionable acceptance of the rules or patterns with which are made all interpretations of physical reality. Celestial lore, like other types of cultural knowledge is acquired, represented and transmitted in the process of “dwelling-in-the-world”; therefore it should be elicited within the context in which it functions. This context has various material, social, functional, symbolic, structural, spatial and temporal components which should not be separated from each other. Therefore to explain the role that celestial observations played in prehistoric societies, it is necessary to analyze their functional uses, patterned structures, symbolic representations and discursive potential to finally show how the practices of skywatching, stargazing and time-reckoning were successfully integrated with all other components of ancient and non-western cultures. CULTURAL APPROACHES TO ASTRONOMY Culture may be defined as the universal characteristic of humankind that allows people to inhabit their physical environment and to represent themselves and the other. Owing its features to specific natural and socio-historical contexts, culture displays a diversity of forms. Cultural forms are embodied in artifacts, environments, practices, conceptual categories and persons to serve to mediate between human subjects. Astronomical practices are not an exception: not only they embody specific cultural forms, they also serve to organize the social reality. The disciplinary concept of cultural astronomy offers a perspective from which we may observe, analyze and discuss the various types of relationship between astronomy and culture. At the very heart of cultural astronomy lie two lines of inquiry which taken together should offer a balanced view on the place of the heavens in human societies. The first approach studies the values and concepts of prehistoric skywatchers and ancient priest-astronomers in terms of our western culture, i.e. it validates their knowledge by our western astronomical knowledge. This approach lifts the object of inquiry out of the context in which it functions and analyzes it with categories and concepts imported from of western science. All non-western knowledge is thus reduced to fit western logic and western modes of knowing. The second line of inquiry intends to describe them in their own terms. If we define astronomy and culture as discrete, distinct and bounded entities, then we only will be able to infer some mechanistic patterns of interaction. We may focus on the impact of the heavens upon different spheres of human activities such as agriculture, navigation, art forms, religion, ideology and the like. However, apart from collecting anecdotal facts such studies are practically meaningless, since they produce statements in a very unsystematic way and have little if any contact with a social theory. The systems approach defining a culture as a system is much better solution. Each cultural system can roughly be divided a number of subsystems which, for the sake of simplicity are reduced to only five: subsistence, technology, trade and communication, social organization and ideological-symbolic subsystem (following Renfrew,


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1984, pp. 248–308). The aim of the cultural astronomical analysis is then to examine the impact of the activities of stargazing, sunwatching, time-reckoning and the like upon diverse subsystems. The unit of analysis is that of human activities, the research goal is to study how they affect each of the five major cultural subsystems. For example, this may show how certain aspects of celestial knowledge such as the invention of solar or lunar calendars offered an adaptive advantage to horticultural or agricultural societies in terms of increased food production. Having established this, it may further be argued that the appearance of calendars based on astronomical cycles gave to human societies a higher level of autonomy in relation to the irregular and unstable fluctuations of their natural environment. Furthermore, it may be showed that the monopolization of astronomically-derived calendrical knowledge served to the accumulation of social power or led to the development of the social stratification (Marx, 2005; Wittfogel, 1957). Finally, we may observe how the same celestial pattern differently shaped a worldview of ancient farmers and a cosmological model of specialized sunwatchers. The main weakness of such studies is the hidden axiom accepting one-sided influence of the universe upon human culture. It must be remembered that the celestial bodies and phenomena do not produce meanings in themselves unless they are perceived as meaningful by human subjects. It is the human societies and social subjects who interpret, designate, and alter the meanings of these objectified entities in practice (Bourdieu, 1977), thus converting them into symbols and signs understandable within their own cultural context. Obviously, this approach necessitates theoretical reorientation that accounts for human beings as active agents in their environment, perceived as a mutually constitutive whole. Within this perspective, the understanding of the world becomes just one aspect of acting in the environment (in the sense of Ingold, 2000, pp. 199–200). The order perceived in the sky, or imposed by the rotating heavens, gives structure to the ways with which peoples perceive their realm as a structurally ordered entity. All specific cultural forms that are embodied in local communities – artifacts and everyday activities, social institutions and ceremonies, worldviews and ideologies – not only participate in the constructions of a particular lifeworld but also shape the individuals granting them with specific identities and ontological securities. These constructs are embedded in a context of praxis where they are validated and the meanings attached to them – negotiated. The practices of representing the world in form of cosmographies, worldviews and cosmologies, or those of time-reckoning or calendar-making, they all render the world meaningful and make possible any human relationship; they both help to understand the world and inform how to conduct life within human societies. Like other components of human lifeworld, celestial phenomena must be conceived as social (=meaningful) categories. Within the human lifeworld they all are used to mediate: (1) between humans and their physical world, (2) between humans within a social group, and (3) between individual human minds and their surrounding realities. My second sphere is furthermore subdivided into relationships between celestial events and (2a) dynamically acting societies, and (2b) social cognitive – ideational models of reality. This reminds much of three domains of human knowledge in Habermas’ (2006, pp. 161–215) theory of communicative competence: (1) the objective, referring to the outer/external world; (2) the intersubjective,

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or the social world, and (3) the subjective, or the world of individuals. In contrast to Habermas, my model splits his intersubjective domain into two separated spheres (my numbers 2a and 2b). As an interpretative or hermeneutic approach is not alone sufficiently comprehensive, astronomers may wish to add here the fourth domain – that of the real world out there of which this cultural construction forms a part. State Archaeological Museum, Warsaw, Poland; National School of Anthropology and History, Periferico Sur y Zapote s/n, Col. Isidro Fabela, Del. Tlalpan, Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dicks, D.R. 1970. Early Greek astronomy to Aristotle. Ithaca : Cornell University Press. Habermas, Jürgen. 2006. Teoría de la acción comunicativa, II, 2nd ed. Madrid: Taurus. Husserl, Edmund. 2006. La tierra no se mueve. Traducción y notas de Agustín Serano de Haro, 2nd ed. Madrid: Editorial Complutense. Ingold, Tim. 2000 The perception of the environment. Essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. London and New York: Routledge. Jordan, Paul. 2006. Esoteric Egypt. In Archaeological fantasies, ed. Fagan Garrett G., 109–128. Oxon-New York: Routledge. Lefkowitz, Mary. 2006. Archaeology and the politics of origins: The search for pyramids in Greece. In Archaeological fantasies, ed. Fagan, Garrett G., 180–202. Oxon-New York: Routledge. López Austin, Alfredo. 2005. Modelos a distancia: antiguas concepciones nahuas. In El modelo en la ciencia y la cultura, ed. Austin, Alfredo López, 68–93. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México – Siglo XXI Editores. Marx, Karl. 2005. El Capital. Tomo 1, vol. 2. Libro Primero. El proceso de producción del capital. Mexico City: Siglo XXI Editores. Moore, Patrick. 1996. Foreword. In Astronomy before the telescope, ed. Walker, Christopher, 9–14. London: The Trustees of the British Museum. Neugebauer, Otto. 1975. A history of ancient mathematical astronomy. New York – Heidelber: Springer. Pannekoek, A. 1961. A history of astronomy. London: George Allen & Unwin. Pedersen, Olaf. 1993. Early physics and astronomy: A historical introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Renfrew, Colin. 1984. Approaches to social archaeology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wittfogel, Karl A. 1957. Oriental despotism. New Haven: Yale University Press.

NORMAN D. COOK

TRIADIC INSIGHTS IN ASTRONOMY, ART AND MUSIC

ABSTRACT

Three huge discoveries during the Renaissance transformed all of science and art: they were the invention of musical harmony, the discovery of linear perspective, and the realization of the heliocentric structure of the solar system. These seemingly unrelated developments have a common basis in cognitive psychology. All three involve an understanding of the relationships among three sensory “cues.” The astronomical insight was essentially an understanding of the meaning of shadows: a light source (the sun), an object (the moon), and its shadow (the phases of the moon as seen from the earth). A similar shadow-related insight led to the geometricallycorrect depiction of light and shadows in Renaissance paintings and eventually to the laws of linear perspective (not deducible from the relative size of two objects, but deducible from the relative sizes of three aligned objects). The three cues in music are the three tones that produce harmony – the “tonality” that led to the major and minor modes of Renaissance music and still in use today. These (and other) forms of “triadic” sensory processing are not undertaken by infra-human animal species, but they lie at the heart of the unusual cognitive capabilities of the human mind. Various human societies over the past 50,000 years have contributed to the many advances of human civilization – i.e., the “post-history” civilization that is now on the verge of becoming truly universal among our species. The origins of most of those innovations have been lost in the mists of time, and we will probably never have anything more accurate than a “best guess” concerning the earliest discoveries in language, tool-making, agriculture, writing and mathematics (Mithen, 1996). But there are explicit historical records concerning more recent discoveries – and therefore some indication of the cognitive revolutions that fueled them. Perhaps the three greatest contributions to emerge from Europe were the invention of musical harmony, the discovery of linear perspective, and the realization of the heliocentric structure of the solar system during the so-called European Renaissance (1300–1600 AD). Although seemingly unrelated developments in diverse fields of art and science, they have a common basis in cognitive psychology, and involve an understanding of the relationships among three sensory “cues.” Interestingly, the “triadic” nature of human cognition, in general, and the fundamentally “dyadic” nature of infra-human cognition have become topics of recent research in relation to the origins of human intelligence (Tomasello, 1999). Here, I review the three triadic insights in Renaissance astronomy, art and music – and briefly argue that the step from cognitive dyads to cognitive triads is the step that most cogently distinguishes us from other animal species (Cook, 2010). 129 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 129–135. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_13,

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NORMAN D. COOK ASTRONOMY

Astronomy is the academic field that most clearly defines the place of human beings in the large-scale structure of the universe. While each of us individually begins life with interests that do not extend beyond the selfish needs of nutrition and physical comfort, we eventually develop into cognitive beings concerned with the world around us and with the questions of where we, individually and collectively, fit into that world. Modern astronomy has provided the scientific basis for thinking that, contrary to the primitive self-centeredness of infants, we are not, in fact, at the center of the universe – neither literally nor metaphorically. The gradual realization of our actual place in the material world arguably began with a rejection of the geocentric universe and its replacement with a heliocentric view. As argued most coherently by Casati (2003), that astronomical insight was based essentially on an understanding of the geometrical meaning of shadows: (1) a light source (the sun), (2) an object (the moon), and (3) its shadow (the phases of the moon as seen from the earth) (Figure 1). The basic geometry of the Earth-Moon-Sun system had in fact been debated since antiquity, but it was found to have an easy solution in Copernicus’s (1473–1543) model of the solar system provided only that one transcends the anthropocentrism of a geocentric universe. That is, the changing shapes of the moon can be understood by thinking of the lunar phases as “illusions” of a particular configuration of three celestial bodies. That geometry was not convincingly generalized to an understanding of the entire solar system until Galileo (1564–1642). Above all else, what Galileo succeeded in doing with his newly-invented telescope was to observe the phases of Venus. With the naked eye, the changing brightness of Venus can be observed, but by using the telescope it became apparent that Venus undergoes phase changes analogous to those of the moon. As illustrated in Figure 2, the observed phases of Venus (left) are consistent with the geometry of a heliocentric universe, but not a geocentric universe. Many astronomical details needed to be clarified before firm conclusions could be drawn, but the fatal blow to the conception of a geocentric universe was that wrought by something as insubstantial and ephemeral as the shadow!

Figure 1. The lunar shadows of the Sun-Earth-Moon triad provided the astronomical paradigm that eventually led to an understanding of the heliocentric solar system

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Figure 2. Galileo’s key insight into the geometry of the solar system lies in the changing phases of Venus as it revolves to positions closer than and further from the Sun (after Casati, 2003). The predicted phases in a geocentric universe are not confirmed by telescopic observations

VISUAL ART

During that same period in Renaissance Europe, artists were striving to produce more realistic depictions of visual scenes. Two great insights came with an understanding of the phenomenology of light (and its absence, shadows). Specifically, if light rays follow a linear course until they encounter opaque objects, then the relationship among the light source, the object and the cast shadow is necessarily linear (Figure 3). Various authors have commented on the specifically triadic nature of shadow information. Baxandall (1997, p. 42) states that: “The gross form of any particular shadow is due to a particular relation between three principal terms – a positioned light source, a positioned and shaped solid, and a positioned and shaped support or receiving surface.” Similarly, Casati (2003, p. 62) notes that “Shadow is useful because it makes visible an alignment that we could not otherwise see. Three points lie along the same line: the light source, the [object’s] tip, and the tip of the [object’s] shadow.” In artistic effect of realistic shadows is huge. The mere presence of a cast shadow provides unambiguous information about the 3D structure of a small portion of the visual scene (Figure 3). In other words, the same optical linearity that pertains to the shadow/object/light source in the real world can be maintained on a canvas, and conveys a sense of realistic 3D structure, insofar as the rigid geometry of shadows is accurately depicted in 2D.

Figure 3. An object and its cast shadow (a) imply the presence of a light source (b). The physics of light emission implies the linearity of the 3-body relationship among the light source, the opaque object and its shadow (c)

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Historically, it is of interest to note that there is little indication of cast shadows in most pre-Renaissance art (in Europe, the Middle East or the Far East). Although shading on faces and in clothing was used to give the illusion of 3D solidity, the rigid geometry of cast shadows was a Renaissance discovery (or possibly a rediscovery of Hellenistic shadows from ~400 AD) and an important contribution to the emergence of geometrically-realistic paintings. Of course, the Renaissance is more famous for the optical geometry of linear perspective, but here again the alignment of three visual cues plays an important role. The crucial argument is that the “alignment” of two objects in depth does not provide enough information to distinguish between two equally-possible spatial interpretations of the scene (Figure 4A and E). On the one hand, it could be two objects of different sizes but at similar distances from the observer (Figure 4F–H), or it could be two objects of similar size but at different distances (Figure 4B–D). Without further visual cues, the depth interpretation of two (non-overlapping) objects is ambiguous. In contrast, three aligned objects (i.e., objects that can be connected with perspective lines that converge on a horizon line) provide strong indication of the location of a vanishing point and therefore their likely alignment in depth (Figure 5). Of course, further cues can push the visual interpretation in either direction. If artificial perspective lines and/or vanishing points are also depicted in the scene (B), additional objects are similarly aligned (C), or surface textures consistent with the

Figure 4. The depth interpretation of two objects (A and E) is inherently ambiguous until further visual cues are added. Depending on the placement of additional cues, the two objects may be seen as aligned in depth (B–D) or located at approximately the same distance from the observer (F–H)

Figure 5. Three aligned objects without any further visual cues (A) already suggest a depth interpretation. Further cues might enhance that interpretation (B–D), or negate it (E, F)


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Figure 6. Demonstration of the linear geometry of both perspective and shadows (Dubreuil, 1643)

depth interpretation (D) are also included, the 3D depth in the 2D picture becomes undeniable. But the occlusion of the objects (E) or other contextual information (F) can strongly suppress the depth interpretation. On their own, the implication of depth is weak for two objects, but relatively strong for three aligned objects simply because of the low probability of such alignment of three different-sized objects at the same depth from the observer (Purves and Lotto, 2003). Whether or not the perspective lines are actually visible, we see depth in flat pictures, provided only that the connecting perspective lines can be “drawn in” by the human imagination (Cook et al., 2008a, b). The optical linearity that Macaccio, Leonardo and the other Renaissance painters mastered is well illustrated in a drawing by Dubreuil (Figure 6). There, he has drawn the parallel light rays that give rise to realistic cast shadows and the converging perspective lines that give rise to realistic diminution of objects with distance. Both the linearity of shadows and the linearity of perspective can be illustrated with a small number of relevant cues, but to maintain the illusion of 3D depth over an entire canvas, the shadows and perspective cues from many objects need to be employed in a self-consistent manner. A shadow falling to the left next to a shadow falling to the right and perspective lines that indicate both a high and a low horizon line will work against the viewer trying to obtain a coherent spatial understanding of the visual scene. Of course, it is for this reason that the great Renaissance painters sketched out the entire scene, and used rulers and guidelines that were later painted over, in order to construct a picture that contains an illusion of 3D depth without internal contradictions (Kemp, 1997).

MUSIC

The three cues in music are the three independent tones that produce harmony. Although multiple tones had been a part of musical melodies worldwide prior to the Renaissance, an understanding of 3-tone chords led to formalization of

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ideas concerning harmony (major, minor and eventually chromatic modes) – that blossomed into the Western musical idiom. We have published extensively (e.g., Cook, 2009, 2010; Cook and Hayashi, 2008) on a psychoacoustical model of harmony perception that is based fundamentally on three-pitch configurations (Meyer, 1956). Most other attempts at explaining harmony on an acoustical basis have been concerned primarily with the summation of interval consonance/dissonance (among fundamental frequencies and their upper partials), i.e., two-pitch configurations, but have been unable to reproduce the empirical sequence of relative “sonority” (major>minor>diminished~suspended> augmented triads) of the common triads. What we have shown is that the unsettled tension and affective ambiguity typically heard in the so-called diminished, suspended and augmented triads are due to the symmetrical structure of those pitch triads (an abundance of three-tone configurations among the partials in which the middle tone lies precisely midway between the upper and lower tones, e.g., the 4 semitones separating C and E, and the 4 semitones separating E and G# in the augmented chord) (Figure 7 A, B). In contrast, the “resolved” major and minor chords typically contain asymmetrical intervals (of 3, 4 or 5 semitones) among their partials. Moreover, the precise nature of the asymmetry (lower interval larger than the higher interval, or vice versa) neatly explains the major or minor character of these so-called model triads (Figure 7 C, D) on an acoustical basis. It should be noted that the musical usage of three-tone combinations to produce their characteristic affective responses in listeners has emerged independently in many musical cultures – probably dating back to the earliest melodies played in scales containing more than two distinct tones. But harmony theory was not formalized until the European Renaissance, when the labels “major,” “minor” and (later) “chromatic” were used to describe the characteristic harmonic effects of various 3-tone combinations.

Figure 7. The “triadic grid” onto which acoustical properties can be plotted. Each harmonic triad is comprised of a lower interval (vertical axis, in semitones) and an upper interval (horizontal axis, in semitones). For example, the augmented chord, consisting of two 4-semitone intervals is located at grid position 4,4. (A) and (B) show the total “tension” scores calculated for all possible triads built from three tones over two octaves due to symmetrical partial structure. Ridges of higher tension are found for all inversions of the augmented (A), suspended (S) and diminished (d) triads. In (C) and (D) peaks and troughs of “modality” are found uniquely at the major and minor chords, respectively, due to their asymmetric triadic structure (for details of the model, see Cook, 2009; Cook and Hayashi, 2008)


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CONCLUSION

The mystery of the special talents of the human mind is a perennial topic and the questions of origins are particularly vexing. Simplistic ideas concerning our “big brains” fail to explain virtually anything. Extinct hominid species such as Neanderthals had larger brains than modern Homo sapiens (as indeed do dolphins, whales and elephants). Individuals with hydrocephalus suffer huge decreases (>90%) in cortical neurons, and yet are fully human with normal or near-normal IQs and language capabilities. Explanations that start with an inherent capability for symbolic thought, language, tool-use, social cooperation, cooking, or intraspecies empathy are of interest, but require essentially a Darwinian “miracle” to produce the initial leap into human mentality, and then a slower evolutionary process to generate the other aspects of human behavior. The triadic abilities of the human mind undoubtedly had early origins. The cave drawings in southern France (~40,000 years ago), the flutes fashioned from animal bones (~35,000 years ago) and the architectural structures at various locations worldwide (Stonehenge, Egypt and Mexico, dating from more than 3,000 years ago) attest to the early human interest in art, music and astronomy. But an understanding of those interests did not emerge until much later – with arguably three key insights occurring in Renaissance Europe and concerned with the cognition of three simultaneous cues. Department of Informatics, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan, e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES Baxandall, M. 1995. Shadows and the enlightenment. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Casati, R. 2003. Shadows. New York: Random House. Cook, N.D. 2009. Harmony perception: Harmoniousness is more than the sum of interval consonance. Music Perception 27(1): 25–42. Cook, N.D. 2010 Harmony, perspective and triadic cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press. Cook, N.D., and T. Hayashi. 2008 The psychoacoustics of musical harmony. American Scientist 96: 311–319. Cook, N.D., A. Yutsudo, N. Fujimoto, and M. Murata. 2008a. On the visual cues contributing to pictorial depth perception. Empirical Studies of the Arts 26(1): 67–90. Cook, N.D., A. Yutsudo, N. Fujimoto, and M. Murata. 2008b. Factors contributing to depth perception: Behavioral studies on the reverse perspective illusion. Spatial Vision 21: 397–405. Kemp, M. 1997. The science of art, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Meyer, L.B. 1956 Emotion and meaning in music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mithen, S. 1996. The prehistory of the mind. London: Thames & Hudson. Purves, D., and R.B. Lotto. 2003. Why we see what we do. Sunderland: Sinauer. Tomasello, M. 1999. The cultural origins of human cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

EMÍLIA PÁSZTOR

THE SOCIAL AND SPIRITUAL IMPACT OF SKY LORE ON PREHISTORIC SOCIETIES IN EUROPE

ABSTRACT

Celestial events often exerted a great or even decisive influence on the life of ancient communities. There is good evidence that these phenomena played a particularly important role in the worldview of prehistoric Europe as well. Without written records the archaeological artifacts, features are almost the only “basic material” but also the solid evidences at the same time in retracing the prehistoric sky lore and its impact. Archaeoastronomical investigations can enrich the knowledge on prehistoric cognition but the overstatement of the role of astronomy in prehistoric civilization can also result false picture. Endeavoring to keep the right balance the paper is going to set forth the recent results of archaeoastronomical research on prehistoric sky lore and its influence on societies in Central Europe.

RE-VISITING PREHISTORIC ASTRONOMY

MEGALITHIC ASTRONOMY The “birth” of megalithic astronomy can be attributed not only to the existence of megalithic remains but also the enchantment caused by them. There have always been folk legends, opinions that the standing stones have healing- fertilizing power in association with the sun. As early as the 1700 years the British antiquarians became fascinated by the astronomical possibilities in the monuments. Working with large quantity of data Alexander Thom developed his theory on megalithic science during the second half of last century. He argued that megalithic man used precisely defined units of measurements and particular geometric constructions and carried out meticulous observations of sun, moon and stars (Ruggles, 1999). Thus notion of megalithic astronomy had two sides. Its public face meant a generally accepted idea about the connection between ancient stone monuments and astronomy. The academic face of prehistoric astronomy was however much different. In the early nineties there was almost nothing about the possible alignments of megaliths to celestial targets. This situation has somewhat changed by Clive Ruggles’ book on Astronomy of Prehistoric Britain and Ireland (1999). Critically re-investigating earlier archaeoastronomical arguments and utilizing Aubrey Burl’s research Clive Ruggles has made conclusions concerning astronomy in prehistoric COMPENDIUM OF ARCHAEOASTRONOMICAL STUDIES PERFORMED IN THE CARPATHIAN BASIN


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Britain and Ireland. Although the available evidence gives little support for general ideas, he has also had some positive arguments on prehistoric astronomy of the British Isles such as repeated astronomical trends are evident in the archaeological records amongst the orientations of local groups (Ruggles, 1999). THE CASE OF NON-MEGALITHIC ASTRONOMY Beside the big standing stone monuments of ancient Europe hardly any archaeoastronomical surveys of other prehistoric remains have been performed. If there are no visible ruins of a prehistoric construction, the archaeoastronomical measurements should be made during the excavation. Such investigations are quite rare. The circular causewayed enclosures called rondels of the late Neolithic Lengyel culture are positive exceptions. These regular constructions often with two or four causeways mostly excavated in Austria, Bohemia, Slovakia and Hungary stimulated astronomical examinations as the main axes of the causeways were often aligned to close to cardinal directions. Austrian rondels such as at Immendorf is argued to be orientated to the rise of the Pleides or/and the set of the bright star, Anteres. Another one at Steinabrunn might have been orientated to the rise of the Pleiades seen above a wooden post on the left of the south-eastern causeway (Gervautz and Neubauer, 2005).The Slovakian scholars have assumed alignments for six rondels to the rise or set of the full Moon at its minor or/and major turning points (Pavúk and Karlovsk˘y, 2004). Besides the communal/sacral monuments the domestic constructions might also have been informative about prehistoric practical astronomical knowledge as domestic space also had sacred function and ritual activity often took place there. Winter solstice sunrise might have been one of the main factors in siting Bell Beaker houses in the Early Bronze Age Carpathian Basin. The axes of the houses roughly face the midwinter early climbing sun at the horizon (Pásztor, 2005). The history of constellations supports the argument that star groups may also have been created in the Carpathian Basin during the Bronze Age (Pásztor and Roslund, 2007). The anthropological records prove that folk astronomy involved not only the astronomical but also the atmospheric phenomena. The twilight and dawn or the rainbow are also separate elements of sky beliefs and ancient myths. It is most likely that the same or almost the same elements of the possible astronomical knowledge can be argued for prehistoric Europe by studying the megalithic and non-megalithic constructions. It can however, generally be stated that no clear picture emerges of overall astronomical development in Neolithic and Bronze age Europe. The prehistoric sky observation/astronomy was not unified and not scientific (Pásztor, 2009b).

THE SOCIAL AND SPIRITUAL IMPACT OF SKY LORE

Some basic elements of ethno-astronomy in the Carpathian Basin already prove how various impacts the celestial phenomena can make on a society. The influence of sky lore can be found in every aspect of the life. The celestial lore was applied partly to

T H E S O C I A L A N D S P I R I T U A L I M PA C T O F S K Y L O R E

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common, everyday necessities such as bearing on land or weather magic and partly to special occasions (hard times, fateful events, turning points, regular rituals, burial rituals, etc.) (Pásztor, 2009d). CALENDAR CONSTRUCTIONS? ARCHAIC YEAR DIVISION? Most researchers argue the orientations of prehistoric constructions were not just embellishment. They might also have had a calendrical function. This function of the rondels has also been supported by the famous German three-causeway enclosure at Goseck whose two southern causeways were directed to the midwinter sunrise and sunset (Bertemes-Schlosser, 2004).The rising or setting of celestial objects observed through the causeways of the rondels might have marked important days in their calendar (Gervautz and Neubauer, 2005), such as the winter or summer solstice which might have signalled the middle of the seasons but not their beginning as is the case is in our days. The expression of Mittersommer or Midsummer for example, is the relic of such an old division (Zotti, 2005, pp. 76–77). Eighteen of 51 late Neolithic roudels of the Carpathian Basin have a causeway in the direction of sunrise or sunset on a midquater day (Pásztor et al., 2008, 1.1–1.4. kép). Although the early medieval Irish literature might sustain the existence of an ancient pan-Celtic calendar, which divides the year with the midquarter days, the earliest evidence for such calendrical division comes from as late as the Medieval Age (Hutton, 1996, pp. 408–411). The roles of the sun’s turning and equinoctial points in ancient folk calendars are very much debated. Ethnographical research reports that peoples of the North such as the Inuit, the Finnish Saami or the Nganasan who carefully watched the motion of the sun, devoted sacrifice to its first appearance after the longest dark days in midwinter (Nilsson. 1920, p. 344). The old German Yuletide festival might have had clear relation to midwinter (Jan de Vries, 1956, p. 448). The celebration of midsummer is supposed to have been widespread in European folk tradition. The St. John’s festivities around midsummer became general in the fifth century. The principle of the exact beginning of the New Year was, however, often missing from the folk year division or it was not fixed on a certain day as it followed the main economic activities of the communities, which first of all depended on the climate and the natural surroundings. In Central Europe the two natural turning periods between the cold and warm terms are spring and autumn. They were recognized not as sun equinoxes but the changes of nature, important stations of farming activities or increase of the animals. The beginning of the year seems to have fallen into one of these periods at the Celt, the Germanic or Slav tribes but this was also the case at the Finno-Ugric peoples. This assumption is based on certain old folk festivities (Dömötör, 1983, pp. 46–51). All the above mentioned historical and ethnographical records prove that the use of a universal calendar cannot be expected even for the early historical times either. Each ancient culture applied their own methods for time reckoning which might not have been the same even in one culture either. Therefore the apparent midquarter-day-orientation for some rondels may be nothing more than a serendipitous

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coincidence and the use of an 8-fold calendar on the continental prehistoric Europe cannot be proved sufficiently either. ASTRONOMY AND THE ANCESTORS The alternative purpose of the orientation of the prehistoric constructions can be to offer the beams of sacred light enter the inner side of the monuments, most often chambered tombs, at ritual times. Thus the orientation may be due to the ancestor cult. An outstanding well-known example is the Newgrange tomb, Ireland. Its passage and chamber are illuminated through the roof box over the entrance by the winter solstice sunrise. Not only the burial tombs but also other constructions such as Stonehenge might have been a stage for a light and shadow interaction at ritual times, which not only enhanced the ceremony but revived the carvings on the thrilitons by the early slanting light (Pásztor, 2009c). Despite of other more examples, no solid support of such a cult can be detected in any systematic studies. It is often claimed that the orientation of the skeletons in a cemetery reveal sun cult as the long axes of the graves are aligned to east-west or if they have north-south orientation the deceased face the rising or setting sun. The study of the orientation of graves in the Bronze Age Carpathian Basin offers little evidence to support this notion even in the cases where the graves seem to share strict common rules in burial customs (Pásztor, 2008). SKY LORE AS SPIRITUAL AND SOCIAL POWER Ethnographic research show that astronomical knowledge meant great power to possessors such as the Inuit shamans (MacDonald, 1998) or the Skidi Pawnee Indians’“priests” (Chamberlain, 1982). Historical examples can also be mentioned. The Transylvanian Getae – Daco Zalmoxis, who had been the slave of Pythagoras, and learned about the heavenly bodies, returning home became a priest – but arranged his being seen as a god. He used his powers to force the king to share his political authority, and the nobles and people to believe that he could predict the future from celestial signs (Eliade, 1972). The Bronze Age Carpathian Basin shows no traces of temples, shrines or special sacral buildings, and no evidence of hierarchical religion. The societies were not marked by major inequality, and the participation in sacred ritual activities could be achieved rather than being restricted to specialists. These pose questions about the possibility of animism and shaman-like mediators. Animism has strong devotion to nature involving earth and sky as well; as for shamanhood it has deep cosmic symbolism as anthropological studies prove (Hoppál, 2007). There are archaeological finds which can be best interpreted by this belief system (Pásztor, 2009e). IN TUNE WITH THE COSMOS F o u n d a t i o n R i t e ? The actual direction of the rising sun can offer a good interpretation for the orientation of more than 50 late Neolithic rondels in the


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Carpathian Basin. The first step in the construction might have been setting out the direction of the eastern causeway by the rising point of the sun. The causeways, other than the eastern one, seem to be not aligned but rather constructed to form a symmetric design (Pásztor and Barna, 2009). Anthropological research on domestic area argues that beside the environmental factors such as prevailing wind, natural light need or solar radiation; the non – environmental factors such as unusual house alignments, door positions and sacral deposits inside the domestic area play important role in founding and building a house. The different building phases are associated with different myths or rituals. Trying to find the right place to live always required an “omen” which proved the sanctity of the site. The investigation of the Bronze Age houses in the Carpathian Basin argues that there is a slight correlation with the direction of the midwinter sunrise and the north-south or east directions. This may raise the question of a foundation rite in connection with sunrise or myth of origin (Pásztor, 2009g). C o s m o l o g i c S y m b o l s Celestial bodies and phenomena are important participants of all cosmologic myths. The archaeological remains and artifacts must conceal the world view of an ethnic group even if it is difficult to identify it. The symbols representing the common cosmologic beliefs must share some common elements in spite of the artistic variations. The comparative studies of traditional and ancient cosmologies can reveal and identify such elements and their representations (Pásztor, 2009a, 2009f). “S p e c i a l i z e d ” S k y G o d s Although animism seems to be the ruling mythological background in the Bronze Age, the Proto-Indo-European beliefs must have also co-existed in the Carpathian Basin by then. Many of the Proto-IndoEuropean sky divinities became “specialized”, turned into storm or fertility gods, etc.in course of time (Eliade, 1957). This fairly complex evolution may have been in process during the Bronze Age as there are artefacts, especially among the prestige ones, which may be associated with the Proto-Indo-European mythology (Pásztor, 2009b).

SKY LORE AS SOCIAL POWER Investigations show that the prestige finds of the second half of the Bronze Age were very often decorated by celestial symbols whose number significantly grew in the late Middle Bronze Age. Why did all these universal-cosmic symbols become of interest and importance? They may have acted as cosmic symbols as well as royal and chiefly regalia due to an ideological pattern in which the divination of the elite was believed to be “natural”. Bronze and gold may have been the visible sign of supremacy and the legitimization of structures of dominance and power (Pásztor, 2009b).

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There is good evidence that celestial phenomena played a particularly important role in the worldview of prehistoric Europe. The results indicate that the social changes accompanied with ideological changes involving more interest in sky, can be observed from the Middle Bronze Age on. The celestial and terrestrial landscape was an inseparable unity for prehistoric people. This world view resulted that the elements of the celestial landscape had a significant impact on all aspects of the life of prehistoric Europe. SEAC, Europé Research Group for Mediterranean and Carpathian Basin Studies, Dunafoldvar, Hungary, e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES Bertemes, F., and W. Schlosser. 2004. Der Kreisgraben von Goseck und seine astronomischen Bezüge. In Der Geschmiedete Himmel, Hg. Harald Meller, 48–51. Stuttgart: Theiss. Chamberlain, V.D. 1982. When stars came down to earth. Los Altos: Ballena Press. Dömötör, T. 1983. Naptári ünnepek-népi színjátszás. Budapest: Akadémia Kiadó. Eliade, M. 1957. Patterns in comparative religion. London: Sheed and Ward. Eliade, M. Zalmoxis. 1972. History of religion, vol.11, No. 3. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 257–303. Gervautz, M., and W. Neubauer. 2005. Sonne, Mond und Sterne. In Zeitreise Heldenberg. Geheimnisvolle Kreisgräben, Hg. F. Daim and W. Neubauer, 73–74. St.Pölten: Berger. Hoppál, M. 2007. Shamans and tradition. Budapest: Akadémia Kiadó. Hutton, R. 1996. The pagan religions of the ancient British isles. Oxford: Blackwell. Jan de Vries. 1956. Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte. Berlin: de Gruyter. MacDonald, J. 1998. The Arctic sky. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum/Nunavut Research Institute. Nilsson, M.P. 1920. Primitive time-reckoning. Lund: Gleerups. Pásztor, E. 2005. Sunshine in Bell Beaker’s houses: On the orientation of the houses of the Bell BeakerCsepel Group. In Lights and shadows in cultural astronomy, eds. M.P. Zedda and J.A. Belmonte, 116–124. Isili: Associazione Archaeofila. Pásztor, E. 2008. Celestial symbols on archaeological finds from the Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin. In Cognitive archaeology as symbolic archaeology 1737, eds. F. Coimbra and G. Dimitriadis, 13–21. Cracow: BAR IS. Pásztor, E. 2009a. Prehistoric cosmologies – a methodological framework for an attempt to reconstruct Bronze age cosmologic ideas in the Carpathian Basin. In: Cosmology across cultures ASP conference series, eds. J. A. Rubiño Martín, J. A. Belmonte, F. Prada, and A. Alberdi, Vol. 409, 457–463. Pásztor, E. 2009b. The significance of the sun, moon and celestial bodies to societies in the Carpathian Basin during the Bronze Age. In The role of astronomy in society and culture, eds. D. Valls-Gabaud and A. Boksenberg Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pásztor, E. 2009c. The harmony of the immaterial and the material in prehistoric monuments: Investigating ancient light and shadow interaction. In Experimenting the past. The position of experimental archaeology in the archaeological paradigm of the 21st century, eds. D. Gheorghiu, and A. Peatfield, Zeta Books (In press). Pásztor, E. 2009d. Kognitív régészet és etnoarcheológia – Égitestek és jelenségek lehetséges ismerete a bronzkori Kárpát-medencében. In Essays to the honour of János Makkay, ed. M. Fekete. Pécs: Pécs University. Pásztor, E. 2009e. Prehistoric sky lore and spirituality. In Archaeology and Experimenting Spirituality? eds. D. Gheorghiu and A. Peatfield. Cracow:BAR IS. Pásztor, E. 2009f. A kereskedelem és csere ’mellékterméke’: eszmék és szimbólumok vándorlása. In ˝ G. Ilon (ed). VI. Oskoros konferencia, MOMOSZ. Szombathely.


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Pásztor, E. 2009g. The connection between the terrestrial and celestial landscape during the Bronze age in the Carpathian Basin: Orientation of houses. In: Landscape in mind: Dialogue on space between anthropology and archaeology, ed. G. Dimitriadis, BAR-S2003. Oxford: Archaeopress. Chapter 9. Pásztor, E., and J.P. Barna. 2009. Concepts of space, place and time in late Neolithic Carpathian Basin: The geometry of rondels of the Lengyel complex. In Place as material culture, objects, geographies and the construction of time, eds. D. Gheorghiu and G. Nash. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Pásztor, E. and C. Roslund. 2007. An interpretation of the Nebra disc. Antiquity 81: 267–278. Pásztor, E., J.P. Barna, and C. Roslund. 2008. The orientation of rondels of the Neolithic Lengyel culture in Central Europe. Antiquity 82: 910–924. Pavúk, J., and V. Karlovsk. 2004. Orientacia Rondelov Lengyelskej Kultúry na Smery Vysokého a Nízkeho Mesiaca. Slov. Arch. LII-2: 211–280. Ruggles, C. 1999. Astronomy in prehistoric Britain and Ireland. New Haven, London: Yale University Press. Zotti, G. 2005. Kalendarbauten? – Zur astronomischen Ausrichtung der Kreisgrabenanlagen in Niederösterreich. In Zeitreise Heldenberg. Geheimnisvolle Kreigräben, Hg. F. Daim and W. Neubauer, 75–79. St.Pölten: Niederösterreichische Landesmuseum.

S U R E S H B H AT TA R A I

IMPACT OF ASTRONOMY IN NEPALESE CIVILIZATION

ABSTRACT

Astronomy is considered to be the oldest science in the world. It has the direct relationship with the development of the human civilization. People have realized the potential of nature by the observation of the sky and use their knowledge for the betterment of the human society. They have been using the knowledge imbedding into their art culture and religion since the existence of human being in the world. As the contribution of Asia in the human civilization is significant we can imagine its contribution in the development of astronomy in the world. What are observing and manipulating about the universe has been done more than 5,000 years before but we lack the strong evidence for our stand in the world. The contribution of Asia in the development of astronomy and human civilization in the world with special reference to Nepal and Nepal’s status in the development of astronomy and its contribution in the astronomy and civilization from Past to present is explored. How astronomy showed its impact in Nepalese civilization is explored. Also, Nepal’s art, culture and religion with special reference to astronomy are discussed.

INTRODUCTION

The Neolithic age of China has been traced back as early as 10,000 BCE. Early evidence for proto-Chinese millet agriculture is carbon-dated to about 7,000 BCE but the written history of China begins with the Shang Dynasty (1550–1046 BCE). Indus Valley Civilization (2600–1900 BCE) had flourished around the Indus River basin in South Asia. Vedic civilization had extended from the second millennia BCE to the sixth century BCE1 . The extensively astronomy-rich sacred texts of the Indo-Aryan civilization were presumably compiled then. The Iron Age in the Indian subcontinent succeeded the late Harappan culture. Mehrga, one of the most important Neolithic (7000–2500 BC) sites in archeology, lies on what is now the “Kachi plain” of today’s Balochistan, Pakistan which is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming (wheat and barley) and herding (cattle, sheep and goats) in South Asia. Neolithic tools found in the Kathmandu valley indicates that people have been living in Nepal for at least 9,000 years and showed that Nepalese civilization has very close relation to the Chinese and Indians from the very beginning of the civilizations in the Asia. According to Veda, 1 day in the life of Brahma, the creator is called a Kalpa or 4.32 billion years (the approximate life span of the earth).The 145 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 145–149. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_15,

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time scales that Vedas explains are from nuclear to cosmological scale that we have conceived yet. The Hindu cosmological time cycles are described in verses 11–23 of Chapter 1, Surya Siddhnata which was probably 5,000 years old. According to Veda, we are now in fifty second Century of Kaliyuga which started in 3102 BCE. Garun Puran has explained the Earth as a sphere and the Sun as a source of Energy to living beings in Earth. Both Rig-Veda and Bahmanda Purana describe universe as a cosmic that cycle between expansion and total collapse, infinite in time and as expanded from a concentrated form – a point called a Bindu. Astronomer Arya Bhatta (476–550 CE) had theorized the revolutionary heliocentric solar system in 500 CE long before this concept was proposed by Copernicus in the western community in 1543 CE. Though the western civilizations have been contributing a lot in astronomy after the sixteenth century, Asian civilization has contributed a lot for the development of astronomy before sixteenth Century which has been spread widely in West as well.

NEPALESE CIVILIZATION

Nepal has been remained the perfect place since the beginning of the human civilization on Earth. The fossils of Ramapithecus, dated 11 millions found in 1980 CE by the team of Dr J.H. Hutchison near Tinahu River, Butwal, western part of Nepal, proves the region as an important place for human civilization since the beginning of pre-historic time (West et al., 1991). It appears that Gopal Dynasty were the first to settle in Kathmandu Valley formerly known as Nepal then Abhir and Kirat Dynasties ruled the nation. Khas (now known as Chhetri) who were the Indo- Iranian (Aryan) of Central Asia who advanced towards the east and settled in the Western Part of Modern Nepal, succeeded to form their Kingdom only in 1100 CE. The epic Mahabharata mentions the Kiratas (900 BC–300 CE as William Kirk Patrick) among the inhabitants of Nepal. The first Kirati king Yalambar had the dubious honor of being slain in the battle of the Mahabharata, in which gods and mortals fought alongside each other. One of the earliest confederations of South Asia was that of the Shakya clan, whose capital was Kapilvastu, Nepal. Siddharta Gautama (563–483 BCE), who renounced his royalty to lead an ascetic life and came to be known as the Buddha (the enlightened one) was born to the Shakya king Sudhodhan. Maurya Emperor Ashoka the Great, the legendary Buddhist proselytizer and ruler from 273 to 232 BCE in India visited Kathmandu, Patan, Lumbini of Nepal as a follower of Buddhism and erected four stupas known as Ashoka Stupa in Patan, and Ashoka Pillar at Lumbini, the birth place of Gautam Buddha (Pei, 2009). From the findings at the ancient capital of Handigaun, it appears that Licchavi rulers were in power from third to fifth century, and again from eighth to thirteenth century. A well-preserved life-sized sandstone sculpture of a king named Jaya Varman, discovered in Maligaon in the eastern part of Kathmandu, contains an inscription dating from 185 CE which is now kept in the National Museum, Chaauni, Kathmandu. Two inscriptions of a known date, both Licchavi, are the

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broken pillar inscription from Pashupatinath temple dated 459 CE and the Changu Narayana pillar inscription of King Manadeva in 464 CE. There is a good and quite detailed description of the kingdom of Nepal in the account of the renowned Chinese Buddhist pilgrim monk, Xuanzang; dating from c. 645 CE (Pei, 2009). The Malla Dynasty was a ruling dynasty of Nepal from the twelfth century to the eighteenth century. Nepalese Art of the Malla period (1200–1769 CE) is considered as the artistic Golden Age. Araniko popularly distinguished as astronomy-enthusiast Balabahu of Nepal, had visited China at the invitation of Emperor Kublai Khan. He had assisted the legendary Chinese astronomer Guo Shoujing exhaustively while constructing astronomical equipments (Pei, 2009). Before the unification of Nepal in 1793 CE by Prithvi Narayan Shah, there were several kingdoms of different ethnic groups in Nepal. The Shah Dynasty lasted recently as Nepal become Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.

ASTRONOMY IN NEPAL

Surya Siddhanta (about 3,000 BCE) which was based on geocentric Theory is a part of Nepalese Civilization and is the basis for the Nepalese Calendar2 . Stone hinge at Tehrathum, which lies in the eastern part of Modern Nepal, was erected in the Lichhavi Era and estimated about 2,000 years old which were used for time keeping purposes and astronomical observation (Oli, 2005). About 500 m from the area of Stone Hinge there are five ponds. The stone hinge in the area is almost destroyed by the cow gazing and other activities. Umbrellas in Temples of Acham, western part of Nepal, were used for the time keeping purposes. People of Nepal still use leaf to measure time dipping into the water. Also, they are aware of the position of the planets and stars in the night sky though which they can identify the season and time. Mathematical Astronomy has been greatly flourished in Nepal with some great astronomers of Nepal and India. Sumati Tanra (576–880 CE) was the first astronomical book published in Nepal which was initiated by Sumati of Nepal3 . Famous astronomer Shree Pati who wrote many books on mathematical astronomy was Nepali. Siddhanta Siromani (1150 CE) which was written by Indian astronomers Bhaskaracharya had great influence in Nepalese astronomers. In 1494 CE Balbhadra of Jumla wrote Bhaswati Baal Bhodhini Tika according to Baswati in a lucid manner for the students (Bhadra, 1494). In 1514 CE Ratna Dev wrote Tika on Bhaswatii called Bhaswati Tika4 . Gaureshwor Joshi wrote three different books on Mathematical Astronomy (1663 CE) which were taken as the significant contributions in the history of Nepalese astronomy (Pant et al., 1989). Shiva Sankar of Dankuta, Eastern part of Nepal wrote Sukhabodh in 1853 CE. During twentieth century, Scholars Naya Raj Pant and his Team, Prof. Dr Keshav Ram Joshi and others have done some remarkable works to find out the history Astronomy and its connections with Nepalese Civilization. The telescopic observation of cosmos has been traced only from late twentieth Century in Nepal.

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S U R E S H B H AT TA R A I IMPACT OF ASTRONOMY

Licchavi and Malla periods are considered as the golden era of Nepal. Some traces of evidence of astronomical advancement in Nepal since the beginning of Licchavi period. Malla period is considered as the pick of the development of art, cultural and religion in Nepal. During Malla period, for future prediction and to make calendars easily, astrologers usually took the help to this Sumati Tantra and Sumati Siddhanta (Bardhan, 1409). Sumati Tantra has been purely written in Sanskrit whereas Sumati Siddhanta has been written in mixed Language of Newari (local language in Kathmandu Valley) and Sanskrit. Nepalese astronomers are the mathematicians as well so they have largely contributed to the mathematical astronomy. People use to go to the astronomers in past to learn mathematics. People started their cultivations by looking up the night sky and meaning the positions of the planets and stars. We can still find people from rural part of Nepal who use to measure time looking at the sky. It have been seen that people used stone hinge and Sun dials for time keeping purposes. We find that people from the rural areas of Nepal still use Orion, Globular Clusters and the planet Venus for their time keeping purposes5 . The Stone hinge of Tehrathum was build for the observation of the night sky and time keeping purposes (Oli, 2005). We have found large number of Umbrellas in different parts of Mountain and Hilly Region which were used for the time measurement by measuring the length of shadow.

CONCLUSION

Nepal has been a habitable place for 11 million years from the evidence of fossils of Ramapithecus found in Western Nepal (West et al., 1991). Neolithic tools found in till date clearly shows Nepalese Civilization has close connections with Chinese and Indian Civilization and other Asian Civilizations. The civilizations from Licchavi and Malla periods are in pick because of their greater involvements in astronomy (Pant et al., 1989. Nepal has played a lot in the mathematical astronomy to calculate the time and others factors. The Modern Day Observational Astronomy and the Astronomy is in its infancy in Nepal5 . The professors who know Mathematical Astronomy and the Modern day Astronomy are expiring without transferring the knowledge to the next generation. Because of this we are at the stage to lose our identity through our contribution to the Asian Astronomy and Civilization. We must have fruitful collaborations to find out more about the history of Nepalese astronomy and its contribution to the world. Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Er. Rishi Shah, Academician, Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), Khumaltar, Lalitpur and President, Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) for providing necessary guidance, comments and suggestions and being the source of inspiration to work in the field of astronomy and to promote astronomy for the development of our society. I am very thankful to National Archive, National Library and Keiser Library for their co-operations during the preparation of this paper.

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Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO), Kathmandu, Nepal Department of Physics, St. Xavier’s College, Kathmandu, Nepal, e-mail: [email protected]

NOTES 1 Shiva Raj Shrestha “Malla”, The Vedic-Aryan Entry Into Contemporary Nepal [A Pre-Historical Analysis Based on the Study Of Puranas], lAncient Nepal ,Department of Archeology, Kathmandu, Nepal. 2 Surya Siddhanta, Nepali Paper, Book Number 682, Manuscript Section, Keiser Library, Keiser Mahal, Kathmandu, Nepal. 3 Sumati, 4-57-Sumati Tantram, Palm Leaves, B 20/23, Page 190, National Archive, Kathmandu, Nepal. 4 1-1213-Bhaswati Tika, B 340/22, National Archive, Kathmandu, Nepal. 5 Annual reports of NASO activities, 2007/08.

REFERENCES Bardhan, Dharma Pati. 1409. Sumati Siddhanta, Palm Leaves, Book Number 82, Manuscript Section, Keiser Library, Keiser Mahal, Kathmandu. Nepal. Bhadra, Bal. 1494. Bhaswati Baal Bodhini Tika, Nepal Oli, Punya Prasad. 2005. Saur Jagat. Kathmandu: Manichood Publication. Pei, He. 2009. Pictorial biography of Araniko. Beijing: Administrative Office of Beijing White Dagoba Temple. Pant, Naya Raj, et al. 1989. Hindu Siddhanta Jyotish Ra Greek Siddhanta Jyotish Ko Tulana. Kathmandu: Royal Nepal Academy. West, R.M., J.H. Hutchison, and J. Munthe. 1991. Miocene vertebrates from the Siwalik group, Western Nepal. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 11: 108–129.

VA R A D A R A J A V E N K AT A R A M A N

IMPACT OF STARS ON HUMAN CULTURE

ABSTRACT

In the Hindu vision, our individual selves, though apparently separate, are interlinked not only to one another, but to the Universe at large. The idea that we are fragments of stars is taken beyond its physical meaning, into the spiritual realm as well. This talk will bring out that thesis by reflecting on the role of stars in human history and culture. This will awaken us to the fact that beyond the astrophysical visions of stars there are also deeper connections between stars and humans that have made life more meaningful. What has remained universal in human culture over the ages is star gazing: at various levels of sophistication and with differing kinds of instruments, no doubt. From the remotest times people have looked at the star studded sky, pondered about it all, recognized patterns, observed motions, formed their own judgments and woven their own pictures as to what those distant little twinkling lights were. We may look upon celestial bodies as a link between ourselves and our ancestors, for even if we do not know our distant forebears individually, we have this in common: We have all looked at our sun and moon, at the age-old planets and the self-same stars. Stars have entered the thoughts and expressions of every human group in practically all epochs of history. They have had impacts of human civilization in strange and unexpected ways. This lecture will touch on some of these: it will discuss the ways in which, over the ages, stars have entered the visions and mindset of religion, mythology, politics, literature, art, music, and even our vocabulary. Perhaps no other theme is more universal and pervasive in human culture than stars and planets.

PREAMBLE: HINDU VISION

There is splendor in the perceived world and pattern in its functioning, and all this results in the grand experiences of life and thought. In the Hindu vision, independently of the advent of humans, there has always been an experiencer of a vastly superior order. This Universal Experiencer spans the cosmic range in space and time. We refer to it as Brahman. Just as the expanse of water in the oceans is scattered all over land in ponds and lakes and rivers and bottles, the all-pervasive Brahman finds expression in countless life forms. Every living entity is thus a miniature light. We have all have emanated from that primordial effulgence, like photons from a glorious galactic core, destined for the terrestrial experience for a brief span on the eternal time line, only to re-merge eventually with that from which we sprang. 151 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 151–165. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_16,

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Thus the Hindu vision paints our individual consciousness on a cosmic canvas. It recognizes the transience of us all as separate entities, yet incorporates us into the infinity that encompasses us. It does not rule out the possibility of other manifestations of Brahman, sublime or subtle, carbon or silicon-based, elsewhere amidst the stellar billions. It recognizes the role of matter, and the limits of the mind, but sees silent spirit at the core of it all. It does not speak of rewards and punishments in anthropocentric terms, or of a He-God communicating in local languages. Yet, it regards the religious expressions of humanity as echoes of that Universal Spirit, even as volcanic outbursts reveal submerged powers of far greater magnitude. In that vision, our individual selves, though apparently separate, are interlinked not only to one another, but to the Universe at large. The idea that we are fragments of stars is taken beyond its physical context, into the spiritual realm as well. In this lecture I will try to bring out that thesis by reflecting on the role of stars in human history and culture. This will awaken us to the fact that beyond the astrophysical visions of stars there are also deeper connections between stars and humans that have made life more meaningful.

ANCIENT TIMES

Since time immemorial stars have impressed awe-struck human eyes as faint luminous specks in the dark distant skies, overwhelming in their numbers, secretive in their silent aloofness, steady in their collective motions, picturesque in their patterns, punctual in their periodic appearance, and for ever beyond human grasp. Individually, they look like minute crystalline shimmers, but collectively they constitute a countless crowd that covers all of visible space. Though ever so tiny in their incredible distances we have come to recognize stars as stupendous stretches of matter that stagger our imagination, some swelling to dimensions beyond our own orbit around the sun. They seem fainter than the flame of a flickering candle, but we have computed their temperatures to be of mega-degrees and more. They look fixed for ever on the celestial ceiling, but we know them to be zooming through the expanse at incredible speeds. Stars first provoked human curiosity about heaven and earth, and they also sowed the seeds of science. By their precise and predictable motions they suggested to the human mind that there must be laws and principles underlying the physical world. Modern science has revealed that stars were responsible for our very genesis and existence. They have given rise to the material variety of the universe. They are the cosmic factories where cold hydrogen turns into the hot plasma of nuclear furnaces whence light and all radiant energy spill into every nook and niche of the void of space. It is only in relatively small specks in the vicinity of stars under certain conditions that simpler molecules combine to form the more complex units that ultimately led to the splendor of life and to its still more glorious forms that have become selfaware. As eventual offshoots of gigantic cosmic process in the core of stars, when we do astrophysics, we are looking back as it were at our ultimate progenitors, we probe and penetrate into our remotest roots with ingenious instruments, conceptual

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cleverness, and magical mathematics. Ultimately it is stars that are the cause of us all and of this conference too. Conferences on astronomy are usually devoted to various physical aspects of stars: their constitution and evolution, the principles and equations governing their birth and growth and eventual demise, their distances and energy outputs, and even to states on the universe that are utterly star-less. That we have come to know so much about entities so far removed by hundreds and thousands of light-years and more by the exercise of our ingenuity and intelligence is indeed a tribute to the human spirit. In an age wrought with the passions of political acrimony, ideological conflict, and religious confrontations, in a world rendered painful by economic distresses and social injustices, and on a planet threatened by ecological time bombs and nuclear winters, it must be a matter of some pride for our species of many virtues and many vices that music and mathematics, philosophy and poetry as well as art and astrophysics are practiced by some members of Homo sapiens. For these are surely among the nobler elements of human culture, these certainly are among the finer expressions of human civilization.

ASTRONOMY BEYOND THE SKIES

Astronomy is perhaps the only field whose subject matter has touched people of practically all cultures since time immemorial. While an elite class of scientists explore and probe into the mysteries of stellar motion, origin, and constitution with complex instruments and abstruse theories, the vast number of simple people have appreciated, admired the countless collection of tiny twinkling lights that seem to be watching us from up above from the nocturnal darkness beyond, and they generally react to technical jargon on stars very differently. This was beautifully expressed in the following poem (Whitman, 1981): WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, To add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, And from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

UNIVERSALITY OF STAR-GAZING

From the first humans who turned their heads heavenwards and looked up in silence at the stars, people of all races and cultures, of all religions and nations have not only stared at what seem like distant lamps in high heavens, they have also been inspired

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by their presence in various ways and have incorporated them into practically every aspect of their culture. When we look at the heavens on a clear moonlit night, the twinkling stars and the silvery moon seem to be staring at us. It is no less exciting to reflect upon the fact that millennia ago, in China and India, in Babylon and Africa and in ancient Greece, human beings like ourselves gazed at that same celestial bodies and wondered about them also. The same human spirit, encased in different frames, scanned the same skies and made similar efforts to understand what it was all about. We may never know how our distant ancestors imagined the stars, much less could they have imagined how we are reckoning those same entities. What has remained universal in human culture over the ages is star-gazing: at various levels of sophistication and with differing kinds of instruments, no doubt. Our ancestors from the pre-dawn periods of civilization also gazed at Alcyon and Antares, and wondered at the Pleiades and Polaris, perhaps with even greater enthusiasm than most moderns do, if only because we moderns have so many other nocturnal diversions. People everywhere and at all times have looked at the starstudded sky, recognized patterns, observed motions, pondered about it all, formed their judgments and woven their own pictures as to what those little lights were. We have come a long way from imagining them to be views though tiny holes in the celestial dome of a blaze beyond to the black holes we picture the fates of some of them to be. Thus, we may look upon celestial bodies as a link between ourselves and our ancestors, for even if we do not know our distant forebears individually, and none of them could have even dreamed of our doings and discussions, we have this in common: We have all looked at our sun and moon, at the age-old planets and the self-same stars. Heavenly bodies are shared by all the peoples of the planet. By their diurnal appearance in the skies of one and all nations, they connect the peoples of the world in some subtle way. Likewise, they also bind us to distant generations who studied and stared at the same distant bodies (Raman, 1999, p. 15). By their mystery in the dark night sky, their unreachability and apparent constancy, stars have touched the human spirit in myriad ways. They have entered the thoughts and expressions of every human group in practically all epochs of history. They have had impacts of humanity’s culture and civilization in strange and unexpected ways. It is on some of these that I would like to reflect in this lecture.

EGYPT AND BABYLONIA

Perhaps because religion seeks to discover divinity whose location is taken to be yonder in high heavens, practically every major religion has been touched by stars one way or another. Consider the brightest star in the heavens, Sirius. Its hieroglyphic symbol of a dog has been found in submerged monuments of the Nile valley. Its heliacal rising at the summer solstice began the year for the ancient Egyptians, ultimately leading to our year of 365 days (Sarton, I, 29). There is also evidence that the Vedic Hindus


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had obtained a similar reckoning (Kak, 2005, pp. 847–869). Later, the star came to be regarded as the Egyptian god Isis, and was thus worshipped millennia before the birth of Christ. In the framework of ancient Egyptian thought Osiris was the husband of Isis. He was identified with what we call the star Rigel or beta-Orionis (Ritner, 1997, p. 137). For ancient Babylonians the Sun was the God Marduk who slew the evil Tiamat, but so was the star Capella (alpha-Auriga). The Babylonians developed the mathematical subdivision of the circle into 360◦ in their study of the firmament, and also initiated the astronomically irrelevant, but culturally significant 7-day week. (Dalley, 1989) This arose from their dedication of a day to the seven gods associated with each of what they regarded as the seven planets, the sun and the moon, along with Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn: a belief that was totally understandable in the third millennium BC, but whose persistence in the daily horoscopes of today baffles, if not irritates, present day astronomers. Aside from countless books and magazines, astrology is still thriving in countless newspapers all over the world. We see the impact of the number seven in our cultural landscape too, from the story of the 7 day creation and that of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to the seven deadly sins, circumambulating sacred shrines seven times and many such: all because of the simple fact that the ancient Babylonians did not have a telescope and therefore could not see planets beyond Saturn. There has been perhaps no greater impact of observational astronomy on human culture than the 7-day week. If only the ancient Babylonians had had powerful telescopes, we might be having a 10 day week now.

ABRAHAMIC TRADITION

According to a midrash in ancient Judaic legend, when Abraham began his journey he looked at the skies and exclaimed, “I will worship the stars.” Soon most of the stars set, but there was still the Pleiades and some other constellations. And he said, “I shall worship the constellations.” These too disappeared, and then there was the moon, then the sun, and none of these seemed permanent. It was then that Abraham said, “I will worship God, for he abides for ever.” The insight of this story is that ultimately even the celestial bodies are not eternal, only God is. But it also shows that in a peculiar way, stars led to Monotheism in the Abrahamic tradition. The story is re-told in the Holy Qur’an (6:75–79). The six-pointed pattern with two triangles, referred to as the Star of David, was probably not meant to represent any star at all. It is regarded as Magen David: the Shield of David, a shield against evil spirits. It has a long and nebulous history. According to one legend, King David had a shield in that form. The Kabbalah interpreted it as the opposing forces within Man: good and evil, spiritual and carnal, etc. The triangle with the vertex upward shows the direction of heaven for goodness. It has been said that the Star of David signifies the number seven: six vertices plus the center. Franz Rosenzweig interpreted one of the two triangles as standing for God,

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world, and man, while the other was taken as representing creation, revelation, and redemption. We see here one of the first instances of a geometrical representation of a star which later came to be used for an asterisk which really means a little star (Plaut, 1990).

STARS AS ABODES OF ANGELS

It was a fairly widespread belief even during the Middle Ages that invisible angels carried the planets and the moon while the stars themselves were simply the trickling lights through holes on the floor of resplendent heaven. In some ancient belief systems stars were the hosts of God, and were identified with angels. The New International Version of the Bible says: “The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lamp-stands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lamp-stands are the seven churches” (Exodus 25:37). Thomas Aquinas believed that “the planets were moved by angels” (Gleadow, 2001, p. 58). In the view of others, stars were merely the dwelling place of angels. Just as we moderns believe there are planets out there where other intelligent beings may be living, those ancients thought there were stars where these extra-terrestrials were living.

ZODIACAL SIGNS

Many ancient peoples, such as the Chinese, the Hindus, the Babylonians, and the Greeks were familiar with the twelve constellation zones which the apparent positions of the sun seem to have as background in the course of the year (van der Waerden, 1953, pp. 216–230). Flavius Josephus, an eloquent apologist in the Roman world for the Jewish people and culture, as also for royalty and for the priestly class, believed that the twelve stones on the breastplate of the high priest referred to the twelve constellations on the Via Solis (Whiston, 1822). We read in the Bible (Enoch 35:3): “I blessed the Lord of glory, who had made those great and splendid signs, that they might display the magnificence of his works to angels and to the souls of men; and that these might glorify all his works and operations; might see the effect of his power; might glorify the great labor of his hands; and bless him forever.” On this basis some scholars have argued that Enoch was the first to make these divisions of the constellations (Pratt, 2006, 23 Aug). Other cultural spokesmen have claimed credit for this also. Be that as it may, in ancient Greece it was referred to as τ α Δo–δεκατ ι–μoρια (the Twelve Parts), until Aristotle called it the κ υκλoς ´ τ oν ζ ωδιoν: ´ the circle of the signs of the zodiac, though not all of the signs refer to animal forms. (Marriam-Webster, 1995, p. 525). When the zodiacal signs merged with astrology, new ideas arose. The signs were used to interpret human nature, and our fates and fortune as a function of the zodiacal signs under which we are born. Distant stars, not even on the same plane, have thus jolted our cultural and fantasy lives in dramatic ways which range from the amusing to the mindless.


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THE HINDU WORLD

Vedas are the foundational scriptures in the Hindu world. They date back to more than 1500 BCE. In this work we find references to stars. In a hymn to Night (Rig Veda 10.127) stars are referred to as the many eyes of Night. Night, known as Râtri, is the sister of Dawn. Dawn, known as Usha, robes herself in crimson and gold. Long before Longfellow wrote in his Hymn to the Night, I heard the trailing garments of the Night Sweep through the marble halls! I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the celestial walls

Râtri’s dark raiment was described by a Vedic sage poet as studded with stars. This is one of the earliest poetic visions of stars. Astronomical references and also found in the Hindu epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and these have enabled some scholars to date when the events mentioned there might have occurred. Another section in the Vedas invokes the Universe as a Cosmic Person or Purusha. Purusha is described as One with a Thousand Eyes (sahasraksha) referring perhaps to the stars in the sky. Other poets have also sung in later centuries that “Night has a thousand eyes.” Here again, the Divine Principle was described by a Vedic poet as having the form of Stars: nakshatrâni rûpam, for they are distant and luminous, mysterious and majestic also, and they fill the expanse of the limitless universe too: all attributes of Divinity. In the Hindu tradition, again, there are many mystical symbols with esoteric meanings couched in them. These are known as yantras (Khanna, 2003). One of them, known as Sri Yantra, is also a complex of inverted triangles, with a Star of David as its core. It too has been given an esoteric interpretation: There are two principles in the universe, the experiencing and the experienced, known as purusha and prakriti. The upright triangle is interpreted as representing the perceiving Principle of the Universe, and the inverted one stands for the Perceived Universe. Their union is the basis for the wheel of time: the emergence of the phenomenal world. Thus a star symbol contains in its essence the whole experienced Cosmos. The Sri Yantra is also taken as symbolizing the Shiva-Shakti (Cosmos-Energy) principle.

THE CHRISTIAN WORLD

An important role that a star are said to have played on the event of the birth of Christ may be traced to the New Testament where we read (Matthew, 2:9): “. . .the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.” That star is the famous Star of Bethlehem. Whether this was a conjunction of Mars and Jupiter, a nova perhaps, or just a comet or meteor, we cannot be quite sure. In any case, it came to be believed that a star guided the wise men to Bethlehem, and from this arose the tradition of a putting a star on the top of the Christmas tree. In the fourteenth century Giotto’s painting of the Adoration of the

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Magi, it is shown as a huge comet. Giotto is said to have seen the 1301 appearance of Halley’s comet. Without going into all the complicated history, we may say this: In the political turmoil in France in the 1850s Napoleon III wanted the key to the Church of the Nativity in the old city of Jerusalem and the right to place a silver star of Bethlehem on Christ’s birthplace. The French threatened military action if Turkey (which controlled the region then) did not give way, and the Russians threatened to occupy Moldavia and Wallachia if it did. In was in this context that the French sent the warship Charlemagne to Constantinople and the Crimean War started (Royle, 2000). One may say that by a strange play of circumstances, the Star of Bethlehem also caused the Crimean War.

T H E H O L Y Q U R ’A N

It says in the Holy Koran (S.xxiv.35.Sec.5): “God is the Light Of the heaven and the earth” And the book lists the stars among the Signs of God (S.vi.C79). The “the word ‘star’ appears thirteen times in the Quran (najm, plural nujum).” In the Islamic tradition, the crescent and the star stand for peace and life. There are conflicting theories about how the crescent came to be in the flags of Islamic countries (Babinger, 1992) but these need not concern us here. The presence of star and crescent in another aspect of culture and civilization is what is to be noted here.

ESOTERIC DIMENSIONS

Plato and Aristotle believed that stars were composed of a different element from the usual four of earth, water, fire, and air: ethereal matter. The human psyche was believed to be made of this fifth element. In his commentaries on Plato’s Timaeus, the Greek Neo-Platonist philosopher of the fifth century Proclus wrote: “Man is a little world (mikros cosmos). For, just like the Whole, he possesses both mind and reason, both a divine and a mortal body. He is also divided up according to the universe. It is for this reason, you know, that some are accustomed to say that his consciousness corresponds with the nature of the fixed stars, his reason in its contemplative aspect with Saturn and in its social aspect with Jupiter, (and) as to his irrational part, the passionate nature with Mars, the eloquent with Mercury, the appetitive with Venus, the sensitive with the Sun and the vegetative with the Moon” (Baltzly, 2006). Since ancient times mysticism and metaphysics have combined to produce a vast and powerful system in human culture where stars play a role. According to theosophy, there are seven distinct planes of existence for humans: physical, astral, mental, intuitional, spiritual, monadic, and divine. Each one of us supposed to have an astral body which is made up of self-luminous matter of a subtle kind. In this framework, we move into the astral plane when we are asleep. Our thoughts are also believed to exist in the astral plane (Leadbeater, 1902).


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MYTHOLOGY

In some mythologies the great and the good of the world eventually became the stars in the heavens. Stars and constellations are identified as this or that great personage who, by virtue of commendable qualities, was transported to the skies, there to shine for all times. In Hindu sacred history, for example, the Pole Star is the “stellification” of a great devotee of the Divine by the name of Dhruva who spent years in asceticism (Wilson, 2006). The seven wise men of the tradition (saptarshi) became the stars of the constellation Ursa major. The Greeks did this too. So we have the hunter Orion and the Titan Hercules up there in the skies. There are a hundred interesting stories pertaining to the stars and the constellations viewed as mythological personages of various cultural traditions (Bulfinch, 1993). Some cultures, like the Eskimo, believed that stars are our ancestors. It is said that according to some Inuit Indians the Northern lights show their near and dear ones dancing in another life. There is an Eskimo saying to the effect that what see as stars may well be holes in heaven through which the love of our departed souls are pouring down upon us, just to inform us that they are happy up there. Practically every culture of humankind created its own stories about stars (Olcott, 1911). Here it is interesting to note how drastically our beliefs have changed in modern times. The ancients believed that stars were made of human-dust. Today we say that humans are made of star-dust. The Milky Way was the most sacred river for Hindus. They called it Âkâsh Gangâ (the Celestial Ganga). The Akkadians described it as the Hid In-ni-na: The River of the Divine Lady; for the Chinese it was Tien-Ho: the Celestial River; and the Arabs referred to it simply as Al Nahr: the River. (Allen, 1963) But in modern times too poets have imagined our galaxy in such terms. Thus Joyce Kilmer wrote (Main street): God be thanked for the Milky Way that runs across the sky. That’s the path that my feet would tread whenever I have to die. Some folks call it a Silver Sword, and some a Pearly Crown. But the only thing I think it is, is Main Street, Heaventown.

STARS AND MUSIC

Jane Taylor’s simple lines “Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are!” put in a nutshell the feelings of the astrophysicist. Hindu thinkers recognized cosmic vibration in their serene and sacred chant of Aum. One exponent of the idea puts it this way: “The entire universe, from its subtlest to grossest manifestations, exists as vibration. This Indian scriptures name this cosmic vibration aum. Were aum, the cosmic vibration, to be stilled, appearances would cease to exist, and even the consciousness of them would sink back into the still ocean of the spirit from which they emerged (Kriyananda, 1998, p. 99). Pythagoras spoke of the Music of the Spheres, an idea that lingered on until Kepler’s time and beyond (James, 1993). The Book of Job declares (xxxviii.7):

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“When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” bodies have also been evoked in many popular songs. People of a certain generation in America used to listen to songs like Stardust, Don’t Let the Stars Get into your Eyes, and Don’t Let the Moon Break your Heart, When the Moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, to name just a few. But long before these, we recall, Debussy’s Au Claire de la Lune and Beethoven’s Mondschein Sonata had used astronomy-related music titles.

POETRY

The sight of the moon and the stars, their regularity and brilliance, their apparent steadfastness and unreachable distance, have always impressed the human mind, and we find a myriad expressions of this in the poetry and prose of the world. In English, poets from Arnold to Yeats, have mentioned the sun, the moon, and the stars in a thousand poems, and used them as similes or metaphors. Dante’s magnum opus La Divina Commedia is a voyage through the stellar regions. The word stella (star) appears 59 times in that work. At one point, Dante makes an astronomically significant statement (18.19): “e quale stella par quinci più poca, parrebbe luna, locata con esso come stella con stella si collòca: and any star that, seen from earth, would seem to be the smallest, set beside that point, as star conjoined with star, would seem a moon. Shelly spoke of “soul of Adonis, (which) like a star beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.” And he wrote in Queen Meb (V) (Hutchinson, 1914): Flowers of the sky! Ye too to age must yield. The stars are mansions built by Nature’s hand. Heaven’s ebon vault Studded with stars unutterably bright. God be thanked for the Milky Way that runs across the sky, That’s the path my feet would take whenever I have to die. A wise man, watching the stars pass across the sky, said: In the upper air the fireflies move more slowly.

Shakespeare seems to have been particularly fond of making allusions to stars. In King Henry IV and in Othello, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and in All’s Well That Ends Well, there are other references to stars also. Reflecting the general belief in astrology in those times, he referred Romeo and Juliet as “a pair of star-crossed lovers.” Hamlet declares to Ophelia, “Doubt thou the stars are fire; doubt thou the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar; but never doubt I love.” Julius Caesar, clearly unaware of the precession of the equinoxes, compares himself to the Pole star when he says, “But I am constant as the northern star, of whose true fixed and resting quality, there is no fellow in the firmament.” We can’t blame or Caesar Hamlet for ignoring proper motions, but in the nineteenth century, John Keats wrote a poem entitled “Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art!”


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THE PLEIADES

The Pleiades constellation attracted the attention of all ancient cultures. A bronze disk, dated as 1600 BCE, from Nebra, Germany, is said to be one of the oldest known representations of the cosmos (Kaufholtz, 2004). In Greek mythology, Pleiades were the seven daughters of Atlas, the Titan and the sea-nymph Pleione. Hesiod’s Work and Days mentions the Pleaides: “And if longing seizes you for sailing the stormy seas, When the Pleiades flee mighty Orion And plunge into the misty deep And all the gusty winds are raging, Then do not keep your ship on the wine-dark sea But, as I bid you, remember to work the land” (West, 1978). √ Virgil says the name is derived from π λε ν (to sail), because the Pleiades star cluster is visible in the Mediterranean at night during the summer, from the middle of May until the beginning of November, which coincided with the sailing season in antiquity (Knox, 2006, p. 119). The Pleiades are mentioned in the Bible. In the Book of Job (38:31) we read: “Cans’t thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades or lose the bands of Orion?” We also read here, “What is meant by Kimah [Pleiades]? Samuel said: About a hundred stars” (Job IX, 9). Some scholars believe that The Qur’an probably refers to them (Al Thuraiyya) when it speaks of the star. In Persian they are known as Sorayya. In Hindu mythology the Pleiades are known as Krittika, or Karttikai, and refer to the six-faced Shanmukan, a son of Lord Shiva. There is a long and fascinating myth associated with it (Harness, 1999). In the seventeenth century a group of seven French writers described themselves as forming La Pléiade, taking inspiration from the name of a similar group of writers in ancient Greece, the bulk of whose work was lost in the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria in 642 AD. The aim of the French Pléaiade was to break away from the medieval poetic tradition and to enrich French with a literature equal to those of the classical world and the Italian Renaissance. It has given the name to a prestigious publishing house that brings out leather-bound editions of masterpieces of French literature (Simonin, 2001). The Japanese car Subaru literally means the Pleiades star group. It is said that in 1953 five Japanese companies merged to form the Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd, and called themselves Subaru. VOCABULARY

Languages have been enriched by stars. In English, for example, there are at least a dozen different meanings to the word star: It is, first and foremost, a heavenly body. But any flat figure with projecting points that looks like a star, is also referred to as such: an asterisk (which literally means a little star), for example. Glass blowers refer to a crack or flaw in a glass as a star. In the pyrotechnics of celebrations one speaks of stars: tiny brilliant sparks, beautiful at a distance. In zoology one refers to a spot that is brighter than the surrounding region on the forehead of an animal as a star, and so on.

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Countless other things are described by the prefix star. Thus we speak of star flower, starfish, star gauge, star grass, star fruit, star jelly, star finch, star stone (sapphire), star witness, star shake (defect in a timber), star nose (a mole), and star throat (a hummingbird of South America). There is a tree called star of night, and a plant known as star of the earth, and another plant (of the Daisy family) which is commonly called goat’s beard, is also known as star of Jerusalem. We refer to a person who excels in something as a star. This idea is ingrained in us right from childhood. Then there some who are named a star, although the name is taken from Latin or Greek, because that is exactly what the names, Astor, Stella, Stern and Cidra mean. English has three adjectives for star: starry, stellar, and astral. The school teacher in Kindergarten affixes a star to a good work done a student. In the adult world we rate hotels and restaurants by stars, and honor generals by affixing stars to their uniforms. People have been called stars not simply for doing exceedingly well in particular fields, but more specifically for performing very well on the stage or the movie screen. Planetary names which were derived from mythology have come back to earth as names for some chemical elements: Thus selenium is named after the moon, uranium, neptunium, and plutonium after distant planets, while helium is named after the sun. IMPACT OF ASTROLOGY

Until the rise of modern science, there was essentially no difference between an astronomer and an astrologer. Ptolemy of Almagest fame, Varahamihira who wrote the Pancha-Siddhantika, a treatise on the five astronomical canons, and Johannes Kepler of elliptical planetary orbits fame, were as much astrologers as astronomers. They all wrote on stars and on horoscopes as well. And through its elaborate framework astrology has played no small a role in human culture and civilization. In ancient China and India, in Egypt and Mesopotamia, in Greece and Rome, in Medieval Europe and down to our own times, astrological convictions have fashioned the minds and behavior of countless numbers of people and potentates. Plato, Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Copernicus, in the Western tradition, and many such prestigious names in China and India and other civilizations were convinced that celestial motions subtly influenced the fortunes and fates of people, and comets forebode disasters (Beck, 2007). Words like aspect and conjunction were originally astrological terms. Disaster signified something bad due to a star’s influence. Light years away, lunatic, jovial, martial, saturnine, and venereal are all derived directly from the names of planets.

POLITICAL

Flags are symbols of a country. Beginning in China and India they have been there since ancient times, A resolution passed by the Congress of the United States in


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1777 stated that the flag of the nation should have 13 stars, without specifying how these were to be arranged. The United States was thus the first to put stars in its flag. Today, more than forty countries have one or more stars on their flags (Crampton, 1994). The oldest extant flag is that of Denmark, dating back to the fourteenth century. There are several theories to explain its origin. One is the following: It is said that during a battle fought somewhere in Estonia in 1219, when it was very bad for the Danes, a flag came down from the skies, and it had a white cross. The king grabbed it and waved it to inspire his people, and his army was victorious. According to another theory, King Vlademar, the Victorious, of Denmark once saw a white cross in the red sky at the close of that same battle. This is the origin of the Danish flag (Lund, 1919). Paris has its Place d’Étoile, a large meeting point of twelve straight avenues including the famous Champs-Élysées. It came to be called Place Charles de Gaulle in 1970, but still people refer to it by its original name. The Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile was constructed in the first half of the nineteenth century to commemorate the victory of Napoleon I (Charensol, 1957, p. 190). On the other hand, the notorious Star Chamber was a cruel court. Begun in the fifteenth century under Henry VII of England there was no justice there as we understand the term. Star Chamber has come to mean any ruthless corrupt court. It got its name because of the stars that were painted on its ceilings (Crimes, 1972).

STARS IN ART

From the most ancient times stars have been drawn and painted in a hundred different contexts and in a thousand different ways. There is a twelfth century drawing entitled The War of the Angels wherein earth is separated from heaven and hell by a circle of stars. A fourteenth century fresco in Clermont Ferrand, entitled the Martyrdom of St. George, has figures of stars in it. Such representations were not uncommon. More specifically, some painters have given their works astronomysounding names also. Thus we have Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Jackson Pollack’s The Big Dipper. AndréMasson’s Genesis I attempts to convey through art what astrophysicists say, for it displays a chaotic motion symbolizing the formation of stars. The Hungarian painter Tivadar Kosztka’s Ruins of the Jupiter Temple in Athens has a huge moon on it. One scholar has suggested that some of the pre-historic cave paintings of Lascaux probably represented constellations like the Taurus (Whitehouse, 2000). In a painting entitled Die Menschen werden nichts davon wissen (Men will know nothing about it) by Max Ernst a yellow crescent holds a small black pipe with two thin threads. An incomplete sun is divided up into two parts, one blue and one black. There are two outstretched lags just below the crescent. A severed hand is covering the earth. Several phases of the moon are shown in its orbit. There is a surrealist symmetry in the whole paining.

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VA R A D A R A J A V E N K AT A R A M A N STARS AND HUMOR

Stars have also inspired many light-hearted quips and jokes. For example, when someone described the Big Bang as “That Point In Time When the Volume of the Universe Decreases to Approximately Zero, and Density Approaches Infinity, and the Combination of the Strong Nuclear Force and Electromagnetic Attraction Between Red and Blue Quarks. . .” his friend interrupted him and asked for shorter names. So he got: The Best Of Times, The First Of Times – The Grand Opening Sale – ∗ Pop∗ Goes Existence! – Time, Space & Energy Factory Outlet Sale – The Colossal Kaboom – Let There Be Stuff- I Blew Up the Cosmic Egg – “Oops!” – What the heck was THAT!!!? – Stupendous Space Spawning (Angelo, http://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/cheap/cheap4_physics.htm).

CONCLUDING

These are just a few of the hundreds of ways in which stars have seeped into human culture. Though never visible in broad daylight, and few people today spend much time in getting to know the changing topography of the skies and the patterns by which star groups have been recognized since ancient times, as seen in the examples given, stars have been there in every twist and turn of our cultural, historical, and traditional life: in art and poetry, in language and literature, in metaphors and as national symbols too. We have seen too often that scientific results which are acclaimed as truths today may be demoted to an interesting footnote a few centuries from now. Aristotle’s theory of celestial matter, Ptolemy’s cycles and epicycles, the circular planetary orbits of Copernicus Emanuel Swedenborg’s nebular hypothesis and its modification by Immanuel Kant, and such have all gone followed the fate of changing theories. Barely two centuries ago the radius of the universe was reckoned as but a few thousand kilometers, and in 1820 astronomers thought and taught that the universe was a hefty 6,000 years old. What lasts for much longer spans in history are the insights and visions and errors and symbols and praxis that have provoked the human mind and heart. These are reflected in art and music and poetry and philosophy and myths. These cultural expressions are the lasting legacy of humankind. I have mentioned here but a few instances of such that have sprung from astronomy. Acknowledgment It is a pleasure to be at this conference in the beautiful city of Budapest in the land of Loránd Eötvös, Neumann János Lajos, Wigner Pál Jen˝o, Teller Ede, and Szilárd Leó, and in the midst of this august assembly of astronomers and scholars. I wish to thank Professor Grandpierre Atilla for this privilege.

Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected]


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REFERENCES Allen, Richard Hinckley. 1963. Star names, their lore and meaning. New York: Dover. Angelo, http://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/cheap/cheap4_physics.htm Babinger, Franz. 1992. In Mehmed the conqueror and his time, ed. Hickman, William C. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Baltzly, Dirk. 2006. Proclus: Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, vol. 3, Book 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Beck, Roger. 2007. A brief history of ancient astrology. New York: Blackwell. Bulfinch, Thomas. 1993. Bulfinch’s mythology. New York: The Modern Library. Charensol, Georges. 1957. Le livre de Paris. Paris: Ars et Métiers Graphiques. Crampton, William G. 1994. The world of flags. New York: Rand McNally. Crimes, S.B. 1972. Henry VII. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dalley, Stephanie M. 1989. Myths from Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford University Press. Gleadow, Rupert. 2001. The origin of the zodiac. New York: Dover. Harness, Dennis M. 1999. The nakshatras: The lunar mansions of vedic astrology. Twin Lakes, WI: Lotus Press. Hutchinson, Thomas. 1914. The Complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Oxford: Oxford University Press. James, Jamie. 1993. The music of the spheres: Music, science, and the natural order of the universe. New York: Grove Press. Kak, Subhash, “Babylonian and Indian Astronomy: Early Connections,” History of Science, Philosophy & Culture in Indian Civilization, vol. 1, part 4 (A Golden Chain, G.C. Pande, ed.), 2005. Kaufholz, Ute. 2004. Sonne, Mond und Sterne. Das Geheimnis der Himmelsscheibe. Anderbeck, Anderbeck. Khanna, Madhu. 2003. Yantra: The tantric symbol of cosmic unity. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International, Ltd. Knox, Peter E. 2006. Oxford readings in Ovid. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kriyananda, Swami (J. Donald Walters). 1998. The Hindu way of awakening: Its revelation, its symbol, an essential view of religion. Nevada City: Crystal Clarity Publishers. Leadbeater, C.W. 1902. Man, visible and invisible. London: Theosophical Publishing House. Lund, E.D. 1919. Danebrog – Danmarks Palladium. Copenhagen: Forlaget H. Hagerups. Marriam-Webster. 1995. The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories by Merriam. Springfield: Marriam-Webster. Olcott, William Tyler. 1911. Star lore of all ages: A collection of myths, legends, and facts concerning the constellations of the northern hemisphere. London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Plaut, Gunther W. 1990. The Magen David: How the six-poined star became an emblem for the Jewish people. New York: B’nai B’rith International Commission on Continuing Jewish Education. Pratt, John P. 2006. Enoch’s constellations testify of Christ. Meridian Magazine, 23 August. Raman, V.V. 1999. Glimpses of ancient science and scientists. Philadelphia: Xlibris. Ritner, Robert K. 1997. Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Royle, Trevor. 2000. Crimea: The great Crimean war, 1854–1856. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sarton, George. 1970. A history of science. New York: W. W. Norton and Co. Simonin, Michel, ed.. 2001. Dictionnaire des lettres françaises – Le XVIe siècle. Paris: Fayard. van der Waerden, B.L. 1953. History of the zodiac. Archiv für Orientforschung 16. West, Martin Litchfield (Trans.), (1978). Hesiod works & days. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Whiston, William. 1822. The works of Flavius Josephus. London: J. Richardson & Co. Whitehouse, David. 2000. Ice age star map discovered. BBC, August 9. Whitman, Walt. 1981. Leaves of grass. New York: Bentam Classics. Whitman, Walter, Leaves of grass (7th poem in Chapter On the Roadside). Wilson, H.H. 2006. The Vishnu Purana: A system of Hindu mythology and tradition. Cambridge: Read Country Books.

ALICE WILLIAMSON

THE CONTRIBUTION OF MUSICAL THEORY TO AN ANCIENT CHINESE CONCEPT OF THE UNIVERSE

ABSTRACT

In early Chinese thought music and music-related concepts formed key elements to the way in which the cosmos was envisaged and written about. This paper unfolds how passages of late Zhou and early Han documents such as the Lushi Chunqiu, Huainanzi, Xunzi and Yue Ji cross over, in their implied symbolic concepts and use of language, between musical theory and cosmology – from the correlation of positions of stars with musical tones, to the use of cosmological symbols to describe music, and vice versa. Why was there this cross over? Did this use of music provide a “more complete” picture of the Universe for the Chinese, or were there other, political reasons behind it? The paper expands on these key questions through analysis of the texts, and goes on to ask whether this research into, and material of ancient China can shed any light on the modern, western view of interdisciplinarity between sciences and the arts. In this paper I discuss the use of ancient Chinese musical theory within their concept of the cosmos and its systems and processes, covering both the mathematics of musical harmonics as well as the way in which early Chinese scholars wrote about music and the universe. I refer here to four key ancient texts Lüshi Chunqiu; the writings of Xunzi; the from my period: The Yue Ji (Record of Music); and the Huainanzi. After this discussion I consider why these crossovers existed, and more generally, whether such correlative cosmology from the ancient period could inform us today.

HOW DID THE ANCIENT CHINESE APPROACH MUSICAL HARMONICS?

From a variety of sources we know that the system of harmonics as realised by ancient Chinese calculations was very similar to that of the ancient Greeks, among others. Through a process of adding or taking away one third of a pipe length, twelve musical tones were generated – which effectively correspond to the twelve chromatic tones of modern Western music. In “The Treatise on the Patterns of Heaven” in the Huainanzi, Section XXIX (“Harmonics of the Twelve Pitch Pipes”) lists, with numbers that designate pitch pipe lengths, these twelve tones, and how they generate one another. Figure 1 summarises this harmonic series. Using the same designations of John S. Major2 167 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 167–173. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_17,

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Pitch Pipe

Descending, generates Ascending, generates Descending, generates Ascending, generates Descending, generates Ascending, generates Ascending, generates Descending, generates Ascending, generates Descending, generates Ascending, generates

Figure 1. Summary of Tianwen

Yellow Bell Forest Bell Great Budding Southern Regulator Maiden Purity Responsive Bell Luxuriant Great Regulator Tranquil Pattern Pinched Bell Tireless Median Regulator

Western Equivalent C/Do G/So D/Re A/La E/Mi B/Ti F# C# G# D# A# F/Fa

Pipe length 81 54 72 48 64 42 57 76 51 68 45 60

(81 x 2/3) (54 x 4/3) (72 x 2/3) (48 x 4/3) (64 x 2/3) (42 x 4/3) (57 x 4/3) (76 x 2/3) (51 x 4/3) (68 x 2/3) (45 x 4/3)

Huainanzi’s harmonic calculations from section XXIX1 of

I have applied equivalent Western pitches to the Chinese pitch names, to show how this works – such as Yellow Bell being C or “Do” and so on. The end of this passage in the Huainanzi explains that “descending” implies multiplying the previous pipe’s number by 2/3 and that “ascending” indicates multiplying the pipe’s number by 4/3.3 As I said, this is very similar to the ancient Greek method of using simple ratios such as 2:3 to determine harmonic musical tuning. APPLICATION OF HARMONIC SERIES TO COSMIC CYCLES

So did this cyclic generation of musical harmony feed into cosmology? The “Treatise of Heavenly Patterns” contains reams of correlations – between seasons, planets, materials, musical tones, colours and so on – often equated to the wuxing philosophy of 5 cyclic generative and destructive phases in nature. In Section XVIII, on “The Solar Nodes”, the year is split into 24 nodes of about 15 days each. It outlines: the seasonal change at each of these nodes; where the handle of the Plough constellation will be pointing; and finally, a musical pitch. Figure 2 shows the time of year and its resonating musical pitch. It starts and ends on the winter solstice, which is assigned the pitch “Yellow Bell” – as before I’ve this called “C”. Every 15 days this pitch drops by one semitone, until the summer solstice, where Yellow Bell is reached again. From here the pitch rises by a semitone every 15 days until the next winter solstice, from where the process repeats ad infinitum. Major refers to Bodde5 in saying that this is not simply a case of assigning notes to the 24 nodes, but also due to the belief that the qi – energy of the seasonal nodes would resonate to these tones. Similarly, Section XXVII6 on “The indications of the Handle of the Plough”, goes through a chromatic scale – however this time following monthly movements of the handle of the Plough; thus a yearly cycle in 12 parts, moving upwards chromatically – by semitone – from pitch “Great Budding” (D) to pitch “Great Resonator” (C#).

T H E C O N T R I B U T I O N O F M U S I C A L T H E O RY

Time of year Winter Solstice 15 days 15 days 15 days 15 days 15 days Spring Equinox 15 days 15 days 15 days 15 days 15 days Summer Solstice 15 days 15 days 15 days 15 days 15 days Autumn Equinox 15 days 15 days 15 days 15 days 15 days Winter Solstice

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Resonating Pitch Pipe Yellow Bell (C) Responsive Bell (B) Tireless (A#) Southern Regulator (A) Tranquil Pattern (G#) Forest Bell (G) Luxuriant (F#) Median Regulator (F) Maiden Purity (E) Pinched Bell (D#) Great Budding (D) Great Regulator (C#) Yellow Bell (C) Great Regulator (C#) Great Budding (D) Pinched Bell (D#) Maiden Purity (E) Median Regulator (F) Luxuriant (F#) Forest Bell (G) Tranquil Pattern (G#) Southern Regulator (A) Tireless (A#) Responsive Bell (B) Yellow Bell (C)

Figure 2. Summary of pitch correlations in Section XVIII, “The Solar Nodes” 4 of in the Huainanzi

Tianwen

In Book 6 of The Lüshi Chunqiu there is a monthly cycle very similar to this. Prior to outlining the cycle, it explains that, “In the age of the great sages and perfect order, the ethers of Heaven and Earth combine to generate the winds. At the summer solstice, the moon gathered the monthly winds in order to generate the twelve pitch standards.”7

LITERARY CORRELATIONS

Having dealt with some of the more technical aspects of (Chinese) music theory and its role in correlative cosmology, one can approach the more rhapsodic correspondences made within the Chinese classic texts bearing in mind the theoretical background. XUNZI In the ancient text ascribed to the philosopher Xunzi, music is discussed at some length, and referred to in a cosmological sense.

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As Masayuki Sato states: Xunzi considered music itself to be the manifestation of order which has been maintained without fail in the motion of Heaven and the procreation of Earth. Xunzi associates the harmony attained by music with that by Heaven and Earth. —Sato, The Confucian Quest for Order8

A passage from Xunzi’s “Discussion of Music” explicitly outlining this manifestation through symbology goes as follows: The drum resembles heaven, while the bells resemble earth, the sounding stones resemble water, the mouth organs and lutes resemble the sun, and the scrapers resemble the myriad beings of creation. —Xunzi, “Discussion of Music” 9

This appears to correlate the hierarchical structure of instruments within an ensemble to the parts of the cosmos; as though the constant beating of the drum drives the ensemble just as the unalterable heaven and its unstoppable flow of time drive all within its universe. This symbolic portrayal of a musical ensemble as all within Heaven and Earth is only a small part of how Xunzi uses music to build a picture of the universe. Earlier in the “Discussion of Music”, music is heralded as being able to unify, harmonise within not only the people but earth, heaven and form itself: Music brings about complete unity and induces harmony. It arranges its accouterments to comprise an adornment to moderation; it blends its performance to achieve the completion of form. It is sufficient to lead men in the single Way or to bring order to the ten thousand changes . . . hence music is the arbiter of the world, the key to central harmony. —Xunzi, “Discussion of Music”10

Also importantly, the fact that music changes over time is correlated to Earth’s cycles: “the purity of his [the gentleman’s] music is modelled after Heaven, its breadth after the Earth, and its posturings and turnings imitate the four seasons”.11 L ÜS H I C H U N Q I U The Lüshi Chunqiu also refers to music in explicit relation to Heaven and Earth: “As a general principle, music is the harmony between Heaven and Earth, and the perfect blend of Yin and Yang.”12 This can be tied in well to the cycles of harmonics in the Huainanzi with an earlier statement in the same chapter: “Heaven and Earth turn like the wheel of a carriage. Reaching the end, it begins again, reaching its limit, it reverts again, everything fitting the overall scheme.” 13 Soon after this we also find reference to music’s sound being generated by form and hollow spaces, suggesting perhaps the unalterable quality of the harmonies of music and sound: “Shapes and forms have their (hollow) places, so none is without its sound. Sound is produced from harmony. Harmony is produced from being fitting.”14 YUE JI The last ancient text I’d like to briefly delve into is the Yue Ji – the “Record of Music”. As in the Lüshi Chunqiu: “Music is the harmony of Heaven and Earth


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. . . Music is created from Heaven.”15 Scholars Cook and Zheng Xuan say that this statement “should be taken in the sense that music operates under the same principles of harmony that is found in the natural world, taking it as its model.”16 This passage from the “Music and Ritual” section of the Yue Ji illustrates this with dramatic imagery: Earth’s energy (qi) rises up, and Heaven’s energy descends. Yin and Yang rub against each other, and Heaven and Earth shake each other. The myriad things are drummed with thunder and lightning, aroused forth with wind and rain, set in motion by the four seasons, warmed by the sun and the moon, and the hundred transformations arise therein. In this way, then, is music the harmony of Heaven and Earth. —Yue Ji, “Music and Ritual”, 3.417

This is clearly indicative of the oscillating, cycling, vibrating qualities of music being the same as those of the universe.

SUMMARY

So, to quickly summarise, the paper has so far examined: • The cyclical, self-generative nature of musical harmonics feeding into the cyclical processes of Heaven and Earth; • The concept of music being or manifesting the “harmony” or unity between Heaven and Earth – a human expression rooted in the fact that physical form and energy itself produces the basis of musical harmony.

WHY DID THESE CORRELATIONS EXIST?

Of course, as we are all aware, most, if not all, cultures have made and do make such correlations: it is the instinctive nature of the human mind to make associations and form symbols in order to make sense of the vast amount of information around us. Music does have a special place in this, however. It is a very human expression, indeed uniquely human. However the very harmonies we find to be pleasing and expressive are generated from the physics of form and vibration – from the mathematics of the origins of life and the universe itself. Just as Pythagoras associated music with the eternal, imperishable concept of number, so the Chinese recognised the unalterable nature of music’s harmonies – “Music is something of which its nature cannot be changed” – which equates to the unchangeable, ungovernable forces of heaven. So, music exemplifies the cosmos itself at the same time as being born from human emotion; or as Michael Puett puts it, “[Music] is based on the generative process of nature, and yet it is one means humans have to regulate nature (Puett, 2002).”

POLITICAL POWER AND THE UNITY OF SOCIETY

Political power is never far from any discussion of Chinese thought or history. The same goes here – both music and astronomy (or astrology) were seen to be key

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to order and control in power and society. Music being connected so strongly to Heaven deepened its role. As Puett says: “ Music is the most perfect method of bringing order to men as music embodies harmonies that can never be altered . . . Music joins together what is common to all.” As opens the second chapter (Yue lun, “The Discourse of Music”) of the Yue Ji: “Music serves to unite”.19 Further, Puett suggests that, for the ancient Chinese, Power and knowledge are . . . to be gained by understanding and subordinating oneself to the pattern of the cosmos. The cosmos is . . . seen as following a normative pattern discernible by those who know how to understand it. —Michael Puett, To become a god20

As music is modelled on these patterns of the cosmos, could power and knowledge be gained by understanding music?

CORRELATIVE COSMOLOGY

More generally, we can see correlative cosmology as a way, perhaps, of instructing modes of thought and approach to life – making people understand and realise, for example, the ultimately cyclic, generative nature of the universe, of humanity – showing that this exists in Heaven and beauty as well as our humble day-to-day routines. Also, to remind society that everything effects everything else. As Colin Ronan says of ancient Chinese astronomy, “the Earth, its emperor, and the entire cosmos were all part of a gigantic organism (Ronan, 1996).”

C O R R E L A T I V E C O S M O L O G Y T O D A Y . . .?

To end I will leave you with two statements – one modern, one ancient, both of which sum up my own feelings, and no doubt yours, on the matter of how correlative, holistic views of the ancients can inform our increasingly fragmented academic society. First, Geoffrey Lloyd in his book, Ancient Worlds, Modern Reflections: One can learn more about the parochial quality of some of our most cherished assumptions . . . the strangeness of ancient ideas can be turned to advantage . . . the ancients can, and should be use as a resource for a new understanding of the world, of the capacity of humans to understand, and of ourselves. —Geoffrey Lloyd, Ancient Worlds, Modern Reflections (Lloyd, 2004)

And lastly, the very first line from Xunzi’s chapter on “Dispelling Obsession”: “The thing that all men should fear is that they will become obsessed by a small corner of truth and fail to comprehend its over-all principles.” 21 Centre for Astrophysics Research, The University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK e-mail: [email protected]


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NOTES 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Using John S. Major’s translation and chapterisation of the Huainanzi in Major (1993) In Major, ibid. See points 38 and 39 under Section XXIX in Major, op. cit., p. 114 See Major, op. cit., pp. 88–92 Major, op. cit., p. 92 Major, op. cit., pp. 106–108 Lüshi Chunqiu 6/2.2; see Knobloch and Riegel (2000) Masayuki Sato, The Confucian Quest for Order: The Origin and Formation of the Political Thought of Xun Zi (BRILL 2003), p. 367 9 See Watson’s translation (1996) 10 Watson, op. cit., pp. 113–114 11 Watson, op.cit., p. 116 12 Knobloch and Riegel, op. cit., p. 138 13 Knobloch and Riegel, op. cit., p.136 14 Lüshi Chunqiu: Da Yue, 5/2.1, adapted from the translation of Knobloch and Riegel, op. cit., p. 137 15 Yue Ji 2.5. See Scott Cook’s translation: ‘Yue Ji: Introduction, Translation, Notes, and Commentary’, Asian Music, Spring/Summer 1995, p. 46 16 Cook, op. cit., p. 46 17 Cook, op. cit., p. 53 18 From Yue Ji 7.1 – Cook, op. cit., p. 60 19 Cook, op. cit., p. 42 20 Puett, op. cit., p. 163 21 Watson, op. cit., p.121

REFERENCES Knobloch, John, and Jeffrey Riegel. 2000. The Annals of Lü Bewei: A complete translation and study. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 157. Lloyd, G.E.R. 2004. Ancient worlds, modern reflections: Philosophical perspectives on Greek and Chinese science and culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 11. Major, John S. 1993. Heaven and Earth in early Han thought. Albany: State University of New York. Puett, Michael. 2002. To become a god: Cosmology, sacrifice, and self-divinization in Early China. Harvard-Yenching Monograph series. Cambridge: Harvard Asia Centre, Harvard University Press, 175. Ronan, C. 1996. Astronomy in China, Korea, and Japan. In Astronomy before the telescope, ed. Walker, C., 245–268. London: British Museum Press. Watson, Burton. 1996. Hsün Tzu: Basic writings. New York: Columbia University Press, 118.

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COSMOPOLIS: HOW ASTRONOMY AFFECTS PHILOSOPHIES OF HUMAN NATURE AND RELIGION

ABSTRACT

It is often said that Copernican astronomy had a significant effect on humankind’s self-understanding by displacing us from the center of the universe. I claim that the effect was much more dramatic, but indirect – through the necessary rejection of Aristotelian physics. Humans had been understood since the late middle ages in a holistic-dualist manner: their souls were the immanent forms of their bodies. Reject Aristotelian hylomorphism in favor of the corpuscular physics of Galileo and others, and human nature had to be reconceived. Descartes retrieved a radical Platonic dualism, which, I argue, has had deleterious effects on modern western religion, and through the church, on all of western society. The good news is that now philosophy, Christian theology, and science (largely neuroscience, but not unrelated to astronomy) are together creating a new “nonreductive physicalist” account of human nature, with important implications for ethics and politics – a new cosmo-political synthesis.

INTRODUCTION

The theme of the conference for which this chapter was written was stated as follows: “The level of knowledge attained in all ages has been determined by the generally accepted theory of the universe.” My title, “Cosmopolis,” borrows a term from philosopher of science Stephen Toulmin, who has a book by that same name (Toulmin, 1990). Toulmin uses “Cosmopolis” to refer to worldviews in which the political order was believed to mirror the order of the cosmos itself. Examples of this were found in ancient China, Babylonia, and Classical Greece. Of course, the mediaeval synthesis was also such an order. Toulmin’s narrative focuses on the modern period. He first documents the perception, shared by many Europeans during the tumultuous seventeenth century, that their Cosmopolis was falling apart. He then describes the optimistic project of creating a new political system, rationally ordered in correspondence with the Newtonian cosmos. An intervening link between cosmos and polis is a theory of human nature that is consistent with both the natural and social orders. This will be the focus of my chapter. I shall argue that the Copernican revolution created a crisis by displacing the Aristotelian physics that had provided basic concepts for understanding human nature since the High Middle Ages. I shall mention briefly the difficulties faced by 175 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 175–185. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_18,

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major modern attempts to understand humans in light of the new physics, and some of the negative cultural and religious consequences of these failed theories. This history will be familiar to many. The major thesis of my chapter is that it is only now, in this generation, that we have the resources for a new account of the human person; this account is most commonly called “nonreductive physicalism.” I argue that it provides a harmonious link between the natural sciences on one side and the humanities on the other. HUMAN NATURE BEFORE THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas and others synthesized Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology. They developed an account of human nature using Aristotle’s categories of matter and form. The immanent form in all material things was what gave them their essential characteristics and operative powers. Transmission of the form in reproduction insured that living things produce their own kinds. The forms of living things are also called souls. Plants, animals, and humans have nutritive, sensitive, and rational souls, respectively. There is no mystery here about the relation of soul to body: bodies just are the kinds of things with the potential to be animated and activated by their souls. While there were some theological problems with this view (mainly the problem of life after death) it was a stable concept of human nature because of its intrinsic ties to the astronomy and other sciences of its day. It remained the predominant view of human nature through the Renaissance. Because one of the questions to be addressed in this book concerns the role of art, it is appropriate to mention here the importance of Dante’s writings. I quote historians Raymond Martin and John Barresi: “Aquinas’s Summa Theologica is generally considered the greatest synthesis of philosophy and theology in the High Middle Ages. But it is dry as dust, even in its account of such potentially juicy topics as the afterlife. It took Dante Alighieri . . . , in the Divine Comedy, to depict poetically the implications of Aquinas’s view and thereby to nourish the imaginations of educated Christians” (Martin and Barresi, 2006). By Copernicus’s day, however, there were alternatives to the Aristotelian tradition. In later Renaissance thought there was a revival of Platonism in Italy, including a Neoplatonic conception of body and immortal soul. There were also speculative philosophies such as those of Paracelsus and Giordano Bruno, all with their own accounts of human nature. Paracelsus ascribed to humans two kinds of bodies, one of flesh and one an astral body made of subtle material. The astral body alone rises after death to be joined with the immortal soul. Bruno claimed that all matter is infused with divine soul, and that the goal of human existence is to attain knowledge of God and of one’s own inner divinity. Martin and Barresi claim that these alternative theories of human nature failed to overthrow Aristotelianism precisely because they were not firmly planted in worldviews with sufficient scope and unity (2006, 120). For purposes of this book we can say that they failed to survive because they were not in harmony with the astronomy of their day.

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HUMAN NATURE AFTER THE REVOLUTION

Galileo and Copernicus are famous for their roles in promoting heliocentric astronomy. This revolution is said to have had a great impact on human self-understanding in that it displaced us from the center of the universe. However, there were further, and I would say, much more important repercussions. Displacement of the Earth from the center of the universe spelled the end of physics based on Aristotle’s hylomorphic conception of matter, and soon resulted in the development of corpuscular or atomist theories in physics. The new physics, in turn, called for a radically new conception of the human person. The most direct consequence for theories of human nature was that the soul could no longer be understood as the form of the body; in this new worldview there simply are no such things as forms. There were two obvious responses. One was physicalism, first embraced by Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes’s entire account of human nature was based on the notion of particles in motion. Sensation is due to pressure on the sense organs; thinking is a matter of small motions in the head; and emotions are due to motions about the heart. Hobbes is best known now for his political philosophy. He sought to understand the commonwealth in terms of the attractive and repulsive forces among atomistic individuals. Hobbes’s physicalism did not have a great deal of influence in his day, but the radical individualism he espoused continues to be influential. René Descartes chose the other obvious option: to return to a radical dualism of mind (or soul) and body along the lines of Plato’s and Augustine’s theories. Descartes distinguished two basic kinds of created realities, extended substance (res extensa) and thinking substance (res cogitans); the latter included angels and human minds. It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of this radical distinction between the material and the non-material for later thought. Notice that there is a linguistic shift here from “souls” to “minds.” Either term is a fair translation of Descartes’s Latin and French. For Thomas the mind was equivalent to the rational soul (intellect and will). For Descartes, everything of which we are conscious, including sensations, is a function of the mind,1 and all of the other faculties (such as the ability to move) are attributed to the body. Earlier translations of Descartes’s writings used “soul,” but as this term has increasingly taken on religious connotations, translators have come to prefer the word “mind” in most contexts. In contrast to the Aristotelians, Descartes believed that only humans have souls. Animals and the human body are complex hydraulic machines. There has been a third category of theories of human nature, those associated with Idealism in metaphysics, but I shall not discuss it here because it is not currently considered to be a live option. THREE HUNDRED YEARS OF PROBLEMS

I argue that neither physicalism in its modern form nor dualism has provided an adequate account of human nature. I consider first the problems with dualism. Dualism is now judged by almost all philosophers to have failed. However, it is still held

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tenaciously by many Christians and other religious believers. I shall comment on its theological inadequacies later, but first the philosophical and scientific problems. The shift from hylomorphism to atomism and substance dualism created what has turned out to be an insoluble problem: mind-body interaction. Whereas for Aristotelians the soul was but one instance of form, in modern thought the mind becomes an anomaly in an otherwise purely material world of nature. Furthermore, the very conception of matter has changed. Before the atomist revolution, matter and form had been correlative concepts – matter was that which had the potential to be activated by form. Matter (at least as unformed, prime matter) was entirely passive. For early modern thinkers, matter is also passive, inert. But now, instead of being moved by immanent forms, it is moved by external forces – physical forces. This created a dilemma: hold on to the immateriality of mind, and there is no way to account for its supposed ability to move the body; interpret it as a quasi-physical force and its effects ought to be measurable and quantifiable as is any other force in nature. But nothing of the latter enters into modern physics. It is worth mentioning the epistemological problems created by this metaphysical shift. For Aristotelians, sensory knowledge resulted from the transference of the form of the thing perceived into the intellect of the perceiver, whose mind was, literally, in-formed by exactly that which makes the object to be what it is. Thus, exact knowledge of the essences of things was possible on the basis of very little observation. Perceptual error is what needed explanation. In a world composed of atoms, sensation must result from the impinging of atoms on the sensory membranes, and then from coded information conveyed to the brain and thence to the mind. Ideas in the mind are no longer identical to the forms inherent in things, but mere representations produced by a complicated process of transmission, encoding, and decoding. Thus arises modern skepticism with regard to sense perception (Meyering, 1989). Descartes’s solution was to begin with the Augustinian notion that we know our own minds directly. But for early modern philosophers that is all we know directly. As Nicholas Lash points out, on this account, the problems of knowledge are presented as if they were problems of engineering – how to make contact, build bridges, with what is “outside” (Lash, 1986). Descartes reassured himself of the possibility of (indirect) knowledge of the external world by arguing that a benevolent creator would not have constructed us so as to be constantly deceived. Some contemporary philosophers are still struggling with these issues. I have argued elsewhere that body-soul dualism has had deleterious effects on the religions of the West, particularly Christianity (Murphy, 2006), and that this distortion of Christian thought and practice has had negative consequences for all of Western society. It is now widely recognized by biblical scholars that the focus of Jesus’ teaching was the kingdom of God, a new social order without violence and the exclusion of marginalized groups. After Jesus’ death, the promise of bodily resurrection became central to Christian teaching as well. However, as Christianity spread throughout the Hellenistic world the materialist Hebraic concept of the person was soon supplanted by Neoplatonic body-soul

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dualism, with its focus on preparation of the individual soul for its future, immortal bliss. This was a disastrous turn for many reasons. One was that the supposed infinite value of the human soul legitimated first punishing and then later killing the body in the hope of saving the soul from eternal damnation. It is no accident that Augustine is credited with cementing the dualist conception of human nature into Christian theology, and that he is also called by his biographer, Peter Brown, the first theologian of the Inquisition (Brown, 1967). Second, the focus on the afterlife made it all too easy for Christians to neglect the message of Jesus’ earthly kingdom. I cannot make adequate theological or historical arguments for this criticism here, but consider a few rhetorical questions. Without the Neoplatonic notion that the goal of life is to prepare the soul for its proper abode in heaven, would Christians through the centuries have devoted more of their attention to working for God’s reign on earth? And would Jesus’ teachings be regarded as a proper blueprint for that earthly society? If Christians had been following his teachings about sharing, and about loving enemies at least enough so as not to kill them, how different might world politics be today? What would Christians have been doing these past 2,000 years if there were no such things as souls to save? I turn now to a critique of the physicalism of the modern period. The problem with physicalism until quite recently has been the unavoidability of causal reductionism. Causal reductionism presupposes the notion of the hierarchy of complex systems, such that higher-level systems are composed of lower-level parts. Causal reductionism, then, is the thesis that all causation is “bottom-up” – from part to whole. Reductionism was the apparently necessary outcome of modern physicists combining Epicurean atomism with the notion of deterministic laws of physics. Early modern atomism consisted of the following theses: First, the essential elements of reality are the atoms. Second, atoms are unaffected by their interaction with other atoms or by the composites of which they are a part. Third, the atoms are the source of all motion and change. Fourth, insofar as the atoms behave deterministically they determine the behavior of all complex entities. The Epicureans countenanced spontaneous “swerves,” but Laplace and his followers did not. Finally, in consequence, complex entities are not, ultimately, causes in their own right. When modern scientists added Newton’s laws of motion it was then reasonable to assume that these deterministic laws governed the behavior of all physical processes. Thus, all causation in the hierarchy of systems is bottom-up (this is causal reductionism) and all physical processes are deterministic because the ultimate causal players (the atoms) obey deterministic laws. The determinism at the bottom of the hierarchy of the sciences is transmitted to all higher levels. There are two major consequences of this reductionist assumption for theories of human nature. One is individualism. The individualism of modern political and ethical thought has many sources, but one of them was the attempt to understand human society on the basis of atomist physics. Thus, social groups must be determined entirely by the behavior of the individuals that compose them. Individualism has been a mixed blessing. On the one hand it has certainly advanced the causes of equality and individual liberty. But ethicists and political theorists are currently

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lamenting the loss of strong conceptions of the common good. If a society is nothing over and above the individuals who make it up, then, as in utilitarianism, the good of the society can be nothing over and above the sum of goods for individuals. A much more serious problems follows from the wedding of a physicalist anthropology with a reductionist ontology. If humans are essentially physical organisms, and if it is the brain that does the work once assigned to the mind or soul, then how can it fail to be the case that all human thought and action are merely the product of the laws of neurobiology? And if this is the case, then what happens to traditional concepts of free will and moral responsibility? Physicalists from Hobbes in the seventeenth century to Daniel Dennett in our own have often been content to deny free will except in the “compatibilist” sense of having liberty to act as one chooses. It is possible for compatibilists to argue for maintaining traditional concepts of moral and legal responsibility even though we do not choose our choices, since the system of rewards and punishments plays a role in social stability. However, these reductive physicalists seem not to notice that neurobiological reductionism is a self-defeating position. Presumably they expect their readers to be rationally convinced by their arguments. But if thinking itself is determined by brain functions, then there is no room left for the role of reason. Therefore, if neurobiological reductionism is true there can be no such thing as an argument for it! The remainder of this chapter will be an argument for a nonreductive physicalist account of human nature. First I shall review some of the scientific and philosophical developments that call reductionism in general into question. The main factor here is the development of the theory of complex dynamical systems. In light of these developments it becomes clear that nonreductive physicalism is a possibility in light of the sciences. Next I argue that nonreductive physicalism is also acceptable from the point of view of Christian theology. Thus it is a theory of human nature that serves as a suitable bridge to bring together the natural sciences and religion. In the final section I look more broadly at the growing synthesis of science, including astronomy, with Christian thought. THE END OF REDUCTIONISM

The antidote to causal reductionism is appreciation of what would be an obvious fact were it not for the philosophical assumptions I have listed above. Complex entities and systems are often affected as much by their environments as by the behavior of their parts. And we are now developing greater insights into how complex systems (including human beings) can create and govern their own parts. The beginning of an alternative to reductionism is found in two sources. One was the emergentist movement in Britain and the United States early in the twentieth century. This movement died out, but new work is being done on the concept of emergence. The second was the development of the concept of downward or top–down causation in the 1970s. An important figure was philosopher Donald Campbell, who argued that it is a well known fact in biology that explanations of biological features require not only bottom–up accounts, such as the role of genes in

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producing constituent proteins, but also an account of the existence and prevalence of organisms with those features (Campbell, 1974). And this is explained by means of the role of the environment (the higher-level system) in selecting those features over time. So in general we can say that the higher-level system can have downward effects on its components by means of selection. The critical question for proponents of downward causation has always been how to avoid causal overdetermination if one assumes causal closure at the lower level. Complex systems theory provides resources to formulate an explanation. I here follow the work of Juarrero (1999). She describes the role of the system as a whole in determining the behavior of its parts in terms of the larger pattern or entity selectively activating the causal powers of its components. Juarrero (1999, 126) says: The dynamical organization functions as an internal selection process established by the system itself, operating top-down to preserve and enhance itself. That is why autocatalytic and other self-organizing processes are primarily informational; their internal dynamics determine which molecules are “fit” to be imported into the system or survive.

She addresses the crucial question of how to understand the causal effect of the system on its components. Her answer is that the system constrains the behavior of its component processes. The concept of a constraint in science suggests “not an external force that pushes, but a thing’s connections to something else . . . as well as to the setting in which the object is situated” (Juarrero, 1999, 132). More generally, then, constraints pertain to an object’s connection with the environment or its embeddedness in that environment. They are relational properties rather than primary qualities in the object itself. Objects in aggregates do not have constraints; constraints only exist when an object is part of a unified system. From information theory Juarrero employs a distinction between context-free and context-sensitive constraints. In successive throws of a die, the numbers that have come up previously do not constrain the probabilities for the current throw; the constraints on the die’s behavior are context-free. In contrast, in a card game the constraints are context-sensitive: the chances of drawing an ace at any point are sensitive to history: assume there are four aces in a fifty-two card deck, which is dealt evenly around the table. Before the game starts each player has a 1/13 chance of receiving at least one ace. As the game proceeds, once players A, B, and C have already been dealt all four aces, the probability that player D has one automatically drops to 0. The change occurs because within the context of the game, player D’s having an ace is not independent of what the other players have. Any prior probability in place before the game starts suddenly changes because, by establishing interrelationships among the players, the rules of the game impose second-order contextual constraints (and thus conditional probabilities). . . . [N]o external force was impressed on D to alter his situation. There was no forceful efficient cause separate and distinct from the effect. Once the individuals become card players, the conditional probabilities imposed by the rules and the course of the game itself alter the prior probability that D has an ace, not because one thing bumps into another but because each player is embedded in a web of interrelationships.2

Alwyn Scott, a specialist in nonlinear mathematics, states that a paradigm change (in Thomas Kuhn’s sense) has occurred in science beginning in the 1970s. He describes nonlinear science as a meta-science, based on recognition of patterns

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in kinds of phenomena in diverse fields. This paradigm shift amounts to a new conception of the very nature of causality (Scott, 2004). While time does not allow me to make all of the connections to this general account of downward causation, I have argued elsewhere that it provides the resources needed to evade neurobiological reductionism and then to make sense of human reasoning, responsibility, and free will (Murphy and Brown, 2007). RELIGION AND PHYSICALISM

To many a reader of today’s media it would appear that Christians have once again bowed to the authority of science; they are renouncing the dualist anthropology that has characterized their teaching from the beginning in order to adopt the physicalism that is consistent with current science, particularly cognitive neuroscience. However, many are surprised to hear that the dualism-physicalism issue is already a century old in Christian biblical studies and church history. For example, in 1911, biblical scholar H. Wheeler Robinson argued persuasively that writers of the Hebrew scriptures were not dualists; their concept of human nature was monistic. Later translators read dualism back into the texts by employing, first, Greek anthropological terms, and then later translating these Greek terms into modern languages as they had been understood by Greek philosophers. By the middle of the twentieth century is was commonplace to argue that New Testament authors also presupposed a monistic and physicalist account of human nature. Nonetheless, already in the second century, dualism began to appear in Christian teaching. The Epistle to Diognetus (written in approximately 130) described humans as possessing an immortal soul. By the time of Augustine, in the early fifth century, dualism of a modified Platonic sort was taken as the orthodox position. Contemporary Jewish scholars appear to be divided on the question of dualism versus physicalism. A persuasive book, though, is Neil Gillman’s The Death of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought (Gillman, 1997). Gillman argues that the only conception of human nature that fits comfortably with the Jewish understanding of life and of Jews’ relation to God is a physicalist account, along with an emphasis on afterlife understood in terms of bodily resurrection. I had the opportunity to lecture on this topic in Iran a few years ago. I found that all of the Muslim scholars I addressed there were either dualists or else they held a more complex tri-partite account. Nonetheless, there are ample precedents in the history of Islam for a physicalist account of human nature. So the Abrahamic faiths have plenty of historical precedent for accepting a physicalist account of human nature, and it can be argued that in the case of Christianity in particular, they are not bowing to science at all, but rather recovering a more authentic version of their own early teachings. What all religious believers need to worry about, however, is the extent to which a physicalist ontology is believed to entail a reductionistic account of human life. In the (in)famous words of Francis Crick: “You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules” (Crick, 1994). It is for this

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reason that the information about the development of anti-reductionistic accounts in science is so important (Murphy, 2006).3 A NEW COSMOPOLIS?

I have already alluded to the fact that most educated people in the West take science and religion to be either irrelevant to or at odds with one another. This picture is perpetuated by the media, in that they tend to cover stories about religious objections to science but not the accumulating body of careful work showing the consistency of religion with current scientific developments. I have argued (all too briefly) for the convergence of science and theology toward nonreductive physicalism. In light of the history I have traced in this chapter, this is a development to be welcomed. At the beginning of the modern era we lost that stable and intelligible account of human nature in harmony with Ptolemaic astronomy and Aristotelian physics. I made the bold claim that there has been no adequate account of human nature since the Copernican revolution. Only now, with the rejection of reductionism, can the physicalist anthropology that flows so naturally from science be reconciled with the religious view of humankind as morally responsible and capable of a free response to God. There are a large number of other points of synthesis. I will focus only on those related to astronomy and cosmology. In the Middle Ages there was a consensus among theologians that the doctrine of creation was relevant to a number of cosmological issues, such as the nature of time and the question of whether the universe had a beginning. However, due to a variety of factors in the modern period, many theologians concluded that theology in general and the doctrine of creation in particular are irrelevant to the big cosmological questions – theology is basically about humankind’s relation to God. The ironic development in our own day is that science is now putting all of those big cosmological questions back on the table. No one has done a better job of pointing this out than Paul Davies. The most obvious theological issue that has been reopened by developments in cosmology is the question of whether God created the universe in time or from eternity. That is, did the universe have a temporal beginning, or has it always existed, with its existence dependent upon God? From the time of Friedrich Schleiermacher, writing at the beginning of the nineteenth century, many have argued that this question is irrelevant to the doctrine of creation. Copernicus overturned the Ptolemaic conceptions of the organization and of the motion of the universe but not the conception of the universe as eternal and static. When Big-Bang theory was developed this sudden origin was immediately interpreted by some – believers and atheists alike – as confirmation of the traditional account of creation as temporal origination. Cooler heads refused the temptation to claim that science had shown the truth of the doctrine; Ernan McMullin’s account of the science and theology as “consonant” has turned out to be the most reasonable. He says that “if the universe began in time through the act of a Creator, from our vantage point it would look something like the Big Bang that cosmologists are now talking about” (McMullin, 1981). More recent (and highly speculative)

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developments in theories of origins threaten this tidy consonance. For example, Andrei Linde’s speculation that our universe started out as a very small bubble in space-time, and that the bubble’s swift inflation produced the Big Bang shows that the Big Bang cannot simply be identified with creation. One final point of convergence. If Copernican astronomy, as it is said, removed humankind from the center of the universe, in a strange sense recent science, including astronomy, is suggesting that we are in a different sense, central after all. This is the work begun by Brandon Carter and carried forward by John Barrow, Frank Tipler, and others on the “anthropic coincidences” manifested by our universe. Again believers and non-believers have both wondered what this might mean for religion. Freeman Dyson has written that “[t]he more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming” (Dyson, 1979). While the fine-tuning does not prove that the universe had a divine fine-tuner, it is certainly consonant (in McMullins’ terms) with the biblical claim that humans have a central place in God’s plans. None of the recent scientific developments serve as a basis for the kind of natural theology that Darwin’s theory displaced, but for scholars who are believers, the recent convergences are welcome. We can feel at home in the universe, just as the residents of previous cultures with their own cosmo-political worldviews. Fuller Graduate Schools, Pasadena, CA, USA, e-mail: [email protected]

NOTES 1 See Rorty (1979) for reflections on the peculiarity of counting all of such disparate experiences as “mental.” 2 Juarrero (1999, p. 146) 3 The foregoing material is treated at greater length in Murphy, Bodies and Souls.

REFERENCES Brown, Peter. 1967. Augustine of hippo: a biography. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 240 Campbell, Donald. 1974. ‘Downward causation’ in hierarchically organised systems. In Studies in the philosophy of biology: reduction and related problems, ed. F.J. Ayala , and T. Dobzhansky, 179–186. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Crick, Francis. 1994. The astonishing hypothesis: the scientific search for the soul. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 3. Dyson, Freeman. 1979. Disturbing the universe. New York: Harper & Row, 250. Gillman, Neil. 1997. The death of death: resurrection and immortality in Jewish thought. Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing. Juarrero, Alicia. 1999. Dynamics in action: intentional behavior as a complex system. Cambridge: MIT Press. Lash, Nicholas. 1986. Easter in ordinary: reflections on human experience and the knowledge of God. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 69. Martin, Raymond, and John Barresi. 2006. The rise and fall of soul and self: an intellectual history of personal identity. New York: Columbia University Press, 106.

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McMullin, Ernan. 1981. How should cosmology relate to theology? In The sciences and theology in the twentieth century, ed. A.R. Peacocke, 17–57; 39. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Meyering, Theo C. 1989. Historical roots of cognitive science: the rise of a cognitive theory of perception from antiquity to the nineteenth century. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Murphy, Nancey. 2006. Bodies and souls, or spirited bodies? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Murphy, Nancey, and Warren S. Brown. 2007. Did my neurons make me do it? philosophical and neurobiological perspectives on moral responsibility and free will. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rorty, Richard. 1979. Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University. Scott, Alwyn. 2004. A brief history of nonlinear science. Revista del Nuovo Cimento 27(10–11): 1–115. Toulmin, Stephen. 1990. Cosmopolis: the hidden agenda of modernity. New York: Free Press.

SECTION IV UNIVERSE AND LIFE Quantum Physics, Consciousness Research, Astrobiology, Complexity Theory

H E N R Y P. S TA P P

MIND IN THE QUANTUM UNIVERSE

ABSTRACT

Astronomy has affected civilization in many ways, but none more profoundly than its impact on our idea of what we human beings actually are. We, in our innermost aspect, are our minds, and, strange as it may seem, our ideas about the nature of our minds are rooted in astronomy. It is not that our minds themselves are rooted in the stars, instead of in our brains. It is rather that our ideas about our minds are rooted in science, and that our basic science is rooted in astronomy.

ASTRONOMY AND THE PHENOMENAL ASPECTS OF NATURE

The careful astronomical observation of Tycho led to Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion. These laws, coupled to Galileo’s association of gravity with acceleration, led directly to Newton’s inverse square law of gravitational attraction. This led to the idea of physical determinism, the notion that a complete description of the values of all physically described variables at any one time completely determines the values of all physically described variables at any later time. By a physically described variable I mean a variable that is specified by assigning mathematical quantities to points in space-time. The space-time trajectories of particles and the strengths and rates of change of “local fields” are the paradigmatic examples of physical variables. The predictable motions of the planets in accordance with Newton’s laws are the prime embodiment of the idea of physical determinism. Newton extended this idea, with tremendous success, first down to the scale of terrestrial motions, to the tides and falling apples etc., and he then conjectured a further extension down to level of the atoms. According to this conjecture, the entire physically described universe, from the largest objects to the smallest ones, would be bound by the precept of physical determinism: by the principle of “causal closure of the physical”. This idea of universal physical determinism is a basic precept of what is now called “classical physics”.

Astronomy & Civilization, Budapest, August 11, 2009


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THE OMISSION OF THE PHENOMENAL ASPECTS OF NATURE

The dynamical laws of classical physics are formulated wholly in terms of physically described variables: wholly in terms of what Newton’s predecessor, René Descartes, called the elements of “res extensa”. Descartes’ complementary psychologically described things, the elements of his “res cogitans”, were left completely out: there is, in the causal dynamics of classical physics, no hint of their existence. Thus there is not now, nor can there ever be, any rational way to explain on the basis of the dynamical precepts of classical physics, either the existence of, or any causal consequence of, the experientially described aspects of nature. Yet these experiential aspects are all that we directly know. This troublesome point was abundantly clear already at the outset: Newton: “. . .to determine by what modes or actions light produceth in our minds the phantasm of colour is not so easie” Leibniz: “Moreover, it must be confessed that perception and that which depends upon it are inexplicable on mechanical grounds, that is to say, by means of figures and motions.”

Classical physics, by omitting all reference to the mental realities, produces a logical disconnect between the physically described properties represented in that theory and the mental realities by which we come to know them.

THE APPARENT CAUSAL EFFECTS OF THE PHENOMENAL REALITIES

Our entire productive lives are built around the belief, drawn from its incessant empirical validation, that our conscious efforts can influence our physical actions. One conceivable resolution of this classically inexplicable seeming intrusion of mental processes into the closed dynamics of the physically described world, as it is conceived of in classical mechanics, is that each mental reality is, again inexplicably, the very same thing, at least causally, as an associated brain process. This is essentially the resolution proposed by the physicalist philosophers. An alternative resolution that is at least worth considering is that the precepts of classical mechanics are not 100% correct: that Newton’s speculation about the extrapolation of his dynamical ideas from planets to atoms is not exactly valid. At least one prominent scientist/philosopher dared to broach this unsettling idea during the nineteenth century, before the precepts of classical mechanics had been empirically invalidated. William James, speaking of the scientists who would 1 day resolve this mind-body problem, said: “and never forget that the naturalscience assumptions with which we started are provisional and revisable things” (Psychology: The Briefer Course, last page). Strangely, his idea that precepts of classical physics might be wrong in ways pertinent to the mind-brain problem is, in effect, aggressively denied by most philosophers of mind today, more than 8 decades after the downfall of that theory. Philosophers are often called upon to defend highly counter-intuitive and apparently absurd positions. But to brand as an illusion, and accordingly discount, the


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supremely successful conceptual foundation of our lives – the idea that our conscious efforts can influence our physical actions – on the basis of its conflict with a known-to-be-false theory of nature that leaves out all that we really know, is a travesty against reason, particularly in view of the fact that the empirically valid replacement of that invalid classical theory is specifically about the details of the nontrivial connection between our consciously chosen intentional actions and the experiential feedbacks that these actions engender. A perusal of the writings of prominent contemporary physicalist philosophers of mind reveals starkly the cause of their impairment: they do not understand the details of the workings of quantum mechanics, and hence dismiss its relevance for illogical reasons. They uniformly, as far as I been able to discover from their writings, identify the basic change wrought by quantum mechanics as either the introduction of an element of “randomness”, which, as they correctly point out, does not help at all with the promotion of rational control of physical action by conscious mind, or as the introduction of a general “indeterminism” which is likewise of no help: “randomness” and general “indeterminism” both act in the wrong direction. By thus conceiving the changes wrought by quantum mechanics in these simplistic, and extremely incorrect and misleading, ways these philosophers render themselves incapable of grasping of how our minds can achieve, directly via the basic dynamical rules of quantum mechanics, in spite of the opposing quantum randomness, but by virtue of the failure of physical determinism, a bona fide conscious influence over our physical actions.

PHENOMENAL REALITY IS CENTRAL TO COPENHAGEN QM

Copenhagen quantum mechanics is the original version of QM, propounded in the late 1920s by the founders: Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, and Wolfgang Pauli. It is the hugely successful set of computational rules, embedded in a linguistic structure pertaining to our intentional probing actions and their phenomenal consequences, that physics students are taught in our universities, and then use in actual practice. The phenomenal aspects of nature that were left out of classical mechanics (CM) re-emerge as the central focus of Copenhagen QM: Bohr: “In our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of phenomena but only to track down as far as possible relations between the multifold aspects of our experience”. (Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature: p.18) Heisenberg: “The conception of the objective reality of the elementary particles has evaporated not into the cloud of some new reality concept, but into the transparent clarity of a mathematics that represents no longer the behaviour of the particles but our knowledge of this behavior” (Daedalus, 1958: p. 95). Bohr: “The freedom of experimentation. . .is fully retained and corresponds to the free choice of experimental arrangement for which the quantum mechanical formalism offers the appropriate latitude”(Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge: p.73).

Copenhagen quantum theory is basically a set of pragmatic rules that allow scientists to form valid expectations pertaining to what an observer will experience under each of the various alternative possible courses of action between which he or she is

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free to choose. Thus Copenhagen quantum theory is basically about the structure of human knowledge! It constitutes a swing away from the classical-physics extreme, which excludes conscious experiences from the dynamics, to the opposite extreme of making the contents of our streams of conscious experiences the central concern of the useful and testable science that it creates.

T H E M I D D L E W A Y : V O N N E U M A N N ’S “O R T H O D O X ” ONTOLOGICAL QM

Von Neumann constructed an objective version of QM that, like CM, can be construed to be a description of reality itself. This reality is conceived to have, as Descartes proposed, both physical and phenomenal aspects. The relationships between these two parts are specified by the quantum dynamical laws that von Neumann spells out. These laws integrate the phenomenal/experiential realities into an evolving, objective, physically described universe. Von Neumann’s method of constructing this ontologically interpretable QM starts with the pragmatic Copenhagen QM, which eschews all talk of an objective (impersonal) physical reality. Von Neumann’s construction removes from the Copenhagen version certain ambiguities, in order to arrive at an ontologically interpretable objective version. Von Neumann’s version was dubbed the “orthodox” interpretation by Eugene Wigner to distinguish it from the pragmatic Copenhagen version. Technically, the Copenhagen QM, from which von Neumann starts his analysis, rests on the idea of a “cut” that separates the world into an experientially described part (that includes the observer and his measuring devices) that lies “above” the cut and a quantum mechanically described part (the system being probed by the observer and his devices) that lies “below” the cut. The part lying above the cut is conceived to be actively “probing” the part lying below the cut, and receiving randomly selected answers to the “Yes-or-No-type” questions that it is posing. The statistical weights of the alternative possible answers are determined by the theory, but the contents of the probing questions are not specified by any yet-known rule or law. The probing actions can therefore, at least in principle, be determined in part by the experiential aspect of the probing system. AMBIGUITY IN PLACEMENT OF THE COPENHAGEN CUT

A device that lies above the Copenhagen cut is made up of particles and fields and it thus in principle could be shifted to below the cut. Such an ambiguity in cut placement might be unacceptable in an ontological theory, but it is perfectly OK in a pragmatic theory, provided that no prediction depends upon this placement. Von Neumann systematically studied the effects of shifting the placement of the Copenhagen cut between the physically and experientially described parts of the world. He considered a sequence of placements in which the boundary is shifted, step by step, from an initial placement used in the Copenhagen interpretation, further and further up to and into the brain of the observer, until at last the entire world


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that is describable in terms of atoms and molecules is on the physically described side, with only the observer’s “abstract ego” lying on the side described in experiential terms. At that stage the boundary separates the observer’s mind from his brain. The connection between the two sides of the cut then constitutes a mind-brain connection. Von Neumann’s work shows that the boundary can be moved up in this way without disrupting the predictions of the theory, which are always expressed ultimately in terms of relationships between experiences.

V O N N E U M A N N ’S T W O P R O C E S S E S

The analysis outlined above is pursued by von Neumann within a mathematical formalism that is basically just a rigorous formalization of the rules implicit in Copenhagen QM. Von Neumann’s formulation is based on two processes: Process 1 and Process 2. Process 1 is a physically described action upon the physically described state. This action can be conceived of as posing a “Yes-or No-type” question: it reduces the prior physical state to a sum of two parts, one corresponding to the “Yes” answer to the question, and the other corresponding to the failure to receive a “Yes” response. Multiple choice questions can be constructed by considering sequences of these “Yes-No” questions. The state is represented by a matrix, which has two sides. The “Yes” term is really “Yes-Yes” and the “No” term is really “No-No”. Consequently, the Process 1 action reduces the prior state to less than it was: it eliminates the “Yes-No” and “No-Yes” parts. Thus the Process-1 action picks out, from an infinitude of possible questions that could be put to nature, one particular “Yes-or-No-type” question, which therefore logically precedes nature’s randomly selected answer to it. Process 2 is the process of physical evolution of the quantum state between the Process-1-initiated selections of outcomes. Process 2 is a physically deterministic process that is analogous to the physically deterministic causal-evolution process of classical mechanics. It is governed by the Schroedinger wave equation. Process 2 prevails only between the reduction events, which are essential features of the Copenhagen and Orthodox versions of quantum mechanics. [A competing “many-worlds” approach denies the occurrence of such reduction events, but has yet to produce a rationally coherent way of relating the resulting theory to human experience in the practically successful way specified by the Copenhagen/Orthodox theory, without introducing a logical equivalent of Process 1. I add here, for technical clarity, that the fundamental quantum state is taken to be the state (i.e., density matrix) of the entire universe, which is assumed to be finite, and that the state of any subsystem is formed by taking the partial trace over the complementary set of variables.]

The key point is that von Neumann’s Process 1 action merely poses a probing question! The system being probed, for example some pertinent part of a person’s brain, has been interacting strongly with its environment, and its quantum state (density matrix) has therefore been reduced to nearly diagonal form in the pertinent coordinate basis. The continuity of the Schroedinger-equation-directed dynamics ensures that this state will be continuous in these variables. The “butterfly effect” in

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the highly nonlinear brain system, with abundantly available free energy, probably operating at the boundary of chaos, entails that this state will probably extend over a multitude of possible patterns of brain activity of the kind that would correspond to a particular conscious experience, of say, intending to act in some particular way in response to some perceived situation in which the person finds himself or herself. The Process-1 action is associated with some particular possible bodily action. But the occurrence of the Process-1 action does not entail that this action will occur. All that it does is to specify some particular possible pattern of brain activity, and then to put to nature the question of whether this particular pattern of brain activity will or will not become actual. This Process-1 action does not depend upon the element of “quantum randomness”: rather, it sets the stage for the entry of this element of randomness. Yet the future physical possibilities of the world have nevertheless been drastically curtailed by this choice of action, which is not determined by any yet-known law or rule, but that seems, in many cases, to stem, at least in part, from “reasons” and “sentiments”. While the apparent contribution of mental causes could be a delusion, there is no reason within QM for this to be the case, for these choices are definitely not determined by the deterministic Schroedinger equation in any known or specified way. The Schroedinger-based physically deterministic evolution has generated, rather, a continuous plenum of possibilities that the Process-1 action must reduce to a discrete set of logically distinct alternatives before the element of quantum randomness can enter. In view of this detailed way in which the quantum dynamics works to produce its empirically validated predictions, one sees that the identification of the switch from CM to QM with merely the entry of “randomness” or “general (as opposed to physical) indeterminism” is an entirely unwarranted oversimplification, in the context of understanding the possible contribution, via quantum mechanisms, of mental processes to the course of bodily physical events. The contribution of the human mental input comes before the entry of quantum randomness, and exploits the failure of physical determinism. There is no need in QM for any breakdown of a possible pervasive underlying principle that every actually occurring event must have, in the totality of nature, a sufficient reason to be what it is: there is no suggestion in quantum mechanics of any need for a general indeterminism: no rational need for a breakdown of the principle of sufficient reason! This quantum mechanical conception of nature, like science in general, is a work in progress. It is not yet complete because it does not specify the genesis of the Process 1 actions. But it does provide the general architecture of a rationally coherent interactive dualism that is a viable alternative to physicalism, to which it is greatly superior: first, because of its greater explanatory power; second, because it is not based on the precepts of a fundamentally invalid physical theory. It is completely compatible, without inexplicable dodges, with the incessantly empirically validated conclusion that our conscious efforts can influence our bodily actions in the way that they appear to us to do. I now turn to a description of how a person’s thoughts can, in a completely natural and understandable way, influence his brain, and hence his body.


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THE PHYSICAL EFFECTIVENESS OF CONSCIOUS INTENTIONAL EFFORT

Our lives are built upon the capacity of our conscious intentional efforts to produce the intended bodily physical actions. But how does this important effect of conscious mind upon physical body come about? A “template for action” is a pattern of brain activity which, if sustained for a sufficiently long period, will cause the specified action to occur. That such templates for action exist is plausible. If an action such as writing the letter “S” on the blackboard is to occur, then a particular sequence in neural firings that activate an appropriate sequence of muscle contractions must occur. It is plausible that some sustained pattern of brain activity would contain the synchronization information needed to produce the intended action. Quantum mechanics allows Process-1 actions to be influenced by conscious effort. Given this logical opening we need merely assume that conscious effort can increase the rate at which an appropriate probing Process-1 action is repeated. If the brain correlate of an intentional effort is the template for action for the intended action, then conscious intentional effort can, by virtue of the quantum Zeno effect, cause the pattern of brain activity that constitutes the template for action to be held in place for an extended period of time [Schwartz, et. al. Phil. Trans. R.. Soc. B, doi:10.1098/rstb.2004.1598]. This will tend to cause the associated physical action occur. Thus within orthodox quantum theory the physical effectiveness of “conscious will”, per se, need not be an illusion. It can be, instead, a direct causal consequence of the dynamical rules of orthodox quantum mechanics. The most problematic logical consequence of the classical-physics-based physicalist conception of nature is thereby evaded, namely the conclusion that human beings are causally equivalent to mindless mechanical automata.

NON-HUMAN MINDS

Von Neumann’s formulation lends itself to an ontological interpretation, and I have interpreted it in that way, as providing a description of an objectively existing and evolving mind-matter reality. Von Neumann’s ideas fit naturally with the ontological ideas of Heisenberg, and in particular with Heisenberg’s embrace of the Aristotelian ideas of “potentia” and “the actual”. The quantum mechanical state is considered to have the ontological character of a “potentia”: it embodies not only information about what has occurred in the past, but also objective tendencies for the occurrence of the next “actual event”. According to this ontological interpretation, there is an objectively existing reality that is built out of a sequence of psycho-physical “actual events”. Certain of these events are associated with human experiences. Each such event has a mental aspect that is an “increment of knowledge” of some person, and also an associated physical aspect that is a reduction or collapse of the quantum state of the brain of that

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person to the part of its prior state that is compatible with this increased knowledge. Each such collapse event is an objective physically described happening that occurs “primarily” in the brain of the experiencing observer. The quantum state acts both as a carrier of historical information about past events, and as an embodiment of statistically weighted potentialities for the next event. The causal effectiveness of the mental effort allows appropriate linkages between the intentional thought and intended physical action to become enhanced by natural selection. The occurrence of observation-related events in the brains of human observers does not preclude the occurrence of actual events corresponding directly, for example, to the firing of a Geiger counter, or the formation of a bubble in a bubble chamber. If such a device-related-actual-event occurs, and is witnessed by someone, then there would be both the actual event located at the position of the device, and also a physical brain event directly associated with the human perception of the event at the device: the occurrence of a mind-brain event associated with an increment in human knowledge in no way precludes the occurrence of a related actual event outside the brain of an observing witness. The contemporary empirical data is compatible with the possibility that there are no actual physical collapse events occurring outside human brains. The data is compatible also with the possibility that there is (also) an actual event occurring in conjunction with the detecting action of each large measuring device. That is, even though the entire physical world lies below von Neumann’s final placement of the “cut”, the openness of the theory with respect to the causal origins of the Process-1 actions, leaves open the possibility that Process-1 events can occur (also) in association with large detection systems besides human brains. To escape anthropocentrism, we certainly want to include the “nervous systems” of various other living entities as allowed sites of actual events. The methods of von Neumann then show that, for all practical purposes (John Bell’s FAPP), allowing other macroscopic detection systems to act on the physical world in ways similar to the ways that we ourselves do will produce no noticeable effects in the realm of human experience. This lack of sufficiently incisive data opens the door to metaphysical speculation as to which macro-systems besides human brains may host actual events. This openness is directly attributable to the afore-mentioned causal gap pertaining to what determines the Process-1 actions. The psychological aspect of any actual event is presumed to be a particular feeling that exists in nature and is specific to an associated physical activity occurring at the associated physical site. The “feeling” of a relatively simple event in a “device” would presumably bear very little resemblance to the highly articulated feeling of perception associated with the extremely complex brain activity associated with a human perception of that device-based actual event. Because the experiential aspect can itself be causally effective in the physical world, yet not fully determined by the prior state of the physically described world, it can become an integral part of the process of the natural selection that has led to the evolutionary co-development of the brains and conscious minds of contemporary human beings.


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If we trace this presumed evolutionary development backward in time we must allow the mental aspect to become ever more dissimilar to the human consciousness that we know. In this backward tracing it would seem unreasonable for a feature of nature as profound as these actual events to suddenly start occurring in association with the first lowly life form. It is more reasonable to expect the Process-1 events of that we know to be imbedded in a much more general set of actual events that encompass far more than our paltry contributions, and whose mental aspects, if indeed we should even call them “mental”, have very little similarity to the highly specialized and developed occurrences that constitute the conscious human experiences that I have primarily been discussing.

CONCLUSION

Philosophers who try to address the problem of the logical and causal connections between mind and brain, and the related problem of conscious free will, from a basically physicalist perspective must deal with the fact that the physical theory that they have primarily relied upon, namely nineteenth century classical physics, is now known to be fundamentally incorrect: it was replaced during the twentieth century, at the fundamental level, by quantum mechanics, which denies the basic precept of “physical determinism”, or “causal closure of the physical”, upon which their philosophical positions ultimately rest. Thus they must discount the relevance of quantum mechanics, in this context, of the influence of mind upon brain, and in the related context of “free will”. This they all do by first claiming that the essential change wrought by quantum mechanics is the introduction of “randomness” or “indeterminism” into the dynamics, and by then pointing out, entirely correctly, that the introduction of “randomness”, or of general “indeterminism”, does not help to rescue the concept of meaningful “free choice” that is at issue. But those arguments completely miss the crucial point, in this context, of the switch from classical to quantum mechanics, namely the logically needed introduction of what von Neumann calls “Process 1”. This process is not controlled by “quantum randomness”. It is, instead, the necessary logical predecessor to the entry of the element of quantum randomness. It specifies the otherwise-ill-defined set of discrete possibilities between which the logically subsequent random choice will be made. The entry of this physically undetermined but causally efficacious Process 1 into brain dynamics constitutes a failure within quantum mechanics of the classical precept of physical determinism; and a failure that is logically prior to the entry of quantum randomness. There is no apparent reason in quantum theory to deny the precept of general determinism: the principle that every event must, from some deep place, have a sufficient cause. By thus failing even to notice the absolutely crucial point, within this mind-brain context, of the entry into the quantum dynamics of the physically indeterminate but causally efficacious Process 1, the physicalist philosophers disqualify themselves as knowledgeable commentators on the subject of the relevance of quantum mechanics

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to the mind-brain issues upon which they propound. This failure to grasp the essential nature of the radical dynamical changes wrought by quantum mechanics keeps these philosophers mired in the rationally irresolvable difficulties that flowed from the failed seventeenth century speculation that the causal ideas that worked so well for the planets of the solar system would work equally well for the atomic particles from which our brains are made. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley CA. 94720 USA, e-mail: [email protected]

P A U L D AV I E S

WHY IS THE UNIVERSE JUST RIGHT FOR LIFE?

ABSTRACT

A longstanding mystery concerning the laws of physics and the cosmological initial conditions is that they are peculiarly well suited to the emergence of life – at least, life as we know it. The favoured explanation is that the region of space we call “the universe” is in fact merely an infinitesimal fragment of a vast and elaborate assemblage of universes, collectively termed “the multiverse.” According to the multiverse theory, each universe has its own distinctive laws and initial conditions, perhaps chosen randomly. Only in those universes which, by chance, the circumstances are just right for life will observers like us emerge and puzzle over the weird bio-friendliness of their own particular universe. Although popular, the multiverse theory falls far short of a complete explanation of physical reality, because it assumes a set of meta-laws, including a universe-generating mechanism, which must simply be accepted as a brute fact. I this paper I review the multiverse theory and discuss its shortcomings, and outline the challenge of trying to construct a theory of physical existence that does not depend on arbitrary starting assumptions. THE CONCEPT OF LAWS

The founding assumption of science is that the physical universe is neither arbitrary nor absurd; it is not just a meaningless jumble of objects and phenomena haphazardly juxtaposed. Rather, there is a coherent scheme of things. This is often expressed by the simple aphorism that there is order in nature. But scientists have gone beyond this vague notion to formulate a system of well-defined laws. The existence of laws of nature is the starting point of science. But right at the outset we encounter an obvious and profound enigma: Where do the laws of nature come from? Galileo, Newton and their contemporaries regarded the laws as thoughts in the mind of God, and their elegant mathematical form as a manifestation of God’s rational plan for the universe. Few scientists today would describe the laws of nature using such quaint language. Yet the questions remain of what these laws are and why they have the form that they do. If they aren’t the product of divine providence, how can they be explained? By the thirteenth century, European theologians and scholars such as Roger Bacon had arrived at the conclusion that laws of nature possess a mathematical basis, a notion that dates back to the Pythagoreans. Given the cultural background, it is no surprise that when modern science emerged in Christian Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was perfectly natural for the early scientists to believe that the laws they were discovering in the heavens and on Earth were the mathematical manifestations of God’s ingenious handiwork. 199 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 199–209. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_20,

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P A U L D AV I E S

Today, few scientists would appeal explicitly to a god to explain the laws. But still the fact remains that the universe conforms to an orderly scheme, and is not an arbitrary muddle of events, which prompts one to wonder – God or no God – whether there is some sort of meaning or purpose behind it all. Many scientists are quick to pour scorn even on this weaker suggestion, however. Richard Feynman, arguably the finest theoretical physicist of the mid-twentieth century, thought that “the great accumulation of understanding as to how the physical world behaves only convinces one that this behaviour has a kind of meaninglessness about it”.1 This sentiment is echoed by the theoretical physicist and cosmologist Steven Weinberg: “The more the universe seems comprehensible the more it also seems pointless (Weinberg, 1977).” LAWS FINE-TUNED FOR LIFE

In attempting to explain the origin of the laws of physics, a salient fact to be taken into account is that the law-like universe we observe is not just any old universe: it has a highly special property, namely, we are part of it. For life to emerge, and then to evolve into conscious beings like ourselves, certain conditions have to be satisfied. Among the many prerequisites for life – at least, for life as we know it – is a good supply of the various chemical elements needed to make biomass. Carbon is the key life-giving element, but oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus are crucial too. Liquid water is another essential ingredient. Life also requires an energy source, and a stable environment, which in our case are provided by the sun. For life to evolve past the level of simple microbes, this life-encouraging setting has to remain benign for a very long time; it took billions of years for life on Earth to reach the point of intelligence. On a larger scale, the universe must be sufficiently old and cool to permit complex chemistry. It has to be orderly enough to allow the untrammelled formation of galaxies and stars. There have to be the right sorts of forces acting between particles of matter to make stable atoms, complex molecules, planets and stars. If almost any of the basic features of the universe, from the properties of atoms to the distribution of the galaxies, were different, life would very probably be impossible.2 Now, it happens that to meet these various requirements, certain stringent conditions must be satisfied in the underlying laws of physics that regulate the universe, so stringent in fact that a bio-friendly universe looks like a fix – or “a put-up job”, to use the pithy description of the late British cosmologist Fred Hoyle. It appeared to Hoyle as if a super-intellect had been “monkeying” with the laws of physics (Hoyle, 1982). He was right in his impression. On the face of it, the universe does look as if it has been designed by an intelligent creator expressly for the purpose of spawning sentient beings. Like the porridge in the tale of Goldilocks and the three bears, the universe seems to be “just right” for life, in many intriguing ways. No scientific explanation for the universe can be deemed complete unless it accounts for this appearance of judicious design. Until recently, “the Goldilocks factor” was almost completely ignored by scientists. Now, that is changing fast. Science is at last coming to grips with the enigma of


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why the universe is so uncannily fit for life. The explanation entails understanding how the universe began and evolved into its present form, and knowing what matter is made of and how it is shaped and structured by the different forces of nature. Above all, it requires us to probe the very nature of physical laws. MULTIVERSE EXPLANATION OF FINE-TUNING

A popular explanation for the Goldilocks enigma is the multiverse theory, according to which what we have all along been calling “the universe” is, in this theory, just an infinitesimal part of a single “bubble”, or pocket universe, set amid an infinite assemblage of universes – a multiverse. This follows naturally if we regard the big bang origin of our universe as a natural physical process, in which case it cannot be unique. There will be many big bangs scattered throughout space and time. An explicit model of multiple big bangs is the theory of eternal inflation, which describes an inexhaustible universe-generating mechanism, of which our universe – our bubble – is but one product (Susskind, 2005). Each pocket universe will be born in a burst of heat liberated in that bubble when inflation ceases, will go on to enjoy a life cycle of evolution, and will perhaps eventually suffer a death, but the assemblage as a whole is immortal. Life will arise only in those universes, or cosmic regions, where conditions favour life. Universes which cannot support life will go unobserved. It is therefore no surprise that we find ourselves located in a universe which is suited to life, for observers like us could not have emerged in a sterile universe. If the universes vary at random, then we would be winners in a gigantic cosmic lottery which created the illusion of design. Like many winners of national lotteries, we may mistakenly attribute some deep significance to our having won (being smiled on by Lady Luck, or suchlike) whereas in reality our success boils down to chance. However, to explain the cosmic “coincidences” this way – that is, in terms of observer selection – the laws of physics themselves would have to vary from one cosmic region to another. Is this credible? If so, how could it happen? Laws of physics possess two features that might in principle vary from one universe to another. First, there is the mathematical form of the law, and second, there are various “constants” that come into the equations. Newton’s inverse square law of gravitation is an example. The mathematical form relates the gravitational force between two bodies to the distance between them. But Newton’s gravitational constant G also comes into the equation: it sets the actual strength of the force. When speculating about whether the laws of physics might be different in another cosmic region, we can imagine two possibilities. One is that the mathematical form of the law is unchanged, but one or more of the constants takes on a different value. The other, more drastic, possibility is that the form of the law is different. The Standard Model of particle physics has about twenty undetermined parameters. These are key numbers such as particle masses and force strengths which cannot be predicted by the Standard Model itself, but must be measured by experiment and inserted into the theory by hand. Nobody knows whether the measured values of these parameters will one day be explained by a deeper unified theory

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that goes beyond the Standard Model, or whether they are genuinely free parameters which are not determined by any deeper-level laws. If the latter is correct, then the numbers are not God-given and fixed but could take on different values without conflicting with any physical laws. By tradition, physicists refer to these parameters as “constants of nature” because they seem to be the same throughout the observed universe. However, we have no idea why they are constant and (based on our present state of knowledge) no real justification for believing that, on a scale of size much larger than the observed universe, they are constant. If they can take on different values, then the question arises of what determines the values they possess in our cosmic region. A possible answer comes from big bang cosmology. According to orthodox theory, the universe was born with the values of these constants laid down once and for all, from the outset. But some physicists now suggest that perhaps the observed values were generated by some sort of complicated physical processes in the fiery turmoil of the very early universe. If this idea is generally correct, then it follows that the physical processes responsible could have generated different values from the ones we observe, and might indeed have generated different values in other regions of space, or in other universes. If we could magically journey from our cosmic region to another region a trillion light years beyond our horizon we might find that, say, the mass or charge of the electron was different. Only in those cosmic regions where the electron mass and charge have roughly the same values as they do in our region could observers emerge to discover a universe so propitiously fit for life. In this way, the intriguingly life-friendly fine tuning of the Standard Model parameters would be neatly explained as an observer selection effect. According to the best attempts at unifying the fundamental forces of nature, such as string theory, the laws of physics as they manifest themselves in laboratory experiments are generally not the true, primary, underlying laws, but effective, or secondary laws valid at the relatively low energies and temperatures that characterize the present state of the universe compared to the ultra-hot conditions that accompanied the birth of the universe. But these same theories suggest (at least to some theorists) that there might be many different ways that the primary underlying laws might “freeze” into the effective low-energy laws, leading not merely to different relative strengths of the forces, but to different forces entirely – forces with completely different properties than those with which we are familiar. For example, there could be a strong nuclear force with twelve gluons instead of eight, there could be two flavours of electric charge and two distinct sorts of photon, there could be additional forces above and beyond the familiar four. So the possibility arises of a domain structure in which the low-energy physics in each domain would be spectacularly different, not just in the “constants” such as masses and force strengths, but in the very mathematical form of the laws themselves. The universe on a mega-scale would resemble a cosmic United States of America, with different shaped “states” separated by sharp boundaries. What we have hitherto taken to be universal laws of physics, such as the laws of electromagnetism, would be more akin to local by-laws, or state laws, rather than national or federal laws. And of this potpourri of cosmic regions, very few indeed would be suitable for life.


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OPPOSITION TO THE MULTIVERSE IDEA

In spite of its widespread appeal, and its apparently neat solution of the Goldilocks enigma, the multiverse has some outspoken critics from both inside and outside the scientific community. There are philosophers who think that multiverse proponents have succumbed to fallacious reasoning in their use of probability theory.3 There are many scientists who dismiss the multiverse as a speculation too far. But the most vociferous critics come from the ranks of theorists working on the most fashionable attempt to universe physics, which is known as string theory or, in its most general version, M theory. Many string/M theorists deny the existence of a set of vastly many different worlds. They expect that future developments will expose this mindboggling diversity as a mirage, and that when physics is finalized it will yield a unique description – a single world, our world. The argument used by anti-multiverse proponents is that the path to a theory of everything involves a progressive unification of physics, a process in which seemingly different and independent laws are found to be linked at deeper conceptual levels. As more of physics falls within the compass of unification, there are fewer free parameters to fix, and less arbitrariness in the form of the laws. It isn’t hard to imagine the logical extreme of this process: all of physics amalgamated into one streamlined set of equations. Maybe if we had such a theory, we would find that there were no free parameters left at all. If that were the case, it would make no sense to consider a world in which, say, the strong force was stronger and the electron lighter, because the values of these quantities wouldn’t be independently adjustable – they would be fixed by the theory. So far, however, there is little or no evidence to support that viewpoint. SHORTCOMINGS OF THE MULTIVERSE THEORY

One may ask why the multiverse exists and who or what designed it. Although a strong motivation for introducing the multiverse concept is to get rid of the need for design, this bid is only partially successful. Like the proverbial bump in the carpet, the popular multiverse models merely shift the problem elsewhere – up a level from universe to multiverse. To appreciate this, one only has to list the many assumptions that underpin the multiverse theory. First, there has to be a universe-generating mechanism, such as eternal inflation. This mechanism is supposed to involve a natural, law-like process – in the case of eternal inflation, a quantum “nucleation” of pocket universes, to be precise. But that raises the obvious question of the source of the quantum laws (not to mention the laws of gravitation, including the causal structure of spacetime on which those laws depend) that permit inflation. In the standard multiverse theory, the universegenerating laws are just accepted as given: they don’t come out of the multiverse theory. Second, one has to assume that although different pocket universes have different laws, perhaps distributed randomly, nevertheless laws of some sort exist in every universe. Moreover, these laws are very specific in form: they are described by mathematical equations (as opposed to, say, ethical or aesthetic principles). Indeed,

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the entire subject is based on the assumption that the multiverse can be captured by (a rather restricted subset of) mathematics. Furthermore, if we accept that the multiverse is predicted by something like string/M theory, then that theory, with its specific mathematical form, also has to be accepted as given – as existing without need for explanation. One could imagine a different unified theory – N theory, say – also with a dense landscape of possibilities. There is no limit to the number of possible unified theories one could concoct: O theory, P theory, Q theory . . . Yet one of these is assumed to be “the right one” – without explanation. Now it may be argued that a decent theory of everything would spring from some deeper level of reasoning, containing natural and elegant mathematical objects which already commend themselves to pure mathematicians for their exquisite properties. It would – dare one say it? – display a sense of ingenious design. (Certainly the theoretical physicists who construct such theories consider their work to be designed with ingenuity.) In the past, mathematical beauty and depth have been a reliable guide to truth. Physicists have been drawn to elegant mathematical relationships which bind the subject together with economy and style, melding disparate qualities in subtle and harmonious ways. But this is to import a new factor into the argument – questions of aesthetics and taste. IS THERE A UNIQUE FINAL THEORY?

Let me now turn to the main scientific alternative to the multiverse: the possible existence of a unique final theory of everything, a theory that permits only one universe.4 Einstein once remarked that what interested him most was whether “God had any choice in the creation of the world”. If some string theorists are right, the answer is no: the universe has to be as it is. There is only one mathematically selfconsistent universe possible. And if there were no choice, then there need be no Chooser. God would have nothing to do because the universe would necessarily be as it is. Intriguing though the idea of a “no-free-parameters” theory may seem, there is a snag. If it were correct it would leave the peculiar bio-friendliness of the universe hanging as a complete coincidence. Here is a hypothetical unique theory which just happens, obligingly, to permit life and mind. But there is another, more direct argument against the idea of a unique final theory. The job of the theoretical physicist is to construct possible mathematical models of the world. These are often what are called toy models: too far removed from reality to qualify as serious descriptions of nature. Physicists construct them sometimes as a thought experiment, to test the consistency of certain mathematical techniques, but usually because the toy model accurately captures some limited aspect of the real world in spite of being hopelessly inadequate about the rest. The attraction is that such slimmed-down world models may be easy to explore mathematically, and the solutions can be a useful guide to the real world, even if the model is obviously unrealistic overall. Such toy models are a description, not of the real world but of impoverished alternatives. Nevertheless, they describe possible worlds. Anyone who wanted to argue that there can be only one truly self-consistent theory of the universe would have to give a reason why


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these countless mathematical models that populate the pages of theoretical physics and mathematics journals were somehow unacceptable descriptions of a logically possible world.5 It’s not necessary to consider radically different universes to make the foregoing point. Let’s start with the universe as we know it, and change something by fiat: for example, make the electron heavier and leave everything else alone. Would this arrangement not describe a possible universe, yet one that is different from our universe? “Hold on,” cries the no-free-parameters proponent, “you can’t just fix the constants of nature willy-nilly and declare that you have a theory of everything! There is much more to a theory than a dry list of numbers. There has to be a unifying mathematical framework from which these numbers emerge as only a small part of the story.” That is true. But I can always fit a finite set of parameters to a limitless number of mathematical structures, by trial and error if necessary. Of course, these mathematical structures may well be ugly and complicated, but that is an aesthetic judgement, not a logical one. So there is clearly no unique theory of everything if one is prepared to entertain other possible universes and ugly mathematics. So we are still left with the puzzle of why a theory that permits a life-giving universe is “the chosen one”. Stephen Hawking has expressed this more eloquently: “What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?” (Hawking, 1988) Who, or what, does the choosing? Who, or what, promotes the “merely possible” to the “actually existing”? This question is the analogue of the problem of “who made God” or “who designed the Designer”. We still have to accept as “given”, without explanation, one particular theory, one specific mathematical description, drawn from a limitless number of possibilities. And the universes described by almost all the other theories would be barren. Perhaps there is no reason at all why “the chosen one” is chosen. Perhaps it is arbitrary. If so, we are left still with the Goldilocks puzzle. What are the chances that a randomly chosen theory of everything would describe a life-permitting universe? Negligible. If any one of these infinitely many possibilities had been the one to “have fire breathed into it” (by a Designer with poor taste perhaps?), we wouldn’t know about it because it would have gone unobserved and uncelebrated. So it remains a complete mystery as to why this universe, with life and mind, is “the one”.6 My conclusion is that both the multiverse theory and the putative no-freeparameters theory might go a long way to explaining the nature of the physical universe, but nevertheless they would not, and cannot, provide a complete and final explanation of why the universe is fit for life, or why it exists at all.

THE PROBLEM OF WHAT EXISTS

We have now reached the core of this entire discussion, the problem that has tantalized philosophers, theologians and scientists for millennia: What is it that determines what exists? The physical world contains certain objects – stars, planets, atoms, living organisms, for example. Why do those things exist rather than others?

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Why isn’t the universe filled with, say, pulsating green jelly, or interwoven chains, or disembodied thoughts . . . The possibilities are limited only by our imagination. The same sort of conundrum arises when we contemplate the laws of physics. Why does gravity obey an inverse square law rather than, for example, an inverse cubed law? Why are there two varieties of electric charge (+ and −) instead of four? And so on. Invoking a multiverse merely pushes the problem back to “why that multiverse”. Resorting to a no-free-parameters single universe described by a unified theory invites the retort “Why that theory?” There are only two of what one might term “natural” states of affairs, by which I mean states of affairs that require no additional justification, no Chooser and no Designer, and are not arbitrary and reasonless. The first is that nothing exists. This state of affairs is certainly simple, and I suppose it could be described as elegant in an austere sort of way, but it is clearly wrong. We can confidently rule it out by observation. The second natural state of affairs is that everything exists. By this I mean that everything that can exist does exist. Now that contention is much harder to knock down. We can’t observe everything in the universe, and absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence. We cannot be sure that any particular thing we might care to imagine doesn’t exist somewhere, perhaps beyond the reach of our most powerful instruments, or in some parallel universe. An enthusiastic proponent of this extravagant hypothesis is Max Tegmark.7 “If the universe is inherently mathematical, then why was only one of the many mathematical structures singled out to describe a universe?” he wondered. “A fundamental asymmetry appears to be built into the heart of reality.” To restore the symmetry completely, and eliminate the need for a Cosmic Selector, Tegmark proposed that “every mathematical structure corresponds to a parallel universe”. So this is a multiverse with a vengeance. On top of the “standard” multiverse I have already described, consisting of other bubbles in space with other laws of physics, there would be much more: “The elements of this [extended] multiverse do not reside in the same space but exist outside of space and time. Most of them are probably devoid of observers (Tegmark, 2003).” Few scientists are prepared to go as far as Tegmark. But if one stops short of declaring that every universe that can exist does exist, we face a puzzle. If less than everything exists, there must be a prescription that specifies how to separate “the actual” from “the possible-but-in-fact-non-existent”. The inevitable questions then arise: What is the prescription that divides them? What, exactly, determines that-which-exists and separates it from that-which-might-have-existed-but-doesn’t? From the bottomless pit of possible entities, something plucks out a subset and bestows upon its members the privilege of existing. Something “breathes fire into the equations” and makes a universe or a multiverse for them to describe. And the puzzle doesn’t stop there. Not only do we need to identify a “fire-breathing actualizer” to promote the merely-possible to the actually-existing, we need to think about the origin of the rule itself – the rule that decides what gets fire breathed into it and what doesn’t. Where did that rule come from? And why does that rule apply rather than some other rule? In short, how did the right stuff get selected? Are we


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not back with some version of a Designer/Creator/Selector entity, a necessary being who chooses “the Prescription” and “breathes fire” into it? We here encounter an unavoidable problem that confronts all attempts to give a complete account of reality, and that is how to terminate the chain of explanation. In order to “explain” something, in the everyday sense, you have to start somewhere. To avoid an infinite regress – a bottomless tower of turtles according to the famous metaphor – you have at some point to accept something as “given”, something which other people can acknowledge as true without further justification. In proving a geometrical theorem, for example, one begins with the axioms of geometry, which are accepted as self-evidently true and are then used to deduce the theorem in a stepby-step logical argument.8 Sticking to the herpetological metaphor, the axioms of geometry represent a levitating super-turtle, a turtle that holds itself up without the need for additional support. The same general argument applies to the search for an ultimate explanation of physical existence. Scientists who seek a theory of everything with no free parameters are happy to accept the equations of that theory (e.g. M theory) as their levitating super-turtle. That is their starting point. The equations must be accepted as “given”, and used as the unexplained foundation upon which an account of all physical existence is erected. Multiverse devotees (apart perhaps from Tegmark) accept a package of marvels, including a universe-generating mechanism, quantum mechanics, relativity and a host of other technical prerequisites as their super-turtle. Some theologians cast a necessary God in the role of super-turtle. All three camps denounce the other’s super-turtles in equally derisory measure. But there can be no reasoned resolution of this debate, because at the end of the day one super-turtle or another has to be taken on faith (or at least provisionally accepted as a working hypothesis), and a decision about which one to pick will inevitably reflect the cultural prejudices of the devotee. The root of the turtle trouble can be traced to the orthodox nature of reasoned argument. The entire scientific enterprise is predicated on the assumption that there are reasons for why things are as they are. A scientific explanation of a phenomenon is a rational argument that links the phenomenon to something deeper and simpler. That in turn may be linked to something yet deeper, and so on. Following the chain of explanation back (or the turtles down), we may reach the putative final theory – the super-turtle – what then? One can ask: Why that unified theory rather than some other? One answer you may be given is that there is no reason: the unified theory must simply be treated as “the right one”, and its consistency with the existence of a moon, or of living observers, is dismissed as an inconsequential fluke. If that is so, then the unified theory – the very basis for all physical reality – itself exists for no reason at all. Anything which exists reasonlessly is by definition absurd. So we are asked to accept that the mighty edifice of scientific rationality – indeed, the very mathematical order of the universe – is ultimately rooted in absurdity! There is no reason at all for the scientific super-turtle’s amazing levitating power. A different response to such questions comes from the multiverse theory. Its starting point is not a single, arbitrary set of monolithic laws, with fluky, unexplained bio-friendliness, but a vast array of laws, with the life factor accounted for

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by observer selection. But unless one opts for the Tegmark “anything goes” extreme, then there is still an unexplained super-turtle in the guise of a particular form of multiverse based on a particular universe-generating mechanism and all the other paraphernalia. So the multiverse likewise retains an element of arbitrariness and absurdity. Its super-turtle also levitates for no reason, so that theory too is ultimately absurd. Monotheistic theologians, for whom God plays the role of super-turtle, have had longer to think about this problem. They believe, or at least some do, that the threat of ultimate absurdity is countered by positing that God is a so-called necessary being. This is an attempt (and one that is not obviously successful) at describing a “self-levitation” mechanism – God explains God’s own existence – without which we would be right back to arbitrariness, reasonlessness and absurdity: if God exists reasonlessly, then the theistic explanation is also absurd. My proposed solution to the tower of turtles problem is to seek a self-consistent explanation for physical existence, an explanation in which the presence of life and mind in the universe is linked to the very bio-friendly laws that give rise to life and mind by a subtle form of feedback loop. If this scheme can be made to work, it offers the chance to explain the origin of the laws of physics, together with their peculiar bio-friendliness, scientifically, from entirely within the universe. There is no need to appeal to anything outside the universe, anything transcendent. We will never explain why the laws of physics are so well suited to life so long as we cling to the notion of physical laws as absolute, immutable, transcendent, infinitely-precise, universal mathematical relationships, which exist reasonlessly, and are imprinted on the universe from “without” at the moment of birth. Only a scheme that incorporates malleable or flexible laws, coupled in some way to states of the universe that include observers, will offer a chance of success. While the technical details of this coupling have yet to be worked out, there are pointers in the non-local character of quantum mechanics, which allows acts of observation in the present to affect the nature of reality in the past, without permitting any information to propagate backwards in time. A theory of laws that is based such ideas is currently under construction in a collaboration between this author and Yakir Aharonov, (Davies, 2006). The Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA, e-mail: [email protected]

NOTES 1 Richard Feynman, “The meaning of it all”, 1963 John Danz Lecture, published under the same title by Addison Wesley (Reading, MA, 1998), p. 14. 2 I shall restrict my discussion to life as we know it. 3 An excellent in-depth discussion and critique of these issues can be found in Neil Manson (ed.), God and Design (Routledge, London, 2003). 4 The unique, no-free-parameters theory is indifferent about whether there is only one representation of the universe or many. If there are many, they will be in identical quantum states. Because of the inherent uncertainty of quantum mechanics, this does not require the universes to be precise clones. So even the supposedly “unique” universe theory is consistent with a limited form of multiverse.


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5 There is also a technical explanation, in terms of the foundations of mathematics and logic, of why a unique final theory is impossible. This has to do with what is known as Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. See, for example, Chaitin (2005). 6 Leibniz, who was a theist, considered this problem, and famously concluded that ours is the best of all possible worlds. 7 Tegmark was not the first to suggest that all possible universes really exist. The idea was embraced, for example, by the Princeton philosopher David Lewis. 8 For example, one axiom states that any two points in space can be connected by a straight line.

REFERENCES Weinberg, Steven. 1977. The first three minutes. London: André Deutsch, 149. Hoyle, Fred. 1982. The universe: past and present reflections. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 20: 16. Susskind, Leonard. 2005. The cosmic landscape: string theory and the illusion of intelligent design. New York: Little Brown, Chapter 11. Chaitin, Gregory. 2005. Meta math! The quest for omega. New York: Pantheon Books. Davies, Paul. 2006. The Goldilocks Enigma: why is the Universe just right for life? London: Penguin Books. Hawking, Stephen. 1988. A brief history of time. New York: Bantam, 174. Tegmark, Max. 2003. Parallel universes. Scientific American, May: 31.

CHANDRA WICKRAMASINGHE

THE COMPELLING CASE FOR PANSPERMIA

Our argument suggests that it is to the comets that we must look for life, rather than to other planets or satellites of the solar system, Overwhelmingly it is in the interiors of comets where we should expect life to persist. Comets are transient, fast-moving vistors, and to dig down into one of them would be a technically difficult operation. But so great have been the advances of space research over only twenty years that perhaps we may look forward to the day when this potentially significant contribution to our understanding of the origins of life will be accomplished Hoyle and Wickramasinghe (1978) ABSTRACT

Evidence from astronomy, biology and geosciences all point to an extraterrestrial origin of life. The case for cometary panspermia is briefly described. In this model the conditions within comets are argued to have been more appropriate for the origin of life than any terrestrial setting. The subsequent dispersal of life in the universe also involved comets. INTRODUCTION

The question of the origin of life has been approached in a multitude of different ways over the centuries, embracing art, religion, philosophy and finally science. The contemporary scientific approach to this problem is being shaped mainly within the emergent discipline of astrobiology – a discipline that combines the sciences of astronomy, space science and biology. The fact that water and complex carbonbased organic molecules are ubiquitously present outside the Earth is leading some scientists towards a possibly erroneous point of view: that life is not only present everywhere, but that it is easily generated in situ from non-living matter – the ancient doctrine of spontaneous generation being essentially revived. The astronomical origin of the “stuff” of life at the level of atoms is beyond dispute. The chemical elements C,N,O,P. . . and the metals that are present in all living systems were synthesised from the most common element hydrogen in nuclear reactions that take place in the deep interiors of stars (Burbidge et al., 1957). The explosions of supernovae scatter these atoms into the clouds of interstellar gas and dust from which new stars, planets and comets form. The combination of atoms into organic molecules can proceed in interstellar clouds via well-attested chemical pathways, but only to a certain limiting level of complexity. The discovery of biochemical molecules in space, including comets and meteorites crosses a limiting threshold, although the precise level of biochemical complexity that can be reached through chemistry alone is still in dispute. 211 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 211–223. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_21,

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The only secure empirical fact relating to the origin of life is encapsulated in a dictum eloquently enunciated by Louis Pasteur Omne vivum e vivo – all life from antecedent life (1857). If life is always derived from antecedent life in a causal chain that is clearly manifest in present day life and through the fossil record, the question naturally arises as to when and where this connection may have ceased. The continuation of the life-from-life chain to a time before the first life appears on our planet and before the Earth itself formed implies the operation of “panspermia”. The basic concept of panspermia has an ancient history going back centuries – to the time of classical Greece and even before – referring in general to the widespread dispersal of the “seeds of life” in the cosmos (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, 2000; Arrhenius, 1908). Critics of panspermia often say that such theories are of limited value because they do not address the fundamental question of origins. Nevertheless the question of whether life originated in situ on Earth, or was delivered here from the wider universe constitutes a scientifically valid line of inquiry that needs to be pursued. Whilst the Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel’s idea of directed panspermia transfers the problem of origin to another site, possibly invoking intelligent intervention (Crick and Orgel, 1973). Fred Hoyle and I have attempted to expand the domain in which cosmic abiogenesis may have occurred, focussing in particular on totality of comets in our galaxy. Like Crick and Orgel (1973) we were influenced by the super-astronomical odds against the transition from organic molecules to even the most primitive living system (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, 1982). The currently fashionable view that all extraterrestrial organics arise abiotically – that is to say through non-biologic processes – has no secure empirical basis and is likely to be flawed. On the Earth it is clear that life processes account for almost all the organic molecules on the planet. If biology can somehow be shown to be widespread on a cosmic scale, the detritus of living cells would also be expected to be widely distributed in the Cosmos. The bulk of the organic molecules in space would then be explained as break-up products of life-molecules. Inorganic processes can scarcely be expected to compete with biology in the ability to synthesise systems of biochemicals resembling the detritus of biology. So wherever complex organics are found in an astronomical setting, one might legitimately infer that biology has spread.

ABIOGENESIS

But what then of a first origin of life? Charles Darwin, whose bicentenary we celebrated in 2009, and who laid the foundations of evolutionary biology, never once alluded to the origin of life in his 1859 book On the origin of species (Darwin, 1859). He had, however, thought about the problem and formulated his own tentative position in a letter to Joseph Hooker in 1871 thus: . . .. It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, & c., present, that a


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proteine compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were found.

Darwin’s prescient remarks provided the basic scientific framework for exploring the problem of abiogenesis throughout the twentieth century and beyond. In the late 1920s Oparin (1953) and Haldane (1929) fleshed out Darwin’s thoughts into the familiar “Primordial Soup Theory”, proposing that the atmosphere of the primitive Earth comprised of a reducing mixture of hydrogen, methane and ammonia and other compounds from which the monomers of life could be readily generated. Primitive “lightening” and solar ultraviolet provided the energy to dissociate these molecules, and the radicals so formed recombined through a cascade of chemical reactions to yield biochemical monomers such as amino acids, nucleotide bases and sugars. The classic experiments of Miller and Urey (1959) demonstrated the feasibility of the chemical processes proposed by Oparin and Haldane, and this led to the belief that life could be generated de novo as soon as the biochemical monomers were in place. The formation of the first fully-functioning, self-replicating life system with the potential for Darwinian evolution is riddled with the difficulty of beating super-astronomical odds and still remains an elusive concept. INTERSTELLAR ORGANICS MOLECULES AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE ON THE EARTH

In recent years Astrobiology has taken up the challenge of extending the OparinHaldane ideas of abiogenesis to a wider cosmic canvas. This has been prompted in large measure by the discovery of biochemically relevant molecules such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons in interstellar space, an identification first reported in the journal Nature by Fred Hoyle and myself in 1977 (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, 1977, 2000). Such molecules have now been inferred to exist in vast quantity not only within the Milky Way but in external galaxies as well (Wickramasinghe et al., 2005). Figure 1 shows the Orion Nebula which contains giant clouds choc-a-bloc with organic molecules. Here is an active site of star-births, the youngest stars being younger than a few million years, and including many nascent planetary systems (protoplanetary nebulae). This veritable stellar and planetary nursery is considered by many to be a region where a Urey-Miller type chemistry occurs on a grand cosmic scale. I shall argue as an alternative that it may rather represent a graveyard of life – polyaromatic hydrocarbons and other organic molecules present here arising from the destruction and degradation of life. Support for the idea that life originated on Earth in a primordial soup is beginning to wear thin in the light of geological and astronomical evidence. It is becoming clear that life arose on Earth almost at the very first moment that it could have survived. During the period from about 4.3 to 3.8 by ago (the Hadean Epoch) the Earth suffered an episode of heavy bombardment by comets and asteroids. Rocks dating back to the tail end of this epoch reveal evidence of an excess of the lighter isotope

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Figure 1. The Orion nebula – giant clouds of gas and dust – a stellar nursery

12 C

compared with 13 C pointing to the action of microorganisms that preferentially take up the lighter isotope from the environment (Mojzsis et al., 1996; Manning et al., 2006). ORIGIN OF LIFE IN COMETS

If one accepts the calculations showing grotesquely small a priori probabilities for the transition of non-life to life (Crick and Orgel, 1973; Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, 1982), it would appear that only two options remain. The origin of life on Earth was an extremely improbable event that did occur and but will effectively not be repeated elsewhere. Or, a very much bigger system than was available on Earth, and a longer timescale was involved in an initial origination event, after which life was transferred to Earth. The present author in collaboration with Fred Hoyle has argued in favour of the latter option (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, 1982), whilst others may prefer to discard the probability argument as being insecure, and assert that life must of necessity arise readily by an undiscovered process whenever and wherever the right conditions are found. The molecular clouds in the galaxy are of course much bigger in scale than anything on Earth, but in the gaseous interstellar medium all that one could really hope to achieve is the production of organic molecules through gas-phase chemistry. These organic molecules must then enter a watery medium in suitably high concentrations to begin the presumptive prebiotic chemistry that may have eventually led to life. In the formation of a planetary system such as the solar system (and the proto-planetary nebulae such as are seen in Figure 2) the first solid objects to


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Figure 2. The egg nebula in Cygnus – a protoplanetary nebula

form are the comets. These icy objects would contain the molecules of the parent interstellar cloud, and for a few million years after they condensed would have liquid water interiors due to the heating effect of radioactive decays (Wickramasinghe et al., 2009). If microbial life was already present in the parent interstellar cloud, the newly formed comets could serve to amplify it on a very short timescale. But prior to life being generated anywhere, primordial comets could provide trillions of “warm little ponds” replete with water, organics and nutrients, their huge numbers diminishing vastly the improbability hurdle for life to originate. Recent studies of comet Tempel 1 (Figure 3) have shown evidence of organic molecules,

Figure 3. Comet Tempel 1 showed evidence of relic frozen lakes and clay indicative of early contact with liquid water

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clay particles as well as liquid water, providing an ideal setting for the operation of the “clay theory” of the origin of life (Cairns-Smith, 1966; Napier et al., 2007). It can be argued that a single primordial comet of this kind will be favoured over all the shallow ponds and edges of oceans on Earth by a factor 104 , taking into account the total clay surface area for catalytic reactions as well as the timescale of persistence in each scenario. With 1011 comets, the factor favouring solar system comets over the totality of terrestrial “warm little ponds” weighs in at a figure of 1015 , and with 109 sun-like stars replete with comets in the entire galaxy we tot up a factor of 1024 in favour of a cometary origin life. The next step in the argument is that once life got started in some comet somewhere, its spread in the cosmos becomes inevitable. Comets themselves provide ideal sites for amplification of surviving microbes that are incorporated into a nascent planetary system. Dormant microorganisms are released in the dust tails of comets can be propelled by the pressure of starlight to reach interstellar clouds. Transport of life in the form of microorganisms and spores within the frozen interiors of comets carries only a negligible risk of destruction, whilst transport in either naked form, within clumps of dust or within meteorites entails varying degrees of risk of inactivation by cosmic rays and UV light. It cannot be overemphasised, however, that the successful seeding of life requires only the minutest survival fraction between successive amplification sites. Of the bacterial particles included in every nascent cometary cloud only one in 1024 needs to remain viable to ensure a positive feedback loop for panspermia. All the indications are that this is indeed a modest requirement that is hard, if not impossible, to violate.

ASTRONOMICAL EVIDENCE

Identifying the composition of interstellar dust in clouds such as Figure 1 has been a high priority for astronomical research since the early 1930s (see Wickramasinghe, 1967). The dust absorbs and scatters starlight causing extinction of the light from stars, and re-emits the absorbed radiation in the infrared. An important clue relating to dust composition follows from studies of extinction of starlight. The total amount of the dust has to be as large as it can be if nearly all the available carbon and oxygen is condensed into grains. The paradigm in the 1960s that the dust was largely comprised of water-ice was quickly overturned with the advent of infrared observations showing absorptions due to CH, OH, C−O−C linkages consistent with organic polymers. The best agreement for a range of astronomical spectra embracing a wide wavelength interval turned out to be material that is indistinguishable from freeze-dried bacteria and the best overall agreement over the entire profile of interstellar extinction was a mixture of desiccated bacteria, nanobacteria, including biologically derived aromatic molecules as seen in Figure 4. Although astronomers still seek abiotic models to explain the data such as in of Figure 5, biology provides by far the simplest self-consistent model. In particular, a claim that the strong peak of interstellar extinction at 2175A can be explained by abiotic aromatics (PAH’s) could be seriously flawed (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe,


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Figure 4. Agreement between interstellar extinction (plus signs) and biological models. Mixtures of hollow bacterial grains, biological aromatic molecules and nanobacteria provide excellent fits to the astronomical data. The 2175A hump in the extinction is caused by biological aromatic molecules (See Wickramasinghe et al. (2009) for details)

2000; Rauf and Wickramasinghe, 2010). Aromatic molecules resulting from the decay, degradation or combustion of biomaterial may be similar to soot or anthracite. Figures 6 and 7 show striking correspondences between astronomical data and such models.

HORIZONTAL GENE TRANSFER ACROSS THE GALAXY

Whilst amplification of microorganisms within primordial comets could supply a steady source of primitive life (archeae and bacteria) to interstellar clouds and thence to new planetary systems, the genetic products of evolved life could also be disseminated on a galaxy-wide scale (Napier, 2004; Wallis and Wickramasinghe, 2004; Wickramsinghe and Napier, 2008). Our present-day solar system which is surrounded by an extended halo of some 100 billion comets (the Oort Cloud) moves around the centre of the galaxy with a period of 240 million years. Every 40 million years, on the average, the comet cloud becomes perturbed due to the close passage of a molecular cloud. Gravitational interaction then leads to hundreds of comets from the Oort Cloud being injected into the inner planetary system, some to collide with the Earth. Such collisions can not only cause extinctions of species (as one impact surely did 65 million years ago, killing the dinosaurs), but they could also result in the expulsion of surface material back into space. A fraction of the Earthdebris so expelled survives shock-heating and could be laden with viable microbial ecologies as well as genes of evolved life. Such life-bearing material could reach newly forming planetary systems in the passing molecular cloud within a few hundred million years of an ejection event. A new planetary system thus comes to be

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Figure 5. Agreement between the 2175A absorption of biomolecules and the data for dust in the galaxy SBS0909+532 at red shift z=0.8. This could correspond to a distance of nearly 8 billion light years (See Wickramasinghe et al. (2005) for details)

infected with terrestrial microbes terrestrial genes that can contribute, via horizontal gene transfer, to an ongoing process of local biological evolution. Once life has got started and evolved on an alien planet or planets of the new system the same process can be repeated (via comet collisions) transferring genetic material carrying local evolutionary “experience” to other molecular clouds and other nascent planetary systems. If every life-bearing planet transfers genes in this way to more than one other planetary system (say 1.1 on the average) with a characteristic time of 40 million year then the number of seeded planets after 9 billion years (lifetime of the galaxy) is (1.1)9,000/40 ∼ 2 × 109 . Such a large number of “infected” planets illustrates that Darwinian evolution, involving horizontal gene transfers, must operate not only on the Earth or within the confines of the solar system but on a truly galactic scale. Life throughout the galaxy on this picture would constitute a single connected biosphere.


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Figure 6. Comparison between Orion Bar emission and PAH – autosoot system

Figure 7. Emission from dust in Antennae galaxies compared to anthracite, a biological degradation product

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CHANDRA WICKRAMASINGHE LIFE ON OTHER PLANETS

Much astrobiological attention is being focussed nowadays on the planet Mars with attempts to find evidence of contemporary life, fossil life and potential life habitats. The Jovian moon Europa, the Venusian atmosphere, the outer planets and comets are also on the astrobiologist’s agenda but further down the time-line. The unambiguous discovery of life on any one of these solar system objects would be a major scientific breakthrough and would offer the first direct test of the concept of an interconnected biosphere. The discovery of bacteria and archaea occupying the harshest environments on Earth continues to provide indirect support for panspermia. Viable transfers of microbial life from one cosmic habitat to another requires endurance of high and low temperatures as well as exposure to low fluxes of ionising radiation delivered over astronomical timescales, typically millions of years. The closest terrestrial analogue to this latter situation exists for microorganisms exposed to the natural radioactivity of the Earth, an average flux of about 1 rad per year. Quite remarkably microbial survival under such conditions is well documented. Dormant microorganisms in the guts of insects trapped in amber have been revived and cultured after 25–40 million years (Cano and Borucki, 1995); and a microbial population recovered from 8 million year old ices has shown evidence of surviving DNA (Biddle et al., 2007). All this goes to show that arguments used in the past to “disprove” panspermia on the grounds of survivability during interstellar transport are likely to be seriously flawed.

MICROFOSSILS IN METEORITES

The topic of microfossils in carbonaceous chondrites has sparked bitter controversy in ever since it was first suggested in the mid-1960s (Claus, Nagy and Europa, 1963).

Figure 8. A structure in the Murchison meteorite compared with living cyanobacteria (Hoover, 2005)


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Since carbonaceous chondrites are generally believed to be derived from comets, the discovery of fossilised life forms in comets would provide strong prima facie evidence in support of the theory of cometary panspermia. However, claims that all the micro structures (organised elements) discovered in meteorites were artifacts or contaminants led to a general rejection of the microfossil identifications. The situation remained uncertain until early in 1980 when H.D. Pflug found a similar profusion of “organised elements” in ultrathin sections prepared from the Murchison meteorite, a carbonaceous chondrite that fell in Australia on 28 September 1969 (Pflug, 1984). The method adopted by Pflug was to dissolve-out the bulk of minerals present in the thin meteorite section and examine the residue in an electron microscope. These studies made it very difficult to reject the fossil identification. More recent work by Hoover (2005) and his team leaves little room for any other interpretation of these structures than that they are microbial fossils (Figure 8).

CONCLUDING REMARKS

In conclusion we note that comets are beginning to acquire a prime importance and relevance to the problem of the origin of life. It would surely be prudent to study these celestial wanders more carefully. From 1986 onwards infrared spectra of comets have shown consistency with the presence of biologically relevant material, perhaps even intact desiccated bacteria. With some 50–100 tonnes of cometary debris entering the Earth’s atmosphere on a daily basis the collection and testing of this material for signs of life should in principle at least be straightforward. Such a project was recently started in 2001 by the Indian Space Research Organisation, ISRO, in partnership with Cardiff University. Samples of stratospheric aerosols collected using balloon-borne cryosamplers were investigated independently in Cardiff, Sheffield and India and have revealed tantalising evidence of microbial life (Harris et al., 2002; Wainwright et al., 2003, 2004). A particularly interesting

Figure 9. Stratospheric dust collected asceptically from an altitude of 41 km showed evidence of clumps of viable but not culturable bacteria. The left panel shows a clump fluourescing under the action of a dye and the right panel shows a scanning microscope image showing a clump of cocci and a bacillus

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component of the collected samples was in the form of 10 μm clumps that have were identified by SEM and fluorescence tests as being viable but not culturable microorganisms (Figure 9). Because such large aggregates are virtually impossible to loft to 41 km a prima facie case for their extraterrestrial cometary origin has been made. However, in view of the profound importance of any conclusion such as this, it is a high priority to repeat projects of this kind. Compared with other Space Projects for solar system exploration the budgets involved are trivial, but the scientific pay-off could be huge. We might ultimately hope for confirmation that Darwinian evolution takes place not just within a closed biosphere on Earth but extends over a large and connected volume of the cosmos. Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK, e-mail: [email protected] REFERENCES Arrhenius, S. 1908. Worlds in the making. London: Harper. Bidle, K.D., S. Lee, D.R. Marchant, and P.G. Falkowski. 2007. Fossil genes and microbes in the oldest ice on earth. PNAS 104(33): 13455–13460. Burbidge, E.M., G.R. Burbidge, W.A. Fowler, and F. Hoyle. 1957. Synthesis of the elements in stars. Reviews of Modern Physics 29(4): 547. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.29.547. Cairns-Smith, A.G. 1966. The origin of life and the nature of the primitive gene. Journal of Theoretical Biology 10: 53. Cano, R.J., and M. Borucki. 1995. Revival and identification of bacterial spores in 25- to 40-millionyear-old Dominican amber. Science 268: 1060. Crick, F.H.C., and L.E. Orgel. 1973. Directed panspermia. Icarus 19: 341–346. Darwin, C. 1859. On the origin of species by means of natural selection. London: John Murray. Haldane, J.B.S. 1929. The origin of life. London: Chatto and Windys. Harris M.J. et al. 2002. The detection of living cells in the stratosphere. Proceedings of SPIE conference 4495: 192. Hoover, R.B. 2005. In Perspectives in astrobiology, eds. R.B. Hoover, A.Y. Rozanov, and R.R. Paepe, vol. 366, 43. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Hoyle, F., and N.C. Wickramasinghe. 1977. Nature 270: 323. Hoyle, F., and N.C. Wickramasinghe. 1978. Lifecloud, 141. London: J.M. Dent. Hoyle, F., and N.C. Wickramasinghe. 1982. Proofs that life is cosmic, Memoirs of the institute of fundamental studies, vol. 1. Colombo: Govt. Press (www.panspermia.org/proofslifeiscosmic.pdf) Hoyle, F. and N.C. Wickramasinghe. 2000. Astronomical origins of life: Steps towards panspermia. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press. Manning, C.E., S.J. Mojzsis, and T.M. Harrison. 2006. Geology, age, and origin of supracrustal rocks at Akilia, West Greenland. American Journal of Science 306: 303–366. doi: 10.2475/05.2006.02. Miller, S.L. and H.C. Urey. 1959. Science 130: 245. Mojzsis, S.J., G. Arrhenius, K.D. McKeegan, T.M. Harrison, A.P. Nutman, and C.R.L. Friend. 1996. Evidence for life on earth by 3800 million years ago. Nature 384(6604): 55–59. Napier, W.M. 2004. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 348: 46 Napier, W.M., J.T. Wickramasinghe, and N.C. Wickramasinghe. 2007. The origin of life in comets. International Journal of Astrobiology 6(4): 321–323. Oparin, A.I. 1953. The origin of life (trans. S. Margulis). New York: Dover. Pasteur, L. 1857. Lémoire sur la fermentation appelée lactique. CR Academy of Science 45: 913–916. Pflug, H.D. 1984. In Fundamental studies and the future of science, ed. N.C. Wickramasinghe. Cardiff: University College Cardiff Press.


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Rauf, K., and C. Wickramasinghe. 2010. Evidence for biodegradation products in the interstellar medium. International Journal of Astrobiology 9(1): 29–34. Wainwright, M., N.C. Wickramasinghe, J.V. Narlikar, and P. Rajaratnam. 2003. Microorganisms cultured from stratospheric air samples obtained at 41 km. FEMS Microbiology Letters 218: 161–165. Wainwright, M., N.C. Wickramasinghe, J.V. Narlikar, P. Rajaratnam, and J. Perkins. 2004. Confirmation of the presence of viable but non-culturable bacteria in the stratosphere. International Journal of Astrobiology 3(1): 13–15. Wallis, M.K., and N.C. Wickramasinghe. 2004. Interstellar transfer of planetary microbiota. Monthly Notices of Royal Astronomical Society 348: 52–61. Wickramasinghe, J.T., and W.M. Napier. 2008. Impact cratering and the Oort Cloud. MNRAS 387(1): 153–157. Wickramasinghe, J.T., N.C. Wickramasinghe, and M.K. Wallis. 2009. Liquid water and organics in comets: implications for exobiology. International Journal of Astrobiology 8(4): 281–290. Wickramasinghe, N.C., J.T. Wickramasinghe, and E. Mediavilla. 2005. The interpretation of a 2175A absorption feature in the gravitational lens galaxy SBS0909+53f2 at z=0.83. Astrophysics and Space Science 298: 453–460.

LÁSZLÓ G. PUSKÁS

NANOBIONTS AND THE SIZE LIMIT OF LIFE

ABSTRACT

The existence of nano-sized bacteria (less than 150 nm in diameter) have been proposed for more than 2 decades but remain controversial and the subject of intense scientific debate. The identification of nanobacteria or nanobacteria like fossils from different rock types, Martian metorites and even from biological samples (e.g. human kidney stones) questions the minimal size of life accepted by the scientific community based on present knowledge on organization, enzyme catalysis, genome structure and information content. Our group isolated nanobacteria-like particles from human atherosclerotic plaques and analyzed their DNA and protein content. Based on our observations these particles are formed mainly or exclusively by host proteins and act as crystalization seeds for biocalcification. I propose that nanobacteria-like particles, or so-called “nanobionts” (combining “nano” and “protobionts”) can be generated by self assembly from biopolymers simlar to prion-like structures. Unlike known prions these particles are composed of numerous different polymers having small number of chemical units. Unlike early living creatures nanobionts are of smaller complexity. In theory, nanobionts could reach the development stage with self replication capability and could be at the border of life where physical matter starts the odyssey to higher complexity and consciousness. Nanobacteria, bacterial like organisms with unusually small sizes and widespread distribution in geological samples as well as fossil structrures found on meteorites (McKay et al., 1996) indicates possible early and primitive forms of life precursors. Nanobacteria are controversial despite that they have been found in different body fluids, blood infusion products, vaccines and tissues of animal and human origin (Kajander, 2006; Kajander et al., 2001). The same entities have been named to be “nannobacteria” from clay samples. “Nannobacteria” in hardgrounds, calcite cements, sulfide materials and travertines by Folk R.L. were published in early 1992 (Folk, 1992). Most of the critical notes were addressed because of the limited techniques applied when these assumed microbes were described and almost all of the declared evidences were based on exclusively morphological characteristics. The problems with morphology arrise when one applies electronmicrographic pictures, as very drastic sample preparation is done resulting in lots of morphological artefacts. Because of the extreme small size (50–500 nm) and marked pleomorphism, these features are currently not confirmed and supported by conventional microbiology. The identification of nanobacteria or nanobacteria like fossils from different rock types, Martian metorites and even from biological samples (e.g. human kidney stones) questions the minimal size of life accepted by the scientific community 225 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 225–228. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_22,

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based on present knowledge on organization, enzyme catalysis, genome structure and information content. The surface of Martian meteorite ALH84001 reveals structures 100 nm in diameter which resemble terrestrial nanobacteria. Contains polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), carbonate deposits and magnetite crystals similar to remains of bacterial magnetosomes (McKay et al., 1996). Among others we tried to detect the presence of nucleic acid (both DNA and RNA), or any bacteria-like or bacterial proteins by different methodologies (nucleic acid amplification techniques, mass-spectrometry-based protein sequencing and identification). We could detect nucleic acids from only enviromental contamination (from other bacteria) and found only human proteins from nanobacteria cultivations using human serum in the media. From these experiments we cannot exclude the presence of any bacteria-like macromolecules, but it is highly probable that the formation of these agents are highly dependent on the presence of proteins and other macromolecules from the host origin. Therefore, from our and other laboratories’ negative experiments we use other term for this controversial small microorganism-like structure to refer them as nanobacteria-like particles. When we used immunodetection of NB antigens in calcified human tissues we were able to show for the first time the presence of these particles in atherosclerotic plaques in the aortic valve and in the carotis (Puskás et al., 2005). Our finding opens the possibility that initialization of inorganic crystallization by these particles may contribute to vascular calcifications. Besides valve calcifications these particles have been implicated in numerous diseases and as infectious agents. They have been isolated from human and animal serum human kidney stones, dental pulp stones, bile and liver and kidney cyst fluids (McKay et al., 1996; Kajander, 2006; Kajander et al., 2001; Kajander and Ciftcioglu, 1998). Hypotheses concerning a role for nanobacteria in tissue calcification and cystogenesis have also appeared (Ciftcioglu et al., 1999). However, the microbiological origin of these particles was queried the importance of biomineralization in pathological calcifications is emphasized. Besides the “classical” nanobacterial particles living and culturable microbes with low nucleic acid content (referring them as LNA bacteria) and with limited size have been recently described. LNA bacteria represent a unique and viable fraction of indigenous aquatic microbial communities (Wang et al., 2009). Cells of all isolates were in the range of 300–400 nm in width and 500–600 nm in length. The biovolume for the cells was on average below 0.05 mm3 . These bacteria are extremely small but their size is still ten times bigger in length and 1000× the volume of the predicted smallest nanobacterium-like particle. Therefore, the failure to detect LNA bacteria themselves before and to observe their activity may be because of the limited sensitivity of the applied methods rather than their actual activity status. It is important to emphasize again that failure of detecting any specific, bacteria-like macromolecules from nanobacteria-like particles does not mean negative results, could only mean the limits of the applied methods. The size limit of life is limited by the water content, the hydrophilicity of polymers, the size of ribosome (1/cell: app. 50 nm), the number of information

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units necessary (genes built up from nucleic acids) and the concentration of small molecules to conduct biochemical processes to 120–150 nm. Although I believe mainly based on our observations that nanobacteria-like particles are formed mainly or exclusively by host proteins and act as crystalization seeds for biocalcification, but could represent one of the earlier forms of macromolecule-assembly, the formation of conformation-based multicomponent systems that governed by self-organizing properties catalyzed by inorganic ions, clay surfaces or amphypathic molecules. I propose that nanobacteria-like particles, or so-called “nanobionts” (combining “nano” and “protobionts”) can be generated by self assembly from biopolymers simlar to prion-like structures. King and Diaz-Avalos reported evidence that heritable information of distinct prion strain is encoded by different self-propagating cross-beta folding patterns of the same prion protein (King and Diaz-Avalos, 2004). As demonstrated by Tanaka et al., different conformations may have arisen as a way to adapt to environmental stress and propogate that adaptation to neighboring cells (Tanaka et al., 2006). Self-propagating biopolymers in general are not restricted to proteins. They can build up networks and complex systems. Unlike known prions these particles are composed of numerous different polymers having small number of chemical units. Unlike early living creatures nanobionts are of smaller complexity. In theory, nanobionts could reach the development stage with self replication capability and could be at the border of life where physical matter starts the odyssey to higher complexity and consciousness. The transition from non-living to living matter may have resulted similarly to nanobiont formation from the self-organizing properties of organic molecules and their interactions with a chemically rich inorganic environment. Multiple levels of chemical order (networks of polymers, ions) leads to complex systems that pave the way to living nano-sized protobionts (“nanobionts”). Therefore from the early scientific term from nanobacterial strain through non-living particles there is a way to nanobionts which denotes for the simplicity of building blocks and the physical predisposition of complexes to form ordered structures that initiated cellular formation. /1/ – Nanobacterium sanguineum – /2/ Nanobacterium-like particles – /3/ nano coacervates – /4/ nano protobionts – /5/ Nanobionts

Although during proteome analysis (protein extraction from nanobionts cultivated in culture medium including 10% human serum, gel-electrophoresis, massspectrometry analysis) we identified only human proteins, most of these proteins have common affinity to calcium ions, including fibronectin, Protein S, vitronectin etc. Cultivation of nanobionts could be achieved in cell culture media, but could be inhibited in the presence of calcium chelators. Nanobionts have long propagation time and ordered precipitation of calcium apatite at physiological ion concentrations could be detected on their surface. Results that a solution containing RNA, fatty acids and clay produces structures that contain a potentially catalytic surface and a potential informational biopolymer

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encapsulated within a membrane highlight the ability of mineral surfaces to bring together and organize key components of primordial life (Luisi et al., 2004). Multi-component self-propagating polymers (prion-like structures) in mineralized compartent may be the first nanoscale biosystems as I referred them the nanobionts. Because of their small size, mineral protection by thick calcified shell, high resistancy against radioactivity and heat make nanobionts ideal candidates not only to survive in hostile environments in the universe, but they also have probable ability to resist space travel, which could support the pansmermia hypothesis of life propagation in the Earth and spread of life forms through the Universe (Wickramasinghe, 2004). Laboratory for Functional Genomics, Department of Genetics, Biological Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szeged, Hungary e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES Ciftcioglu, N., M. Bjorklund, and K. Kuorikoski, et al. 1999. Nanobacteria: An infectious cause for kidney stone formation. Kidney International 56: 1893–1898. Folk, R.L. 1992. Bacteria and nannobacteria revealed in hardgrounds, calcite cements, native sulfur, sulfide materials, and travertines (abstract). Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, Program Abstracts, 104. Kajander, E.O. 2006. Nanobacteria-propagating calcifying nanoparticles. Letters in Applied Microbiology 42(6): 549–552. Kajander, E.O., and N. Ciftcioglu. 1998. Nanobacteria: An alternative mechanism for pathogenic intraand extracellular calcification and stone formation. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 95: 8274–8279. Kajander, E.O., N. Ciftcioglu, M.A. Miller-Hjelle, J.T. Hjelle. 2001. Nanobacteria: Controversial pathogens in nephrolithiasis and polycystic kidney disease. Current Opinion in Nephrology and Hypertension 10(3): 445–452. King, C.Y., and R. Diaz-Avalos. 2004. Protein-only transmission of three yeast prion strains. Nature 428(6980): 319–323. Luisi, P.L., P.S. Rasi, and F. Mavelli. 2004. A possible route to prebiotic vesicle reproduction. Artif Life 10(3): 297–308. McKay, D.S., E.K. Gibson Jr, K.L. Thomas-Keprta, H. Vali, C.S. Romanek, S.J. Clemett, X.D. Chillier, C.R. Maechling, and R.N. Zare. 1996. Search for past life on Mars: Possible relic biogenic activity in martian meteorite ALH84001. Science 273(5277): 924–930. Puskás, L.G., L. Tiszlavicz, Z. Rázga, L.L. Torday, T. Krenács, and J.G. Papp. 2005. Detection of nanobacteria-like particles in human atherosclerotic plaques. Acta Biologica Hungarica 56(3–4): 233–245. Tanaka, M., S.R. Collins, B.H. Toyama, and J.S. Weissman. 2006. The physical basis of how prion conformations determine strain phenotypes. Nature 442(7102): 585–589. Wang, Y., F. Hammes, N. Boon, M. Chami, and T. Egli. 2009. Isolation and characterization of low nucleic acid (LNA)-content bacteria. ISME Journal 3(8): 889–902. Wickramasinghe, C. 2004. The universe: A cryogenic habitat for microbial life. Cryobiology 48(2): 113–125.

H E L E N A K N YA Z E VA

THE RUSSIAN COSMISM AND THE MODERN THEORY OF COMPLEXITY: THE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

ABSTRACT

From the standpoint of the modern theory of complexity, one can discover new, nontrivial senses in the notions of main representatives of the Russian cosmism (Nicolay A. Berdyayev, Sergey N. Bulgakov, Vladimir I. Vernadsky, Alexander K. Gorsky, Valerian N. Muravyov, Vladimir S. Solovyov, Nicolay A. Umov, Nicolay A. Fyodorov, Pavel A. Florensky, Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky, etc.). The most influential their notions are the following: the constructive role of chaos in evolution, the active creative activities of a man in achieving final objects, the animated nature of any thing in cosmos and seeds of life scattered in the universe, the integrity of biosphere and noosphere, the mastering of time and the purposeful opening up new media of habitation. The problems of evolutionary aims and integrity, of the active role of man in choosing of a preferable path of evolution are central in the modern theory of complexity (the theory of self-organization of complex systems, or synergetics) as well.

The problems of wholeness and of purpose in different aspects are central in the modern theory of complex systems, which is named also synergetics. It is a holistic theory, and holism is a basis of a new thinking of the twenty-first century. From the standpoint of the modern theory of complexity, one can discover new, nontrivial senses in ideas put forward by the representatives of the Russian cosmism (Nicolay A. Berdyayev, Sergey N. Bulgakov, Vladimir I. Vernadsky, Alexander K. Gorsky, Valerian N. Muravyov, Vladimir S. Solovyov, Nicolay A. Umov, Nicolay A. Fyodorov, Pavel A. Florensky, Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky). These are idea of creative role of chaos in evolution and the constructive activities of a man in achieving final objects, the animated nature of any thing in cosmos and seeds of life scattered in the universe, the integrity of biosphere and noosphere, the mastering of time and the purposeful opening up new media of habitation. ACTIVE ROLE OF A MAN IN THE PROCESS OF COSMIC EVOLUTION

The idea that a man is embedded in cosmos and participates in all past and future events goes through works of the Russian cosmists. A man is able to actively influence the course of evolution to humankind’s good. N.A. Berdyayev (1874–1948) wrote: “The mental elements of a man are cosmic by their nature . . . One can found 229 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 229–235. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_23,

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all stratifications of the world, all its composition in the man” (Berdyaev, 1994, p. 82). There is a deep affinity between a man and nature. That is why he is able to re-create the world from within of it. He is an intermediate participant of the process of cosmic evolution. Another Russian thinker S.N. Bulgakov (1871–1944) noted: “The human creative work is metaphysically justified by his real participation in the Divine Sophia, who leads the divine forces of Logos in the world . . . The man can cognize nature and exert influence upon it as well as ‘conquer’ it, he can be its ‘tsar’ only because he carries in himself, although in a latent form, all its metaphysical stock and – to the degree of its development and actualization – he masters nature” (Bulgakov, 1993, pp. 158, 159). V.N. Muravyov advanced an idea that the mission of a human being in the universe consists of mastering of time, of gaining the victory over time, particularly rejuvenation of human organism and attaining of human immortality. In his philosophical opus “Mastering of Time”, he wrote that nature should turn into the history, and the history should be actively and consciously built by a man by means of transformation of cosmos for his own benefit, by means of improvement of life, nature and cosmos. “Life which is consciously built by a man is culture. Culture is the scope of results attained by man in his work of transformation of the world. Culture is a world, which is modified and variable by man according to the ideals his mind . . . The man should become not only homo sapiens, but also a real sovereign of nature, homo creator” (Muravyov, 1993, p. 198). From the point of view of the theory of complexity, the constructive role of a man in evolution is expressed in his ability to master time. Mastering of time is a key action of a certain man in a key moment of time, a way of resonant (organized in a right topological way) influence upon a system. To manage time, to put it more precisely to master time, is to know how to unify complex structures in a resonant way, i.e. to create a common tempo-world which is able to accelerate development of a produced whole and its constituent parts. The path of co-evolution is a mutually beneficial path into the future. ATTRACTION TO CERTAIN FORMS

Variations in nature are not absolutely random, “blind”; primordially, there are preferences to certain structures. As V.S. Solovyov (1853–1900) put it, “Nature demonstrates an aspiration for life or desire to live” (Solovyov, 1988, p. 372). The selective retention and the choosing of forms occur on the basis of an available spectrum of paths of evolution. Each complex system has not a single but a multitude of paths of evolution, which are determined by a spectrum of structure-attractors. There are different variants of development. In spite of the existence of a whole set of possible evolutionary paths, many structure-attractors remain hidden. Many possibilities will not be actualized. Many inner purposes cannot be achieved within given parameters of the medium. It looks as if a lot of things exist in a latent world. The attractors as future states are pre-determined (they are determined by their own properties of a given open nonlinear medium). Patterns precede processes. They can be interpreted as memory of the future, “remembrance of future activities”.

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According to S.N. Bulgakov, “the world is flexible, it can be recreated and even in different ways”. The world can really be reconstructed. However, not anyhow, not in any arbitrary and thinkable way! It can be reconstructed in accordance with its own forms, spectra of structure-attractors of evolution. The creative and constructive activities of a man has natural limits in form of “own aspirations”, inner potencies of natural and cosmic media (systems).

POTENTIALLY THE BEST WORLD

Our world, although it is not perhaps the best of all possible worlds, may and should become such a world, because it is potentially the best one. N.F. Fyodorov (1829– 1903) in his work “The Philosophy of the Common Task” called upon the conscious control over the forces of blind nature and the rebuilding of the world in man’s own way for the sake of humankind. For example, he thought that, in the case of cosmic catastrophe and of extinction of Sun, Earth might be launched as a spaceship. He put forward the ideas of immortality for all, revival of the dead, restoring life and making it infinite, transformation of physical forms. In particular, the man must become an autotrophic self-feeding creature. To him, the full victory will be achieved only when everyone is returned to a transformed immortal life. These ideas are revived now in the movement of transhumanism. Every complex system has not the only paths of evolution, but a multitude of paths determined by a spectrum of structure-attractors. According to the theory of complexity, the human creative activity to improve the world has natural constrains. These constrains go from cosmos itself, from the inner potencies (trends) of complex systems.

REVIVING CHAOS

In the Russian cosmism, chaos is understood as “reviving” and creative. V.S. Solovyov underlines that “gusts of primordial forces and primordial weakness which are alien to beauty engender it already in the inorganic world, when becoming willy-nilly – in different aspects of nature – material for more or less expression of the world idea or the positive all-unity” (Solovyov, 1988, pp. 371, 372). From the point of view of the theory of complexity, one must not fight against chaos that eats away structures. On the contrary, structures appear on a chaotic basis and due to chaos. Chaos serves as a mechanism of going out to structure-attractors of evolution. To see the beauty and constructive nature of chaos is tour de force, great deed of this theory. The small and the chaotic are beautiful, because they open the possibility of the birth of something new. Beauty may be considered from the synergetic point of view as an intermediate phenomenon between chaos and order. Beauty is not full symmetry but a certain symmetry breaking. The theory of complexity allows to understanding destruction as a creative principle and “passion for destruction as a creative passion” (Mikhail Bakunin), for only

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when ridding of the former structures, turning the processes in a reverse direction, on the splinters of the old, an attractive new may be created. Order and chaos, organization and disorganization, construction and destruction seem to be well-balanced in the world. Thus, it is senseless to resist chaos, or to strive to completely eliminate the negative, destructive elements from the world. Chaos is a necessary condition for self-organization. Besides this, chaos serves as a basis for integration of relatively simple evolutionary structures into more complex ones. It is a mechanism of coordinating their tempos of evolution. Chaos, fluctuations on micro-level, can also be a way of evolutionary switching, allowing a periodical transition from one evolutionary regime to another one.

UBIQUITY OF SEEDS OF LIFE

The Russian cosmists were convinced that the hierarchical scale of evolutionary forms of nature is persistent. They believed in the animated nature of cosmic entities. Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) wrote: “The whole Universe is alive but the force of sensibility becomes apparent in all its magnificence only for the highest animals” (Tsiolkovsky, 1993, p. 266). “Atom is always living and always happy in spite of enormous spaces of nonexistence or states in inorganic matter” (Tsiolkovsky, 1993, p. 275). “All the bodies of cosmos are responsive . . . Dead bodies are sometimes even more responsive than living ones” (Tsiolkovsky, 1993, p. 265). These thoughts could be found naïve ones but the modern theory of complexity reveals a profound rational sense in them. This theory builds bridges between the lifeless and living nature, between quasi purposeful behavior of natural systems and rationality of a man, between the birth of something new in nature and the human creative activity. The theory discovers universal patterns of self-organization. Structures in plasma or molecules in convection currents in liquids or gazes behave like living creatures, because they are able to self-organization and to self-completing of an integral structure. Responsiveness of forms of lifeless nature signifies that they are sensitive to resonant influences in the states of instability. The lifeless nature has memory, in other words, processes, which is going on in a complex structure today are influenced by its “prehistory”.

GREAT MYSTERY OF CONNECTION OF TIME

There is a profound connection of space and time in evolutionary forms of nature. V. I. Vernadsky (1863–1945) noted: “Great mystery of yesterday-today-tomorrow which penetrates us, while we live, applies to all nature. Space-time is not a stationary abstract construction or a phenomenon. It contains yesterday-today-tomorrow. All space-time as a whole is imbued with it in an all-embracing way” (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 249). The spatial configuration, “architecture” of a complex metastable evolving structure contains information. As if time would taken off in this structure. For us, external observers, it signifies that different temporal stages of evolution of this


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structure are present in it today, are “impressed” in its architecture. Information of the history and perspectives of evolution of this structure can be retrieved by analyzing a synchronic shear of this structure at the present moment of time. Certain fragments (spatial arias) of this shear show the character of the past development of the structure as a whole, whereas other fragments show the character its future development. In other words, the complex structure can be presented as a spatial development of discrete separated stages of its development. This interesting law of spatial organization of complex evolutionary structures results from the fact that structure-attractors are described by invariant-group solutions. It is known that space and time are not free in invariants; they are connected in a certain way. We could say as if spatialization of time and temporalization of space would take place. “Zum Raum wird hier die Zeit” (“Time turns into space here”), – A.K. Gorsky turns our attention to Wagner’s saying. From the point of view of the theory of complexity, possible senses of paradoxical poetic images become clear, such as, for instance, “the past is still ahead” (Marina Tsvetayeva), “the earlier depends on the later” (N. Hartmann), “remembrance of the future”. The future is here and now, it is something unrevealed in the present. The course of processes in the present depends on the attitudes and aims, on structure-attractors of evolution.

HIERARCHICAL SCALE OF LIVING BEINGS

The modern theory of complexity considers evolution of the world as an evolution of hierarchically subordinated media. It develops the notion of the Russian cosmists that “nature is an organic hierarchy of living creatures . . . The world is throughout a hierarchy of living creatures, original personalities which are capable of the creative increase of being” (Berdyayev, 1994, pp. 89, 143). The hierarchical scale includes both footsteps of the living nature and the lifeless nature. Evolution manifests itself as a creation more and more complex nonlinear media, which are capable to integrate an increasing amount of simple structures and to form more and more complex organization. Each new medium with new properties and new nonlinearities possesses its own spectrum of forms. By going up the stairs, acceleration of tempos of evolution occurs. Evolution is not only the creation of increasingly complex structures. By going up the footsteps of complexity from the inanimate nature to animate nature and from the living beings to a man, processes are “packed up” more closely, they contract and their course is accelerated. The path of evolutionary ascent is a path of creation of more and more complex integrated structures. This is the path of integration of multitude of structures into a comprehensive whole. The path of transformation of biosphere in noosphere, a sphere of collective mind is connected with the gradual “reconstruction of the whole biosphere in interests of freely thinking mankind as a united whole”(Vernadsky, 1993, p. 341). The theory of complexity discovers laws of nonlinear synthesis of structures, of their co-evolution. Co-evolution is per se “the art to live together”. To follow the rules of co-evolutions signifies to construct a preferable and sustainable future.

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An important task can be set: to define order parameters of evolution of states that determine a corridor of their sustainable co-evolution. General rules of co-evolution of complex social, economic and geopolitical structures on national, international and global scales, which arise from the methodological analysis of mathematical models, can be summarized in a form of the following key notions (Knyazeva and Kurdyumov, 2001, 2002): (a) it is a common tempo of development that is a key indicator of connection of complex structures into a single whole; (b) non-uniqueness and involuntariness of ways of assembling of a whole from parts; (c) structures-parts enter the whole not in an invariable form, they are transformed and became deformed in a certain way in accordance with the peculiarities of an emerging evolutionary whole; (d) for assemblage of a new complex structure, for re-crystallization of a medium, one need to create situation at the edge of chaos when small fluctuations are able to initiate a phase transition, to throw down the system in another state, and to set another course to the process of morphogenesis, another way of assembling of the complex whole. “The very nature of co-evolution is to attain the edge of chaos”(Solovyov, 1988, pp. 371, 372); (e) to make a dynamically evolving integral structure, a proper topology of combination of structures is of great importance; (f) in case of right, resonant unification of complex structures into the whole, a united super complex structure begins to develop at a higher rate (“it is profitable to live and to develop together”). Co-evolution is not simply a process of adjustment of parts to each other by formatting a complex whole, of their resonant positional relationship and of synchronization of tempos of development, but it is enactive cognition of the world by a human being, synergism of cognizing and constructing subject and of a medium surrounding him. This is also an interactive connection between human organizations and single individuals, the universal collaboration, complicity and solidarity, concerted efforts in construction and rebuilding of the world, and thereby of one’s own mentality. This is disclosure of universal affinity of all with everything and of mysterious connection between the past, the present and the future. Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES Berdyayev, N.A. 1994. Sense of creativity. In Philosophy of creativity, culture and art (in Russian). Moscow: Iskusstvo. Berdyayev, N.A. 1994. Philosophy of creativity, culture and art, vol. 1, 82 (in Russian). Moscow: Iskusstvo. Bulgakov, S.N. 1993. Philosophy of economy, vol. 1 (in Russian). Moscow: Nauka.


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Knyazeva, H. and Kurdyumov, S.P. 2001. Nonlinear synthesis and co-evolution of complex systems. In World futures, vol. 57, 239–261. Knyazeva, H. and Kurdyumov, S.P. 2002. Foundations of Synergetics. Sankt Petersburg: Aletheia. Muravyov, V.N. 1993. Universal productive mathematics. In Russian cosmism, 198 (in Russian). Moscow: Pedagogika-Press. Solovyov, V.S. 1988. Beauty in nature. In Works in 2 volumes, 372 (in Russian). Moscow: Mysl. Tsiolkovsky, K.E. 1993. Monism of the universe. In Russian cosmism (in Russian). Moscow: Pedagogika-Press. Vernadsky, V.I. 1988. The philosophical thoughts of naturalist. Moscow: Nauka. Vernadsky, V.I. 1993. The thoughts of naturalist about nature and man. In Russian cosmism (in Russian). Moscow: Pedagogika-Press.

JOSEPH SECKBACH AND

JULIAN CHELA-FLORES

ASTROBIOLOGY: FROM EXTREMOPHILES IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM TO EXTRATERRESTRIAL CIVILIZATIONS

ABSTRACT

Life on Earth is ubiquitous. Most of the organisms that we know thrive in normal environments that we consider to be ambient habitats. Extremophiles are among the microorganisms living on the edge of life under severe conditions. In recent years microorganisms have been discovered living in extreme environments, such as very high temperature (up to 115◦ C), and also at very low temperature (∼ minus 20◦ C). In addition, they can also withstand a variety of stresses, amongst them we mention both ends of the pH range; very strong acidity vs. high alkalinity; saturated salt solutions and high hydrostatic pressure. Astrobiology considers the possibility that extraterrestrial civilizations may be present in some exoplanets in the large suite that has been discovered so far. The instruments of research are radio telescopes. Astrobiology also raises the possibility of life elsewhere in the Solar System. (The most promising examples are Mars, Europa, and possibly Titan and Enceladus). We suggest that if microbial communities can thrive under extreme conditions on Earth, they could also emerge on extraterrestrial environments.

INTRODUCTION

We know that life exists on Earth in almost every ecological niche. One of the prerequisites for life is the availability of liquid water, sources of energy and a reasonable supply of organic molecules. From our experience with the Earth biota, wherever there is water, there is a good opportunity of finding living organisms. The search for extraterrestrial life is encouraged by a comparison between organisms living in severe environmental conditions on Earth and the physical and chemical conditions that exist on some Solar System bodies. The extremophiles that could tolerate more that one factor of harsh conditions are called polyextremophiles. There are unicellular and even multicellular organisms that are classified as hyperthermophiles (heat lovers), psychrophiles (cold lovers), halophiles (salt lovers), barophiles (living under high pressures), acidophiles (living in media of the lower scale of pH). At the other end of the pH scale they are called

Proceedings of “Astronomy and Civilization”, Budapest (August 2009).


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alkaliphiles (namely, microbes that live at the higher range of the pH scale). Thermoacidophilic microbes thrive in elevated thermo-environments with acidic levels that exist ubiquitously in hot acidic springs. Cyanidium caldarium, is a classical example of an acido-thermophilic red alga that thrives in places such as hot-springs (< 57◦ and in the range 0.2–4 pH). This algal group shows a higher growth rate (expressed as number of cells and higher oxygen production when cultured with a stream of pure CO2 , rather than when bubbled with a stream of air (Seckbach, 2010). It has been reported that Cyanidium cells resisted being submerged in sulfuric acid (1 N H2 SO4 ). This is a practical method for purifying cultures in the laboratory and eliminating other microbial contamination (Allen, 1959). The psychrophiles thrive in cold environments, such as within the territories found in the Siberian permafrost, around the North Pole in Arctic soils, and they may also grow in Antarctica. Barophilic microorganisms can tolerate a pressure of 1,000 atmospheres on the seafloor, while other barophilic microorganisms have been detected in the subsurface of dry land. In hypersaline areas (such as the Dead Sea, Israel) we find halophilic bacteria (Arahal et al., 1999) and algae that can balance the osmotic pressure of hypotonic external solutions (Oren, 1988). Chroococcidiopsis is one of the most primitive cyanobacterium known so far. This microbe survives in a wide range of extreme habitats that are hostile to most other forms of life. Chroococcidiopsis grows in hot springs, in hypersaline habitats, in a number of hot, arid deserts throughout the world, as well as in the frigid Ross Desert in Antarctica (Fewer et al., 2002). Recently, the segmented microscopic animals tardigrades, (0.1–1.5 mm) have been under investigations (Goldstein and Blaxter, 2002; Horikawa, 2008). These “water bears” are polyextremophilic, and are able to tolerate a temperature range from about 0◦ C up to + 151◦ C (much more that other known microbial prokaryotic extremophiles, Bertolani et al., 2004). But even low Earth orbit extreme temperatures are possible: tardigrades can survive being heated for a few minutes to 151◦ C, or being chilled for days at –200◦ C, or for a few minutes at –272◦ C, 1◦ warmer than absolute zero (Jönsson et al., 2008). These extraordinary temperatures were discovered by an ESA project of research into the fundamental physiology of the tardigrade, named TARDIS. Tardigrades are also known to resist high radiation, vacuum, and anhydrous condition for a decade in a dehydrated stage and can tolerate a pressure of up to 6,000 atmospheres. These aquatic creatures are ideal candidates for extraterrestrial life and for withstanding long periods in space. They have already been used in space and have survived such stress. For further information see in Google the images of this animal (http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade), and in Tardigrade - New World Encyclopedia (http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Tardigrada). Several chapters dealing with relevant topics as this paper have been published in the Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology series www.springer.com/series/5775

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SOME MICROBES MAY BE DORMANT FOR LONG PERIODS IN HARSH CONDITIONS

Some microorganisms live in desiccation conditions (in dormant stage and at minimum metabolic rates). In such circumstances, these microbes, or their spores, could last in a dormant stage for millions of years before being revived. Recently, researchers have breathed new life into bacteria trapped deep under glacial ice in Greenland for over 120,000 years. In addition, scientists found an ancient ecosystem below the “Blood Falls” in an Antarctic glacier (Mikucki and Priscu, 2007; Mikucki, et al., 2009). It was determined that this community had survived millions of years in a salty pool without light or oxygen. Grom (2009) decribes the phenomenon as follows: Scientists have found life in an ecosystem trapped underneath a glacier in Antarctica for nearly 2 million years. The microbes, they suggest, are surviving the dark, oxygen-free waters by drawing energy from sulfur and iron. The findings provide insight into how life may have survived “Snowball Earth” – periods when some scientists speculate that the planet was entombed in ice – and hint at the possibility of life in other inhospitable environments, such as Mars and Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

Among the biological samples, there was a diversity of bacteria that thrive in cold, salty water loaded with iron and sulfur. The water averages –10◦ C (the high salt concentration prevents the water from freezing). These bacterial cells convert iron and sulfur into their nourishment (chemosynthesis). The fact that life can thrive in one of the most extreme environments on Earth, supports the hypothesis that it has emerged in extraterrestrial ecosystems as well. Cano and Borucki (1995) reported the revival and identification of bacterial spores within the intact body of a bee that was trapped in amber for 25–40 million years. Vreeland et al. (2000) have claimed to reawaken bacteria from spores inside a 250 million-year-old salt crystal. There has been some controversy regarding these ancient extant bacteria (Nickle et al., 2002; Oard, 2001), or whether they may represent the most ancient life forms on Earth (Hoyle, 2001). Other authors await confirmation of the Vreeland et al. results in different salt deposits (Adam, 2000).

ASTROBIOLOGY

Does life exist beyond our planet and, if so, is it comparable to what we know here on Earth? These are some of the most fascinating questions facing science today, particularly astrobiology, the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and destiny of life in the universe. Three strategies have been devised for the search for extraterrestrial life: firstly, the study of the cellular makeup of exotic organisms on Earth; secondly, the search for organic matter and living micro-organisms beyond Earth; and last but not least, the use of radio telescopes to detect signals of intelligent behavior in the universe. The first strategy has focused on understanding

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how life began on Earth. Research has shown exotic organisms living in inhospitable environments, such as the seafloor, the Antarctic glacial sheets and volcanic lava streams – all of which display temperatures and pressures that may have been present during the process of the Earth’s evolution. Perhaps one of the most unexpected recent discoveries has been that there are underground ecosystems, which to a large extent are independent of sunlight, extending our old concept of what was a habitable zone in a given solar system. Research into our own origins not only broadens our appreciation of the ability of extremophiles to conquer every accessible niche (cf., Part I), but such investigation also helps us understand the environmental extremes tolerated by simple organisms. The second strategy for deciding if we are not alone in the universe is a search for the simplest forms of organic matter – amino acids or proteins – that may be embedded in ancient rocks of planets, comets or meteorites, or even suspended in interstellar clouds. The search has focused elsewhere in the Solar System: Mars, Europa (a moon of Jupiter), and Titan and Enceladus (satellites of Saturn). The discovery of meteorites from Mars suggests that all the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, the Earth, the Moon and Mars) at one stage in the past may have been in biological intercourse. There is compelling evidence that liquid water has flowed in the geologically recent past on Mars (or may even be flowing now). The third strategy used in the search of life beyond Earth is the most relevant one to the subject matter of the present book. It relies on radio telescopes such as the huge one at the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center in Arecibo, USA. These “dishes” actually have two roles to play: first and foremost, they help to examine wavelengths that cannot be seen by the human eye; for example, radio waves and microwaves. Such information has proven to be essential for understanding the movement and behavior of planets and stars. Secondly, radio telescopes also seek anomalies in microwaves and radio waves wafting across the universe. Such anomalies may represent the imprint of intelligent life. Thus far astronomers have been scanning the radio and microwave spectrum for almost half a century with no reliable signal yet from an extraterrestrial civilization. But this initial difficulty does not imply that the initiative is likely to be abandoned (Ekers et al., 2002).

IS EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE A POSSIBILITY THAT CAN BE TESTED?

Data and photographs transmitted by the Voyagers revealed previously unknown details about each of the giant planets and their moons. Close-up images from the spacecraft uncovered a variety of phenomena in the Jupiter system: most surprising amongst them is the volcanic activity on Io, one of its so-called Galilean satellites. Amongst the Voyager discoveries one of the most significant was the icy surface of the Jovian satellite Europa. The excitement surrounding Europa is due to the subsequent Galileo mission (1995–2003). This mission has changed the way we look at the Solar System and especially Europa (and even to the possibility of exomoons that may be inhabitable). This mission was the first to conduct long-term

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observations of the Jovian system from orbit. It found evidence of subsurface saltwater on Europa, Ganymede and Callisto and further revealed the intensity of volcanic activity on Io. From the similarity of the processes that gave rise to planets and satellites, we may expect that hot springs may lie at the bottom of the ocean triggered by tidal stresses and radiogenic energy. It has been assumed in the past that Jupiter’s proto-nebula must have contained many organic compounds. Organisms similar to thermophiles could possibly exist at the bottom of Europa’s ocean. However, given the incomplete understanding of the evolution of early life on Earth, at present we should allow for the possibility that microorganisms are a possible Europan biota (cf., Section 4.2). We may add that up to the present time we do not fully understand the evolution of the earliest ancestor of all life on Earth. Indeed, plate tectonics has obliterated fossils of the early organisms from the crust of the Earth, which would constitute the only record of the evolution of early life. Testing whether life is extant on the icy satellites of the Outer Solar System depends on the choice of the right instrumentation. The British Penetrator Consortium is developing an attractive possibility. Penetrators are being developed for preliminary trials on our own Moon. The MoonLITE mission is a proposed, UK-led lunar science mission comprising four scientific penetrators that will make in-situ measurements at widely separated locations on the Moon with a suite of scientific instruments that will perform a variety of measurements on the lunar surface. There is a related proposal for ESA, under the name of LunarEX (Smith et al., 2008), consisting of small projectiles that can be delivered at high velocity to reach just beneath the surface of satellites for probing samples of surficial chemical elements. They are appropriate for in-situ chemical laboratories. Eventually, these instruments could be tested on the icy surface of Europa and Ganymede in our next visit to the Jovian System (cf., Section 4.2). MARS The present view on the surface of Mars shows that Mars in the past was wet and warmer than today. There photos show several contours of water bodies carved in the surface, such as tunnels, deep rivers, lakes, canyons, and other structures where water used to run. Therefore, our nearest-neighbor planet is a candidate for having supported life in the past. We cannot exclude its presence in some isolated environments. The possibility of extending the biosphere deep into the silicate crust in another terrestrial planet deserves special attention. The emergence of life on Mars is pertinent to astrobiology, since we cannot exclude the analogy with organisms that have been found to inhabit deep in the silicate crust of the Earth. Such microbes may have been deposited with the original sediment. Life, in these conditions may have evolved during an early “clement period” that may have occurred contemporary with our own Early Archean: the Noachian Epoch, or Early Hesperian in Mars stratigraphy, according to the standard terminology (Sleep, 1994). Possible candidates for sites in which life may have evolved are located in the Tharsis region located on Mars’ equator, at the western end of Valles Marineris, where volcanic

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activity has taken place since, by analogy with the Earth, the heat from underground magma may have produced hot springs, which are known to be possible sources of hyperthermophilic microorganisms (cf., Parts I and II). Knowledge of these possible locations raises the question whether life may have survived till the present confined to regions where pockets of liquid water may occur. In the short term the Mars missions that are being planned now will add valuable insights as to the possibility of extant, or extinct life on Mars. For instance, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), a NASA rover is expected to be launched in 2011. The MSL rover will include instruments for the analysis of soil samples. It will also investigate the past or present ability of Mars to support microbial life. On the other hand, ExoMars (Exobiology in Mars) is planned for 2018. This will be collaboration between ESA and NASA. A robotic rover will be sent to the surface of Mars. It will deploy a rover carrying analytical instruments dedicated astrobiology and geology. The ExoMars spacecraft will consist of an orbiter, the carrier module. The rover itself will carry a scientific payload. One of its aims is to search for possible biosignatures of Martian life, past or present. Especially significant will be the European orbiter, whose aim includes tracking down sources of methane that have been detected in the past (Lefèvre and Forget, 2009). Confirming the presence of methane is a high priority; nevertheless, an abiogenic origin is thought to be equally plausible (Atreya et al., 2007). EUROPA The Galileo Space Mission (1995–2003) has provided ample evidence for an ocean on Europa underneath its frozen icy surface. One of the primary goals of astrobiology is to determine whether life ever existed in places other than the Earth and, if so, what were the environmental conditions that made it possible. The discovery of an independent life form, a separate tree of life from our own on Europa, would not only be fascinating in its own right, but it would shed revealing light on the microbes that inhabited the Earth more than 4 billion years ago, when higher temperatures were common and the continual bombardment of meteorites and comets made the surface of the Earth a hostile environment. From the point of view of the possibility of the existence of life on Europa, we should consider a lake called Vostok (Karl et al., 1999), which is the largest of about 80 subglacial lakes in Antarctica. Its surface is of approximately 14,000 km2 and its volume is 1,800 km3 . Indeed this Ontario-sized lake in Eastern Antarctica is also deep, with a maximum depth of 670 m. On the other hand, from the point of view of microbiology, the habitat-analogue provided by Lake Vostok for the Europa environment seems appropriate. Lake Vostok appears to be harboring hydrothermal vents beneath the water surface. This is suggestive of what may be occurring on Europa. The circulation of pure water in Lake Vostok will be driven by the differences between the density of meltwater and lake water. Geothermal heating will warm the bottom water to a temperature higher than that of the upper layers. The water density will decrease with increasing temperature resulting in an unstable water column. This leads to vertical convective circulation in the lake, in which

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cold meltwater sinks down the water column and water warmed by geothermal heat ascends up the water column (Siegert et al., 2001). Similarly, Europa may also have geothermally-heated warm water under its ice-crust. Processes of the type that occur in Lake Vostok may be taking place on Europa, where biogenic sulfur may be reaching the surface (Singer, 2003). Early discussions considered the possibility exploring Europa’s habitability in terms of direct use of a submersible called a hydrobot (Horvath et al., 1997). This question is still relevant a decade later, in terms of new NASA tests of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) called ENDURANCE for the Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets (ASTEP) program (Doran et al., 2007), a worthy successor of our cryobot-hydrobot early planning. In relation with the distribution and destiny of life in the universe we have argued that if the experiments on evolution were to be successful, the science of the distribution of life in the universe would lie on solid scientific bases, for instance, direct verification of whether the transition prokaryote-eukaryote has taken place within the Solar System bodies (Chela-Flores, 1998, 2000). Beyond Galileo a return to the Jupiter System is being considered in the next decade with the Europa Jupiter System Mission (EJSM), a worldwide collaboration that will point mainly on Europa and Ganymede, the largest satellite in the Solar System. The mission consists of two flight elements operating in the Jovian system: the NASA-led Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO), and the ESA-led Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter (JGO). JEO and JGO will explore Europa and Ganymede, respectively (Grassett et al., 2009). Possible biomarkers accessible to EJSM have been discussed recently (Chela-Flores and Kumar, 2008). IS HABITABILITY POSSIBLE ELSEWHERE? Titan is a potential cradle for life. After the early successes of the Cassini-Huygens Mission, many interesting questions have been raised, including the source of methane, and possible ammonia-water ocean, inside this large satellite that resembles the Archaean Earth in some respects. For instance, Titan has a nitrogen atmosphere, and so does the Earth, including its atmosphere before life. Titan has organics that are almost certainly supplied in the absence of life. Not all the Earth’s prebiotic ingredients are present on Titan though, because the Earth probably had CO2 unlike Titan (Coustenis and Taylor, 2008). Other reasons for focusing on Enceladus is that Cassini flew within 175 km in 2005 confirming the presence of an atmosphere: their instruments found that the atmosphere contains water vapor comprising up to about 65%, with molecular hydrogen at about 20%. The rest is mostly carbon dioxide and some combination of molecular nitrogen and carbon monoxide. Another Cassini instrument showed that the south pole is warmer than near the equator. The poles should be colder because the Sun shines so obliquely there. However, in small areas of the pole, concentrated near the fractures known as the “tiger stripes”, the temperatures can reach temperatures of well under –110 K (–261 F). This should be compared with the equatorial temperature of approximately 80 K.

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Cassini has also confirmed that icy jets shooting up to 500 km are ejected from Enceladus, a tiny satellite of Saturn. The presence of liquid water in its interior raises this moon to a prime candidate for the search for life. Saturn’s moon Enceladus emits plumes of water vapour and ice particles from fractures near its south pole, suggesting the possibility of a subsurface ocean. The water plumes could be caused by a liquid ocean many kilometres underground, rather than by geysers erupting from a salty ocean just beneath the moon’s surface (Postberg et al., 2009). CONCLUSIONS

All the above facts serve to encourage us to intensify our search for life on Earth’s closest neighbors (terrestrial planets and satellites in the Outer Solar System). Further investigations, and especially the forthcoming missions to Europa and the various missions to Mars, will shed additional light on the potential extraterrestrial life on or inside Mars and Europa. A central role would be played by appropriately chosen instrumentation and we have described the high hopes that penetrators promise to yield in our search for life in Solar System exploration. We conclude that if life can thrive in some of the most extreme environments on earth, perhaps it can meet the challenges of existing elsewhere in the Solar System, including a europan biota under its icy surface sustained by chemosynthesis on hydrothermal vents at the seafloor. Acknowledgment The senior author (JS) thanks the Israeli and Hungarian Academies of Sciences and Humanities for their kindly support towards and during the conference of Astronomy and Civilization in Budapest (Aug. 2009).

Hebrew university of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES Adam D. 2000. Hardcore hibernation. Published online. Nature 19 October. doi:10.1038/news001019-9. Allen, M.B. 1959. Studies with Cyanidium caldarium, an anomalously pigmented chlorophyte. Arch Mikrobiol Berlin, Heidelberg 32: 270–277. Arahal, D.R., M.C. Marquex, B.E. Volcani, K.H. Schleifer, and A. Ventosa. 1999. Bacillus marismortui sp. nov., a new moderately halophilic species from the Dead Sea. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 49: 521–530. Atreya, S.K., P.R. Mahaffy, and A.S. Wong. 2007. Methane and related trace species on Mars: Origin, loss, implications for life, and habitability. Planetary and Space Science 55: 358–369. Bertolani, R., R. Guidetti, K.I. Jönsson, T. Altiero, D. Boschini, and L. Rebecchi. 2004. Experiences with dormancy in tardigrades. Journal of Limnology 63(Suppl 1): 16–25. Cano, R., and M. Borucki. 1995. Revival and identification of bacterial spores in 25 to 40 million year old Dominican amber. Science 268: 1060–1064. Chela-Flores, J. 1998. A search for extraterrestrial eukaryotes: Physical and biochemical aspects of exobiology. Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 28: 583–596. http://www.ictp.trieste. it/∼chelaf/searching_for_extraterr.html Chela-Flores, J. 2000. Testing the Drake Equation in the solar system. In A new era in astronomy, eds. G.A. Lemarchand and K. Meech, vol. 213, 402–410, ASP Conference Series. Genentech: San Francisco. http://www.ictp.trieste.it/∼chelaf/TestingDrakeEq.html

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Chela-Flores, J., and N. Kumar. 2008. Returning to Europa: Can traces of surficial life be detected? International Journal of Astrobiology 7(3): 263–269 (copyright holder: Cambridge University Press). http://www.ictp.it/∼chelaf/JCFKumar.pdf Coustenis, A., and F.W Taylor. 2008. Titan exploring an earthlike world. 2nd ed. Singapore: WSP, 412 pp. Doran, P.T., W. Stone, J. Priscu, C. McKay, A. Johnson, and B. Chen. 2007. Environmentally nondisturbing under-ice robotic Antarctic explorer (ENDURANCE). American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting, abstract #P52A-05. Ekers, R.D., D. Kent Cullers, J. Billingham, and L.K. Scheffer. 2002, SETI 2020: A roadmap for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Mountain View: SETI Press, 549 pp. Fewer, D., T. Friedl and B. Büdel. 2002. Chroococcidiopsis and heterocyst differentiating cyanobacteria are each others closest living relatives. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 23: 82–90. Goldstein, B., and M. Blaxter. 2002. Quick guide: Tardigrades. Current Biology 12: R475. Grasset, O., J.-P. Lebreton, M. Blanc, M. Dougherty, C. Erd, R. Greeley, B. 2009. Pappalardo and the joint science definition team, “The Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter as part of the ESA/NASA Europa jupiter system mission (EJSM),” EPSC Abstracts 4: EPSC2009-784, European Planetary Science Congress, Rome. Grom, J. 2009 Ancient ecosystem discovered beneath Antarctic glacier. Science Now. Daily News, 16 April. Horikawa, D.D. 2008. The Tradigrade Ramazzottium varieornatus as a model animal for Astrobiological studies. Biological Sciences in Space 22(3): 93–98. Horvath, J., F. Carsey, J. Cutts, J. Jones, E. Johnson, B., Landry, L. Lane, G. Lynch, J. Chela-Flores, T.-W. Jeng, and A. Bradley. 1997. Searching for ice and ocean biogenic activity on Europa and Earth. In Instruments, methods and missions for investigation of extraterrestrial microorganisms, ed. R.B. Hoover, 490–500. SPIE Proceedings, 3111, San Diego. http://www.ictp.it/∼chelaf/searching_for_ice.html Hoyle, B. 2001. Ancient bacteria may be oldest life form. American Society for Microbiology News 67. http://newsarchive.asm.org/jan01/topic4.asp. Jönsson, K.I., E. Rabbow, R.O. Schill, M. Harms-Ringdahl, and P. Rettberg. 2008. Tardigrades survive exposure to space in low Earth orbit. Current Biology 18: R729–R731. Karl, D.M., D.F. Bird, K. Björkman, T. Houlihan, R. Shackelford, and L. Tupas. 1999. Microorganisms in the accreted ice of Lake Vostok, Antarctica. Science 286: 2144–2147. Lefèvre, F., and F. Forget. 2009. Observed variations of methane on Mars unexplained by known atmospheric chemistry and physics. Nature 460: 720–723. Mikucki, J.A., and J.C. Priscu. 2007. Bacterial diversity associated with Blood Falls, a subglacial outflow from the Taylor Glacier, Antarctica. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 73: 4029–4039. Mikucki, J.A., A. Pearson, D.T. Johnston, A.V. Turchyn, J. Farquhar, D.P. Schrag, A.D. Anbar, J.C. Priscu, and P.A. Lee. 2009. A contemporary microbially maintained subglacial ferrous ‘ocean’. Science 324: 397–400. Nickle, D.C., G.H. Learn, M.W. Rain, J.I. Mullins, and J.E. Mittler. 2002. Curiously modern DNA for a ‘250 Million-Year-Old’ bacterium. Journal of Molecular Evolution 54: 134–137. Oard, M.J. 2001. Aren’t 250 million year old live bacteria a bit much? Creation Ministries International, Article 2415. Oren, A. 1988. The microbial ecology of the Dead Sea. In Advances in microbial ecology, ed. K.C. Marshall, vol. 10, 193–229. New York: Plenum Publishing Company. Postberg, F., S. Kempf, J. Schmidt, N. Brilliantov, A. Beinsen, B. Abel, U. Buck, and R. Srama. 2009. Sodium salts in E-ring ice grains from an ocean below the surface of Enceladus. Nature 459: 1098– 1101. Seckbach, J. 2010. Overview of Cyanidian biology. In Red algae in genome age, eds. J. Seckbach and D. Chapman. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 343–354. Siegert, M.J., J.C. Ellis-Evans, M. Tranter, C. Mayer, J. Petit, A. Salamantin, and J.C. Priscu. 2001. Physical, chemical and biological processes in Lake Vostok and other Antarctic subglacial lakes. Nature (London) 414: 603–609. Singer, E. 2003. Vital clues from Europa. New Scientist Magazine 2414: 22–23. http://www.ictp. it/∼chelaf/VitalClues.pdf

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Sleep, N.H. 1994. Martian plate tectonics. Journal of Geophysical Research 99: 5639–5655. Smith, A., I.A. Crawford, R.A. Gowen, A.J. Ball, S.J. Barber, P. Church, A.J. Coates, Y. Gao, A.D. Griffiths, A. Hagermann, K.H. Joy, A. Phipps, W.T. Pike, R. Scott, S. Sheridan, M. Sweeting, D. Talboys, V. Tong, N. Wells, J. Biele, J. Chela-Flores, B. Dabrowski, J. Flannagan, M. Grande, J. Grygorczuk, G. Kargl, O.B. Khavroshkin, G. Klingelhoefer, M. Knapmeyer, W. Marczewski, S. McKenna-Lawlor, L. Richter, D.A. Rothery, K. Seweryn, S. Ulamec, R. Wawrzaszek, M. Wieczorek, I.P. Wright, and M. Sims. 2008. LunarEX – A proposal to CosmicVision. Experimental Astronomy. 10.1007/s10686-008-9109-6. http://www.ictp.it/∼chelaf/Penetrator.pdf Vreeland, R.H., W.D. Rosenzweig, and D.W. Powers. 2000. Isolation of a 250 million-year-old halotolerant bacterium from a primary salt crystal. Nature 470: 1075–1077.

SECTION V THE WORLD OF LIFE, ASTRONOMY AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT History of Astronomy, Social Sciences

NICHOLAS CAMPION

ASTRONOMY AND THE SOUL

ABSTRACT

Astronomers today talk of the visual awe of the night sky as both a motive for their love of the subject and an explanation for astronomy’s origins. In other words, the sight of the stars can have a psychological effect, exciting the imagination and stimulating the emotions. This talk will examine classical and medieval notions of the connection between consciousness and the stars through concepts of the psyche – or soul – developed by Plato and Aristotle and influential in Medieval and Renaissance astronomy. It will consider the consequences of such ideas for western astronomy up to the seventeenth century. This being international year of astronomy, I am exploring Galileo’s role as one of the last astronomers in this tradition. The history of astronomy tends, for perfectly good reasons, to be dominated by developments in mathematics and technology, by our ability first to measure the location of celestial bodies and then, more recently, to understand their structure and composition. Our understanding of the history of astronomy therefore ends to exclude certain wider cultural issues, such as the sometimes close connection between astronomical, philosophical, religious and political ideas. It is my contention that, by looking at astronomy’s wider relationship with culture and civilisation in the past, we can enhance our understanding of its role in the present. In this paper I will examine one aspect of classical and medieval astronomical thought, the relationship between astronomy and theories of the soul. In so doing I will coin the phrase “psychological astronomy”. We can approach the relationship between astronomy and psychology from two perspectives. First is the capacity of the stars to inspire awe, wisdom, poetry and spiritual enlightenment. Second is the tradition, emerging from classical philosophy, that the celestial and psychological realms are actually connected. As far as the first is concerned, we have plenty of evidence also from classical philosophy. The Athenian philosopher Plato (428/427–348/347 BCE) wrote “we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him, is to become holy, just, and wise”.1 In the second century CE the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, who was deeply influenced by Plato gave the following remedy for world-weariness: “Survey the circling stars as though yourself were in mid-course with them. Often picture the changing and re-changing dance of the elements. Visions of this kind purge away the dross of our earth-bound life”.2 One’s soul, the emperor believed, could be cleansed

Paper presented at the conference on Astronomy and Civilisation, Budapest, 10–13 August 2009


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by an imaginative union with the stars. There is a actually an entire school of thought which holds that the visual wonder of the heavens, lies at the origin of all astronomy (Pannekoek, 1961, pp. 19–20). However, it is with the second, the belief that the celestial and psychological realms are actually connected, that I am concerned in this paper. The International Year of Astronomy has rightly focused our attention on the consequences of Galileo’s work, his role in the foundation of modern physics and the dramatic implications for astronomy of the publication of his telescopic observations in the Sidereus Nuncius. Galileo has a right to be considered the single most important figure in the creation of the modern world; more so, I would argue, than Charles Darwin, who we are also commemorating this year. As a historian, my interest in Galileo concerns not just his impact on future ways of thinking, but with the intellectual milieu from which he emerged. He was the seminal figure in a liminal moment in western civilisation, standing on the boundary between medieval and modern worlds. Galileo, though, did not come into the world as the founder of modern observational astronomy. In 1564, when he was born, the dominant views of the cosmos were derived from either classical philosophy or scripture, both of which shared, to one degree or another, the belief that psyche, or soul, was an important part of the structure of the universe. I wish to consider Galileo’s relationship with this world. I am concerned with Galileo as a conservative rather than a revolutionary. Yet, as we shall see, his revolutionary challenge to the existing world view may have found some support in his very conservatism. It is well known that Galileo was slow to abandon Ptolemaic geocentrism, taking a more cautious view than his close friend Johannes Kepler, only coming round to Copericanism in 1597. I wish to take as my cue for this paper Galileo’s interest in another facet of Ptolemy’s astronomy, which I am designating “psychological”, as opposed to say the “theoretical” astronomy which characterised Medieval practice, and the “observational” astronomy which resulted from the invention of the telescope. In terms of an understanding of astronomy’s role in civilisation, the function of such a “psychological” astronomy has been largely overlooked. Yet it’s clear that it was a part of the Ptolemaic cannon, which still dominated astronomical ideas in the sixteenth century. Notably, Ptolemy divided the work of the astronomer into two phases: the first was concerned with the measurement of celestial positions, the second with the measurement of their effects (Ptolemy, 1940). Those effects might be felt in the natural world but also in the psychological, the realm of the soul. It is clear that Galileo was interested in Ptolemy’s psychological astronomy, at least early in his career. We know this from his account of planetary positions at his daughters’ births, an incident briefly discussed by Sobel (1999, pp. 29–30). Here is Gailileo’s account of his daughter Virginia’s character: To start with, Mercury and the Moon are in separate places, sharing no aspect but having a certain discord, and this denotes a jarring between the rational and sensitive powers of the soul.3

Galileo, then, employed a form of psychological astronomy in which Mercury ruled the rational part of the soul and the Moon the “sensitive”. By sensitive in this context is meant the physical, the instincts and desires, and the power of bodily


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senses to stir up the mind. It seems that Galileo’s prime source in this respect was Ptolemy. If we turn to Ptolemy we find the following statement: Of the qualities of the soul, those which concern the reason and the mind are apprehended by means of the condition of Mercury . . . and the qualities of the sensory and irrational part are discovered from the one of the luminaries which is the more corporeal, that is, the moon (Ptolemy, 1940).

It is clear, then, that Galileo was relying on Ptolemy for his division of the soul into two parts, one rational and Mercurial, the other sensitive and lunar. To gain a clearer view of Galileo’s philosophical inclinations, at least early in his life, we therefore need to locate Ptolemy’s own theoretical astronomy in previous classical cosmology.4 All the schools of Classical and Hellenistic Greek cosmology assumed the existence of soul as the animating force in the cosmos, without which life would not exist. The major schools with which I am concerned, the Platonists, Aristotelians and Stoics, had different concepts of the soul’s nature and function, but all agreed that soul permeated all things in the cosmos and enabled human beings to move, experience emotions, and think rationally. Such ideas were highly influential in later European astronomy – Aristotle’s from the twelfth century onwards and Plato’s from the fifteenth. The best summary of all the different varieties of soul was composed by the third century philosopher, Iamblichus, who makes it clear that the concept of psyche had been an integral part of mainstream Greek cosmology since at least the sixth century BCE.5 The most substantial extant ancient discussions on the nature of soul in western literature are found in the extensive writings of the classical philosophers Plato (428/427–348/347 BCE) and Aristotle (384 BC–322 BC).6 It is their philosophies which I shall examine. Ideas that the soul might be immortal and undertake a journey to the stars are evident in Egyptian thought, and occur in Greece amongst the Orphics, perhaps from the sixth century BCE onwards, possibly earlier.7 The concept finds its fullest expression in Plato’s psychological theory – his view on the nature and function of psyche – which, in turn needs to be understood in terms of his theory of the soul’s origin in the stars and classification into different functions. As Bartel van der Waerden argued, Plato’s theory of soul takes us to the heart of the development of this particular feature of Greek astronomy: “The soul comes from the heavens”, he wrote, “where it partook of the circulation of the stars. It unites itself with a body and forms with it a living being. This explains how human character comes to be determined by the heavens”.8 Each soul, Plato wrote in Timaeus, has its own star.9 He was, of course, speaking metaphorically but, in his view, metaphor was sometimes the best means of revealing truth. Plato set out his theory of the soul’s origin in the stars in Timaeus and elaborated it in the Republic in his famous Myth of Er, in which the precise mechanics of the soul’s incarnation into human form were set out.10 The Myth tells of the soul of a soldier by the name of Er, who witnessed the means by which the soul selects a possible life and then descends through the planetary spheres to the Earth, a process during which the soul’s future life is spun into a web of fate. From the cosmogony which is so carefully set out in Timaeus, we can draw two significant conclusions.

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The first is that soul pervades the entire cosmos. The second is that soul takes priority over matter. Plato was most emphatic on this point. “God”, he wrote, “constructed Soul to be older than Body and prior in birth and excellence, since she was to be the mistress and ruler”.11 “Soul”, he wrote in Phaedrus, “has the care of all that is soulless”.12 It exists independently of body and may incarnate – or may not. The Cosmos, for Plato, was a “Living Creature endowed with soul and reason owing to the Providence of God”.13 The concept of the entire universe as alive and resting in soul, or psyche, also enabled Plato to see the cosmos as psychological in the modern sense, as having personality, driven by manners, habits, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains and fears14 . Plato’s ideas on the soul evolved throughout his various writings. However, as with his cosmology, we can generalise. The divine unfolded in stages, first through soul and mind, and finally through its self-realisation in physical form. Human beings, Plato believed, consisted of four different parts; on the one hand, the body and, on the other a soul divided into three. In Phaedrus Plato attributed this threefold structure to Socrates and represented it metaphorically as a charioteer and his two horses.15 The highest part, as he explained in Timaeus, was the charioteer himself, the rational soul, mind or intellect, which discerns what is true, judges what is real and makes rational decisions.16 Next was the spirited soul, the active part, the will, whose function was to carry out what reason has decided. Last, and lowest, was the appetitive soul, the seat of emotion and desire, which needed to be restrained by the higher, rational, soul if the individual was to be saved from self-destructive behaviour. This was a matter not just of personal welfare but of great political significance. Again, without making any statements of detail, Plato argued that, in general, if the body and all three parts of the soul are balanced in each individual, then even the state itself will function smoothly.17 Plato delighted in setting out general principles, leaving his followers to struggle over the detail. So it was that his musings on the soul, stars and the question of incarnation led him to a profound concern with the whole question of what he called “better” and “worse” births. He believed that children born at the appropriate season and phase of the planetary cycles would be “better” and more likely to grow into upright, virtuous citizens. He even hinted that it would actually be possible to breed such people, an aspiration which could be achieved if couples married, and hence conceived their children, at the right time.18 Those children who were born at “worse” times would be more likely to grow into selfish, decadent adults and, as their number grew, society would slip into terminal decline. However, Plato never specified when children should be born and when they shouldn’t. He set out a theoretical framework, but made no steps to elaborate it. The details were left to those of his successors amongst the Hellenistic philosophers, including Ptolemy, to work out. In Galileo’s view, following Plato, his daughter Virginia’s awkward character was quite clearly the result of birth at a “worse” time. The question, then, of the relationship between the soul and nature, in Plato’s works contained one major uncertainty. This was as follows. While soul in general was more powerful than matter, nature as a whole was dependent on soul. Therefore, those base feelings and desires, the functions of the lower souls, of which


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Plato was so suspicious, seemed on the one hand to be products of soul but, on the other, might overwhelm the rational soul, that higher faculty on which one’s eternal life and future incarnations depended. The soul, in a sense, was at war with itself. Galileo, who would have been well aware of Platonic notions of the soul through their widespread circulation in Renaissance Italy, as well as familiar with Ptolemy, would have understood the notion that, psychologically, Virginia was at war with herself. Aristotle’s theories of soul are no less simple to disentangle than Plato’s, although most scholars regard them as contrasting with each other, and modern views of both philosophers’ work tends to make much of the difference between their competing views of nature. This contrast been such a part of accepted wisdom for so long that both philosophers’ works tend to be read in terms of the differences between them rather than the similarities. The major difference, as Aristotle makes clear in Book I of De Anima, is that there is no world-soul: the entire cosmos is not infused with psyche as a primary substance. However, when we come to the individual soul, certain similarities between Plato and Aristotle are evident. The Aristotelian soul, like the Platonic, is a kind of animating force, without which the natural world could not operate. “Soul”, Aristotle wrote, “is substance in the sense of being the form of a natural body, which potentially has life. And substance in this sense is actuality. The soul, then, is the actuality of the kind of body we have described”.19 That is, it is soul, exactly as in the Platonic sense, which allows matter to live and turns human beings into individuals. Soul is the “cause” of the body, and so, in a sense, has priority over it.20 Like Plato, Aristotle also employed a tripartite division of the soul into three levels, which were arranged hierarchically, in ascending order from the lowest, the “nutritive” (possessed by plants, animals and people), to the sensitive (possessed by animals and people, but not plants) and, finally, the highest, the intellectual (possessed by people alone).21 Aristotle’s descriptions of the lower two souls differ slightly from Plato’s equivalents. For example, Aristotle’s sensitive soul is that which allows individuals to use their senses, such as sight and touch, and cope with the desires, pains and pleasures which the senses arouse. The sensitive soul has to deal with the consequences of physical desire. Although, unlike Plato, Aristotle did not relate the soul explicitly to the stars, he did presuppose a world in which the entire terrestrial realm is connected to the celestial spheres and the soul-star connection is therefore implicit.22 In Platonic theory too, if there are no rigid separating points between humanity and the cosmos, then humanity contains both the same substance as the rest of the cosmos, including the stars, and a small part of divinity itself.23 For Aristotle, the soul’s relationship with celestial motions was not explicit, but it was implicit: the soul is moved by the heavens. Aristotle rejected the concept of the world soul in the terms in which Plato had presented it, as a living entity, but his logic required that, if all things in the cosmos were linked to all other things, life could not be confined to the Earth. “The fact is” he wrote, “that we are inclined to think of the stars as mere bodies or units, occurring in a certain order but completely lifeless; whereas we ought to think of them as partaking of life and initiative. Once we do this, the events will no longer be surprising”.24 The cosmos, therefore was alive

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and purposeful. Moreover, with the exception of a fragment of the intellectual soul, the “agent” or “active” intellect, the Aristotelian soul was entirely embedded in the material world.25 The Aristotelian naturalistic perspective was adapted and emphasised by the Stoics, founded by Zeno of Citium (c.334-262 BCE). Zeno shared much with Plato, in particular the concept of an intelligent, reasoning cosmos. However, whereas Plato insisted that psyche, as intangible consciousness, was the source of the material world, Zeno insisted that matter was the origin of everything. Even “voice”, he claimed, was a “body”.26 Zeno’s concept of the soul therefore shared much with Aristotle’s. His work on the soul is lost but we have an account of his ideas from the summary by Diogenes Laertius in the third/fourth centuries CE. “They believe”, Diogenes wrote of the Stoics, “that . . . soul is a nature capable of sense-perception. And this soul is the inborn pneuma in us . . . by this means we live and breathe and by this we are moved”.27 Ptolemy, as Robbins noted, appears to have been deeply attracted to Aristotle’s philosophical naturalism.28 He also seems to have absorbed Stoic influences, which can only have deepened his sense that the natural world provided a home for psyche, rather than the other way round. Ptolemy’s preferred model of the soul appears to have been Plato’s standard three-fold division arranged in hierarchical order as rational, emotional and “cupidinous”.29 His discussion is too brief for us to ascertain whether he also considered Aristotle’s three faculties of soul. In either case he would have believed that self-control of the lower two parts of the soul was necessary if the rational-intellectual part was to achieve its full potential. Planetary associations with psychological qualities are not original to Ptolemy and can be traced to the Corpus Hermeticum, composed in the second century CE, in Hellenistic Egypt.30 However, whereas the Corpus Hermeticum’s concern was with the soul’s use of the stars to escape from nature, Ptolemy’s purpose was to describe the soul’s life within nature. The natural world was something to accept gracefully, not an arena of suffering from which to escape. In the Harmonics Ptolemy used the Platonic-Aristotelian division of the soul into three and divided the rational soul into seven qualities all of which are varieties of sharp, critical thinking, experience and wisdom, in a clear, but undefined, analogy with the planets, which are not mentioned explicitly.31 The soul was then embedded, in Pythagorean style, in a series of mathematical formulae and musical scales related to the zodiac signs and planets. The rising of Mercury and Venus, for example, related to a particular sound, a harmony which, if one could hear it, would represent the perfect contemplation of the divine. Ptolemy set out hid detailed rules for identifying the condition of the soul, or psyche in the Tetrabiblos, composed around 120 CE, although there he appears to have been concerned only with two levels of the soul, rather than, as in the Harmonics, three.32 Iamblichus, who was also much concerned with humanity’s relationship with the stars, also considered that there were two types of soul, the higher, intellectual, rational variety, and the lower, animal, version.33 In the Tetrabiblos Ptolemy also employed a simple division of soul into “rational” and “irrational” parts. The higher part of the soul was the “rational” the character of which, Ptolemy claimed, was determined by the placing of Mercury. The lower part, the “irrational”, was characterised by the Moon


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and its associated stars. Ptolemy had therefore taken Plato’s system and related the rational soul to Mercury and both the spirited and appetitive souls to the Moon. From Aristotle’s parallel scheme, he associated the intellectual soul with Mercury and both the nutritive and sensitive souls to the Moon. By choosing one planetary ruler to accommodate the lower two souls in each case, he had, in effect, compressed the scheme of three souls into two. It is this version that Galileo used. In the Stoic conception, which was undoubtedly an influence on Ptolemy, animals were compelled to action by a movement in the soul/psyche called the hormê – an impulse or drive.34 There is a kind of celestial mechanics at work here, in which the movement of a planet is connected to a disturbance in the individual soul, and with a consequent tendency to action. The planets’ psychic, or psychological, and physical functions were related to the essential nature of the cosmos, as well as to humanity, a system in which person and planet, mind and body, were absolutely interrelated. Ptolemy’s views in this respect are significant precisely because of his reputation in the Middle Ages and Renaissance; the translation of the Almagest and Tetrabiblos into Latin in the twelfth century, established him as a central authority in all cosmological matters. To conclude then, it is widely understood that Galileo, like any revolutionary thinker, has to draw on previous precedents, just as Kepler relied on Pythagoras and Newton on scripture. Galileo, for example, found supporting arguments in Augustine (McMullin 1998, pp. 271–347). So, why should Galileo’s use of Ptolemy’s psychological astronomy concern us? The answer is partly one of tracing Galileo’s intellectual lineage to, for example, Platonic psychological theory and tripartite division of the soul. However, as we have seen, Ptolemy’s significant influences in the Tetrabiblos were Aristotelian and Stoic, both of which emphasised the soul’s location in matter and this, I suggest, is what mattered to Galileo. It was Hugh Lawson Tancred, who edited Aristotle’s work on the soul in English, who spotted the potential importance of this for later cosmology when he asked, quite rightly, of Aristotle’s intentions, “is he not directly anticipating the Physicalist theories so dominant in contemporary philosophy of psychology?”35 I wish to conclude, then by suggesting that Galileo’s use of Ptolemy’s naturalistic psychology may have encouraged his own materialistic inclinations and his development of a celestial mechanics which did not rely, as was commonly held in the Renaissance, on Platonic theories of consciousness. Whereas many commentators imply that Galileo’s work should be understood in the context of anti-Aristotelian trends in the sixteenth century, I would like to suggest the opposite, that his work may be understood as emerging out of an Aristotelian context. Lastly, then, it is the history of the notion of the soul’s connection with the stars which both informs of us one particular feature of the history of astronomy – Galileo’s philosophical context – and enhances our awareness of astronomy as a means of enchantment. School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology, Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture, University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, UK e-mail: [email protected]

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1 Plato, Theaetetus, trans. Benjamin Jowett, Indianapolis: The Library of Liberal Arts, 1949, 176, p. 41. 2 Aurelius (1964, p. 112); see also IX.29, p. 144. See Plato, Republic, 2 Vols, trans. Paul Shorey,

Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press 1937, 516B. 3 Campion (2003, p. 102) Galielo’s text translated by Grazia Mirti. Mercury was in Virgo and the Moon in Libra and therefroe, according to Ptolemy, had no relationship: see Tetrabiblos I. 13 4 For the best discussion of the intellectual context of Ptolemy’s work see Taub (1993). 5 Iamblichus, De Anima, trans. John F. Finamore and John M. Dillon, Leiden, Brill, 2002. 6 The literature on Plato and Aristotle’s views of soul is extensive. However, for Plato I have used J. Tate, “Review: Plato’s Teleology”, Reviewed work: De nous in het systeem van Plato’s philosophie by Johannes Hubertus Mathias Marie Loenen, The Classical Review, New Series, vol. 3, No. 3/4 (Dec., 1953), p. 156. See also the very fine and still relevant general summary in Roberts, Eric J., “Plato’s View of the Soul”, Mind (July 1905), New Series Vol.14, no 55, pp. 371–389. For Aristotle my discussion is based would recommend on the Hugh Tancred-Lawson’s “Introduction” to his translation of Aristotle, De Anima, (London: Penguin, 1986), pp. 11–111, and Richard Sorabji, “Body and Soul in Aristotle”, Philosophy, vol. 49, No. 187 (Jan., 1974), p. 63. 7 See my discussion in Nicholas Campion, A history of western astrology, vol. 1. The Ancient World (London: Continuum, 2009), esp. Chaps 6,7,8. 8 See van der Waerden (1974, p. 147). 9 Plato Timaeus 41E-42A 10 Plato Republic X 614–621. 11 Plato, Timaeus, trans. R.G.Bury (Cambridge Mass., London: Harvard University Press, 1931) 34C. 12 Plato, Phaedrus, trans H.N.Fowler (Cambridge Mass., London: Harvard University Press, 1914), 246 b-c. 13 Plato, Timaeus 30B-C. 14 Plato, Symposium, trans. W.R.M.Lamb (Cambridge, Mass., London: Harvard University Press) 1914, 207E. 15 Plato, Phaedrus 246A, 253 C-D. 16 See Plato, Timaeus 28A. 17 Plato, Plato, Republic, 2 Vols., trans. Paul Shorey (Cambridge Mass., London: Harvard University Press, 1937) 443D. 18 Plato Republic VIII, 546 A. 19 Aristotle, On the Soul, trans. W.S.Hett (Cambridge Mass., London: Harvard University Press, 1936), II.I.412a. 20 Aristotle, On the Soul II.IV.415b 21 Aristotle, On the Soul II.III 414a-b. 22 Aristotle’s words from the Meterologica were entirely unambiguous: “The whole terrestrial region then is compounded of these four bodies [fire, earth air, water] and it is the conditions which affect them which, we have said, are the subject of our inquiry. This region must be continuous with the motions of the heavens, which therefore regulate its whole capacity for movement. For the celestial element as source of all motion, must be regarded as first cause”. See Aristotle, Meterologica, trans. H.D.P.Lee (Cambridge Mass., London: Harvard University Press, 1937), 339a19–24. 23 Plato, Timaeus 42 C-D. 24 Aristotle, On the Heavens, trans. W.K.C.Guthrie (Cambridge Mass., London: Harvard University Press, 1921), II.xii.292a. 25 Aristotle, On the Soul, III.V.430a. See also Victor Carston, “Aristotle’s Two Intellects: A Modest Proposal”, Phronesis, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Aug., 1999), 199. 26 Diogenes Laertius 7.55–158. 27 Diogenes Laertius 7.156–7. 28 Introduction, p. ix in Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, trans. F.E.Robbins (Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1940). 29 Ptolemy (2000, III.96.27); see also 97.16. 30 Libellus I.25, in Scott, Hermetica, vol. 1, p. 129.


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31 Ptolemy, Harmonics, II, pp. 12–13. 32 Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos III.13. See also the translation in Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, trans. Robert

Schmidt, vol. 3, (Cumberland MD: Golden Hind Press, 1996), II.14. 33 Iamblichus, De Anima, trans. John F. Finamore and John M. Dillon, Leiden, Brill, 2002, Ch. VII. See also the translator’s introduction, 15. 34 See the discussion in Sandbach (1975) esp. pp. 60–61. 35 Hugh Lawson-Tancred, “Introduction”, p. 37.

REFERENCES Aurelius, Marcus. 1964. Meditations (trans: Maxwell Staniforth). Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. Campion, Nicholas, and Nick Kollerstrom. 2003. Galileo’s astrology, vol. 7 no 1. Bristol: Cinnabar Books 2004/Culture and Cosmos, Spring/Summer, 102. Bristol: Cinnabar Books. McMullin, Ernan. 1998. Galileo on science and scripture. In The Cambridge companion to Galileo, ed. Peter Machamer, 271–347. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pannekoek, A. 1961. A history of astronomy. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 19–20 Ptolemy, Claudius. 1940 Tetrabiblos (trans: Robbins, F.E.). Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press. Ptolemy, Claudius. 2000. Harmonics: Translation and commentary (trans: Solomon, J.). Leiden: E.J. Brill. Sandbach, F.H. 1975. The stoics. Bristol: The Bristol Press Sobel, Dava. 1999. Galileo’s daughter: A drama of science, faith and love. London: Fourth Estate, 29–30. Taub, Liba Chaia. 1993. Ptolemy’s universe: The natural, philosophical and ethical foundations of Ptolemy’s astronomy. Chicago and La Salle: Open Court. van der Waerden, Bartel.1974. Science awakening, vol. II, The birth of astronomy. Leyden and New York: Oxford University Press.

W I L L I A M R . S T O E G E R , S . J.

RATIONALITY AND WONDER: FROM SCIENTIFIC COSMOLOGY TO PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

ABSTRACT

Through astronomy, physics, cosmology, biology and the other sciences we have come to understand a great deal about nature and our amazing universe. We can sketch their main features in very broad strokes – evolution, relationality, nested levels of organization, complexity and potentiality for life and consciousness, contingency, transience and fragility, and order with some directionality. The universe itself has developed from a very simple, homogeneous system into one of incredible complexity – through the efficacy of the interactions which dominate it, and the emerging, highly differentiated relationships which operate within the macroscopic and microscopic systems and subsystems which form within it. But the universe, life and we ourselves are sources of wonder and inspiration – there is an enormous surplus of understanding, meaning, and significance which is nourished by scientific understanding but transcends it. They present themselves as inexhaustibly rich and deep – ultimately as Mystery. Though scientific rationality encounters limits to its capabilities to probe this Mystery more deeply, its incredible success within its competencies points to and validates our rational and personal quest for understanding and meaning beyond the cosmological limit – through the arts, philosophy, theology and the personal engagement from which they arise. In this presentation I shall explore some of the key ways we engage reality, the reality – the universe and nature – which gives us birth. I shall begin by reflecting briefly on how we achieve understanding, how meaning is constructed, and on the mystery which embraces both understanding and meaning. “Mystery” does not connote that we have no knowledge or understanding of ourselves or of reality, but rather that, although we continually grow in our understanding, the reality we are and of which we are a part is inexhaustibly rich. We never get the bottom of it. Included in this will be a brief characterization of the natural sciences, philosophy and theology as forms of knowledge. Next, I shall give a thumb-nail sketch of the principal characteristics of the universe – of reality – and of its evolution from the Big Bang to the present, including some important reflections on the processes involved in emergence and evolution, and on the different meanings of “the laws of nature.” Connected with this, I shall indicate the constraints our scientific understanding of nature and cosmic and terrestrial history place on philosophy and theology, as well as the limitations of the natural sciences in achieving a comprehensive and full understanding of reality. This will segue to a discussion of C.S. Peirce’s “retroduction” as the foundation of scientific rationality, and by extension as an inferential basis of human rationality 259 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 259–268. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_26,

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in general. Its unqualified success within the sphere of the natural sciences strongly supports the competency of rationality beyond that sphere – beyond “the cosmological limit” – in philosophy and theology. Thus, intelligibility is attainable as questions of meaning, purpose, value, and ultimate origin are posed – not complete intelligibility but a gradual sifting out of the less inadequate answers from the much less adequate responses. Mystery is successfully probed – partially – but continually deepens. This surplus of understanding and meaning which we encounter in the mystery of reality leads to realization of the Sacred – to that which somehow connects us to the underlying unity and depth of nature and the universe – to our origin and end. Though we only dimly understand these aspects of reality we must take a personal stance towards them – which involves respect, reverence, contemplation, commitment and participation. Is our self-engagement and our engagement with the larger reality of which we are a part ultimately fruitful and life-giving or not – for ourselves and others?

UNDERSTANDING, MEANING AND MYSTERY

There are several different strategies for increasing our understanding of something. We can analyze the object or system into its components, and try to model adequately the relationships among them. We can also situate it within the larger system or context of which it is a part, and explore all its connections to – and dependencies on – this context. We might call this “the synthetic approach.” Finally, we can determine the origins (both intermediate and ultimate), together with the purpose or ends, of the object or system under investigation – what functions it fulfills, why it exists, what it will become. These three strategies are complementary, and all of them are important in the long run. As we explore the world around us our central challenge is to understand through these approaches the rich diversity we encounter within the overarching unity of nature. Though we may understand something, we may not really know what it means. Thorough understanding leads to meaning, but the two are very different concepts. “Meaning” has different meanings! But here I shall use this term to denote the significance of an object, event, pattern of behavior, etc. relative to the larger systems or contexts in which it functions, and relative to the overall relationships it enjoys within them. It implies an openess to, and an engagement with, reality – and an orientation towards certain ends or goals. Meaning is constructed on the basis of our limited understandings, experiences, sense of relationship, and yearnings. It gradually evolves and undergoes testing and modification, as we use it to guide our individual and community lives within the world and within society. We formally pursue our quest for understanding and meaning within the natural sciences, philosophy and theology. Properly conceived they complement one another in attaining these goals. This can be seen more clearly if we venture a description of each set of disciplines.

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The natural sciences are disciplines oriented towards a detailed qualitative and quantitative understanding and modeling of the regularities, processes, structures, and interrelationships (the laws of nature) which characterize reality – relying on rigorous, repeatable analysis and experiment (observation). In contrast, philosophy – going beyond the important area of philosophy of language – deals with ultimate questions and the pervasive aspects of reality – and not with well-defined, easily isolated phenomena. It often involves investigation of those features of nature and the universe which are presupposed by the specialized sciences. Before briefly discussing theology, we must first say something about religious faith, upon which theology is based. The best definition of faith I have heard is that of Avery Dulles: Faith is our ongoing positive response to perceived divine revelation in discernment and commitment (Dulles, S. J., Avery, 1997). Theology, then, according the famous definition of Anselm of Canterbury,1 is “faith seeking understanding.” It is the discipline directed towards understanding God, the presence and action of God in our world, and our response to that transcendent reality. But in all this we must recognize “mystery.” The universe, life, ourselves, and the reality in which we are immersed defy any adequate, complete or full understanding – and present themselves to us as inexhaustibly rich. We always have more questions. We do come to understand a great deal through the natural sciences, philosophy and theology – and other less formal reflections on reality – and we gradually arrive at deeper understanding and meaning. We find ourselves continually invited to go even deeper – beyond where understanding is reliable. But we never come close to achieving full understanding – and it’s clear that we never shall. For instance, we know a great deal now from the sciences about intermediate origins and ends, but, when we pose the question of ultimate origins and ends, we encounter dense mists. Much of what is Mystery is deeply experienced and intuited – and is essential for constructing Meaning. But at the same time, it is only dimly comprehended (e.g. the Particular as particular).

THE KEY FEATURES OF THE UNIVERSE

If we stand back for a moment and survey all that the sciences have revealed to us about reality and the universe at large, what are its key general features? Certainly, one thing we immediately recognize is that is evolving – changing and developing on all scales – with new systems and organisms emerging within it. That’s true biologically, but it is also true cosmically. In fact, cosmic evolution puts the building blocks in place for the initiation of biological evolution. But there are also other more pervasive important characteristics. Certainly one of them is the universe’s order and intelligibility. Though it is very complex in some ways, it is also simple enough to be modeled and precisely described by us. It could have been otherwise! Furthermore, it is marked by pervasive relationality. At every level relationships among components (e.g. atoms within molecules) and with the larger immediate context are central to its microscopic and its macroscopic

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structure – and essential to innumerable nested levels of organization and complexity, which in turn enable the rich differentiation and continual emergence of systems, organisms, persons, communities, and ecologies. In fact it appears that the interacting and overlapping relationships which objects and systems enjoy with one another is precisely what makes each one what it is. Many of these relationships – whether internal or external – are therefore constitutive. Along with this relationality and hierarchical structuring are two other notable features: the formational and functional integrity2 (relative autonomy and intrinsic dynamism) and the unity and solidarity that nature manifests. Given the existence and intrinsic order of the universe and nature, there is no need – and no evidence – for any extrinsic control of natural processes, nor for any micromanaging intervention. The emergence of new systems and organisms occurs as a result of the laws of nature themselves – those we understand, and those we don’t. Other closely associated characteristics are contingency – understood both as the dependence of each system on something else (its lack of necessity) and as involving a certain amount of chance (but chance always within a larger framework of dynamic order) – and the transience and fragility of all the systems and organisms which emerge in the course of cosmic and terrestrial evolution. There is certainly emergence, but emergence inevitably rests on the demise and dissolution of earlier systems and organisms. Nothing lasts forever. In fact, a very good case can be made for the absolute necessity of fragility and transience in an evolving universe. Evolution would quickly come to a halt, if everything that emerged were eternal. Directionality is also notable within the universe – not a fixed unique endpoint – but rather at any particular juncture an orientation towards a limited range of outcomes – based on the given conditions at any initial point we consider and the laws of nature dominating then. The universe itself has been continually evolving towards cooler, lumpier, and more complex configurations over the last 13.7 billion years. Thus also, since the Big Bang, time has obviously been very, very important. Finally, the universe appears to be fine-tuned for complexity – the “anthropic principle.” From what we know of physics and cosmology, very slightly different values of the fundamental physical constants or the key parameters characterizing the universe would have rendered the universe completely sterile. We do not yet know how best to explain this apparent fine-tuning. Connected with it, of course, is the important recognition that our universe is life-bearing. Life and consciousness have emerged in at least one locale – and therefore are possible elsewhere, especially when we consider the staggering number of stellar systems in the universe. At an intermediate level of explanation, such cosmic fine-tuning can be explained by a really existing collection of many universes – a multiverse – which represent a wide range of possible values of the fundamental constants and cosmic parameters. At the ultimate level of explanation, however, the sciences cannot provide an answer – why is this universe, and this multiverse, the way it is, such that life and consciousness have emerged in at least one location within them. At an even more fundamental level, they cannot provide an account for the existence of the universe or multiverse, nor for its intrinsic order.


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THE STAGES OF COSMIC EVOLUTION

Before quickly summarizing the various stages of cosmic and biological evolution, it is important to recognize that the continual emergence of novelty and complexity which has occurred in the 13.7 billion year history of our universe has required a stable dynamical order. The relationships, processes, regularities and structures which constitute that order – as described by physics, chemistry and biology – have enabled the overall cosmic system, and all the subsystems which have emerged within it, to function as wholes, to maintain their organization and integrity, to develop and differentiate, and to provide secure plateaus from which further novelty and complexity have been achieved. We often refer to the collection of these relationships, processes, regularities and structures as “the laws of nature.” In appealing to them as explanations for what has emerged in the universe, it is important to distinguish between the laws of nature – the relationships, processes, regularities and structures – as they actually function in reality, and the laws of nature – our laws of nature – as we imperfectly understand them and have modeled them (William R. Stoeger, S. J., 1993). The reason for this distinction is that, as we well recognize, our understanding – even with our sophisticated scientific expertise – falls far short of an adequate or complete comprehension of all the relationships, processes and regularities which are actually involved in nature, and in what has emerged and is emerging from our evolutionary history. In fact, it seems clear that some of these relationships and regularities are not vulnerable to investigation by the natural sciences, but only by other modes of inquiry – for instance those of philosophy and theology. In this very brief outline I shall situate biological evolution within the larger context provided by cosmic evolution. This is in recognition of the essential, absolutely necessary conditions for the emergence to life which cosmic evolution establishes – honoring the fact that it sets the stage for complexity and life and produces the building blocks and the environments (e.g. the chemical elements, the simple molecules, and the stars, planets, moons and comets) needed for the emergence of life. We need cool, highly structured, complex and richly differentiated chemical environments even for life to be possible. Cosmic evolution itself can be described very simply. The universe, during its history from the Big Bang to the present, has been continually expanding and cooling. And, as it expands and cools, global and local conditions change, and new things become possible. Thus cosmic evolution involves going from earlier, hotter, smoother, more simple states to ever cooler, lumpier, more complex and richly differentiated states. Very early in the universe’s history – until about 300,000 years after the Big Bang – the universe was a very simple system of smoothly distributed gas expanding and cooling, with no stars, galaxies, or any discernible structure at all. And it was chemically impoverished – with just hydrogen, helium and a little bit of lithium, the lightest metal. As is now very well known, it is only with stars that all the heavier elements were produced. The general stages of cosmic evolution are the following:

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1. From the Big Bang to the end of the Planck era – during this extremely short period of time (much less than a millionth of second after the Big Bang) the universe was so hot that space and time as we know them did not exist, and the four fundamental interactions of physics were unified. We have no adequate understanding or model of this period. At the end of this period, space and time – and gravity – as we know them emerged. 2. Inflation: Extremely rapid expansion and supercooling of the universe – still well within the first second after the Big Bang – which generated the primordial density fluctuations, the seeds for the formation of galaxies and stars. 3. Exit from inflation and the reheating of the universe. 4. Early “classical” cosmological evolution: Gentle expansion and cooling of the universe as an almost homogeneous, undifferentiated system. 5. Late “classical” cosmological evolution: Structure formation (galaxies, clusters of galaxies, stars), leading to the synthesis of all elements heavier than helium and lithium. 6. Uninstructed chemical evolution (Kuppers, 1983): Synthesis of simple and complex molecules. 7. Instructed chemical evolution3 : Reproducing systems of information carrying molecules (RNA, DNA, proteins) and the initiation of natural selection. 8. Biological evolution: Natural selection, prokaryotes, eukaryotes, multicelluarity, etc. 9. Cultural evolution: Social , political, religious, economic structures, along with ideas, literature, arts, sciences. The natural sciences have given us a fairly reliable – and increasingly precise – account of all these stages of cosmic evolution, and the incredibly intricate and complex achievements within each of them, especially with regard to biological evolution. Again the laws of nature – not only as we understand them but particularly as they actually function – are fundamentally responsible for this remarkable history of emergence. This leads us to consider the strengths and limitations of the natural sciences themselves, which will lead us to considerations which take us beyond them. THE CONSTRAINTS IMPOSED BY, AND THE LIMITATIONS OF, THE NATURAL SCIENCES

Other modes of reflection and inquiry – particularly philosophy and theology – insofar as their investigations touch on the natural world must respect and honor the competencies and reliable conclusions of the natural sciences. As a particular example, consider philosophy’s and theology’s discourse concerning God’s action in the world. It is obvious that the findings of the natural sciences impose severe restrictions on how theology can conceive God’s creative action in nature, and God’s special action in history. This is actually a significant contribution to both philosophy and theology, as it forces both disciplines to purify their concepts and their language, as well as the considerations they employ in arriving at their conclusions.


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On this subject, it has become clear that the understandings we have from the sciences help reinforce some of the best traditional formulations of divine action that we have – in terms of “primary causality,” “creation from nothing,” and “continuing creation,” as long as these are properly understood. At the same time the findings of the natural sciences push us towards radical formulations of divine action – consistent with these earlier insights – in terms of divine immanence, kenosis and incarnation (and other strongly Trinitarian perspectives). Although we are deeply impressed by the competencies and strengths of the natural sciences, we also become aware of their limitations. For instance, as we do more and more fundamental work in physics and cosmology, we realize that these disciplines cannot really deal with ultimate questions – for instance, why there is something rather than absolutely nothing, or why there is this type of order, rather than some other type of order. The natural sciences presuppose existence and order, then attempt to describe and model the order they find. They may raise the question of its ultimate origin, but are unable to use their methods to search for an answer. Therefore, physics and cosmology cannot shed light directly on the ultimate origin of the regularities, relationships and processes we find in nature. Other limitations of the natural sciences are: their inability to deal directly with values, or with what endows our lives with value, orientation and meaning (they presuppose certain values, but are not capable of investigating or delving into the notion and basis of values as such); their inability to deal with events or situations which cannot be subsumed under a general law (the particular precisely as particular), or with personal relationships precisely as personal; and their blindness to the transcendent – they cannot deal directly or critically with experiences or patterns of experience which might indicate or constitute divine revelation. As many have emphasized, it is very helpful to specify both the strengths and weaknesses, the competencies and limitations, of the various disciplines, in order to facilitate dialog among their practitioners and to help each of them function more effectively within our complex and intricately interacting society.

RETRODUCTION AND SCIENTIFIC RATIONALITY

Now we shall discuss the inferential basis of scientific rationality, and how it leads us to a validation of human rationality in general – and in particular to its quest for understanding and meaning beyond the limits of the natural sciences. Over the last 25 years or so there has been considerable research done on the basis of scientific rationality. Among these efforts Ernan McMullin compellingly argues4 – philosophically and historically – that C.S. Peirce’s concept of “retroduction”5 comes closest to describing how successful science is actually done. What is retroduction? According to Peirce it is a “movement of invention” that involves “moving backward in thought from observed effect to unobserved cause.” Using the informed imagination we construct hypotheses, often employing or appealing to hidden structures, relationships or realities, and then examine what consequences these have. We then see if we can observe these consequences,

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and therefore determine to what extent the hypotheses “work.” In practice, of course, under the pressure of careful experiment and observation, these hypotheses are gradually modified and fine-tuned – and some cases completely replaced. However, in this process, retroduction is the inferential guide. In retroductive reasoning it is the criterion of the long-term fruitfulness and success of the hypotheses which gives the assurance that something very much like the content of the hypotheses (theory) actually exists, even though we may never be able to detect it directly. Thus, retroduction as its actually functions in the sciences leads to ontological conclusions. The long-term fruitfulness and success of a theory or set of hypotheses include successful prediction of observation or experimental results, but go far beyond that. Paul Allen summarizes the principal criteria in the following way (Allen, 2006, pp. 71–72). A fruitful and successful theory must: (1) account for all relevant data (empirical adequacy); (2) provide long-term explanatory success and stimulate further fruitful lines of inquiry (theory fertility); (3) establish the compatibility of previously disparate domains of results (unifying power); and (4) manifest consistency (or coherence) with other established theories (inter-theoretic consonance). All these criteria must be met in order for a theory to be considered fruitful and successful in the long term. There are two closely related central meta-conclusions that we can draw from our reflections on retroduction, which have been strongly emphasized by McMullin, and especially by Paul Allen (2006). The first is that the “universe as a whole” is the “ultimate” and most comprehensive object of the natural science’s retroductive inquiries. These have led to concluding to the existence and the characteristics of the physical system(s) within which all else fits and it to be understood – including ourselves. The second meta-conclusion is that the cosmology’s, physics’ and the other natural sciences’ successful use of retroductive inference directly leads to an understanding and particularly a validation of human rationality in its search for knowledge. These two conclusions provide a basis for rationally transcending the limits of the natural sciences themselves.

I N T E L L I G I B I L I T Y B E Y O N D “T H E C O S M O L O G I C A L L I M I T ”

As Allen6 stresses, in cosmology and in quantum field theories – however advanced they become – the limit of scientific critical realism and scientific rationality is reached, what he refers to as “the Cosmological Limit.” However, cosmology and physics, having successfully attained their object, raise further questions which they themselves are not equipped to answer, but which certainly seem legitimate: Questions about deeper meaning, purpose, ultimate origin and destiny, the role of consciousness, value. These immediately move us from the natural sciences to philosophy, psychology, sociology, the humanities, theology. Furthermore, the unqualified success of scientific rationality as evidenced in the natural sciences, including quantum theory and cosmology, validates the quest of the informed imagination and retroductive inference on issues going beyond the natural sciences. Their capabilities are not limited to scientific questions.


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What takes us beyond this cosmological limit? As Allen points out,7 despite the limitations of the natural sciences, retroduction does not cease. Informed imagination still operates and searches – further questions are posed. “Scientific rationality is retroductive and imaginative, and therefore transcendent of science altogether, once the cosmological limit is defined.”8 Thus. there is a surplus of understanding and meaning revealed in the selftranscending operations of scientific inquiry which invite the extension of retroductive rationality and inquiry beyond the cosmological limit,9 to embrace issues of meaning, purpose, ultimate explanation, etc. The key insight is that human rationality is self-transcendent and heuristic.10 This means that it is always moving beyond where it has arrived – even if it has to employ new approaches, methods, and criteria of evidence in its quest – and that it is, as a formulator of hypotheses, radically but flexibly anticipatory in that quest – constantly “trying new models and approaches on for size.”

ENCOUNTERING MYSTERY AND THE SACRED: HOW WE ENGAGE REALITY

As we realize that we have arrived at the cosmological limit, and then continue to strive to move beyond it with our concerns and questions, we quickly begin to sense that there are aspects of reality which are fundamental, incredibly rich and profound that we shall never be able to comprehend adequately or master. And yet they exist, are very insistent and demand our attention. In a very real sense, we cannot grasp them – they grasp us. This is the dawning – and eventually consuming – awareness of Mystery, of the inexhaustible richness and depth, at the heart of the reality that embraces us. Along with this sense of Mystery is an evolving awareness of the Sacred – of that which reveals, and connects us to, the underlying unity of nature and the universe, to our origin and our destiny, inviting reverence, contemplation, commitment, participation. The Sacred overlaps Mystery – the inexhaustible depth and richness we encounter as we search for further understanding and meaning. It is experienced in deeper and deeper ways, is partially understood, but is often inarticulable. Furthermore, it almost always involves personal, social, cultural, religious and spiritual dimensions. Most importantly, in its authentic forms, it provides personal and social orientation and meaning, and moves us towards an awareness of a unity which relishes diversity. One of the crucial outcomes of the personal and communal integration of all of our understandings, meanings, and of our growing appreciation of Mystery and the Sacred is how it strongly affects the way we engage reality. It has passive, actively passive, and active dimensions, and in its fully developed form enables an openness to what is revealed by the full range of our experience. It is constantly enabling us to see more deeply into ourselves and into the reality around us with appreciation and with a sense of the distinctiveness we possess in the overall unity of nature. Finally, it guides our participation in, and the attitudes we bring to, our projects and our relationships and involvements. Among the criteria which nourish and

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authenticate our engagement are: wonder, humility, respect, care, communication and reconciliation. Here I have moved from a general consideration of the natural sciences, and the knowledge and understanding of ourselves and our world they enable, to a consideration of the foundations for our rational encounter with aspects of reality beyond the sciences, and what types of engagement with reality that leads to. Mystery and the Sacred are important aspects of what we encounter in that quest – not that there is no understanding or critique possible, but that the every growing partial understandings we attain invite – and even demand – that we engage at levels and in ways that which go beyond what rationality can securely and clearly establish, but which lead to fruitful and ultimately successful courses of action and behavior. Vatican Observatory Research Group, Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA, e-mail: [email protected]

NOTES 1 Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion, Preface (Prooemiium), in St. Anselm’s ‘Proslogion’ with ‘A Reply on Behalf of the Fool’ by Gaunilo and ‘The Author’s Reply to Gaunilo,’ trans. by M. J. Charlesworth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), pp. 101–105. 2 Coined by Van Till (1986). The essence of functional and formation integrity goes back to Basil of Caesarea (Hexameron) and Augustine (De Genesi ad Litteram), as Van Till stresses. 3 Ibid. 4 See for instance McMullin (1992, p. 112). 5 See C.S. Peirce, in his Collected Papers, Vols. 1–6, C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss, editors (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931–1935), Vol. 1, para. 65, and Vol. 5, para. 188; also in his Collected Papers, Vols. 7 & 8, A. Burks, editor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), Vol. 7, paras. 202–207, 218–222. 6 Ibid., pp. 103–120. 7 Ibid., pp. 122–125. 8 Ibid., p. 124. 9 Ibid., pp. 116–117, p. 153. 10 Ibid., p. 123, p. 153.

REFERENCES Allen, Paul L. 2006. Ernan McMullin and critical realism in the science-theology dialogue. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Co, 201. Dulles, A. 1997. The meaning of faith considered in relationship to justice. In The faith that does justice, ed. John C. Haughey, 10–46. New York: Paulist Press. Kuppers, B.-O. 1983. The Molecular Theory of Evolution. New York: Springer, 2. McMullin, Ernan. 1992. The inference that makes science. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 112. Stoeger, W.R. 1993. Contemporary physics and the ontological status of the laws of nature. In Quantum cosmology and the laws of nature: Scientific perspectives on divine action, eds. Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, and C.J. Isham, 209–234. Vatican City State and Berkeley, CA: Vatican Observatory and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. Van Till, H.J. 1986. The fourth day: What the bible and the heavens are telling us about creation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

MARIÁN AMBROZY

POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION OF RELIGION TO COSMOLOGY

ABSTRACT

In comparison of religion and cosmology as a natural science there is a primer distinguishing feature that is different language. In this sense there exist possible compromises in usage of the common language or the usage of only one of those languages in the common communication. Even if it seems that the science and theology blend together, but in the positive sense it is not the necessary but the contingent relation. Even if there is a different answer, sometimes they can examine the same problem from their own point of view and with different competencies for the answers. The example of the common question and their mutual problem, but of course with the different answers, it is the problem of the origin of the universe. Theology of Judaism, Christianity and Islam together with several myths of Bönism and Zoroastrism explain the origination of universe by the chief intelligible entity, but on the other side cosmology explains this origin in the language that deals with the step by step destruction of interactions, formation of leptons and hadrons up to the formation of systems and planets. This language has even the limits in the form of non-extrapolation of the general theory of relativity in the space-time fields smaller than 10–33 cm and 10–43 s. Situation is complicated by the incompatibility between VTR and quantum theory. While in this situation religion and theology are able to answer the question of the origin of the universe using their own tools, the cosmology in the recent paradigm starts the way of speculations. Various theories and hypothesis try to answer it, but in the principle they are not able to find the solution by any tool. Even though the religion could find some deeper answers, the basic grounds of the answers is its’ faith in the basal claims. Transcendental theology tries to answer the questions that can not be answered by the competency, language and scientifical patterns limited cosmology. Religion shows the existence of the different world from the world of phenomena. By this means helps also scientifically oriented intellectual to create his holistic picture of world even beyond the competencies of cosmology. In order to determine positive contribution of religion, whether Judaism, Christianity or Islam, to astronomy, cosmology or cosmogony, we need to define our understanding of the relation between science and religion. Before we start, we need to realize that both religion and theology often address the same issues as science, however, they do it differently. First of all, they use different languages. “Common, but different too principles between philosophy and other 269 A.-T. Tymieniecka, A. Grandpierre (eds.), Analecta Husserliana CVII, 269–276. C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9748-4_27,

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sciences point at the fact, that philosophy in relation with sciences is sort of preunderstanding of the meaning of the science, as well as it’s determination” (Dirgová, 2007, p.17). As Thomas S. Kuhn says, terms used by science depend considerably on the prevalent paradigm. Prevalent paradigm is an ambiguous term. What matters are the results of research that are generally accepted. The term, besides other functions, “fulfills the function of a demarcation criterion for distinguishing between what is considered science and what is not” (Viceník, 1981, p. 10). Paradigm determines the language of science to a considerable extent. Language of science uses terms more or less usuall at times when science does not change its fundamental approach. On the other hand, the language of religion is determined by denomination. European cultural tradition is dominated by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Protestant Christian theology, for example, defends the position of sola scriptura according to which theologia naturalis represents a path that is impassable or at least unconventional and which basically cannot lead to undisputable theological knowledge. Catholic theology is not against such approach. The five ways of getting closer to God as presented by Thomas Aquinas can serve as an example supporting this assertion. Islamic theology shares a similar approach. For example, in relation to legal matters it applies the so called Ijm¯a’, i.e. answers of the scholars of Islam to certain questions. “Consensus among religious and legal authorities gave answers to many issues that were addressed neither by Koran nor Sunnah” (Hruškoviˇc, 1997, p. 29). This means that on levels other than religious Islamic theology accepts also answers not coming exclusively from the text it holds sacred. Mu’tazilites as the oldest mutakallims “were creators of a new type of theology (kallám): theology both speculative and scholastic, armed with tools of Greek philosophy” (Bondy, 1995, p. 14). Despite dogmatic nature of Islamic theology it has to be stated that it does not reject argumentation via tools of reason and science. On the other hand, however, Muslims partially criticize European approach to grasping of the world (Poliaková, 2007). As we can see, theology in its numerous denominations attempts to speak about the same issues science speaks about. Nevertheless, languages of science and theology cannot be identical. “A scientist and a theologian develop a similar kind of knowledge, try to find answers to the same questions, however, languages, terminology, and conceptual schemes they apply are different. As a result, it sometimes seems that science and theology are indepent from each other” (Hrkút, 2008, p. 62). Ján Hrkút assumes that it is possible to start a dialogue between science and religion via a shared view, i.e. via reduction to a common language or to a language of one of the two disciplines. Certain terms thus should be used by both science and theology which possibility we do not consider impossible. Ján Hrkút believes that science and theology do not study the same. We agree with his opinion that their relation is not necessary but contingent. Nevertheless, science and theology do meet at certain points, deal with the same questions and tackle the same problems trying to find the answers. There are certain issues both of them address and there are certain types of answers they produce that could be labeled as commesurable. The answers are not identical; however, they do not contradict each

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other either. The questions target the same issue and even though the answers differ, they do not contradict each other. Despite the aforementioned we dare to say that in certain cases science and theology study the same subject but the answers they provide differ. One of the topics both science and theology deal with is the description of the origins of the universe. Naturally, the answers they provide differ both in terms of language and content. Physical cosmology searches for the answers regarding the origins of the universe. The answer cosmology presents is generally known. “According to quantum theory, the force of gravity and the force characterising the so called grand unification (GUT) united when Planck energy reached Ep- 1019 to 1020 GeV (and when temperature was T-10 32 K, density of energy of the universe reached p-1094 g.cm3 and linear dimension of the universe was 10–34 cm)” (Blažek, 1997, p. 97). It happened at the point of time before 10–43 s. What happened before cannot be described by the language of contemporary physics. It is the sphere of interest of quantum cosmology. However, it is assumed that the stated time witnessed the separation of forces of grand unification (GUT) and the force of gravity. It is assumed that GUT broke into two interactions, electroweak and strong, when the age of the universe was 10–35 s. According to cosmologists, this phase lasted probably till 10–11 s. The period between this moment until 10 s physicists describe as another phase. It was then the electroweak interaction proven by Weinberg and Salam in 1967 and 1968 allegedly broke. From the viewpoint of particles development it is a very interesting period of time during which certain leptons and nucleons annihilated and bosons and heavy quarks disappeared. The rest consisted of photons, neutrinos, electrons and u- and d- gluons. Recently, scientists discuss the possibility of inflation start at temperature of the universe 1032 K. Very likely, the supersymetry would be destroyed and the symmetry of grand unification would be proven. Cosmologists count with the time 10–44 s, i.e. the Planck era. However, the above mentioned theories have not solved the problem of transformation of the energy of the vacuum into the radiation field which means we still do not know the way how preconditions necessary for the emergence of galaxies originate. “With respect to this serious physical problem it is not possible to consider the conclusions of the said approaches physically serious” (Blažek et al., 2006, p. 228). Modern research has revealed further results. There are areas in the universe located opposite each other whereas they are so far away from each other that they could never get in contact. The temperature in these areas is the same which fact indicates the probability of inflation involvement but there are also small deviations. There is an assumption that the said deviations, even though they do not exceed the level of 10–5 K, were caused by original small fluctuations at the phase of universe development before 10–35 s. At this point, it is necessary to add more information. Inflation was described and explained by Alan Guth at the end of 1979. Alan Guth found out that the universe expands much faster than the hitherto known standard model had assumed. During inflation, the universe doubles its size every 10–35 s. Naturally, the speed of

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expansion grew correspondingly. “Area originally 10–36 times smaller than proton inflated (that is how this model acquired its name) to an area with a diameter of 10 cm in a moment lasting less than one blink of an eye” (Gribbin, 2002, p. 284). In its initial stages of development the Guth model was not entirely consistent with other knowledge of cosmology. “Solution proposed by Guth was very remarkable. . . . Though we do not have a theory that could satisfactorily explain the energy of vacuum, Guth discovered that at the end of the grand unification era vacuum could have had different and much higher density of energy that it has today. This strange status is called false vacuum in order to distinguish it from the real vacuum. This situation did not last long as the energy of vacuum soon got to the value observed today” (Jones and Lambourne, 2003, p. 276). Soviet physicist Andrej Linde helped to improve this model. He dealt with the problem of transition from the state of false vacuum. From the viewpoint of general theory of relativity it is vacuum, however, from the viewpoint of quantum physics it is not. Vacuum cannot be defined in such a way. It can be considered a space of fast changing quantum fields. Quantum field oscillates aournd the state of minimum energy. Such oscillating quantum field slowly gets into the state of minimum energy. Production of pairs of particles is actually transformation of energy of oscillation into particles themselves. During this process the temperature of the universe reaches extreme 1027 K. The universe is then actually created from a scalar field. Linde calls it chaotic inflation. Chaos can be considered the first necessary precondition for origination of such universe. This theory claims that originally the universe was not hot and therefore it speaks of secondary heating up of the universe. It is assumed that there existed a field with a zero spin acquiring much higher values in certain areas as a result of quantum fluctuations. It is interesting that Linde in his theory admits that a similar process could occur again which “indicates the existence of countless other universes” (Ferris, 2005, p. 257). This way of thinking is certainly linked with many serious consequences. If we speak of inflation we speak of a generally accepted theory which is not in contradiction with the standard model. On the other hand, the standard model does not confirm inflation, “other explanation of phenomena explained by inflation cannot be excluded” (Blažek, 1997, p. 94). This theory includes also other parameters which have to be adjusted to be aligned with observations. Inflation probably took place in the beginning of this era. As the inflation theory explains, this was the period when the bases of future galaxies were formed. So much to the standard model as presented by accepted cosmology. It has to be added, however, that “certain known facts a priori exclude the feasibility of some models of the universe cosmology presents as there is inner discrepancy between them” (Hanisko, 2009, p. 234). Here we mean various models assuming the existence of Euklidic universe, even distribution of substance and other hypothetical ideas which contradict empirically observed facts. So much to the generally known answer of contemporary cosmology. Physics deals with the issue of describing the origins of the universe. Religion tries to answer the same question. The answers of religion to this question are different depending on denomination. Many of them, e.g. traditional Hellenistic religion, Shinto religion,

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in specific modified form also Hinduism and others, base their answers on the assumption that the universe did not originate as such but was created out of chaos. The most wide-spread religions in Europe and Middle East are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They have common basis and identical cosmology. The answer is clear. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” /Gn, 1,1/ This unambiguous sentence of the first book of the Scripture was interpreted by one of greatest experts professor Heriban as follows: “In the beginning should be understood as in the beginning of time, in the beginning of God’s work. Before, there was nothing, except for God. ‘He created’, in Hebrew ‘bárá’, means he created out of nothing. The verb in this form expresses exclusively the acts of God independent of substance. ‘God’, not created by anybody, is eternal” (Heriban, 2007, p. 38). Koran, the holy text of Islam, puts it similarly: “Who created the heavens and the earth and what is between them in six periods, and He is firmly established on the throne of authority; the Beneficent God” (Korán, 1991, p. 249). /LXIV, 60/59/ Only few other religions, especially zoroastrianism and bonism, share the above mentioned approach with Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In case of bonism, however, we can identify only some myths of non-consistent bon cosmogony. The aforementioned religions claim that the world was created from nothing. These religions thus directly address the origins of the universe and try to explain it from theological and metaphysical viewpoints. Cosmology has certain boundary, the so called Planck era, through which it cannot get to the very beginning. Events preceeding the Planck era are studied by quantum cosmology. Knowledge of quantum cosmology consists of vague nonconsistent hypotheses. This part of cosmology is studied from several viewpoints. In physical cosmology there is “totally acceptable temptation to consider singularity a natural boundary of extrapolation of the general theory of relativity” (Tursunov, 1980, p. 171). The situation is different, however. “Based on current estimates the characteristic time and space limits of the boundary of cosmological extrapolation of the Einstein’s theory of gravitation represent 10–33 cm and 10–43 s” (Tursunov, 1980, p. 172). In cosmogony, this fact is of vital importance for formulation of hypotheses since “according to our current understanding it will not be possible to ˇ cek, 2001, find out how the universe developed after this interval” (Blažek and Durˇ p. 181). We need to realize that in spite of the fact that Paul M. Dirac unified quantum theory and special theory of relativity, we are still missing the unification of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, i.e. gravitation resists overall unification of interactions. The standard model and the general theory of relativity are not compatible. As academician Zeldoviˇc explains, it is easy to determine areas where quantum phenomena play important role but it is difficult to find out what is going on in these areas and to define a problem. This makes the formulation of unified theory of quantum cosmology difficult. For a long time scientists believed that “Weyl’s experiment in the area of geometrization of physics was the only experiment that brought new information since Einstein” (Sviderskij, 1956, p. 245). Since then many new theories regarding interconnection of geometry, physics and micro world emerged. There are several views that are not mutually consistent. Discrepancies among them lie in different application of geometries, different views

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on the quantum status of the universe in its earliest stages as well as in the different basic approach to the understanding of the origins of the universe. “There exists no physical theory describing the Planck era t

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