Microcosm/Macrocosm/Cosmos

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Chapter 7

• Microcosm/Macrocosm/Cosmos

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Carl Sagan writes

• There is today in a time when old beliefs are
  withering a kind of philosophic hunger, a need
  to know who we are and how we got there. There is
  an ongoing search, often unconscious, for a
  cosmic perspective for humanity.

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Knowledge of Nature

• This chapter deal with the philosophy of the
  physical sciences
• Knowledge from empirical observation
• Knowledge from a priori concepts
• The symbolic nature of human thinking?

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May 28, 585 B.C.E.

• 613 pm (Milesian Standard Time) Eclipse in
  Miletus predicted by Thales begins
• Significant Point Thales became aware of the
  regularities of nature

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Empirical Knowledge

• Our Knowledge of nature is based on two distinct
  kinds of knowledge
• Empirical Observation
• Rational System-building

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A Priori Knowledge

• We know necessary truths, it seems, to which we
  cannot imagine exceptions
• Do we have sufficient knowledge of an
  object/event to be reasonably (operationally)
  sure?

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Other Ways of Knowing?

• Is it a true and final fact that man is the
  experiencing subject and the real world is the
  experienced object, and that the two are
  distinct, separate entities?
• Or, might there be a field interaction that
  would render false the subject-object dichotomy?

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Realities Beyond Appearances

• Sir Arthur Eddingtons man in the street and the
  learned physicist

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This World What Is It?What is everything made
of?

1. What are the forces that cause motion?
2. Molecular level of organization
3. Atomic level of organization
4. Quark level of organization

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The Dematerialization of Matter

• Heisenberg writes Matter has been
  dematerialized, not just a concept of the
  philosophically real, but now as an idea of
  modern physicsThe 20th centurys
  dematerialization of matter has made it
  conceptually impossible to accept a Newtonian
  picture of the properties of matter and still do
  consistent physics.

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What is the Origin of Matter?

• God created the universe and set it into motion
  Who then created God?
• Creationist answer is no answer at all.
• Fred Hoyle, Steady-state Theory

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PythagorasThe Universe is Made of Numbers

• He first proved that knowledge of the world is
  possible
• Two groups outsiders (exoterici), who studied
  in silence during a five-year probationary
  period insiders (esoterici), who were admitted
  to the secrets of the cult
• From single objects/events to universal
  mathematical generalizations

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Reflections

• Have you personally speculated on the problem of
  the origin of matter? Are you willing to do so
  now? What questions can you think of to initiate
  inquiry? To whom might we turn for hard data that
  would help us phrase our questions in an
  intelligible fashion?

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Space/Time/Motion

• This chapter deals with some aspects of the
  philosophy of the physical sciences, analyzes how
  the mind goes about creating physics, and
  discusses certain philosophical problems that
  still exist in the way we do physics.

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What Physics Is Isnt

• Classical physics
• Relativity physics
• Quantum physics

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Albert EinsteinThe Second Scientific Revolution

• His goal in fact, the goal of all science was
  to understand exactly how the human mind can
  discover what is really going on out there.
• It is existence and reality that one wishes to
  comprehend.
• Can the subjective mind know the objectively real?

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Reflections

• After reading through this chapter, formulate
  some sort of answer to the age-old question about
  the nature of reality. Find some adjectives that
  would characterize it.

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Cosmos

• This chapter deals with cosmology, the study of
  the universe as a whole.
• This chapter raises questions about what it means
  to live in a big-bang universe, an expanding
  universe, a curved universe of warped space, and
  perhaps, a dying universe.

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Ancient Cosmologies

• Egyptians
• Babylonians
• Mesopotamians
• Hebrews
• Greeks

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Todays Universe

• Astronomers today share a unique kind of
  excitement because there exists a possibility
  that we may be looking far enough into the past
  to see events that took place near the time the
  universe was born.

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The Expanding Universe

• Edwin Hubble (1929)
• Medieval geocentric universe
• Heliocentric Copernican cosmos

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The Story of the Universe

• The Primordial Era
• The Stelliferious Era
• The Degenerate Era
• The Black Hole Era
• The Dark Era

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There are Still Mysteries

• If the Big Bang occurred some 13.7 million years
  ago, what was the universe like before the Big
  Bang?
• What lies beyond our perceptual universe?
• Dark matter and dark energy?

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What Does It All Mean?

• Of all the disorder-to-disorder converters, the
  human mind is be far the most impressive.
• I think the universe is all spots and jumps,
  without unity
• a deep hunger to establish a cosmic context.
• The Anthropic Cosmological Principle

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Galileo GalileiThe Noblest Eye is Darkened?

• The Galileian Principle
• January 1610 three little stars, small but
  very bright
• 1613 three letters on sunspots
• 1616 Holy Office reply
• Dialogue concerning the Two Great World Systems
  Ptolemaic and Copernican (banned in 1632)

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Reflections

• Does it make any difference to you
  (intellectually or emotionally) whether you exist
  in a living universe or a dying universe?

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Biocosmos

• This chapter asks what it might mean if we are
  not alone in the universe.
• What if other intelligent beings exist?
• What if they are very advanced in thought and
  awareness?

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We Are Not Alone

• Sir Arthur Eddingtons other globes, 1934
• Harlow Shapleys common occurrence, 1957
• Frank Drake and Carl Sagans formula
• Peter Angeles continuing quest

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A Cosmic Context for Mankind

• Our religious myths reveal that we humans want
  desperately to be participants in a meaningful
  biocosmic program

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Our Expanding Consciousness

• 500 B.C. 5,000 miles
• 225 B.C. 8,000 miles
• 150 B.C. 48,000 miles
• 1671 1,800,000 miles
• 1704 6 million miles
• 1940 400 million light-years
• 2002 25 billion light-years

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Consequences

• What will it mean if we establish contact with
  extraterrestrial intelligences (ETs)?
• The impact of how we think about ourselves will
  be deep.

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The Human Preserve

• What is mankinds place in the cosmos?
• Cosmological decentralization
• Biological decentralization
• Psychological decentralization
• The explicit assumption

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Carl SaganThe Encyclopaedia Galactica

• Cosmic consciousness-raising
• The spaceship of the imagination
• A cosmic context for mankind

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Reflections

• Reflect on the impact upon our thinking and
  feeling of the discovery of the existence of
  extraterrestrial life and intelligence. What is
  your evaluation of the implications suggested in
  this chapter?