Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast,
Where I help you drift off one fact at a time.
I'm your host,
Benjamin Boster,
And today's episode is about the cosmos.
The cosmos is an alternative name for the universe or its nature or order.
Usage of the word cosmos implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity.
The cosmos is studied in cosmology,
A broad discipline covering scientific,
Religious,
Or philosophical aspects of the cosmos and its nature.
Religious and philosophical approaches may include the cosmos among spiritual entities or other matters deemed to exist outside the physical universe.
The verb kosmin meant generally to dispose,
Prepare,
But especially to order and arrange troops for battle,
To set an army in array,
Also to establish a government or regime,
To adorn dress,
Especially of women.
Thus Kosmos meant ornaments decoration.
Compare kosmokomis,
Dressing the hair,
And the English word cosmetic.
The philosopher Pythagoras used the term cosmos for the order of the universe.
Anaxagoras further introduced the concept of a cosmic mind ordering all things.
The 1870 book Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology noted,
Insertion.
Hence Aristotle,
Immediately after he is called him the originator of philosophy,
Brings forward the reasons which Thales was believed to have adduced in confirmation of that assertion.
For that no written development of it,
Or indeed any book by Thales with extant,
Is proved by the expression which Aristotle uses when he brings forth the doctrines and proofs of the Milesian.
Plato describes the idea of the good,
The cosmic mind,
Or the Godhead,
Sometimes teleologically,
As the ultimate purpose of all conditioned existence,
Sometimes cosmologically as the ultimate operative cause,
And has begun to develop the cosmological as also the physical theological proof for the being of God,
Back to the idea of the good as the necessary presupposition to all other ideas,
And the cognition of them.
Aristotle says the poet Orpheus never existed.
The Pythagoreans describe this Orphic poem to a certain Sircon.
The Orphics were an ascetic sect.
Wine to them was only a symbol,
As later in the Christian sacraments.
The intoxication that they sought was that of enthusiasm of union with the God.
They believe themselves in this way to acquire mystic knowledge not obtainable by ordinary means.
This mystical element entered into Greek philosophy with Pythagoras,
Who was a reformer of Orphism as Orpheus was a reformer of the religion of Dionysus.
From Pythagoras,
Orphic elements entered into the philosophy of Plato,
And from Plato into most later philosophy that was in any degree religious.
Anaximander was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who is widely referred to as the father of astronomy,
And even as the father of cosmology,
As a result of his works to explain the origin and makeup of the physical universe.
He is regarded as the most important of the Ionian philosophers and was a pupil of Thales.
Traditionally,
Details of his life and opinions are perpetuated not only by Aristotle and Theophrastus,
But also by a great number of secondary authors.
He lived throughout the 5th and 4th centuries BCE,
And was most likely the first philosopher to try to rationalize the system of the Earth,
Sun,
And Moon by the use of geometry and mathematics.
Anaximander was also said to have created the first map of the world.
However,
Like much of the rest of his works,
This has been lost since his time.
There is,
However,
Documentation of Anaximander being responsible for the conception of the first mechanical model of the world,
Which is outlined by a geocentric model.
He postulated that the Earth was at the center of the universe,
And that its shape was convex and cylindrical,
With life existing on one of the two flat sides.
Beyond the Earth sits the other planets,
Which Anaximander also details the order of.
Next are the fixed stars which he regarded as wheel-like condensations of air filled with fire,
Provided at certain places with openings through which flames are discharged.
Anaximander places the moon beyond these stars and assumed it to also be wheel-like in shape,
Being 19 times the size of Earth.
Finally,
On the top of the universe is the Sun,
Which interacts with the Moon,
And the relationship between them is described in terms of aperture,
In which a stoppage end would lead to eclipses.
In this model,
The Sun is a ring,
28 times the size of the Earth,
With a hollow rim filled with fire,
Which at a certain place is seen through an aperture as in a pair of bellows.
He also postulated regarding the formation of thunder and lightning,
Maintaining that they are caused by the wind becoming compressed inside a thick cloud and suddenly breaking through,
Causing the loud sound to be heard as the cloud is bursting.
He claimed the fissures then looked like a spark because of the contrast with the dark cloud.
Anaximander's model set a precedent for succeeding theories,
Including Copernicus's system,
With the major change being a shift away from the geocentric model and towards the heliocentric model of the universe.
The EXPLAINED model,
Although accredited to Anaximander,
Did necessarily take from ideas originated in foreign cultures,
Such as the astronomical wheels which are known from Persian cosmology.
But even without detailed commentary,
These elements of the Anaximander tradition give a strong impression of an original and courageous thinker making conscious efforts towards producing a rational explanation of fundamental physical principles,
The nature and motion of heavenly bodies,
The shape of Earth,
Its place in the universe,
Etc.
Eastern and Western thought differed greatly in their understanding of space and the organization of the cosmos.
The Chinese saw the cosmos as empty,
Infinite,
And intertwined with the earth.
Western ideas based on the ancient Greeks' understanding of the cosmos,
Believed in a multi-planar divided cosmos that was finite and filled with air.
Early Europeans viewed the cosmos as a divinely created,
Spatially finite,
Bifurcated cosmos,
Divided into sublunary and superlunary realms.
Objects above the lunar disk were believed to be stable,
With heavenly bodies believed to be made out of a refined substance called quintessence.
This was understood to be a crystalline,
Completely transparent substance that held all the superlunary spheres in perfect order.
After their creation by God,
These spheres did not change except for their rotation above the earth.
Objects below the lunar sphere were subject to constant combination,
Separation,
And recombination.
This was because they consisted of the chaotic elements of earth,
Air,
Fire,
And water.
The idea of celestial spheres was developed in the cosmological models of Plato,
Eudoxus,
Aristotle,
Ptolemy,
Copernicus,
And others.
They believed in a stable cosmos,
Created by God,
Where distinct realms were subject to different kinds of order.
Some Europeans maintain the Aristotelian view that infinity could only be seen as an attribute of God,
With the cosmos being finite.
Furthermore,
Following the Aristotelian view that nature abhors a vacuum,
Some Europeans believe that the space between the spheres were filled with air.
This theory persisted until the scientific revolution,
When the discovery that the Sun was in the center of the planetary system rocked cosmological understanding to its core.
Other theories,
Such as atomism,
Posited a void of atoms as the fundamental elements of physics,
While stoicism postulated a void,
Allowing for the cosmos to expand and contract in volume through its cycles.
The Chinese had multiple theories of the processes and components of the cosmos.
The most popular of these beliefs was the Shuang-Yi theory.
The astronomical view of the cosmos as an infinite space with floating pieces of condensed paper.
The Chinese believe that the earth consisted of condensed yin and the heavens of yang.
And that these properties coexisted in constant relation to each other,
With yin and yang being used together to explain processes on earth,
As well as those relating to the earth in conjunction with the heavens.
This idea was described by Joseph Needham as a cosmos that functioned similarly to a complex organism,
With discernible patterns in an ever-changing structure.
There is both a pattern and a randomness to the cosmos.
Because of this,
The Chinese believed that earthly phenomena could affect heavenly bodies.
The Chinese believed that qi was the substance of all things in the cosmos and earth.
Including inanimate matter,
Humans,
Ideas,
Emotions,
Celestial bodies,
And everything that exists or has existed.
And that it was chi condensing that created all the matter within the cosmos.
This is relatively consistent with the modern understanding of the congregation of matter through gravitational fields.
The Chinese held a belief associated with Xuanyi theory,
Which held space as both empty and infinite.
This was inconsistent with the Aristotelian concepts,
That nature would not contain a vacuum,
And that infinity could only be a divine attribute.
The idea of the nothingness of space was later recognized as one of the most important discoveries of modern science.
The Hindus believed in a cyclic universe related to three other beliefs.
One,
Time is endless and space has infinite extension.
2.
Earth is not the center of the universe.
3.
Laws govern all development,
Including the creation and destruction of the universe.
The Indians believed that there were three types of space.
Physiological,
Physical,
And infinite space.
The infinite space consists of undivided consciousness and everything that is inside and outside.
However,
Finite division of space is where time begins,
And the division of time is where all beings were first created.
It was believed that there are connections between the physical and the psychological worlds,
And an equivalence existed between the outer cosmos and the inner cosmos of the individual.
This is expressed in the famous sentence,
As in the body,
So in the universe.
The Indian cyclic model assumes the existence of countless island universes,
Which goes through their own periods of development and destruction.
The conception of cyclicity is taken to be recursive.
For an early exposition of these astronomical and cosmological ideas,
One may read Al-Biruni's Classic History of Indian Science,
Composed in 1030 A.
D.
And for an even earlier popular view of Indian ideas,
One may consult the Vedantic text called the Yoga Vashita,
Which at 32,
000 shlokas,
Is one of the longest books in world literature.
Australian cosmology has a vast and varied history.
Australian cosmology beliefs were based around the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' ideas,
Also known as indigenous astronomy,
And it was around before the Babylonians,
Greeks,
And the Renaissance period.
They found ways to observe the moon,
Stars and the sun.
This enabled them to create a sense of time.
This also allowed them to navigate across the continent,
Create calendars,
And predict the weather.
One of the most important constellations in Australia for the Aboriginal people is the Emu.
The Emu constellation represents the connection between the Earth and the sky,
And stories and representations of their constellations were written on some cave walls in Australia.
Another indigenous tribe,
Known as the Yulai,
Saw the Milky Way as a river,
And between the two bright sides represented a galactic bulge where the two sons of the Creator,
Bayami and the river,
Made a connection from the earth and the sky.
The Yonggu people were one of the first to discover how the tide of the ocean works.
They discovered the tide had a direct correlation with the moon.
The reasoning as to why the ocean did not fill up as much as perhaps when the moon was full,
Versus a crescent moon,
Is because the moon was not as full either.
This contradicts the father of science,
Galileo,
Who said that the tides correlated with the Earth's orbit around the Sun.
Multiple indigenous tribes described winter by the Seven Sisters,
A group of stars in the sky that provided hunter-gatherers a sort of calendar to include whether they should be hunting or gathering based on the season.
There is one way that both the Chinese and the Europeans,
Along with countless other ancient societies,
Related to the cosmos.
This was through meaning,
Placed on celestial bodies that were observed moving above the Earth.
The Chinese had a very complex astronomical understanding of the stars and the cosmos that influenced everything from their art and architecture to their myths and science.
This was also true of the Greeks and Romans,
Whose 48 constellations,
Including the zodiac signs and the constellation of Orion,
Have been passed down to modern Western cultures.
These were likely passed down to them from ancient Babylonian and Egyptian astronomers.
Copernicus is said to have been inspired by the fecund sun deity of Neoplatonic thought,
Which may have initially inspired his vision of a heliocentric universe.
Commonly regarded as the foundation of modern astronomy,
The common universal view of the cosmos shifted as Nicolaus Copernicus positioned the Sun as the center of the universe.
Prior to the Copernican revolution,
The Ptolemaic system,
Also known as the geocentric model,
Was widely accepted.
This put the Earth at the center of the universe,
With the Sun and other planets revolving around the Earth in an epicyclic orbit.
Aristotle's geocentric model was also broadly acknowledged,
Along with his claim that the planets rotated,
But did not orbit.
The reasoning behind this was due to the belief that all objects outside of the lunar sphere were celestial bodies,
And therefore could not change,
As they were made of quintessence.
There were notable critiques of this model prior to Copernicus.
In the Islamic world,
Ibn al-Haytham doubted Ptolemy's notion of the planetary orbits,
And Muhammad al-Badani recalculated the parameters.
However,
Both still agreed with the geocentric model.
One of the first known astronomers that supported the heliocentric theory was Aristarchus of Samos.
After observing a lunar eclipse,
He came to the conclusion that the Sun was farther away from Earth than the Moon,
And that the Sun was much larger than Earth.
He also claimed the sun was a star.
While Aristarchus was later an influence on Copernicus and his groundbreaking work,
Prior to the 17th century,
Aristarchus' findings were obstructed by the more established theories of Ptolemy and Aristotle.
Astronomer and mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus was appointed by the Catholic Church as an official,
As his uncle was a bishop in the Church.
He used his income to further his studies,
Eventually studying at the University of Bologna in Italy.
Copernicus began doubting the knowledge of natural philosophers and their beliefs,
Claiming that geometrical astronomy instead would result in the true reality of the cosmos.
His manuscript,
De Revolucionobis,
Pioneered ideas that would change the course of how both the cosmos and astrology were viewed.
Most notably,
Copernicus claimed that the Sun was the stationary center of the universe.
His work also included calculations on the motions of the Moon,
And the motions in latitude and longitude of the planets,
All which orbit the Sun.
Copernicus's work was not immediately published,
As it disagreed with the biblical teachings,
And he feared his work would be rejected by Catholic officials.
Copernicus's work was not entirely mathematical conviction.
There is evidence that Copernicus was influenced by Neoplatonism.
Founded by philosopher Plotinus,
Neoplatonism believes the Sun is the symbol of the One,
Or the Universal Soul.
It would make sense then that Copernicus would place the god-like figure at the center of the universe.
Neoplatonist Nikolaus of Cusa claimed the universe was infinite,
Containing multiple earths and suns.
This changed the belief of a finite universe to an infinite one,
Which emphasized a more obscure and incomplete version of God.
Cosmology is the study of the cosmos,
And in its broadest sense covers a variety of very different approaches,
Scientific,
Religious,
And philosophical.
All cosmologies have in common an attempt to understand the implicit order within the whole of being.
In this way,
Most religions and philosophical systems have a cosmology.
When cosmology is used without a qualifier,
It often signifies physical cosmology,
Unless the context makes clear that a different meaning is intended.
Physical cosmology,
Often simply described as cosmology,
Is the scientific study of the universe from the beginning of its physical existence.
It includes speculative concepts,
Such as a multiverse,
When these are being discussed.
In physical cosmology,
The term cosmos is often used in a technical way,
Referring to a particular space-time continuum within a postulated multiverse.
The particular cosmos in which humans live,
The observable universe,
Is generally capitalized as the cosmos.
In physical cosmology,
The uncapitalized term cosmic signifies a subject with a relationship to the universe,
Such as cosmic time,
Time since the Big Bang,
Cosmic rays,
High energy particles or radiation detected from space,
And cosmic microwave background,
Microwave radiation detectable from all directions in space.
Cosmology is a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe,
A theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe.
The basic definition of cosmology is the science of the origin and development of the universe.
In modern astronomy,
The Big Bang theory is the dominant postulation.
Philosophy of cosmology is an expanding discipline directed to the conceptual foundations of cosmology and the philosophical contemplation of the universe as a totality.
It draws on the fundamental theories of physics,
Thermodynamics,
Statistical mechanics,
Quantum mechanics,
Quantum field theory,
And special and general relativity,
And on several branches of philosophy,
Philosophy of physics,
Philosophy of science,
Metaphysics,
Philosophy of mathematics,
And epistemology.
In theology,
The cosmos is the created heavenly bodies,
Sun,
Moon,
Wandering stars,
And fixed stars.
The concept of cosmos as the created universe and its arrangement has been important in Christendom since its very inception,
As it is heavily used in the New Testament and occurs over 180 times.
In Christian theology,
The word is sometimes used synonymously with aeon,
To refer to worldly life,
Or this world,
Or this age,
As opposed to the afterlife,
Or world to come,
Although aeon,
Eon,
Is also at times used in a more otherworldly sense,
As the eternal plane of the divine.
