Cosmological Ideas Research Articles

The latest achievements of fundamental physics as a tool of “culture shock” in education

Specific topics from the field of the latest fundamental physics are proposed for their implementation in the educational process. It is proved that the considered ideas of elementary particle physics and cosmology contain stunning images. These are modern ideas about the structure of the Universe, about dark energy (cosmological vacuum), and the program for building a unified field theory, and the concept of a non-local observer in general relativity; and the accelerated expansion of the Universe with the Big Rip tendency of a Big Gap, and the geometrodynamic concept, and the multidimensional space-time of our Universe, and the superstring model, and the concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking of the cosmological vacuum. And finally, the anthropic principle. Their summary is given. These problems inevitably contribute to the formation of an association of surprise and surprise among students, which is a strong argument in favor of using shock pedagogy technologies. It is proved that the discussed issues serve the spiritual and moral enrichment of young people and the formation of personally significant qualities of their characters in contrast to the routine and moralistic attitudes traditionally used in the educational process. The question is raised about the need to allocate additional hours in the scope of the discipline “Physics” for students of natural science and engineering areas of training / specialties and to restore the status of the discipline “Concepts of modern natural science” for students of humanities / specialties.

Философское осмысление связи движения и взаимного положения материи как условия обратимости их изменений

The fact of existence of the limit of divisibility of matter, established earlier by the author, has an inevitable con-sequence of permanent loss by interacting matter of its motion. Since “heat death” due to this loss of motion has not occurred, therefore, there is a law providing restoration of motion. This law is the law of motion-position of matter. As an analog of the law of motion-position of matter, the article considers the law of conservation of mechanical energy, according to which kinetic energy (reflecting the motion of matter) can be reversibly trans-formed into potential energy (reflecting the mutual position of matter). The fundamental incompatibility of, on the one hand, the law of conservation of energy, corresponding to the relative description of being, and, on the other hand, the fact that motion is not irretrievably lost, corresponding to the absolute description of being close to absolute, is stated. The law of motion-position of matter in the assumption of birth of motion in the state of the greatest convergence of matter agrees with the existing cosmological ideas about the Big Bang and expan-sion of the Universe. The Universe in this case can be represented as an “energy independent” system. As the main problem, the study examines the determination of the mechanism of the growth of the velocity of material structures. The probable sought mechanism is the increase of (circumferential) rotational velocity at decreasing radius of rotation of material bodies, which can be rather complex material structures.

Folding Time: Honorius Augustodunensis' 'Imago Mundi'

The Imago mundi or "Image of the World" was composed around 1110 by Honorius Augustodunensis, one of the most prolific authors of his age. Presented in the form of a mappa mundi, the Imago offers its reader a verbal 'image' of the cosmos, covering topics ranging from the atom to the heavenly spheres. Despite being one of the most popular works of the central Middle Ages, scholars rarely regard the Imago as a text possessing serious literary merit, dismissing it instead as a derivative exercise in compilation. This essay argues that the Imago is in fact an ambitious literary undertaking with a coherent spiritual agenda. While Honorius recycles (like many of his peers) earlier medieval and especially Neoplatonic cosmological ideas, his text shapes that material in new ways – into a spiritually transformative journey through and above the cosmos, and into the self. At the same time, throughout the work Honorius deploys a range of strikingly material metaphors to describe the world from the perspective of eternity – most notably, the rope of time. In this further literary sense, the ascent to eternity entails a recognition that we dwell in images.

Immanuel Kant in the universe

Abstract As so often with our most heralded figures, Immanuel Kant was not merely an iconic theologist and philosopher. Sanjeev Kalita takes the time to look behind the legend, and discovers an early and pioneer of cosmological ideas.

The cosmological ideas in Kant's critical philosophy: Their unique status and twofold regulative use

AbstractKant's theory of the regulative use of ideas of reason has been clarified considerably in recent scholarship. Little attention has been paid, however, to the question of whether the three classes of transcendental ideas—psychological, cosmological, and theological—may differ with regard to their regulative use. This article argues that there is a fundamental difference between the classes of ideas in this respect and that an examination of this heterogeneity can provide much‐needed insight into Kant's account of the utility of the cosmological ideas. First, I set out Kant's distinction between the cosmological ideas and their psychological and theological counterparts. Second, I clarify the two distinct regulative uses of each cosmological idea. I argue that the two opposed sides of the cosmological antinomies provide two different heuristic functions, aligned with the theoretical and practical interests of reason.

Tā, Vā, and Lā: Re-imagining the geopolitics of the Pacific Islands

Oceanic perspectives seldom appear in the geopolitical discourse of metropolitan powers, and the agency of Pacific Island states and peoples is often overlooked. Inspired by calls from political geographers for ‘a more ambitious geopolitical imagination’ (Sharp, 2013), and from Oceanic scholars ‘to examine indigenous epistemologies, ontologies and cosmological ideas and philosophes so that global conversations include local and indigenous understandings’ (Vaai & Nabobo-Baba, 2017), our article represents a conversation between four scholars from differing backgrounds about how analyses of Pacific geopolitics could be re-imagined. We argue that dominant western accounts do not adequately account for the geopolitics of the Pacific because they overlook the multi-temporal, multi-spatial, multi-scalar, and relational ways in which states and other actors behave in the Pacific, and how Pacific Island states and Oceanic peoples perceive, respond to, and influence their behaviour. We instead propose that the intersecting sociospatial conceptualisations of tā (based on the Tongan word taimi, time), vā (vava, space-place), and lā (lahi, big or wide-ranging) can be brought into conversation with the political geography concepts of time, space, and scale. We do not generalise from this example, nor imply that all Oceanic peoples will share our understanding – the region is highly heterogenous. We instead pursue the modest goal of demonstrating how gaps in understanding might be bridged.

Insides, outsides and the labyrinth: Knossos, palatial space and environmental perception in Minoan Crete

This article employs the labyrinth as an analytical and interpretive tool for thinking about Minoan architectural and especially palatial space with a particular focus on Knossos. Whether or not Minoan ruins inspired later Greek mythical narratives, Knossos can be examined as a kind of a labyrinth towards developing new perspectives on Knossos as an experienced environment and how it was entangled with broader cultural and cosmological ideas. A labyrinth perspective enables bringing together multiple spatial, material and cultural forms for the heuristic purposes of exploring palatial space in relation to how the environment and world were perceived in Minoan Crete. Knossos afforded participants a mystical experience that provided glimpses of, or openings into, different dimensions of a layered reality—the richness of the world extending beyond the readily perceivable surface of reality—in a literally and figuratively labyrinthine experienced palatial environment.

L’interprétation astrologique de la philosophie naturelle d’Aristote selon Alexandre d’Aphrodise et Bardesane le Syrien

Abstract The existence of common points between Alexander of Aphrodise and Bardaisan the Syrian has been pointed out on various occasions. However, this question has not been explored in depth. The article proposes to analyse the cosmological ideas of Alexander and Bardaisan. Because both authors are known for their anti-determinist and anti-astrological polemics, it is preferable to place this comparison in the context of the astrological interpretation of Aristotle’s natural philosophy. The article discusses the Aristotelianism of Bardaisan, who may be the first representative of the reception of this doctrine in Syriac.

The Warm Inflation Story

Warm inflation has normalized two ideas in cosmology, that in the early universe the initial primordial density perturbations generally could be of classical rather than quantum origin and that during inflation, particle production from interactions amongst quantum field, and its backreaction effects, can occur concurrent with inflationary expansion. When we first introduced these ideas, both were met with resistance, but today they are widely accepted as possibilities with many models and applications based on them, which is an indication of the widespread influence of warm inflation. Open quantum field theory, which has been utilized in studies of warm inflation, is by now a relevant subject in cosmology, in part due to this early work. In this review I first discuss the basic warm inflation dynamics. I then outline how to compute warm inflation dynamics from first-principles quantum field theory (QFT) and in particular how a dissipative term arises. Warm inflation models can have an inflaton mass bigger than the Hubble scale and the inflaton field excursion can remain sub-Planckian, thus overcoming the most prohibitive problems of inflation model building. I discuss the early period of my work in developing warm inflation that helped me arrive at these important features of its dynamics. Inflationary cosmology today is immersed in hypothetical models, which by now are acting as a diversion from reaching any endgame in this field. I discuss better ways to approach model selection and give necessary requirements for a well constrained and predictive inflation model. A few warm inflation models are pointed out that could be developed to this extent. I discuss how, at this stage, more progress would be made in this subject by taking a broader view on the possible early universe solutions that include not just inflation but the diverse range of options.

Co-opting the stars: Divination and the politics of resistance in Buddhist Thailand

Beginning in 2020, young people in Thailand have led rallies to protest the interference of the military and the monarchy in politics. They have also condemned the role played by Buddhist discourse and court ritual in celebrating kings as divine. ‘No God, No King, Only Human’ reads a protest sign. Simultaneously, however, some groups of protesters have used the same ‘religious’ repertoire, such as the astrological tradition of the court, in their activism, turning it into an instrument of resistance. This article explores this apparent ambivalence via an ethnographic focus on divination, a long-standing central feature of Thai politics. Drawing from a decade of fieldwork conducted with diviners (mo du) and their clients from both pro-regime and pro-democracy camps, including prominent young activists, I argue that progressive individuals do not necessarily need to reject cosmological ideas and rituals deemed conservative in order to resist. Rather, many proactively co-opt them to enhance their own position in the polity, further demonstrating the inability of those in power to live up to accepted moral standards. This strategy, which builds on a Southeast Asian tradition of millenarianism, mobilises dogmatic notions including karma in support of narratives and practices of resistance.

How did a Lutheran astronomer get converted into a Catholic authority? The Jesuits and their reception of Tycho Brahe in Portugal.

This article explores the complex process of integrating Tycho Brahe's theories into the Jesuit intellectual framework through focusing on the international community of professors who taught mathematics at the College of Saint Anthony (Colégio de Santo Antão), Lisbon, during the first half of the seventeenth century. Historians have conceived the reception of the Tychonic system as a straightforward process motivated by the developments of early modern astronomy. Nevertheless, this paper argues that the cultural politics of the Counter-Reformation Church curbed the reception of Tycho Brahe within the Jesuit milieu. Despite supporting the Tychonic geo-heliocentric system, which they explicitly conceived of as a 'compromise' between the ancient Ptolemy and the modern Copernicus, and making recourse to some of the cosmological ideas produced in Tycho's Protestant milieu, the Jesuits strove to confine the authority of the Lutheran astronomer to the domain of mathematics. Philosophy was expected to remain the realm of Catholic orthodoxy. Thus, while Tycho Brahe entered the pantheon of 'Jesuit' authorities, he nonetheless was not granted the absolute status of intellectual authority. This case demonstrates how the impact of confessionalization reached well beyond the formal processes of science censorship.

Тематическое разнообразие творчества М.Шульгина

The article explores the themes characteristic of the work of the Khanty writer M.I.Shulgin (1940—2007). This study proceeds from the fact that the writer and his works are insufficiently studied in domestic literary criticism. Little attention is paid to the poetic works of M.Shulgin only in the regional curriculum. The main research methods are the analysis of scientific literature on the research topic, the cultural-historical method that studies the reflection of a cultural era in a work of art, hermeneutics aimed at interpreting the text and the method of system-holistic analysis of a literary work. As a result of the study, the following conclusion is drawn: the themes characteristic of M. Shulgin’s work mainly reflect the mythological and cosmological ideas of the Ob Ugrians, namely, the Khanty people. These are such themes as the themes of the motherland, native nature, ancestors. However, Shulgin, stating the irreversibility of the changes brought by modernity to the Khanty’s life, cultivates in his work such themes as the theme of labour, scientific and technological progress. A special place in Shulgin’s work is occupied by the children’s theme, which is also associated with the idea of the Khanty people that the upbringing of children should take place through familiarization with the people’s culture through fairy tales that reflect their mythological ideas.

The Phenomenon of Cosmological Ideas in Early American Puritan Philosophy

The Phenomenon of Cosmological Ideas in Early American Puritan Philosophy

The architecture of the Early Iron Age funerary barrows in Central Kazakhstan

A complex community of the early Iron Age in Eurasia is represented by the Tasmola archaeological culture, which was mainly spread in Central Kazakhstan. In the last decades, new research directions have appeared which are mainly related to the analysis of massive burial mounds. These latter, preserving the human remains and the material culture associated to the Tasmola high class and nobility, share features with several cult and commemorative structures spread across the Eurasian steppe. Their architecture and building layout provide different evidences about their modeling and the reconstruction of ancient ceremonies and activities, as well a better understanding of the past material and spiritual culture. The study of massive barrows is today carried out with new methods and approaches, which are aimed at reconstructing the whole funerary construction: unexpected details show a very complex structure and open new perspectives both in the architec ture knowledge of the ancient Eurasian tribes, as well as in identifying some features of the Saka funerary mythology. A detailed and careful study allows to determine substantial evidence of ritual practices in the structure of large funerary monuments. The purpose of the article is to provide a characterization of the building structure of large funerary barrows and, on the basis of diverse construction features, to present some worldview and cosmological ideas of the Tasmola community. The article then provides a brief description of the main characteristics of the Tasmola archaeological culture, and outlines the main historiographic information on the reconstruction of ethno-geography, namely the ethnic names, of the early Iron Age population in Central Kazakhstan. Based on the analysis of the burial architecture of large mounds located along the Ishim River, in the Nur-Sultan region, it is proposed here a reconstruction of some worldview ideas and mythology of the ancient Saka tribes.

Семантика образа лебедя в космогонических представлениях бурят

Introduction. In mythological worldviews of Buryats and quite a number of other Turko-Mongols, swan acts as a totem on the female part of the ethnic community. The article examines the image of swan in Buryat cosmogonic folkways. The semantic approach to the study of functions attributed to Swan Maiden in mythological worldviews of Buryats and some other Turko-Mongols of Siberia and Central Asia, and historical cultures of the region makes the work topical enough. Goals. The study aims to delineate cosmogonic and cosmological ideas in the plot of the genealogical myth of Khori Buryats, and seasonal holidays resulting from by the former. Materials and methods. The paper primarily explores writings by M. Khangalov, G. Rumyantsev, A. Okladnikov, and D. Raevsky. The main research methods used are the cultural/semantic, comparative, and historical/comparative ones (the latter instrumental in analyzing structural units of the myth that make it possible to reveal its links with Scythian cosmology and Indo-Iranian mythology). The chronological framework of the study covers the late 19th to early 29th century. Results. In the myth, changes in anthropomorphic and ornithomorphic appearances of swan maiden serve to model spatial and temporal parameters of the world. Three stages in the development of time correlate with the three stages of Swan Maiden’s life and attest to that mythological worldviews of the community contained no ‘death of time’ concept. The point of ‘disappearance’ of time simultaneously acted as a new beginning to be secured through the milk sprinkling ritual performed by women during seasonal arrivals and reverse migrations of birds. The historical and cultural essentials of the mythologemes ‘marriage’ (autumn rites) and ‘birth’ (spring ones) manifested in Bronze Age petroglyphs of the Baikal bays (Sagan-Zaba, Aya) and the Chuluut River in Mongolia illustrate a process of transforming the Scythian cosmogonic plot into that of a genealogical myth. Conclusions. The image of swan in mythological worldviews of Buryats and a wide range of Turko-Mongols serves a personification of the cosmological classifier.

Where Do All These Ideas Come From? Kant on the Formation of Concepts Under the Guidance of Pure Reason

Abstract It is not just rationalist metaphysics, but also Kant’s transcendental philosophy that is teeming with a priori concepts. According to Kant, some of these a priori concepts are “ideas,” and similar to the categories, some of these ideas in turn belong to the nature of human reason, while others can be derived from them. It is therefore part of Kant’s claim in the “Transcendental Dialectic” to be able to explain not only the leading ideas of rational psychology, cosmology, and theology as natural concepts of reason, but the origin of the entire a priori vocabulary of the metaphysica specialis as well. This article outlines how Kant’s derivations of these concepts work. After explaining Kant’s classification of a priori concepts and the derivation of the transcendental ideas, his derivations are explored in more detail using the example of the concepts of the pure doctrine of the soul. This contributes to a better understanding of Kant’s theory of philosophical concepts while also shedding light on the rather rarely treated topic of the “Transcendental Dialectic.”

SUBJECT CULTURE CODE "KAZAKH YURT": GENESIS AND SEMANTICS

The article includes the analysis of the semantics of the subject code Kazakh yurt. At present, the issues of content and semantics, functions, definitions of the term "cultural code" are the subject of scientific research in many branches of the humanities. In the scientific discourse there is a significant number of works, the authors of which put different ideas and meanings in the concept of "cultural code", which is due to its polysemantic and versatility features. But at the same time, the researchers are unanimous that cultural code is an integral part, semantic core, matrix of the cultural process; is an essential component of the national picture of the world. The location of functioning and self-presentation of cultural codes in the spiritual sphere are the so-called secondary sign systems (along with natural languages, recognized as the original "basic semiotic system", as primary sign system), namely: myth, religion, folklore, literature, art - painting , dance, architecture, sculpture, cinema, science, etc., which play a dominant role in the process of generation and transmission of socio-cultural knowledge, experience and values ​​of society. The source and context for the formation of cultural codes is the Universe: 1) objects and phenomena of the natural landscape environment surrounding a person, the near and far Universe; 2) a person – who is feeling, seeing, hearing, tactile, thinking, with his inherent higher forms of thinking and self-consciousness; 3) society, i.e. a community of individuals and individualities; 4) the world of objects and things created by human, i.e. realities of ethnic culture. In the system of cultural codes, an important place is occupied by the subject code, which includes an extremely wide list of objects and phenomena of nature, as well as the materialized results of human activity, which, as a result of semiosis, along with their immanently inherent properties, can be attributed with other qualities/ meanings / functions, i.e. acquire the status of a sign/symbol. It is concluded that the yurt archetype was formed on the basis of the most archaic stage of cosmological ideas about the multi-tiered Universe and vertical axis of the world connecting all its parts, as well as the cult of the sun, sky, the goddess Umai, the cult of ancestors, etc.

The Sacred River: State Ritual, Political Legitimacy, and Religious Practice of the Jidu in Imperial China

This paper focuses on the Jidu 濟瀆 (i.e., the Ji River 濟水), one of the four waterways (sidu 四瀆) in imperial China. Even though it vanished a long time ago, the Jidu had always been a part of the traditional Chinese ritual system of mountain- and water-directed state sacrifices. From the Western Han dynasty to the Qing dynasty, it continuously received regular state sacrifices. However, Western scholars have failed to notice it. Some modern Chinese and Japanese scholars have studied the development of the Jidu sacrifice, but its embodied political and religious significances for the state and local society were largely ignored. To remedy this neglect, I provide here, with new discoveries and conclusions, the first comprehensive study of the Jidu sacrifice in imperial China. Surrounding this coherent theme, this paper draws several original arguments from its four sections. The first section is a brief history of the state sacrifice to the Jidu. In the second section, I analyze the ideas of state authority, political legitimacy, religious belief, and cosmology, as these underlie the ritual performance concerning the Jidu. I argue that the Jidu was not only tightly associated with controlling water but was also a symbol and mechanism of political legitimacy. Relying on concrete official and local records, in the third section I further investigate the role that the Jidu God played in local society. I argue that after the Song dynasty, the Jidu God was transformed into a regional protector of local society and savior of local people in addition to an official water god. In the fourth section, I, for the first time, examine the interaction between the Jidu cult and other religious traditions including Daoism, Buddhism, and folk religion.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE ABOUT THE CREATION EX NIHILO IN THE WORKS OF GREEK APOLOGISTS

The aim of our examination into this topic is twofold: 1) to examine the approaches of the theme of creation in the Christian apologetic writings of the second century; 2) to analyze their philosophical support, the concepts substantiating the expression of this theory on the origin of the universe. In methodological terms, we would like to focus on the cosmological ideas of four patristic personalities: Justin the Martyr, Athenagoras of Athens, Tatian the Syrian, and Theophilus of Antioch. An attentive examination highlights a progress in the Christian thinking regarding the origin of the world, which occured during a relatively brief periodl of time. We can notice, during a first stage, a cohabitation of the apologists with the Greek philosophical tradition, and, afterward, a gradual, yet decisive, breakup with the Hellenic vision regarding the way of understanding the relation between God and creation.

Alternative ideas in cosmology

Some remarkable examples of alternative cosmological theories are reviewed here, ranging from a compilation of variations on the Standard Model through the more distant quasi-steady-state cosmology, plasma cosmology, or universe models as a hypersphere, to the most exotic cases including static models. The present-day Standard Model of cosmology, [Formula: see text]CDM, gives us a representation of a cosmos whose dynamics is dominated by gravity (Friedmann equations derived from general relativity) with a finite lifetime, large scale homogeneity, expansion and a hot initial state, together with other elements necessary to avoid certain inconsistencies with observations (inflation, nonbaryonic dark matter, dark energy, etc.). There are however some models with characteristics that are close to those of the Standard Model but differing in some minor aspects; we call these “variations on the Standard Model”. Many of these models are indeed investigated by some mainstream cosmologists: different considerations on CP violation, inflation, number of neutrino species, quark-hadron phase transition, baryonic or nonbaryonic dark-matter, dark energy, nucleosynthesis scenarios, large-scale structure formation scenarios; or major variations like a inhomogeneous universe, Cold Big Bang, varying physical constants or gravity law, zero-active mass (also called “[Formula: see text]”), Milne, and cyclical models. At the most extreme distance from the Standard Model, the static models, a noncosmological redshift includes “tired-light” hypotheses, which assume that the photon loses energy owing to an intrinsic property or an interaction with matter or light as it travels some distance, or other nonstandard ideas. Our impression is that none of the alternative models has acquired the same level of development as [Formula: see text]CDM in offering explanations of available cosmological observations. One should not, however, judge any theory in terms of the number of observations that it can successfully explain (ad hoc in many cases) given the much lower level of development of the alternative ones, but by the plausibility of its principles and its potential to fit data with future improvements of the theories. A pluralist approach to cosmology is a reasonable option when the preferred theory is still under discussion.