Infinite Universe Research Articles

Morality and Method in Pascal's Pensees

This essay argues that Pascal's work both questions the accuracy of perspective in an infinite universe, and describes a model for moral truth that escapes the limitations of perspective. This model, rooted in Christianity, requires a total reorientation of approach towards moral truth. By asserting the limits of rational method, making use of recent scientific developments, and constructing a new model for moral truth, Pascal's work sought to update the role of Christianity to be not only consonant with the secular thinking of his day but also as the only solution to the implications of that thinking.

Conflict between anthropic reasoning and observation

Anthropic reasoning often begins with the premise that we should expect to find ourselves typical among all intelligent observers. However, in the infinite universe predicted by inflation, there are some civilizations which have spread across their galaxies and contain huge numbers of individuals. Unless the proportion of such large civilizations is unreasonably tiny, most observers belong to them. Thus anthropic reasoning predicts that we should find ourselves in such a large civilization, while in fact we do not. There must be an important flaw in our understanding of the structure of the universe and the range of development of civilizations, or in the process of anthropic reasoning.

Conflict between anthropic reasoning and observation

Anthropic reasoning often begins with the premise that we should expect to find ourselves typical among all intelligent observers. However, in the infinite universe predicted by inflation, there are some civilizations which have spread across their galaxies and contain huge numbers of individuals. Unless the proportion of such large civilizations is unreasonably tiny, most observers belong to them. Thus anthropic reasoning predicts that we should find ourselves in such a large civilization, while in fact we do not. There must be an important flaw in our understanding of the structure of the universe and the range of development of civilizations, or in the process of anthropic reasoning.

Shielding the Unmedia: Using the Process of Journalism to Protect the Journalist's Privilege in an Infinite Universe of Publication

When a computer and a connection to the Internet allow almost anyone to claim to be a journalist, the question of should be covered by media shield laws becomes especially difficult. Based on the premise that it is important to preserve the journalist's privilege and to accommodate the unmedia if that can be done without undermining journalism's values, this article suggests that the best way to limit the journalist's privilege is not to define who is a journalist? or is news? Instead, the privilege should extend protection to anyone is in the work process of journalism. Drawing on the profession's standards, the article proposes that an individual is engaged in journalism when the writer is involved in a process that is intended to generate and disseminate truthful information to the public on a regular basis. The article identifies key elements of the newsgathering process that can be judged objectively, and without undue intrusion into the editorial process, no matter uses them or in what medium.

Constraints on the ultraviolet metagalactic emissivity using the Ly forest

Numerical hydrodynamical simulations have proven a successful means of reproducing many of the statistical properties of the Lyα forest as measured in high redshift quasar spectra. The source of ionization of the intergalactic medium (IGM), however, remains unknown. We investigate how the Lyα forest may be used to probe the nature of the sources. We show that the attenuation of Lyman continuum photons by the IGM depends sensitively on the emissivity of the sources, permitting a strong constraint to be set on the required emissivity to match the measured values of the mean IGM Lyα optical depth. We find that, within the observational errors, quasi-stellar object (QSO) sources alone are able to account for the required ultraviolet (UV) background at z≳ 4. By contrast, the emissivity of Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) must decline sharply with redshift, compared with the estimated emissivity at z≈ 3, so as not to overproduce the UV background and drive the mean Lyα optical depth to values that are too low. We also investigate the effect of fluctuations in the UV background, as would arise if QSOs dominated. To this end, we derive the distribution function of the background radiation field produced by discrete sources in an infinite universe, including the effects of attenuation by an intervening absorbing medium. We show that, for z≳ 5, the fluctuations significantly boost the mean Lyα optical depth, and so increase the estimate for the mean ionization rate required to match the measured mean Lyα optical depths. The fluctuations will also result in large spatial correlations in the ionization level of the IGM. We show that the large mean Lyα optical depth measured at z≈ 6 suggests such large correlations will be present if QSOs dominate the UV background. A secondary, smaller effect of the UV background fluctuations is a distortion of the pixel flux distribution. While the effect on the distribution may be too small to detect with existing telescopes, it may be measurable with the extremely large telescopes planned for the future. We also show that if QSOs dominate the UV background at z≈ 6, then they will be sufficient in number to rejuvenate the ionization of a previously ionized IGM if it has not yet fully recombined.

What science is for. By Caveman.

What science is for. By Caveman.

Leibniz and the post-Copernican universe. Koyré revisited

This paper employs the revised conception of Leibniz emerging from recent research to reassess critically the ‘radical spiritual revolution’ which, according to Alexandre Koyré’s landmark book, From the closed world to the infinite universe (1957) was precipitated in the seventeenth century by the revolutions in physics, astronomy, and cosmology. While conceding that the cosmological revolution necessitated a reassessment of the place of value-concepts within cosmology, it argues that this reassessment did not entail a spiritual revolution of the kind assumed by Koyré, in which ‘value-concepts, such as perfection, harmony, meaning and aim’ were shed from the conception of the structure of the universe altogether. On the contrary, thanks to his pioneering intuition of the distinction between physical and metaphysical levels of explanation, Leibniz saw with great clarity that a scientific explanation of the universe which rejected the ‘closed world’ typical of Aristotelian cosmology did not necessarily require the abandonment of key metaphysical doctrines underlying the Aristotelian conception of the universe. Indeed the canon of value-concepts mentioned by Koyré—meaning, aim, perfection and harmony—reads like a list of the most important concepts underlying the Leibnizian conception of the metaphysical structure of the universe. Moreover, Leibniz’s universe, far from being a universe without God—because, as Clarke insinuated, it does not need intervention from God—is a universe which in its deepest ontological fabric is interwoven with the presence of God.

Cryptographic Analysis in Cubic Time

The spi-calculus is a variant of the polyadic π-calculus that admits symmetric cryptography and that admits expressing communication protocols in a precise though still abstract way. This paper shows that context-independent control flow analysis can be calculated in cubic time despite the fact that the spi-calculus operates over an infinite universe of values. Our approach is based on Horn Clauses with Sharing and we develop transformations to pass from the infinite to the finite and to deal with the polyadic nature of input and output. We prove that this suffices for obtaining a cubic time implementation without sacrificing precision and without making simplifying assumptions on the nature of keys.

ALMOST CLASSICAL CREATION OF A UNIVERSE

We study the problem of a 1 + 1 cord with a dynamical massless scalar field living in it, which separates a false vacuum and a conical region in a 2 + 1 space. A stable "particle-like" configuration can be found. Also, oscillating solutions exist which can tunnel to an expanding type solution. The most outstanding feature for these oscillating solution is that we do not need a singularity to create an infinite universe from them, and that an arbitrarily small tunneling is needed to achieve this. Possible consequences for similar processes, involving cosmic strings in 3 + 1 dimensions are discussed.

Addison's Aesthetics of Novelty

Addison's Aesthetics of Novelty SCOTT BLACK The history of eighteenth-century British aesthetics has been written mainly as an explication of two terms, the beautiful and the sublime, with critics generally taking as their starting point Burke's disqualification of "novelty" as a separate category of analysis. Only recently have some begun to account for the historical fact of this category before the Enquiry (1757).' In this paper I examine "novelty," not to correct Burke or to defend the pleasures of novelty, but to offer an account of its significance as one of three terms—great, beautiful, novel—in Addison's "Pleasures of the Imagination" (1712).21 argue that novelty is the central category of the "Pleasures," offering a self-reflection of both the Spectator itself and the dynamics of the civil society that the periodical essay was instrumental in articulating.3 For the last sixty years, Addison has been read as a precursor of the romantic sublime.4 Clarence DeWitt Thorpe (1937) concludes his study of novelty by saying that Addison helped "open the way to . . . phases of romantic critical philosophy," while Robin Dix more recently (1986) suggests that the category was a starting point for attitudes that were "more firmly established, and more fully developed, by the Romantic theorists."5 Neil Saccamano challenges the teleology of the sublime that underwrites such work, offering instead a discussion of the sublime's "logic" and "dy269 270 / BLACK namics" in the "Pleasures."6 For all the rigor with which he resists the telos of a sublime history, though, Saccamano structures his account by its terms, reading Addison with reference to Burke: "Unlike Burke, Addison neither defines a distinct aesthetic pleasure (delight) to cover this negative category [fear], nor considers terror the predominant sublime pleasure."7 But what Addison didn't do does not fully explain what he did do, and what he did do is perhaps best understood by entertaining his own terms. For instance , Saccamano says "the 'pleasing Astonishment' felt in surveying the infinite universe after reading the 'Theories' of 'the new Philosophy'" is "one of the moments entitling the 'Pleasures' to its place in histories of the Kantian natural sublime."8 In the paper to which this refers (S #420), Addison does write of things that will be explained by the sublime, but I don't think he writes of them in sublime terms: "The Understanding, indeed, opens an infinite Space on every side of us, but the Imagination, after a few faint efforts, is immediately at a stand and finds her self swallowed up in the immensity of the Void that surrounds us" (S, 3:576). Addison's response to this gap between the understanding and imagination is to wonder if the reason for "this Defect of Imagination" might be that there is not enough "room in the Brain for such variety of Impressions" (S, 3:577)—an empirical question that refers to a Lockean problematic. The sublime offers one model of reflection, but not the only one in the history of eighteenth-century aesthetic thinking. Discussing an example of Locke's imagery of the infinite, Jules David Law notes "there is no aesthetics of the sublime here; the sensation of failure (constitutive of the 'confused' comparative idea or the attempt to comprehend the negative as a positive idea) does not present itself as a dramatic solution to the tension between the knowable and the unknowable. We might say that the difference between Locke on the one hand and Burke or Kant on the other is that Locke refuses to thematize failure."91 think something similar is going on in Addison's explicitly Lockean aesthetics. Law describes such "empiricist reflection" as "a self-critical procedure, in which perpetual correction and revision (of impressions, of language, and of judgments) are more important that the establishing of permanent categories or conditions of knowledge."10 This equally describes the method of essay writing, and I argue that Addison develops the category of novelty in order to explain the effects of the essay. Novelty theorizes the pleasures of essays, and this offers an alternative to an aesthetics organized by the sublime. Michael McKeon has argued that aesthetics emerged as a field...

From Vita Contemplativa to Vita Activa : Modern Instrumentalization of Theory and the Problem of Measure

In this paper I examine three historically significant readings of the epochal transition from the Middle Ages to the modern world: that provided by Alexandre Koyré in From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe , that of Hans Blumenberg in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age and that of Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition . Each of these readings isolates crucial aspects of the epochal transition which contribute to an understanding of the loss or transformation of traditional measures for knowing and doing consequent upon the shift from the contemplative to the active life. Blumenberg provides a philosophical explanation for the cosmological shift which Koyré describes, while Arendt thematizes the dangers inherent in the loss of an ethical measure which accompanies this transition. Yet both Blumenberg and Arendt conclude that the search for a world-immanent epistemological measure, which would allow us to gauge the adequacy of our descriptions of the world, is not simply a problem for the modern philosopher to address, but rather an impossibility already abandoned in the transition to the modern age. I argue that, on the contrary, such a measure is a requisite of the modern scientific enterprise.

On fitting Cox's proportional hazards models to survey data

SUMMARY Binder (1992) proposed a method of fitting Cox's proportional hazards models to survey data with complex sampling designs. He defined the regression parameter of interest as the solution to the partial likelihood score equation based on all the data values of the survey population under study, and developed heuristically a procedure to estimate the regression parameter and the corresponding variance. In this paper, we provide a formal justification of Binder's method. Furthermore, we present an alternative approach which regards the survey population as a random sample from an infinite universe and accounts for this randomness in the statistical inference. Under the alternative approach, the regression parameter retains its original interpretation as the log hazard ratio, and the statistical conclusion applies to other populations. The related problem of survival function estimation is also studied.

Extraterrestrials of the New World

The fact that the Earth is no longer seen as at the centre of the Universe is the reason normally put forward to explain the rejection of heliocentrism. However, this version does not hit the mark. We should remember particularly that Man's position at the midpoint of the heavens was not all glorious; in the medieval world's hierarchical vision, only Hell is lower than the Earth, above which rises the celestial sphere, the whole being transcended by divine infinity. Observing that this lowly spiritual position reflects a cosmic reality, Nicolas Oresme (d. 1382) thought it wiser to assign the central place to the Sun. Anticipating Copernicus, he even advanced the hypothesis that it was the Earth that moved rather than Heaven. In any case, the important point was less Man's place in the Universe than in Creation, which might in fact contain another Universe side by side with ours, also with an inhabited Earth at its centre, as certain reputable theologians maintained from the thirteenth century. Thus humanity's loss of the central position in Creation had already been sidelined by the hypothesis of a plurality of worlds. However, Giordano Bruno was condemned in 1600, eleven years before the heliocentrism of Copernicus and Galileo, for having defended the vision of an infinite Universe and the idea of extraterrestrial life. How should we explain the fact that in the thirteenth century the papacy was battling with the universities to persuade them to teach that God could create other worlds, whilst in the seventeenth century philosophers, scientists and freethinkers were risking their lives trying to persuade the Inquisition that solar systems similar to our own exist in the Universe?

Die Welt als ein unendlicher Organismus

400 years after Bruno's death by fire in Rome the question arises whether Bruno did in fact die as martyr of truth. If we consider his philosophical arguments we can understand his cosmological concept of the infinite universe as essentially contradictory to some of Aristotle's ideas of philosophy of nature. Alongside his belief in the omnipresence of divinity in nature he takes the view of the universe as a living organism, an area where he was influenced by the hermetic tradition. Above all Bruno's cosmology also includes ethical elements. So if we ask for the actual reason of Bruno's conviction, some theological consequences of his cosmological ideas did presumably influence the judgement of the inquisition. In contrast to Galileo Bruno's condemnation has not so far been withdrawn. However such reconsideration is possible and counting on the church's spirit of reconciliation should come to pass.

Consistency and Completeness in Rough Sets

Consistency and completeness are defined in the context of rough set theory and shown to be related to the lower approximation and upper approximation, respectively. A member of a composed set (union of elementary sets) that is consistent with respect to a concept, surely belongs to the concept. An element that is not a member of a composed set that is complete with respect to a concept, surely does not belong to the concept. A consistent rule and a complete rule are useful in addition to any other rules learnt to describe a concept. When an element satisfies the consistent rule, it surely belongs to the concept, and when it does not satisfy the complete rule, it surely does not belong to the concept. In other cases, the other learnt rules are used. The results in the finite universe are extended to the infinite universe, thus introducing a rough set model for the learning from examples paradigm. The results in this paper have application in knowledge discovery or learning from database environments that are inconsistent, but at the same time demand accurate and definite knowledge. This study of consistency and completeness in rough sets also lays the foundation for related work at the intersection of rough set theory and inductive logic programming.

The universe out of an elementary particle?

We consider a model of an elementary particle as a (2 + 1)-dimensional brane evolving in a (3 + 1)-dimensional space. Introducing gauge fields that live in the brane as well as normal surface tension can lead to a stable `elementary particle' configuration. Considering the possibility of non-vanishing vacuum energy inside the bubble leads, when gravitational effects are considered, to the possibility of a quantum decay of such an `elementary particle' into an infinite universe. Some remarkable features of the quantum mechanics of this process are discussed, in particular the relation between possible boundary conditions and the question of instability towards universe formation is analysed.

On problems of databases over a fixed infinite universe

In the relational model of databases a database state is thought of as a finite collection of relations between elements. For many applications it is convenient to pre-fix an infinite domain where the finite relations are going to be defined. Often, we al

The topology of the universe: the biggest manifold of them all

Clues as to the geometry of the universe are encoded in the cosmic background radiation. Hot and cold spots in the primordial radiation may be randomly distributed in an infinite universe while in a universe with compact topology distinctive patterns can be generated. With improved vision, we could actually see whether the universe is wrapped into a hexagonal prism or a hyperbolic horn. We discuss the search for such geometric patterns in predictive maps of the microwave sky.

Next to Nothing: More on Pedro Pablo Atusparia

I applaud Mark Thurner's and Caceres: Rereading Representations of Peru's Late Nineteenth-Century 'National Problem,' as well as his recent book, which all serious Andeanists and Peruvianists will now need to consult.1 Not only do I accept his corrections of many of the errors of commission and omission in my work, but I have learned much from him that will inform any future work I do on related topics.2 I admire both his perseverance in locating crucial documents and his grasp of nineteenthand twentieth-century Peruvian history. But I am perplexed by several of his statements, such as, for example, that next to . . . is known about Pedro Pablo Atusparia, peasant leader of the Atusparia Revolt and the man who met with General Andres Avelino Caceres in his Lima salon shortly before Caceres became president of Peru. The statement intrigues me, because next to nothing is not Indeed, a whole and infinite universe of meanings may lie in the uncharted territory of next to nothing. Mark Thurner, thus, encourages me to imagine [the] unimagined,3 a task upon which I now enthusiastically embark.

The Scientific Revolution is Undead

The Scientific Revolution Is Undead * Mario Biagioli (bio) The changing fortunes of the Scientific Revolution and its historiographic narratives have usually been connected to macroscopic dynamics external to the discipline of history of science. For instance, the warm reception in the fifties and sixties of Koyré-style intellectual history that privileged metaphysics over social context has been linked to Cold War era concerns with maintaining a safe separation between science and its socioeconomic dimensions. On the other hand, the emphasis on the role of artisanal practices (and of the economic interests behind them) originated from a historiography of the Scientific Revolution informed by left-wing politics or even straightforward Marxist commitments. Similarly, skepticism about grand, logophallocentric, or simply progressivist narratives about early modern science may be seen as an expression of more recent sociocultural climates. Arguably, postcolonial, multicultural, and gender-aware sensibilities may have informed the reevaluation of the role of women in early modern science, the critique of the Scientific Revolution as a myth of origin of Western modernity, and the shift in focus from theory to practice or from universal to local notions of knowledge. I do not wish to criticize these macroscopic contextualizations of the Scientific Revolution as a historiographic category, but rather to complement them with a more internal and microscopic analysis of [End Page 141] our professional and institutional practices as historians of early modern science. Having witnessed an analytical shift from the theory to the practice of science, it may be time to apply the same perspective to the history of science itself. Accordingly, we may treat realist or nominalist stances about the Scientific Revolution not only as methodological and theoretical issues, but also as expressions of our mundane practices as an academic tribe. I propose to look not only at what we think about the “Scientific Revolution” but also at how we use it in constituting our disciplinary identity as historians of science in the context of increasingly professionalized academic environments, protocols of scholarly credit, and teaching responsibilities. Tenure and the Mundane Demise of Grand Narratives The style and broad scope of books like Alexandre Koyré’s From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe are rarely encountered in today’s scholarly works. One could argue that this is because of all the bad things we and our students have heard or thought about the role of grand narratives and about historiographies of science driven by metaphysical commitments. But, more simply, one could also say that, despite its brilliance, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe is a book that would not be likely to win tenure for its author in a modern university department. By today’s standards, its footnote apparatus is on the light side, its scope too broad, and its generalizations a bit too adventurous. To continue this thought experiment, a picky modern reviewer would be likely to see Koyré’s “A Documentary History of the Problem of Fall” as a proper scholarly text, but might raise some doubts about, say, “Galileo and Plato.” Still revered as quasi-sacred, Koyré’s works are no longer presented as exemplars for young professional historians to imitate. The bureaucratic, academic standards that have evolved alongside the professionalization of our discipline have made Koyré look outdated, not so much because of the specific content of his interpretations, but because of his grand historiographic style—a style we now associate with textbooks and more popular works. What has changed is our “form of life,” not just our interpretive dispositions. Similarly, given that most professional historians of science do not dwell obsessively on issues of narratology or methodology, the emergence of more-circumscribed studies as the modus operandi of our discipline may not be the necessary result of the theoretical reframing of knowledge as local, contingent, contested, and so forth. Local studies of early modern science are now the predominant genre of our field, and they are not produced just by those [End Page 142] who fell in love with Clifford Geertz or SSK in graduate school. More mundanely, history of science has developed its academic niche (often within empirically minded departments like history), and its scholarly style reflects the usual trend of professionalization and...