apples+oranges=Parrots?, we'll just let religion deal with it...

To me the “philosopher” referred to in this writing may be Aristotle since it referred to “Aristotelian cosmology” in the title. And I generally feel that these writings are somewhat similar to Augustine’s but at the same time, completely different. Aquinas basically talks about what people would think in these situations but without actually interpreting what he believes in each of these. He goes on to quote the bible and other scholars, but again lacks to give any of his own original input. I found this really annoying because he’s just telling me what everyone else though but not what he takes from all of this information. But overall I fell that this writings support the church because it goes on to say that belief in God is basically fundamental in the fact that we have to believe in god to explain what we don’t know or understand at the time. This also raises a lot of questions for me, like why must we turn to religion to challenge what we don’t understand, shouldn’t one just tackle these questions head on? How would knowledge progress if one just gave up at ever mystery presented?

My Earth is made out of Skittles and Rainbows and the stars are bits of glitter on a paper mache Dome

The fundamental differences in Aristotle’s Universe compared to that of Plato is that in Aristotle’s universe, he depicts the Earth and the universe as being constructed out of five basic elements, which are earth, water, air, fire, and ether. The natural place of the Earth was at the center of the universe, and the Sun, planets, and the stars, considered to be attached to “rigid, crystalline spheres”, which revolve in perfect circles about the Earth. The stars in the heavens were made up of an indestructible substance called ether and were considered as eternal and unchanging.

The way this compares to Plato’s idea of the universe is that Plato describes a world structured from fire and earth and with the heavens in a big dome overhead. He believed these stars and the earth to be combined by the air and water to act as a demiurge. He also thought that this was brought on by some divine craftsman and that the cosmos were based on the form of a living being.

I think that I personally would have sided with Aristotle’s model because it would have made more sense. I don’t think I could in any way believe that some “craftsman” thought that the Earth and cosmos were from some human-like spirit, and that there is a central fire and everything is balanced between the air water and fire. It is just very hard for me to actually believe anything besides what I currently know about our universe because this has been fact for me for so long and I just can’t comprehend anything besides it.

Super HOT stuffs

When reading this, this, this and this, I found the article about Solar Eclipses very interesting. They are very interesting to look at as well as observe the corona. Taking Astronomy in high school, we got the opportunity to observe the corona a little more in depth and started talking about them in relation to sunspots and the magnetic field of the sun. I found these interesting because there are a lot of unanswered questions concerning why the plasma shoots out from the sun, and what the effect of these coronal mass ejections (CME) is on the earth. This is also related to the magnetic field of the sun, which I am completely fascinated with. It is very interesting to see how the middle of the sun rotates faster than the poles and how it just coils around itself until it catches and gets tangled up and erupts in a solar flare. I also found the ecliptic a little hard to understand. I have some experience learning about it, but it gets confusing when trying to look at constellations and someone tells you that it is on the ecliptic, and you look at the equator instead. It would have been a lot easier for everything to just be on the same line and so it would make observing much easier. And that was pretty much the most interesting concepts for me.

The Philosophy of BONDAGE

I’m not going to lie; these readings were extremely difficult to understand. But my little summary of this is going to be (just to keep my understanding straight) that there are prisoners who live underground and are chained to be immobile and face a blank wall. There is a fire positioned behind them and it produces shadows on the wall and it is the only thing that they can see. There is an upper ledge that people walk on and carry things past the fire and the prisoners see the shadows and associate the voices they hear with the shadows. Socrates asks that if one of these people were to be able to stand up and see the sources of these shadows that they wouldn’t believe these people to be more real to them than the shadows that they had seen and that they wouldn’t be able to call them by name. He goes even further to say that if one of these people were to go outside the cave and see the world that it would take time to adjust and when he does that he would look at the sun and realize that it is the source of light and everything around us. And that if he were to look back on his previous life, that he would assume that he is happy now and have pity on those back in the cave. After that, he asks what it would be like for them to go back into the cave after being outside. The person would still have to get readjusted to the dark; meanwhile everyone on the inside would say that the outside had corrupted his vision and that there is no use in wanting to go out there.

“Plato's Theory of Forms asserts that Forms (or ideas), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. The Forms are the only true objects of study that can provide us with genuine knowledge.”(http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/platform.htm). That pretty much sums up the entire philosophy spoken throughout the entire allegory, that what we perceive around us is what gives us our sense of reality, which is the case with the servant underground and aboveground, each one of them believes what they see is real, but when given the chance to experience something completely different, they seem more enlightened, and when returned to what they had previously considered reality, they are rejected by all the people there and accused of being corrupted.

I believe that Plato believed that some supernatural or divine craftsman created the universe and that there is a lack of balance between the elements (fire, earth, air, and water). The creator decided also to make the bulk of the universe out of the four elements, in order to make it proportional. In addition to fire and earth, which make the world visible and solid, a third element was required as a union of the two of them, and a fourth element was needed to reach harmony so, the creator placed water and air between fire and earth. "And for these reasons, and out of such elements which are in number four, the body of the world was created, and it was harmonized by proportion".

I found how the elements being composed of triangles and being these polyhedrons and how all this was a primitive form or precursor to alchemy by having the elements be able to transform. I have always been fascinated by geometry and chemistry, and I found it very interesting and wondered how he would have come to think about these elements having these qualities.

Geocentricies

When reading Sleepwalkers this time, I was very interested in how they would observe the motions of the planets as having a sort of spiral orbit. I remember sitting in class junior with our teacher trying to explain this to us, and I remember thing how at the time, a spiral orbit made so much sense. The planets would move from left to right and back left and keep doing that. But at the time it didn’t seem so far-fetched to come up with these models to explain what you can’t see and what fits exactly what you observe.

But even if this is true, I believe that the fourth chapter is titled “the Failure of Nerve” because in Greece at the time, everyone took what Aristotle and Plato said as truth. If one were to question them, horrible things would have followed. A lot of people used God to answer the unknown. Because they assumed that the heavens and everything are holy, it would have had to come from God. This was true for most of the unknowns, it was just a lot easier to say some divine being wanted it so, than to look like a fool and not know the answers to these questions that were being presented. And since people were afraid to challenge these two, who have been regarded as the brightest of their time, there was no influx of ideas to challenge the geocentric model and thus people didn’t have the nerve to challenge that was thought as truth.

I do believe that knowledge, for the Greeks, increased in some linear fashion, because everyone studied from the person prior to them. For example, Anaximendes was a student of Anaximander, and so the progression and development of ideas from one to the other changes and progressed what they thought at the time. Although there are some gaps in this, ideas always progressed from one philosopher to another, changing with each one and then being developed and formed into their own version that is different than the one prior. This to me is what I see as a linear progression of knowledge. That the knowledge changes after each successive philosopher because they make more conclusions of what they see and can then progress to the knowledge for everybody’s sake.

(i will go back and reformat this later, just ran out of time)

The Power is YOURS!

When reading the excerpt “The Origin of Greek Number-Philosophy” from Charles Seife’s Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea I found the whole cult scene of Pythagoras’ followers a little sketchy. It was very interesting the basis on the teachings of the Greeks was based on Geometry and how the numbers correspond to shapes. I have never really tried to put it in that context before (or have been conscious of doing so). I also loved how all throughout what they though were completely rational was fundamentally irrational and imperfect. I was also loved how he related music and math, how he used ratios to illustrate the intervals and aesthetics of the sound and also how the perfect ratio is portrayed in the Parthenon and is regarded as the most aesthetically pleasing form. I also found 0 interesting to begin with. As compared with today, zero is still a mystery. Scientists and mathematicians still have no definition for an integer divided by zero. So we have not progressed so far, although zero ca still play an important role in mathematics, there is still so much that zero has left to be answered.

On a separate note, I was thinking about Captain Planet the other day. “Captain Planet was a television cartoon aired in 1990 to raise awareness about environmental issues amongst children.” (Wikipedia) All in all, this seems like a weak premise to base a television show off of because 1. Children aren’t going to go out and recycle or save the whales. 2. This show had a staggering amount of violence and didn’t set a very good example. I also felt bad for Ma-Ti, because he never had a cool ring power. Each planeteer had a ring that gave them special abilities. There was Earth, Fire, Water, Wind, and Heart. Ma-Ti had Heart. You can’t save the world with heart. But beside that it probably had the coolest theme song:

Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Heart... Go Planet

By your powers combined I am Captain Planet.

Captain Planet he's our hero

Gonna take pollution down to zero

He's our powers magnified and he's fighting on the planet's side.

Captain Planet he's our hero

Gonna take pollution down to zero

Gonna help him put asunder, bad guys that like to loot and plunder.

(You'll pay for this Captain Planet)

We're the planeteers, you can be one too

cause saving our planet is the thing to do

looting and polluting is not the way

hear what Captain Planet has to say.

THE POWER IS YOURS!

Museums: Stuff White People Like

Saturday, I ventured on an escapade to visit the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The highlights of the day were the overpriced Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches we consumed (which were alright), and of course the Galileo Exhibit which was the focal point of the four-hour journey to Philly.

The morning started off with us meeting at 6:15 am so we could make the long trek to Pennsylvania, where we started off our day consuming assorted fruits and breakfast bars plus JUICE BOXES!
After sleeping for the first half of the trip, we made our way to a rest stop that had way too many people there. Normally you would assume a rest stop to have a bathroom, and a couple of vending machine, so weary drivers can stretch their legs and relieve themselves before heading back out on the road, well, this was like the Mecca of all rest stops. When one drives up, there was a GIANT food court, with rows of gas station pumps surrounding the building housing the food. Inside the main food court area was the largest assortment of off-key food vendors and a giant convenience store. After we had sufficiently rested, there was another two more hours of driving (or an hour, it was early), and we made it to Philadelphia where we stopped at some place to have lunch. This place was a treasure trove of any foodstuffs you could imagine with cuisine ranging from sushi and assorted deserts to Philly Cheesesteaks and Salads. And after that we headed to the Franklin Institute to view the exhibit.

When giving an honest review about the exhibit, one would say it was very interesting, yet extremely repetitive. Not being derogatory in the sense, but the exhibit showcased numerous items of the same effect. There were numerous compositions written in Latin displayed along with a plethora of compasses and there were also a lot of other brass tools used to determine positions of stars. I’m not saying that theses weren’t interesting to look at, but once you’ve seen 4 of them, the other 16 just don’t seem to have the same effect. One part I did enjoy was seeing (what I assume to be) the actual copy of Sidereus Nuncius. I enjoyed reading it and it was very interesting to see the actual copy (again, or what I assumed to be the actual copy). Another part of the exhibit I enjoyed was seeing one of the two surviving Galilean telescopes. It was a lot bigger than I imagined it to be, and surprisingly still in a decent condition, considering the age of it. It was also interesting to call the telephone number listed underneath the glass case and listen to interesting facts and tidbits of information like what exactly the telescope was constructed out of, and other miscellaneous facts about it. In another part of the exhibit was a hands-on learning portion, where we got to learn about optics using mirrors and lenses, and observed the refraction of light in a prism. Also there were (what I hope to be) Galileo’s actual drawings of his observations of the moon, which were amazing compared to my pathetic sketches.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38332 Stargazing Tips

Overall the day was pretty good, but from a sociological aspect, the experience at the museum was quite interesting. I observed numerous people become QUITE intrigued by the exhibit. It was just like stuff white people like. I observed people molest the glass cases trying to get the best view possible of whatever they were looking at. I would also observe them sprouting out random facts, half of which were incorrect facts about astronomy and Galileo. What was even funnier, was the fact that half of the time, they were standing next to a banner that gave the correct information of whatever they were trying to say, and if these people were to just take them time to read the exhibit that fascinated them so much, they would have probably gotten some knowledge out of it.

But the Icing on the cake was watching people repeatedly crawl on the floor trying to look through Galileo’s telescope. One with any logical reasoning would know that looking though a telescope positioned at the wall would yield no results, yet one man in particular would repeatedly (4 times) crawl on the ground and press his face up to the glass (which was separated by at least 5 to 7 cm from the eyepiece) and try and comment on how it “makes everything look so big”. After making this comment, the man then stands up, goes around to the other side of the telescope and looks down from the top of the telescope and desperately tries to see something. This went for a good 18 minutes (yes I did time it) until he was satisfied and moved on to the next glass case…where he repeated the same scrutiny that the telescope received.

Since that experience made me chuckle, I will call the day a success, and the fact that there was an actual telescope all the way from Firenze (Florence), Italia (Italy). I think that since this is probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience, it made it all the much better.

Its like the Bible on STEROIDS

In reading the Babylonian story on the creation of the earth, I actually started comparing it to one of those cartoons we would watch during Bible school on Sunday mornings. This story had action, betrayal and I felt like it was the Bible on STEROIDS. I liked their rendition on the creation because it was a story much like that of the Roman/Greek gods.

But looking past that, and focusing at the task at hand, the story of Enuma Elish paralleled the story of Genesis in many ways. I deduced the six generations of gods in Enuma Elish corresponded to the six days of creation in the Bible as well as the creation of the earth on the first six tablets of stone. In Enuma Elish, the last and seventh stone was used to admire the work done, much as Genesis presents the seventh day as resting. Each god created (or was turned into) something much like God in the Genesis myth did within those six days. “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters.” This is like in Enuma Elish before the earth and heaven were created and all the gods were in turmoil. Other miscellaneous similarities include the earth and sky being formed on tablet four in Enuma Elish and on day two according to Genesis. Also, the sun moon and starts being created on tablet five whereas day four in Genesis.

Although there are many similarities/parallels, there are some very fundamental differences between the two myths, first, and probably the most apparent being the whole family tree and power-mad gods and betrayal not evident in Genesis. This is probably the reason why I enjoyed this myth so much, the action was incredible and I enjoyed the betrayal and the abuse of power involved within the whole creation (at least I hope that’s what it was about, its kind of what I got out of it). And the fact that the world was created based on hate and vengeance made for some enjoyable reading. For example, God created mankind to enjoy the earth, while in Enuma Elish, mankind was put on earth enslaved so the gods could have time to relax and be at peace (again, that’s how I interpreted it).

I myself have always been a fan of evolution...

The parallels are seen through many of these creation stories for example, in the Egyptian creation myths it talked about these gods being born and then eventually becoming part of the world and earth and land of the dead. Most creation stories have some form of earth being desolate and barren. And having a form of animal or god represent some for of the physical world whether it be the sky, heaven or earth itself. The Australians had a very interesting take on the creation of man though, apparently the “Ungambikula carved heads, bodies, legs, and arms out of the bundles. They made the faces, and the hands and feet. At last the human beings were finished.” I take it that just as every culture has a different story to explain the constellations such as Ursa Major, every culture should have their own story and explanation of how man and the world came into existence.

Also, something we should never do http://www.fmylife.com/miscellaneous/5022453

Images courtesy of www.picsearch.org as well as www.images.google.com

Would Galileo save his own butt?

Galileo contributed so much in the realm of modern day astronomy. He challenged the way we perceived our surroundings at that time. I still have no idea how a man would even come up with the notion to even do such a thing as to look up at the moon and observe its contour, but he did, or spend hours in the dark staring at Jupiter through a telescope trying to make sense of the “stars” that surround it. But if he had not done it, we might still live in a world where we think the moon is just a smooth silvery ball in the sky or that Jupiter has its own system of planets, but we now have the opportunity to explore the possibilities of life on Europa, and take clues from the moon and form theories on the formation of the solar system. Not to discredit any of Galileo’s discoveries, but they are stepping-stones to the plethora of opportunities we have today to explore new ideas and understand old ones more wholly.

This picture really has no academic merit,

its just a really funny looking tattoo.

Although Galileo knew that what he was discovering was important, I really don’t believe he knew the significance of these discoveries. It seemed to me that Galileo was doing all this observing for fun, and that he happened to notice some of these peculiarities while looking at the moon and stars. I personally feel that if Galileo knew the impact that these discoveries would have had on the scholars of his time that he would have really pushed for these ideas (at the time) to become more pronounced in the scientific community at the time.

http://failblog.org/2009/08/31/fox-news-fail/ click this only if you want to see a semi-innappropriate news caption

Having taken an astronomy course in high school, I have first-hand experience in viewing what Galileo observed. I have seen the valleys and rifts on the surface of the moon from a telescope and have viewed Jupiter (and what I assume to have been its moons) and found them to be extraordinary. And could only have wished to be there and fell what Galileo felt when he was just first observing these things (if you couldn’t have guessed it, that’s my attempt at being heartfelt, but being semi-truthful).

Lucretius’ On The Nature of Things taught me how far we have come as a civilization and how we have come to accept new ideas and take to change more positively (not to say there are a couple of exceptions to this statement). But in Galileo’s time, it was not very common to challenge the precedents, especially when it went against what the church had said. It could have left you labeled as a heretic or even have gotten you killed.

As most of the population in Europe in the 1600s was Roman Catholic, many scholars who could disprove the teachings of the church kept quiet about what they have discovered for fear of their lives and families. So to avoid any of this conflict at all, many scholars simply refused to even consider challenging the church at all by not having any affiliation with radical scholars of the time. Which is a sad thought because there is no telling what these people what have brought to attention if fear was not a limiting factor. In order for people to not have their faith in the church brought to question, many would just mock the scholars against their better judgment so as to not seem heretical themselves. People still do this today, refusal to associate with people whom they find socially awkward or unappealing. So its not to hard to justify their actions, personally I would have done the same thing if I had to choose between living another day or fleeing to exile in a foreign land.

Picture Courtesy of www.ugliesttattoos.com