Perhaps we'd better not ask...
Posted on 04/19/2004 8:18:32 AM PDT by betty boop
What Is a Cosmos?
The Greek Idea of Cosmos and its Contemporary Meaning
By David Fideler
The Greek word cosmos cannot be translated into a single English word, but refers to an equal presence of order and beauty. When the Greek philosopher Pythagoras first called the universe a cosmos, he did so because it is a living embodiment of nature’s order, beauty, and harmony.
The fact that the physical world embodies beauty and harmony can be demonstrated in many ways, but rational proof is only required when we have forgotten our own connection with the underlying fabric of life. When we can view the exquisite grandeur of a forest, mountain range, or the form of a distant galaxy with a clear and untroubled heart, the beauty and harmony of the universe becomes immediately obvious not through argument, but through direct perception. As William Blake wrote, “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
This perception of the world’s deep, intrinsic beauty and harmony was the starting point of ancient science and philosophy. In the vision of the ancient philosophers, the universe itself was seen as an embodiment of beauty, which is itself a manifestation of value. Hence Pythagoras (570-496 B.C.) called the universe a cosmos a “beautiful order” and explained that the world-structure arises from harmony or the “fitting together” of different elements through proportional relationships. We can see the patterns of harmony reflected in the structure of galaxies, trees, snowflakes, the deeply elegant forms of living creatures, and the proportions of the human body. In the harmonic structure of the living universe, all the individual parts fit together to make up the greater whole.
Harmony, Beauty, and a Sense of the Whole
This theme of cosmos and harmony was carried forward in the work of the greatest philosophers. Plato (429-347 B.C.), for example, described the universe as “one Whole of wholes. And as “a single Living Creature which encompasses all of the living creatures that are within it.” In one work, Plato describes the physical cosmos as “a perceptible god, image of the intelligible, greatest and best, most beautiful and most perfect.” And in another work, he elaborates the Pythagorean idea that all things are joined together through harmony and kinship. The cosmos, he explains, is one community in which humans, gods, and all living things are bound together through harmony, good proportion, and justice; as he says, “one community embraces heaven and earth.”
Ancient medical theorists pointed out that justice, proportion, and harmony are responsible for the health or wholeness of living things. Disease and illness result when good harmony is disturbed. A living plant, for example, will flourish when a harmonious balance is achieved between the two extremes of “wetness” and “dryness.” If “wetness” predominates, the plant will drown; but if “dryness” predominates, the plant will become parched, wither, and die. For life to continue, harmony must prevail, and harmony itself gives rise to the elegant beauty of natural forms.
Similarly, the Stoic philosophers held that the cosmos is a vast community, and that human society emerges from the order of the universe. Like his fellow Stoic philosophers, Marcus Aurelius (121-180 A.D.) realized that all ethical action must first be rooted in our understanding of the cosmos. That is because
Without an understanding of the nature of the universe, a man cannot know where he is; without an understanding of its purpose, he cannot know what he is, nor what the universe itself is. Let either of these discoveries be hid from him, and he will not be able so much as to give a reason for his own existence.
Thus, right action is rooted in discovering and following the underlying way of nature for “All things are interwoven with one another; a sacred bond unites them; there is scarcely one thing that is isolated from another. Everything is coordinated, everything works together in giving form to the one universe.”
It is the harmony of the universe that gives birth to human community. For the Stoics, we humans are not strictly members of one particular city, but inhabitants of the entire world. There is a “universal brotherhood of humanity,” owing to our common rational nature, which is itself rooted in the deep structure of the cosmos. The Stoics taught that we are all members of the cosmopolis or “world-city”; they maintained that we are literally citizens of the universe. Human community is not isolated from the underlying harmony of the biosphere and the greater universe, but is a living embodiment of the cosmic order.
What is a Cosmos?
Thus the cosmos is a beautiful, organically ordered whole in which all parts are interrelated. It is “one Whole of wholes” – the ultimate Community that embraces all communities. In the universal web of relations, we individual humans are embodiments of a larger, living order: human life is rooted in the biosphere; the biosphere is rooted in the dynamics of the solar system; the solar system is rooted in the dynamics of the Milky Way galaxy; and all galaxies are rooted in the dynamics and initial conditions of the universe.
There is a harmonic kinship that embraces all things and holds the universe together, which allows the cosmos to unfold in just the right way. The many finely-tuned constants of astrophysics reveal how the universe itself, just like other living organisms, depends on a host of delicately balanced parameters. It boggles the mind, for instance, to realize that if the expansion of the universe had been one-trillionth of percent slower or faster, galaxies would never have formed. As mathematical cosmologist Brian Swimme writes,
The universe thrives on the edge of a knife. If it increased its strength of expansion it would blow up; if it decreased its strength of expansion it would collapse. By holding itself on the edge it enables a great beauty to unfold. The Milky Way also thrives at the edge of a knife. Decrease its gravitational bonding and all the stars scatter; increase the gravitational bonding and the galaxy collapses on itself. By holding itself in the peace of a fecund balance, it enables planetary structures and living beings to blossom forth.
It is the very elegance, integration, and harmony between opposing tensions that makes the cosmos an embodiment of beauty. Nature takes the shortest route and, while exhibiting exuberant creativity, does little in vain. For as Ralph Waldo Emerson observed,
Beauty rests on necessities. The line of beauty is the result of perfect economy. The cell of the bee is built at the angle which gives the most strength with the least wax; the bone or the quill of the bird gives the most alar strength with the least weight… There is not a particle to spare in natural structures. There is a compelling reason in the uses of the plant, for every novelty of color or form….”
Rediscovering Our Lost Sense of Harmony
The study of harmony demonstrates why the forms of nature are so beautiful. Nature is economical and embodies its organic harmonies of sharing in the most “fit,” graceful, and elegant patterns. As Plato realized, the Good by its very natures radiates the essence of Beauty. But when we work against nature’s harmonies and good patterns of sharing, inefficiency, wastefulness, and ugliness result.
Over the past several centuries, industrial civilization, rooted in a mechanistic worldview, has based its existence on the premise that humanity stands apart from the universe, and that nature is primarily a “natural resource” to be exploited for human benefit. Rather than recognizing the fact that we are citizens of a cosmos in which all beings embody beauty and intrinsic value, the entire natural world came to be viewed merely as a means to some human end. While nature’s own economies are circular and limited, our Western economic system is based on the fantasy of “unlimited growth,” which is unsustainable within a closed system of natural resources. And in nature’s economy where “waste equals food,” many of the toxic byproducts of industrial civilization cannot be effectively metabolized by the planetary organism.
We have reached a point of cultural and ecological crisis not simply because of an exploitive and unfulfilling industrial system, but because our very worldview and understanding of the universe has been shallow and defective. In order to “follow Nature,” we must first understand nature. For as the Stoics realized, we must understand the order and harmony of nature before we can live good, beautiful, and fulfilling lives. It has taken a long time, but today cosmologists, ecologists, artists, and scientists are rediscovering what the ancient philosophers could clearly perceive: We are not cogs in some great machine, but living participants in a great community.
The idea of the cosmos is also important because it reconciles the worlds of fact and value. We do not inhabit a double-truth universe of objective facts on the one hand and subjective values on the other. The world is not just a collection of meaningless things, but a web of interrelated phenomena that embody beauty. The beauty of the world is a fact, but it is also a profound manifestation of value. And value is a form of meaning. From a deep aesthetic perspective, the cosmos is not a senseless configuration of parts, but an embodiment of value and meaning that can never be expressed fully in words. Life becomes meaningless only when we are cut off from the larger cosmic patterns and not allowed to achieve a true state of human flourishing.
Thus, in a cosmos, the end of life is not the exploitation of others, but the appreciation and cultivation of life itself. In a cosmos there is death, pain, and suffering, but there is also joy, creativity, and celebration. In a cosmos, there is freedom within the limits of nature; a chance for all beings to achieve fruition and fulfillment; and an opportunity to live above the level of mere survival, no matter how limited our means may be. By encouraging us to contemplate the deep beauty and structure of the physical cosmos, astronomy educators can remind us of the wonder, beauty, value, and meaning reflected in our own human nature, which itself embodies the deepest nature of the living universe.
©David Fideler. All rights reserved. This text cited here under the fair use rules for educational and discussion purposes only.
Take first the more obvious case of materialism. As an explanation of the world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality of the madman's argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out. Contemplate some able and sincere materialist, as, for instance, Mr. McCabe, and you will have exactly this unique sensation. He understands everything, and everything does not seem worth understanding. His cosmos may be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel, but still his cosmos is smaller than our world. Somehow his scheme, like the lucid scheme of the madman, seems unconscious of the alien energies and the large indifference of the earth; it is not thinking of the real things of the earth, of fighting peoples or proud mothers, or first love or fear upon the sea. The earth is so very large, and the cosmos is so very small. The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.
The created universe is not autonomous, we can only derive our sense of direction by knowing the universe's Creator. Then, we understand more fully some of the reasons why He made it. As a scholar I dislike put it, "No matter how loudly you shout the word "MAN!" down into a well, the echo will never return "GOD!""
Two of these?
Jonah Goldberg's dog, over at National Review Online.
Thank you, Alamo-Girl! I thought the passage -- "The fact that the physical world embodies beauty and harmony can be demonstrated in many ways, but rational proof is only required when we have forgotten our own connection with the underlying fabric of life" -- was wonderfully perceptive and truthful. In addition to your cite, I also think this is a most powerful observation:
"The idea of the cosmos is also important because it reconciles the worlds of fact and value. We do not inhabit a double-truth universe of objective facts on the one hand and subjective values on the other. The world is not just a collection of meaningless things, but a web of interrelated phenomena that embody beauty. The beauty of the world is a fact, but it is also a profound manifestation of value. And value is a form of meaning."
I'm still meditating this article, too.
I think it's safe to say the "machine analogy" is a very poor one WRT the cosmos. The Greeks said the universe is a living being; and there are some serious astrophysicists around today who take that insight quite seriously.
In point of fact, I am eagerly looking forward to the English edition of Attila Grandpierre's The Book of the Living Universe, forthcoming late this year or early next.
Thank you so much for writing. Hugs!
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