Cosmology and Cosmogony
- Apr 17, 2022
- 7 min read
«There is one experience that every human of every language and culture shares - the experience of Birth.»
"Our recollection of birth are hazy at best; they have the feel and aura, not so much of memories as of mystical transfigurations. It would be astonishing if this profound early experience did not influence our myths and religions, our philosophy, and our science. The birth of a child evokes the mystery of other origins - the beginnings and ends of worlds, infinity and eternity." - Carl Sagan
Same old questions
Astronomers have come to the days, when they can and will apply the most far-reaching efforts to study the cosmos. Giant new telescopes, and vast computational power are part of this historic quest: to peer into space and time, to find out how the universe gave birth to galaxies and planets, to discern the amazing world of gravity and test theories by Einstein and other scientists. Understanding nature in the greatest picture (including human nature) is valuable at both practical and emotional levels. Where did the universe and all the things in it come from? What sense does it have? Did life, necessary and inevitably, appeared in the universe?
These are terribly difficult questions to answer, and although this hall isn't able to deliver visitors those clear and juicy answers, it exhibits the general knowledge humanity have of the universe.
Breaking the Word
The word 'Universe' (while synonymous of 'Cosmos', 'Creation'), come from Latin universum (“all things, as a whole, the universe”), neuter of universus (“all together, whole, entire, collective, general, literally turned or combined into one”), from uni-, combining form of unus (“one”) + versus (“turned”). These two roots combined also mean the 'union of (all) versions' (union of all other forms of the same type of thing), of all versions of History whether having different outcomes or not. It ought to be understood as all the different views of the truth and possibilities overlaped of the Big History. Nevertheless, Universe represents the sum of everything that exists in the cosmos, including time and space itself, so the first thing to check is, what does exists in the universe, what existences are there.
Cosmology is the study of the universe at its largest scales, including theories of: its origins; its dynamics and evolution; and its future.
Cosmogony is the (scientific) study of the origin of the cosmos (or of reality itself).
Cosmography deals with mapping the universe.
Cosmetology is the art or profession that deals with beauty product application and hair styling.
Astronomy deals with celestial objects (rather than the universe as a whole).
Cosmology
Types of Cosmology
Physical cosmology, incorporating physics, astrophysics, and astronomy. Physical cosmology is sometimes considered to have arrived as an experimental science during the 20th century.
Religious cosmology, involving origin stories and mythologies from religious traditions;
Metaphysical cosmology, dealing with questions "beyond science", such as: the cause of the origin of the universe; whether its existence is necessary; whether it has a purpose; about its ultimate composition; and even, the nature of consciousness; without requiring a religious tradition;
Esoteric cosmology, which deals, with, well, start with the Wikipedia article....
(Go check the SEP (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), this site has an article on the relationship between physical and religious cosmology. How do the various cosmologies mentioned in the article seem to simultaneously support theistic and atheistic viewpoints?)
The Big Bang Cosmology
The Big Bang Theory (BBT) is today's most accepted cosmology. It accounts for how the universe is thought to have developed after something triggered an expansion from some massively hot and dense gravitational singularity, whose size was smaller than an atom. The BBT is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the universe's origin. According to this theory, the universe began as an incredibly hot and dense singularity approximately 13.8 billion years ago. Some scientists and philosophers have proposed theories, such as the idea of a multiverse or a cyclic model in which the universe goes through an infinite series of expansions and contractions.
What it is not
The BBT does not say:
where the supposed singularity came from;
what caused the initial expansion, or how or why it occurred;
that something actually exploded;
anything about the origin of life (though origins of matter, energy, and structure are considered);
that an external creator is required (though this is embraced by many theists);
that an external creator is ruled out.
The History of Universe according to the BBT
First, a little of the evidence for the theory. I'm not sure who the author of this video is, but it is a nice introduction...
The following timeline is summarized from Neil de Grasse Tyson's article The Greatest Story Ever Told:
0 to 10-43s, 1050K: All speculative physics. General relativistic and quantum mechanical phenomena indistinguishable. All forces unified. ⇓ Gravity splits from the other three forces. ⇓ The strong force splits from the electroweak, triggering inflation, universe grows by a factor of 1050. Matter/energy density get smoothed, but not perfectly so. ⇓ Photons can now create matter-antimatter pairs, but somehow slightly more matter remains after annihilation. ⇓ Cooling continues. Electoweak force splits into electromagnetic and weak forces. Universe is now too cool for spontaneous matter-antimatter creation. ⇓ Protons, neutrons start to form (from quarks). Electrons are still free, scattering photons back and forth. ⇓ At about 380,000 years, the universe cools below a few thousand K. Electrons get snatched up by the proton-neutron things to make atoms: predominately hydrogen and helium, with a tiny bit of lithium. Photons are now free! The universe lights up. This is the CBR. ⇓ Over the next few billion years, gravity starts creating large structures which will be come galactic filaments, sheets and clusters. Galaxies form. Stars are born.
sentiencetv.
Understanding the Expansion of Space
Why do most of the galaxies appear to be moving away from us? Are we at the center? Actually no — every point in the universe sees the same thing: galaxies flying away from itself; there's no center. How can this be? It's because space is expanding. Imagine raisins in bread as it expands while baking. Or people sitting on a huge rubber sheet being expanded. In the following diagram:
Note how the farther away something is to begin with, the farther away it flies in a fixed time period!
Related Videos
Cosmogony
While it's difficult (impossible?) to test theories about the origin of everything, people have certainly given opinions (often backed up by appeals to related experimental data).
For example, big bang could be explained in different ways:
Time is eternal, but at some point a gravitational singularity underwent a phase transition into the (expanding) universe we know today; or
The big bang event created the very idea of time itself.
Cosmogony is a scientific field, but one can't help bring in Philosophy when talking about origin(s).
Immanuel Kant's First Antinomy, on Space and Time, is worth reading.
Other recent views pose interesting questions and looks for answers based on Laws of Physics, Relativity, Quantum field, Strings Theory, and the fundamental constants of Physics such as light speed, planck, gravitational, Zero-point energy, background radiation.
It doesn't seem to be an agreement about, if:
is this a universe of light - behind the shadows of dark energy and dark matter that eclipses all of the big bang light, turning space into dark only enlightened by the twinkling lights of galaxies;
or is this a universe of dark only enlightened by the twinkling lights of galaxies, where gravity wins sucking everything into an uncountable number of blackholes, that will turn the universe into total nothingness hopelessly forever.
Religious Cosmology
Sextus Empiricus - a Greek Pyrrhonist philosopher and Empiric school physician (2nd. Cent. BCE) distinguished between three types of philosophies:
those that claim to have found truth, such as the philosophies of Aristotle, Epicurus, and the Stoics;
those who deny the possibility of finding it, like the Academicians;
and those who are still looking for it, like the Skeptical School.
In the vast scape of existence, the majority of creation lies beyond our limited perception and knowledge. This limitless expanse of ignorance is referred to as Shiva. Sadhguru explains, only when one explores his ignorance, knowledge can be born.
Social scientists and historians often study these cosmologies and relate them to the historical and social context in which they were written. For example, consider the two origin stories in the Tanakh. They each describe an order of creation events:
Genesis 1-2:4a Genesis 2:4b-24
Heaven and a formless Earth (but with water) Heaven and earth
Light Water, flowing out of the ground
Firmament (sky dome) A man (Adam), made from the soil
Dry land, vegetation A garden of water (Eden), vegetation, lots of trees, one special
Sun, moon, stars "knowledge" tree, and four rivers
Fish, sea-monsters, birds Land animals, birds
Land animals (cattle, creeping things, and wild animals), humans A woman (Eve)
How might we explain the structure and content of these stories?
Here are two explanations:
Story 1 was written by farmers and city dwellers, living in river basins worried about floods (hence the fish); the story talks of humans being created in the image of God, taking "dominion over the earth" and shaping it to their needs, celebrating civilization and progress. Story 2 was written by sheperds and camel drivers, living in semi-arid areas (hence NO fish); the story tells of humans who are servants of the garden and cast out because they tried to be godlike, and of the virtues of the simple pastoral life.
The two stories complement each other by talking about two sides of human nature: our power over nature but the need to, perhaps, not get carried away.
Eschatology
If cosmogony deals with the ultimate beginning and cosmology deals with what happens just after the beginning, then with could talk about "physical eschatology" as dealing with the ultimate end.
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