Chapter 5 - Reconciling Cosmologies Flashcards
Steven hawking
Suggested early universe was quantum object
Monistic idealism
Universe evolves in potentia, as superposition of possibilities, until sentient being comes about in one of possible branches and, through observation, completes self referential loop
Delayed choice experiment
Demonstrates that with first observation the entire pathway in possibility leading to the event manifests retroactively, going backward in time
Quasars
Quasi stellar radio sources
Sometimes seen in duplicate, formed by “gravitational lens” of intervening galaxy
Can bend light creating two pathways as in delayed choice experiment
Gravity
Bends light, as in a lens
Strong anthropic principle
We are here because of the universe, and the universe is here because of us
We are spiritual center of universe
Explains why universe is so finely tuned: if constant of gravity or electrical charge of electron even slightly different, universe wouldn’t have sentient beings
Apparent objectivity of universe at macro level is camouflage: universe is play of consciousness and manifest self reference is opening curtain
Copernicus
Model of planet revolving around sun (anti-anthropic), beginning of modern science
Purpose of universe
Manifest creatively the ideas of consciousness. Manifestation is necessary for consciousness to see itself and it’s ideas
Subject object split
Must be distribution between possibility waves of micro and macro
Laws of manifestation
Matter consists of quantum possibility waves. Themes (love, beauty, truth, etc) manifest when waves of possibility collapsed to actuality in accordance with laws of manifestation. Ultimate possibility is self consciousness
Mathematician G. Spencer-brown
We cannot escape the fact that the world we know is constructed in order to see itself, buy in order to do so, evidently it must first cut itself up into at least one state which sees, and at least one other state which is seen.
Gaia
Western term for self referential consciousness
