scholarly journals Indian cosmogonies and cosmologies

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Dusan Pajin

Various ideas on how the universe appeared and develops, were in Indian tradition related to mythic, religious, or philosophical ideas and contexts, and developed during some 3.000 years - from the time of Vedas, to Puranas. Conserning its appeareance, two main ideas were presented. In one concept it appeared out of itself (auto-generated), and gods were among the first to appear in the cosmic sequences. In the other, it was a kind of divine creation, with hard work (like the dismembering of the primal Purusha), or as emanation of divine dance. Indian tradition had also various critiques of mythic and religious concepts (from the 8th c. BC, to the 6c.), who favoured naturalistic and materialistic explanations, and concepts, in their cosmogony and cosmology. One the peculiarities was that indian cosmogony and cosmology includes great time spans, since they used a digit system which was later (in the 13th c.) introduced to Europe by Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa, 1170-1240).

Author(s):  
Т. Прудка

The philosophy of Lev Shestov has a close connection with life. The thinker considered it necessary to pay attention to the most burning issues, one of which is the problem of freedom. The article analyzes the phenomenon of freedom as the fundamental principle of Shestov's philosophy. It also reflects the main philosophical ideas of the thinker, analyzes the correlation of religion and philosophy in his work. It is noted that freedom occupies the central position for Shestov. Real philosophy doesn’t exist and can’t exist without it. At the same time, Shestov insists that logic is the main opponent of freedom. The article analyzes Shestov's argumentation concerning this issue. It is emphasized that the philosopher puts faith in God above reason, since God is the Truth, and the human mind tends to wander. It was also revealed that Shestov considered it impossible to judge the meaning of the universe rationally. The philosopher asserts that logic cannot be the only one method of perception of the existance, he is looking for the other forms of penetration into the secrets of the world order. Exactly such method for him occurs the faith in God. Only the faith gives an opportunity to comprehend the secrets of the world. Shestov anticipated the main ideas of late existentialism. The philosopher was worried about the problems of individual human existence, the search for a way out of hopelessness. The philosophy of Lev Shestov deserves careful and detailed studying. But, unfortunately, not enough attention was paid to his work, that fact determined the relevance of this work. The purpose of the study is to identify the importance of freedom as the basis of the philosophy of Lev Shestov, to reflect the central ideas of the thinker. It is concluded that Lev Shestov considered the faith in God is the only possible way of perception, since only faith can give a true freedom. The thinker sees a direct correlation between faith in God and philosophy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (S359) ◽  
pp. 188-189
Author(s):  
Daniela Hiromi Okido ◽  
Cristina Furlanetto ◽  
Marina Trevisan ◽  
Mônica Tergolina

AbstractGalaxy groups offer an important perspective on how the large-scale structure of the Universe has formed and evolved, being great laboratories to study the impact of the environment on the evolution of galaxies. We aim to investigate the properties of a galaxy group that is gravitationally lensing HELMS18, a submillimeter galaxy at z = 2.39. We obtained multi-object spectroscopy data using Gemini-GMOS to investigate the stellar kinematics of the central galaxies, determine its members and obtain the mass, radius and the numerical density profile of this group. Our final goal is to build a complete description of this galaxy group. In this work we present an analysis of its two central galaxies: one is an active galaxy with z = 0.59852 ± 0.00007, while the other is a passive galaxy with z = 0.6027 ± 0.0002. Furthermore, the difference between the redshifts obtained using emission and absorption lines indicates an outflow of gas with velocity v = 278.0 ± 34.3 km/s relative to the galaxy.


2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (27) ◽  
pp. 1450155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Goran S. Djordjevic ◽  
Ljubisa Nesic ◽  
Darko Radovancevic

The significant matter for the construction of the so-called no-boundary proposal is the assumption of signature transition, which has been a way to deal with the problem of initial conditions of the universe. On the other hand, results of Loop Quantum Gravity indicate that the signature change is related to the discrete nature of space at the Planck scale. Motivated by possibility of non-Archimedean and/or noncommutative structure of space–time at the Planck scale, in this work we consider the classical, p-adic and (spatial) noncommutative form of a cosmological model with Friedmann–Robertson–Walker (FRW) metric coupled with a self-interacting scalar field.


2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (H15) ◽  
pp. 304-304
Author(s):  
J. C. Berengut ◽  
V. A. Dzuba ◽  
V. V. Flambaum ◽  
J. A. King ◽  
M. G. Kozlov ◽  
...  

Current theories that seek to unify gravity with the other fundamental interactions suggest that spatial and temporal variation of fundamental constants is a possibility, or even a necessity, in an expanding Universe. Several studies have tried to probe the values of constants at earlier stages in the evolution of the Universe, using tools such as big-bang nucleosynthesis, the Oklo natural nuclear reactor, quasar absorption spectra, and atomic clocks (see, e.g. Flambaum & Berengut (2009)).


Author(s):  
Jennifer Gurley

AbstractAgainst anti-realist readings of the Emersonian self, perhaps most influentially Cavell’s reading, this essay argues that Emerson is a devotional writer. Emerson’s notion of subjectivity is based in two complementary modes of action - one receptive and the other expressive - as one works to “align” oneself with the larger forces that constitute and order the universe. How the world is and how we humans make our way through it are not the same and must not be confused. Such confusion is the decisive mistake the anti-realist critic of Emerson makes. The Emersonian subject must experience the laws of reality directly, on one’s own, rather than “secondhand.” Emerson is a dramatist telling the story of how we come to ideas and learn to judge and to act: of how, that is, we come to have experience. Emerson seeks an unshifting ground through a moment of receptivity and a moment of activity. That he often rarely achieves insight does not make him an anti-realist. This essay demonstrates how, by showing - albeit briefly - that Emersonian experience is fundamentally religious: a work of devotion rather than aversion.


1978 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 409-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ya B. Zeldovich

The God-father of psychoanalysis Professor Sigmund Freud taught us that the behaviour of adults depends on their early childhood experiences. in the same spirit, the problem of cosmological analysis is to derive the observed present day situation and structure of the Universe from certain plausible assumptions about its early behaviour. Perhaps the most important single statement about the large scale structure is that there is no structure at all on the largest scale − 1000 Mpc and more. On this scale the Universe is rather uniform, structureless and isotropically expanding - just according to the simplified pictures of Einstein-Friedmann……. Humason, Hubble…. Robertson, Walker. On the other hand there is a lot of structure on the scale of 100 or 50 Mpc and less. There are clusters and superclusters of galaxies.


Human Affairs ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Skowroński

AbstractIn the present paper, the author looks at the political dimension of some trends in the visual arts within twentieth-century avant-garde groups (cubism, expressionism, fauvism, Dada, abstractionism, surrealism) through George Santayana’s idea of vital liberty. Santayana accused the avant-gardists of social and political escapism, and of becoming unintentionally involved in secondary issues. In his view, the emphasis they placed on the medium (or diverse media) and on treating it as an aim in itself, not, as it should be, as a transmitter through which a stimulating relationship with the environment can be had, was accompanied by a focus on fragments of life and on parts of existence, and, on the other hand, by a de facto rejection of ontology and cosmology as being crucial to understanding life and the place of human beings in the universe. The avant-gardists became involved in political life by responding excessively to the events of the time, instead of to the everlasting problems that are the human lot.


Traditio ◽  
1946 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Merlan

According to Aristotle all heavenly movement is ultimately due to the activity of forty-seven (or fifty-five) ‘unmoved movers'. This doctrine is highly remarkable in itself and has exercised an enormous historical influence. It forms part of a world-picture the outlines of which are as follows. The universe consists of concentric spheres, revolving in circles. The outermost of these bears the fixed stars. The other either bear planets or, insofar as they do not, contribute indirectly to the movements of the latter. Each sphere is moved by the one immediately surrounding it, but also possesses a movement of its own, due to its mover, an unmoved, incorporeal being. (It was these beings which the schoolmen designated as theintelligentiae separatae.) The seemingly irregular movements of the planets are thus viewed as resulting from the combination of regular circular revolutions. The earth does not move and occupies the centre of the universe. Such was Aristotle's astronomic system, essential parts of which were almost universally adopted by the Arabic, Jewish, and Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages.


This book focuses from various perspectives on the striking similarities (as well as the concomitant differences) between early Greek and early Indian thought. In both cultures there occurred at about the same time the birth of 'philosophy', the idea of the universe as an intelligible order in which personal deity is (at most) marginal and the inner self is at the centre of attention. The similarities include a pentadic structure of narrative and cosmology, a basic conception of cosmic order or harmony, a close relationship between universe and inner self, techniques of soteriological inwardness and self-immortalisation, the selflessness of theory, envisaging the inner self as a chariot, the interiorisation of ritual, and ethicised reincarnation. Explanations for the similarites are a shared Indo-European origin, parallel socio-economic development, and influence in one direction or the other.


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