Wobec tajemnicy i skandalu zła – teodycea Karola Ludwika Konińskiego

The article presents religious and philosophical views of journalist and writer Karol Ludwik Koniński (1891–1943), which he included in his intimate journal, written mostly during the war and the occupation period. He intertwines his observations of daily dramatic events with reflections on the metaphysical and ethical status of evil present in the world. Koniński was inspired in his theodicy, trying to reconcile the image of merciful God with the severity of evil present in the world, the views of Gnostics and Origen. He took the view that God was not fully omnipotent, and emphasized that on a cosmic scale the process of overcoming multiform evil by God, who is Love, is constantly taking place. Koniński’s theodicy therefore constitutes religious evolutionism. He combined Gnostic sensitivity to the presence and severity of evil with the belief in the ultimate, full apocatastasis. Koniński’s reflection does not accept some of the dogmas of Roman Catholicism, it also includes a critique of the views of St. Augustine and scholastic theology. The author of the article puts forward a thesis that Koniński, due to his in-depth analysis of the subject of evil and his sensitivity to the dramatic dimension of human and non-human existence, can be attributed to a particular current of the philosophy of the heart, in Pascal’s understanding of this concept.

Devotional Foundations of Earthly Sovereignty: Conceptualizing Sovereignty and the Role of Devotion in Narrative Political Theology in Premodern India

The central premise of this article is that narrative literature from premodern India can give us insights into the ways that sovereignty was conceptualized within broader cosmological structures, creating what has been called “political theology” in other contexts. Looking to narratives for theology can give us particular insights into a tradition’s self-description. It is through narratives that Indian kings and their courts were able to describe the intentional-agential worlds of political hierarchies on a cosmic scale and situate themselves within this broader structure. This article, therefore, examines narratives from Purāṇas, particularly the Viṣṇu Purāṇa and the Dēvī Māhātmya, and dynastic foundational stories and genealogies from Karnataka found in vaṃśāvaḷis and epigraphic praśastis, using a twelfth-century Western Gaṅga inscription as an example, to see the political theologies from the premodern courts of India as they are articulated and performed in and between the realms of the divine and on Earth. After an examination of these materials, this article offers a new model to explain how premodern courts viewed their sovereignty vis-à-vis other divine and earthly sovereigns and how they understood the constitution, transfer, and diffusion of sovereignty throughout this cosmic spectrum of divine and earthly royalty through devotion and giving.

Law of physics 20th century scientists overlooked. VI. Cosmic-scale conservation of energy

The explanation of energy conservation on the cosmic scale requires an understanding of two sets of processes. (1) The set of processes by which electromagnetic energy, the energy of photons in the free state or in the confined state, is gained or is diminished. (2) The set of processes by which the vacuum, i.e., aether, is generated or is lost—processes by which it emerges/expands and by which it suffers contraction and vanishment. At the heart of the explanation is a straightforward definition of energy at the fundamental level: Any process in which there is a quantitative change in the units of aether (the discretized medium that permeates all space) constitutes, in and of itself, a manifestation of energy. The workings of the long-overlooked mechanism are revealed. Cosmic-scale energy conservation is maintained by balancing the relevant processes of two distinct realms—the physical and the subphysical. The physical realm achieves balance by means of a harmony between processes of photon energy gain and energy loss. The subphysical realm achieves balance through the harmony between aether emergence and aether consumption/vanishment. Needless to say, the implications for cosmology are profound.

Witnessing Space

Significant advances in scientific understanding in the twentieth century pointed to a convergence of time and space, known as SpaceTime. Related scientific discoveries related to the nature of the cosmos invoked sound not only metaphorically but quite literally. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity changed the position of an observer from neutral to active. This position is consistent with an embodied experience of sound. Simultaneous to these scientific advances, developments in recording and production technologies gave artists the tools to explore sound in space, and to create in the intersectional spaces between art, geography, astronomy, and other sciences. In addition R. Murray Schafer, Hildegard Westerkamp, and others created a contemporary sound art movement that highlights the presence of the listener as inextricable to a soundscape experience. Many sound artists have created compelling immersive experiences for listeners through the audification and sonification of spatial data. Such works raise important questions: if sonic experience of space is embodied, how can space be understood through sound, especially that which is scaled much larger or smaller or of a duration much shorter or longer than that which we can experience with our bodies? How do affect, mood, and emotion influence our embodied understanding of sound in space? In this introductory chapter to this volume’s section on space and sound art, the author’s embodied experiences and interactions with scientists in Antarctica will serve as a background to a personal meditation on sound and space on a human, cosmic, and micro-cosmic scale.

Importance, Value, and Causal Impact

Many believe that because we are so small, we must be utterly insignificant on the cosmic scale. But whether this is so depends on what it takes to be important. On one view, what matters for importance is the difference to value that something makes. On this view, what determines our cosmic importance is not our size, but what else of value is out there. But a rival view also seems plausible: that importance requires sufficient causal impact on the relevant scale; since we have no such impact on the grand scale, that would entail our cosmic insignificance. I argue that despite appearances, causal impact is neither necessary nor sufficient for importance. All that matters is impact on value. Since parts can have non-causal impact on the value of the wholes that contain them, this means that we might have great impact on the grandest scale without ever leaving our little planet.

The Most Probable Cosmic Scale Factor Consistent with the Cosmological Principle, General Relativity and the SMPP

Current literature on the evolution of the cosmic scale factor is dominated by models using a dark sector, these all involve making many conjectures beyond the basic assumption that the Cosmological Principle selects a space–time metric of the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker type through which ordinary Standard Model of Particle Physics matter moves according to General Relativity. In this chapter a different model is made using the same basic assumptions but without making extra conjectures, it depends on following the idea introduced by Boltzmann that when physically meaningful concepts fluctuate the value which will be observed is the one which has the highest probability. This change removes the mathematically incorrect procedure of averaging the matter density before solving Einstein’s Equation, the procedure which causes the introduction of many of the conjectures. In the non-uniform era the changes are that the evolution of the scale factor is influenced by the formation of structure and removes the conjecture of having to use two inconsistent probability distributions for matter through space, one to calculate the scale factor and one to represent structure. The new model is consistent from the earliest times through to the present epoch. This new model is open and matches SNe 1a redshift data, an observation which makes it a viable candidate and implies that it should be fully investigated.

The past, present and future of gravitational wave astronomy

Gravitational Waves (GWs) have become a major source of insight in Multi Messenger Astronomy since their first direct detection in 2015 (Abbott et al. 2016) where the Nobel prize in Physics was awarded in 2017 to LIGO founders Barry C. Barish, Kip S. Thorne, and Rainer Weiss. They complement electromagnetic and particle measurements by providing cosmic scale evidence which cannot be detected in any other way. Their rise to prominence has not been straightforward since the founder of general relativity, Albert Einstein, who predicted GWs, was nevertheless skeptical of their existence and detectability. This skepticism put a damper on Gravitational Wave (GW) research that was not overcome until the 1950's, the decade of Einstein's death. Since then, ever more sensitive GW detectors have been designed for construction on earth and in space. Each of these detector approaches was designed to expand the types of cosmic events that could be detected.

Cosmic Deer as an Archaic Symbol in the Narratives and Rituals of the Tungus-Manchus

Статья посвящена мифологическому образу космического оленя в традиционной культуре тунгусо-маньчжуров. В работе рассматриваются материалы фольклора, шаманства, промысловых и календарных ритуалов, а также искусства. Впервые систематизированы материалы по всем тунгусо-маньчжурским народам. Образ космического оленя в фольклоре эвенов имеет наиболее близкие аналогии с амурскими народами, которые представляют его с рогами до небес. Он сохранился в сказочном фольклоре с мифологическими и эпическими элементами. В эвенском мифе образ оленя имеет космические масштабы: из тела его происходит земля и всё живущее на ней. У народов Амура образ оленя нашел отражение в космогенезе, отделении неба от земли. Своеобразие сюжета космической охоты характеризует общесибирскую мифологию, относящуюся к ранней истории. В ней наиболее ярко проявляется мотив смены старого и нового солнца, хода времени, смены времен года, календарь тунгусо-маньчжуров. В результате анализа автор пришел к выводу, что олень в тунгусо-маньчжурской традиции моделирует пространство и время Вселенной, характеризует образ солнца и хода времени. Космический олень является архетипичным символом культуры тунгусо-маньчжуров, сохранившим свое значение до настоящего времени в художественной культуре This article is devoted to the mythological image of cosmic deer in traditional Tungus-Manchu culture. It examines materials of folklore, shamanism, trade and calendar rituals as well as art and for the first time systematizes materials from all of the Tungus-Manchu peoples. The image of cosmic deer in the folklore of the Evens has its closest analogy in that of the Amur peoples, reflected in the image of a deer with horns reaching up to the sky. This image is preserved in fairytales with mythological and epic elements. In the Even myth, the image of a deer is on a cosmic scale, as the cosmos issues from its body. Among the Amur peoples, the image of a deer is also related to cosmogenesis, to the separation of the earth from the sky. The plot of a cosmic hunt is reflected in pan-Siberian mythology, dating back to the Bronze Age. It clearly illustrates the motif of the change of the old and new sun, the passage of time, the change of seasons, the Tungus-Manchu calendar. The author comes to the conclusion that deer in the Tungus-Manchu tradition, in depicting the image of the sun and the passage of time, model the space and time of the Universe. The cosmic deer is an archetypal symbol of Tungus-Manchu culture, which has retained its significance in artistic culture to the present day.

Comets

Cometary nuclei are small, despite the cosmic scale of the comet tails that they produce. The nuclei have the ability to create rarefied atmospheres, extending as a tail to giant distances comparable to the orbital distances of the planets. Giant tails of comets are sometimes observed for several years and cover a significant part of the sky. The cometary nucleus is capable of continuously renewing tails and supporting the material that is constantly dissipating in space. Large comets do not appear so often that they have become trivial celestial phenomena, but they appear often enough to allow astronomers to complete detailed studies. Many remarkable discoveries, such as the discovery of solar wind, were made during the study of comets. Comets are characterized by great diversity, and their appearance often becomes an ornament of the night sky. Comets have become remote laboratories, where experiments are performed in physical conditions that are not achievable on Earth.