Masks of the Universe: Changing Ideas on the Nature of the Cosmos 2nd Edition by Edward Harrison (PDF)

Description

To the ancient Greeks the universe consisted of earth, air, fire, and water. To Saint Augustine it was the Word of God. To many modern scientists it is the dance of atoms and waves, and in years to come it may be different again. What then is the real Universe? History shows that in every age each society constructs its own universe, believing it to be the real and final Universe. Yet each universe is only a model or mask of the unknown Universe. Originally published in 2003, this book brings together fundamental scientific, philosophical, and religious issues in cosmology, raising thought-provoking questions. In every age people have pitied the universes of their ancestors, convinced that they have at last discovered the ultimate truth. Does the modern model stand at the threshold of discovering everything, or will it, like all the rest, come to be pitied?

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Takes you through the history of human thought about the cosmos. The writing is clear, delightful, and full of insights.

⭐”The Universe is everything. What it is, in its own right, independent of our changing opinions, we never fully know.” page 1.That is where this book starts.It ends near page 303 with the quote:”Belief in an unknown and unknowable God, or Universe, or UniGod, counsels humility and hope, not arrogance and despair.”This is not a science book, but an exposition of Mr. Harrison’s religious beliefs: and the his assumption that the Universe is “unknowable.”

⭐This book touches on the subject of many different universes. Now, when you hear this you might automatically think I’m talking about the Hugh Everett’s many-worlds-interpretation of quantum mechanics. Whereas the infinite universes of that idea are taken to be the objective universes of a Universe (the multiverse), Edward Harrison is talking about the universes taken to be the subjective universes (of our creating) of The Universe. (ultimate objective reality, perhaps even the multiverse)He does not have any comforting truths about the Universe found here. He aims to show us that we strive to reach such absolutes from a cloud of unknowing and instead create our own limited models of The Universe–universes. The first chunk of his work is devoted to tracing the history of such universes. These cosmologies are as such: The Magic Universe, The Mythic Universe, The Geometric Universe, The Medieval Universe, The Infinite Universe, and The Mechanistic Universe. Thus this concatenation is also deeply intertwined with our religions and spiritual evolution. Also, it is blatant that with each new picture of reality the universe becomes more mechanistic, less alive, and always contains some “mythology” of the previous one.[pp.40 “a myth is any component taken from the world-view of another society that fails to fit naturally into our own.”pp.117 “At last we come to the twentieth century. Adrift like shipwrecked mariners, in a vast and meaningless mechanistic universe, we are found clingin for life to the cosmic wreckage of ancient universes.”]The middle fraction of his book introduces some of the ideas of modern physics from the quantum dance of subatomic particles, to a treatise on general relativity and understanding the curvature of space time as the gravity of the outdated Newtonian universe. It then proceeds to expose a less rational universe that was left out of the pantheon of the original chapters–The Witch Universe. With this perspective of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance he ties into the question of what is valid science by using Popper’s philosophy of falsifiable facts.This all leads into his final message about The Universe, the Absolute Reality. We aim to know it by creating universes, but that The Universe remains unknowable. He thinks exactly the same of God. We aim to know “him” by creating gods, but God remains truly unknowable. He offers valuable scientific insight against these gods of classical theism and divine intervention or special creation, but claims that the true “God” is still beyond doubt since both God and The Universe are the same inconceivable Ultimate Reality. ( since The Universe no doubt is real, and he equates that reality with God, thus creating a simple theosyllogism ) But then shouldn’t “gods” and “universes” be pictures of the same thing? They clearly aren’t. (yet he says they can be equated, if we wish to, on pp.267) YHWH doesn’t equal quantum mechanics. Though he has acknowledged that gods and universes are confused with absolute truth, my point is that this means little when you have changed the definition of God so much from external anthromopomorhized beings to the sum of all that is–or–The Universe. (I suppose you could equally change the definition of Satan to The Universe and say that Satan no doubt exists.) Though I understand his idea and the reasons why it is embraced ( I used to profess the same thing ), I have realized that it is too much of a misnomer for me to still say that, “I believe there exists a God.” Not that it is quite illogical or absurd, but only that I think it is pointless to say that anyone who believes in the universe before them believes in the “existence” of God. (So was Carl Sagan unknowingly a theist?) It is pointless in the paradigm of classical theism, something which is irrational and even absurd. I do not think this idea should be used until you can change the people’s view to this paradigm of Absolute Reality (which is in itself a “universe”) since in the meantime God is taken in the widespread context of classical theism. Why perpetuate theistic thinking at all when all you have really done is taken the word “God” away from the essence of theism and applied it to a new definition of something we already have a name for–The Universe. ?This was a highly enjoyed and appreciable book that I would not refuse to recommend (though I don’t make it incumbent on the reader) yet in the end he makes the flaw of constructing his own universe of “The Universe”. He even said himself “I hold that it is impossible to find proof of the existence of God within the framework of a particular universe, for all universes are the handiwork of human beings.”—pp.263

⭐Once in a rare while you find a book that might have been written specifically for you, addressing your most pressing concerns & questions at the deepest level. Edward Harrison has done exactly that for me in this astonishing examination of the Universe (all that was, is & ever will be) & the many universes humanity has constructed in order to define & grasp that ultimately unknowable Universe. This is philosophy as much as it is cosmology, as Harrison explores the various models of existence that we’ve created for ourselves over the centuries, quite sure that THIS time we’ve got it right … until the next model takes its place. In the end, he argues, there is no direct & immediate understanding of the Universe — only the models we constantly build as imperfect approximations of it, tailored to suit our current needs & outlooks.This would be heavy going from many writers, but Harrison has the gift of elucidating the most complex material with warmth, wit, humanity, and above all the humility cited by previous reviewers. In so doing, he makes us reconsider all that we take for granted as “reality” & realize just how much of it is a human construct, an agreed-upon fiction that enables us to make some small sense of this endlessly vast Universe & permits us to live within it.Inevitably this leads to both metaphysical & existential questions. Harrison explores these as well, not so much offering answers as encouraging us to think more deeply about those questions ourselves. It’s an experience both unsettling & liberating, as we’re forced to see ourselves from a perspective far removed from the tight, narrow, often petty focus of everyday life in one transient civilization among many, past & present. How insignificant we are on the cosmic scale, after all! And yet how wondrous that we can not only think of such questions, but wrestle with them.Most highly recommended!

⭐I’ve read all of Harrison’s books and many of his papers. This is a cut below the rest. There is nothing wrong with it per se, but it is a bit too culturally relativist for my taste. Yes, science is influenced by society, but that doesn’t mean that there is nothing objective at all about it. Yes, paradigm’s change, but check out Asimov’s essay “The Relativity of Wrong” to see why this doesn’t mean that anything goes, a position to which Harrison comes dangerously close (but only in this book).

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