Seeing further: the story of science & the Royal Society — 3 MARGARET WERTHEIM

1. 1. The cosmological principle—that space is homogeneous and governed by the same physical laws everywhere—is foundational to modern science but was a contentious proposition during the scientific revolution.
2. 2. Medieval cosmology was dualistic: a finite physical universe surrounded by a spiritual Empyrean, mirroring the body-soul duality and providing a literal place for Heaven and the soul.
3. 3. Nicolas of Cusa in 1440 first proposed an infinite, homogeneous universe with no distinction between Earth and heavens, anticipating modern cosmology.
4. 4. Renaissance artists, following Roger Bacon's call for 'geometric figuring', used linear perspective to retrain European minds to see space as Euclidean, paving the way for Newtonian physics.
5. 5. Newton unified terrestrial and celestial realms by showing gravity operates everywhere, but his infinite physical space left no room for Heaven, creating a theological crisis.
6. 6. General relativity compounds the problem by making time a dimension of space, leading to a deterministic cosmos where nothing truly 'happens', conflicting with Christian free will.
7. 7. Hyperspace theories reduce everything to structured space, eliminating matter and spirit alike, leading to a monism that fails to provide a place for the self.
8. 8. Descartes' dualism of res extensa and res cogitans attempted to preserve a realm for the soul, but later generations stripped it away, leaving a purely secular cosmology.
9. 9. The equation of physical space with reality problematizes the concept of a human self, as the self cannot be located on a map, leading to widespread cultural refusal of spatial monism.
10. 10. The rise of creationism and fundamentalist Christianity is partly a rejection of totalized cosmic continuity, as believers seek a literal place for the soul in the cosmos.
11. 11. Dante's Divine Comedy provides a concrete landscape for both soul and psyche, contrasting with modern cosmology where individuals feel 'lost in space'.
12. 12. A Himba man asked an American anthropologist how Westerners bear seeing themselves as isolated points alone in empty space, highlighting the psychological toll of spatial monism.