Term Test 1 review notes

No genuine potentiality of being can remain unfulfilled and the extent and abundance of creation is as vast as the possibilities of existence and commensurate with the productive capacity of a perfect and inexhaustible source (atoms or god)

if anything can go wrong it will go wrong (based on principle of plentitude)

when two competing theories make exactly the same prediction, the simpler one is better

the universe appears the same from every point and in every direction
there is nothing special about earth

the laws of physics are the same everywhere in the universe

-argued in favour of many inhabited worlds
-matter is made of invisible units called atoms
-infinite number of atoms
-Random motion of atoms
-infinite number of universes
- their argument relies on principle of plentitude
- universe has evolved to its current state
- there is no god

-argued against the existence of other worlds
-earths centre coincided with the centre of the universe, towards which everything fell
-there can be no two centres of the universe, only earth
-Aristotles elements ( earth water fire air and aether(heavenly))

-considered by many to be the first work of science fiction
-the protagonist gets caught in a whirlwind a nd ends up on the moon, only to find that the king of Lunarians is an earthling who was abducted in his sleep and brought to the moon
-Lucian of Samosata populates the moon, sun and many other stars and planets
-the book discusses the potential plans for colonization of planet venus
-the Colony was to be made of the poorest peope of the kingdom of the moon who were going to start a new life on planet venus which was empty and uninhabited

- most important figure was augustine of hippo who rejected the idea of plurality of worlds
-rejected the idea of plurality of worlds based on the teachings of aristotle
- this begged an answer to the following questions - is the rejection of plurality of the worlds in contradiction with the omnipotence of god ( Condemnations of 1277)

- doctrine of atonement - forgiving of the original sin through death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
- so god could have made many worls but what about the doctrine of atonement
-can christ dying on earth redeem the inhabitants of another worlds or does he travel from one world to another and die to redeem them?
- a possible answer could be that ET's have never committed the original sin so are not in the need for redemption

-every existing thing in the universe has its place in a divinely planned hierarchical order

God
Angels
Extraterrestrials
Humans
Animals
Plants
Matter

- the placement depends on the relative proportuion of spirit and matter that existed in the being
-no matter how small a being, there is a place for everyone
-ET was usually place between humans and Angels

-earth at the centre; all celestial bodies in orbit around earth
-ptolemaic or aristotelian model - unable to produce accurate enough predictions for the position of planets
-the heliocentric model was proposed as an alternative model to simplify the complicated mathematics of the geocentric universe
-as put forwards by copernicus, the planets in the heliocentric model had circular orbits

-retrograde motion of planets - planets generally move from west to east every night with respect to the background stars BUt sometimes they stop and moved westward this was called retrograde motion

-earth and other planets revolve around the sun

-lack of observation of parallax led many to reject heliocentrism

-made the case for plurality of worlds stronger
- if the earth is a planet orbiting the sun and it is inhabited, could other planets in the solar system also be inhabited
- Heliocentrism meant that stars were located much farther than they thoug meaning a wastage of space unless stars were suns serving other planets (plurality of worlds)

apparent motion of nearby stars with respect to far away stars due to the change of position of earth in its orbit

- a new system called the geocentric-heliocentric
-provided the best observational data for the orbit of mars
- despite all his efforts tycho brahe failed to observe parallax and thus rejected the heliocentric view
- did not beleive in pluralism and rejected copernicism
-he argued that if copernicism was true there would be a masive waste of space because stars were so far apart unless there were inhabitants, he found this to be absurd

-believed in a Copernican system
-Discovered the four largest moons of jupiter, that the Milky Way resolves into many stars, that the moon looks terraneous rather than perfect
-provided ample evidence against aristotelian universe
-argued against life on the moon
-was aware of the fact that moon did not have an atmosphere
-knew that lack of atmoshphere and long days and nights on the moon results in huge temperature variations whihc is not friendly to life forms as we know them so never suported the idea of life on the moon

- finally came up with the correct model of the solar system by replacing perfect circles with eclipses contrary to aristotelian beleif
-used the most accurate data of tycho to fit a curve to orbit mars
- early beleiver in the copernican system of the unvierse
- beleieved that life existed on other planets in the solar system
- he used teology to argue life exists on jupiter
-teology is the attempt to describe the existence of something by seeing it serve a purpose
- wrote a book called somnium
-talks about existence of life on the moon
-the main purpose was to show; earth is in motion but we do not feel it, the universe appears the same everywhere(copernican principle)

period of rotation of a moon around its own axis is equal to period of revolution around the planet
-the moon is in synchronous rotation around the earth
- the gallilean moons as well as moons of saturn are also in synchronous rotation

the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise.

beleived there were inhabitants on the moon that were much more superior to earth

- did not discuess plurality of worlds in his writings
-implied that earth is not stationary so needed a new physics to describe how thigns fell onto a moving earth
-introduced a heliocentric universe "deranking earth"
-heliocentric universe meant stars were far apart and so there was a waste of space unles stars were serving other earths (plurality of world)

- beleived that stars were similair to our sun and had planets around them
- his arguements to support this were philosophical
- based his arguement for plurality of worlds on the principle of plentitude
- burnt at the stake for denial of the devinity of christ