Below are the 2 most recent journal entries recorded in nelu's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2004
8:29 am	An anti-copernician revolution I'm reading "Privileged Planet," a book about the unicity of our place in the Universe. This is at essence an anti-copernician revolution. For 400 years the "iluminated minds" found pleasure in emphasizing that: a. The Earth is not at the center of Solar system. b. The Sun is a very common star, of of the billions in the galaxy. c. Our galaxy is a very insignificant one. The book - and with it a totally new way of thinking - reverses all these statements. Not that we are spacially at the center of the universe, but we are in a very, very unique set of circumstances, very hard to reproduce in other solar systems or in other galaxies. Even the common Moon is unique. If it did not exist, if it were smaller or larger, if it were further or nearer, life would not be possible on Earth. The Earth axis inclination is unique and essential to life. The chemical properties of water are essential to life. The abundance of carbon is essential to life (not even silicon, a similar element, would not do, because it would form compounds that are too stable). The size of the Sun is essential to life, as well as the distance to it. The position of the Sun in the galaxy, not at the center, not at the edge, not between different arms but exactly in the middle of an arm - all these are essential to life. What is most amazing is the anthropic principle, which has to do with the calibration of the constants in the physical equations. For instance, the gravity equals the product of the masses of two objects, multiplied with the square of the distance, multiply with a constant (universal constant of gravity). We can imagine an universe in which this equation is slightly different. If you have a cube in stead of the square of the distance, life would not be possible. If the universal constant of gravity is slightly less or more, life would not be possible. So much about being products of chance on a grain of sand in a cold and indifferent universe. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 20th, 2004
9:51 am	Alexander the Great I just read Steven Pressfield's book Virtues of War, a novel of Alexander the Great. I have read other books of the same author, he always approaches some of the great philosophical questions in the middle of clashes of phalanxes and horses. "Last of the Amazons" - the tension between freedom and civilization "Tides of War" - the hubris of imperial democracy (how modern!) "Gates of Fire" - transcending fear "Virtues of War" is also a book about transcendence, or rather, in this case, the impossibility to transcend. Here is Alexander, the Conqueror who is admired by 2500 years of history, the unique young man who crosses to Asia with a small army at the age of 20 to conquer an empire tens of times larger then his country. Apparently he has no limits and people look up to him as to a God. No fear, hunger or thirst can stop him. He is eternally young, beautiful, charming, resourceful, creative, handsome, skilled, wise, compassionate with friends, noble with enemies. Still he hits a limit, a ceiling he cannot pass. It is most clearly shown when he reaches India. He is about to pass through a village of gymnosophists (yogis) and his soldier quarrel with the disciples of a wise man who is practicing meditation somewhere at the side of a road. Both disciples and soldiers claim that their master is greatest. A Greek soldier says, "You must make room for Alexander, he is the greater one, he is the one who conquered the world," to which the disciple of the wise man responds, "But my master conquered the need to conquer the world." This is Alexander's limit. He is not really free, he is controlled by his "diamon," who is pushing him incessantly for new conquests. It is this "diamon" which he cannot conquer and in the end he is himself destroyed. Alexander's life is thus a tragedy. I found in the book the best definition of tragedy that I have encountered so far: Tragedy is when a man raises higher and higher but is finally halted by the limits of his own nature, which he cannot transcend. Adverse external circumstances are not really tragic, they can even be turned to victories (see the crucifixion), the real tragedy lies inside, not outside. Question: Is the orthodox theosis the answer to tragedy? (3 Comments |Comment on this)