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Oct 25
Issac newton
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The universe of Newton was a deterministic universe, i.e. it was governed by a set of
laws. For many this eliminated the need for a God who constantly oversees and
interferes in the matters of the universe. This view is called Deism
He is responsible for his invention of calculus as well as the three laws of motion
and the universal law of gravity.
His law of gravity could be used to directly derive the shape of the orbit of planets,
what Kepler found experimentally
Newton believed that stars are systems similar to our own Sun.
massive body of Newton’s writings, one comes across only four passages which
point to the idea of pluralism.
Passage by Newton states “God is able to create Particles of Matter of several Sizes and
Figures, and in several Proportions to Space, and perhaps of different densities and Forces,
and thereby vary the Laws of Nature and make Worlds of several sorts in several Parts of
the Universe.”
And it’s an example of Copernican Principle and Principle of Relativity
As by accepting that the laws of nature can vary in different parts the universe, Newton is
rejecting his own universal law of gravitation!
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)
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Leibniz is known for his theodicy, the idea that our universe is the best of all possible
universes despite the existence of evil
Leibniz uses his pluralism to confront the problem of evil by arguing that our
planet is the worst world in the best possible universe!
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Theodicy the idea that our universe is the best of all possible
Problem of Evil: How can evil exist in a universe that is created by an
omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent God?
Christian Wolff (1679-1754)
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Wolff’s pluralist passages, one is especially interesting where he sets out to measure
the height of Jupiterians using the amount of light they receive on Jupiter.
Wolff used the amount of light received on every planet to estimate the size of
the inhabitants of that planet.
Wolff’s calculation is based on the inverse square law for light, meaning that the
amount of light received on a planet is inversely proportional to the square of the
distance of that planet from the Sun.
The inverse square law states that if the distance between a planet and the Sun increases
by a factor of d, the light received on that planet decreases by a factor of d2. For instance,
Saturn is 10 times farther from the Sun than the Earth, so it receives 1/102 = 1/100 of the
light that the Earth receives.
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the square of the diameter of the pupil is inversely proportional to the amount of light
available.
Wolff argues that the size of the human eye is proportional to the height.
Height of jupiterians (Jupiter inhabitants/ living beings) is estimated to be 13.5
feet
Voltaire
Francois-Marie Arouet assumed the name Voltaire in 1717 and went on to become
one of the greatest writers and philosophers of the enlightenment.
● The Enlightenment is the period in the history of western thought and culture,
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He received his early education primarily from the Jesuits but later turned into a
deist.
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Following a 2-year exile to Britain, he espoused Newtonian system of Mechanics
and upon his return to France became a popularizer of Newton’s ideas.
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His belief in extraterrestrials however appears to have come from reading
Fontenelle’s book.
Micromegas
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Voltaire’s pluralism is best seen in his book Micromegas (1752), a book filled with
pluralism, satire, criticism of institutional religion (especially Catholicism) and
politics.
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Micromegas (small/large) is the itinerant inhabitant of a planet orbiting the star Sirius.
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Sirius (the dog star) is the brightest star of the night sky
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Upon being Exiled from his home planet on charges of heresy(controversial word)
Micromegas decides to travel around the universe and he visits our solar system, in
particular Saturn and Earth.
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Upon arriving on Saturn, he finds that Saturnian are dwarfs, standing at only 1.8 km
(6000 ft) tall.
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When he arrives on earth he sees the earthlings/humans as weaklings, as he
sees a lot of conflict and war and he thinks that we should live in peace.
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He befriends the secretary of the Academy of Saturn “a man of good spirit, who in
truth had invented nothing, but who rendered a very good account of the inventions of
others, and who made passably good small verse and large calculations”.
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They both lament that the 1000 senses of Micromegas and 72 senses of the Saturnian
will leave them ill-equipped on planets where their inhabitants are endowed with more
senses.
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The Sirian and Saturnian mount on a comet to travel first to Jupiter and then to
Earth.
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They justify Mars’s having two satellites due to its proximity to the Sun .
● The moons of Mars were discovered in 1877
Richard Bentley
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was amongst the very first to popularize Newton’s deterministic universe and
employ this new system of Mechanics in Natural Theology.
Argued for the existence of extraterrestrials based on the concept of teleology: he
cannot find any purpose for the existence of stars as clearly they do not provide any
advantage to us.
Natural Theology is a theological system framed “entirely out of the religious truths which
may be learned from natural sources, that is, from the constitution of the human mind, and
from the phenomena of the mental and material universe.”
Natural theology relies on reason and is contrary to revealed theology.
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His belief in the existence of extraterrestrials arises from the fact that he cannot find
any purpose for the existence of stars as clearly they do not provide any advantage
to us.
He argues just as the Earth was made for man, “why may not all other Planets
be created … for their own inhabitants which have Life and Understanding?”
Bentley was aware of the fact that Mercury and Venus are probably too close to the
Sun for Earthly type of life to exist on them.
He however argues that these planets are still populated (otherwise what is the point
of having them? They are of no advantage to us).
Then and Now Habitable Zone
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More luminous stars have wider habitable zone which are located relatively far from
the star.
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Less luminous stars have thinner habitable zones which are located relatively close
to the star.
Stars come in a variety of masses. For the majority of the life of a star, the
more massive it is, the hotter its surface temperature
Kepler space telescope was launched in 2009 to search for Earth-like planets.
Nov 1
William Herchel (1738-1822)
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William Herschel believed in life on the moon and sun as well as other planets
His many contributions are the discovery of Uranus (1781) and the infrared radiation.
Herschel also discovered two moons of Uranus, Titania and Oberon as well as the
Martian Polar Caps
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Herschel's views on the existence of ET life are fascinating but perplexing.
• It appears that his fascination with extraterrestrial life was behind his strange
change of career
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Nebulae was a term used in the past to refer to many faint patches observed in the
sky (today, many of these are identified as other galaxies)
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• During his career, Herschel mapped more than 2500 nebulae and investigated the
nature of these objects.
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Recent scholarly work on some of Herschel’s unpublished manuscripts shows
that pluralism was his primary concern
. • These manuscripts depict a much different image of Herschel
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Herschel’s radical claim of an inhabited Moon was despite the fact that he himself
had shown that the Moon does not have an atmosphere.
• His claim led the president of the Royal Society to request more details in response
to which Herschel wrote: “promise not to call me a lunatic….”
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Herschel shows that he believed he had substantial evidence of life on the moon.
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William Herchel thought the crater
Herschel mistakenly thought that the impact craters were actually cities on the
moon.
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Impact Craters are depressions on the surface of the moon as well as all other
bodies in the solar system which are caused when these bodies are
bombarded by asteroids (leftover junks from the formation of the solar system)
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Herschel also believed that life existed on other planets. On the possibility of
life on Mars
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Herschel believed that all other planets, including Uranus, the moons of planets
and even the dwarf planet Ceres (to which he surprisingly attributed a considerable
atmosphere to) were inhabited.
Herschel believed the Sun to be inhabited
Many astronomers of the time, saw Herschel as being “fit for bedlam” in which is a
word for being outlandish
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Herschel, submitted two papers to Philosophical Transactions in 1795 and 1801,
advocating for the existence of life on the Sun.
• He argued that the sun had a cool, solid and dark spherical interior on top of
which a layer of hot clouds floats
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• He proposed that the outer layer consisted of two separate layers, the
outermost is glowing and the inner one acts as a shield and reflects the heat to
keep the inner surface cool.
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“The sun … appears to be nothing else than a very eminent, large, and lucid planet,
evidently the first, or in strictness of speaking, the only primary one of our system …
Its similarities to the other globes of the solar system … leads us to suppose that it is
most probably … inhabited by beings whose organs are adapted to the peculiar
circumstances of that vast globe.”
His passage represents Argument from Analogy
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Herschel believed that sun spots are openings in the Sun through which the
inhabitants of the Sun can look at the outside world.
Today we know that the sun spots are areas of the Sun that are significantly
cooler than their surroundings
Herschel and his claim for Sun being inhabited, can be understood through his
study of globular clusters and binary stars
One reason behind Herschel’s strange stellar model was the existence of
globular clusters: too tightly packed to let any planet revolve around these
stars..so the argument from teleology dictates that these stars must themselves
serve a purpose by being abode of life.
Globular clusters are spherical collection of very tightly packed stars that orbit
the galaxy as a satellite. They were first resolved into individual stars by
William Herschel in 1782
Herschel’s strange stellar model saved the stars in a globular cluster from being “mere
useless brilliant points”
His inspiration to do this is the concept of teleology
Nov 8
Thomas Paine
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argued that one has to either believe in Christianity or abandon the idea of
extraterrestrials as the two are not compatible
In his book, Age of reason (1794), he argues that the central Christian claim that
God became incarnated in Christ, came to earth, suffered and died to redeem
the sinful inhabitants of Earth is irreconcilable with the doctrine of Plurality of the
World
Age of Reason Paine’s book, the following concept that is attacked by
anthropocentrism
important arguments including, Original Sin, Anthropocentrism and Doctrine of
Atonement, none of which in Paine’s opinion were reconcilable with Extraterrestrials(ET).
Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847)
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pluralists were facing two difficult obstacles that needed to be addressed:
• (1) As put forward by Thomas Paine, is Christianity REALLY reconcilable with
pluralism? •
(2) The paucity of the astronomical evidence in favour of the existence of
extraterrestrial life.
The man that addressed these difficulties was Thomas Chalmers, an evangelical Scottish
priest and a fervent supporter of pluralism.
Thomas Chalmers had a different opinion and response to Thomas Paine
Thomas Chalmers suggested that the actions of Christ dying on earth can extend not
only through time but also across space, encompassing inhabitants of other
worlds/planets
William Whewell
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a prominent natural philosopher who actually coined the term scientist.
was a pluralist had a change of position to antipluralism
In 1833 He initially supported the thought of extraterrestrial life
But in 1853 only 20 years later he changed his position / thought and ended up
arguing against the abundance of life in the universe
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As Whewell agreed with the objection of Thomas Paine that Christianity and
Extraterrestrial life cannot be compatible. As you either believe in christianity or
abandon the idea Extraterrestrial life
The difference between Paine and Whewell is that Paine abandoned christianity to
follow up the thought of extraterrestrial life.
Whewell was different as he abandoned the idea of extraterrestrial life to favour
his religion
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Whewell’s objections were primarily motivated by the conflict that he saw
between the idea of extraterrestrials and Christianity, he supplemented his
arguments with scientific evidence
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William Herschel’s thought two types of arguments can be seen, teleology and
argument from Analogy.
Whewell’s conflict answered the two groups of extraterrestrials and christianity:
Religious thinkers who based their arguments for the existence of ET on
teleological arguments
Opponents of religion who are in favour of ET and believed that doctrine of
atonement and anthropocentrism was in conflict with religion and used
extraterrestrials as a means to attack christianity
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One of Whewell’s arguments against Pluralism was his geological argument.
● • Here he argued that the Earth was without intelligent life for the majority of its
history.
● This however must not be considered a wastage of space. In nature waste is a
common occurrence
Suggested the Rare Earth Hypothesis asserting that we are the only intelligent beings
in the universe
Whewell geological argument was an alternative to the theological argument. This
Argument was against extraterrestrial life
Geological argument: the Earth was without intelligent life for the majority of its
history.
This however must not be considered a wastage of space. In nature waste is a
common occurrence: Thousands of seeds fall on the ground but only a few bloom; a
fish produces millions of embryos but only a few reach adulthood…
The fact that waste exists in nature must not be considered as God creating in Vain
John Herschel (1792-1871)
, William Herschel's son, inherited both his father's instruments and beliefs in extraterrestrial
life
He became embroiled in the Great Moon Hoax of 1835, a series of articles in the New York
Sun falsely claiming Herschel had made incredible discoveries on the moon, including
observing intelligent bat-like creatures and other fantastical beings. This hoax, likely
intended as satire by Richard Adams Locke (1800-1871), highlights the public's fascination
with the possibility of extraterrestrial life, particularly on the moon. Locke's satire might have
been aimed at the "religion-scientific rhapsodies" of Thomas Dick, which he felt harmed both
religion and science
John Herschel continued to advocate ideas of life on Sun and other planets….little by
little people are realizing that moon cannot support life as it has no atmosphere
Thomas Dick
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Rev. Thomas Dick almost spent his whole career on writing and preaching
about extraterrestrials
The many books that Thomas Dick wrote show how pluralism was deeply
ingrained in the thoughts of the people of early 19th century despite the
existence of no observational evidence.
It is important not to forget that such conclusions were entirely based on
teleology.
, Thomas Dick populated all the solar system with inhabitants based on his
teleological argument
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Dick presents a population table for all the objects in the solar system.
calculating the square milage of dry land available on each object (he
assumed no oceans occurred!
that the average population per square mile in all the bodies of the solar
system is equal to that of England, being 280 people at the time
The Great Moon Hoax of 1835, a series of
articles in the New York Sun
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a series of articles published by the New York Sun
The name of the author: Richard Adams Locke
Even though the article is generally considered a hoax
There is strong scholarly evidence which points to the fact that it was written as a
satire piece.
Was satire mainly targeting thomas dick
Richard Procter
Richard Proctor was a popularizer of Science who turned into Whewellian arguments
into popular science.
• Proctor put forward the idea that each planet, at some stage of its life becomes
hospitable to life….
Jupiter is currently inhospitable to life but can provide heat for its moons. At some
point in the future it might be an abode of life itself.
Richard Procter proposed that each planet goes through a phase in its evolution
where it becomes capable of supporting life.
Richard Adams Locke
was the author of the Great Moon Hoax, which was published in The New York Sun
Origin of life
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Panspermia: the idea that the seeds of life exist in the universe and travel on
comets, asteroid
Can life be brought to Earth from other places? The concepts of Meteoroid,
meteor and meteorite