Chili

Thank you for that. Sagan is/was (?) a nice teacher and a nice man for sure, but is he perhaps forgetting that exposure leads to inquisition because our eye of the soul 'catches' the reality behind scene that later in life becomes the antagonist to be exposed, at least in part following Plato's Theory of Recollection?

I would not be so hard on the early mystery cult but try to learn from it.

Furhter do I believe that the Universe is mathemathical but that is waaay beyond me and perhaps this is only true because we need mathematics to uncover it.

bacht

Numbers don't exist in nature, they're human labels. Elevating number theory to metaphysics is a dead end imo. Pythagoreans and Platonists pretend that their description of the cosmos is the best and only way to contemplate life.

Sagan was against exactly the sort of mystical mumbo-jumbo you seem to enjoy. He was a secular humanist scientist, and a believer in appreciating this life for what it is, not what we fantasize it to be.

ApostateAbe

Yes, mathematics does seem to have a lot do with the way the universe works, does it not? My leaning, and this is Sagan's opinion too, is that mathematics is a language to describe the universe, comparable to other human languages. The way the universe works is not reducible to mathematical abstractions, but a few simple laws. For example, gravity seems to work by what physicists call the inverse square law, or Newton's law of universal gravitation. The strength of the force of gravity is something like the function: F=G*m₁*m₂/r² where G is a constant, m₁ and m₂ are the masses of two bodies, and r is the distance between the two bodies.

r² is r squared. But why r squared? Why not r cubed? Why not just r? It turns that there is a very good reason for r squared. Gravity is a force that radiates outward in 3 dimensions. Therefore, it is comparable to a balloon that is being blown larger. The strength of gravity, in turn, is comparable to the thickness of the balloon. The thickness of the balloon is directly correlated with the surface area of the balloon. And the surface area of the balloon is a function of the radius squared (4*pi*r²). Therefore, a force that radiates uniformly in three dimensions can only follow the inverse square law.

So I guess the point is that numbers were not used to write the universe, but numbers are very good at describing the universe.

Sagan's Cosmos seems to be a good source of inspiration, but, yeah, I wouldn't rely on the show for points that are outside of Sagan's specialty (astronomy and cosmology).

Chili

Of course they do not exist in nature and we should not be stuck on numbers or even on words or soon we will think that darkness is real.

To this just think of what was recently said about Newton for whom "all was dark and hid by night until God spoke and all was light." My use of numbers in their shape and design has nothing to do with mathematics, surely not, but I use it as an aid to explain human nature as I perceive it and do this along a path with which we are all familair: 'the ticking clock.'

As for me I admire the scientist and more so the artisan because I am one myself.

Chili

WOW, that's all Greek to me but thank you again. I bet your are a teacher and good one at that. I will watch all of Sagan but my interest is [not in gravitation but] more in the elevation of the human mind where good heath is a given towards the transformation of the body [knowing full well that hot air is not going to get me there].

bacht

Time is an interesting example. It's possible that our modern perception of the passage of time has been conditioned by the precision of clocks and the ubiquity of machines. That is, the perfecting or idealizing of time may have robbed us of organic ways of experiencing life.

As an artisan you've probably had the experience of time passing quickly while absorbed in a creative activity. We've all experienced the subjective slowness of time while doing something we don't like (like queuing up at a checkout or being reprimanded by authority)

Chili

Exactly, and that shows that time as such is an illusion to start with and so is the light of common day wherein some days are brighter than others . . . and down the slippery slope we end up in the Cave while the brilliance of the celestial light from which we extract our daily share remains hid from us as it's opposite in [total] oblivion.

bacht

hmm, sounds a bit like the Hellenistic speculations about sense perceptions. But we now know that photons are real and their impact on organic tissue can be measured (I think). We now understand photosynthesis, solar radiation, thermodynamics, caloric energy etc.

Personally I see metaphors like the Cave as describing self-imposed illusion, not some metaphysical reality hidden from normal perception.

Time is a slippery commodity in the post-Einstein universe, but calling it an illusion is incorrect afaik. At bottom time is a synonym for change or process, which all matter and energy experience in the known cosmos.

Chili

Yes, and normal perception precludes abnormal perception wherein the extreme opposites exist and I agree that time also exists in the eternal moment but that humms long before it ticks.