Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => New Theories => Topic started by: DMBoie on 03/09/2007 10:26:47
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New book probing Cosmological mysteries from Platonic perspective praised by Foreword Magazine
In A Dog Ear'd Cosmos a quasi-Platonic discussion unfolds - as "man and beast" work together to re-establish
a brambled and long neglected trail-head leading toward an authentic western "yoga of the Mind."
With a good measure of courage, the author asks profound mental house-cleaning questions, sweeping away
cobwebs left over from our rapid and fragmenting explosion into scientific know-how. In process, Thompson,
the barking "better-half" of this Socratic dialogue, reveals his-Self as sharing in a wisdom far beyond
his caretaker's reckoning.
The canine companion of David's youth offers good-natured correction, comfort, and clarifying perspectives
on topics including: Blind-spots within Scientific Cosmology; Gratitude, Happiness, and confusion; a Physics
of Contemplation; Entropic Power of the Spoken Word; and a compassionate "Self-Centeredness."
ForeWord Magazines' Todd Mercer writes:
[Boie] plays the questioning straight man in a multi-subject dialogue with a long-dead pet, Thompson. The
dog, as in the case of the British claymation duo Wallace and Gromit, is heavily armed... the single-conversation
format glides between subjects inside and outside physics, suggesting unusual linkages... Applied psychology and
linguistic concerns involve Transactional Analysis, Gestalt, the illusory nature of individual selves and English
as a "high-entropy" language.
This quasi-Platonic dialogue veers far into academic erudition... the format [itself] threatens at times to
disintegrate as Boie pokes holes in it. He asks, "…have I just been talking with myself here?" He may be,
but some of the questions raised may have others doing so as well. For example: "…if space-time is curved,
what does it 'curve around?'"
Without pushing a rigid view, he tries to clear room for faith, persistent innocence, inter-being. The boundary
between the mind and the physical world becomes less absolute. ...Offers challenging stimulation to the properly
equipped people.
A Dog Ear'd Cosmos: Scientific Synopsis:
Within the pages of A Dog Ear’d Cosmos – a quasi-platonic dialogue recently released by Lulu Independent Press – an imagined discussion with a lost canine companion appears. Amidst other reflections, the discussion posits connections between Zero-point Energy, "Dark Matter," and a concept developed by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Georg Groddeck before them: the "Collective Unconscious."
In the corridors of Academia, quantum particle interactions have been thought, since Richard Fenyman’s work, to somehow be "acausal" - as the Fenyman diagrams describing them appear to hold validity regardless of a diagrams’ "orientation" with respect to space-time coordinates. Likening these interactions to undulations in the surface of an ocean of repressed awareness, "Dog Ear’d Cosmos" asks: if spacetime appears curved, what could ’she possibly ’curve around,’ or enclose?
Could the "Dark Energy" recently postulated by physicists correlate with "what lies beneath" the perceived surface of our Universe - the "stuff" that curved space effectively "encloses?" If so - and considering the acausal features of the "quantum zoo" - then we humans might consider ourselves somewhat as ’flatlanders,’ compulsively looking to find and exploit apparent causal relationships within the epiphenomenal "surface currents" that ride atop an ocean of repressed awareness. With these ideas in mind, whatever "lies beneath" the surfact of our perceived physical world might appropriately be termed a "Collective Unconscious."
Since human consciousness typically seems constrained to the "turbulent surface" of this Cosmos, no wonder we humans often feel cramped for psychic space and wind up embroiled in battles over personal territory, both physical and psychic. Modeling our experiences as being like swirling iridescent patterns in the surface of a "Cosmic soap-bubble," the dialogue probes the logical extensions of such ideas, with the worldviews of advanced physics and cosmology melding (with slight alterations) into insights from psychoanalytical explorations like a well crafted dovetail joint.
As this book unfolds, perceived undulations appearing in the surface of this "subphenomenal" sea of repressed - yet still living - awareness are compared with platonic "shadow-plays" (whose cast of characters include quantum particle interactions, "macro" scale objects and perhaps even feelings and thoughts). Perhaps not too surprisingly, such a model has been inspired by attempts to reconcile the authors’ explorations in the physical sciences and mathematics with teachings of mystical traditions, East and West.
In process of dialogue, the participants compare both space-time and "what-lies beneath" to a "spiritual cramp" in the Mind of God. Highly-platonic in orientation, the discussion presents a Zero-point Energy related rationale for the differentiation of objects and experience in our Universe, a differentiation that has puzzled physicists and cosmologists... One dialog participant effectively asks: How could differentiated structures have emerged in a Universe operating under consistent physical laws, from the seed of a symmetrical "Singularity Explosion" like the Big Bang? What could account for the breaking of symmetry?
Proposed Answer: A "disappearance" (or re-absorption) of subtle forms of energy, facilitated - of all things, by the authentic forgiveness lessons learned by consciousness itself. Apparently, the discussion participants have willingness to question the Laws of Thermodynamics and Conservation of Energy on behalf of Life, picking up a thread started by physicist David Bohm’s explorations of "the implicate order."
With the Christian concept of forgiveness appearing in revamped form, subtle spiritual lessons are emphasized in an unlikely, yet enlightening fashion. "Cosmos" encourages a growing sense of gratitude, responsibility for experience, as well as a playful (though measured) sense of humor. Although speculative, the dialogue appears imbued throughout with a willingness to look into ideas that previous blocks in our collective awareness had kept hidden. And while the humorous manner of discourse appears outside science’s genre proper... nevertheless the book does a fairly good job of asking questions geared toward re-contextualizing current discussion within the Scientific Academy, and manages doing so in an accessible and unpretentious manner.