Many people are now seeking to connect or reconnect to a spiritual tradition. A feeling of disconnection is sometimes related to the rise of modern science to the status of a religion. In fact, many of us are missing the richness of the premodern world view -- including souls, spiritual fields, angels, and intelligences -- that was lost in the paradigm shift at the end of the Renaissance. In this illustrated talk we will recall the world views before and after this shift, and reveal the step-by-step deflation from metaphysics to physics in the work of Kepler and Galileo around the year 1600. Although contemporary, Kepler was premodern, and Galileo modern. New mathematics (cartesian geometry) banished the angels then, and new mathematics (chaos and complexity) may help bring them back now.
The goal of this exercise in the history of science and mathematics is to facilitate the recovery of spiritual meaning in our lives, by understanding the demise of the perennial philosophy as a historical accident in the 17th century. For in fact, we will see that modern science and ancient spirituality are compatible.
Learning objectives: One may take away from this lecture a clearer understanding of:
Revised August 19, 2004 by Ralph Abraham