From Modernity to Cosmodernity: Science, Culture, and Spirituality

284 Pages·2014·6.61 MB·English

by  Basarab Nicolescu

MODERNITY
from to
COSMODERNITY
33967_SP_NIC_FM_00i-00x.indd 1 10/16/13 1:12 PM
SUNY series in Western Esoteric Traditions
————
David Appelbaum, editor
33967_SP_NIC_FM_00i-00x.indd 2 10/16/13 1:12 PM
MODERNITY
from to
COSMODERNITY
Science, Culture, and Spirituality
BASARAB NICOLESCU
State University of New York Press
33967_SP_NIC_FM_00i-00x.indd 3 10/16/13 1:12 PM
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2014 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic,
magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the
prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact
State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Laurie D. Searl
Marketing, Fran Keneston
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nicolescu, Basarab.
From modernity to cosmodernity : science, culture, and spirituality / Basarab Nicolescu.
pages cm. — (SUNY series in western esoteric traditions)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-4963-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Reality. 2. Complexity (Philosophy) 3. Religion and science. I. Title.
BD331.N488 2014
110—dc23 2013006675
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
33967_SP_NIC_FM_00i-00x.indd 4 10/16/13 1:12 PM
CONTENTS
LIST Of ILLUSTRATIONS ix
INTRODUCTION 1
ChAPTER ONE
fROM ShATTERED CULTURE TOwARD TRANSCULTURE 3
The Christian Origin of Modern Science 3
Do Science and Culture Have Something in Common? 7
The Transcultural and the Mirror of the Other 10
The Transreligious Attitude and the Presence of the Sacred 14
ChAPTER TwO
CONTEMPORARY PhYSICS AND ThE wESTERN TRADITION 19
Tradition and Traditions 19
Science and Tradition: Two Poles of a Contradiction 20
A Possible Bridge between Sciences and Tradition:
The Rationality of the World 23
Describing God’s Being. . . . 24
Movement and Discontinuity: The Eternal Genesis of Reality 26
Scientific Thinking and Symbolic Thinking: Icons and Thêmata 30
A Necessary Encounter 34
ChAPTER ThREE
ThE GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE Of SCIENTISM 37
The Classical Vision of the World and the Death of Man 37
Modern Mahabharata-like Drama: The Quantum Vision of the
World 40
ChAPTER fOUR
ThE VALLEY Of ASTONIShMENT: ThE QUANTUM wORLD 45
About the Difficulties of the Journey 45
Planck, Discontinuity, and the Quantum Revolution 47
The Particle and Quantum Spontaneity 50
33967_SP_NIC_FM_00i-00x.indd 5 10/16/13 1:12 PM
vi CONTENTS
Heisenberg’s Relations and the Failure of Classic Determinism 52
The Multiplicity of Quantum Values and the
Role of Observation 53
Quantum Vacuum: A Full Vacuum 54
Quantum Nonseparability 56
ChAPTER fIVE
ThE ENDLESS ROUTE Of ThE UNIfICATION Of
ThE wORLD 59
Is a Single Energy the Source of the World’s Diversity? 59
The Final Theory: Superstrings? 62
The Unification of Heaven and Earth 63
Can Everything Be Unified? 65
Everything Is Vibration 66
The Mystery Theorists 70
Seekers of Truth 71
ChAPTER SIX
ThE STRANGE fOURTh DIMENSION 75
ChAPTER SEVEN
ThE BOOTSTRAP PRINCIPLE AND ThE UNIQUENESS
Of OUR wORLD 87
Eddington and the Epistemological Principles 87
Unity and Self-Consistency: The Bootstrap Principle 88
Is There a Nuclear Democracy? 91
The Bootstrap and the Anthropic Principle 92
Methodological Considerations 95
ChAPTER EIGhT
COMPLEXITY AND REALITY 99
The Emergence of Complex Plurality 99
Some Reflections on Systemic Thinking 101
Systemic Thinking and Quantum Physics 102
Levels of Reality 104
Is There a Cosmic Bootstrap? 107
Evolution and Involution 110
ChAPTER NINE
ThE hUMAN BEING: ThE MOST PERfECT Of ALL SIGNS 113
Natural Language and Scientific Language 113
Peirce and Spontaneity 114
33967_SP_NIC_FM_00i-00x.indd 6 10/16/13 1:12 PM
CONTENTS vii
Invariance and Thirdness 116
The Possibility of a Universal Language 118
ChAPTER TEN
BEYOND DUALISM 121
A Stick Always Has Two Ends 121
Stéphane Lupasco (1900–1988): The Herald of the Coming Third 125
The Included Third 127
The Ternary Dialectics of Reality 128
Triadic Systemogenesis and the Three Matters 130
Nonseparability and the Unity of the World 131
The Nature of Space-Time 131
Is Lupasco a Prophet of the Irrational? 132
The Experienced Third 134
ChAPTER ELEVEN
ThE PSYChOPhYSICAL PROBLEM 137
Reduction and Reductionism 137
The Coincidentia Oppositorum and Hermetic Irrationalism 138
The Core of the Problem: We Are Too Deeply Immersed
in the Seventeenth Century 139
The Most Important Task of Our Time: A New Idea about Reality 142
New Perspectives in the Ternary-Quaternary Debate 142
Umberto Eco’s Logical and Epistemological Error 144
ChAPTER TwELVE
fROM ThE QUANTUM wORLD TO IONESCO’S ANTIThEATER
AND QUANTUM AESThETICS 147
For a Yes or for a No 147
Ionesco and the Non-Aristotelian Theater 148
Gregorio Morales: Quantum Aesthetics and Quantum Theater 151
ChAPTER ThIRTEEN
ThE ThEATER Of PETER BROOk AS A fIELD Of
STUDY Of ENERGY, MOVEMENT, AND INTERRELATIONS 155
ChAPTER fOURTEEN
fROM CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE TO ThE wORLD Of ART 167
André Breton and the Logic of Contradiction 167
Georges Mathieu and Aristotle’s Cage 169
Salvador Dali and Nuclear Mysticism 170
Frédéric Benrath, Karel Appel, and René Huyghe 174
33967_SP_NIC_FM_00i-00x.indd 7 10/16/13 1:12 PM
viii CONTENTS
ChAPTER fIfTEEN
VISION Of REALITY AND REALITY Of VISION 177
Poincaré and Sudden Enlightenment 178
Hadamard and Thinking without Words 180
Kepler and the Living Earth 182
Bohr and Complementarity 184
Understanding the Reality of the Imaginary: The Imaginary
and the Imaginal 186
ChAPTER SIXTEEN
CAN SCIENCE BE A RELIGION? 189
The Clowns of the Impossible 189
Highlights of the New Barbarity 190
Between the Anecdote and the Unspeakable 191
The Sokal Affair: Beyond Three Extremisms 193
A Necessary Isomorphism 197
The End of Science? 198
The Spiritual Dimension of Democracy: Utopia or Necessity? 199
ChAPTER SEVENTEEN
ThE hIDDEN ThIRD AND ThE MULTIPLE SPLENDOR
Of BEING 203
Premodernity, Modernity, Postmodernity, and
Cosmodernity as Different Visions of the Relation
between the Subject and the Object 203
Ladder of Divine Ascent and Levels of Being 205
Toward a Unified Theory of Levels of Reality 207
At the Threshold of New Renaissance 214
NOTES 217
BIBLIOGRAPhY 239
NAME INDEX 253
SUBjECT INDEX 259
33967_SP_NIC_FM_00i-00x.indd 8 10/16/13 1:12 PM
LIST Of ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 17.1 The Relationship between Subject and Object
in Premodernity 204
Figure 17.2 The Relationship between Subject and Object
in Modernity 204
Figure 17.3 The Relationship between Subject and Object
in Postmodernity 204
Figure 17.4 The Relationship between Subject and Object
in Cosmodernity 210
Figure 17.5 Trans-Reality 211
ix
33967_SP_NIC_FM_00i-00x.indd 9 10/16/13 1:12 PM