Many believe that there is an inherent antagonism between Science and Religion – the so-called ‘conflict thesis’. Kepler’s discovery process provides a powerful counter-example to this thesis. In Kepler’s case, the arrow of positive influence points from Religion to Science.
Religion --> Science
The heliocentric model developed by Copernicus was generally ignored after his death as it hadn’t really improved upon Ptolemy’s geocentric model. Employing improved data regarding planetary position generated by Tycho Brahe, Kepler developed a new Math-Fact Matrix that established our solar system as a scientific fact.
This matrix forced Kepler to make two assumptions: elliptical planetary orbits and a solar force. The increased precision of the data regarding planetary position forced the first assumption. Kepler’s belief in the Trinity inspired his second assumption.
Faced with a baffling situation, Kepler applied the relational logic of a known system to understand the logic an unknown system.
Logic of the Christian Trinity ≈ Logic of Planet-Sun Relationship
Force of Holy Ghost on Souls ≈ Solar Force
These forced assumptions created a major paradigm shift, not just for Astronomy, but for Science in general. The scientific community began focusing upon the Dynamic Forces of Physics rather than the Static Forms of Geometry. This shift in thinking has also had major social and political ramifications (as we shall see in the next article).
Section Headings
The so-called ‘conflict thesis’ holds that innate differences inevitably result in hostility between religion and science. Is the history of Religion and Science really riddled with antagonism? Or have they sometimes had a mutually beneficial relationship? Is it possible that religious beliefs have even provided the necessary impetus to get through some scientific blockages?
This particular Notebook is devoted in part to dispelling this popular myth (conflict thesis). To that end, we have provided counter examples from the earliest history of modern Science. Some of the key points from prior chapters:
• The Church actually supported the ‘science’ of both Copernicus and Galileo. The Pope even encouraged Copernicus to develop his heliocentric system. Further, the Pope and Galileo were good friends.
• The Copernican system was more of a threat to academia than to religion. Similarly, Galileo had more problems with the scholarly sommunity than with the Church.
• Galileo and Bruno were censored more for their inflammatory positions than for their scientific beliefs.
• Copernicus was inspired to develop his system because he believed that God was not messy. His religious beliefs (not materialism) provided him the motivation to develop his heliocentric theory.
This particular article is devoted to Johannes Kepler. It illustrates how Kepler’s religious beliefs regarding the nature of God also inspired his revolutionary theories. In other words, Copernicus and Kepler were not motivated solely by scientific considerations. Rather their beliefs regarding the nature of divinity motivated these geniuses to introduce the astronomical paradigm shifts that provide crucial foundations of modern science. Rather than a hostile conflict, the harmony between religion and science led to a momentous breakthrough that has revolutionized our world in countless ways.
I must confess to an even more personal reason for this narrative. Inspired by Thomas Kuhn’s work, The Structure of Scientific Revolution, I am fascinated by paradigm shifts - why and how they occur. Kepler’s work represents an excellent example of the historical revolution of scientific ideas.
Why does this subject turn me on? I too have introduced a paradigm shift. Rather than a fantasy, mental energy becomes a significant feature of a mathematical system that I developed that is based upon the quantification of Attention.
I perceive many parallels between my paradigm shift and Kepler’s. Due to his prestige, I am trying to sidle up to him, become good friends, so that he might introduce me to his important colleagues – the Scientific Immortals. Maybe I or my work might even eventually become accepted by this illustrious community. To narrow our focus upon Kepler’s narrative, any and all editorial comments relating to parallels between my work and Kepler will be relegated to the Realm of Footnotes.
There is yet another reason besides dispelling the ‘conflict’ thesis that I was motivated to tell Kepler’s story. I am impressed with his personal integrity. He was motivated by Truth rather than by Convention. This motivation led him to introduce a paradigm shift that challenged tradition. In turn, the novel way of thinking that Kepler introduced enabled Newton to formulate his famous force laws and his gravitational theory. An incredibly important scientific transition! Spot-lighting Kepler’s integrity will hopefully inspire integrity in the Reader and by extension Human Culture.
Without Kepler there would be no Newton. In parallel fashion, without Copernicus there would be no Kepler. (I am, of course, personifying the ideas by referring to them by the name of their author.)
What happened after Copernicus’ death and the simultaneous publication of his revolutionary work, On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres, in 1543? Did the Church suppress and censor the book? Was it destroyed in book burnings? Did valiant astronomers read it secretly in the middle of the night to avoid persecution? No, to all of the above.
The revolutionary text was generally ignored. There were a variety of reasons.
• It is one of the most unreadable books of all time (according to multiple sources). As evidence, its first edition of 1000 copies didn’t even sell out.
• Copernicus’s sun-based predictions of planetary positions scarcely improved upon Ptolemy’s earth-based predictions. For instance, Copernicus postulated 25 wheels to represent the 5 known planets, only slightly less than the Ptolemaic system. In such a manner, the Copernican system preserved the ancient paradigm that planets moved at a uniform speed in a perfect circle.
• Vested interests were opposed. Having devoted their careers to the Ptolemaic system, scholars were reluctant to embrace a new paradigm that invalidated their life’s work.
Due to these theoretical and political difficulties, it was another half century after the death of Copernicus before any reputable astronomer would embrace the then radical notion of a solar system. The Copernican theory of a heliocentric system began circulating, but just as an intriguing idea with no real substance. Multiple generations of professional astronomers generally ignored the work.
Finally came Kepler. He was not attracted to the theory solely because of its astronomical value, but instead because it resonated with his religious beliefs, as we shall see.
“Kepler was the first Continental astronomer to embrace the Copernican theory. His Mysteries of the Cosmos, published in 1597 (fifty four years after Copernicus’ death), started the great controversy.”1
Kepler’s most important work, A New Astronomy based upon Causation or Physics of the Sky, published twelve years later in 1609, provided the mathematical foundation that established the sun-based paradigm as a scientific fact. In this work, he introduced his first two laws: elliptical orbits and variable speed according to position. His 3rd law, i.e. the mathematical correlation between the length of planetary year and mean radius, came in a later book.
Kepler’s 3 laws of planetary motion turned the tide. Without Kepler’s Math-Fact matrix, Copernicus’ novel perspective might have faded into obscurity. Kepler’s mathematical model illustrated definitively that there was an essential correspondence between theory and data, something that was lacking from the Copernican model. It was only then that the educated began to believe that we truly live in a solar system rather than an earth-based universe.
How did Kepler get involved?
From 1591-1594, Kepler was educated at a German graduate school. It was here that he came under influence of Michael Maestlin, who was an advocate of the Copernican system. Maestlin taught Kepler this heretical doctrine secretly. This secrecy was not due to persecution by the Church, but because the prevailing belief of the scholastics (the academics of the time) was in the Ptolemaic system with its attendant doctrines.2 Maestlin was afraid of censure by scholarly, not religious, authorities.
Recall that Copernicus was also more afraid of academic controversy than religious censorship. As evidence, it was the Pope that encouraged him to publish his work. In both cases, academia was the primary enemy of these new ideas, not religion.
The Church was not threatened by Copernicus or Kepler. Why? Neither challenged the Church. Their scientific publications did not contain inflammatory political or religious beliefs. Their discoveries challenged traditional scholastic dogma, not religious dogma.
This was not true of Galileo or Giordano Bruno. Both certainly professed revolutionary scientific ideas, which included the Copernican system. Yet it was not their scientific beliefs that got them in trouble, but instead their political and religious stances. They were persecuted for attacking the Church, not for their Science.
Defying the academic dogma of the time, Maestlin infected Kepler with the Copernican bug. Despite its drawbacks (no immediate advantage over the older established Ptolemaic system), heliocentrism had aesthetic appeal as well as presenting hope for the future. Thomas Kuhn’s celebrated work identifies both of these factors (aesthetics and future utility) as potential reasons for why younger generations might take up the torch of a new idea that doesn’t present any immediate advantages3.
With the increasing complexity of the ingrained geocentric system, these features must have been appealing to the young Kepler. His astronomical investigations were also driven, as we shall see, by the potential parallels between his religious beliefs and what Kepler called the ‘new astronomy’. Rather than opposed to or repelled by the ‘superstitions’ of the Church, Kepler was inspired in his research by his belief in the Trinity.
Scientific paradigm shifts are frequently driven by better data. The old models are unable to account for the new precision. This was certainly true of the Ptolemaic system. As time marched on, the data regarding planetary position became ever more precise. To accommodate this increasing precision with the Ptolemaic model (perfect circles and fixed velocity), astronomers in the Middle Ages were required to employ 28 different circles to predict planetary position.
The increasing complexity drove Copernicus crazy. His belief that God would not design a Universe that was so messy drove him to develop his heliocentric system. However, the Copernican system (25 planetary circles) was still quite complex. Further, it was not appreciably better at predicting planetary position. Due to these flaws, it was generally ignored by professional astronomers and the Church.
Yet the data pressure on the Ptolemaic model was on and increasing. Time was testing the fragility of the system. In the 16th century, Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) developed a method of determining the most precise observations of planetary motion to date. His improved method reduced the measurement error five-fold – from over 10 minutes to just a few minutes of a degree.
To accommodate the increased precision, Brahe formulated his own theory, the ‘Tychonic system’.4 A blend of Copernicus and Ptolemy, Brahe’s theory held that the rest of the planets circled around the sun, and that this whole package circled the earth – a more palatable and up-to-date version of Ptolemy’s prior geocentric system, where the earth remained as the unchanging center of the Universe. This view certainly fits in with everyone’s day-to-day experience – a ‘common sense’ model.
As a brief aside: Brahe and Bruno were nearly exact contemporaries – both born and died just a few years apart. Both embraced a limited Copernican version of the cosmos. Yet one was burned at the stake, while the other led a respectable celebrated life. Why the drastically different life trajectories? Not their scientific position. Rather Bruno’s personal and public attacks on important authority figures vs. Brahe’s non-inflammatory participation in the scientific and religious communities of his day.
Brahe’s data and model caught Kepler’s astronomical attention. However, Brahe, 25 years his senior, would not allow Kepler access to his precious data unless he became his student. (There are more dramatic versions of this interaction, but this narrative serves our function.)
Kepler (1571-1630) eventually employed the same data tabulated by Brahe to formulate his three laws of planetary motion. Among these was the idea that planets moved in elliptical orbits about the Sun.
The two theories were so close that their competition for dominance could not be resolved until their contemporary Galileo (1564-1642) came up with his laws of motion, an alternative to the Aristotelian laws of dynamics. Galileo’s laws provided a better criterion to evaluate the merits of the two rival theories.
Kepler’s work provided the mathematical foundation for Copernican theory. Without this precise linkage with mathematics, the heliocentric notion was just another unsubstantiated theory. It was the accuracy of Kepler’s Math/Data matrix that cemented the deal – the scientific truth of a sun-centered system. Faced with this incontrovertible evidence, the objections of the old guard gradually faded into obscurity and the younger generation of astronomers embraced the new paradigm5.
Due to his discovery of the Math/Data Matrix linking planetary orbits with equations, Kepler was forced to make two revolutionary assumptions6. One came reluctantly, while Kepler had anticipated and hoped for the other. These two assumptions forever changed the trajectory of Science.
According to traditional Greco-Roman astronomy that extended through to Kepler’s time, all celestial objects move in perfect circles at a constant velocity. Kepler believed this to be true, as did Copernicus, and virtually all astronomers before them. The evidence was seemingly incontrovertible due to the apparently perfect fit between Ptolemy’s mathematical model and the data regarding planetary position.
Holding onto this dogma proved to be the fatal flaw in the mathematics Copernicus developed to justify his heliocentric perspective. He was attempting the impossible. In his mind, the planets must both orbit the sun and obey the traditional ‘circular motion/constant velocity’ dogma. Modeling his system after Ptolemy’s, Copernicus envisioned that each planet moved in its own plane, and that the movement consisted of a multitude of circles within circles.
There was only one real difference between the two systems. Rather than circling the earth, these planets now circled the Sun. In that sense, it wasn’t very different from the prevailing Ptolemaic system. The same dogma bound both matrixes, thereby preventing them from providing the real solution to the blockage. Indeed this was one reason that medieval astronomers ignored Copernicus’ revolutionary theory for over 50 years.
Kepler was faced with the same unsolvable problem: how to create a mathematical formulation that effectively reconciles the prevailing astronomical dogma with a heliocentric system and matches the existing data. His task was even more impossible as the available data had become far more precise due to the efforts of Tycho Brahe, his mentor. Indeed this new precision generated an astronomical crisis in that it became even more difficult to ignore anomalies in all the existent theories, e.g. those proposed by Ptolemy, Copernicus and Brahe. The data simply did not fit anyone’s mathematics. The Math-Fact matrix that had worked for so many years was breaking apart.
After Brahe’s death, Kepler took over his position and his tasks. One of those was working out the orbit of Mars. For Kepler, this meant finding the appropriate circles within circles that would fit the new improved data. As an indication of his dedication and commitment to the traditional dogma, Kepler spent 6 years generating 9000 portfolio sheets filled with meticulous calculations in small handwriting attempting to find the solution.
Despite these prodigious efforts, his mathematical predictions regarding Mars were off by 8 minutes of an arc, approximately one quarter the apparent diameter of the moon. Eight minutes had not been a problem for either Copernicus or Ptolemy as the planetary measurements in their day had only been accurate to about 10 minutes of an arc. This broad range of error easily swallowed up the discrepancy.
But Tycho Brahe’s precise observations with better equipment had raised the bar. This precision had proved troubling to all astronomers including Kepler. The numerous discrepancies could no longer be sloughed off as data collection problems – a supposed anomaly that could be ignored.
The intensity of his investigation combined with his personal integrity forced Kepler to cast aside the old paradigm. He could no longer hold onto the dogma that planets moved in circles at a constant velocity.
Kepler in the New Astronomy: “But for us, who by divine kindness were given an accurate observer such as Tycho Brahe, for us it is fitting that I shall lead the way towards that goal according to my ideas. For if I had believed that we could ignore these eight minutes, I would have patched up my hypothesis accordingly. But since it was not permissible to ignore them, those eight minutes point the road to a complete reformation of astronomy…” Koestler’s Act of Creation, p.128
In order to match mathematics with the data, Kepler was forced to make a new assumption. This assumption had revolutionary implications. It forever shifted the astronomical focus from the static shapes of Geometry to the dynamic forces of Physics.
“The conclusion is quite simple that the planet’s path is not a circle – it curves inward on both sides and outward again at opposite ends. Such a curve is called an oval. The orbit is not a circle, but an oval figure.” Koestler’s Act of Creation, p.129
Was he happy with his ovals, i.e. the elliptical orbits of the planets? Not really. He had spent his entire career attempting to prove the traditional dogma because he really believed it. At one point, he even rejoiced that he had finally truly established the truth behind the Music of the Spheres, i.e. the harmonic relationship between the planets. The cursed 8-minute arc proved the opposite, i.e. that planets had an entirely different relationship with the sun.
While his new Math-Data matrix eliminated all the complicated Ptolemaic theories that had so disturbed Copernicus and his contemporaries, it also forced Kepler to throw away the geometric perfection of ideal circles. His new more precise matrix had inadvertently replaced the permanent and unchanging world of geometry with the dynamic and transitory universe of Physics. This paradigm shift was unsettling to Kepler, as the following quotation shows.
“I have cleared the Augean stables of astronomy of cycles and spirals, and left behind me only a single cartful of dung.” Koestler’s Act of Creation, p.129
For one of his 12 labors, Hercules was required to clean King Augeas’ enormous stables that had accumulated mountains of horse manure over decades. Rather than labor with a shovel, Hercules diverted the course of 2 rivers to wash the stables clean. Similarly Kepler employed a novel solution to a difficult problem. But he likens his result to ‘a single cartful of dung’ – not exactly a jubilant assessment. Due to his integrity, Kepler was forced to make, what was for him a reluctant, and seemingly, unpleasant assumption, namely that planets move in ellipses rather than perfect circles.7
Kepler’s Math-Data matrix forced him to make another assumption. Rather than unpleasant, this assumption ratified his intuitions and beliefs regarding the relationship between God and Nature. Anticipated and even hoped for, it was a driving force for his investigations. While the first toppled the ancient edifice, the second assumption pointed in an entirely new and unexpected direction that would transform the world. Although generally ignored or understated, it was the more revolutionary of the two assumptions.
“I often defended the opinions of Copernicus in the disputation of the candidates and I composed a careful disputation of the first motion which consists in the rotation of the earth; then I was adding to this the motion of the earth around the sun for physical, if you prefer, metaphysical reasons.”
What were these metaphysical reasons?
“My ceaseless search concerned primarily … the planets – why they are just as they are and not otherwise arranged. I was encouraged in my daring inquiry by that beautiful analogy between the stationary objects, namely, the sun, the fixed stars and the space between them, with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.”
Kepler was attracted to Copernicus’ heliocentric universe, not solely for scientific reasons, but instead primarily for religious reasons. He envisioned the relationship between the Sun and the planets like the relationship between God and humans. Shown in equation-like form:
Sun ≈ God,
Planets ≈ his Son or humans
Attractive force ≈ Holy Ghost
This analogy between the Trinity and the Copernican system inspired him. Just as humans are attracted to God via the Holy Ghost, the planets are attracted to the Sun via some invisible force.
If attractive, why don’t the planets fall into the Sun? This problem was easily explained by a common example. Children attach a ball to a cord, and then spin it around themselves. The ball is revolving so fast, it maintains perfect circular orbits. Only when the child stops spinning does the ball fall to the ground.
The logic of his religious beliefs, i.e. the Trinity, inspired Kepler’s notion of an attractive force. Intuition, not data discrepancies, drove both Kepler and Copernicus. Their collective intuition told them that God’s universe obeys simple, rather than complicated, rules.
In Kepler’s case, the Logic of the God-Human relationship informs the Logic of Sun-Planet relationship. The specific parallels:
• Holy Ghost: an invisible force attracting Humans to God
• Gravity: an invisible force attracting Planets to the Sun
• Holy Ghost emanates from God.
• Gravity emanates from the Sun.
Kepler is very specific about these relationships. In the following quotation from New Astronomy, he directly connects the Sun with God, and the Sun’s attractive force with the Holy Ghost.
“The sun in the middle of the moving stars, himself at rest and yet the source of motion, carries the image of God the Father and Creator. He distributes his motive force through a medium which contains the moving bodies, even as the Father creates through the Holy Ghost.”
The analogy is quite clear. Just as the Holy Ghost is an invisible force that emanates from God, so does an invisible force emanate from the Sun. Kepler, under the conventional thinking of his era, also attributes souls to the Sun and planets. This assumption makes the metaphor even more straightforward. In both cases, an invisible force emanating from the Sun/God acts upon souls/planets from a distance. This action at a distance is the essence of the logic behind the force of gravity that drives the Universe.
Kepler’s solar force has other logical symmetries with Newton’s force of gravity. Again from the New Astronomy:
“There exists only one moving soul in the center of all the orbits; that is the sun which drives the planets the more vigorously the closer the planet is, but whose force is quasi-exhausted when acting on the outer planets because of the long distance and the weakening of the force which it entails.”
Kepler even anticipates Newton’s inverse square law when he states that the force between these planetary ‘souls’ is quasi-exhausted by the weakening of the force over distance.
Later on in the same work: “If we substitute for the word “soul” the word ‘force’, then we get just the principle which underlies my “Physics of the Skies”.”
Kepler is on the brink of modernity when likens the ‘attraction between souls’ to a ‘force between objects’. According to him, this novel notion even epitomizes his New Astronomy – his Physics of the Skies.
The following quote from New Astronomy illustrates even more clearly that Kepler was acutely aware that the invisible force emanating from the Sun diminishes with distance.
“As I reflected that this cause of motion diminishes in proportion to distance just as the light of the sun diminishes in proportion to distance from the sun, I came to the conclusion that this force must be substantial – ‘substantial’ not in the literal sense but … in the same manner as we say that light is something substantial, meaning by this an unsubstantial entity emanating from a substantial body8.” The Act of Creation, pp.125-127
He further grapples with a description of this Holy Ghost-like force. He employs another analogy, light, to understand his mysterious force. In similar fashion to light, an ‘insubstantial’ entity emanates from a ‘substantial’ body9. Kepler is obviously referring to his proto-gravity – the limited version that is only associated with the Sun and planets.
Kepler’s solar force led directly to Newton’s theory of gravity.
“Kepler’s three laws were later the template about which Newton formulated his theory of gravitation.” The New American Desk Encyclopedia, Kepler p.689
It was Kepler, rather than Galileo or even Newton, who first posited an invisible force between the Sun and the planets that acted at a distance. He was the first to employ mathematics to describe this magical relationship.
Many attribute this paradigm shift to Newton because of his force laws in combination with his theory of gravity that connected the forces of Heaven and Earth. However, as Newton himself stated, he was merely standing upon shoulders of giants, one of whom was certainly Kepler.
These quotations from Kepler’s paradigm-shifting work, New Astronomy, illustrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that in his case the arrow points from Religion to Science. This relationship was certainly not a hostile, but instead quite harmonious, even incredibly productive. Put directly, Kepler’s religious belief in Christianity’s Trinity inspired him to introduce the notion of ‘action at a distance’.
Paradigm shifts are frequently resisted by the Old Guard. What about Kepler’s epoch changing Holy Ghost inspired solar force of planetary attraction that eventually became Newton’s force of gravity? Was the transition smooth sailing, as it is generally represented? Or was there some resistance, as is usually the case?
Surprisingly, the most forward thinking of the new generation of scientists offered the most resistance. Why? Invisible forces acting at a distance? Seems pretty magical. Associated with the Holy Ghost? Appears to be a religious, somewhat backward-looking concept. The forward-thinking scientists and philosophers thought they were moving away from the occult forces of alchemy and towards observable, empirical evidence.
Ironically, Galileo was the most outspoken opponent of Kepler’s invisible solar force.
“Galileo is wholly and frighteningly modern in his consistently mechanistic philosophy. Hence his contemptuous dismissal in a single sentence of Kepler’s explanation of the tides by the moon’s attraction: ‘He [Kepler] has lent his ear and his assent to the moon’s dominion over the waters, to occult properties and such like fancies.” The occult little fancy he is deriding is Kepler’s anticipation of Newtonian gravity.”10
In similar fashion to Galileo, Leibnitz employed the same pejorative word ‘occult’ to deride Newton’s more developed theory of gravity. The notion of action at a distance due to invisible forces reeks of the magical thinking of primitive cultures. Do they also believe, as did the Medieval alchemists, that lead can be transmuted into gold?
Even though his revolutionary ideas had been censured by Aristotelian scholars, Galileo, criticized Kepler’s attraction at a distance as an ‘occult’ notion - unworthy of consideration. While he rejected Kepler’s Physics of the Sky, he created his own Physics of the Earth. It was Newton who united the two Physics with his gravitational theory – the united Physics of Heaven and Earth. Although his accomplishments were outstanding, Newton was standing upon the shoulders of giants – Kepler and Galileo.
Kepler’s Sky Physics + Galileo’s Earth Physics = Newton’s Heaven-Earth Physics
Gravity’s action at a distance became such a useful way of characterizing a plethora of phenomena that most forgot how miraculous, how unbelievable, how magical it was. Indeed the ‘action at a distance’ paradigm that inspired Newton dominated the thinking of Physicists from Kepler’s introduction in the 17th century until the 19th century. As with most paradigms, this led to innumerable discoveries and then to paralysis.
Two centuries after Kepler, Faraday and Maxwell broke the absolute exclusivity of the old paradigm with their introduction of their complementary electro-magnetic theory. As is frequently the case, this broadening of the old paradigm wasn’t easy or smooth sailing. Rather the Old Guard held desperately to tradition until the New Guard took over command of the ship. But that is another story.
Kepler was acutely aware of the significance of his analogy between the Trinity and our planetary system.
“It is by no means permissible to treat this analogy as an empty comparison; it must be considered by its Platonic form and archetypal quality as one of the primary causes.”
While his ‘primary cause’ statement is a bit of an over-claim, the importance Kepler attributes to his metaphorical relationship is surprisingly modern. He employs the relational logic of a ‘known’ system (the Trinity) to understand the relational logic of an ‘unknown’ system (planetary motion about the Sun). This form of logic is the essence of the conceptual metaphor.
As Kepler intuits, this relational logic is highly significant, much more than ‘an empty comparison’. Indeed, cognitive linguists are in a general accord that conceptual metaphors are the primary method that humans employ to form the abstractions that enable us to better understand our world. According to scientific research from infancy, we use the logic of known systems to understand the logic of unknown systems.
Kepler’s investigations attempted to determine if the Trinity and the Heavens exhibit the same logical relationships. He was excited, indeed thrilled, to find out that the logic was virtually the same.
God and the Sun held the same position in the center. Each was surrounded by subjects – humans and planets. Just as the Holy Ghost exerts an invisible effect upon humans, so does the Sun exert an invisible force upon the planets. In both cases, the force generates order, reverses chaos.
This planetary logic is very different from the Copernican/Ptolemaic logic. Kepler’s logic is force-based – an apparent causal relationship between large objects circling the Sun. The title of his paradigm-shifting book reveals that Kepler was aware of the significance of his work. A New Astronomy Based upon Causation Or Physics of the Sky (1509). He deemed it a new perspective based upon causation, which he deemed the physics of the sky.
In contrast, the traditional logic inherited from the Greeks was geometrical – perfect circles, spheres and constant velocity – perfect regularity. No relationships (forces between objects) were indicated. This supposed perfection was just the way of the Universe – no causal explanation was needed or even sought for. Further, relatively precise Ptolemaic mathematical predictions of planetary positions provided significant support for this cultural model.
Kepler’s conceptual metaphor based upon Christianity’s Trinity allowed him to connect the idealized Platonic forms of the Greeks with forces, a decidedly modern conception. Henceforth, the scientific community sought to uncover the relationship (forces) between objects. Rather than geometrical form determining planetary relationships, these physical forces determined the form. Geometrical Forms became subservient to the Forces of Physics. Kepler initiated a paradigm shift from Form to Force that is still with us today.
This series of articles attempts to dispel the ‘conflict thesis’, i.e. there is an inherent ongoing hostility between Religion and Science. To this end, some chapters have provided historical examples of religious leaders supporting and even encouraging scientific endeavor, e.g. Copernicus, and religious beliefs inspiring scientific breakthroughs, e.g. Kepler. Other chapters have shown the flaws in prominent historical examples of Religion’s supposed persecution of Scientists, namely Bruno and Galileo. Science has also influenced Religion, as in the case of Ptolemy and a predetermined future combined with an absolute and impersonal Deity. We have even shown that Science has a spiritual side in that the scientific community is driven by the faith-based belief that the natural order has an elegant simplicity that is frequently revealed by mathematics.
Why has history told a different tale? Why have historians generally ignored or omitted any mention of how the religious beliefs of Copernicus and Kepler were intimately connected with their revolutionary discoveries? Why have they in general neglected to tell how the inflammatory political and religious stances of Bruno and Galileo were probably what got them in trouble with the authorities, not their scientific theories?
Was this omission merely a case of misguided emphasis? “We really didn’t think that those insignificant details were very important.” Or was the omission intentional? If deliberate, what are they hiding? Could it be a simple case of confirmation bias, i.e. inadvertently choosing and ignoring facts to support a mindset? If so, what is the nature of this bias – the mental filter that distorts their perceptions?
Could this bias have a tendency to be pro-Academia and anti-Religion? Rather than presenting a balanced view of history, do these storytellers instead relay facts that, deliberately or inadvertently, minimize both the positive influence of spiritual beliefs and the negative effects of entrenched secular beliefs?
But who am I kidding? Scholars write the tale. Of course, they will tell the story to make themselves look good and the others look bad. Certainly a natural human tendency, no matter which culture. For instance, generations of Chinese historians vilified the First Emperor despite his incredible accomplishments. Why? He had executed many of their kind due their resistance to his decrees. It makes total sense that our historians would behave in similar fashion.
I suppose this is why I am inspired to transmit the other side. Like Bruno, intellectual arrogance and intolerance aggravates me – especially when they distort the truth.
On a more personal side, I sense a certain stubborn mindset that causes Academia to resist my insights into the nature of Life. When I inadvertently come upon these distortions, I am internally outraged that they portray and even envision themselves as objective sources of the truth. Rather their version of reality is just as self-serving and subjective as the religious institutions they are criticizing. With regards Religion, followers of Scientism exhibit just as much unjustifiable bias as those they are slandering.
This essay provides an example of the arrow of influence pointing from Religion to Science. Kepler applied the relational logic of the Christian Trinity to planetary relationships with the Sun to come up with a solar force that eventually became gravity. More importantly, this insight altered the scientific perspective from static Geometric forms to dynamic Physical forces.
Our next essay exhibits how this paradigm shift from inviolable forms to dynamic forces acted on subliminal levels to erode the Patriarchy. The fundamental change in the focus of Science resulted in subliminal changes to our mindset, e.g. from accepting to questioning authority. In turn, this monumental shift in perspective led ultimately to a revision of our social institutions, e.g. from kingdoms to democracies. In this case, the Arrow points from Science to Society. Read on for details.
1The Act of Creation p 125 Note: Inspired by Kepler’s book, Galileo entered the fray 15 years later with his telescope. It took the Church 80 years to condemn the theory. Rather than its scientific perspective, the condemnation could have been due to its association with its political opponent – Freemasonry, as we shall see in a subsequent essay.
2 Encyclopedia Britannica: Kepler
3 Kuhn Quote: Aesthetic reasons for rejecting old paradigm for new
“Fortunately, there is also another sort of consideration that can lead scientists to reject an old paradigm in favor of a new. These are the arguments, rarely made entirely explicit, that appeal to the individual’s sense of the appropriate or the aesthetic – the new theory is said to be “neater”, ‘more suitable,” or simpler’ than the old… The importance of aesthetic considerations can sometimes be decisive. Though they often attract only a few scientists to a new theory. It is upon those few that its ultimate triumph may depend. If they had not quickly taken it up for highly individual reasons, the new candidate for paradigm might never have been sufficiently developed to attract the allegiance of the scientific community as a whole. To see the reason for the importance of these more subjective and aesthetic considerations, remember what a paradigm debate is about. When a new candidate for paradigm is first proposed, it has seldom solved more than a few of the problems that confront it, and most of these solutions are still far from perfect. Until Kepler, the Copernican theory scarcely improved upon the predictions of planetary position made by Ptolemy. Usually the opponents of a new paradigm can legitimately claim that even in the area of crisis it is little superior to its traditional rival. Of course, it handles some problems better, has disclosed some new regularities, But the older paradigm can be articulated to meet these challenges as it has met others before. … Tycho Brahe’s earth centered astronomical system was a response to challenges posed by the candidate for paradigm, and was quite successful. In addition, the defenders of traditional theory and procedure can almost always point to problems that its new rival has not solved, but that for their view are no problems at all. Even in the area of crisis, the balance of argument and counter argument can sometimes be very close indeed. And outside that area the balance will often decisively favor the tradition. …
Paradigm debates are not really about relative problem solving ability. … Instead, the issue is which paradigm should in the future guide research on problems many of which neither competitor can yet claim to resolve completely. A decision between alternate ways of practicing science is called for and in the circumstances that decision must be based less on past achievement than on future promise. … Something must make at least a few scientists feel that the new proposal is on the right track, and sometimes it is only personal and inarticulate aesthetic considerations than can do that. Men have been converted by them at times when most of the articulable technical arguments pointed the other way. When first introduced, Copernicus’ astronomical theory did not have many other significant grounds of appeal.”
4The New American Desk Encyclopedia, Signet Books, 1989, p. 180
5 In similar fashion to Kepler’s physics, Lehman’s Data Stream Dynamics (DSD) provides the mathematical foundation for mental energy, i.e. our intuitive sense that Mind exerts an influence upon the Body. Although we suspect mental energy to be true, there is little but circumstantial evidence for support. Lacking the mathematics, this new paradigm, the Mind to Body connection, loses the competition with the prevalent materialist paradigm.
However, DSD removes this roadblock to acceptance. The mathematical logic of DSD is highly compatible with the relational logic of phenomena associated with Attention. This symmetry provides the foundation for a new Math-Data matrix (DSD-Attention). The notion of mental energy is necessary to make sense of this Math-Fact Matrix. Rather than remaining an unsubstantiated myth, mental energy becomes a significant feature of a new paradigm.
6 There are numerous parallels between the complexes associated with Kepler and Lehman. 1) Both discovered a Math-Fact Matrix – a fit between mathematics and data. 2) Both matrixes provided a mathematical foundation for a new paradigm. 3) The Math-Data matrix forced the author to make certain assumptions. 4) These forced assumptions have an unbelievable quality that evoked(s) skepticism. 5) The unsuspected assumptions integrated an enormous amount of data.
7 Just like Kepler, I, Lehman, uncovered a Math-Fact Matrix that forced me to make certain assumptions. Unlike Kepler’s deliberate quest, I accidentally stumbled upon my discoveries, not even recognizing them initially. Unlike Kepler’s ellipses, my forced assumptions fit and extended my belief system regarding mental energy, Attention and choice. Unlike Kepler, I rejoiced at my discoveries, rather than likening them to a ‘cartful of dung’. Like Kepler, I blessed Providence, i.e. ‘divine kindness’, for providing me the timing, opportunity, and requisite drive and skills to accomplish my task.
8 Yet another parallel between Kepler’s planetary investigations and Lehman’s Information Digestion Model. Just as the force of gravity is an insubstantial force emanating from a substantial body, so is Lehman’s mental energy an ‘unsubstantial entity emanating from a substantial body.’ In similar fashion, Maxwell’s electromagnetic forces are also insubstantial entities that emanate from physical bodies. Indeed, it seems as if all forces are ‘insubstantial entities’ that emanate from physical bodies, ‘substantial entities’, to influence other physical bodies.
In such a manner, the force of mental energy is not so unusual from the other fundamental forces. Each type of energy/force seems to exhibit the same type of relational logic.
As with the other fundamental forces, mental energy is tied to Matter, according to our Information Digestion Model. Just as with gravity and electromagnetism, mental energy is not free-floating. Rather than a ‘psychedelic’, shamanistic, Buddhist Mind energy that can go anywhere/everywhere, independent of a body, the ID model posits a Kepler-like gravity model for its version of mental energy.
9 Indeed, this description applies to all the fundamental forces. Insubstantial emanating from the substantial. Very magical indeed.
10 P679 Act of Creation, Galileo: Dialogue on the Great World Systems p. 469