The Sleepwalkers

"The Sleepwalkers" is the name of a book by Arthur Koestler. 

Arthur Koestler

It is sub-titled "A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe" and does indeed trace this; from a walled-in flat earth, mutable, snug within an immutable heavenly sphere, to our own infinite Cosmos.

Into infinity

Koestler also seeks to debunk the idea that the progress of science has been gradual and linear, and that the various men who led the way were giants amid pygmies, rational thinkers amid a sea of superstition. Everyone, according to Koestler's history, seems to have been a pygmy in one way or another; each sharing various ideas of their own time and of the past, often stumbling in the dark towards their ideas, discoveries, conclusions and revelations. Hence "sleepwalkers". Maybe, in that sense, we are all sleepwalkers.

Zeroing in, the book centres upon the lives of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo and also covers the gradual transition in human thought from Theology to Biology, from the Soul to Mind and - what was said above - from flat earth to infinite universe. Again, Koestler refers to the Great Chain of Being (see below), which was the background to much ancient - and not so ancient - thinking; from such a "Chain" to the discordance and disorientation some perhaps experience today as we seek for a new synthesis.

Upon finishing the book it was the image below, of our Earth taken from space, that came to mind..........

Possibly such an image can now be thought bland and unexceptionable, but I would love to go back and show it to those such as Kepler, who surely would have looked at it with wonder and even awe. Realising that such would be so renews my own wonder. This is our home. All human beings now living can be found on this fragile earth.

Digressing slightly ( but these are "ramblings" ) there is an argument that "religious" violence can be found to originate in scarce resources; in the scarcity of sacred space/places of pilgrimage, of a particular revelation, of a privileged group/chosen people, even of salvation itself. The argument develops that such things are scarce purely and only in dogma and doctrine. Which are outmoded, much like the Great Chain of Being.

Whatever the merits of such an argument, we certainly need not share such dogma and doctrine. All space can be "sacred", all Reality seen as revelation, all human beings, indeed all sentient beings, can be valued as being "chosen". Universalism Rules OK! Which has relevance to our need for a new synthesis, or at least I think so.

While we seek such a synthesis ( and whether any at all will even be final ) I will ramble on........

Late, I love but quietness:
things of this world are no more my concern.
Looking back, I've known no better plan
than this; returning to the grove.

Pine breezes loosen my robe.
Mountain moonbeams play my lute.
What, you ask, is Final Truth?
The fisherman's song strikes deep into the bank.

(Wang Wei)

Fish (and perhaps a song) rather than "final truth". 

What price "Final Truth"? Maybe some things, amid all the change, never change.

 Chiao Jan (730-799)......

Spring's songs already quieting,
the ancient source still bubbles forth.

It's a mistake, my modern friends,
to wound the heart to try
to cross that stream.

​​Well, whatever, and back to the "Sleepwalkers". Actually the second time I have read the book. The first time was long ago and reading it gave me a lifetime interest in Cosmology. Really fascinating just how others have seen the heavens above us and the world around us.