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The Perfect Cosmological Principle.
Copernicus overturned the Ptolemaic astronomical assumption that the earth lay at the centre of the universe, and did, like the other planets of the solar system, orbit the sun. Newton considered that the stars also consisted of distant suns similar to our own, because they emitted the same sort of light.
Long after the death of Copernicus we began to speak of The Copernican Principle which states that the earth, or indeed the solar system, does not occupy any sort of special or privileged position within the universe.
With the development of telescopes able to collect light and other forms of radiation from galaxies enormously distant from the Milky Way galaxy in which our solar system resides, it became apparent that the universe appeared more or less isotropic (the same in every direction) and homogenous (made of the same material with the same sort of distribution everywhere).
This led to the assertion of the Cosmological Principle, which states that the universe looks more or less the same everywhere on the large scale. To see this homogeneity you have to look on the scale not of galaxies, but on the scale where the clusters of galaxies and the voids between then begin to look like a fairly uniform sponge cake.
Now the contemporary conventional Cosmological Principle does have one imperfection, most cosmologists currently believe the universe has Anisotropy in Time. They interpret the galactic redshifts and the cosmic microwave background radiation and the relative abundances of hydrogen and helium, to mean that the universe must have expanded from a much smaller and denser version in the distant past. Thus they hypothesise that about 13.4 billion years ago the universe erupted out of a tiny, probably subatomic sized, condition of almost infinite density and that ever since it has continued to expand and cool and increase in entropy, exhibiting large scale homogeneity at all stages as it does so.
A Perfect Cosmological Principle on the other hand states that the universe will have the same large scale general characteristics not just everywhere, but also everywhen; it has always looked and will always look like it does now on the large scale, giving it spatial and temporal isotropy.
As the expanding-universe hypothesis began to take hold, the Perfect Cosmological Principle became associated with various steady-state theories which attempted to reconcile the idea of expansion with spatial and temporal isotropy. Inevitably this led to awkward ‘fixes’ like the hypothesis of continuous spontaneous creation of matter to fill the expanding space, and gradually the idea got dropped.
However the Perfect Cosmological Principle has recently re-appeared in the Multiverse hypothesis. Partly because current theory cannot address what happened before the big bang, partly because it cannot address how the extraordinary starting conditions of the big bang with its staggering density and miniscule entropy arose, and partly because it cannot address the question of how the universe comes to have its particular fundamental constants; theorists have hypothesizes that all possible universes must exist. Just ‘where’ or indeed ‘when’ these other universes exist and what separates them from this one remains an open question but the presumption exists that universes can maybe multiply by creating black holes or singularities that somehow burst out as new ‘white holes’ or big bangs ‘elsewhere’ to create new universes with perhaps a different set of physical laws and constants.
Thus in some ways the Multiverse hypothesis restores the Perfect Cosmological Principle, as a sufficiently vast multiverse consisting of zillions of universes would presumably exhibit spatial and temporal homogeneity and isotropy on an unimaginably vast scale.
The multiverse idea does begin to look like an unnecessarily extravagant hypothesis, particularly when a simpler one exists to solve many of the questions to which it supposedly supplies an answer.
Consider the Vorticitating Hypersphere Cosmology (VHC) as elucidated in The Apophenion and The Octavo. In this we inhabit a universe which has finite and unbounded extent in space and time and complete spatial and temporal homogeneity and isotropy. Thus it contains all of the space and time which exists and this space and time curves back round on itself under the influence of all the gravity (spacetime curvature) of all the mass and energy within it.
In VHCosmology the universe does not expand, the redshift of distant galaxies arises purely from the spacetime curvature of the hypersphere and remains proportional to distance.
In VHCosmology the apparent acceleration of the apparent expansion of the universe arises as an optical illusion caused by the large scale lensing effect of the small spacetime curvature of the hypersphere of the universe.
In VHCosmology the CMBR consists of trans-antipodal light in thermodynamic equilibrium with the interstellar medium, and thus it represents the universe’s overall (rather chilly) constant temperature.
In VHCosmology the entropy of the universe remains constant on the large scale because neutrinos act as their own antiparticles and so do neutrons according to the supplementary HD8* hypothesis of 3-dimensional time which describes the quanta. Thus the universe has no single lowest energy state into which it can decay and neutronium annihilates to energy rather than imploding into singularities.
In VHCosmology the cosmic hydrogen-helium ratio merely represents an equilibrium established an un-specifiable time ago by the mechanisms of stellar nucleosynthesis and neutron annihilation.
In VHCosmology the universe does not have a beginning or an end, it just goes round and round in its own spacetime without the constraint of having to do exactly the same things in detail each time. The universe did not come from nothingness, we have no reason to consider nothingness as somehow more fundamental than something-ness. On the contrary, everything we can observe has become created from something else.
Phew. So why spend 20 years working on this unpopular set of ideas which may yet become falsified?
Well, the quest to develop a mechanism to explain magic led to questions about the conventional view of one-dimensional, one directional time. This led to a quest to interpret quantum physics in a 3-dimensional time framework which resulted in the HD8 hypothesis, and this in turn led to a questioning of conventional standard cosmology.
Finally the quantum and cosmological hypotheses came together in one single simple equation:
W = (2piGM/Vh)^1/2
This describes the ‘spins’ of all the hyperspherical fundamental quantum particles which make up the universe and the spin (vorticitation) of the entire hyperspherical universe.
Does that look like a Perfect Cosmological Principle? I dunno, but it reminds me of what Hermes Trismegistus said, ‘As above, so below’. Plus geometricating the quanta seems like a better idea than trying to quantize gravity.
So having reconciled my scientific beliefs with my magical beliefs without doing fatal damage to either, I feel that I can proceed with the magic.
Peter J Carroll.
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As you may know, I hold the chair in The Department of Sorcery and Alternative Science at Arcanorium College, www.arcanoriumcollege.comand also act as the Chancellor of the college.
Thus on behalf of the Staff, I proudly announce the program for the forthcoming first semester of our 6th year. Membership of the College entitles participants to access to all courses, the common rooms and bar, and the extensive library, plus our ever more vast archives. If you want to participate in the creation of magic in the 21st century and to find out where it came from and where it may go, you have come to the right place.
Arcanorium College Year 6, 2011 - 2012.
Semester 1, September 19th - October 28th.
Lecturer: Hyperritual, Course: Automagica Theoretica.
In this six-week course we will consider a theory of automagic devices from the perspective of automatic machines. There will be reading assignments and much reflection and discussion. We will attempt to sort out some models by which we can construct automagic devices either individually or as part of future courses (Automagica Practica) in the Dept of Magical Computing / Magical Computer Lab.
Lecturer: Al, Course: Seventeenth Century Magic.
This course takes an in-depth look at the 17thC magical worldview and its principles and practitioners and their magical workings, and it will involve practical work with various forms of Geomancy both traditional and modern.
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Reviews by Shade Oroboros
The Apophenion: A Chaos Magic Paradigm by Peter J. Carroll,
Mandrake 2008, 160 pages, illustrated,
footnoted and indexed.
In the wide wonderful world of Chaos Magick, it is kind of a big event when Peter Carroll writes a new book. This one does of course have many magical elements, but it is actually devoted to addressing profoundly fundamental issues: the nature of existence, time and space, the structure of the universe and the (un?)reality of the Self. The man has clearly been thinking vary hard about stuff, specifically Relativity, Quantum Theory and Chaos. On the way he discards the very notion of ‘being’ in favor of Panpsychism, trashes the concept of any individual ‘consciousness’ by redefining ‘mind’ as a verb rather than a noun, proposes a new personal pantheism, reexamines causality in magical terms, and completely blows off the current theories of the Big Bang theory of the universe in favor of a new physics model of Vorticitating Hyperspherical Spacetime.
I am nowhere near doing justice to his thesis, and definitely lack the math skills to grok his appended equations. But as far as I can follow his thought, it seems to make more sense than many other theories, largely works for me, and is well worth some very serious consideration. I have the lurking feeling this all this is important.
Apophenia, by the way, is the goddess of finding unsuspected meaning, patterns and connections.
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Back to school and college for many of us now that we get to the end of the holiday season, you can almost feel the psychic groan, not that we have had much of a summer in the UK, mainly cool and wet due to the climate disruption methinks.
The global financial mess will hopefully depress some of the excess economic activity which gives rise to this
I’ve spent a lot of time walking and surfing and reading in Wales and composing more poetry (it will appear here after Eisteddfod use).
Gaddhafi still isn’t dead; some considered it a bit extreme to call for that, but after what we have now seen of the inside of his regime it seems like an even better idea, and the sooner the better.
Arcanorium College now tools up for Semester 1 of its 6th glorious year.
As I explained long ago I didn’t set up the PJ Carroll facebook page, nor do I know who did, nor can I anymore interact with it because I’m refusing to give them a mobile number to confirm my existence.
Nevertheless I’ve transferred a couple of questions from it to here as they caught my interest: -
Xara Allen
peter can i ask what your thoughts are on kundalini and chakras. ive resisted that belief system so far having discounted it as just another model and not one that im asthetically or culturally attracted to so why bother with it... but ive been reading a fair bit of S Mace as he seems to ascribe some objective physiological basis to it....wondered wat your thoughts were tis all....?
The various oriental systems of chackras and meridians contradict each other in detail and you won’t find much corresponding to any of them on dissection. ‘Fake’ acupuncture, where the therapist puts the needles in at arbitrary points has equally beneficial effects to ‘real’ acupuncture apparently.
Some modern methods of sports training urge the trainee to put all their mental attention into the muscle groups used in their particular event. Similar practices occur in martial arts where the practitioner visualizes ‘chi’ flowing to the striking or defending parts, or even outside the body entirely.
I tend to take the view that all such systems depend on simply drawing the attention of the practitioner or recipient to the areas of the body requiring attention and that the attention itself has a real and sometimes magical effect. Thus any system of representing the body in the mind by some sort of analogy will probably work, including such patently novel systems such as the kabbalistic middle pillar exercises. For simplicities sake I tend to prefer the Gnostic Pentagram or Gnostic Chaosphere practices which use just 5 ‘chackras’ with a simple vowel sound vibrated to each
I've a question regarding Apophenion, p. 82. You write in the first paragraph "This strongly suggests that when enchanting a future perception on 'memory' of it having occured, rather than visualising a chain of events leading to its occurence." - Isn't this contradictory to what you write in the first chapters about "being" and "doing" (pp. 18-). I understand on p. 82 the suggestion to put a state into your spell rather than a process. I know, here it isn't the point, but in the whole of your book, especially when regarding the first chapters with this passage, it seems contradictory. Would you be so kind to explain?
Firstly let me say that I find no evidence of ‘being’ anywhere in reality except in our imaginations. Everything moves, everything changes from moment to moment even if our sluggish perception suggests otherwise.
If we assume from the quantum perspective that many possible futures exist in some sort of shadowy wavelike form then forming an image of one future favored version now may well encourage the future to manifest in that form eventually. You might merely call that making a plan or a wish, however some experiments indicate that the observer’s choice of what to observe has a tendency to make reality follow suit.
Pete.
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The British riots have come and gone for the moment, and at last the politicians and the media have tired of punditry and explanationism and blame assignment. Finally now that the punitive sentencing process has gone into well publicized overdrive we get the one statistic they dared not release in the immediate aftermath of the event and which I’ve eagerly awaited, - an estimate of the numbers involved.
Scotland Yard puts it at 30,000. One must balance that figure against the natural tendency of the police to want to both understate the extent of a breakdown of the law and order they get paid to maintain and perhaps a tendency to overstate it in the face of proposed police spending cuts. Nevertheless in the context of several thousand arrests it sounds like a reasonable lower estimate. I had guessed about 50,000, although I saw nothing of it directly whilst on holiday in Wales.
Compared to the poll tax riot which seems to have involved about 250,000 this seems like peanuts, yet its effect seems to have disturbed the national psyche far more, and I think it has done so because of the lack any easily understandable political motive for the riots.
However, as someone once said of the French Revolution, ‘there’s nothing more political than the price of a loaf of bread’, and to pretend that anything that happens in society lacks a political dimension or a power relationship of some sort seems naïve.
I suspect that a great many people fairly well understand the causes of these riots but keep the guilty secret to themselves because they would personally rather remain enmeshed in the problem rather than consider the alternatives.
The crisis in the financial systems and the riots share a common cause, the failure of the policy of economic growth and consumerism.
Yes, I have just committed the ultimate blasphemy, I don’t think our society should strive for more economic growth or more consumption, despite what just about all politicians say.
The majority of people now have about twice as much stuff as they had 40 years ago, yet they seem no happier or more content at all, in fact one could argue that the relentless pursuit of ever more consumables has led to a drop in the quality of life. Some sociologists argue that quality of life peaked in the UK around the mid seventies.
For the last few decades we have imported debt and manufactures and labor from abroad to maintain a growth in consumerism. This has had the grim effects of creating an unsustainable debt mountain, an unwanted underclass of unskilled people with no work in basic manufacturing, and arguably a far less cohesive society riven by multicultural, multi-identity, and wealth ghetto-isation. What does it mean to be British these days? It seems to mean having a long and glorious past which we are increasingly taught to feel ashamed of; and no vision for the future beyond an even larger TV screen, at an ever cheaper price. Most of the people who stole televisions had access to at least one already; they merely obeyed social norms in obtaining another as cheaply as possible. The underclass may have started the riots but the middle classes seem to have joined in the looting, the rich have already got richer these last few decades by more subtle forms of looting.
The solution seems simple, cease striving for growth, stop working for consumables we don’t really need, put our own people back to work making the stuff we do need even if that makes it a bit more expensive. Share out what we do have a bit more equitably, and concentrate more on quality of life and leisure pursuits.
Hopefully this will also lead to less looting of this planet’s rapidly diminishing resources.