This course is the result of years of thought and long, detailed discussions by its authors. The goal has always been to produce a book for which these notes are a first effort. It is fair to say that both of us are in agreement as to the importance of the history and philosophy of cosmological thought to bring together the diverse elements of an undergraduate education irrespective of the major. Our only regret is that all graduating seniors are not required to take a course like this and to spend one last time in intellectual pursuit for strictly intellectual reasons.
Discussions with a number of students over the years have sharpened and the same time broadened our thoughts about cosmology. To these students we will always be grateful for their time and thought.
The thesis of this course is that there is one fundamental question motivating the human search for knowledge and that question can be phrased in a variety of ways. But, one of the simplest and most straight forward expressions of that question is, "Is there meaning to our existence?" This question is the motivation for all of intellectual history, regardless of the culture involved. Every culture in every age seems to have raised this most fundamental of all questions. Certainly there are many related questions, such as, "What elements signify meaning, and how do we assign degrees of importance to these elements?" and "What elements define our existence?"
Human response appears to have been to divide the question and devise ways of thinking that we recognize as fields of:
- theology, search for meaning in our spiritual existence
- philosophy, search for meaning in our intellectual existence
- science, the search for meaning in our physical existence
- art and literature being expressions of results of the quest for meaning
Therefore, a subtitle for this course is the search for meaning in physical existence. And, in that context, we believe that a strong argument can be made that science is:
- to a great extent, the search for meaning in physical existence
- a human effort to devise a way of thinking about the physical aspects of human existence
- utilization of that way of thinking to produce a logical representation of our collective sense experiences
- not something that we do; thus it is not technology, which is about survival
We sincerely hope that you will derive some pleasure from reading and thinking about these notes and that you will find our arguments reasonably sharp and clear.
| Home Page | Table of Contents | Previous | Next |