The Myth of Er

So I know I said at the beginning that I would start the blog off with a bit of Classics, and then progressively get more ‘sciency’. Just never mind that.  Its officially the Classics angle on Astronomy!

Since I’ve made this executive decision, I’ve decided to explain Plato’s concept of the cosmos a little deeper, as I feel as if that previous post was a bit to brief from my liking. Our best idea of his deeply rooted belief in the heavens and their operations come from, in my opinion, his famous work The Republic. More specifically, the conclusion of this piece. In this portion of his work, he described the ‘Myth of Er’, which is quite literally a myth about a man names ‘Er’ and his experience with the world of the heavens.

The story basically follows the man as he is killed in battle only to awaken on his funeral pyre, having visited the heavenly world. He tells of how he went to a place where men and women were separated upon death, some to go to the sky, and others to go deep underground to pay for their crimes in life (I could go on for ages and ages drawing similarities between Classical mythology, which existed hundreds of years earlier, and the Bible, but that would warrant an entirely new blog page). With much explanation as to the souls Er spoke with whilst dead, the story generaly tells of a Lady Necessity, the Sirens and the Fates (characters in Greek mythology)  and their role as people chose their next life and were assigned Gods to help them live it. He then wakes up, about to be burned and tells his story.

It seems as if this is just an excuse for me to tell a neat story from Ancient Greece, but in fact the morals that philosopher’s see in this story (and Socrates explanations throughout its telling) tell us that this story supports and defines Socrates and Plato’s theory of the cosmos. First, that the soul is immortal as it never truly ends, only becomes something else. Therefore it is never able to be destroyed, and therefore perfect.  Lines are jagged and have sharp edges, whereas circles are round and flawless. Therefore the heavens must be circles. Consequently, the stars and planets seen in the sky, since they belong to the heavens, must only move in perfect circles.

Not only do these explain Plato’s theory, but even within the myth itself lies a model for the cosmos. In the myth is described a ‘Spindle of Necessity’. It describes the cosmos as it is attended to by the Sirens and the Fates (if you’d like to know more about these mythical creatures- try having a gander at The Fates and The Sirens [scroll down to  ‘Sirens’]). The model depicts the orbits of 8 celestial bodies, all corresponding to the Aristotelian planetary spheres.  Although inevitably inaccurate, the model actually accurately represents their motion as it appears to someone on earth.

In any case, I hope this helps to make sense of my last post, and also provides a bit of entertainment and storytelling to your day J

-StarKid

Plato and those Silly Lines….

Blog # 2- Plato and those silly lines….

So I figured (in keeping with the connection between Astronomy and a wee bit of Classics) I’d discuss the difficulties the ancient Greeks and Romans had with agreeing with the contemporary astronomers of their day.

First and foremost, in order to conceptualize this idea of a universe in the first place, someone had to have come up with the brilliant idea that the world was not created by the Gods (ie. Zeus and his earlier lineage), but that the earth could have come into existence all on its own. Thales was the very first to propose a model of the universe in which our existence didn’t rely on any omniscient, all powerful beings. Having lived from 624-546 BCE, one can imagine that this was an enormous step towards modernizing their concept of Earth and space.

Let’s have a looksee at how these ancient Greeks and Romans devoted themselves to their Gods. Every action any man took in his life was made with the Gods in the forefront of their minds. Countless thousands upon thousands of animals were burnt and sacrificed to appease their Gods in times of war, famine and various times of misfortune. Fisherman blames themselves for having angered the God Poseidon after a storm at sea. With droughts they played to Zeus, Demeter and Athena to being them good crops.  Hera was praised during weddings, and men killed each other because their enemy towns worshiped a God whom their God disliked. With such devotion to these powerful Gods and Godesses, I’m sure you can imagine why no one in their right mind would do anything to anger them. Who would offend a man with the power to strike you and your family with lightning, demolish your town with a tsunami or swindle you into committing adultery? Yet some dared.

The only problem here though is that every single person in existence in this particular area (ie. Ancient Greece) believed in these supernatural beings and that they had created life as they knew it. To objectify such a belief at this time was just about the most controversial and blatantly heretic way in which to offend every God-fearing man.  This of course, is only the beginning to man’s travel to the belief and acceptance of such an enormously vast space as the universe.

Next, Pythagoras attempted to calculate (successfully) that the Earth itself is a sphere.

Then came the infamous Greek philosopher, Plato. To anyone who has read Plato’s Phaedo or any of his other works, they will understand why exactly Plato rejected the contemporary model of the universe so adversely.

A brief explanation of Plato’s beliefs:

• ·         There is a world of forms, which is not this world
• ·         In this world, nothing is divisible, and therefore everything is perfect
• ·         In our world, all matter is divisible, therefore imperfect
• ·         Within each being, however, lies a form that can subsist after death
• ·         In this world of forms, there are no lines, for in Heaven there are no lines, and therefore this world of forms is perfect
• ·         The world of forms exists outside of ours (ie. the Heavens)

With that briefest of brief explanations, hopefully you can grasp the general concept that Plato was all about the circles. Since everyone at this time believed that the space that lay outside of their realm of living was the sky, Plato asserted that everything belonging to that sky must be perfect circles.

This theory persisted for hundreds of years, with no one being daring enough to objectify the Gods and research other ways of stellar travel- those that are not perfect circles. Many philosophers and early astronomers came up with varying models that supported the celestial heavens moving in perfect circles, but it was not until Johannes Kepler, nearly 2000 years later thought of the ellipses to describe stellar motion that this theory was finally put to rest.

Although that was possibly the shortest of explanations as to the ideas of early astronomers, I hope it’s given a more sound idea as to why Plato’s theory of Heavenly circles remained in celestial models for so long.

-StarKid 

Hello All!

Well first and foremost, I must say that I have a confession. I…am a Classics major. I know, I know, what on Earth is a Classics major doing blogging about space and the universe? Well, kind souls, let me tell you.

So many ideas can be derived concerning the connection between the Ancient Greeks/Romans and the stars and universe we study and observe today. This post, just to start off, will explain one of the many instances where Greek culture has had a direct influence on the study of stars.

Take the following names, for example;

Mercury

Venus

Mars

Jupiter

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

Vulcan

Apollo

Pluto ( I know, I just couldn’t bear to leave it out)

Each one of these name directly corresponds to a Greek God or Goddess, taken right from Greek culture. In fact, all of these are the names that were adopted by the Romans to name their own Gods and Goddesses, each with nearly the exact same attributes as the Greek Gods. Don’t believe me? Well how about this- The following are symbols commonly associated with planets within our solar system. Watch:

- Mercury. This Roman God was modeled after the Greek God Hermes, God of travellers and thieves; the messenger of the Gods. In this symbol we can see the wings from Hermes’ winged helm, which (along with his feathered sandals) enable him to fly.

    - Venus. Modeled after the Greek Goddess of love and vanity, Aphrodite. This symbol shows her hand mirror she used to admire her own reflection.

   - Mars. The God of war and destruction. Ares, his Greek equivalent, is represented here with his shield and spear with which he would fight in battle.

    - Jupiter. The King of the Gods, Zeus, is depicted here with his lightning bolt; a great symbol of his power in the classical period.

    - Neptune. Modeled after the great god of the sea, Poseidon, symbolically represented here by his trident- his symbol of power.

So you see? Even as a lowly Classics major, my subject still has a monumental influence on our modern depiction of the universe. In subsequent blogs, it will inevitably become more and more ‘science-y’, yet I refuse to forget my roots as a student of the ancient world. When surrounded by so many new and impossibly fantastic discoveries about our expanding universe, it helps to remember the humble roots of our quest for knowledge.

-StarKid