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 Chapter 1

The Importance of Cosmology in Culture: Contexts and

Consequences

Nicholas Campion

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/67976

Abstract
Scientific cosmology is the study of the universe through astronomy and physics.
However, cosmology also has a significant cultural impact. People construct anthro-
pological cosmologies (notions about the way the world works), drawing in scientific
theories in order to construct models for activities in disciplines, such as politics and
psychology. In addition, the arts (literature, film and painting, for example) comment
on cosmological ideas and use them to develop plot lines and content. This chapter illus-
trates examples of such work, arguing that scientific cosmology should be understood as
a significant cultural influence.

Keywords: cosmology, culture, politics, psychology, literature, film, space travel

1. Introduction

Modern scientific cosmology is valuable in itself for what it reveals about the nature of the
cosmos we inhabit [1]. It is a demonstration of the power of modern science to transform our
understanding of who we are and where we came from. However, most cosmologists focus on
scientific questions and are not fully aware of the impact of cosmological theories on culture,
including politics and the arts. This chapter introduces this wider context on the basis that
both scientists and the public should be aware of the broader importance of their work and its
influence on the way we think. Cosmologists often rely on the fascination the subject brings:
as Rowe observed in his textbook way back in 1968, ‘In the fields of astronomy and cosmol-
ogy we live in a period of excitement’ [2]. Cosmology therefore both impacts culture and is
described and represented by it. This chapter explores some ways in which this happens. As
Muriel Rukeyser wrote, ‘The universe is made of stories, not of atoms’ [3]; see also Impey [4].

© 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
4 Trends in Modern Cosmology

If we select four fundamental causes of changes in our perceptions of the world in the last
century, then they would be first relativity, second quantum mechanics, third the expand-
ing universe and fourth, the space programme. The first three date from a fairly narrow time
band, if we date special relativity from 1905, general relativity from 1915, that the universe
is expanding and is much bigger than previous thought from Edwin Hubble’s publications
from 1924 to around 1930 and quantum mechanics from Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg’s
formulation of the Copenhagen interpretation in 1925–1927 [5]. This epic revision of scientific
knowledge of underlying structures of the universe was therefore concentrated into just a
quarter of a century. The dramatic period of the human space programme was concentrated
into just over 8 years from the first human space flight in 1961 to the Moon landing in 1969.

All have fundamentally altered the way that we think about life here on Earth. Often these
changes are taken for granted. For example, mobile phone technology, dependent as it is on
satellite networks, is transforming not only the social lives of teenagers in the west, but also
the economic muscle of poor farmers across the third world. Meanwhile, super‐fast quantum
computing makes use of phenomena such as entanglement and is driving the development
of artificial intelligence, and hence of robotics. The implications for society over the next few
decades are potentially enormous. The most important conclusion to be drawn from this com-
bination of revolutionary changes is the role of the observer: as the basis of differing perspec-
tives of time and space in relativity, an influence on the world (at least, at the sub‐atomic level)
in quantum mechanics, and the witness for the first time, of the spherical earth, hanging in
space, in photographs taken by Apollo astronauts in 1968. Such ideas and experiences have
decisively underpinned modern ideas that one person’s complete individual experience or
perception is as equally valid as anyone else’s. Einstein is held particularly responsible for
these ideas [6, 7] as a result of popular equations between relativity on the one hand, and
cultural relativism (the idea that no one culture is superior or inferior to another) on the
other. Moral relativism (the idea that no one culture is morally superior or inferior to another)
is controversial and widely rejected, but cultural relativism does have beneficial scholarly
consequences. This is especially the case in the new field of cultural anthropology in which
academic rigour requires that in order to better understand other cultures, researchers must
abandon any idea that one culture is superior or inferior to another.

2. Defining cosmology

The term cosmology can be traced to the 1730s, although its appearance in a scientific sense
dates from only after the Second World War [8]. The logos, which is the root of ‘logy’, means
‘an account’, so that, as a preliminary working definition, cosmology is simply ‘an account of
the cosmos’. The primary Latin equivalent of the Greek Kosmos is Universus, from Unus verto,
or ‘changing into one’, thereby suggesting unity. We can divide the definitions of cosmology
into two: the scientific and the anthropological. The scientific are perhaps the more familiar,
but even here there is variation. Scientific definitions range from the narrow, such as ‘the study
of the universe’ [9], to the broad (‘the science, theory or study of the universe as an orderly
system, and of the laws that govern it; in particular, a branch of astronomy that deals with the
 The Importance of Cosmology in Culture: Contexts and Consequences 5
http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/67976

structure and evolution of the universe’) [10]. The idea that cosmology is synonymous with
astronomy is widespread [2, 11]. Yet the relationship between astronomy and cosmology is
not settled, and Hawley and Holcomb [9] argue that cosmology is a separate discipline, which
combines features of both astronomy and physics. There are other places where disciplines
overlap. For example, astronomy has to include geophysics precisely because the Earth itself
is in space [12].

Anthropological cosmologies are based on the proposition that ideas about the cosmos are
integral part of human cultural and social systems. For example, the archaeologist Timothy
Darvill talks of a cosmology as being, ‘The world view and belief system of a community
based upon their understanding of order in the universe’ [13]. George Gumerman and
Miranda Warburton argued that ‘… to truly comprehend a culture we must have some sense
of its cosmology – the group’s conception of themselves in relation to the heavens’ [14]. And
without diminishing the scientific status of modern cosmology, ideas do not come from the-
ory and experiment alone, but can be inspired by wider cultural influences, as Holton [15]
illustrates in relation to Einstein’s reading and education before he formulated the theory of
special relativity. Heisenberg [16] actually argued that science and art are parallel attempts
to describe the world, and may both be part of a wider cultural picture. Bell [17] then talks of
‘complex subsystems of cosmic exchange’ which underpin mundane systems of behaviour,
such as socio‐economic exchange, but are designed to reinforce individual and social exis-
tence within the cosmos.

3. Defining cosmology

The philosopher Terry Eagleton concluded, ‘“Culture” is said to be one of the two or three most
complex words in the English language’ [18]. A good working definition, though, is offered
by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, who argued that culture is ‘an historically transmitted
pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in
symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowl-
edge of and attitudes toward life’ [19]. The influence of cosmology on culture then becomes a
matter of exploring its impact on political and religious ideas, and its use in the arts, perhaps
mainly in literature, painting and film. Michael Rowan‐Robinson wrote that ‘the intellectual
horizon of the human race at any time has always been inextricably bound up with the scale
of the universe… there can be little doubt that a people’s perceived scale of the universe must
play a fundamental role in its culture and consciousness’ [20]. He could equally have said
that culture and consciousness are bound up with conceptions of the universe as a whole. It
was Einstein himself who made the case for the cosmologist intervening in culture. In 1936 he
wrote, ‘the physicist cannot simply surrender to the philosopher the critical contemplation of
the theoretical foundations’ of the universe, and ‘the critical thinking of the physicist cannot
possibly be restricted to examination of his own field. He cannot proceed without consider-
ing critically a much more difficult problem, the problem of analysing the nature of everyday
thinking’ [21]. Mostly the cosmologist does not intervene directly in modern culture. Instead
other people interpret and represent cosmological ideas.
6 Trends in Modern Cosmology

4. Politics

Cosmology has had a substantial impact on political theory and continues to do so. We can
therefore talk about ‘political cosmology’ [22]. The earliest recorded societies used the stars
or planets to represent their rulers or guide their actions, functions which tended to overlap
with religion. The Egyptians and Inca saw their rulers embodied in the Sun, the Chinese in the
Pole Star, and in Babylon the chief god, Marduk, was represented by Jupiter. On a practical
level, most pre‐modern cultures structured their religious sanctuaries, and sometimes their
urban communities, according to their conceptions of the cosmos. Hence we may speak of
‘cosmopolises’ or ‘cosmograms’. A ‘cosmic state’ is one in which the entire state is organized
to embody the structure of the cosmos.

The significant step into modelling politics on the cosmos as an organised system was taken
by the Greek philosopher Plato (ca. 428/7?–348/7). Plato’s cosmos emanated out of a single
consciousness which existed in a realm of unchanging eternity. The material world was then
an imperfect representation of the world of Ideas (Plato spoke of the physical world being
embedded in the world‐soul) and was governed by time, the mathematically regulated, har-
monious rhythms measurable by the motions of the planets. Plato’s mathematical universe
provides a rationale for scientific speculation to the present day [23, 24].

Plato advocated an education emphasising such subjects as music, mathematics and geom-
etry, and a political system based on rule by philosophers, all designed to harmonise society
with the cosmos, for the common good. This concept of the perfect society underpins the
entire history of utopianism down to the present day. There were two main consequences
of Plato’s system, with consequences down to the present day. First, the perfect ruler was
envisioned as the Philosopher King, whose right to rule was justified by his wisdom and
understanding of cosmic principles. Second, the system tended to be authoritarian because,
being founded on cosmic principle, it could brook no opposition. Plato’s ideas were revived in
Renaissance Europe and were to become extremely influential. The notion of human history
as the progressive unfolding of the world soul towards a final, perfect condition was central
to the ideas of Georg Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831). Hegel’s influence on Karl Marx (1818–1883)
led the twentieth century philosopher of science, Popper [25], to see Plato’s thought as the
foundation of modern totalitarianism: where Plato influenced Marx, via Hegel, was in the
notion that history has an inescapable trajectory, founded in the structure of the cosmos itself.
For revolutionary Marxists, such as Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tse‐tung, it was then inconceivable
that anyone could oppose their rule, for to do so was to oppose the cosmos.

Separate to the platonic strand in European political cosmology, the astronomical discoveries
from Copernicus onwards all helped shape western politics. Copernicus’ argument that the
Sun, not the Earth, is the centre of the universe (or the solar system as we would now say) was
attached to the ancient idea that the Sun is associated with kings. It was then used to support
claims that, just as the entire universe orbits the Sun, so the whole of society orbits the king
[26]. Propaganda in support of absolute monarchy then reached its height in the iconography
of the French king Louis XIV. Such authoritarian ideas were directly countered by what I have
called Political Newtonianism [22]. This held that, just as Newton had argued that one law
 The Importance of Cosmology in Culture: Contexts and Consequences 7
http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/67976

governed the whole universe, so the same principle must apply to terrestrial affairs and one
law must govern the whole of human society. In principle, then, all people were equal, and
there was no justification for monarchy. Such ideas were influential among both the American
revolutionaries of 1776 [27] and the French in 1789.
Newtonianism was taken one step further by Auguste Comte (1798–1857), the founder of soci-
ology. Adding Galileo and Kepler to Newton as sources of authority, Comte [28] argued that
if the entire universe was a mathematically regulated mechanism, so human society must also
be governed by the same principle. If planets moved in mathematically determined patterns,
Comte reasoned, so must people. By collecting and analysing data on human behaviour,
Comte concluded, the same laws that controlled the wider universe should be discovered in
human affairs. And in turn the state, governed by experts who were the modern equivalent
of Plato’s philosophers, could be managed for the good of all. This remains the foundation of
twenty‐first century sociology.

There have been a few attempts, for example, to identify Einsteinian relativity either as a form
of political discourse, or to draw political implications from it. As far as the former is con-
cerned, I refer to the French feminist and social theorist Luce Irigaray who has identified the
theory of relativity as a political rather than scientific formula [29]. Sokal and Bricmont [28],
meanwhile, noted how the notion of relativity in time and space was used by postmodern
theorists in order to advocate cultural relativity on the grounds that, if the universe has no
single centre, neither does culture.

The anthropologist Falzon [30] has defended multi‐sited ethnography against the charge of
lack of depth by arguing that it takes into account shifting perceptions of space and time.
The anthropologist Marcus [31] refers to ‘space‐time compression’, in which the essential dif-
ference between space and time contracts in light of the recognition that both are socially
produced as a result of what Falzon calls ‘a product of interrelations’; Marcus derived his
understanding from special relativity, and so directly from his understanding of Einstein.
Elsewhere, Einstein’s call for humanity in general to take on the implications of the new cos-
mology has been used to advocate a collaborative global order in which international prob-
lems are solved thought global institutions rather than war [32].

5. Psychology

The consequences of Newtonianism (the belief that the entire universe is mathematically reg-
ulated) permeate western thought wherever there has been a search for a universal law based
on supposedly hard data. Psychology is a prime example. When the word ‘psychology’ was
coined around 1800, it was thought that, since Newtonian science explained everything that
exists and occurs in the material world, there could and should be just one science explain-
ing what exists and occurs in the psychological world. As Gilbert Ryle wrote, ‘“Psychology”
was supposed to be the title of the empirical study of “mental phenomena”’, a counterpart
to Newtonian celestial mechanics [33]. Concepts such as normality and deviation have domi-
nated some of the major schools of western psychology, their roots in Newtonian cosmology’s
8 Trends in Modern Cosmology

devotion to predictable order unrecognised and forgotten. The measurement and mathemati-
cal analysis of the human mind then became the basis of much psychiatry and academic
psychology. Even the notion developed by Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), that psychic—or
psychological—material can be ‘repressed’, as if by some kind of downward pressure, is
derived from Newtonian mechanics through the influential German physicist Hermann von
Helmholtz (1821–1894) [34]. The goal of Freudian psychoanalysis is for the patient to become
aware of such repressed material through the so‐called talking cure, the conversations which
take place during sessions with the psychoanalyst, thus releasing in downward pressure.

Freud’s student C.G. Jung opened a radically different strand of thought in modern psychol-
ogy which is highly influential in many schools of psychotherapy and counselling practiced
in society as a whole, although usually outside the academic system. Jung revived the Platonic
theory that everything in the world is a manifestation of an original pure idea or archetype.
Jung’s system, known as analytical psychology, adheres to a kind of archetypal philosophy
in which all psychological types correspond to an archetype, such as the eternal youth (the
puer aeternus), anima (female principle) or senex (wise old man), which exist in the collective
unconscious, Jung’s update of the Platonic world‐soul. The aim of Jung’s therapeutic model is
for the individual to become truly themselves by recognising the role of the archetypes in their
lives and, in effect, understanding their true connections to the cosmos. The idea that one can
become one who truly is also relates back to Aristotelian cosmology in which it was thought
that the four elements (fire, earth, air and water) all try to find their natural place in the world.
This, Aristotle thought, was why flames go up to the sky, where fire belongs, and water falls
to the ground, because that is where it finds its natural home. In Aristotelian politics, kings are
at the top of society and peasants at the bottom, because that is the natural state of affairs; in
Aristotelian psychology every individual then has a natural way of being. Jung, though, was
equally concerned with the latest science, and formed a collaboration and friendship with the
quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958) [35]. Together they formulated the concept of
synchronicity by which meaningful events are connected because they take place at the same
time, without any causal connection [36]. Newtonian psychology—the belief that all mental
states can be measured—survives in university departments and psychiatry. But in the wider
world, where increasing numbers of people seek counselling and psychotherapy, Einstein is
taken as the inspiration for the argument that therapists and analysts must be ‘less concerned
with the basic nature of time and more with the human experience of it’ [37].

6. Literature and film

One of the major genres of writing in western culture goes under the name ‘celestial journey
literature’, derived from ancient texts on the soul’s journey. The soul’s journey was secularised
in Dante’s (1265–1321) ‘Divine Comedy’ [38]. Inspired by Plato’s myth of Er, Dante is guided by
the poet Virgil and his love, Beatrice, through the spheres of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise (Hell
and Purgatory are structured in spheres analogous to the spheres on which the planets and stars
orbit). The last great example of the celestial journey of the soul or a dream world was Johannes
Kepler’s ‘Somnium’, an account of lunar astronomy written in 1608 but published in 1634,
 The Importance of Cosmology in Culture: Contexts and Consequences 9
http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/67976

and sometimes referred to as the first work of science fiction. The genre took a decisive step
forward in Francis Godwin’s ‘Man in the Moon’ [39], published in 1638. Like Dante, Godwin
used his story to describe the structure of the cosmos, now, after Johannes Kepler and Galileo,
rejecting the planetary spheres and challenging the Aristotelian idea that all things have their
natural place. Godwin departed from the old idea of a journey of the soul or a dream world.
Instead, his hero, Gonzales, flies to the Moon carried by giant geese. From Godwin onwards
the celestial journey becomes physical, arriving at the Moon rocket in Jules Verne’s 1865 novel,
‘From the Earth to the Moon’. Verne’s book was one of the inspirations for what may be the
first space film, Georges Méliès’ ‘Le Voyage dans la Lune’—in English ‘A Trip to the Moon’—
after which astronomy and cosmology have a regular presence in film culture [40]. In Méliès’
film, the astronomers encounter the inhabitants of the Moon, known as Selenites, in what is
clearly a parable for European colonialism: the film was released midway through the so‐called
‘Scramble for Africa’, the final face of the European take‐over of Africa from the 1880s to 1914.
From Méliès on, the major celestial journey novels have often been filmed. Perhaps the most
famous is Stanley Kubrick’s film of Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. Clarke’s meta-
physical story is vividly portrayed first through the transition from ape to human, and then, in
the final scene, the transformation of the dying astronaut into the star child. Accompanied by
the stirring music of Wagner’s ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’, Kubrick created a vivid evocation of
both ancient beliefs in the soul’s ascent to the stars and modern ideas that human destiny may
take us to realms beyond our current imagination.

While celestial journey films can be enjoyed as simple adventures, they often contain deeper
meanings. The 1951 movie ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ exploited the current public inter-
est in Flying Saucers. Released at a time when the Cold War was reaching its height with the
conflict in Korea, the story featured a wise alien who arrived from space in order to reveal
to humanity the error of its ways. The rejection of the alien’s words of wisdom presented a
gloomy view of humanity as incapable of solving its problems. Cosmology, through film, then
becomes a means of commenting on societal change. ‘Star Trek’, the biggest celestial journey
TV franchise of them all, was launched in 1966. ‘Star Trek’ was altogether more sophisticated
than ‘Lost in Space’ and was entirely more optimistic. It is set in a utopian future in which
there is one world government, collaborating with other worlds through United Federation of
Planets, and money has been abolished. In the crew’s adventures, the European voyages of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are replayed in a universe of an infinite number of galaxies,
except that now alien cultures are to be respected and preserved rather than conquered and
destroyed. The values espoused by the Federation were American: freedom from tyranny,
freedom of expression and respect for minorities. Compared to ‘Star Trek’, the blockbuster
film franchise, ‘Star Wars’, launched in 1976 and still going strong forty years later, projects
into space a simpler version of the endless struggle for freedom against an evil empire, very
much an update of anti‐Nazi war films. In all such cases the cosmos is seen as a blank slate, a
tabula rasa, on which human concerns are imposed.
There is a constant strand of literary comment on cosmology in the nineteenth century. Edgar
Allan Poe (1809–1849), often known as the author of the first detective novel, wrote a remark-
able work which he called ‘Eureka’ [41], deliberately suggesting an imaginative breakthrough
in the understanding of the cosmos. Poe realised that in a Newtonian universe the stars are
10 Trends in Modern Cosmology

likely to collapse in on each other, and that therefore the universe must be evolving [42].
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was as fascinated by cosmology as Poe, but unlike him lived to
see the publication of Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ in 1959 (when he was just 19). For Hardy
evolution was a reality. He combined his encyclopaedic knowledge of myth, astronomy and
cosmology into a ‘moral astrophysics’ [43] which provided the background for the individual
conflicts and tragedies in novels such as ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ (1874) and ‘Tess of
the d’Urbervilles’ (1891/1892). Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) used Edwin Hubble’s discovery of
the expanding universe in the 1920s as a metaphor for personal and political insecurity in the
1930s. In Woolf’s view, as we all live together on the same delicate, vulnerable planet in a vast-
ness of space, it is incumbent upon us to live together rather than fight [44]. The Marxist play-
wright Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) looked back to an earlier cosmology but equally wanted
to illustrate a modern point in his 1938 play, ‘Galileo’. His portrayal of Galileo as the heroic
intellectual defending Copernicus, struggling against an obscurantist Inquisition (inaccurate
because many in the senior Catholic hierarchy were Copernicans), was an allegory of the
revolutionary struggles of the 1930s.

One of the other familiar tropes derived from modern cosmology is time travel, a topic rarely
dealt with in ‘Star Trek’, in spite of the regular use of faster‐than‐light travel. There is now
a considerable literature which draws on Gerald Feinberg’s 1967 paper ‘Possibility of faster‐
than‐light particles’, which proposed the existence of the tachyon [45]. This hypothetical par-
ticle, the tachyon, might as Martin Rees [46], says alter the order of events, if a signal from a
tachyon arrived before it was sent. The genre’s earliest notable example was Wells’ novel ‘The
Time Machine’ (1895) [47]. Wells coined the phrase time machine to describe a time‐travel-
ling vehicle which moved because the fourth dimension was of time rather than space. Wells
was a utopian socialist and his main preoccupation was to explore varieties of human society,
considering whether progress inevitably resulted in human improvement: it’s clear that he
didn’t think that this was the case, and that ignorance and superstition could easily flourish
in the future. Neither does ‘Dr Who’, the most successful TV time travel franchise, explain
how it is possible to travel to the distant past or future. The time machine, the TARDIS (short
for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space), is bigger inside than outside and references
Einstein by referencing relativity in its name. The Doctor himself is increasingly represented
as a lonely figure, destined to exist in perpetual sadness caused by the death or departure of
his companions.
The concept of alienation is developed by Alan Lightman in his ‘Einstein’s Dreams’ [48],
a journal set in 1905—the ‘annus mirabilis’ when Einstein developed the theory of Special
Relativity. Lightman’s character experiences the alienation of a world in which any particu-
lar point in space‐time is delicate, temporary and liable to vanish, an ‘exile in time’ [48]. In
a later entry, Lightman’s diarist writes ‘There is a place where time stands still. Raindrops
hang motionless in air. Pendulums of clocks float mid‐swing’ [49]. At the centre of space‐time
nothing moves. The concept that all time exists simultaneously actually has a long lineage. It
is central to Plato’s cosmology, occurs in the Bible (Ecclesiastes 3.15), and was elaborated by
St. Augustine (V.9) in the fifth century [50]. He described a universal paradox whereby even
if a future event in our individual lives already exists, it depends on an act of our free‐will in
order to take place. T.S. Elliot, impressed by Einstein, combined the lessons of relativity with
 The Importance of Cosmology in Culture: Contexts and Consequences 11
http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/67976

Plato, Ecclesiastes and Augustine. Following Einstein’s English visit in 1921, the year he won
the Nobel Prize, Elliot wrote, ‘Einstein the Great has visited England (and) has taken his place
in the newspapers with the comet, the sunspots, the poisonous xxx‐jellyfish and octopus at
Margate, and other natural phenomena’ [51].

In two poems composed in the 1930s, and published in 1941–1942, Elliot considered the
conundrum of time for the human condition. In ‘Burnt Norton’ he wrote that ‘All time is
unredeemable’, for if the past exists in the future and the future exists in the past, all possibili-
ties are eternally present, and in ‘East Coker’ he wrote the famous line ‘In my beginning is
my end’ [52]. Elliot’s speculations on time were shared by Priestly in such metaphysical plays
as ‘Time and the Conways’ (1937) and, perhaps his most famous work, ‘An Inspector Calls’
(1947), in which a detective from the future extracts confessions of guilt for a poor girl’s sui-
cide from a comfortable middle class family. Priestley’s immediate inspiration was Dunne’s
[53] work on time, which drew on Einstein (a cautiously supportive note was included by
Arthur Eddington in the appendix to the third edition) in order to explain why the future
could be predicted by precognition.

The popular end of such speculation is best represented by the collected works of Philip
K. Dick (1928–1982). Like Elliot, Dick was inspired by ancient philosophy and modern sci-
ence, especially the conclusions of quantum mechanics as expressed in Heisenberg’s uncer-
tainty principle and Erwin Schrȍdinger’s famous thought‐experiment with the cat (1935),
ideas responsible for modern multi‐verse theory. If one cannot tell both where a particle is
and where it is travelling to, whether it is even a particle at all (or a wave), and how far the
act of observing it has altered its state, how can one ever trust what appears to be real. For
example, in the ‘The Cosmic Puppets’ (1957), an ordinary suburban couple return to their
hometown after a gap of several years to find that everyone and everything has changed, and
nobody recognises them. The novel then shifts into a traditional religious mode, located in
the Zoroastrian (Persian) struggle between the good god Ormazd and his evil rival Ahriman.
Eventually Ormazd triumphs, the illusory world created by Ahriman is removed, and reality
returns. In Dick’s award‐winning counter‐factual history, ‘The Man in the High Castle’ (1962),
the ability of the observer to act on—and change—the material world is described via the lead
characters’ use of the Chinese oracle, the I Ching, to alter the future.

Dick’s intensity is absent from the most whimsical of recent cosmological fiction, that of Italo
Calvino (1923–1985). Calvino took cosmological ideas and exaggerated them until they were
absurd. His short story, ‘The Form of Space’ (2002), points out that if one fell in curved space,
one would logically fall for ever, while ‘the Distance of the Moon’ imagines a time in the dis-
tant past when the Moon was closer to the Earth, close enough for people to jump up to it and
gather such delicacies as Moon‐milk.

7. The visual arts

Representations of the sky, stars or cosmos in visual form date back to the Stone Age
and are familiar throughout the ancient world. They may be symbolic, as in Egyptian
12 Trends in Modern Cosmology

astronomical‐ceilings, or take on human form, as in Roman images of planetary deities.

Later they might be decorative, as in Renaissance star maps, or attempt accuracy, as in
modern star maps, or be entirely abstract, as in twentieth century surrealism. The Sun and
Moon make regular appearances in western painting, as one would expect. The cosmo-
logical statements, though, are often simple. Often the Sun and Moon are poetic additions,
symbolising time or heaven in medieval and Renaissance art, casting light or embody-
ing the power of nature, and even serve as political satire in the nineteenth century [54].
Cosmological changes encouraged the new spirit: the philosopher Berlin [55] argued that
the astronomical revolution’s abandonment of the old crystalline planetary spheres in
favour of a universe without boundaries encouraged the emergence of the chaos and
adventurism of Romantic art. Painting began the shift towards the abstract with the
extraordinary work of Joseph Turner, who drew on both esoteric wisdom and the latest
science in his portrayal of light [56, 57]. Perhaps the most famous example of nineteenth
century astronomical art is van Gogh’s 1889 masterpiece ‘The Starry Night’, a painting
partly inspired by the pre‐dawn rising of Venus, but easily interpreted as representing the
swirling chaos of van Gogh’s inner world.

The relationship between modern art movements and science is complicated by many artists’
multiple affiliations. For example, many notable early twentieth century painters were followers
of Theosophy, a spiritual teaching highly indebted to Plato, Renaissance alchemy and Freudian
psychoanalysis, all of which could deal with unseen realities and the interdependence of all things
in the cosmos. It is therefore not easy to distinguish scientific influences on twentieth art from mys-
tical or magic ones and it is up to art historians to interpret [58]. However, it is clear that the new
physics encouraged the move towards radical, abstract forms of expression. Heisenberg’s uncer-
tainty principle appears to have supported the playful, apparently chaotic, practices of Dada, in
which nothing is quite as it seems. When Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) displayed a urinal in 1917
he was making a radical statement that, if art is not what one imagines it is, neither is anything else.

André Breton (1896–1966), the poet and author of the Surrealist Manifesto, singled out
Einstein (along with Freud) as significant in 1922. J.W. Dunne’s adaptation of Einstein to pre-
cognition and psychology was popular with the surrealists, as it as with Priestley. That the
observer stands at the centre of time and space, as popular conceptions of relativity and quan-
tum mechanics assume, underpins the playful juxtaposition of images and ideas, sense and
nonsense, which runs through the entire history of modern abstract and conceptual art. When
Joan Miro paints a picture such as ‘Dog barking at the Moon’ (1926), he is alluding to ideas
that the Moon makes one mad— lunatic—as well as departing significantly from naturalism,
but also raising a smile.

A separate strand of painting drew on mathematical conceptions of the universe, as did

Duchamp’s earlier painting ‘Nude Descending a Staircase’ (1912), or Man Ray’s (1890–1976)
geometrical models, such as ‘Polyèdres’ (1934–1936). The distinctive angular lines of Picasso’s
painting were also decisively influenced by the idea of multi‐dimensional mathematics as
explained by Miller [59]. By contrast, the whirling lines in Max Ernst’s ‘…sur le plan de la
Physique’ (1943) evoke the spinning of atoms. And for Klee [60], writing in 1920, movement
in painting was essential because everything in the universe is characterised by motion.
 The Importance of Cosmology in Culture: Contexts and Consequences 13
http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/67976

Perhaps the most famous portrayals of the new physics are Salvador Dali’s (1904–1989) paint-
ings of bent clocks as representations of distorted space‐time, as in ‘The Persistence of the
Disintegration of Memory’ (1952).

8. Space flight

It is well understood that the photographs of the whole Earth taken by the Apollo astronauts
encouraged concepts of the global village, a world devoid of racial divisions, religious schism
and political boundaries [61, 62]. The first major use of the Apollo photographs was on the
cover of the first Whole Earth Catalogue in 1968, placed there by the editor, political activist
Stewart Brand. Subsequently, the photographs became an inspiration for the emerging envi-
ronmental movement.

Since 1968/1969 we have been able to look down on our sky from space. The euphoric conse-
quences of this experience, still enjoyed by a few hundred people, was named the ‘Overview
Effect’ by Frank White in 1987 [63]. Interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s iPM programme on 25 May
2013, the astronaut Geoff Hoffman described his own experience of the effect [64]. He recalled
the strange sensation of looking down at the Earth, watching the terrestrial sky from above
instead of from below, witnessing the flash of lightning storms and streaks of light as meteors
plunged into the atmosphere. He saw the world as one, drawing salutary ecological lessons
from the visible deforestation of tropical areas. Inspired by the ethereal nature of the Earth’s
halo, Hoffman hesitated to use the word ‘spiritual’, put to him by his interviewer in a leading
question, but was happy to describe the condition he experienced on his mission as being a
‘state of grace’, words which he said had been suggested to him by a Jesuit priest. Shamans,
Pharaohs and Platonic souls may have seen the Earth in their imaginations, but astronauts
experience it physically.

The ‘Overview Effect’ has been institutionalised in the Overview Institute, whose purpose is to
utilise the Effect for the common good. The Institute’s apocalyptic and utopian agenda draws
a direct connection between the experience of space travel and the need to save the Earth: ‘We
live at a critical moment in human history. The challenges of climate change, food, water and
energy shortages as well as the increasing disparity between the developed and developing
nations are testing our will to unite, while differences in religions, cultures, and politics con-
tinue to keep us apart. The creation of a ‘global village’ through satellite TV and the Internet is
still struggling to connect the world into one community. At this critical moment, our greatest
need is for a global vision of planetary unity and purpose for humanity as a whole’ [65]. In this
sense, the institute completes the earlier visions of Virginia Woolf and Stewart Brand.

9. Conclusion

Modern scientific cosmology needs to be valued not just for what it tells us about the universe,
but for how what it tells us informs the ways that people think and behave in wider culture. A
14 Trends in Modern Cosmology

number of themes emerge, including the vastness of space as a metaphor for loneliness and inse-
curity, and the new physics as a source of freedom and adventure. Scientific cosmology’s wider
significance needs to be more widely acknowledged, for modern society still benefits from ‘com-
plex subsystems of cosmic exchange’ between scientists —cosmologists—and the general public.

Author details

Nicholas Campion

Address all correspondence to: n.campion@tsd.uwtsd.ac.uk

University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Swansea, Wales, UK

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