• Reclaiming cosmology as a wisdom tradition

• Why we need cosmology (a functional cosmology)?

• Turning to the UNIVERSE for answers to our deep questions

• An empirical wisdom tradition that’s not dogmatic
A wisdom tradition that the whole species can share

In my mind, the most tragic aspect of the story of emergence is that it treats the appearance of humans and the miracle of self-reflective consciousness as meaningless accidents. According to that narrative, life and consciousness are simply the result of random collisions among inert atoms, and as a result, there is no purpose to human existence, and no meaning to the cosmos as a whole. From my perspective, this view of existence is utterly devastating — both on the individual and collective levels. As Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry have pointed out, it’s impossible to face the immense challenges of life constructively without a sense of how our efforts — and our sufferings — contribute meaningfully to something beyond ourselves. Along similar lines, Nietzsche noted that humans can endure almost anything, as long as they know why their suffering matters.
For Swimme and Berry, this fact elucidates why humans require a coherent and meaningful cosmology. Without a clear sense of our role in the universe, they argue, we cannot marshal the energy required to participate synergistically in the cosmic community. Echoing this point, James Hillman claims that humanity’s survival now requires us to revision our relationship with the anima mundi — the world soul:

Ecology movements, futurism, feminism, urbanism, protest and disarmament, personal individuation cannot alone save the world from the catastrophe inherent in our very idea of the world. They require a cosmological vision that saves the phenomenon ‘world’ itself, a move in soul that goes beyond measures of expediency to the archetypal source of our world’s continuing peril: the fateful neglect, the repression, of the anima mundi.

If we cannot bring the soul back into our view of the cosmos, Hillman argues, we will destroy both ourselves and the planet. With this in mind, I’d like to end our exploration by considering how our oroboric framework might help us move towards a relationship with an ensouled cosmos.

I want to begin by acknowledging that science as a worldview has been enormously powerful. Not just as a tool of increased control, but also as a catalyst for the deepening of psyche. And of cosmos too. As a result of science, the cosmos can now appreciate its own depth in completely new ways. We are the species that showed the universe its own baby picture. It was also science that allowed humanity to pull itself out of blind servitude to superstitions. Aristotle declared in 400 BCE that heavier objects fall faster than light ones (they more badly want to be close to the center of the earth). Because of the blinding effects of ‘authority,’ however, it took almost two THOUSAND years for someone to actually test that out. That’s a long time.

GALILEO: You’re welcome.

• [Evidence vs. Metaphysics]
At the same time, we want to distinguish between the revelations of science (evidence) and the worldview of science (metaphysics). This can be expressed as the difference between science as METHOD and science as a WORLDVIEW. Our suggestion is that they are not the same, and that we need to be careful about scientific evangelists who claim that that they are—that believing in the power of science’s method REQUIRES us to assent to its metaphysical conclusions. In contrast to this view, which treats science’s reigning metaphysics as unavoidable conclusions of its data, I want to suggest that it’s essential to tease these two apart. In fact, I believe that science’s unquestioned metaphysical commitments block it from really taking in ITS OWN revelations seriously. That’s a big part of why we want to dig into those metaphysical allegiances.

• [Intro]
As we’ve already mentioned, our dominant scientific worldview denies the existence of any meaning outside the human world. We are told that truth unfortunately doesn’t leave room for cosmic meaning, or for any coherence between our individual human lives and the evolving cosmos.

APEX 6M: If you want meaning, feel free to believe in Santa Claus, or some other bearded man in the sky who watches—and judges—everything you do.

In this section, we’ll argue that the meaningless of the universe is not a necessary consequence of the scientific revelation. Rather, it’s the consequence of a particular INTERPRETATION of the empirical evidence— data filtered through a particular worldview. Like most worldviews, science masks this fact by pretending its particular interpretation is the only one that’s valid (and, to a large extent, the only one that’s even POSSIBLE). With this in mind, let’s see if we can start to pull back the curtain on our dominant worldview.

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