42 Base Questions on Cosmology — Jochen Kirchhoff

1 Are we homeless wanderers in a meaningless, monstrous universe, or does our existence have a (cosmic) meaning — do we perhaps even bear a cosmic responsibility of some kind? Worldview ▸

Koran, Sure 23:115 (Al-Mu’minun): «Glaubt ihr denn, dass Wir euch zum sinnlosen Spiel erschaffen haben und dass ihr nicht zu Uns zurückgebracht werdet?» Bhagavad Gita 16:8: «Die Dämonischen sagen: Die Welt ist ohne Wahrheit, ohne Grundlage, ohne einen Gott. Sie ist durch gegenseitige Vereinigung entstanden und hat keine andere Ursache als die Lust.»

2 Why does the sun shine? How does its steady, continuous flow of light come about? The standard model of the sun, which imagines it as a thermonuclear cauldron, gives no truly satisfying answer. Light ▸

3 Is there, alongside ‘physical’ light, a spiritual light — or are both identical, merely different expressions of the one light? What does the experience of enlightenment have to do with sunlight? Light ▸

4 Why are things heavy? What is gravitation? (Neither Newton nor Einstein provides an answer.) Why can gravitation not be shielded? Why does it resist all quantization? How fast are gravitational effects? Gravitation ▸

5 Is there such a thing as anti-gravitation? Is the ‘gravitational constant’ really constant (much points rather to a variable)? Is there electro-gravitation? Gravitation ▸

6 Why do atomic/subatomic particles move? Is atomic motion perhaps constant energy consumption, constant energy transformation? And if so, from where: from the vacuum, space energy, the sea of aether? Aether ▸

7 Does the (frequently declared dead) aether exist after all? Was the interpretation of the Michelson-Morley experiments premature (especially since their results are by no means certain)? Aether ▸

8 How do electrons know about each other (in the sense of Pauli’s exclusion principle, but also the paradoxes of the double-slit experiment)? What is an electron? Aether ▸

9 What are the fields of physics, but also those of biology or consciousness? Is there only one field (a kind of primal field), or are there several ontologically different fields? Can a consciousness field influence the gravitational field? Aether ▸

10 Is space empty? If not, what does it contain? Is this field space itself, or is it merely located in space? Is the sought-after aether this universal energy field, and how is it structured? Space ▸

11 Why does everything not collapse into itself — which should happen if classical mass attraction, applied to an unlimited universe, were reality? Gravitation ▸

12 Why can living systems transmute elements? Does quantum theory even apply in a blooming rose or a living human body, or do entirely different, still unknown laws govern here? Life ▸

13 Why can plants perceive the feelings and intentions of humans connected to them? Life ▸

14 Can space be bounded? Must it not be actually and really infinite? Space ▸

15 How is morphogenesis to be explained? What is form (Platonic idea, Aristotelian entelechy, mere structure, morphic field, or what)? Life ▸

16 How do we explain out-of-body experiences? Do mind, consciousness, and selfhood exist outside any bodily context? Life ▸

17 How many dimensions does time have? Space ▸

18 How many dimensions does space have? (Oswald Spengler already points out that intuitive space has only one dimension: unboundable depth.) Space ▸

19 What is colour? How many qualitatively different colours are there? Light ▸

20 Why do the celestial bodies move? (Conventional physics has no causal theory of motion.) Stars ▸

21 Is there a world soul? Is it infinite like cosmic space? How do world-aether and world-soul relate? Worldview ▸

22 How many levels of being and reality does the cosmos have? What rank do the physical-sensory, the energetic, the mental, and the causal worlds hold? Life ▸

23 Is there a hitherto unexplored factor in matter itself that allows for something like freedom or free will? Is the possibility of freedom already given in matter? Life ▸

24 How many bodies does a human being have? What ontological rank does the separable doppelgänger body or the dream body hold? Life ▸

25 What is energy? What kinds and levels of energy exist? Do concepts like Chi, Prana, or Orgone point to the same thing? Are there hierarchies? Aether ▸

26 What role do sounds play in the architecture of the world? Is there a cosmic source of music? Stars ▸

27 Why is the Big Bang so popular? How could it happen that the primordial explosion lodged itself in the heads and hearts of countless people? Does this perhaps relate to the explosive layers of the psyche? How projective are cosmologies? Epistemology ▸

28 What does infinite space have to do with death? Worldview ▸

29 Is the Earth a typical celestial body in the universe or rather an atypical one? Is it the rule or rather the exception? Stars ▸

30 How much reality do we grant the universe? Is it more than a fantastic, unimaginably arching backdrop? How much Sun, how much Sirius, how much Aldebaran is in us? Worldview ▸

31 Is the cosmos indifferent to our happiness and suffering? Worldview ▸

32 What would it mean for us if we knew that we are surrounded by countless inhabited, living celestial bodies? Worldview ▸

33 Do we seriously believe in an immensity filled with countless thermonuclear hells in the form of glowing gas spheres? What existential relevance does this have for us? Epistemology ▸

34 If we assume a world creator, how intelligent do we consider him? Or is there a rather malicious demiurge, while the 'good God' is not the creator of the world at all? Worldview ▸

35 How real are those objects, phenomena, or appearances that are considered UFOs? Epistemology ▸

36 How real are transpersonal or holotropic experiences? Life ▸

37 Is terrestrial intelligence capable of looking behind the 'masks of the universe'? Epistemology ▸

38 How 'cosmic' is the self? Or is it an illusion altogether? Worldview ▸

39 What does (would) our cosmic identity consist of? Worldview ▸

40 Do the celestial bodies know of God? Do they move in 'his light'? Or do they tumble around each other in a godless night? Stars ▸

41 What are so-called laws of nature, and why is the sensory world so 'tightly fastened' while the psychic, spiritual world seems so fluctuating? Epistemology ▸

42 What carries the Earth, what carries Sirius, what carries the Sun in space? Is it space itself, or fields that envelop and permeate the celestial bodies? Gravitation ▸