Astronomy

18 ASTRONOMY • JUNE 2018

I

n his last book, The

Discarded Image: An

Introduction to Medieval

and Renaissance Literature,

C.S. Lewis explores how

Europeans before the Scientific

Revolution thought about the

world. Rather than intellec-

tual creativity, Lewis relates,

medieval Europe was all about

wrapping up the elements of its

culture into a nice, clean, tidy

package: “At his most charac-

teristic, medieval man was not

a dreamer nor a wanderer. He

was an organizer, a codifier, a

builder of systems.” Lewis went

so far as to jokingly say, “Of all

our modern inventions I sus-

pect that they would most have

admired the card index.”

It would be wrong to mistake

Lewis’ humor for derision. On

the contrary, Lewis found the

medieval world and its mindset

captivating. Reading Lewis’s

The Chronicles of Narnia, it’s

hard to escape the feeling that

something was lost as the medi-

eval world gave way to the mod-

ern. Lewis appreciated the

appeal of a clearly articulated

and universally accepted con-

ception of the world. He under-

stood the power of what he

called “the medieval synthesis

itself, the whole organization

of their theology, science and

history into a single complex,

harmonious mental model of

the universe.”

That “model” of which Lewis

spoke was far more than a liter-

ary device. Every question had

an answer, and that answer was

to be found by appealing to

authority. Such a feeling of cer-

tainty comforts a place deep

within us. As I’ve discussed in

earlier columns, we can’t even

perceive the world without a

FORYOURCONSIDERATION

BY JEFF HESTER

Narnia fading

The slow twilight of medieval thought.

mental model into which things,

including ourselves, fit. And

once we latch onto a mental

model of the world, we hold on

for dear life.

Therein lies the rub. Within a

single lifetime we have learned

more about life, the universe,

and what it is to be human than

our ancestors could have begun

to imagine. Much of that is radi-

cally different from what our

medieval ancestors would have

considered certain knowledge.

Today, science sees humans as

part of a universe vast and

ancient beyond what we will ever

feel in our guts, but not beyond

the reach of our rational minds

to explore. There are roughly a

trillion galaxies in the part of the

universe that we can see, each

consisting of tens or hundreds of

billions of stars. Quoting Douglas

Adams from The Hitchhiker’s

Guide to the Galaxy: “Space is

big. Really big. You just won’t

believe how vastly, hugely, mind-

bogglingly big it is. I mean, you

may think it’s a long way down

the road to the chemist, but that’s

just peanuts to space!”

Even at that, the universe we

can observe is still only a tiny

bubble within a far larger uni-

verse, which itself may be only

one of a potentially infinite

number of universes. While not

(yet?) a statement of scientific

knowledge, many see modern

physics and cosmology as point-

ing inevitably toward a multi-

verse in which all possibilities

play themselves out, each as real

as the others.

All of that can be hard to

take in or to stomach, even for

scientists. Erwin Schrödinger,

who helped lay the foundation

of quantum mechanics, was

appalled by the success of his

own work. His eponymous cat

was intended not as an illustra-

tion of the counterintuitive

nature of quantum mechanics

so much as an expression of his

horror at the theory’s implica-

tions. “I don’t like it, and I’m

sorry I ever had anything to do

with it!” he said.

But regardless of the hand-

wringing, Schrödinger’s horri-

fying theory does a truly

remarkable job of telling us how

reality behaves. What remains

as hard, objective fact is that

quantum mechanics has never

made an incorrect prediction. In

a post-medieval world, objective

facts beat Schrödinger’s unease

hands down.

Which brings us back to C.S.

Lewis. In The Chronicles of

Narnia, Peter, Susan, Edmund,

and Lucy are torn between the

magical land of Narnia and the

hard realities of wartime

Britain. That storyline echoes

today’s tension between Lewis’

harmonious but profoundly

f lawed medieval model of the

universe and an ever more suc-

cessful schema that shatters the

very foundations of traditional

concepts. On the one hand, we

long for certainty and the easy

comfort of prepackaged

answers. On the other hand,

we are challenged to set aside

cherished notions, accept

uncertainty as a precondition

of knowledge, and repudiate

time-honored authority in def-

erence to objective evidence.

It is little wonder that transi-

tion is difficult! In his autobi-

ography, Max Planck observed,

“A new scientific truth does not

triumph by convincing its

opponents and making them

see the light, but rather because

its opponents eventually die.”

Cultural echoes of medieval

thought remain strong, even

today. But as they surrender

their hold, a new harmonious

model of the universe — beau-

tiful, elegant, and emotionally

satisfying in its own right — is

finding form and voice.

BROWSE THE “FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION” ARCHIVE AT http://www.Astronomy.com/Hester.

This image

of Jesus of

Nazareth from

the Irish Book

of Kells dates

from the late

eighth century.

In some ways,

world culture

has never

moved beyond

a medieval

world model

of the universe,

although long

ago scientific

knowledge left

it far behind.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Jeff Hester is a keynote speaker,

coach, and astrophysicist.

Follow his thoughts at

jeff-hester.com.