Cosmology of Giordano Bruno: predecessors and followers

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

February 17, 1950 marked the three hundred and fifty years since the burning of Giordano Bruno. This memorable date for all progressive mankind gives grounds in a short article to recall the main features of the cosmological views of the great man and martyr of materialistic science, and also to fluently tell about some modern confirmations of his brilliant scientific predictions.

Who kindled the spirit, who gave me the lightness of wings? Who eliminated the fear of death or fate? Who smashed the target, who opened wide the Gates that only a few have opened? For centuries, years, weeks, days, or hours (Your weapon, time!) - Diamond and steel will not hold back their flow, but I am not subject to their cruel force from now on. From here I aspire upward, full of faith. The crystal of heaven is no longer a barrier to me, Cutting them open, I will rise to infinity. And while everything in other spheres I penetrate through the ether field, Below - to others I leave Milky.

J. Bruno. Sonnet before the dialogues "About infinity, the universe and the worlds." 1584 (translated by V. A. Eshchina).

Filippo Bruno was born in 1548 into the family of the soldier Giovanni Bruno. At the place of his birth (the city of Nola near Naples), he later received the nickname Nolanets. At the age of 11 he was brought to Naples to study literature, logic and dialectics. In 1563, at the age of 15, Filippo entered the local monastery of St. Dominic, where in 1565 he became a monk and received a new name - Giordano.

But Bruno's monastic life did not work out. For doubts about the sanctity of the sacrament (Eucharist) and the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, he incurred suspicions of unreliability. In addition, he took the icons out of his cell, leaving only the Crucifixion - an unheard-of violation of the traditions of that time. The authorities had to start an investigation into his behavior. Without waiting for the results, Bruno first fled to Rome, but considering this place not safe enough, he moved to the north of Italy. Here he began to teach for a living. Without staying in one place for a long time, Giordano gradually moved to Europe.

In France, King Henry III of France, who was present at one of his lectures, drew attention to Bruno, who was impressed by the knowledge and memory of the speaker. He invited Bruno to the court and granted him a few years (until 1583) peace and safety, and later gave letters of recommendation for a trip to England.

At first, the 35-year-old philosopher lived in London, and then in Oxford, but after a quarrel with local professors he again moved to London, where he published a number of works, among which one of the main ones - "On the Infinity of the Universe and Worlds" (1584). In England, Giordano Bruno unsuccessfully tried to convince the dignitaries of the Elizabethan kingdom of the truth of Copernicus's ideas, according to which the Sun, and not the Earth, is at the center of the planetary system.

Despite the patronage of the supreme power of England, two years later, in 1585, he was forced to actually flee to France, then to Germany, where he, too, was soon forbidden to lecture.

In 1591 Bruno accepted an invitation from the young Venetian aristocrat Giovanni Mocenigo to study the art of memory and moved to Venice.

It should be noted that Bruno was considered a connoisseur of the art of memory. He wrote a book on the mnemonic technique "On the Shadows of Ideas" and "Song of Circe". This was the reason for the choice of a noble aristocrat.

However, soon the relationship between Bruno and Mocenigo soured. On May 23, 1593, Mocenigo sent his first denunciation to Bruno to the Venetian inquisitor, in which he wrote:

“I, Giovanni Mocenigo, report to my duty of conscience and by order of my confessor, which I heard many times from Giordano Bruno when I talked with him in my house, that the world is eternal and there are endless worlds … that Christ performed imaginary miracles and was a magician, that Christ did not die of his own free will and, as best he could, tried to avoid death; that there is no retribution for sins, that souls are created by nature; pass from one being to another. He talked about his intention to become the founder of a new sect called "New Philosophy." He said that the Virgin Mary could not give birth; monks dishonor the world; that they are all donkeys; that we have no proof of whether our faith has merit before God."

On May 25 and May 26, 1592, Mocenigo sent new denunciations against Bruno, after which the philosopher was arrested and imprisoned. The investigation began.

On September 17, Rome received a demand from Venice to extradite Bruno for trial in Rome. The public influence of the accused, the number and nature of the heresies of which he was suspected, were so great that the Venetian Inquisition did not dare to end this process itself.

On February 27, 1593, Bruno was transported to Rome, where he spent six long years in various prisons.

On January 20, 1600, Pope Clement VIII approved the decision of the congregation and ordered the transfer of Brother Giordano into the hands of the secular authorities.

On February 9, the Inquisition Tribunal, by its verdict, recognized Bruno as "an unrepentant stubborn and unyielding heretic." Bruno was defrocked and excommunicated. He was handed over to the court of the governor of Rome, instructing to subject him to "the most merciful punishment and without shedding blood", which meant the requirement to be burned alive.

At that time, such an execution was widespread since, according to the Catholic Church, the flame was a means of "cleansing" and could save the soul of the condemned.

In response to the verdict, Bruno said to the judges: "Probably, you pass my verdict with greater fear than I listen to," and repeated several times - "Burning does not mean refuting!"

By the decision of a secular court on February 17, 1600, Bruno was burnt to death in Rome in the Piazza di Flowers. The executioners brought Bruno to the place of execution with a gag in his mouth, tied him to a pole in the center of the fire with an iron chain and pulled him with a wet rope, which, under the influence of fire, pulled together and cut into the body. Bruno's last words were: "I am dying as a martyr willingly, but I also know that my soul will ascend to heaven with its last breath."

When they dealt with the great heretic, they took up his labors. For many years, Giordano Bruno's works were included in the Catholic Index of Forbidden Books and were there until the last edition in 1948.

Cosmology before Bruno

With all the variety of cosmological views that developed in the era preceding the activities of Giordano Bruno, they were characterized by a number of common features that distinguish them from modern ideas about the structure of the Universe:

1. The existence of the center of the world.

In the geocentric system of the world inherited from the Greeks, the Earth was the central body in the Universe. In the heliocentric system of the world - the sun. In both systems, these bodies played the role of a fixed reference point relative to which all movements are measured. These views have been challenged by some thinkers. First of all, by the ancient atomists, who considered the Earth only the center of our world, but not the entire infinite Universe, in which there is an infinite number of other worlds. However, these views did not survive late antiquity and did not spread in the Middle Ages.

2. The finiteness of the world, which has its own boundaries.

In antiquity and the Middle Ages, the world was considered finite and limited. It was assumed that the border of the world can be directly observed - this is the sphere of fixed stars.

The subject of controversy was the question of what is outside the world: Peripatetics, following Aristotle, believed that there is nothing outside the world (neither matter nor space), the Stoics believed that there is an infinite empty space, atomists believed that outside our world there are other worlds.

At the end of antiquity, the religious and mystical doctrine of Hermeticism appeared, according to which the realm of immaterial beings - deities, spirits and demons - can be outside the world. So, in one of the works attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "Asclepius", it is said:

"As for the space outside the world (if it exists at all, which I do not believe in), then it should, in my opinion, be filled with intelligent beings representing its divinity, so that the sensory world is full of living beings."

3. The existence of the celestial spheres.

After Aristotle, most ancient astronomers believed that the planets in their motion are carried by material spheres, consisting of a special celestial element - ether; the celestial spheres are set in motion by "stationary engines" or "intelligentsia" having an immaterial, spiritual nature, and the primary source of all movements in the Universe is the Prime Mover located on the border of the world.

"Fixed engines" in the Middle Ages were usually identified with angels, the Prime Mover - with God the Creator.

4. Contrasting "earthly" and "heavenly".

Many ancient Greek philosophers thought that heavenly bodies were composed of the same matter found on Earth. Some Pythagoreans (Philolaus of Crotonsky and others) considered the Earth to be one of the planets revolving around the Central Fire - the center of the Universe. However, since late antiquity, Aristotle's point of view has become widespread, according to which the celestial spheres consist of a special element - ether, the properties of which have nothing to do with the elements of earth, water, air and fire that make up the "sublunary world." In particular, weight or lightness is not inherent in the ether, by its nature it makes only uniform circular movements around the center of the world, it is eternal and unchanging.

This point of view dominated in the Middle Ages, both among the scholars of the Islamic and Christian countries. Although in the writings of some of them the line between "earthly" and "heavenly" turned out to be rather blurred.

5. The uniqueness of our world.

Some ancient thinkers expressed an opinion about the existence of other worlds beyond the borders of our world. However, since late antiquity, the opinion of Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics has dominated that our world (with the Earth in the center, bounded by the sphere of fixed stars) is the only one.

Discussion about the logical consequences of the existence of other worlds unfolded among European scholastics at the end of the 13th-14th centuries. Nevertheless, this possibility was considered purely hypothetical, although the infinitely almighty God could create other worlds, but did not.

Although some thinkers considered it possible to abandon one or more of these provisions, the whole system of these postulates as a whole remained unshakable. The main merit of Giordano Bruno in cosmology is the creation of a new picture of the world, in which the rejection of each of these provisions is carried out.

Basic principles of Bruno's cosmology

1. A world without a center.

Apparently, Bruno came to the idea of the possibility of the Earth's movement in his youth, as a result of the study of ancient authors who mentioned such a possibility. He developed his own "theory", according to which the Sun revolves around the Earth in the equatorial plane, while the Earth makes a daily rotation around its axis and at the same time annual oscillations along the same axis.

Later, having read Copernicus's book On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres, he became a zealous promoter of heliocentrism. His dialogue "A Feast on Ashes" is one of the first published works dedicated to the propaganda and understanding of the new world.

Bruno carried his admiration for the great Polish astronomer throughout his life. But this did not prevent Bruno from criticizing Copernicus for the fact that he knew "mathematics more than nature": according to Bruno, Copernicus did not think enough about the physical consequences of his theory. In particular, Copernicus still considered the stars to be on the same, and material, sphere, in which there was no need for a heliocentric system.

In addition, Bruno considered the absolute immobility of the Sun, postulated by Copernicus, to be incorrect. According to Giordano, the sun can rotate on its axis. In his work "On the immeasurable and incalculable", he suggested that the Sun also performs translational motion: both the Earth and the Sun move around the center of the planetary system, with the Earth in the equatorial plane (not the ecliptic), and the Sun in an inclined circle. The addition of these two motions gives in the geocentric frame of reference the apparent motion of the Sun along the ecliptic. Being rather weak in geometry, Bruno did not engage in the mathematical development of this model.

In numerous disputes, Bruno had to refute the arguments against the movement of the Earth, put forward by scientists of the time. Some of them are purely physical in nature. So, the standard argument of the proponents of the immobility of the Earth was that on a rotating Earth, a stone falling from a tall tower would not be able to fall to its base. The rapid movement of the Earth would leave him far behind - in the west. In response, Bruno in the dialogue "Feast on Ashes" gives an example with the movement of a ship: "If the above logic, characteristic of Aristotle's supporters, were correct, it would follow that when the ship sails on the sea, then no one would ever be able to pull something in a straight line from one end to the other, and it would have been impossible to make a jump up and again stand with your feet in the place from which you jumped. This means that all things on Earth move with the Earth."

Other arguments of the opponents of heliocentrism related to the contradiction of the Earth's rotation with the text of Holy Scripture. To this, Bruno replied that the Bible is written in a language understandable to ordinary people, and if its authors gave clear formulations from a scientific point of view, it would not be able to fulfill its main, religious mission:

“In many cases it is foolish and inappropriate to bring a lot of reasoning more in accordance with the truth than in accordance with the given case and convenience. For example, if instead of the words: "The sun is born and rises, passes through noon and leans towards Aquilon" - the sage said: "The earth goes in a circle to the East and, leaving the sun, which is setting, bends towards the two tropics, from Cancer to the South, from Capricorn to Aquilon "- then the listeners would start thinking:" How? Does he say the earth is moving? What is this news? " After all, they would think him a fool, and he really would be a fool."

The question of the contradiction between heliocentrism and Holy Scripture was also raised at the trial of Bruno.

2. Infinite Universe.

In medieval cosmology, as the main argument in favor of the finiteness of the world, the argument "from the opposite", belonging to Aristotle, was used: if the Universe were infinite, then the daily rotation of the firmament would occur with infinite speed. Giordano Bruno rejected this thesis by referring to the heliocentric system, in which the rotation of the firmament is only a reflection of the Earth's rotation around the axis, therefore, nothing prevents the Universe from being considered infinite.

“The sky, therefore, is one, immeasurable space, the bosom of which contains everything, the etheric region in which everything runs and moves. It contains innumerable stars, constellations, balls, suns and earths, sensuously perceived; with our mind we conclude about an infinite number of others. The immeasurable, infinite Universe is made up of this space and the bodies contained in it … There is an infinite field and a vast space that encompasses everything and penetrates everything. There are innumerable bodies similar to ours, of which none is more in the center of the universe than the other, for the universe is infinite, and therefore it has no center or "edge".

3. Destruction of the celestial spheres.

In the dialogue "On Infinity, the Universe and the Worlds" Bruno supplements the astronomical arguments in favor of the infinity of the Universe with peculiar theological arguments.

The first of them is the principle of completeness: from the infinite omnipotence of God it follows that the universe created by him is also infinite. Bruno's second argument is the principle of lack of sufficient reason, also in the theological version: God had no reason to create worlds in one place and not to create them in another. In this case, infinity is also used as an attribute of God, but not so much in the form of his infinite omnipotence, but in the form of his infinite goodness: since divine goodness is infinite, the number of worlds is also infinite.

According to Bruno, God not only could create an endless world, but also had to do it - because this will further increase his greatness.

Another argument of the ancient supporters of the infinity of the Universe is also given: the argument of Archit of Tarentum about a person stretching out a hand or a stick at the edge of the Universe. The assumption of the impossibility of this seems to Bruno ridiculous, therefore, the Universe has no boundaries, that is, infinite.

Additional argumentation in favor of the infinity of the universe is given in the dialogue "On the cause, the beginning and the one", devoted mainly to various metaphysical issues. Bruno claims that inside matter there is a certain motive principle, which he calls the "inner artist" or the World Soul; this inner principle contributes to the fact that a single matter acquires certain types, is expressed in different forms. At the same time, the Universe is practically (although not completely) identified with God. Thus, according to Bruno, there is nothing outside the world, matter, the Universe; it is not limited by anything, including in geometric terms. Therefore, the universe is infinite.

4. The collapse of the "spiritual" world

Giordano Bruno criticizes those thinkers who, considering the Universe spatially infinite, assumed the existence of another, spiritual world outside the material world. According to Bruno, the universe is one and obeys the same laws everywhere.

He proclaimed the unity of the matter of the Earth and the sky; Aristotle's "fifth element" (ether), which is not subject to any changes, does not exist.

“Consequently, those who say that these luminous bodies around us are the well-known fifth entities that have a divine nature are mistaken, therefore, the opposite of those bodies that are near us and near which we are; they are mistaken like those who would assert this about a candle or a luminous crystal, visible to us from afar."

As a result, there is nothing eternal in the Universe: planets and stars are born, change, die. In substantiating the thesis about the identity of the substance of the Earth and the sky, Bruno also cites the latest astronomical discoveries, including the establishment of the celestial nature of comets, the short duration of which clearly indicates what is happening in the Universe.

5. Other worlds.

The consequence of the fundamental identity of terrestrial and celestial matter is the homogeneity of the structure of the universe: those material structures that we see around us must exist everywhere in the universe. In particular. Planetary systems similar to the solar must exist everywhere:

"There are … innumerable suns, innumerable earths that circle their suns, just as our seven planets circle our sun."

Moreover, all these worlds can (and, moreover, should) be inhabited, like our planet. Planetary systems, and sometimes the planets themselves, Bruno called worlds. These worlds are not separated from each other by impenetrable boundaries; all that separates them is space.

Bruno was the first to believe that at least some stars are distant suns, centers of planetary systems. True, here he showed some caution, not excluding that some of the stars may be distant planets of our solar system, just their movement around the Sun is imperceptible, due to their huge distances and long periods of revolution.

The rejection of the idea of the existence of material celestial spheres, bearing the luminaries, forced Bruno to look for an alternative explanation of the cause of the celestial movements. Following the natural philosophy of that time, he believed that if a body is not set in motion by something external, then it is set in motion by its own soul; therefore, the planets and stars are living, animate beings of gigantic size. Moreover, they are endowed with intelligence. Like many other philosophers of the time, in every regularity observed in nature, Bruno saw a manifestation of some intelligence. As he said at the trial in Rome:

“That the Earth is an intelligent animal is clear from its rational and intellectual action, which can be seen in the correctness of its movement around its own center, and around the Sun, and around the axis of its poles, which correctness is impossible without the intellect rather internal and its own than external and alien.

The role of cosmology in the Bruno trial

The fate of Giordano Bruno - the trial of the Inquisition and death at the stake on February 17, 1600 - gave many historians reason to consider him a "martyr of science." But the exact reasons for the conviction of Giordano Bruno are not known with certainty. The text of the verdict says that he is charged with eight heretical provisions, but these provisions themselves (with the exception of his denial of the dogma of the Holy Sacrament) are not given.

During the Venetian phase of the trial of Bruno (1592-1593), cosmological issues were practically not touched upon, the Inquisition was limited to anti-Christian statements of the thinker (denial of the dogma of the Eucharist, the Immaculate Conception, the divine nature of Jesus Christ, etc.; his criticism of the order in the Catholic Church), from which he ultimately denied.

The religious views of Bruno were also of interest to the investigation at the Roman stage of the process (1593-1599). Bruno was also blamed for his criticism of the order in the Catholic Church and his connection with Protestant monarchs, as well as Bruno's natural philosophical and metaphysical views. All this allows modern historians to conclude that Bruno cannot be unambiguously considered a "martyr of science."

As for Bruno's unorthodox cosmological views, then on the Venetian part of the investigation, they were only discussed during the third interrogation, when Bruno presented the court with a summary of his philosophical views:

“I proclaim the existence of countless separate worlds like the world of this earth. Together with Pythagoras, I consider it a luminary, similar to the Moon, other planets, other stars, the number of which is infinite. All these celestial bodies make up countless worlds. They form an Infinite Universe in infinite space."

At the Roman stage of the tribunal, Bruno was questioned about the existence of other worlds, and he refused the demand to renounce his views. The same applies to his written replies to the tribunal's observations.

The defense of the doctrine of the plurality of worlds is also contained in the denunciations of Bruno by Mocenigo and his cellmates. The irritation that this teaching aroused in church circles can also be seen from the letter of the Jesuit to Annibale Fantoli. He's writing:

"Indeed, if there were an innumerable number of worlds, in this case, how should one interpret the Christian teaching about the atoning sacrifice of the Savior, accomplished once and for all?"

Moreover, despite the absence of a formal ban on heliocentrism, the court was also interested in Bruno's position on the motion of the Earth. The inquisitors noted the contradiction of this concept to some passages from the Holy Scriptures:

“To the text of the scriptures:“The earth stands forever,”and in another place:“The sun rises and the sun sets,”[Bruno] replied that this does not mean spatial movement or standing, but birth and destruction, that is, the earth always abides, becomes neither new nor old. - “As for the sun, I will say that it does not rise and does not set, but it seems to us that it rises and sets, for the earth revolves around its center; and they believe that it rises and sets, for the sun makes an imaginary path through the firmament, accompanied by all the stars. " And to the objection that his position contradicts the authority of the holy fathers, he replied that this contradicts their authority not insofar as they are good and holy examples, but insofar as they were to a lesser extent practical philosophers and were less attentive to natural phenomena ".

Based on these considerations, both secular and Catholic historians conclude that Bruno's cosmological ideas played a role in his condemnation.

According to the reconstruction of the Italian historian Luigi Firpo, one of the eight heretical positions of Bruno was that he "claimed the existence of many worlds and their eternity." In the opinion of this author, the issue of the Earth's motion was hardly included in these provisions, but it could have been included in the extended version of the accusation. Moreover, in religious matters, Bruno was ready to compromise with the investigation, renouncing all his anti-Christian and anti-clerical statements, and only in cosmological and natural-philosophical questions he remained adamant.

It is characteristic that when Kepler was offered to take the chair of mathematics and astronomy at the University of Padua, he refused, presenting the following reasoning:

"I was born in Germany and am used to telling the truth everywhere and always, and therefore I do not want to go to the fire like Giordano Bruno."

According to the author of one of the most serious studies of the trial of Bruno Moritz Finocchiaro, if the trial of Galileo is a conflict between science and religion, then about the trial of Bruno we can say that it represents a conflict between philosophy and religion.

Bruno's cosmology in the light of modern science

Although from a historical point of view, Bruno's cosmology must be viewed in the context of the philosophical, scientific and religious disputes of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, in popular literature it is often compared with the scientific cosmology of our time. At the same time, it turns out that the picture drawn by Bruno in many ways resembles the modern picture of the universe.

Bruno's assertion about the absence of a center and the equality of all places in the Universe are close to the modern formulations of the cosmological principle.

Back in the 17th century, science abandoned the dogma about the existence of the border of the world. The choice between cosmological models with finite and infinite space is a matter of the future, but according to modern inflationary models of the Universe, it is infinite.

The identity of the physical nature of the Sun and the stars was established as early as the 19th century.

The concept of the existence of other Universes predicted by the chaotic theory of inflation has become firmly embedded in modern cosmology. Although the laws of nature in different areas of this Multiverse should be different, all these worlds are supposed to be described by a single physical theory. The other Universes that make up the Multiverse are not observable from our world, so they are more like worlds in the cosmology of Democritus than in the cosmology of Bruno.

Contrary to Bruno's opinion, the universe as a whole, according to the Big Bang theory, is in a state of evolution. The infinity of the Universe is not contradicted by the fact of its expansion: infinity can increase!

The existence of life on other planets has not yet been confirmed, and the existence of intelligent life is being questioned.

Due to a very superficial knowledge of mathematics, Bruno believed that the Moon is not a satellite of the Earth, but both of them are equal planets.

One of Bruno's basic postulates - the universal animateness of matter - is as far from modern science as it is from the science of the 17th century.

The contribution of Giordano Bruno to modern science is appreciated by descendants. It was not without reason that on June 9, 1889, a monument was solemnly unveiled in Rome on the same Square of Flowers, where about 300 years ago he was put to death. The statue depicts Bruno in full growth. At the bottom of the pedestal there is an inscription: "Giordano Bruno - from the century that he foresaw, at the place where the fire was lit".

On the 400th anniversary of Bruno's death, Cardinal Angelo Sodano called Bruno's execution "a sad episode", but nevertheless pointed out the loyalty of the actions of the inquisitors, who, in his words, "did everything possible to save his life." The head of the Roman Catholic Church also refused to consider the issue of rehabilitation, considering the actions of the inquisitors to be justified.