The article discusses the modern interest in discussing ideas about space and the Universe, as intended to either protect humanity or destroy it. The author examines both alternatives, showing what real cosmological knowledge is and whether it can provide forecasting and modeling of the future in relations of life or death. The first point of view and concept, examined on the example of the concepts of O. Bazaluk and Russian cosmists, interpret the Universe as good and salvation for man if he obeys its laws, but not passively, but by transforming himself and the world. The second appeals to thermal death, the extinction of the Sun, and other random cosmic cataclysms (the Earth will collide with another celestial body or lose its magnetic field, or this field will be destroyed by a supernova explosion, or the Earth will die as a result of the natural evolution of the Universe). And no one knows when: maybe in a couple of billion years, maybe tomorrow. The death of humanity as a result of its own activity and conflicts (ecological crisis, nuclear war, manmade disasters) cannot be discounted. Why, the author asks, are the latter not transformed forms of action of the same cosmos and Universe? The author shows that cosmological knowledge is teachings or discourses, and not strict theories, therefore it is almost impossible to predict and calculate on their basis. However, a number of measures are being outlined that should help minimize the threat to life on Earth: reasonable restrictions on our desires, while simultaneously collectively discussing what “reasonable” means; creating conditions that reduce the likelihood of the death of our planet from random impacts of space; further exploration of space with the goal not so much of learning how the Universe works, but of being patient while waiting for it to become clearer what is in front of us, and for our real capabilities in terms of interstellar travel to become clearer.

Keywords: space, universe, research, knowledge, models, life, death, salvation

In recent years, there has been a new wave of interest in space issues, including discussions of the nature and mystery of the Universe. So this year the author published a small book “Images and Paradoxes of the Universe”. Seeing the corresponding terms in the titles of articles and books (Universe, Space), I wondered why there was such interest, given that it was becoming increasingly clear: interplanetary travel is more a plot of scientific fantasy than real plans. Unfortunately, we have to agree with Hannah Arendt, who writes that “our plans now include nothing more than to explore the immediately surrounding part of the universe, that infinitesimal region that humanity can only reach, moving even at the speed of light. Given the human lifespan the only absolute limit remaining at the moment it is very unlikely that we will ever get much further.¹

It may seem that such interest is caused by the possibilities of practical exploration of near Earth space and the solar system. Of course, this is the reason, but the main thing is something else the next step is the search for the meaning of human existence and guarantees of the continuation of life in relation to the near and more distant future. It is easy to see that the discussion of space and the Universe by function is aimed at solving two opposing problems. One, following cosmic laws should provide a solution to the main problems facing humanity. The second, on the contrary, the Universe, even if in the future, but probably “around the corner”, is our death, the gravedigger. Plato (Plato again!) was the author of the first point of view; he pointed out that salvation and immortality are achievable if a person lives in accordance with cosmic laws.

But what did Plato understand by space and salvation? Obviously not what philosophers, scientists and politicians understand today. For Plato, the cosmos is a reality, on the one hand, sacred (demiurge, gods, immortal souls), on the other hand, largely constructed (no matter whether consciously or unconsciously), corresponding precisely to the tasks of salvation, as he said, achieving “bliss” (a version of immortality). “Plato,” writes A.F. Losev, more than once there are references and descriptions of the fate of the soul in the afterlife. In “Phaedo” a detailed path of the soul to Hades is depicted, as well as “the true sky, the true light and the true earth” of another world, where everything is beautiful, everything is full of light and radiance... Those “who, thanks to philosophy, have been completely purified, henceforth live completely incorporeally and they arrive in even more beautiful dwellings.” In the “Phaedrus” there is an image of the universal immortal soul, for “ever moving is immortal.” Each individual soul is like “the combined strength of a team of winged horses and a charioteer.” Zeus, an army of gods and demons on winged chariots rush across the sky, and behind them the souls of mortals greedily strive to get to the heavenly heights, but they are pulled down by all their earthly imperfections... There is also a famous description of the celestial spheres with singing sirens and the world spindle of Ananka the goddess of Necessity.

Such a person (whose soul follows the path of salvation, recollection of the cosmos. V.R.)² even having completed the destiny of his life by death, on his deathbed will not, as now, have many sensations, but will achieve a single destiny, from multiplicity will become unity, will be happy, extremely wise and together blessed".³

There are supporters of Plato in our time, but they, following the great philosopher of antiquity, at the same time adapt their ideas about space and the Universe to modern times. So I was just sent a book by Oleg Bazaluk, “Discursive Thinking of Education: Teaching Those Who Transform the Universe,” where he declares himself to be a firm follower of Plato, taking into account, however, the most advanced philosophical research and modern space exploration. But the scenario is the same: following the nature (complexity) of the cosmos, working to transform oneself and the world (cf. Plato’s “Republic”). In this case, Bazaluk convinces, sooner or later humanity will solve the problems it faces, and the individual will become happy. True, Bazaluk goes further than Plato; he is confident that after the transformation of the Earth, it will be the Universe's turn.

“The discursive thinking through of education by philosophy,” writes Bazaluk, “is the development of a specific way of life that subordinates and transforms in accordance with the proclaimed “ideal” image.

Society will achieve a state of sustainable development and prosperity only if it (following Plato. V.R.) “has a single common goal to make its citizens happy (eudaimon), and that this can only be achieved through their education and formation” ...

Discursively thinking through the formation of “those who transform the Universe” is an upward path to the main tools with which to create an “ideal” legal order in which the laws of the cosmos have a providential and directive influence on the way people live.

Discursive thinking through the new complexity of “Order” helped man discover himself as a planetary force focused on the creation of the noosphere in conditions of uncompromising competition with geological and biological processes.

Intelligent matter is not tied to space objects, therefore it is capable of: a) Creating separate artificial objects, or turning natural space objects into artificial ones. b) Migrate in the Universe in order to listen (contemplate) (theome) its structure... c) Cooperate and compete with other space civilizations, asserting the significance and importance of their physics in the Universe. The philosophy of space expresses the idea of man transforming the Universe as neuroevolution."⁴

Bazaluk is armed with the most modern scientific research, from neuroscience to cosmological theories, but cosmists, relying only on the physics and biology of the early twentieth century, promised, if the laws of the Universe were followed, a different, one might say, asymmetrical solution to the problems of humanity. “Now,” explains Svetlana Semenova, “humanity, Sukhovo-Kobylin believed, is in its earthly (telluric) stage of development. He has to go through and conquer two more through his own efforts: the solar (solar) one, when earthlings will settle in the circumsolar space, and the sidereal (stellar) one, which involves penetrating into the depths of space and their exploration. This will be the World, “universal humanity” “the entire totality of worlds inhabited by humanity in the entire infinity of the Universe”... “Technical man” will be replaced by “flying man”: “a higher, i.e. solar, man will enlighten his body to the specific gravity of air ... “for this, it will develop its body into a tubular body, that is, an airy one, moreover, into an ethereal, i.e., the lightest body.” As a result of a transformative action aimed at one’s own nature, a person will, as it were, throw off his current heavy, bodily shell and turn into an immortal spiritual being. This is a radical rethinking of Hegel’s “absolute spirit,” which here turned into real humanity in its future cosmic destiny.”⁵

So, the first point of view and concept interpret the Universe (and space) as good and salvation for a person if he obeys its laws, but not passively, but by transforming himself and the world. The second appeals to thermal death, the extinction of the Sun, and other random cosmic cataclysms (the Earth will collide with another celestial body or lose its magnetic field, or this field will be destroyed by a supernova explosion, or the Earth will die as a result of the natural evolution of the Universe). And no one knows when: maybe in a couple of billion years, maybe tomorrow. The death of humanity as a result of its own activity and conflicts (ecological crisis, nuclear war, manmade disasters) cannot be discounted. Why are the latter not transformed forms of action of the same cosmos and Universe?

But why, one might ask, are so many philosophers and scientists today turning to space or the Universe, albeit with opposite goals? In the first case, they, having lost faith in the efforts of politicians and rulers to solve modern problems and establish the desired social order, think that the latter will be born out of social chaos, since the laws of the cosmos are the same for everything, including sociality. Both Oleg Bazaluk and Yuk Hui, albeit in different ways, since the first understands space as lying outside the earth, and the second within its boundaries, equally rely on the laws of the Universe, but Bazaluk believes that the development of space consists of gradual complication, and Hui – in individuation (locality) and autopoiesis.

“To declare himself as a planetary force,” notes Bazaluk, “it took man only a few million years. During this short period of continuous and nonlinear complexity (after all, there are still 3 billion years ahead!), a significant physics of intelligent matter on the Earth clearly demonstrated its intention to understand the Universe and develop its resources.⁶

“I gave,” Hui writes, “a preliminary definition of cosmotechnics as the fusion of the moral order and the cosmic order through technical activity... I call it cosmotechnics because I am convinced that “space” does not mean the space beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, but, on the contrary, locality.”⁷

In the second case, the same laws are used to predict the death of our civilization and man (obviously, by cosmic pessimists). This probably includes Hannah Arendt: “The situation as it appears today seems strangely like an elaborate confirmation of a remark made by Franz Kafka at the very dawn of these changes: man,” he said, “found the Archimedean point, but used it.” against oneself; it seems that only on these conditions was he allowed to find her.” After all, the conquest of space, the search for a point outside the Earth from which the planet could be moved, as if taken off its hinges, is not an accidental result of science. From the very beginning it was not a science “about nature”, but a science about the universe: not physics, but astrophysics... The conquest of space and the science that made it possible have brought us perilously close to this point. If they ever truly achieve it, a person's status will not only become lower by all standards known to us, but will cease to exist."⁸

However, beyond the Earth, Bazaluk also sees a threat to the existence of humanity. “Research of the solar system shows that the complication of the intelligent matter of the Earth occurs in a competitive struggle... The main competition does not take place on a planetary scale with the forces of nature and between different political systems. This will happen in space for its resources... As space activity grows, the Intelligent Matter of the Earth will face uncompromising, not always equal and safe for it competition in space. The true danger to the intelligent matter of the Earth is beyond the Earth and is of an extra-terrestrial nature. In the near future, humanity will encounter those who are already transforming the Universe!”⁹

Thinking through the first case, I would say that Bazaluk did not take into account that the evolution of the Universe proceeds not simply through the complication of matter, even if nonlinear, but through a radical change of wholes. Thus, inert matter gave way on Earth not to biological matter, as Bazaluk believes, but to biological life (the second whole); accordingly, biological life gave way not to social matter, but to society and man (the third whole). The laws of these three integers are different, and although the corresponding previous wholes were assimilated and transformed into subsequent wholes, based on this, the laws of matter cannot be considered invariant for evolution. Therefore, it is a mistake to think that following cosmic laws is the key to solving modern problems. They will have to be solved in the last whole (social) sociality, taking into account, of course, that its substrate is inert matter and biological life.

As for the second case, here we need to take into account the impossibility of determining the truth and model nature of our knowledge about the Universe. The fact is that in relation to the latter, the Galilean experiment and engineering practice, which on Earth and within the solar system provide a person with the opportunity to understand whether he thought and knew correctly or not, is impossible. Galileo, in particular, showed that if the task is to verify whether a mathematical construction is a model of a certain natural process, then it must be transformed in an experiment so that this process behaves exactly in accordance with this mathematical construction. It is clear that man is not able to transform the galaxies and the Universe in the way he needs. As a result, although astronomers and cosmologists construct mathematical descriptions of the universe, they cannot prove that these descriptions represent models of the cosmos. The second consequence of this situation is the impossibility of objectively describing the Universe. And since it is impossible objectively, it is possible subjectively, there is no other way out. The third consequence is that there are many cosmological theories of the Universe, which describe and explain the phenomena observed in it in different ways. Interesting works by Vadim Kazyutinsky were devoted to this topic, showing that cosmological theories are very different, and although this seems to be knowledge about a super complex physical phenomenon, they demonstrate different, non-coinciding ideas about the Universe. “According to the definition of A.L. Zelmanov,” writes Kazyutinsky, “cosmology is “the physical doctrine of the Universe as a whole, which includes the theory of everything covered by astronomical observations of the world, as part of the Universe” with all the originality of the object of cosmology, it is still represents a physical object".¹⁰

But at the same time, as a result of research into cosmological theories, Kazyutinsky formulated the following conclusion: “the proposed interpretation of the Universe as a whole is in agreement with the idea of the plurality of ontological worlds... The main idea of the author (Kazyutinsky himself V.R.) was justified the concept of the Universe as a whole is truly relative, and does not refer to some once and for all given physical absolute.”¹¹

But this means that we do not know the structure of the cosmos, or rather, we know something about the Universe, but we don’t know for sure. We know a lot about virtual (mathematical) Universes, but which of them is more similar to the real Universe and to what extent we are not able to determine. We can say it another way: cosmological theories are not theories, but teachings and discourses; they guide our thought and activity, but cannot lead us to calculations and models.

The presented material and reflections allow us to draw several conclusions. First of all, although we think we know how the Universe works, in fact we are far from adequately knowing about it. Second, our knowledge of the Universe is probabilistic and scenario based, so we cannot determine whether the cosmos is on our side or against us. Third, perhaps a person will be able to better understand the meaning of the Universe if he first solves his earthly problems, as Stanislav Lem wrote about in the last years of his life. Much also depends on our ways of understanding space: natural scientific methods of studying the Universe should probably be supplemented by humanitarian and social humanitarian ones. At the same time, we will probably have to reconsider the understanding of ontology; I think the physical interpretation of the Universe does not exclude anthropological aspects and overtones.

But isn’t it strange: we have been studying space for many centuries, we were able to navigate by the stars, we landed on the Moon, we are going to explore Mars, we are exploring the planets and solar system, as well as other galaxies, and yet, according to the author, people cannot understand What is the universe for him good or impending death? Or the state of knowledge about space: since we do not know how it works, cosmology does not allow us to say exactly what awaits us. Is it possible to live in such uncertainty, not knowing what will happen tomorrow? But we live! We would know for sure if we were gods. For example, Bazaluk knows: man is a demiurge and sooner or later he will remake himself, the world and the Universe. But as his beloved Plato wrote, man is not a god, although he is partly similar to the demiurge.

Yet we have advanced enough in the study of space to understand that life on earth is not guaranteed (contrary to Bazaluk, who, albeit cautiously, writes that “the Universe is of such a nature that our life is possible.”)

Life on Earth can disappear, both as a result of our own ill-considered activity and random external influences of the Universe. But the impossibility of forecasting, calculation and modeling does not mean the inability to act wisely and reduce the likelihood of unfavorable developments. In this direction, first of all, we think of the awareness of our sociality, since we are bringing the death of the Earth closer than the cosmos with our own activities, plans and ideas, often looking almost insane. One solution is to intelligently limit our desires, while collectively discussing what “reasonable” means. Another area of work to save life is the creation of conditions that minimize the likelihood of the death of our planet from such random impacts of space (asteroids, changes in the magnetic field, etc.), which are still commensurate with our capabilities. The third direction (God loves the trinity) is further exploration of space and the Universe with the goal of not only finding out how it works, but being more patient while waiting for it to become more clear what is in front of us and what we ourselves are. The new ethics of the emerging culture (“future culture”) is a focus on saving and preserving life on Earth, reasonable restrictions, discussions, compromises, mutual concessions.

None.

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

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