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Re-framing the article?: Start with quotes by Einstein, Eddington, Reichenbach & Whitehead.
ie Not that I am makng a claim and bringing the quotes as support, but rather this section of the article is about these quotes, ie: The whole GR aspect is not so important, but it is interesting that sceintists/philosophers of science make such a note of this, to them it was important! (but not because of a belief in Torah).
In a way I can make this the point of the section, a curiosity etc, about phil of sci, not about theology, ie the GR aspect is not theologically important, but it is interesting/intriguing/ironic to those for whom theology is important. .
Also: there is a quote re significance, maybe it was from Eddington too, I can rephrase the whole article, all three parts, as being a commentary on his quotes.
Hebrew BH vs BH & BHR (Geo article)
The Hebrew version of the GEO article:
came out in 1988/7?
mentions Mach;s principle still being discussed giving as ref "some strangeness..." in a footnote , is that in the Eng version?
has more re significance at the beginning and end of that section?
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The '87 conference presented material re significance/convergence as per Hofman's book.
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My website vs the published printed articles: it is completely re-arranged....
The proposed new version of the article would start with issue of human significance:
Preface: Some Church leaders felt human significance necessarily implied/was dependent on the location of the Earth being at the center of the universe etc...
,,,,,the impact on Christian religious belief of finding it was not at the center, and the collateral damage to the belief some Jews etc, despite the fact that major jewish religious atuthorities accepted Copernican findings without seieng it as in any way being problematic.
Some people also felt that since the Bible uses the terminology 'sun rise" etc, this meant that God expected us to accept that thesun moves and not the Earth, however the scientists who discovered this were themselves Biblical believers... and inany case it was not a problem in Judaism, only a problem for some Christian theologians. Nevertheless, again there was some collateral damage on the belief of some Jews.
Thus the "Copernican revolution" though completely a matter of science, ended up having much effect on the religious beliefs of some and generated theological controversy.
At the time of Copernicus, it was believed that the new discoveries proved tha tthe sun is at the cente rof the universe rather than the Earth having that special locaiotn and therefore status, however someitme later the sun too was found not to be at a unique center, and then even later as Einstein showed, scientifically there is no meaning to any claim that that there is a unique center to the universe, and as a corollarly, it is also legitimate to utilize any locaiton as center for purposes of calculation etc. And similarly re the sun going around the earth or v.v., as we will see it is not scientifically meaninful to make a declaration that one is objectively truw and the other flase, theyn are equally false as absolute statmeents and qually valid as persectives form which to make calculaoitns..
Add to geocentrism article 2015.docx................................................................................................................................
Difference between BH Geo article and the version in the BHReader (and Hebrew BH, and my website):
There is a light shift in the BH reader version compared to the BH journal version, from 'geocentrism is as valid as any other view" ie comparing geocentrism to a generic view, to "geocentrism is as valid as heliocentrism", meaning both are scientifically-invalid if taken as absolute physical statements, and both are equally valid as perspectives.
Also one could say that "geocentrism is no more invalid than is eg heliocentrism or any other view which claims there is a unique center to the universe, so the Copernican revolution which claimed to dethrone Earth from its position as center has itself ironically been overthrown since the sun is no more the center of anything than is the Earth".
See the BH article p9 right column, first full paragraph: "indeed valid" and "equally valid" for any choice, whereas the BH Reader p81 explicitly refers to the above point by comparing geocentrism to heliocentrism. Most readers might not understand that both are invalid as statements of exclusive fact, but both are equally valid as choices of 'frame of reference'.
That's also why I included the Eddington quote in the beginning of the BH Reader version. Truth is it would be better to leave out the sentence before the quote, and simply quote him and then offer my explanation.
re the the big bang/instant universe article:
Footnote 3 in original BH article: (note that the title of the prospective article left out the important prefatory words "And God said:")
Note: In BHR all the footnotes are placed as endnotes.
As stated in this footnote (7), the big bang (instant universe) article was to appear right after this issue; but it didn't, so when BHR was published that part is omitted.
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Part Three: the beginning (ie first 2 paragraphs) should be at the opening of the article?
First sentence: edit to remove one 'universe'.
Man --> humanity
BHR: last paragraph part one, re significance: can be in beginning of article:
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In the original version, the issue is Biblical, Talmud, Torah, and the resolution is GR.. In contrast, in the BHR version, the opening presents the entire issue as:
Copernicanism vs geocentrism,
and is about the Church, Christinity-science conflic, not about Judaism or religion in general.
In both versions: see 2nd paragraph of BHR p82: "church astronomy controversy over geocentrism" "Church adapted Aristotle to theology": AR: this makes the issue sound irrelevant to Jewish belief, ie a Torah-reader would probably feel comfortable not believing in geocentrism as a result...
Also, I will rephrame the article about the issue of significance,not biblical literalness etc.
And so I can place a one sentence statement at the beginning re human significance, eg the paragraph-sentence "Thus..." on p120 of BHR.
This is the blurb before the original BH article, not sure I wrote this to be a blurb.
In the BHR version, this blurb is incorporated into the second sentence of the first paragraph, but with several crucial differences:
The BHR version starts with: a) copernican vs geocentrism, & b) Christianity vs science. Then the 2nd sentence makes lots of sense as a contrast, starting with what was the blurb.
the issue is the Copernican claim that heliocentrism is more correct than geocentrism, not the claim for validity of geocentrism as opposed to Copernicanism;
the reason for the lack of conflict seems in the BH blurb to be General Relativity(GR), but that is not so - there IS no conflict even without GR, so in BHR the issue of GR is introduced as "Further...."
BHR introduces the Eddington quote, so it is not me making the claim. Maybe in a newer version it would be better to first present that quote, so that what I will be writing in the article can be presented as an explanation of it rather than as my own notion, which helps both give it scientific credentials, and also makes it clear that I cam not claiming in this article anyhting which is counter-scientific so that my point is not misunderstood .
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Part IV: Relevant Quotes from Prominent Scientists [6]
Part IV: Relevant Quotes from Prominent Scientists [6]
As the eminent Astronomer and General Relativist Sir Arthur Eddington said: "...on the most modern scientific theory there is no absolute distinction between the heavens revolving around the earth and the earth revolving under the heavens; both parties are (relatively) right."
The great mathematician and philosopher Whitehead wrote[7]: "Geocentrism and heliocentrism seem contradictory but relativity shows both are true; of course if both are true, this means that neither are ‘unambiguously’ correct, they are simply valid perspectives."
As the brilliant mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, a colleague of Whitehead, wrote: "whether the earth rotates once a day from west to east as Copernicus taught, or the heavens revolve once a day from east to west, as his predecessors held, the observed phenomena will be the same; a metaphysical assumption has to be made"
Max Born, one of the founders of quantum physics writes[8]: "...Thus we may return to Ptolemy's point of view of a 'motionless earth..[9]. from Einstein's point of view, Ptolemy and Copernicus are equally right."
Einstein himself also says: "The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either coordinate system (AR: reference frame) could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, 'the sun is at rest and the earth moves,' or 'the sun moves and the earth is at rest,' would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different coordinate systems." .[10] [11]
Of course, a description of the universe in terms of a non-geocentric system is simpler. However as the well-known philosopher of science Hans Reichenbach wrote[12]:
"...the idea of simplicity cannot be used to decide between the Ptolemaic and Copernican conceptions. The Copernican conception is indeed simpler, but this does not make it any 'truer', since this simplicity is descriptive. The simplicity is due to the fact that one of the conceptions employs more expedient definitions. But the objective state of affairs is independent of the choice of definitions; this choice can result in a simpler description, but it cannot yield a 'truer' picture of the world. That these definitions, e.g. the definition of rest according to Copernicus, lead to a simpler description, of course expresses a feature of reality and is therefore an objective statement. The choice of the simplest description is thus possible only with the advance of knowledge and can in general be carried though only within certain limits. One description may be simplest for some phenomena while a different description may be simplest for others; but no simplest description is distinguished from other descriptions with regard to truth. The concept of truth does not apply here, since we are dealing with definitions.”
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Editing: "geocentrism = earth at center of universe and sun rotates about it" ie two separate issues: Earth at center of the universe, and it is also stationary there, so that the sun orbits it rather than the reverse. AR: I hadn't mentioned this at the opening, only stationary rather than spining and not orbiting sun but rather v.v.
So there are two issues: center, and motion, where motion has two aspects, spin and orbit (also of course motion of dsolar system in galaxy, motion of galaxies etc, but these were not yet known a the time of Copernicus)
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Last sentence of 1st paragraph: "problems": change this to 'issues' or issues raised regardinf the ddifference between what science and Torah seem to be teaching, or etc.
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In BHR the footnotes were moved to endnotes, but this first footnote of BH is a very important point, especially the first sentence - it should be made much more prominent, in the article itself.
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BH version below: "geocentrism is indeed valid... non-geocentric cosmology..equally valid"
vs
p84 of BHR, #1.: "the Copernican system, which supposedly disproved the geo one...is no more valid than the geocentric system".
So the BHR version is much better!
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Note re end of 1. "invalidated": of course though that argument was invalidated, the basic point stands, ie that geo is not the actuality, but this is only a problem if one assumes tha tthe Torah phraseology implies that God is telling us that geo is absolutely absolutely correct (even if Moses was mistaken about this issue, that itself would not be a theological problem).
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geocentrism not 'disproven'. Find a better way of saying this perhaps...
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First sentence of Part Two: I do make a clear statement: "Although the Earth does not occupy a physically unique position" rather than "it cannot be proven or disproven": this is useful polemic against those claiming I am a 'geocentrist'
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"is physically valid, as valid as the non-geocentric Copernican cosmology"
Or better, they are equally valid as non-absolute statements, equally INVALID scientifically if meant as objective scientifically provable statement, ie via direct measurment - but what would constitute such?
In other words people then thought that science makes it illegitimate to make such statements, but now we know via Einstein that it is not illegitimate. When they thought it was illegitimate, it seemed odd that a book authored by God would imply such an illegitimate statemenet....
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First sentence: "might not be" --> is not, or at least "is not true in an absolute sense" or etc "is not the uniqe center in the scientific sense".
AR: If God says "you are the center of my universe", can it not be meant poetically as a parent would say to their child? we don't need GR for this.
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Last two lines on page 85 of BHR: Maybe place it at the beginning, and add the words in brackets: "Thus the issue was clearly a clash between (certain) scientists and (some) theologians rather than between science and religion". In contrast....
Maybe the three points can be condensed and be at the beginning, so that the main pointd are made at the outset and the overly-long article is simply an explanation of the points in the first section, and a reader can skip it.
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Here there should be separation between the two motions of the Earth, spin about its axis, and orbit about the sun. eg re R Emden ref, not 'motion' but 'orbital motion'.
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BHR has an extra few paragraphs here re Jewish religious authorities accepted the Copernican system.
Note: Since Jewish religious authorities accepted the Copernican system, I should stress that when I present the GR aspect it is not in order to enfranchise geocentrism for religious reasons, ie that Judaism requires belieg in geo'm, but rather I simply want to point out the irony, especially since this was such an issue, starting the more modern rel/sci debate [ie continuing the medieval theology philosophy debate referred to by Rambam re eternity/creation].
point #3 can be one sentence, referring to the next section, ie the quotes can be a separate section, with title eg "The Acceptance of Copernicus' results by his contemporary Jewish Authorities".
Last paragraph: "Science is far from anathema...": This should be a spearate section, eg "The Jewish Attitude Towards Science" or "The Torah view of Science as a path towards fulfilling the commandment to Love & be in Awe of God".
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p87,m/b "Clearly" ie last paragraph of Part One: this could be placed earlier.
Part Two: I can delete the first sentence by making its main point into the title of Part Two., eg "How GR indiactres that the Cop'n system is ...".
Then the 2nd sentence ie "Readers.." can be a note under that title.
Then the paragraph "Although" can start a new mini-section, with title "Preface" or "Intro".
to say --> to nevertheless say
the last sentence on this page continuing to top of next page, are again phrasing it in terms of Copernican vs geocentric, not geocentric vs non-geocentric.
top of the page: 'readers can skip to part 3" ie because the issue of 'significance' is the main point!
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IMPORTANT: top few lines p116 in BHR:
1."non-absolute" is crucial word,
2. and the comparison is between g & C.
And the next (tiny) paragraph reinforces both points.
Last paragraph of the section , re preferred frame, (115?) was added; it was also in the Hebrew version?
EDIT: In section "Geo..As a Result...": first sentence: "problem" = geocentricity!? poor wording, the original issue not problem, and re 'the belief or claim of geocentricity' etc.
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Below: p 117 BHR: first full paragraph: re "geodesic of st": best to leave out this term, use 'sun'. Or say "the expression of the geodesic in terms of coordinates centered on the Earth vs on the sun is more complicated.." but this adds nothing important.
Also "gravitational equaitons" --> einstein's grav eqs, or of GR etc.
Maybe say "the eq of the geodesic of st is more complicated when expressed in terms of the Earth-based coord system.
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2nd to last paragraph of Part Two: re 'vindicated
in BHR it is the middle of p118 :
BHR: The last word: 'vindicated':
in BH it is on the RHS column, and there are few more words ('.surprising.') ending that sentence.
'vindicated' sounds as if the Torah is making some wild claim.....but in my opinion it doe snot, and geo is NOT a claim of the Torah, so there's no need for it to be 'vindicated'.
Note: If it was true that the Torah stated one should believe in geocentrism in a way that GR did NOT enfranchise, would this mean there was a conflict? It really depends on what observational claim is being made
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