Thoughts Trapped in a Touring Celestial Body Bergson, "Creative Evolution" The World Lost in the Solar System Model Late Nineteenth Early Twentieth Century

Thoughts Trapped in a Touring Celestial Body Bergson, "Creative Evolution" The World Lost in the Solar System Model Late Nineteenth Early Twentieth Century

The solar system model has been a powerful metaphor for understanding nature through its clear picture of celestial bodies in constant orbit and repetitive motion. This model, carved out as a closed cyclic system, is effective in understanding positional relationships and periodicity. However, when it is extended to understanding life and the universe as a whole, it greatly distorts the picture of reality.

The premise of the solar system model is based on the idea that the same motions are repeated under the same conditions, eliminating external influences as much as possible. But in the real world, there are no completely closed systems. Even celestial bodies are not isolated from interactions with the universe as a whole; they are constantly affected by gravity, radiation, and minute fluctuations. And life, moreover, cannot exist even for a moment without its relationship to its environment.

Time for life and consciousness does not return to the same point as the cyclic motion of the solar system. Even though similar conditions may appear to be repeating themselves, there is always an accumulation of change within. Conditions identical to the past are never reproduced, and there is no perfect repetition. The idea of the world as a closed cyclical system overlooks this irreversibility.

From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, the deterministic view of the universe began to be shaken in physics, and irreversible processes and entropy emerged as important concepts through thermodynamics and statistical thinking. At the same time, there were growing doubts in philosophy and biology about the view of life and evolution as simple repetitive motions. Criticism of the solar system model was formed against this intellectual background.

While models are essential to understanding the world, they are only a cross-section of reality. A perspective that sees the world as a closed cycle emphasizes order and stability, but obscures generation, change, and unexpected developments. To grasp life and the universe, we need to look at interaction, not repetition, and rethink the world as an open whole.