Astronomy and Quantum Physics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Astronomy and Quantum Physics - Essay Example The macrocosmic view of astrophysics posits billions of galaxies besides our own, innumerable stars, and planets, and this further points to the fact that we really know little about the universe in our limited, arrogant, ego states of consciousness. The religious view informs this understanding through â€Å"shamanic ecstasy† as Kessler calls it in â€Å"Studying Religion: An Introduction Through Cases,† where he describes the shaman travelling to the heavens and attaining a mystical unitive experience. (Kessler, 2007, p.143) In another way, Kessler suggests that the Buddhist conception of enlightenment may relate to a cosmic experience of being that is related directly to the universe of astrophysics. (Kessler, 2007, p.143-4) Knowing what we do of the nature of the cosmos, with many different possibilities of life, and also understanding Buddhist conceptions of re-incarnation, these two views can combine in a manner that merges the spiritual and physical to see life c ontinuing and developing in different forms across a variety of planets and star systems. The microcosmic view of quantum physics tends to infinite smallness where the astrophysics tends towards infinite expansion. That the two may merge in large cycles of time where the universe expands and then contracts to a single point over periods of billions of millennia or more is a massive concept of time cycles that accords with the Buddhist philosophical standpoint and modern physics.