On September 30, 2016, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta
spacecraft ended its mission orbiting Comet 67P. The mission added knowledge on
how planets came together and how life arrived on Earth. “One of Rosetta’s key
findings is that comets are probably not the source of Earth’s water.”[1]
I submit that of even greater importance is a finding that can be indexed as
philosophical in nature.
In particular, the European Space Agency “released audio of
a ‘cosmic song,’ created by the magnetic fields oscillating in the trail of particles
flying off the comet.”[2]
In particular, movements in the comet’s Magnetic field are caused by solar
particles hitting and electrically charging the comet’s atmosphere. The “song”
resembles the sounds that whales make. Perhaps it resonates with our music as
well. For one thing, the beat of the cosmic song is regular and the pitch
varies from “note” to “note.”
Philosophically, the finding may confirm Plato’s theory of
justice as “the harmony of the spheres” being in line with the harmonies of a
well-ordered city (polis) and mind (psyche). Justice “just is” the harmony
between and within these three things—the universe, the city, and the mind. The
harmony, as with our music, has mathematical aspects (e.g., low, middle, and
high notes, of intervals of duration (e.g., eighth, quarter, half, and full
notes). The comet’s “cosmic song” adds
to the accumulating empirical support for Plato’s theory.
It would be really astounding were the mathematical-musical
vibrations of a reason-ordering-the-passions human mind and the vibrations of a
reason-ordered city in sync with the vibrations given off by suns, planets, and
comets—with those respective mathematical-musical vibrations in harmony with
each other. That such a confluence is itself just blows the mind.
The implication is that keeping your passions under the
control of your reasoning ability puts you in a very subtle sense in harmony
with the “cosmic song” of the observed comet. Perhaps people enjoy music so
much because it can serve as a mediator helping the mind to be well-ordered
(hence suitable for order-imposing reasoning) and in sync with the harmonies of
the heavenly spheres, including comets. It is worthwhile simply pondering how
justice as we typically construe the term boils down to that “syncness.”
[1]
Kenneth Chang, “Rosetta
Mission Ends With Spacecraft’s Dive Into Comet,” The New York Times, September 30, 2016.
[2]
Ibid.
