WEBVTT - The Upside-Down, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:15.120 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:18.239 My name is Robert Man and I am Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:20.639 And today on Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we're going 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:23.960 to begin a series of episodes on the theme of 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:29.120 being upside down and if you are wondering, yes, this 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:33.800 is another baby looked at Me episode idea. I started 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.600 thinking about this because of my three year old's fondness 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:42.599 for dangling upside down. She really likes to ask us 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.440 to hang her upside down and then to be brought 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:48.720 face to face with other family members while she's hanging 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:52.040 upside down. So like when she sees them, I guess, 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:54.720 I don't know exactly what's so funny about it, but 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.960 she descends into like cackling madness, and it's kind of like, 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.160 can you believe this? This is absurd? 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:04.759 No, No, this is totally understandable. And you know, even 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.720 as an adult, there'll be times where I don't know, 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.000 I'll be in the right position. Maybe I'll be, you know, 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.480 reclined on the floor for a yoga class or something, 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:16.480 or just in my living room and you'll imagine the 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:19.319 ceiling as the floor and what it would be like 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.080 to be up there. Or an even more terrifying one 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.479 is if you find yourself out either on like a 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:30.160 clear starry night or even a really clear blue day, 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:34.520 and imagine yourself detached from the gravity of the planet 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:38.720 and ascending upward, falling upward, that sort of thing. You know, 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.840 it can the wildness of the concept, once you sort 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:46.400 of like break through your everyday mundane blocks to it 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:48.000 can still be almost overwhelming. 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.760 I feel like you've mentioned the falling upward into the 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.440 sky daydream before. This is a common thing for you. 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:57.360 Yeah, I mean it's not. I wouldn't say it's like 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:02.280 a central anxiety point or or even like a recurring 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:05.160 dream so much. But I don't know. There is something 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:09.200 about like a really clear day, especially a really clear 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:13.120 like blue sky day, and sometimes a very clear, star 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:16.640 filled night that kind of taps into this notion. It's 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:19.040 kind of like if you stop and try to remind 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.720 yourself to breathe, which, to be clear, can also be 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:26.560 a very grounding and beneficial practice, but you know, sometimes 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:28.600 you're like, oh, I'm breathing now, and then you can 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.480 kind of like sort of freak out about about making 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:33.560 sure that you're breathing, you know, taking something that is 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:37.720 just a basic background process of your life and turning 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:38.480 it down his head. 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.799 Yeah, or if you like, think about your heartbeat too much, 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:44.480 it can make you start feeling like you wonder is 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:45.400 something wrong with it? 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:46.920 Or yeah, yeah, that's sort of. 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:52.000 So before we get into the pulp of today's episode, 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.240 I wanted to start us off with a bit of 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:59.079 poetry to establish the upside down mood. And I was 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:03.200 looking around for some literary examples to kick things off here, 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.840 and I actually found what I thought is a great one, 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:09.360 and it's going to take us straight to Hell. So 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.800 I want to talk about a very weird, actually scientifically 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.680 loaded and also I think very funny scene from the 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:22.119 Divine Comedy. So this is going to be from Dante's Inferno, 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:26.120 Canto thirty four. And the scene we're going to be 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:28.799 talking about is right before the end of the first 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:30.800 book of the Divine Comedy, right before the end of 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.560 the Inferno, So it's going to come at the tail 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.400 end of Dante's journey through Hell, before he emerges again 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:39.240 to face the mountain of Purgatory. 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:42.200 Yeah, and reminder for listeners who are maybe not that 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:44.320 familiar with this work or haven't heard us talk about it? 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:46.600 In a bit. Inferno is book one of three in 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:49.880 the Divine Comedy of Dante Aligary, who lived twelve sixty 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:54.920 five through thirteen twenty one, poet scholar, really almost the 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:59.240 sort of polymath exile of Florence. It's a narrative poem, 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:01.760 and theor stands as one of the greatest and most 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:05.640 important works of not only late medieval Italian literature, but Western, 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.640 if not global literature as a whole. It's notable for 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:10.960 a number of reasons. It was written in Italian rather 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:14.720 than Latin, it popularized and shaped the concept of Christian purgatory, 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.159 and in general, I would argue that the text still 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.440 stands as a highly readable if you have a good translation, 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:23.839 good notes, and you know and interest in reading it. 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:26.400 Notes are very important because there are a lot of 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.400 things in it that don't make any sense at all 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.200 unless you get like historical context explaining them. 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.320 Yes, you are, in some respects not the intended reader 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.760 by the stretch, but once you get into the notes 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.600 and into that world is very enjoyable because it's essentially 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:45.719 a crash course in Dante's entire world. His faith, his feuds, 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:50.200 his loves, his trials and tribulations, his fascination with just 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:55.440 a host of philosophical, historical, mythological, and even scientific topics. 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:58.279 Yes, and you've really you get to find out who 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:02.440 Dante's mad at. Sometimes they pop up in hell. 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.320 Yeah, I mean I was thinking about this. I was 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.600 like listing all this out, these things that the text is, 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.760 and I was thinking about lyrics to a DMX track, 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:14.279 and I was like, Dante was kind of like a 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.039 rap star of his age, you know, oh yeah, you know, 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.160 you know, almost kind of getting into distract territory at 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:20.840 times in. 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.320 Absolutely work, Yeah, putting his enemies and like showing their 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:29.760 wickedness and their punishments. But also, yeah, there is a 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:34.160 lot of genuine wonder in there as well. And so well, 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:35.800 let's get right into the scene and then we can 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.359 talk about the implications after I do a reading. So 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.839 in this scene, Dante he begins as a lost traveler. 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.400 He's wandering in the Selvoskura. He's wandering into dark wood, 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:50.880 and he meets the soul of the Roman poet Virgil, 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.560 who can't go to heaven himself because he was not 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:58.160 a Christian. He lived before Christ, but he lives in 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:01.160 limbo alongside other figures, many of whom are known as 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:04.760 the Virtuous Pagans. So he's in limbo with these people 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.839 who don't really belong in either Heaven or Hell, people 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:14.119 like Homer, Socrates, Ptolemy, and saladein and so Virgil meets 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:16.880 Dante and he leads him on a tour of the 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.640 nine circles of Hell, going down and down all the time, 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.920 deeper and deeper further into the bowels of the earth. 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:28.880 And so together eventually Virgil and Dante reach the very 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:34.080 bottom of Hell, where Satan himself lives. Depicted as a 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:39.560 giant shaggy beast, almost a winged bigfoot, but I think 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.720 like a thousand feet tall, So a gigantic shaggy beast, 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:48.520 encrusted with ice, with three heads, leathery wings like those 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.680 of a bat, and forever. Satan is described as forever 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:57.440 weeping tears that freeze into ice and are then frozen 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.680 further by the flapping of his wings. So the flapping 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.799 of his wings generates a wind that freezes the center 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.760 of Hell. It's almost like in trying to escape his 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:09.120 own suffering by flapping his wings and in the expression 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:13.000 of his anguish, he further creates the freezing conditions and 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.400 the misery of the very core of hell. So he's 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.720 down there flapping the bat wings, crying these frozen tears, 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.480 drooling blood from his three mouths, and then in his 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:27.640 three mouths he's described as eternally gnawing on the damned 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:32.120 souls of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ and the Gospels, 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:37.360 and Brutus and Cassius, the betrayers of Julius Caesar. These 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:40.160 are the three figures that Dante the poet sort of 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:44.560 considered the worst traders against God and country in human history. 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:49.280 A lot of modern readers really don't understand very well 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.800 why Brutus and Cassius are there. That seems like man, 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.280 that's really giving them an important place. But it makes 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:00.400 more sense if you understand the Dante medieval or late 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.320 medieval Italian mindset of like really valorizing the Roman Empire. 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:06.280 It's just like the Roman Empire was like the best 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:06.960 there ever was. 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:10.000 Yeah, again, you have to keep in mind that is 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:12.880 it is a very personal work in so many respects 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.000 as well, and like this is Dante's take on it. 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:19.640 It's like if someone elsewhere to where to say reserve 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:22.600 the third spot in Satan's mouth for say Yoko Ono 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.440 saying like, how dare she? How dare she allegedly break 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:27.840 up the Beatles? You know, that is one of the 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.920 greatest strggies of all time. And then in your mind, yes, 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:35.120 she belongs to this, this place of infamy. So there's 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.240 maybe a little bit about that going on. But also yes, 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:42.199 I think it's also essential to realize how much weight 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.640 these traitors had in the public mind and in the 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:47.520 culture at that time. 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:49.360 I've got some love for Yoko. 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:54.439 Oh yeah, I don't speak to any personal animosity there. 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:55.720 Right, but I understand what you're talking about. 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.400 Yeah, it's been a common cultural reference point. 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:02.400 For death rides. But so anyway, in the story, after 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:06.760 reaching the lower depth of the pit, Virgil and Dante 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.440 they have to continue going. But they what are they 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:11.720 going to do? Like, they've reached the bottom here, Satan, 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.200 so they have to continue their journey by crawling directly 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:20.240 down the devil's huge, nasty body. So here I'm going 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:22.480 to begin reading from Kanto thirty four. This is the 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:27.319 Longfellow translation, and in this selection, Dante starts off talking 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:31.480 about a hymn. That's talking about Virgil his guide. So 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:35.600 the poem goes as seemed him good. I clasped him 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.720 round the neck, and he the vantage seed of time 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:42.520 and place. And when the wings were opened wide apart, 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:46.760 he laid fast hold upon the shaggy sides. From fell 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:50.920 to fell, descended downward, then between the thick hair and 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.360 the frozen crust. When we were come to where the 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:59.720 thigh revolves exactly on the thickness of the haunch, the guide, 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:04.160 with labor and with hard drawn breath, turned round his 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.200 head where he had had his legs, and grappled to 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.920 the hair, as one who mounts, so that to hell. 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:16.040 I thought we were returning. Keep fast thy hold, for 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.719 by such stairs as these, the master said, penting as 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:23.640 one fatigued, we must perforce depart from so much evil. 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:27.559 Then through the opening of a rock he issued, and 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.920 down upon the margin seated me. Then towards me he 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.920 outstretched his wary step. I lifted up mine eyes and 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.960 thought to see Lucifer in the same way I had 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:43.480 left him, and I beheld him upward hold his legs. WHOA. 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.240 So this part catches a lot of readers off guard, 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.320 like what is going on here. Dante and Virgil, they 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:53.880 are climbing physically down the hairy, beastly body of Satan, 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.600 who's like a giant against a giant, three headed, bat 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:01.480 winged bigfoot. They're crawling down him and at the moment 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.560 they get to like his hip or upper thigh area, 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:10.280 sort of around the side of his butt. With some exertion, Virgil, 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:14.080 who Dante is clinging to, rotates his body around, so 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.680 Dante so like his head is pointing down now, and 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.600 he grabs hold of the devil's shaggy fur, and Dante's confused. 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.520 He's asking, wait, what's going on? Are we going backwards now? 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.920 Are we going back into hell? But Virgil bids him 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:31.000 to continue, so they crawl on into a tunnel in 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.960 the rock. And when Dante looks back at the devil now, 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.360 he's amazed because it seems like the devil flipped upside down. 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:42.240 Something has changed. Now he's looking at Satan and Satan 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:45.480 has got his giant gamey legs sticking up with his 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:49.480 head pointed down? So why is the devil flipping upside down? 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.320 But we will actually get a scientific explanation, at least 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.679 as far as the as far as things were understood 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:01.880 by the natural philosophy of Dante's time, writes quote. And 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:05.720 if I then became disquieted, let stolid people think, who 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:08.840 do not see what the point is beyond which I 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:12.480 had passed, Rise up, The Master said, upon thy feet. 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:15.920 The way is long and difficult, the road, and now 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:19.600 the sun to middle tierce returns. It was not any 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:24.560 palace corridor where there where we were, but dungeon natural, 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:29.240 with floor uneven and unease of light air from the abyss. 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.360 I tear myself away, my master said I, when I 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:35.760 had arisen to draw me from an error, speak a little. 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:39.000 Where is the ice? And how is this one fixed 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:43.480 thus upside down? And how in such short time from 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.800 eve to morn has the sun made his transit? And 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.720 he to me, thou still imaginest thou art beyond the 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.280 center where I grasped the hair of the fell worm 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:58.080 who mines the world. That side thou wast so long 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.880 as I descended. When I turned to me, thou didst 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:06.280 past the point to which things heavy draw from every side. 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:12.439 So there is an explanation given here. Satan did not move. 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:17.720 Satan did not flip upside down, while crawling down Satan's body, 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:24.040 Dante and Virgil passed through the very center of the Earth, which, 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:28.800 in the Aristotelian cosmology that Dante believed in, is also 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:33.280 the center of the universe. So the point to which 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:38.280 all objects with weight what Aristotle called the heavy objects 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:42.480 like solids and liquids, the point to which all heavy 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:46.800 objects are pulled. So nothing in their surroundings had actually 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:50.320 changed position. All the stuff was in the same place 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:53.880 it had been, but for Dante and his guide, down 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:57.400 suddenly became up and up became down. 0:13:58.320 --> 0:13:58.600 Uh. 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:02.120 And I think this is such an interesting almost science 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.400 fiction plot element to include in a tail from the 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:09.160 early fourteenth century. It feels like something you know, it's not. 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.920 It's not science fiction in the sense of speculating about 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:16.840 the future or about technology, but it is incorporating a 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.600 leading scientific understanding of the world at the time to 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.480 explain the mechanics of a fantastical scenario. 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:27.800 Yeah, yeah, it's you know, it's like if we're trying 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:29.800 to imagine what it would be like to crawl through 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:32.720 the center of a Torus space station, you know, one 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:35.520 that's spinning like a big wheel. You know, a very 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:42.640 similar situation with perceptions of gravity, artificial gravity caused by 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:46.640 the spinning might be observed. And since we don't have 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:49.320 a space station like this, and we also do not 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.720 have a world like this with Satan at the center 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:54.680 of it, we can crawl up and down. You know, 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:58.440 we're just using our understanding of the natural world to 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:00.680 put ourselves in that place. What would it be like 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:01.240 to do that? 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:05.920 Yeah, using inference from our best understanding of physics to 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:08.240 describe this fantastical scenario. 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:18.560 Yeah. 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.080 I should point out that this is not the only 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.800 place in the Divine Comedy where Dante has this kind 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:29.960 of science fiction style attention to weird physical realities. On 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:35.960 several occasions he engages seriously with scientific theories of his day, 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:41.360 with like astronomical theories and stuff about how light works 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:45.240 and all this, and he applies these these understandings to 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:48.680 his fantastical settings. Dante was a bit of a of 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.360 a science nerd, though they wouldn't have called it science 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:51.880 at the time. 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:55.040 Yeah. Absolutely, There's so many different places, like the one 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:56.840 in particular that I always come back, and this is 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:59.840 a small one, but just about how what happens when 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.840 or freezes it expands? Uh, you know, there's a place 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.120 where they're talking about the damned or frozen. There that 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:07.960 the lake at the in the lake at the center 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:12.040 of the world, and their their eyes are looking upward, 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:16.640 their their sockets pool with tears, the tears freeze and 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:19.760 then expand painfully in their eye socket. You know, So 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:21.920 little things like that, you know, it's you know, it's 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:25.240 he's not, you know, positioning in some sort of impossible realm, 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.640 but he is certainly applying his understanding of the natural 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:30.720 world to these little details. 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.880 Yeah. So I think there are a number of things 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:37.400 about this little passage in the Inferno that are very interesting, 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:41.840 but they have different implications for Dante than they have 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:46.760 for us. So again, Dante believed the Earth was the 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:51.280 center of the created material universe, with the domains of 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:55.400 the planets and the stars existing in these concentric spheres 0:16:55.440 --> 0:17:00.560 extending out from our planet, and thus the center of 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.840 the Earth was sort of the center of the center 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:07.640 of everything that was material and created, and that's where 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:10.880 Satan is. So that kind of seems weird, doesn't it 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:16.240 that a fourteenth century Catholic like Dante would situate Satan, 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.800 the Prince of darkness, father of lies, at the center 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.840 of everything, the heart of all physical reality, seems like 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.800 a kind of privileged place to put the worst possible being, right. 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.040 Yeah, yeah, yeah, when you start thinking about like the 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:32.520 pure cosmology of the thing, like this is the center 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.320 of everything, and this is where the great enemy is. 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:39.159 But if you understand Dante's cosmology, if you understand his 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:43.040 model of the universe, it actually makes a lot of sense. 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:47.720 Because Dante believed that God himself dwells in or I 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.960 guess maybe even beyond what's known as the empirehean it's 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:54.960 this area that's the highest heaven, or he might say 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:59.639 beyond the highest heaven, actually above and somewhat outside the 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.880 concentric spheres of the created universe. So to be at 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:06.199 the center of the earth and the center of the 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.840 universe is actually to be as far as one can 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:14.880 possibly reside from God's light. So throughout the Divine Comedy, 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:20.480 Dante repeatedly compares sin to weight and grace to lightness. 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:24.600 So sin and evil and wretchedness all sink, They physically 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:28.440 sink towards that central point to which all heavy things 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:33.840 are pulled, and redemption and holiness cause things to rise, 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.479 to rise up through the heavens. So given that, it 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:40.240 actually makes a lot of sense that for Dante, Satan 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.359 is the center of the universe. That's the worst place 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:43.840 you can be. 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:46.800 Yeah, And it makes sense given the trajectory of the 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:50.919 entire Divine comedy, which again is starting in the mundane world, 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.959 and then you descend into Inferno, go to the very 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.159 bottom of it, then crawl your way up to the 0:18:57.200 --> 0:18:59.280 center of the Earth. You go up to the mount 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.080 of Purgatory on the other side of the world, ascend 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:03.840 to the top of that, which takes you to the 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:08.439 terrestrial Eden, and then from there you venture into the paradise, 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.760 into the realm of heaven and God and so forth right. 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.639 But the other cool implication of this passage is that, 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:21.159 given Dante's cosmology, once the character Dante and Virgil crawl 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:25.800 down the devil's disgusting bigfoot thigh, they have not only 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:29.240 crossed through the center of the planet Earth because of 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:33.160 the cosmology, they have crossed to the other side of everything. 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.240 So that's kind of fascinating too. It's like the midpoint 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:39.800 of the universe and they've gone to the other side. 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.800 But there's another interesting implication of this passage. If you 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:48.600 apply our modern, more Copernican influenced view of the cosmos, 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:51.199 in which we know that there is no good reason 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:53.399 to think that the center of the Earth, or in 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:56.840 fact any point in space, is the center of the universe. 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:01.679 Astronomers and physicists now generally believe that there actually is 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:05.800 no such thing as a center of the universe. And 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:08.399 it's not just that we don't have a way to 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:12.440 find the center. It's that when you zoom out far enough, 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:16.359 the universe appears to be the common expression is homogeneous 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:20.720 and isotropic, meaning it looks basically the same from all 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:25.399 locations and in all directions, and it's expanding equally in 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.879 all directions. So that's kind of hard for us to 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:33.600 understand intuitively, because if you like, you can't really picture 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.080 a three dimensional space without a center point. Like if 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:41.240 you imagine the volume of a cube or a sphere, 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:44.119 there is a middle point in there, somewhere inside the 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:46.919 middle there is a point that's furthest from all the boundaries. 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:51.639 But our best evidence indicates that the real universe, the 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:55.560 universe at large, is not like that. No direction you 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:59.200 move in can bring you closer to or further from 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.960 the spatial boundaries, and in fact, there probably are no 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:08.120 spatial boundaries. So that sounds kind of counterintuitive because how 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:11.359 can a space not have any boundaries? But this point 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:16.960 is pretty interesting. There are several different, still possibly viable 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:21.000 models for the large scale geometry of the universe, but 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:26.280 none of the standard ones have spatial boundaries. So, based 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:29.480 on our best evidence from things like the cosmic microwave background, 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:34.639 the universe is either infinite in spatial dimension, meaning there 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:37.159 are no boundaries and you can just go forever in 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:42.119 any direction, or the spatial volume of the universe is finite, 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:47.159 so it's not infinite, but it's closed meaning A common 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:50.359 analogy used to explain this is if you think about 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:54.399 the two dimensional surface of a three dimensional sphere, so 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:57.679 like the skin of a balloon or a ball. If 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:00.760 you imagine an ant crawling on the surface of a ball, 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:04.520 it's not infinite, like there's only there's a limited area 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.080 that it can crawl around, but it can never reach 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:10.040 a boundary. You can just keep going forever in any 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:14.800 direction there is no boundary. So this analogy isn't perfect, 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.120 but it does capture the idea that, like the surface 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.480 of a sphere, where the area is finite, but there's 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:26.960 no outer boundary. The universe itself is possibly finite, but 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:30.640 without a boundary, and is kind of like the surface 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:32.600 of a higher dimensional space. 0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:37.280 Okay, certainly hard for us to envision. It's not the 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:40.040 sort of environment that we evolve to make sense of 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:41.520 in our own mind totally. 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:45.159 But again the point is our best models of the universe, 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:48.280 the ones that best conform to the evidence and are 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:52.600 subscribed to by the most physicists and physical cosmologists, they 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:55.000 don't have a center point, and they don't have boundaries. 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:59.320 They're either infinite or you can or they're finite but closed, 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:03.680 and they don't boundaries either way. So, given our modern view, 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.840 the interesting physical thing about this part of the poem 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:11.920 is actually how it highlights that up and down are 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:17.000 merely a matter of perspective. In Dante's cosmology, there is 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:21.760 an objective, universal up and down, but in our universe 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:25.919 there is no universal or objective up and down. Up 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:31.240 and down are sensations we feel based on our relationship 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:35.800 to the nearest, strongest gravitational attractor. So you change your 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:39.479 orientation to the attractor and the directions of up and 0:23:39.560 --> 0:23:41.879 down change as well, which is what they would have 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:46.440 done going through the center of the Earth. Also, there 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:49.480 is the change in our understanding of gravity that makes 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:53.040 this passage interesting. You know, in our like post Galileo 0:23:53.200 --> 0:23:57.399 post Isaac Newton world, we know that gravity is not 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:01.040 the tendency of heavy objects to sync to the center 0:24:01.080 --> 0:24:06.119 of the universe, as Aristotle thought, putting aside Einstein's refinements 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:11.440 of functionally, gravity is the mutual attraction of mass to mass. 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:17.840 So there's actually nothing gravitationally special about the Earth, or 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:20.840