Astronomy and Civilization in the New Enlightenment

Abstract

From the standpoint of the modern theory of complexity, one can discover new, nontrivial senses in the notions of main representatives of the Russian cosmism (Nicolay A. Berdyayev, Sergey N. Bulgakov, Vladimir I. Vernadsky, Alexander K. Gorsky, Valerian N. Muravyov, Vladimir S. Solovyov, Nicolay A. Umov, Nicolay A. Fyodorov, Pavel A. Florensky, Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky, etc.). The most influential their notions are the following: the constructive role of chaos in evolution, the active creative activities of a man in achieving final objects, the animated nature of any thing in cosmos and seeds of life scattered in the universe, the integrity of biosphere and noosphere, the mastering of time and the purposeful opening up new media of habitation. The problems of evolutionary aims and integrity, of the active role of man in choosing of a preferable path of evolution are central in the modern theory of complexity (the theory of self-organization of complex systems, or synergetics) as well.