PREMIUM FEATURE
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"Philotheo. I will do so. If the world is finite and if nothing lieth beyond, I ask you Where is the world? Where is the universe? Aristotle replieth, it is in itself. [1] The convex surface of the primal heaven is universal space, which being the primal container is by naught contained. For position in space is no other than the surfaces and limit of the containing body, so that he who hath no containing body hath no position in space. [2] What then dost thou mean, O Aristotle, by this phrase, that "space is within itself"? What will be thy conclusion concerning that which is beyond the world? If thou sayest, there is nothing, then the heaven [3] and the world will certainly not be anywhere.
Fracastoro. The world will then be nowhere. Everything will be nowhere.
Philotheo. The world is something which is past finding out. If thou sayest (and it certainly appeareth to me that thou seekest to say something in order to escape Vacuum and Nullity), if thou sayest that beyond the world is a divine intellect, so that God doth become the position in space of all things, why then thou thyself wilt be much embarrassed to explain to us how that which is incorporeal [yet] intelligible, and without dimension can be the very position in space occupied by a dimensional body; and if thou sayest that this incorporeal space containeth as it were a form, as the soul containeth the body, then thou dost not reply to the question of that which lieth beyond, nor to the enquiry concerning that which is outside the universe. And if thou wouldst excuse thyself by asserting that where naught is, and nothing existeth, there can be no question of position in space nor of beyond or outside, yet I shall in no wise be satisfied. For these are mere words and excuses, which cannot form part of our thought. For it is wholly impossible that in any sense or fantasy (even though there may be various senses and various fantasies), it is I say impossible that I can with any true meaning assert that the
About Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno (1548 – 17 February 1600) was an Italian universalist pantheist monist philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet, who, following an Inquisition for heresy and the denial of several Catholic doctrines, was burned at the stake in Rome, 1600; born Filippo Bruno, in Nola, Italy, he often called himself Il Nolano (The Nolan).
Biography information from Wikiquote
Additional quotes by Giordano Bruno
"First, in his suppositions, he proceeds from unnatural foundations, pretending there are parts of the infinite; there are none who can support this, for there are no partial infinities; this is an implied contradiction, that infinity has a lesser part and a greater part, but you approach infinity no more quickly if you count by hundreds than by threes, for infinity has an infinity of hundreds no less than an infinity of threes. Infinite distance is measured in infinite feet equally with infinite miles, and when we would speak of parts of an infinite distance, we don't say "a hundred miles" or "a thousand parasangs", as these describe parts of a finite distance; they are in fact parts only of a finite whole, to which they have a proportion; they cannot be said to be parts of that to which they have no proportion. Thus a thousand years isn't part of eternity, because it has no proportion to the whole, but is instead a partial measure of time, like ten thousand years or a hundred thousand centuries."
IN THE third Dialogue there is first denied that base illusion of the shape of the heavens, of their spheres and diversity. For the heaven is declared to be a single general space, embracing the infinity of worlds, though we do not deny that there are other infinite 'heavens' using that word in another sense. For just as this earth hath her own heaven (which is her own region), through which she moveth and hath her course, so the same may be said of each of the innumerable other worlds.
But here we must consider that it is highly inconvenient to suppose the Supreme and Highest to be similar merely to a performer on the zither who cannot play in the absence of the instrument; thus would a Creator be unable to create because that which he is able to create cannot be created by him. This would lay down an obvious contradiction which cannot be overlooked save by the most ignorant.