Monday, October 30, 2017

The horror of contingency

Cosmic calamity is possible, and perhaps likely. However, come to think of it, real contingent events are neither likely nor unlikely, otherwise they wouldn't be "contingent" in the true sense of the word. This is because contingency has nothing to do with possibility - bur rather potentiality. No one saw this more clearly than C.S. Peirce, followed only by Hartshorne, Deleuze, and perhaps Meillassoux.

But I've digressed. The interesting article is linked below.

----
A Nearby Neutron Star Collision Could Cause Calamity on Earth
// Space.com

From certain death to a scientific goldmine, here's the spectrum of possibilities that we might expect from merging black holes, colliding neutron stars or detonating supernovae in our galactic neighborhood.
----