Discovery of the Cold World on the Earth and in the Universe: from Ancient Natural Philosophy to Cryosophy

Abstract

Discovering today diversity of extraterrestrial cryogenic objects, as well as the large range of scales and rates of cryogenic processes, undermines the conventional views of cold in the classical terms. The classical approach of natural sciences that study different cryogenic objects and processes separately is giving way to the apprehension of the cold world as a self-evolving complex system, with a great variability of its constituents in the scale of the Universe. In this respect, we discuss the methods and conceptual basis of the terrestrial and extraterrestrial cryology in terms of a new science called cryosophy. Cryosophy studies the role of cold in the origin and evolution of life and heat-mass interactions in the world. It addresses the key features and principles of the evolution of the cryosphere and uses both classical (for simple physical and chemical systems) and synergetic (for complex and living systems) approaches, as well as information logistic methods that generate knowledge about knowledge. Studies of cold date back to the ages of ancient Greek natural philosophy, which flourished between the 7 th and 4 th centuries BC. Unlike Greek natural philosophy, which pretended to be a universal