Ayn Rand's Greatest Achievement
kyneg...@hotmail.com
she, in your opinion, an integrator of various ideas into a unified whole, or
is there something truly original about her work? What is AR's greatest
achievement
Kynegeiros
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
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Rod Nibbe
> What is AR's greatest achievement
Beating down her *own* path.
-RKN
(rni...@alaska.net)
- Beaten Paths are for Beaten Men.
Brad Aisa
kyneg...@hotmail.com wrote:
>What is AR's greatest achievement
Historically, I would say her greatest achievement is defining a fully
rational ethics -- rational egoism.
Intellectually, I would say her greatest achievement is her theory of art --
art as a concretization of metaphysical abstractions.
Philosophically, I would say her greatest achievement is her theory of
abstraction -- the theory of measurement omission.
(Ok, so that is three, I know! -- but it is impossible for me to try to name
a *single* greatest achievement of Ayn Rand... :) )
--
Brad Aisa
ba...@DELETEistar.ca
"Laissez faire."
Ilya Shambat
> Many of Ayn Rand's ideas are based on the work of previous
> philosophers. Was she, in your opinion, an integrator of various ideas
> into a unified whole, or is there something truly original about her
> work?
She has created a vision of humanity based on life, liberty and pursuit
of happiness - people as independent and voluntary agents, endowed with
complete physical, moral and intellectual self-determination; the human
being as his totality rather than the social animal, transcending his
animal nature to attain his godlike manifestation. She placed the
individual before the society, the consciousness before the projection,
the mind before the conventional reality-tunnel, the self-definition
before the conception in other minds. Her vision was incomplete, for it
ignored the next levels of human existence: the higher consciousness,
the biospheric awareness, the astral body, the soul. That oversight can
be forgiven in light of the incomplete scientific knowledge of her time,
and overcome by integrating the understanding available through quantum
physics and modern biology and mathematics with the objectivist
foundations that she has laid.
> What is AR's greatest achievement
Ushering in the New Age.
- Ilya.
Robert J. Kolker
Brad Aisa wrote:
> kyneg...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> >What is AR's greatest achievement
>
> Historically, I would say her greatest achievement is defining a fully
> rational ethics -- rational egoism.
>
> Intellectually, I would say her greatest achievement is her theory of art --
> art as a concretization of metaphysical abstractions.
How would you classify art that is producedpurely for the aesthetic pleasure.
That is to
say making a thingie just because it looks
(or sounds) good.?
>
>
> Philosophically, I would say her greatest achievement is her theory of
> abstraction -- the theory of measurement omission.
>
Measurement omission is the most solid ofRand's accomplishments. But it is
not a
sufficient explanation for abstraction. She
never really dealt with concepts generated
by analogy. Piaget dealt with such concepts
in his studies of how children formulate ideas.
Not all attributes are instantiated in
a linearly ordered domain, so measurement
omission will not cover all the ground.
I would also add Rand's avoidance of the
form/substance dichotomy as an accomplishment.
Bob Kolker
Stephen Grossman
existence is identity
Reason is man's basic means of survival. AYN RAND
Schopenhauer's Concerto For Hobo And Buffoon
Hera, Medea and Jocasta walk into a bar...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tracking Marxist dialectical revolution: ZigZag
Radically systematic radical metaphysics: Existence 2
http://home.att.net/~sdgross
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Grossman Fairhaven, MA, USA sdg...@att.net
Paw1015
Do you think Rand was the first to say that abstraction
occurs by omitting the particular measurements of ideas?
She most certainly was not! You all ought to stop debating
if the Earth is flat or not and read a few books not
published by Laissez Faire publishers. Scroll down to see
Rand's "greatest achievement," as written by men who
predated her by 100's of years.
From Aristotle's _On Ideas:_
If, whenever we think of man... we are thinking
of something that is and of none of the particulars
From David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, of
the Understanding:
'Tis evident, that in forming most of our general ideas, if not all of them, we
abstract from every particular degree of quantity and quality...
John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding,
Book II, Of Ideas
[I]deas become general by separating from them the
circumstances of time and place, and any other ideas that
may determine them to this or that particular existence.
By this way of abstraction they are made capable of
representing more individuals than one; each of which
having in it a conformity to that abstract idea, is (as we
call it) of that sort.
...
For let any one effect, and then tell me, wherein does his idea of man differ
from that of Peter and Paul, or his idea of horse from that of Bucephalus, but
in the leaving out something that is peculiar to each individual, and retaining
so much of those particular complex ideas of several particular existences as
they are found to agree in? Of the complex ideas signified by the names man and
horse, leaving out but those particulars wherein they differ, and retaining
only those wherein they agree, and of those making a new distinct complex idea,
and giving the name animal to it, one has a more general term, that comprehends
with man several other creatures. Leave out of the idea of animal, sense and
spontaneous motion, and the remaining complex idea, made up of the remaining
simple ones of body, life, and nourishment, becomes a more general one, under
the more comprehensive term, vivens. And, not to dwell longer upon this
particular, so evident in itself; by the same way the mind proceeds to body,
substance, and at last to being, thing, and such universal terms, which stand
for any of our ideas whatsoever. To conclude: this whole mystery of genera and
species, which make such a noise in the schools, and are with justice so little
regarded out of them, is nothing else but abstract ideas, more or less
comprehensive, with names annexed to them. In all which this is constant and
unvariable, That every more general term stands for such an idea, and is but a
part of any of those contained under it. (Sounds like Rand cribbed half
of IOE form Locke)
>What is AR's greatest achievement?
Her novels. Her philosophy was unorigional when correct,
and incorrect when original. See above.
Gregory Weston
DSANDIN
Stephen Grossman <sdg...@att.net>
Sat, Oct 3, 1998 17:18 EDT
<sdgross-0310...@141.cambridge-21-22rs.ma.dial-access.att.net>
>> In article <6v3m8a$q47$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Kynegeiros wrote:...
>>
>> > What is AR's greatest achievement
>
>existence is identity
Add consciousness is identification .
Philosophically we stand on those two metaphysical legs.
--- Dean
Tom Scheeler
>rational ethics -- rational egoism.
>
>Intellectually, I would say her greatest achievement is her theory of art --
>art as a concretization of metaphysical abstractions.
>
>abstraction -- the theory of measurement omission.
>
>a *single* greatest achievement of Ayn Rand... :) )
I'd say her single greatest achievement was the integration of the branches of
philosophy she provided. Every last philosopher in history had major
contradictions in their works, or their works were some sort psychotic mush.
Many, working over 2000 years ago, were just naive or working with limited
tools, but many, particularly in the last 200 years, were _just plain nuts_.
Tom Scheeler
Jim Klein
<sdgross-0310...@141.cambridge-21-22rs.ma.dial-access.att.net>>existence is identity
SHE did that??? Wow...that really IS quite an achievement!
jk
Mike Rael
she talked about the psychology of sex, she related it to faulty
economics. Would you suspect there is an unusual integrating process
going on?:)
Why do you feel there is nothing "truly original" in masterful
integration? Bach called himself an "imitator", even though his works
clearly added a whole new level of mastery to what had gone before him.
All of Rand's ideas had been proposed one time or another--and ignored as
"just an interesting idea". It is only when they are all tied together
that they get cumulative power, so that people can actually *use* the
damned things!
Her greatest achievement was to write Atlas Shrugged! All else that she
did pales before the fantastic achievement of writing a tightly knit
novel, that has an exciting adventure story of the spirit, with unusual,
interesting heroes and villains, integrated with a comprehensive
philosophy, and put together on a fantastically complex canvas that
covers America, from the highest in the land to the lowest.
best wishes,
Mike
kyneg...@hotmail.com wrote:
:
Many of Ayn Rand's ideas are based on the work of previous philosophers. Was
:
she, in your opinion, an integrator of various ideas into a unified whole, or
: is there something truly original about her work? What is AR's greatest
: achievement
: Kynegeiros
: -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
: http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
--
Mike Rael, MS, instructional technology
la...@netcom.com
listowner, self-esteem-self-help
owner, COACHING BY PHONE, the rapid way to raise reality-based self-esteem
R Lawrence
>What is AR's greatest achievement
_The Fountainhead_. (I consider _Atlas Shrugged_ a close second, although I
am sure there are many who would disagree with me about the order.)
Rand was a novelist first and foremost. Her philosophy is important, but
her skill as an artist is of greater distinction.
============================================================================
Richard Lawrence <RL0...@ix.netcom.com>
Steve Reed
>kynegeiros wrote:
>>What is AR's greatest achievement[?]
>_The Fountainhead_. (I consider _Atlas Shrugged_ a close second, although I
>am sure there are many who would disagree with me about the order.)
Many would, though not all, Richard, quoth this mostly-lurker-once-again ...
see below.
>Rand was a novelist first and foremost. Her philosophy is important, but
>her skill as an artist is of greater distinction.
What bewilders me, in seeing how so many decry Rand's lack of acceptance in
academe, is how few adduce any parallel. Rand -was- a novelist first, in her
joy of creation. She didn't see nonfiction exposition as any sort of duty, but
she didn't get the unique personal pleasure from it that she did from fiction.
Her public persona, in her final 25 years, makes this evident.
How many other philosophers are touted to academe -principally- upon the basis
of the fiction that they write? You could go back to Galileo and his "Dialogue
Upon Two World Systems," or back to Plato and (what I see as) his creation of
the character of "Socrates," whoever the actual man may have been. But I can't
think of any others.
======
[I wrote the following notes that have been added to the many reader comments
about "AS" at Amazon.com -- a matter of long intention, provoked by what must
be my 10th full re-reading of "TF" in twenty years. I've covered some of the
same ground about Rand and The Speech here in HPO before, but wanted to
particularly emphasize the earlier book.]
September 24, 1998
[4 star rating out of possible 5]
Rand dramatized her ideas, but she'd created better fiction
Most of the hundreds of reader reviews are quite accurate about the
individualistic, rationally egoistic, life-affirming philosophy that Rand
conveys in this book -- and that goes for those who both love and hate her
work. What few have discussed at any length are the merits of "Atlas" as
fiction.
If you are interested in encountering Rand as a provocative author and
literary stylist -- and it's an eminently worthwhile desire -- this is not the
book with which to begin. Her earlier novel "The Fountainhead" (1943) is
notably superior to "Atlas" (1957) in character shaping, plot construction,
setting, and dramatic tension.
"Atlas" changed, while Rand was planning it, from a straightforward story --
about the creators of value withdrawing from society -- to a project that
entailed the description of a "moral revolution," as Nathaniel Branden termed
it. Rand felt the need to make the essence of her philosophy more explicit and
detailed, in order to properly depict her heroic characters and what they
believed.
Was that a genuine need? Within fiction, that is? Not in the wake of what
she'd created earlier. The courtroom speech by Roark in "The Fountainhead"
ended up genuinely dramatizing the essence of her philosophy, in how it was
connected to the events of her plot, and in how it alluded to those Roark had
defended or opposed. It didn't sit apart from the events that created the main
conflict. The similar climactic speech in "Atlas," by contrast, is a piece
existing on its own (though superbly self-integrated in its philosophic aims).
It's set apart from the rest of her story, and unlike the shorter speeches of
others earlier in the plot, it's not genuinely linked to the main events and
characters.
This isn't a minimal distinction. With a few minor exceptions (some polemical
pamphlets), Rand wrote fiction exclusively until 1955, by which time she had
worked on "Atlas" for nine years. When she turned at that point to the major
speech (itself requiring two years to formulate and write), she shifted gears
and aimed her writing skills at the exposition of philosophy, not at
dramatizing plots. She couldn't sustain her work of writing in both ways at
the same time.
This makes "Atlas" into two books, not one. The book with a plot surrounds the
book-length major speech in the heart of Part Three. One can see the rising
and falling lines of Rand's talents, as she shifted interests. The most vivid
and moving episode in the plot-book immediately precedes The Speech. (Rearden
and the attack on his factory, and the young boy who attempts to prevent it.)
The most conventional and least original plotting immediately follows The
Speech and continues to the end of the novel, with almost visible efforts to
tie up loose plot ends. (And in a use of overly transparent allegories, such
as the main character being "crucified," albeit on a torture machine.)
To know this road map helps in negotiating what is a long and yet rewarding
fictional path. Don't mistake me: Even when the plot was below her best
efforts, Rand's dramatic sense exceeds all her contemporaries, and hearkens
back to Hugo in its concentration of effects. Yet this book attempts to bridge
the gap between fiction and philosophy, and ends up being a weaker effort in
both areas. Rand wrote better fiction earlier, and (The Speech aside) better
philosophy later.
"Atlas" is Dagny Taggart's story, much as "TF" was Howard Roark's. Rand was
more adept at finding the greatness in human beings by looking at men than at
women. She made little attempt to hide this point in her later nonfiction
writings and interviews. Introspection was not her strong suit. This didn't
mean that she was bad at it -- for Dagny is an intricate, passionate, complex
character, the most compelling by far of Rand's female protagonists. Yet this
woman writer fit better by far within the "skin" of a man such as Roark.
The secondary characters in "Atlas," with the exception of Francisco d'Anconia
and his sardonic wit, don't match up to the detail and quality of those in the
earlier book. The men in "Atlas" who sell their souls, such as Boyle, Ferris,
and Stadler, are far less compelling and chilling than the delicate balance
shown in Peter Keating, in Rand's earlier novel. Too many of those appearing
on either moral side in "Atlas" shade into caricature, whether in Rand's
descriptions or in their immersion into plot twists. The main hero of "Atlas,"
Hank Rearden, accepts far too many blows from those who are being parasites
upon his values -- too many, that is, for a man possessing the strength of
intellect that he is shown to use. By contrast, the earlier book's Gail
Wynand, who is far less moral in what he has done, knows his weaknesses and is
more realistically self-aware.
"Atlas" is set in an undefined time in the future, and the science-fiction
touches have fallen short in 40 years (watch for the 35-inch TV set). The
backbone of the story, using passenger railroads, also threatens to be
anachronistic. Yet if a bit of "alternate universe" sensibility is used,
thinking of this as a world of might-have-been that's even more bleak than our
own, it becomes less of an obstacle to the present-day reader.
All of this aside, "Atlas" is a compelling, challenging, and dramatic work of
fiction. If you want to genuinely understand Rand's strengths as a fiction
artist, though, begin with her earlier novels.
And when you do read "Atlas," read it for the plot. Don't let the 70-page
major speech slow you down ... skip it if you wish, absorb the essence of the
plot, and then encounter it on your second reading. As with all of Rand's
work, the perceptive reader will want to encounter it a second time, if only
to appreciate the workings of her mind and the skills of a master dramatist.
Demand Bill of Rights enforcement!
http://www.webleyweb.com/lneil/bor_enforcement.html
"The people always have some champion whom they set
over them and nurse into greatness. ... This and no other
is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first
appears he is a protector." -- Plato
Tom Scheeler
R Lawrence wrote in message <6v7bir$f...@sjx-ixn3.ix.netcom.com>...
>am sure there are many who would disagree with me about the order.)
>
>her skill as an artist is of greater distinction.
I disagree. There have been many outstanding authors, but in 2500 years, no
other philosopher can hold a candle to her.
Tom Scheeler
Robert J. Kolker
> Her greatest achievement was to write Atlas Shrugged! All else that she
> did pales before the fantastic achievement of writing a tightly knit
> novel, that has an exciting adventure story of the spirit, with unusual,
> interesting heroes and villains, integrated with a comprehensive
> philosophy, and put together on a fantastically complex canvas that
> covers America, from the highest in the land to the lowest.
>
Atlas Shrugged occupies an honored place onmy bookcase of Alternate Time Line
fiction.
Alternate Time Line fiction is a genre based on
the premis that the time lines we occupy are
the result of the *choices* people make.
Assuming Free Will for the moment, think about
every branch point in your life or other people's
lives. A simple choice may have highly non-simple
consequences.
Suppose you pass a car on the road and by doing
do put your self in harms way, or inadvertently put
someone else in harm's way. A simple act with
high impact (pun intended) on someone's life.
Since one can never know *all* the consequences
of a choice, there is no point in making one's self
crazy by the trying to calculate the outcome of
every branch point, be it big or little.
If Free Will is true, the Realithy we experience is
partly the result of sculptoring the world by our
choices. Here I am not afraid, standing in a World
I (on others) damn well made!!!
Bob Kolker
Robert J. Kolker
Tom Scheeler wrote:
> I disagree. There have been many outstanding authors, but in 2500 years, no
> other philosopher can hold a candle to her.
>
Mario Bunge exceeds Ayn Rand in skill, depth, thoroughnessand rigor in all
matters pertaining to Ontology and
Epistemology.
Since Bunge wrote for a highly technical audience
his works are not popularly know, but if you want
to put Rand's relatively superficial and middle brow
stuff on Ontology and Eipistemology against what
Bunge did, you will see the difference between a
deep master and a bright and superficial amateur.
Since Bunge never wrote fiction, we have no way
of comparing his skill as a novelist against Rand.
Bob Kolker
Steve Davis
> Mario Bunge exceeds Ayn Rand [...]
I'm surprised you'd pick him out of the pack to recommend, since he has
written so much to skewer reductionism. Also, his theory of
"biosystemism" is essentially emergentist-teleology.
I think Bunge is a mixed bag. He's refreshingly rational for a
philosophy professor, but he also expresses a number of really silly
ideas wrapped up in scholastic hyperbabble.
John Alway
> > I disagree. There have been many outstanding authors, but in 2500 years, no
> > other philosopher can hold a candle to her.
With the exception of Aristotle, I agree with you, Tom. Aristotle is
the greatest ever philosopher. The father of science, logic, and a
brilliantly conceived, largely consistent this worldly system, despite
its flaws.
I also put in a good word for Thales for being the first ever
philosopher, not to mention his other marvelous accomplishments in math
and other fields.
...John
Pupship
existence is identity>>
No. Existence is existence. Identity is a quality of entities.
Pup...@aol.com
Paw1015
John Alway wrote:
>Aristotle is the greatest ever philosopher.
No way! That title belongs David Hume.
>The father of science...
There was science before Aristotle. And, as Russell put it,
all branches of modern science began with an attack on Aristotle. If
you want a father of science, go with Thales. If you want a
father of the scientific method, you have Francis Bacon.
>[the father of] logic
What did they use in their arguments before Aristotle? He
does deserve credit for writing down and codifing logic,
though.
>a brilliantly conceived, largely consistent this worldly system
I am not sure what you mean by this.
>I also put in a good word for Thales for being the first ever
>philosopher, not to mention his other marvelous accomplishments in math
>and other fields.
History of science classes always begin with Thales.
Gregory Weston
Tom Scheeler
John Alway wrote in message <3617DAE8...@icsi.net>...
>> Tom Scheeler wrote:
>
>> > I disagree. There have been many outstanding authors, but in 2500 years,
no
>> > other philosopher can hold a candle to her.
>
>
> With the exception of Aristotle, I agree with you, Tom. Aristotle is
>brilliantly conceived, largely consistent this worldly system, despite
>its flaws.
>
> I also put in a good word for Thales for being the first ever
>philosopher, not to mention his other marvelous accomplishments in math
>and other fields.
I agree with your choices but I still consider it Rand, Aristotle, Thales;
WIN, PLACE, SHOW!!
Thales (according to my uncertain source) is the speaker of my favorite quote:
"Wisdom is the integration of knowledge". Aristotle certainly laid the
foundation for most of the benevolent philosophy over the past 2500 years, but
he made many assertions that, even in his day, where foolishly silly,
primarily due to speculation. He also had several contradictions, but given
his era and circumstances, his achievement is awesome. Thales nearly as much.
But Rand did something that no other came even close to in the 2500 years
since, and that is to integrate knowledge (wisdom) and remove most every
contradiction. Her contradictions (that I see) exist exclusively in her
opinions, not her principles.
Tom Scheeler
Betsy Speicher
Someone once asked that of Ayn Rand in the question period at the Ford
Hall Forum. Actually, the question was: Of all the things you have done
in your life, what are you the most proud of?
What do you think she said?
(No fair guessing if you've heard the tape or if you were in the audience
as I was.)
Betsy Speicher
You'll know Objectivism is winning when ... you read the CyberNet -- the
most complete and comprehensive e-mail news source about Objectivists,
their activities, and their victories. Request a sample issue at
cybe...@speicher.com
Brad Aisa
>Brad Aisa wrote:
>
>> Intellectually, I would say [Rand's] greatest achievement is her theory
of art --
>> art as a concretization of metaphysical abstractions.
>
pleasure.
>That is to say making a thingie just because it looks
>(or sounds) good.?
I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Simply being "pleasing to the eye" is
*not* the distinguishing characteristic of art -- a beautiful sunset, an
attractive floral arrangement, or a pleasing wallpaper are *not* examples of
art.
Also, do not make the mistake of confusing artistic *creation* with esthetic
*analysis* -- one can create and enjoy art, without necessarily knowing the
underlying theory of art. This is the same as being able to speak and
understand a language, without understanding the formal grammar of the
language.
According to Objectivist esthetics, art is a "selective recreation of
reality based on the artist's metaphysics." What this means, is that an
artist starts with a specific view of reality (a metaphysics), then
selectively renders some aspect of that via the concretes of the art work.
If the artist's metaphysics holds beauty to be important, then the subjects
are likely to be beautiful. If not, then probably not. Either way, it is not
beauty that characterizes art, but selective stylization of existence.
>
>> Philosophically, I would say her greatest achievement is her theory of
>> abstraction -- the theory of measurement omission.
>>
>
>Measurement omission is the most solid ofRand's accomplishments. But it is
>not a sufficient explanation for abstraction. She
>never really dealt with concepts generated
>by analogy.
Would you mind providing a couple of examples of this?
>Not all attributes are instantiated in
>a linearly ordered domain, so measurement
>omission will not cover all the ground.
??? Rand covered a variety of types of concepts in her work, and what were
the relevant measurement units and how they were omitted. Could you give
some examples of what you mean?
--
Brad Aisa
ba...@NOSPAMistar.ca
"Laissez faire."
Dale King
Dear Mike et al...
Rand's epistemology is quite unique (if not original). Her
identification of the process of concept formation is unlike anything else
I've ever read. If these ideas ahve been printed before, but simply not
integrated, I'd like to know who proposed them originally.
Dale.
Mike Rael
I was looking at the "whole picture", and trying to answer it the
way Rand might have liked to answer it.
However, your point is equally valid!
best always,
Mike
Dale King (king...@pirates.Armstrong.EDU) wrote:
: Dear Mike et al...
Stephen Grossman
<dsa...@aol.com> wrote:
> Stephen Grossman <sdg...@att.net>
> Sat, Oct 3, 1998 17:18 EDT
> <sdgross-0310...@141.cambridge-21-22rs.ma.dial-access.att.net>
>
> >> In article <6v3m8a$q47$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Kynegeiros wrote:...
> >>
> >> > What is AR's greatest achievement
> >
> >existence is identity
>
> Add consciousness is identification .
> Philosophically we stand on those two metaphysical legs.
but E=I is the basis of the other and the question was of the one greatest
achievement. Of course, C=I is the 2nd greatest.
Stephen Grossman
> All of Rand's ideas had been proposed one time or another
who proposed her theory of concepts?
Stephen Grossman
<rum...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> In
> <sdgross-0310...@141.cambridge-21-22rs.ma.dial-access.att.net>
> Stephen Grossman <sdg...@att.net> writes:
>
> >> > What is AR's greatest achievement
> >
> >existence is identity
>
> SHE did that??? Wow...that really IS quite an achievement!
Yes it is, especially as a split between existence and identity runs
throughout the history of philosophy, making a fully rational philosophy
impossible.
Stephen Grossman
<bobk...@usa.net> wrote:
> Mario Bunge exceeds Ayn Rand in skill, depth, thoroughness and rigor in all
> matters pertaining to Ontology and> Epistemology.
how about a small summary of his theory of concepts or his version of
"existence is identity. Or anything. This is too bizarre to be believed.
Stephen Grossman
<pup...@aol.com> wrote:
> existence is identity>>
>
> No. Existence is existence. Identity is a quality of entities.
There are no metaphysical splits, thus existence s identity. Entities
exist and are identities. Qualities exist and are identities. Identity is
quality. An entity is an identity and nothing more. Eg, a rock exists and
is what it is. There are not different types of existence which is the
rock. Existence is existence, ie, it is an identity.
Stephen Grossman
<paw...@aol.com> wrote:
> Do you think Rand was the first to say that abstraction
> occurs by omitting the particular measurements of ideas?
> She most certainly was not!
> From Aristotle's _On Ideas:_
>
> If, whenever we think of man... we are thinking
> of something that is and of none of the particulars
>
> From David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, of
> the Understanding:
>
> 'Tis evident, that in forming most of our general ideas, if not all of
them, we
> abstract from every particular degree of quantity and quality...
>
>
> John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding,
> Book II, Of Ideas
>
> [I]deas become general by separating from them the
> circumstances of time and place, and any other ideas that
> may determine them to this or that particular existence.
> For let any one effect, and then tell me, wherein does his idea of man differ
> from that of Peter and Paul, or his idea of horse from that of Bucephalus
> , but
> in the leaving out something that is peculiar to each individual, and
retaining
> so much of those particular complex ideas of several particular existences as
> they are found to agree in?
Ive read these before and didnt notice the similarity. I think youre right
but im unsure of the exact context. For one thing, none of these people
used measurement-omission to produce a valid theory of ideas. It seems
they had an isolated insight but didnt expand on it.
Paw1015
Stephen Grossman writes:
>I've read these before and didnt notice the similarity. I
>think you're right...
I'm glad someone had finally responed to my claim that
Rand's omisson of measurement theory isn't origional!
I can't believe Kolker and Aisa did jump in and
try to refute me, as they both have said measurement
omission was Rand's greatist achievement.
>For one thing, none of these people used
>measurement-omission to produce a valid theory of ideas.
Aristotle's theory of ideas was certainly not valid. All it
is is warmed over Platonic formalism.
But Locke's theory of abstraction and ideas is very close
to Rand's. I only used a brief quotation of a few
paragraphs, but if have a look at book III of Locke's
Essay, which is the shortest of them, about 150 pages,
the simalarities to Rand's are uncanny. I am not saying
Rand plagerized Locke, I doubt she ever read his
Essay, but their likeness is undeniable. I think they both
came up with the idea on their own. It is common sence
that we get our abstract ideas by omiting their particular
measurements.
Gregory Weston
Robert J. Kolker
Paw1015 wrote:
> Stephen Grossman writes:
>
> >I've read these before and didnt notice the similarity. I
> >think you're right...
>
> I'm glad someone had finally responed to my claim that
> Rand's omisson of measurement theory isn't origional!
> I can't believe Kolker and Aisa did jump in and
> try to refute me, as they both have said measurement
> omission was Rand's greatist achievement.
It was. Appently it was somebody else'sacheivment
also. Someone pointed out that were Rand
was right she was not original and where
she was original she was not right.
Bob Kolker
John Alway
>John Alway wrote:
>>Aristotle is the greatest ever philosopher.
>No way! That title belongs David Hume.
David Hume? What has he done aside from creating a plethora of
skeptics and making it possible for Kant to create his little dream
world?
>>The father of science...
>There was science before Aristotle.
Not so. He came up with the essence of the scientific method. This
is laid out well in the book "Aristotle" by John Herman Randall.
>And, as Russell put it,
>all branches of modern science began with an attack on Aristotle.
His statement has no validity. After all, that would mean attacking
logic, the idea of submersing yourself in the subject matter, the idea
of hypothesizing about the subject in accordance with the evidence, and
the idea of hypothesizing and rehypothesizing as you investigate the
subject matter.
>If
>you want a father of science, go with Thales.
Thales is the father of philosophy, and the concept of proof in
mathematics, but he didn't develop the scientific method.
>If you want a
>father of the scientific method, you have Francis Bacon.
His addition was the experimental method. A powerful additional tool,
but minor in comparison to the essential method.
>>[the father of] logic
>What did they use in their arguments before Aristotle? He
>does deserve credit for writing down and codifing logic,
>though.
Men must implicitly use logic simply to survive. What Aristotle did
was make the laws of logic explicit, and on top of that he presented his
formal syllogisms.
>>a brilliantly conceived, largely consistent this worldly system
>I am not sure what you mean by this.
I mean what I write. Aristotle's system was anchored in this world,
and with it he accomplished a fantastic amount in a wide variety of
subject matters at a time when knowledge was very limited.
His theory of concept formation is not, btw, warmed over Platonism. He
uses an element of Platonism, be he utterly removes it from the mystical
realm, which is vitally important.
>>I also put in a good word for Thales for being the first ever
>>philosopher, not to mention his other marvelous accomplishments in math
>>and other fields.
>History of science classes always begin with Thales.
He can be said to have been a man who placed an important corner stone
of science in place. His method of looking at the world and trying to
explain it according to nature and not by gods and ghosts is likely the
most important and biggest step, although this is why he is the first
ever philosopher. Easy for we moderns to take for granted, but he was
the first. He is also credited as being the first to study magnetism,
and electrostatics.
...John
Paw1015
John Alway wrote:
>David Hume? What has he done aside from creating a
plethora of
>skeptics
He created a liberal, and naturalistic theory of morality. He
was the first economist to attack the mercantilist theories
of his days with his "The specie theory," and was a huge influence on Adam
Smith, who said of him: "I have always
considered him, both in his lifetime and since his death,
as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and
virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human fraility will
admit."
His "Dialouges concerning Natural Religion" is still the
best refutation of deism that exists. After Hume's
history of England was published, Boswell named him the
greatest writer in Great Britian. And there is also the fact
that he is right on most every philosophical issue.
>and making it possible for Kant to create his little dream
>world?
Make it possable? Kant attempted (badly) to refute Hume,
whose system he though created a scandal in philosophy.
>>There was science before Aristotle.
>Not so. He came up with the essence of the scientific method. This
>is laid out well in the book "Aristotle" by John Herman Randall.
I really don't want to argue this point. There are those
who overstate Aristotle's importence (Rand amoung them)
just as there are those who claim "All philosophy is but a
footnote to Plato." It is my opinion that they are both
wrong.
>His statement has no validity. After all, that would mean >attacking logic
When Russell said: "all branches of modern science began
with an attack on Aristotle" he does not mean that they
abandoned logic, but they attacked his particular theory
of that branch of science, and those who dogmaticly clung
to every stray word said by the man.
>Men must implicitly use logic simply to survive. What
>Aristotle did was make the laws of logic explicit, and on >top of that he
presented his formal syllogisms.
I do give him credit for this, but very little real knowledge
is gained with syllogisms. It is mainly a way to find flaws
in arguments.
Gregory Weston
Paw1015
Robert Kolker wrote:
>>...as they both have said measurement omission was
>>Rand's greatest achievement.
>It was. It was somebody else's acheivment also.
I thought that IOE was Rand's weakest book, while her
best nonfiction was The Romantic Manafesto and The
New Left. Her chapter on Skinner in that book was an
excellent attack on crude reductionist that makes the rest
of us look bad.
>Someone pointed out that were Rand
>was right she was not original and where
>she was original she was not right.
I claim credit for that pithy Phillipic.
Gregory Weston
Robert J. Kolker
Paw1015 wrote:
> I claim credit for that pithy Phillipic.
>
Actually, Karl Freidrich Gauss, the famousmathematician beat you to it
by nearly
200 years. He made that remark about
the metaphysicians of his time.
Where they were right they were trite and
conventional and where they were original
they were wrong.
I share Gauss' opinion of the metaphysicians.
Bob Kolker
Robert J. Kolker
John Alway wrote:
> >And, as Russell put it,
> >all branches of modern science began with an attack on Aristotle.
>
> His statement has no validity. After all, that would mean attacking
> logic, the idea of submersing yourself in the subject matter, the idea
> of hypothesizing about the subject in accordance with the evidence, and
> the idea of hypothesizing and rehypothesizing as you investigate the
> subject matter.
>
Yes and No. Galileo made his original contributionby discovering that the
natural
state of motion free
of force is uniform motion, not rest. It is acceleration
that is the result of force, not velocity.
Galileo ditched a good deal of Aritstotle's clap trap
ideas of motion, but not all. He, like Copernicus
believed that the heavenly bodies moved uniformly
in a cicular manner (constant angular velocity). This
is incorrect and it was up to Kepler to ditch this
notion, opening the way for Newton who postulated
a *cause* for the motion, namely gravitational force.
> >If
> >you want a father of science, go with Thales.
>
> Thales is the father of philosophy, and the concept of proof in
> mathematics, but he didn't develop the scientific method.
>
> >If you want a
> >father of the scientific method, you have Francis Bacon.
>
> His addition was the experimental method. A powerful additional
> tool,
> but minor in comparison to the essential method.
>
Mark this!!!. The Experimental method is *minor*.This way makes modern science
work, compared
to Artistotle's nonsense. If Aristotle had bothered to
check a few assumptions he made (like heavier bodies
falling faster than light bodies) he would have corrected
himselve. But this did not happen. A check did not require
any technology that Aristotle did not have. All he hade to
do was toss a big rock and a little rock of the roof of
the nearest temple to Zeus.
> >>[the father of] logic
>
> >What did they use in their arguments before Aristotle? He
> >does deserve credit for writing down and codifing logic,
> >though.
>
> Men must implicitly use logic simply to survive. What Aristotle did
> was make the laws of logic explicit, and on top of that he presented his
> formal syllogisms.
>
Which turned out to be a very smallsubset of logic. Aritstotle did not derive
machinery for dealing with multi-termed
attributes (of which the theory of relations
is a special case). Logic did not make any
noticible progress past Aristotle until the
19-th Century with the works of Boole
and Frege.
> ........................snip..........................
> He can be said to have been a man who placed an important corner
> stone
> of science in place. His method of looking at the world and trying to
> explain it according to nature and not by gods and ghosts is likely the
> most important and biggest step, although this is why he is the first
> ever philosopher. Easy for we moderns to take for granted, but he was
> the first. He is also credited as being the first to study magnetism,
> and electrostatics.
Gilbert, an Englishman, was the first to tie magnetic effectsto forces. Ar
istotle
just did not understand force. Force
is tied to acceleration, not velocity.
Physics and mathematics were Aristotle's weakest
area. Biology, particularly the morphology of animals
was his strongest.
Bob Kolker
John Alway
[...]
> Actually, Karl Freidrich Gauss, the famousmathematician beat you to it
> by nearly
> 200 years. He made that remark about
> the metaphysicians of his time.
> Where they were right they were trite and
> conventional and where they were original
> they were wrong.
But concerning the metaphysicians of his time he was right
> I share Gauss' opinion of the metaphysicians.
I share his opinion of the concept of "infinity" as a number.
Btw, without the great philosophers, there would have been no great
mathematicians. They rely very much on the philosophical foundations
made possible by the philosophers: be they good or bad.
....John
GRADinc
John Alway
>Robert Kolker
>> I share Gauss' opinion of the metaphysicians.
>I share his opinion of the concept of "infinity" as a number.
Not even Gauss was right about everything.
Tom Clarke
Paw1015
Bob Kolker wrote:
>Actually, Karl Freidrich Gauss, the famous
>mathematician beat you to it
>by nearly 200 years. He made that remark about
>the metaphysicians of his time.
But it is still my achievment, by your definition, if not an
origional one.
>I share Gauss' opinion of the metaphysicians.
Locke and Hume had so discredited rationalism
and the rationalists' favorite subject, that "metaphysician" was
reduced to a broad slur. Burke called English friends of the
French Revolution "metaphysicians," in his Reflections,
while Paine, fired back with the same insult in The Rights
of Man, using phrases like this: "To a metaphysical man
like Mr. Burke, it might seem..."
Gregory Weston
John Alway
>
> John Alway wrote:
>
> > >And, as Russell put it,
> > >all branches of modern science began with an attack on Aristotle.
> >
> > His statement has no validity. After all, that would mean atta
> > cking
> > logic, the idea of submersing yourself in the subject matter, the idea
> > of hypothesizing about the subject in accordance with the evidence, and
> > the idea of hypothesizing and rehypothesizing as you investigate the
> > subject matter.
> >
>
> Yes and No. Galileo made his original contributionby discovering that the
> natural
> state of motion free
> of force is uniform motion, not rest. It is acceleration
> that is the result of force, not velocity.
> Galileo ditched a good deal of Aritstotle's clap trap
> ideas of motion, but not all.
Aristotle's approach was a good attempt to understand the way things
behave. Furthermore, Galileo had available to him tools that were
developed by thinkers who came after Aristotle. Thinkers who would
never have come to be without the existence of Aristotle. The concept
of velocity, for instance, was developed by Oxford mathematicians, a
tool Aristotle didn't have available to him.
> He, like Copernicus
> believed that the heavenly bodies moved uniformly
> in a cicular manner (constant angular velocity). This
> is incorrect and it was up to Kepler to ditch this
> notion, opening the way for Newton who postulated
> a *cause* for the motion, namely gravitational force.
This is all true, but incidental to the fact that Aristotle derived the
scientific method.
> > >If
> > >you want a father of science, go with Thales.
> >
> > Thales is the father of philosophy, and the concept of proof in
> > mathematics, but he didn't develop the scientific method.
> > >If you want a
> > >father of the scientific method, you have Francis Bacon.
> > His addition was the experimental method. A powerful additional
> > tool,
> > but minor in comparison to the essential method.
>
> Mark this!!!. The Experimental method is *minor*.
I didn't say it's "minor", I said it's "minor in comparison to the
scientific method." It is a _brilliant_ idea, but not as fundamental
and brilliant as Aristotle's approach.
Here's an analogy, it's as if someone had invented a flying machine,
and then someone later comes up with a way to streamline and make the
jet much more efficient at flying.
> This way makes modern science
> work, compared
> to Artistotle's nonsense.
Aristotle's gave us the fundamentals of science, i.e. that we immerse
ourselves in the subject matter, that we hypothesize about it, that we
check our hypothesis. This is science. It is the way to come to
_know_ the world. The experimental method gives us better means of
focusing and isolating facts, but the experimental method rests on the
scientific method. It has no meaning outside of that context. I'm not
demeaning it, I'm only pointing out that the first is more fundamental
than the second.
> If Aristotle had bothered to
> check a few assumptions he made (like heavier bodies
> falling faster than light bodies) he would have corrected
> himselve. But this did not happen.
If he had a million years to do these things, he may have, but he was
not that interested in this. In fact, his goals were quite apart from
this.
> A check did not require
> any technology that Aristotle did not have. All he hade to
> do was toss a big rock and a little rock of the roof of
> the nearest temple to Zeus.
You are being ridiculous. None of this is obvious, which is why we
give Galileo such credit for being brilliant enough to figure it out.
> > >>[the father of] logic
> >
> > >What did they use in their arguments before Aristotle? He
> > >does deserve credit for writing down and codifing logic,
> > >though.
> >
> > Men must implicitly use logic simply to survive. What Aristotl
> > e did
> > was make the laws of logic explicit, and on top of that he presented his
> > formal syllogisms.
> >
>
> Which turned out to be a very smallsubset of logic.
The laws of logic are the foundation of logic, i.e. the law of
identity, the law of non-contradiction, and the law of the excluded
middle.
> Aritstotle did not derive
> machinery for dealing with multi-termed
> attributes (of which the theory of relations
> is a special case). Logic did not make any
> noticible progress past Aristotle until the
> 19-th Century with the works of Boole
> and Frege.
Mills methods were a great addition to logic, but none of these other
guys are ever going to be remembered and revered as much as old
Aristotle because they simple didn't do anything nearly as fundamental.
> > ........................snip..........................
>
> > He can be said to have been a man who placed an important corner
> > stone
> > of science in place. His method of looking at the world and trying to
> > explain it according to nature and not by gods and ghosts is likely the
> > most important and biggest step, although this is why he is the first
> > ever philosopher. Easy for we moderns to take for granted, but he was
> > the first. He is also credited as being the first to study magnetism,
> > and electrostatics.
> Gilbert, an Englishman, was the first to tie magnetic effectsto forces.
I know William Gilbert's work well. He used a delicate torsion balance
to measure magnetic forces, but you'll find, according to Isaac Asimov,
that Thales was the first to study electrostatics and magnetics.
>Aristotle
> just did not understand force. Force
> is tied to acceleration, not velocity.
He understood it. He just didn't understand it to that level, as no
one did until Newton.
> Physics and mathematics were Aristotle's weakest
> area.
He was exceedingly good at both math and physics, despite his errors.
In fact, he defeated Zeno's paradox because he understood math. He used
Edoxus' method of exhaustion to solve various problems, which shows that
he had a very strong grasp of math.
> Biology, particularly the morphology of animals
> was his strongest.
Philosophy was his strongest, and he was a great biologist as well.
Btw, Robert, he's famous for being the first ever meteorologist,
biologist, and scientist, among other things. On top of it he was a
rational egoist, had the concept of a constitutional government, and his
ideas on play writing are used to this day by those learning in that
field (the idea of "catharsis", for instance, was his). The guy applied
his mind to an astounding breadth of material.
It's also interesting to note that Euclid's style in the Elements is
the same style used by Aristotle in his writings. This shows the
influence Aristotle had on later thinkers in other fields.
...John
Steve Reed
>Locke and Hume had so discredited rationalism
>and the rationalists' favorite subject, that "metaphysician" was
>reduced to a broad slur. Burke called English friends of the
>French Revolution "metaphysicians," in his Reflections,
>while Paine, fired back with the same insult in The Rights
>of Man, using phrases like this: "To a metaphysical man
>like Mr. Burke, it might seem..."
Don't overlook their near-contemporary, Goethe, who put a subtle twist of the
knife in the satirizing of the title character of his "Faust." He had the man
who would be a new god seek obsessive mastery of "Physik und Metaphysika ..."
in a context that was dismissive of what was not "scientific." An elastic
word, that, as Hegel could tell you, but nonetheless, Faust was not to be
admired for having both concerns.
ObObj: I was struck once again by the number of informed allusions to world
culture that appear in "The Fountainhead." (As contrasted, to me, with "Atlas
Shrugged," wherein the allusions are turned into allegory, with varying
degrees of success.)
Wynand's face is likened to Mephistopheles. When Toohey visits to cut the
pound of psychic flesh due him from the broken Keating, he cuts off the
architect's protests: "Too late, Petey. Ever read 'Faust'?" ... Could one
assume, five decades later, that today's reader would know what these
allusions mean, let alone have read the story, in any of a dozen versions?
Maybe Allan Bloom had a point.
Demand Bill of Rights enforcement!
http://www.webleyweb.com/lneil/bor_enforcement.html
"The people always have some champion whom they set
over them and nurse into greatness. ... This and no other
is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first
appears he is a protector." -- Plato
Paw1015
Steave Reed wrote:
<<Don't overlook their near-contemporary, Goethe, who put a subtle twist of the
knife in the satirizing of the title character of his "Faust." He had the man
who would be a new god seek obsessive mastery of "Physik und Metaphysika>>
The fact that Burke and Paine used the word as in insult
without explaining way shows that it was very common
to use it in that way.
>"Too late, Petey. Ever read 'Faust'?" ... Could one
>assume, five decades later, that today's reader would know what these
>allusions mean, let alone have read the story, in any of a dozen versions?
I know what "Kafkaesque," "Faustian," and so forth mean,
though I've never read Goethe or Kafka. I will never
bother with Kafka, though when I take up German again
I'll have a look at Goethe.
Gregory Weston
Robert J. Kolker
> > Mark this!!!. The Experimental method is *minor*.
>
> I didn't say it's "minor", I said it's "minor in comparison to the
> scientific method." It is a _brilliant_ idea, but not as fundamental
> and brilliant as Aristotle's approach.
>
The experimental method is precisely whatdifferentiates modern science from
ancient
science.
> Here's an analogy, it's as if someone had invented a flying machine,
> and then someone later comes up with a way to streamline and make the
> jet much more efficient at flying.
>
Negative. Experiment in your analogy is the motor andthe wings. Aristotle
flapped
his arms.
Bob Kolker
Steve Reed
>Steve Reed wrote that in "The Fountainhead":
>>Wynand's face is likened to Mephistopheles. When Toohey visits to cut the
>>pound of psychic flesh due him from the broken Keating, he cuts off the
>>architect's protests: "Too late, Petey. Ever read 'Faust'?" ... Could one
>>assume, five decades later, that today's reader would know what these
>>allusions mean, let alone have read the story, in any of a dozen versions?
>>Maybe Allan Bloom had a point.
>I know what "Kafkaesque," "Faustian," and so forth mean, though I've
>never read Goethe or Kafka. I will never bother with Kafka, though when
>I take up German again I'll have a look at Goethe.
You, however, are obviously one of the eminent exceptions. I was referring,
and didn't narrow this down, to the general reader who picks up Rand's novels
in the hope of finding some interesting fiction. Most of whom, like most of
the society at large, have not attended college.
In a very atypical sophomore high-school English class that was depicted in
"My So-Called Life," the substitute teacher was using "The Metamorphosis." The
admittedly clueless older held-back student reaction (by Jordan Catalano,
played by Jared Leto) was, in regard to the symbolism of Gregor Samsa being
seen as a giant cockroach: "... It's made up, right?" Most people, I fear, are
at that level. If that's Bloomian snobbery, so be it.
John Alway
> > Mark this!!!. The Experimental method is *minor*.
> I didn't say it's "minor", I said it's "minor in comparison to the
> scientific method." It is a _brilliant_ idea, but not as fundamental
> and brilliant as Aristotle's approach.
>The experimental method is precisely whatdifferentiates modern science from
> ancient science.
Yes, but the experimental method is an *additional* component which
rests on the foundation provided by Aristotle. Without the foundation
there is no science. They stood on Aristotle's shoulders and thus could
see further.
>> Here's an analogy, it's as if someone had invented a flying machine,
>> and then someone later comes up with a way to streamline and make the
>> jet much more efficient at flying.
>Negative. Experiment in your analogy is the motor andthe wings. Aristotle
>flapped his arms.
You are simply typing words into your word processor without thought.
If I am to believe you, this means that the idea of studying the subject
matter, hypothesizing, and continuing the cycle is not part of science,
not to mention recognizing the causes are found in the objects of study
themselves, not in some mystical realm. Clearly these are essential
components of the scientific method. If you aren't doing this you
aren't doing science. You can have science without the experimental
method. You can't have the experimental method without science. In
fact, much science today doesn't use the experimental method because it
can't be applied. Paleontology and anthropology are examples of this.
...John
Jim Klein
>Btw, without the great philosophers, there would have been no great
>mathematicians. They rely very much on the philosophical foundations
>made possible by the philosophers: be they good or bad.
It's comments like this that sometimes make me think you're lost in the
weeds. Now had you said, "Without philosophy, there would have been
no..." I'd have nothing to add, since this would broadly use
"philosophy" as roughly synonymous with "thinking."
But c'mon...do you think cavemen adding or developing rudimentary
geometry came _subsequent_ to explicit philosophy? Do you suppose they
were aware of epistemology _before_ they knew that one buffalo over
here and one buffalo over there meant they had two buffalo to eat?
And regarding "great mathematicians" vs "great philosophers," I'd guess
that the work of the former was far more a basis of the work of the
latter, than the other way around.
Do you think that Einstein has had more effect on the philosophy of
today, or do you suppose that the philosophers of his time (and
earlier) were a major influence on his development of Relativity?
Earth to John...
jk
GRADinc
Regarding Aristotle John Alway wrote
> He was exceedingly good at both math and physics, despite his >errors.
>In fact, he defeated Zeno's paradox because he understood math. >He used
>Edoxus' method of exhaustion to solve various problems,
>which shows that he had a very strong grasp of math.
Are you sure you are not confusing Aristotle with Archimedes?
Where did he defeat Zeno's paradox - I associate this with Archimedes.
I went to the posterior analytics web page
[http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/posterior.sum.html]
which is supposed to be Aristotle's most mathematical work and
could find no reference to Zeno.
I know Archimedes used Eudoxus's method.
Eudoxus (408-355) was a contemporary of Aristotle, so I guess
he could have used Eudoxus's method, but Archimedes is the
usual association.
[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Mathematicians/Eudoxus.html]
Interestingly the above page suggests:
"Books V and XII of Euclid's Elements are attributed to Eudoxus
by some experts. "
So that John's comment
>Euclid's style in the Elements is
>the same style used by Aristotle in his writings. This shows the
>influence Aristotle had on later thinkers in other fields.
shows that the Aristotle/Euclid/Eudoxus style was just the style
of that period.
Tom Clarke
Robert J. Kolker
John Alway wrote:
> Robert J. Kolker wrote:
> > > Mark this!!!. The Experimental method is *minor*.
>
> > I didn't say it's "minor", I said it's "minor in comparison to the
> > scientific method." It is a _brilliant_ idea, but not as fundamental
> > and brilliant as Aristotle's approach.
>
> >The experimental method is precisely whatdifferentiates modern science from
> > ancient science.
>
> Yes, but the experimental method is an *additional* component which
> rests on the foundation provided by Aristotle. Without the foundation
> there is no science. They stood on Aristotle's shoulders and thus could
> see further.
Nonsense. Aritstotle was wrong on just about everyaspect of Motion and Force.
Physics could not
emerge until the Aristotelean clap trap was
discarded and carried away.
If it were not for Galileo and his inclined planes (something
that Aristotle could have built BTW) the inertial nature
of motion might have waited another millenium to be
discovered.
The Giants upon whose shoulders Newton stood
were Kopernick and Galileo.
>
>
> >> Here's an analogy, it's as if someone had invented a flying ma
> >> chine,
> >> and then someone later comes up with a way to streamline and make the
> >> jet much more efficient at flying.
>
> >Negative. Experiment in your analogy is the motor andthe wings. Aristotle
> >flapped his arms.
>
> You are simply typing words into your word processor without thought.
> If I am to believe you, this means that the idea of studying the subject
> matter, hypothesizing, and continuing the cycle is not part of science,
> not to mention recognizing the causes are found in the objects of study
> themselves, not in some mystical realm. Clearly these are essential
> components of the scientific method. If you aren't doing this you
> aren't doing science. You can have science without the experimental
> method.
Yes discriptive science. Science that merely classifies and
finds no causes. Geology got nowhere until tectonic plate
physics was factored in. The methodology that uncovered
the action of the tectonic plates originated in physics which
only progressed when the experimental method was established
as a means of hypothesis testing.
Biology was mostly descripitive (taxonomic classification)
until the nature of cells was revealed by microscope. In
it moder phase biology became part of physics once its
processes were seen to be the result of certain molecules.
Biology now is chemistry and physics and making great
progress, thank you. Modern biology has very little
in common with the cataloging of Lineus. Now hypothesis
can be testing in a laboratory in a proper fashion.
Furthermore science was not *quantified* until the introduction
of controlled experiment and measurement. How much measuring
did old Aristotle do?
During the middle ages, progress was made in construction
and weapons without the underlying sciecne. Technology
progressed on empirical (read experimental) methodology.
It was only the marriage of the mathematical with the empirical
the give science the rock
> You can't have the experimental method without science. In
> fact, much science today doesn't use the experimental method because it
> can't be applied. Paleontology and anthropology are examples of this.
>
Descriptive sciences, not predictive. Until they are reduced toquantitative
controlled data, very little progress will be
forthcoming therefrom. These science are retrodictive at
the moment because they lack a foundation based on
dynamics and measure.
When you get right down to it, physics is really the only
science. Chemistry is now a branch of physics. So is
molecular biology. All the advanced and useful technologies
are the direct result of *experimentally* derived scientific
findings. What technology did old Aristotle produce?
Ultimately the figure of merit for any scientific enterprise is
the amount of useful technology that flows out of it.
Bob Kolker
John Alway
>
> Regarding Aristotle John Alway wrote
>
> > He was exceedingly good at both math and physics, despite his >errors.
> >In fact, he defeated Zeno's paradox because he understood math. >He used
> >Edoxus' method of exhaustion to solve various problems,
> >which shows that he had a very strong grasp of math.
>
> Are you sure you are not confusing Aristotle with Archimedes?
> Where did he defeat Zeno's paradox - I associate this with Archimedes.
In his Physics book VI at about 233a.
> I know Archimedes used Eudoxus's method.
> Eudoxus (408-355) was a contemporary of Aristotle, so I guess
> he could have used Eudoxus's method, but Archimedes is the
> usual association.
I may be wrong on this. What Aristotle did was build on Eudoxus'
method of describing planetary motion. So, I misremember this.
Archimedes did use Eudoxus' method of exhaustion to determine the areas
and volumes of various three dimensional solids.
> [http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Mathematicians/Eudoxus.html]
>
> Interestingly the above page suggests:
> "Books V and XII of Euclid's Elements are attributed to Eudoxus
> by some experts. "
Could be true, as much work in Euclid's Elements is from earlier
works. The point was that Euclid's method of building arguments up from
axioms stems from Aristotle's approach. This approach is what makes
the Elements such a powerful mathematical opus.
> So that John's comment
> >Euclid's style in the Elements is
> >the same style used by Aristotle in his writings. This shows the
> >influence Aristotle had on later thinkers in other fields.
> shows that the Aristotle/Euclid/Eudoxus style was just the style
> of that period.
Absolutely not. Aristotle's style was original with him. Btw, I'm not
the one who discovered this. I get this from a science historian.
...John
John Alway
> John Alway wrote:
> > Yes, but the experimental method is an *additional* component which
> > rests on the foundation provided by Aristotle. Without the foundation
> > there is no science. They stood on Aristotle's shoulders and thus could
> > see further.
> Nonsense. Aritstotle was wrong on just about everyaspect of Motion and Force.
> Physics could not
> emerge until the Aristotelean clap trap was
> discarded and carried away.
You seem to never grasp the point... but one more time.
Aristotle was certainly wrong on many concrete specifics, but it's a
mistake to look at these things in isolation, for Aristotle's _method_
is such that errors would be corrected, because his method put reality
and observation first, and he checked these things by logic. This idea
of focusing on reality, using logic, and looking for causes was
Aristotle's gift to the world. To establish that gift he had to defeat
his philosophical enemies who came before him.
Also, Aristotle's science wasn't merely descriptive. He was
interested in causes and essences, and he sought these out by immersing
himself in the subject matter. Every step of the way Aristotle was
original and brilliant in his observations. He was also able to defeat
many of the arguments of previous thinkers of his age in the building of
his philosophy, including that of his teacher.
But my position is supportable also by looking at history. After
Aristotle was reintroduced into the Church in about 1100 ad, things
started happening. Freedom of thought became more and more pronounced,
and people gained more of an interest in _this_ world, as opposed to a
mystical realm. And before too long the Renaissance flowered, and then
science, and technology and the United States.
It's also possible to look at Islam. Islam making the intellectual
leaders of the world at around 900 ad when they acquired the works of
the Greeks, most especially Aristotle, and it happened before that in
the Byzantine empire. These Greek ideas were powerful; their influence
undeniable.
If we only look at Aristotle's ideas on motion and force alone, then
you'd be right, but that's hardly a sensible thing considering it's such
a small part of his work and misses the big picture.
...John
John Alway
>
> In <361BAE0A...@icsi.net> John Alway <jal...@ICSI.Net> writes:
> >Btw, without the great philosophers, there would have been no great
> >mathematicians. They rely very much on the philosophical foundations
> >made possible by the philosophers: be they good or bad.
> It's comments like this that sometimes make me think you're lost in the
> weeds.
I don't know what it is with you, Jim.
> Now had you said, "Without philosophy, there would have been
> no..." I'd have nothing to add, since this would broadly use
> "philosophy" as roughly synonymous with "thinking."
I don't know what you mean by this.
>But c'mon...do you think cavemen adding or developing rudimentary
>geometry came _subsequent_ to explicit philosophy?
Mathematics at that time was very primitive. We didn't see any tensor
analysis at that time, and we couldn't have because there wasn't a solid
philosophical foundation.
A better example would be the Babylonians, who did develop some
sophisticated mathematical concepts before the Greeks. However, the
Babylonians weren't that primitive. They had a sophisticated society to
go with their math. But, note, the concept of mathematical proof
developed by Thales created a very solid foundation for math, and
resulted in generalized formula (the Egyptians didn't have this, but
merely numerical recipes for building pyramids and the like).
>Do you suppose they
>were aware of epistemology _before_ they knew that one buffalo over
>here and one buffalo over there meant they had two buffalo to eat?
You're talking about perceptual level observations. Something that I'm
sure any man could have done, and likely even a pre man such as Homo
Erectus.
...John
Paw1015
Bob Kolker wrote:
>Nonsense. Aritstotle was wrong on just about
>every aspect of Motion and Force.
>Physics could not
>emerge until the Aristotelean clap trap was
>discarded and carried away.
A quote from my chemistry textbook:
"Democritus suggested that atoms were responsible for processes that we now
classify as physical changes and chemical reactions. Both Plato and Aristotle
argued against the concept of atoms. Aristotle was held in such high regard
that the concept of the atom was ignored for over 2000 years."
The laughing philosopher 1
Aristotle 0
Tom Clarke wrote in another post:
>which is supposed to be Aristotle's most mathematical
>work and could find no reference to Zeno.
Actually, because none of Zeno's poems or books survive
intact, all that is known of him is the references other
philosopher made. Aristotle is the most importent source,
along with those who wrote commentary on Aristotle, and
quoted Zeno from their own copy of his work, like
Simplicius.
The main part of Physics that Aristotle talks about Zeno
is 6.2, 6.9, and 8.8
Gregory Weston
GRADinc
John Alway
>> Where did he defeat Zeno's paradox - I associate this with Archimedes.
> In his Physics book VI at about 233a.
Here is part of it:.
Hence Zeno's argument makes a false assumption in
asserting that it is impossible for a thing to pass
over or severally to come in contact with infinite things in a
finite time. For there are two senses in
which length and time and generally anything continuous are
called 'infinite': they are called so either
in respect of divisibility or in respect of their extremities. So
while a thing in a finite time cannot come
in contact with things quantitatively infinite, it can come in
contact with things infinite in respect of
divisibility: for in this sense the time itself is also infinite:
and so we find that the time occupied by the
passage over the infinite is not a finite but an infinite time,
and the contact with the infinites is made
by means of moments not finite but infinite in number.
Hmm. Maybe old Aristotle was not quite as anti-infinity as
I thought.
>The point was that Euclid's method of building arguments up from
>axioms stems from Aristotle's approach. This approach is what makes
>the Elements such a powerful mathematical opus.
OK. I thought you were speaking of literary style.
Tom Clarke
Robert J. Kolker
John Alway wrote:
> If we only look at Aristotle's ideas on motion and force alone, then
> you'd be right, but that's hardly a sensible thing considering it's such
His work on poetry, drama, politics and ethicshad no bearing on the physical
sciences.
> a small part of his work and misses the big picture.
>
It was Aristotles wrong, wrong ideas on force andmotion that held up real p
hysical
science for
hundreds of years Just about everything he
did pertaining to real reality, i.e. motion and matter
was wrong. His mechanics and his cosmology
were wrong. His astronomy was wrong. And what
is worse, he did not check his physical theories. Hell
he did not even check to see that women had the same
number of teeth and ribs as men.
Also his notion of final cause was completely out
of place in the physical Kosmos. There is only
one kind of cause that is truly operative, that is
efficient cause. All the rest are concerned with
human teleology which have no place in physical
explantions. Things accelerate because there is a force
acting on them, not because they are striving to
reach their final resting place.
After Aristotle was dispensed with, physical
science made progress.
Bob Kolker
John Alway
> Bob Kolker wrote:
> >Nonsense. Aritstotle was wrong on just about
> >every aspect of Motion and Force.
> >Physics could not
> >emerge until the Aristotelean clap trap was
> >discarded and carried away.
> A quote from my chemistry textbook:
> "Democritus suggested that atoms were responsible for processes that we now
> classify as physical changes and chemical reactions. Both Plato and Aristotle
> argued against the concept of atoms. Aristotle was held in such high regard
> that the concept of the atom was ignored for over 2000 years."
Tendentious as usual, Greg. Be aware that for a long stretch of
centuries Aristotle was all but lost to the West. That stretch is
called the Dark Ages.
I'll simply quote the science historian David C. Lindberg:
"If comparison is to be made, it must be between Aristotle and his
predecessors, not Aristotle and the present. Judged by such criteria,
Aristotle's philosophy is an astonishing achievement. In natural
philosophy, he offered a subtle and sophisticated treatment of the major
problems posed by the pre-Socratics and Plato: the nature of the
fundamental stuff, the proper means of knowing it, the problems of
change and causation, the basic structure of the cosmos, and the nature
of deity and its relationship to material things.
But Aristotle also went far beyond any predecessor in the analysis of
specific natural phenomena. It is no exaggeration to claim that, almost
single-handedly, he created entirely new disciplines. His Physics
contains a detailed discussion of terrestrial dynamics. He devoted the
better part of his Meteorology to phenomena of the upper atmosphere,
including comets, shooting stars, rain and the rainbows, thunder, and
lightning. His On the Heavens developed the work of certain
predecessors into an influential account of planetary astronomy. He
touched upon geological phenomena, including earthquakes and
mineralogy. He undertook a thorough analysis of sensation and sense
organs, particularly vision and the eye, developing a theory of light
and vision that would remain influential until the seventeenth century.
He concerned himself with what we might regard as the basic chemical
processes-- mixtures and combinations of substances. He wrote a book on
the soul and its faculties. And, as we have seen, he contributed
monumentally to developments in the biological sciences." "The
Beginnings of Western Science" pages 67-68.
Those "proper means of knowning" fundamental stuff mentioned in the
first paragraph are his logic, and the scientific method.
I have to say I'm amazed. Aristotle derived the scientific method 2000
plus years ago. Yet today his critics in this forum aren't insightful
enough to even recognize the feat after the fact. Not even with the
great advantages you have over him, i.e. your stupendously large context
of knowledge.
This all makes me wonder if justice does win out in the end. Oh well,
Aristotle, at least I recognize your brilliance.
...John
Paw1015
Bob Kolker wrote:
>Things accelerate because there is a force
>acting on them, not because they are striving to
>reach their final resting place.
You are both wrong. Force is just the word we use as the
"cause" of things that have no obvious cause.
We can't see, feel, hear, taste, or smell gravity and the other
three fundamental forces. We only see otherwise unexplainable events, and need
a place holder to fill in
as a cause.
E.g.:
The Vulgar: Why do the planets move the way they do?
Newton: The planets move according to a formula I've
discovered that also works for motion on earth. This
formula is a great advancement for science.
The Vulgar: But a math formula can't move anything. So why do they move?
Newton: Uh... Gravity forces it to.
The Vulgar: Ok, I understand now, planets are forced to
do things for the same reason that I must move when I am
pushed by someone else.
Gregory Weston
Paw1015
John Alway writes:
>If comparison is to be made, it must be between Aristotle >and his
predecessors, not Aristotle and the present.
Where did I compare Aristotle to present science? I compared him to
Democritus, who died when Aristotle
was a young man.
Democritus, once again, was much, much closer to the
truth than Aristotle. And Democritus wrote opposing the
religious mysticism of Parminides and Zeno, while Aristotle more or less
defended their silly views about
infinity. I can not blame him for not knowing what
modern science knows, but he at least should be able to
know better than to advocate a silly idea that many of his
coevals had already rejected as full of contradictions.
Aristotle was a great man, but not a the father of all science
and the pagan saint that many make him out to be.
Just because I think a man's work is overrated does not
mean I think it's worthless. Van Gough and Monet aren't
bad painters, but I wanted to puke when I looked for a
print of "The Death of Socrates* and *Lavoiser and his Wife,* by Jacques-Louis
David and came up empty, but found a billion damn flowers by those prissy
painters.
Same deal with Aristotle.
Gregory Weston
John Alway
> John Alway writes:
> >If comparison is to be made, it must be between Aristotle >and his
> predecessors, not Aristotle and the present.
> Where did I compare Aristotle to present science?
Right. That posting wasn't directed at you in particular.
> I compared him to
> Democritus, who died when Aristotle
> was a young man.
I agree.
> Democritus, once again, was much, much closer to the
> truth than Aristotle.
I'm not sure what you mean by "once again". Understand, I have always
admired Democritus in particular and atomists in general for their
insightful view in this area, but their philosophy wasn't the same as
modern atomistic theory and suffered from many problems. Aristotle's
philosophy was far superior and much more explanative than was that of
Democritus', which is why he had so much more influence.
> And Democritus wrote opposing the
> religious mysticism of Parminides and Zeno, while Aristotle more or less
> defended their silly views about
> infinity.
Can you be specific? Which views are you referring to? If you
specify exactly where the arguments are I can look them up.
> I can not blame him for not knowing what
> modern science knows, but he at least should be able to
> know better than to advocate a silly idea that many of his
> coevals had already rejected as full of contradictions.
Given that Aristotle had the best philosophy of that period hands down,
he has nothing to hang his head about in relation to his "coevals".
> Aristotle was a great man, but not a the father of all science
> and the pagan saint that many make him out to be.
But he is the father of science, else my eyes deceive me. And I have
no doubt that he is the greatest philosopher who ever lived. I have no
doubt of this given the quality of his work, and I have yet to see
anyone who has paralleled his achievements, yet I do not take away from
the achievements of others. My admiration of Galileo and Newton is
great, they are two heroes of mine. Yet I admire Aristotle all the much
more for making possible the other two, and it is from Aristotle's works
that I find much more inspiration and wisdom.
> Just because I think a man's work is overrated does not
> mean I think it's worthless.
I realize that. My contention is that you aren't evaluating his worth
properly.
> Van Gough and Monet aren't
> bad painters, but I wanted to puke when I looked for a
> print of "The Death of Socrates* and *Lavoiser and his Wife,* by Jacques-
> Louis
> David and came up empty, but found a billion damn flowers by those prissy
> painters.
Lavoiser, one of my favorite chemists, and the father of modern
chemistry. I know him well, as I once carved him in the snow in my
back yard when I was a kid.
> Same deal with Aristotle.
I don't deny you your right to be wrong, Greg. I never have.
...John
Paw1015
John Alway wrote:
>> And Democritus wrote opposing the
>> religious mysticism of Parminides and Zeno,
>>while Aristotle more or less
>> defended their silly views about
>> infinity.
>Can you be specific? Which views are you referring to?
>If you specify exactly where the arguments are I can look
>them up.
The view that matter is infinitly divisable. I'm not sure
where exactly Aristotle maintains this. The point is that by
maintaining this he plays right to the hands of Zeno and
Parminides, who were wacko religious monists, and used
the contradictions that come from the idea that matter is
infinitly divisable to try to prove all types of weird
theories.
The argument used by Democratus to refute Zeno
and Parminides was that atoms were indivisable. It is not
the best way to refute them, the phenomonalist method as
used by Locke is a much better way. A still better
way to get attack the infinite divisablity of matter is found
in W.T. Stace's book Man Against the Darkness. I am in
the process of trying to get permission to put the essay in
which he does this on my website. It is still copyrighted.
>But he is the father of science, else my eyes deceive me.
>And I have no doubt that he is the greatest philosopher
>who ever lived.
All I can say is that "we are essentially different on this
particular."
>Lavoiser, one of my favorite chemists, and the father of modern
>chemistry. I know him well, as I once carved him in the
>snow in my back yard when I was a kid.
I like playing in the snow too, but I never remember
"carving" anything in it other than angels, and certainly
not any Frenchmen. And if I would have been able to do
this, I would not have put my snow carving in the
backyard, where no one could have seen it.
Did you hide your snow-carvings in your backyard
because it was too good to be in this world, in the same
way Domineque broke the statue she liked so much? :)
Gregory Weston
GRADinc
I have a comment re Aristotle and science and all that.
Admitted Aristotle invented science, less the
experimental method provided by Bacon.
However, the experimental method was crucial.
There were 800+ years from Aristotle to the fall of
the Roman civilization and the loss of Aristotle's writings.
In that time science did not progress very far beyond
Aristotle and the other early Greeks.
It has been 400 years since Bacon published the
Novum Organum emphasizing the experimental method.
Why didn't the Roman's have the computer, antibiotics, etc?
I think the answer is that the experimental method,
checking hypotheses by MORE than logic, checking
hypotheses against reality, is crucia for the advance of
science.
Tom Clarke
genein
GRADinc <gra...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19981009082848...@ng-fi1.aol.com>...
> Admitted Aristotle invented science, less the
> experimental method provided by Bacon.
aristotle did not invent science...
> However, the experimental method was crucial.
> It has been 400 years since Bacon published the
> Novum Organum emphasizing the experimental method.
>
> Why didn't the Roman's have the computer, antibiotics, etc?
well they also did not have electricity to run the computers or outlets to
supply them......don't let me go on.....
> I think the answer is that the experimental method,
> checking hypotheses by MORE than logic, checking
> hypotheses against reality, is crucia for the advance of
> science.
what is cruicial to science is intelligent receptive beings through out
the ages adding their little bit, prodding those new to the scene who
cannot hope to have accomplised anything without their help...and yes
science does add to itself with greater rapidity as more is known...
g.
> Tom Clarke
>
John Alway
>
> I have a comment re Aristotle and science and all that.
> experimental method provided by Bacon.
> However, the experimental method was crucial.
It was a very powerful addition, but not crucial, since anthropology
and paleontology rarely if ever use it. Another addition, btw, was
precise measurement. But, if I were to compare the methods, perhaps the
tortoise and the hare is a better example. The modern science didn't
change the direction of science, it changed the speed of advance of
science. But the very idea of focusing on the real world and using
reason wasn't recognized as important until Aristotle's influence
brought it to the attention of a few during the rediscovery of the Greek
works. Aristotle also provided the rules of reasoning, so it wasn't
some fuzzy concept. He influenced men to turn away from heaven and look
to earth and provided the tools by which to do it.
> There were 800+ years from Aristotle to the fall of
> the Roman civilization and the loss of Aristotle's writings.
> In that time science did not progress very far beyond
> Aristotle and the other early Greeks.
Probably a complicated question. It's well known that the Greeks were
far more philosophical than the Romans, who all but eschewed
philosophy. But, still, they were advancing. Medicine and astronomy
were advancing, for example, and who knows what works have been lost
with the burning of the library Alexandria.
> It has been 400 years since Bacon published the
> Novum Organum emphasizing the experimental method.
True, but this writing was written well into the Renaissance and built
upon the advances of the Greeks.
> Why didn't the Roman's have the computer, antibiotics, etc?
Had they had a Bacon back then to improve the scientific method, they
likely would have. Though, still, they were progressing. I think a
better question is why did Rome fall? Why did people turn toward
Christianity and away from civilization? Had it not fallen we wouldn't
have had this giant dark gap in history. I've read some explanations
as to why it happened, but I've yet to find a really convincing reason.
> I think the answer is that the experimental method,
> checking hypotheses by MORE than logic, checking
> hypotheses against reality, is crucia for the advance of
> science.
I don't know what you mean by "more" than logic. Can you explicate?
...John
Robert J. Kolker
John Alway wrote:
> It was a very powerful addition, but not crucial, since anthropology
> and paleontology rarely if ever use it.
Anthropology and paleontology are descriptive and retrodictive.These "sciences"
consist of constructing just-so stories to tie togehter
aritifacts and fossils. The most objective parts of these sciences are
the dating techniques and chemical analysis techniques which are
the gifts are physics, and experimentally based science.
Neither of these "sciences" provide a generalized explanatory
or predictive power that ties together seemingly disparate
phenomena and processes. Nor do these "sciences" give
rise to technology which is the true figure of merit of a science.
That is why cosmology is useless and physics is useful. It is also
why paleontolgy and anthropology are enterprises of very limited
use and importance to mankind. As cultural activities they have
there virtues, but they are not real sciences. Physics is a real science.
So is chemistry and molecular biology. Geology has become a real
science to the extent it uses the technology generated by physics
to predict volcanic erruptions and earthquakes and to find where
the oil is.
> Another addition, btw, was
> precise measurement. But, if I were to compare the methods, perhaps the
> tortoise and the hare is a better example. The modern science didn't
> change the direction of science, it changed the speed of advance of
> science.
Not so! Modern science has banished final causation as
an explanatory tool from study of insensate physical
reality. Modern science has abolished the elan vital and
other such dualistic, teleological clap-trap.
> But the very idea of focusing on the real world and using
> reason wasn't recognized as important until Aristotle's influence
> brought it to the attention of a few during the rediscovery of the Greek
> works. Aristotle also provided the rules of reasoning, so it wasn't
> some fuzzy concept. He influenced men to turn away from heaven and look
> to earth and provided the tools by which to do it.
Mankind was using logic long before Aristotle. Also the Chinese who
developed technologies 2000 years in advance of the West were
using various logics including the modal and syllogistic. See Temple's
wonderful book, The Genius of China. It will blow your socks off and
unsettle some of your incorrect pre-conceived notions. The Chinese
were drilling for natural gass 1000 years before we did in the west,
and the Taoist rulers of China were flying man carrying gliders and
kites 1400 years ago. Look out Orville and Wilbur!!!!
The Chinese were earth oriented from the git-go and had an extremely
pragmatic approach to technology which is why it developed earlier in
China than in the west.
>
>
>
> > There were 800+ years from Aristotle to the fall of
> > the Roman civilization and the loss of Aristotle's writings.
> > In that time science did not progress very far beyond
> > Aristotle and the other early Greeks.
>
> Probably a complicated question. It's well known that the Greek
> s were
> far more philosophical than the Romans, who all but eschewed
> philosophy. But, still, they were advancing. Medicine and astronomy
> were advancing, for example, and who knows what works have been lost
> with the burning of the library Alexandria.
Whatever was lost did not include any labor saving technology.
Both the Greeks and Romans were hooked on slave labor and
had no incentive for generating directed energy independent of
animal and man-power.
The later Greeks did do creditable work in medicine and were
only later surpassed by the Arabs (in the West). Chinese medicine
was as at least as advanced as Greco-Roman medicine (in the East).
Aristotles strongest contributions stemmed from his boyhood orientation
toward medicine (his dad was a physician).
>
>
>
> > It has been 400 years since Bacon published the
> > Novum Organum emphasizing the experimental method.
>
> True, but this writing was written well into the Renaissance and
> built
> upon the advances of the Greeks.
Actually Bacon took off from the Scholastic additons to the older
greek learning. The awakening in the west actually started in the
12-th and 13-th centuries in institutions sponsered by the Church
of all things. The Church was not as hostile to new learning as
the Galileo affair would lead us to believe. They only became reactionary
when their moral and temporal authority was challenged.
Remember it was Pope Gregory who lead the work to produce
the modern calendar, the very one we use today.
Aristotle's physical doctrines where actually being questioned in
the Dark and Middle Ages. For example it was Phillip the Grammarian
(circa 640 AD) who proposed a test for Aristotle's doctrine that
heavier bodies fall faster than lighter ones. This is something that old
Aristotle didn't bother to do because he was blessed by first principles.
I would also commend to your attention the fact that not was
all Dark and Superstitious even in the Dark Ages. Strangely
enough it was *Irish* monks who were beginning to cataluze
enlightenment in Europe as early as the 7-th century of our
era. Read the very entertaining book, How the Irish Saved
Civilization.
> > I think the answer is that the experimental method,
> > checking hypotheses by MORE than logic, checking
> > hypotheses against reality, is crucia for the advance of
> > science.
>
> I don't know what you mean by "more" than logic. Can you explicate?
>
Hypothesis checking is theory laden. One needs an imaginativeyet realistic
approach to hypotheis *formation*. The
Western empiricists were much more sympathetic to practical
applications than the Gteek philosophers who were very hung
up on first principles. The european engineers who built onagers,
and other siege engines could care less about proton uli' (first matter).
They were oriented to what works. This less than pure attitude toward
what is good and useful gave the Arabs, the Chinese and the Europeans
the ultimate edge over the Greeks (Ionian Greeks excepted. They were
oriented toward the real world even before Aristotle Remember it was
Aristarchus who was the first "Copernican"). .
Bob Kolker
GRADinc
genein
>> Admitted Aristotle invented science, less the
>> experimental method provided by Bacon.
>aristotle did not invent science...
I'll let others argue this.
>> Why didn't the Roman's have the computer, antibiotics, etc?
>well they also did not have electricity to run the computers or outlets to
>supply them......don't let me go on.....
The Elizabethans didn't have electricity either.
But in the intervening 400 yearsEuropeans invented
steam power, batteries, electric generators,
microscopes, photography, vacuum tubes,
transistors, computers, antibiotics etc.
>> I think the answer is that the experimental method,
>what is cruicial to science is intelligent receptive beings through out
>the ages adding their little bit,
But Aristotle was intelligent, the Greeks and Romans
who followed were intelligent. Why in the 800
years until the fall of Rome was so little invented?
(Romans got the arch and concrete which we still
use, of course)
I think the big thing is the experimental method.
>and yes
>science does add to itself with greater rapidity as more is known...
Why the sluggish 800 years after the golden age of
Greece, but the meteroic rise since the Rennaisance?
Tom Clarke
GRADinc
John Alway
>> Admitted Aristotle invented science, less the
>> experimental method provided by Bacon.
>> However, the experimental method was crucial.
>It was a very powerful addition, but not crucial, since anthropology
>and paleontology rarely if ever use it.
It's kind of tough to set up experiments with controls
when the subject would be, say the evolution of man
from ape. Astronomy has kind of a tough time with
doing other than observation as well; tough to make
a star go supernova as part of an experiment.
>Another addition, btw, was precise measurement.
Important but not crucial. Even the Egyptians could
measure precisely as the pyramids etc show.
>But the very idea of focusing on the real world and using
>reason wasn't recognized as important until Aristotle's influence
>brought it to the attention of a few during the rediscovery of the Greek
>works.
But then they Rennaissance had to go beyond Aristotle
to add the experimental method. Without this Newton
would have been a latter day Archimedes, calculating
cannon trajectories for his prince or some such.
> Aristotle also provided the rules of reasoning, so it wasn't
>some fuzzy concept. He influenced men to turn away from heaven and look
>to earth and provided the tools by which to do it.
All but the crucial tool of the experimental method.
Logic alone is not enough.
>> It has been 400 years since Bacon published the
>> Novum Organum emphasizing the experimental method.
>True, but this writing was written well into the Renaissance and built
>upon the advances of the Greeks.
Never said it wasn't. If a Greek Bacon had followed
Aristotle, the Roman's would have conqured the moon as
well as the Mediteranean basin.
>> Why didn't the Roman's have the computer, antibiotics, etc?
>Had they had a Bacon back then to improve the scientific method, they
>likely would have.
Ah, we are in agreement!
> I think a
>better question is why did Rome fall? Why did people turn toward
>Christianity and away from civilization?
Lead poisoning due to lead pipes has been suggested.
We could debate the influence of Christianity. It has
been argues that it helped the rise of individualism in
the west.
>> I think the answer is that the experimental method,
>> checking hypotheses by MORE than logic, checking
>> hypotheses against reality, is crucia for the advance of
>> science.
>I don't know what you mean by "more" than logic. Can you explicate?
Aristotle used his logic (A=A etc) to conclude that it was
the nature of a body to be at rest. Therefore it required
an impetus to make a body move. Remove the impetus and
it would come to rest. The planets are made of
special stuff, quintessence, who nature is to be in circular
motion.
This is logical, but it isn't the way reality works.
When Galileo did his experiments he discovered that
the nature of a body is to be in uniform motion.
Force (or impetus) is needed to explain changes in
motion, not motion itself.
Today theoretical physicists think up all sorts of logically
possible theories (magnetic monopoles, tachyons, etc)
and experimental physicists do experiments to determine
if these logical possibilities are the way that existence really
is or not.
I'm not familiar with Aristotle's biology, but I suspect
he might have subscribed to spontaneous generation,
a logical possibility, which was experimentally disproven
by Pasteur's experiments.
Tom Clarke
GRADinc
Robert J. Kolker
>The Chinese were earth oriented from the git-go and had an extremely
>pragmatic approach to technology which is why it developed earlier in
>China than in the west.
But the Chinese were collectivists (still are?), which is why
they only went so far.
>Both the Greeks and Romans were hooked on slave labor and
>had no incentive for generating directed energy independent of
>animal and man-power.
...
>[all] was
>all Dark and Superstitious even in the Dark Ages.
James Burke (the Connections guy) points out that one
very crucial invention was made in the middle ages -
hay.
Without hay the Romans couldn't use draft animals in the north
of Europe through the wenter which limited what could be done.
Hay provided the means to store food for draft animals.
Tom Clarke
Robert J. Kolker
GRADinc wrote:
> James Burke (the Connections guy) points out that one
> very crucial invention was made in the middle ages -
> hay.
>
> Without hay the Romans couldn't use draft animals in the north
> of Europe through the wenter which limited what could be done.
> Hay provided the means to store food for draft animals.
>
It was hay and a proper birdle. The roman bridle was a straparound the
next. That is why roman chariots had 3 horses.When
the leader choked one of the other two horses would come forward
and choke and so on. In the 11-th centry a proper bridle which
hitched around the horse's chest and shoulders was introduced.
At that point it one could get more work out of a horse than
a man, and a horse would not try to escape or kill his owner
whilst he was sleeping. BTW, the Chinese developed this
type of bridle B.C.E. They were able to get more work from
their horses and oxen than men. Combined with a proper
plow and a wheelbarrow (Chinese invention) they were able
to raise more crops per acre and support a much larger
population per hectare than europe.
Bob Kolker
GRADinc
Robert J. Kolker
>[The bridle] Combined with a proper
>plow and a wheelbarrow (Chinese invention) they were able
>to raise more crops per acre and support a much larger
>population per hectare than europe.
Is that why they turned into collectivists?
At least Europeans had the Jewish/Christian idea of
the individual and his _personal_ relation with a single
god to counter the collective tendencies that probably
go along with large populations.
Tom Clarke
Stephen Grossman
> Did she integrate various ideas into a unified whole? As I recall, when
> she talked about the psychology of sex, she related it to faulty
> economics.
Your recollection is faulty or your economics is
Reason is man's basic means of survival. AYN RAND
Schopenhauer's Concerto For Hobo And Buffoon
Hera, Medea and Jocasta walk into a bar...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tracking Marxist dialectical revolution: ZigZag
Radically systematic radical metaphysics: Existence 2
http://home.att.net/~sdgross
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Grossman Fairhaven, MA, USA sdg...@att.net
Stephen Grossman
<sche...@remove.doitnow.com> wrote:
There have been many outstanding authors, but in 2500 years, no
> other philosopher can hold a candle to her.
Actually, next to Rand's shining star, all most other philosophers have is
a candle
Stephen Grossman
wrote:
> scholastic hyperbabble.
You should copyright this term
Stephen Grossman
> Aristotle is
> the greatest ever philosopher. The father of science, logic, and a
> brilliantly conceived, largely consistent this worldly system, despite
> its flaws.
Aristotle's logic gave creedence to his disasterous metaphysical split
between form and matter or his potentiality/actuality metaphysical split.
Stephen Grossman
<paw...@aol.com> wrote:
> No way! That title belongs David Hume.
hume reduced philosophy to mindless habit
Stephen Grossman
<paw...@aol.com> wrote:
> John Alway wrote:
>
> >David Hume? What has he done aside from creating a> plethora of skeptics
>
> He created a liberal, and naturalistic theory of morality.
no, he gave sophisticated expression to mindless convention and habit.
Stephen Grossman
<gra...@aol.com> wrote:
> the Jewish/Christian idea of the individual and his
>_personal_ relation with a single god
This was the soul's relation to God, not the individual's relation. Ie,
they split man into a warring mind and body and then said that one half
had its own relation to God. This is not individualism. And the history of
Judiasm and Christianity is of collectivist politics. Also, Judiasm is
very much a tribal religion.
Aristotle and Locke are responsible for individualism
Robert J. Kolker
GRADinc wrote:
> >and yes
> >science does add to itself with greater rapidity as more is known...
>
> Why the sluggish 800 years after the golden age of
> Greece, but the meteroic rise since the Rennaisance?
>
I think the growing rejection of Slavery had somethingto do with. It is true
that Slavery was de jure eliminated
from the world when Brasil manumitted its slaves in
1890, but the process which began to end slavery started
centuries before.
There are several theories and characterizations of this
process, but the process was in motion even before the
reaissance.
Bob Kolker
PS. Slavery (literal chatel slavery) still exists. Human beings
are still bought and sold in the Arab Emirates and in parts
of northern (Moslem) Africa. Allah'hu Akbar.
genein
GRADinc <gra...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19981009132814...@ng-fi1.aol.com>...
> The Elizabethans didn't have electricity either.
> But in the intervening 400 yearsEuropeans invented
> steam power, batteries, electric generators,
> microscopes, photography, vacuum tubes,
> transistors, computers, antibiotics etc.
the elizabethan era 1533 - 1603 brought us some very fine poetry but if
you read below you will find that steam power was already in existence
approx. 100 bc by a greek named hero.......14th century renaissance italy
began the whole process of accelerated science which included photography
(bacon, 13th century) ...computers? are you thinking of the abacus which
is so ancient that we don't know where it began?...
> But Aristotle was intelligent, the Greeks and Romans
> who followed were intelligent. Why in the 800
> years until the fall of Rome was so little invented?
> (Romans got the arch and concrete which we still
> use, of course)
> Greece, but the meteroic rise since the Rennaisance?
>
> Tom Clarke
civilization grows in spurts and what i have been trying to say is that we
grow on the strength of those before us...these ancients laid the
foundation for future civilizations to strengthen that base creating yet
another base which future civilization will build on....during the period
you speak of rome spread civilization throughout europe which included
greek knowledge as well.....medical science made great strides relative to
its period...every legion in the roman army had 24 surgeons complete with
first aid and field ambulance services they were well organized...they had
urologists, gynecologists, dentists and on and on.....the aqueducts were a
marvel of their time bringing 300,000,000 gallons of water daily which per
capita equals any modern city today...roman law which is used
today....sluggish, i think not.. please read roman and greek history since
there is not room or time for me to list all of their accomplishments
which was so vital in setting the stage for the renaissance that followed
in medieval italy...which catapulted us into modern times.
force pump, fire engine pump with piston and valves, hydraulic clock,
steam engine (100bc) a coin operated water dispenser...knowledge that
injury to one side of the brain produced derangements in the opposite side
of the body, and i have not touched on the arab and jewish physicians of
that period.....and all that i have represented above is a fraction of
what was going on in that "sluggish" period...
g.
lfin...@hotmail.com
GRADinc <gra...@aol.com> wrote:
> Why the sluggish 800 years after the golden age of
> Greece, but the meteroic rise since the Rennaisance?
Shit happens? :)
lf
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
GRADinc
genein
>steam power was already in existence
>approx. 100 bc by a greek named hero.......
Yes Hero made a toy, but his toy did no real work.
>14th century renaissance italy
>began the whole process of accelerated science which included photography
>(bacon, 13th century)
There ws the second Bacon who was in Elizabethan England.
Francis as opposed to Roger is who wrote the Novum Organum
in 1620.
> ...computers? are you thinking of the abacus which
>is so ancient that we don't know where it began?...
No. I am thinking of the stored program computer which
was first conceived of by Babbage in the 19th century,
An abacus just sits there and does nothing without human
intervention - it does nothing even if you sit it next to one
of Hero's steam whirlygigs.
>civilization grows in spurts and what i have been trying to say is that we
>grow on the strength of those before us...
Of course.
I am trying to point out that the rate of growth has been
non-uniform. It was very fast the last 400 years.
> please read roman and greek history since
>there is not room or time for me to list all of their accomplishments
>which was so vital in setting the stage for the renaissance that followed
>in medieval italy...which catapulted us into modern times.
I still think that in principle nothing prevented the Greco-Roman
civilization from going much further than it did. Perhaps the
time was just not ready, so to speak.
>(100bc) ...
> i have not touched on the arab and jewish physicians of
>that period.....
The 100bc period?
Tom Clarke
GRADinc
Stephen Grossman
>> the Jewish/Christian idea of the individual and his
>>_personal_ relation with a single god
>This was the soul's relation to God, not the individual's relation. Ie,
>they split man into a warring mind and body and then said that one half
>had its own relation to God. This is not individualism.
Yes, it is not modern humanistic or Objective individualism.
But compare it to the alternative of the time - servitude to the
emporeror and a whole pantheon of arbitrary gods.
>And the history of
>Judiasm and Christianity is of collectivist politics. Also, Judiasm is
>very much a tribal religion.
Judaism?
Christianity, perhaps.
>Aristotle and Locke are responsible for individualism
There are one of the elements.
Was it Aristotle's philosophy that stopped the Romans
from feeding slaves to lions?
Tom Clarke
genein
GRADinc <gra...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19981010224440...@ng60.aol.com>...
>
> genein
>
> >steam power was already in existence
> >approx. 100 bc by a greek named hero.......
>
> Yes Hero made a toy, but his toy did no real work.
it was the beginning and most certainly not a toy...the first device to do
work occured in 1601 but a model was never found, its existence is only in
writing....the first patent for an engine to raise waer by steam power was
given to captain savery in england in 1705....again the point is we grow
and depend on those that went before us...that which occured in those
"laggard" times were vital to todays advancements....
> There ws the second Bacon who was in Elizabethan England.
> Francis as opposed to Roger is who wrote the Novum Organum
> in 1620.
i am speaking of roger bacon born 1214, a franciscan monk and author of
"opus minus" and "compendium philosophiae" and one of the worlds most
original thinkers writing many books on scientific subjects....the man was
far ahead of his time which was the 12th century not the 16th..
> > ...computers? are you thinking of the abacus
> No. I am thinking of the stored program computer which
> was first conceived of by Babbage in the 19th century,
> An abacus just sits there and does nothing without human
> intervention - it does nothing even if you sit it next to one
> of Hero's steam whirlygigs.
charles babbage concieved and never built an operational , mechanical
"computer" but i would not go so far as to call it a "whirlygig" because
*we* are so far advanced today in this field....again it is proving my
point, we stand on each others shoulders.....and btw he was not in the
elizabethen era.
do you smile upon the first man who invented the wheel? or realized the
value of fire?....how about the iron age? which projected us along our
road to civilization, everything has its beginnings and to scoff at those
who started and kept the ball rolling would be wrong....can you agree?
perhaps i am misunderstanding you....?
all of these things which may seem to be unimportant relative to the
accelerated findings today are of great value and science does grow more
rapidly as it advances, something like a snowball rolling downhill will
becomes greater in bulk faster as it continues down the slope since it has
more surface for snow to compact on....perhaps not one of the best
analogies but hopefully its understandable....
>
> >civilization grows in spurts and what i have been trying to say is that
we
> >grow on the strength of those before us...
>
> Of course.
> I am trying to point out that the rate of growth has been
> non-uniform. It was very fast the last 400 years.
yes and i agree but those that preceded us were a necessary part of this
growth and it is not usual for anything to grow in uniform
manner....artists grow in spurts, students as well, some periods are more
productive than others but the minor things one does during those so
called "unproductive" periods aids in creating a base for what is to
follow....
>
> > please read roman and greek history since
> >there is not room or time for me to list all of their accomplishments
> >which was so vital in setting the stage for the renaissance that
followed
> >in medieval italy...which catapulted us into modern times.
>
> I still think that in principle nothing prevented the Greco-Roman
> civilization from going much further than it did. Perhaps the
> time was just not ready, so to speak.
you cannot invent the electric shave without knowledge of electricity, a
combustion engine in a car is useless without the invention of the
wheel...the romans were an important link to the future as were the greeks
as were the english and so on.....can you imagine a modern day office
building housing thousands of workers.....and the flush toilet was not
invented?...perhaps this more than anything will illustrate my point.
g.
> Tom Clarke
>
GRADinc
genein
>> >steam power was already in existence
>> >approx. 100 bc by a greek named hero.......
>> Yes Hero made a toy, but his toy did no real work.
>..the first patent for an engine to raise waer by steam power was
>given to captain savery in england in 1705....again the point is we grow
>and depend on those that went before us...that which occured in those
>"laggard" times were vital to todays advancements....
Again the point is from the Rennasiance
to steam power was 3 (maybe 4) hundred
years.
From Hero to the fall of Rome was
500 years.
What were they doing all that time?
>that which occured in those
>"laggard" times were vital to todays advancements....
Hero was 100 BC, Roman civilization
fell ca 400 BC. Still seems sort of slow to me.
Oh, I just recalled seeing Terry Jones'
series on Discovery channel about ancient technologies.
It seems Hero used steam power to open and close a door
in a temple to Apollo.
>i am speaking of roger bacon born 1214, a franciscan monk
...
I was thiunking of Francis Bacon who founded the modern
experimental method.
>> An abacus just sits there and does nothing without human
>> intervention - it does nothing even if you sit it next to one
>> of Hero's steam whirlygigs.
> i would not go so far as to call it a "whirlygig" because
>*we* are so far advanced today in this field....
I admit to the use of rhetorical devices.
>....and btw he was not in the elizabethen era.
Francis Bacon was. Charles Babbage was not, Hero
certainly was not.
>do you smile upon the first man who invented the wheel? or realized the
>value of fire?
No I smile upon the men in the New World (Inca's) who
invented the wheel and just used it as a child's toy.
>?....how about the iron age? which projected us along our
>road to civilization, everything has its beginnings and to scoff at those
>who started and kept the ball rolling would be wrong....can you agree?
That is my point., the ball was not really kept rolling after
Hero. Hero realized the power of steam then it was not
used for other than opening temple doors for 18 centuries.
>science does grow more
>rapidly as it advances, something like a snowball rolling downhill
This may be the explanation of course, but it does make
me smile. A little more attention to physics and the Romans
could have lived in greater luxury than all their slaves provided.
>> I still think that in principle nothing prevented the Greco-Roman
>> civilization from going much further than it did. Perhaps the
>> time was just not ready, so to speak.
>you cannot invent the electric shave without knowledge of electricity,
The Elizabethans (nothing special about them,. just an
English speaking group toward the end of the Rennaisance)
didn't know about electricity, but the Englishman Faraday
had discovered all that was needed to make a shaver within
200 years.
>a
>combustion engine in a car is useless without the invention of the
>wheel...
Actually roads are important something the Romans invented -
something the Inca's didn't have.
I heard that the railroad gauge is what it is today because the
early trains used the same tools as used by wagon makers.
Wagon makers made axles to match the ruts in roads which
went back to Roman times. The orignal Roman axles were the
size they were because that was the width of two horses asses.
>the romans were an important link to the future as were the greeks
>as were the english and so on.....can you imagine a modern day office
>building housing thousands of workers.....and the flush toilet was not
>invented?...perhaps this more than anything will illustrate my point.
Interesting question. The skyscraper predated the Thomas
Crapper toilet design I believe. A computer was once upon
a time a job for a person, perhaps a toilet would be a job
for the lowest classes, carrying odiferous loads in freight
elevators.
Tom Clarke
Robert J. Kolker
GRADinc wrote:
> genein
>
> >> >steam power was already in existence
> >> >approx. 100 bc by a greek named hero.......
>
> >> Yes Hero made a toy, but his toy did no real work.
>
> >..the first patent for an engine to raise waer by steam power was
> >given to captain savery in england in 1705....again the point is we grow
> >and depend on those that went before us...that which occured in those
> >"laggard" times were vital to todays advancements....
>
> Again the point is from the Rennasiance
> to steam power was 3 (maybe 4) hundred
> years.
> From Hero to the fall of Rome was
> 500 years.
> What were they doing all that time?
>
> >that which occured in those
> >"laggard" times were vital to todays advancements....
>
> Hero was 100 BC, Roman civilization
> fell ca 400 BC.
The Eastern half of the Roman Empire fell tothe Moslems in the 14-th century
C.E.
The Western empire did not fall. It was nibbled
and hacked to death by Vandals and Huns. The
final transfer of authority from Rome to Byzantium
occured in the 6-th century C.E.
Roman civilization never really fell as in crump-disappear.
It was gradually replaced by something else in the
course of time. The Church actually prolonged Roman
influence on Europe long after the actual power of
Rome fell apart.
> Still seems sort of slow to me.
> Oh, I just recalled seeing Terry Jones'
> series on Discovery channel about ancient technologies.
> It seems Hero used steam power to open and close a door
> in a temple to Apollo.
True. But the infrastructure to make use of this power
source was not yet in place. Slavery was still the
way things got done. Steam power became a moving
force in society (pun intended) when it was applied
where human labor could not perform or where it
was beneficial to replace human and animal labor.
The first practical applications of steam in Europe was
the draining of mines and the moving of goods overland.
Steamships soon followed. All this happened in the
18-th centuary and early 19-th century. People's minds
had to be ready to accept and expand on steam (pun
intended). Their thinking had to be on the right track.
...........snip............
>
>
> That is my point., the ball was not really kept rolling after
> Hero. Hero realized the power of steam then it was not
> used for other than opening temple doors for 18 centuries.
>
Not even that. After Heron died, his steam engine wasnot again used until the
18-th century C.E..
.............snip...............
> This may be the explanation of course, but it does make
> me smile. A little more attention to physics and the Romans
> could have lived in greater luxury than all their slaves provided.
>
The Roman ruling class had all the luxury they could use.And they certainly
did not wish to see the masses acquire
economic power to rival their own. If that happened then
the tradesmen and the builders would have asked themselves
of what use are emporers and dictators.
...............snip..........................
> The Elizabethans (nothing special about them,. just an
> English speaking group toward the end of the Rennaisance)
> didn't know about electricity, but the Englishman Faraday
> had discovered all that was needed to make a shaver within
> 200 years.
>
> >a
> >combustion engine in a car is useless without the invention of the
> >wheel...
>
> Actually roads are important something the Romans invented -
> something the Inca's didn't have.
> I heard that the railroad gauge is what it is today because the
> early trains used the same tools as used by wagon makers.
> Wagon makers made axles to match the ruts in roads which
> went back to Roman times. The orignal Roman axles were the
> size they were because that was the width of two horses asses.
>
That is quite right. Standard Guage --- 4 feet 8.5 inches was decreedby an
ass.
> >the romans were an important link to the future as were the greeks
> >as were the english and so on.....can you imagine a modern day office
> >building housing thousands of workers.....and the flush toilet was not
> >invented?...perhaps this more than anything will illustrate my point.
>
> Interesting question. The skyscraper predated the Thomas
> Crapper toilet design I believe. A computer was once upon
> a time a job for a person, perhaps a toilet would be a job
> for the lowest classes, carrying odiferous loads in freight
> elevators.
Actually the Light House at Pharos, 600 feet high, was theworld's first
sky-scraper and office building. Its main draw
back was the lack of elevators. Stuff had to be carried up and
down by an external ramp with dray animals doing the
heavy lifting.
The first skyscraper which was not an office building was
the Zugarat in Babylon, circa 2800 B.C.E. It was the famous
tower of Babel mentioned in the Bible. It wa thought to be
about 450 feet in hight and made of fire dried brick and
mortar. It was one of the concrete examples of
Babylonian civilization. BTW, the Zugarat was built for
religious reasons, not commercial reasons. Somewhat like
the Cathedrals of Europe built in the middle ages. God sure
do work in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.
Bob Kolker
Tom Scheeler
John Alway wrote in message <361D6FA5...@icsi.net>...
>> Aristotle was a great man, but not a the father of all science
>> and the pagan saint that many make him out to be.
>
>
> But he is the father of science, else my eyes deceive me. And I have
>doubt of this given the quality of his work, and I have yet to see
>anyone who has paralleled his achievements, yet I do not take away from
>the achievements of others. My admiration of Galileo and Newton is
>great, they are two heroes of mine. Yet I admire Aristotle all the much
>more for making possible the other two, and it is from Aristotle's works
>that I find much more inspiration and wisdom.
Much as Aristotle has to strip away all the "schlock" of his era, Rand has to
strip away so much, too, in our era.
Aristotle had to lay the fundamental groundwork, and Rand has provided the
integration. As to which was the greatest, it would be like deciding which of
your tow children you love more.
Hopefully, Rand's work won't require 1500 years to take hold.
Tom Scheeler
"Wisdom is the integration of knowledge" -- Thales (?)
Charles W. Johnson
> John Alway wrote:
[on the experimental method]
> > It was a very powerful addition, but not crucial, since anthropology
> > and paleontology rarely if ever use it.
> Anthropology and paleontology are descriptive and retrodictive.These
> "sciences" consist of constructing just-so stories to tie togehter
> aritifacts and fossils. The most objective parts of these sciences
> are the dating techniques and chemical analysis techniques which are
> the gifts are physics, and experimentally based science.
As a enthusiast of palaeontology I must object to this characterization.
It is true that "gut feeling" palaeontology has a larger presence, but it
is far from the only work done in palaeo.
"Gut feeling" taxonomy is rapidly dying thanks to cladistic techniques.
In a cladistic analysis (ideally) a set of organisms' traits are mapped
into a character matrix, and the matrices are analysed to form a cladogram,
which is the most parsiminous tree of evolutionary descent which explains
the matrix. Of course, there is the issue of selecting and scoring traits;
the solution here is that character matrices are published with their
cladograms (sadly this does not happen as much as it should, but it still
happens).
Many other objective experiments are being carried on other than
cladistic analyses. Mechanical simulations are often used to judge
claims about behavior (Myhrvold's simulation for sauropod
tail-whipping comes to mind, as well as the models built to try to
estimate the sound that Parasaurolophus might have made with the aid
of its crest).
And it is not true that the lack of laborotory experiments means that
there cannot be experiments made. Cladistic analysis is essentially a
statistical analysis such as those you might find in the social
sciences. "Natural experiments" also abound. Some of the rather
extensive bickering over what the many recently discovered feathered
theropods (_Sinosauropteryx_, _Caudipteryx_, _Confuciornis_, and so
on) mean for bird evolution is an example of testing theories with
data from "natural experiments" (incidentally, cladistic analyses
including these organisms confirm the birds-are-derived-maniraptorians
model so far).
I will leave the issue of anthropology up to those who know more about
it than I.
> Neither of these "sciences" provide a generalized explanatory
> or predictive power that ties together seemingly disparate
> phenomena and processes. Nor do these "sciences" give
> rise to technology which is the true figure of merit of a science.
This is utterly false. Look at the work done over the past 18 years on
the Alvarez theory, various phylogenetic hypotheses, and so forth.
Palaeontology is also a necessary link in the structure of
evolutionary biology, and evolutionary biology is in turn foundational
to all of modern biology.
Technology is not the "figure of merit of a science" and I do not know
what could ever motivate you to say so. The purpose of science is to
form and evaluate rational beliefs, not to produce technology.
The pragmatic function of these rational beliefs are not only the
production of technology but also gaining greater information for
better decision-making and the purely emotionalistic gains of
understanding the world around us.
> That is why cosmology is useless and physics is useful.
Modern cosmology is a subset of physics.
> It is also why paleontolgy and anthropology are enterprises of very
> limited use and importance to mankind.
Both palaeontology and anthropology supply us with large amounts of
data about how past life and other cultures have worked. It is
necessary to gain disparate data before we can construct a strong
hypothesis to explain the data. Palaeontology is one of the primary
sources of data for evolutionary biology, which has an extraordinary
explanative power. Anthropology similarly lets us understand more
about the dynamics of human societies than we could otherwise, which
is certainly important and useful knowledge (especially for those of
us who would like to correct some dynamics within our own society).
[snip]
> > Another addition, btw, was
> > precise measurement. But, if I were to compare the methods, perhaps the
> > tortoise and the hare is a better example. The modern science didn't
> > change the direction of science, it changed the speed of advance of
> > science.
> Not so! Modern science has banished final causation as
> an explanatory tool from study of insensate physical
> reality. Modern science has abolished the elan vital and
> other such dualistic, teleological clap-trap.
Nothing in modern biology makes much over-arching sense without the
illuminating factor of evolution. And what we know about evolution
derives in large part from palaeontology.
--
[Charles W. Johnson <cw...@eskimo.com> - http://www.eskimo.com/~cwj2]
| Heathen@Undernet (there is a Heathen@Dalnet. I am not he.) |
|<BriceW:#atheism> Is this where you gfo instaed of Church?! |
[ My opinions are mine alone. Duh. ]
Robert J. Kolker
Charles W. Johnson wrote:
> Technology is not the "figure of merit of a science" and I do not know
> what could ever motivate you to say so.
Common sense. Science has produced technology
which makes our lives longer, better, safer and
easier. It promotes survival and even flourishing.
> The purpose of science is to
> form and evaluate rational beliefs, not to produce technology.
Clearly finding out the truth of things is anintermediate step to making useful
implements.
But truth without application is mental mastribation.
> hypothesis to explain the data. Palaeontology is one of the primary
> sources of data for evolutionary biology, which has an extraordinary
> explanative power. Anthropology similarly lets us understand more
> about the dynamics of human societies than we could otherwise, which
> is certainly important and useful knowledge (especially for those of
> us who would like to correct some dynamics within our own society).
>
> [snip]
>
>
> Nothing in modern biology makes much over-arching sense without the
> illuminating factor of evolution. And what we know about evolution
> derives in large part from palaeontology.
>
Evolution has nothing whatever to do with teleology.Natural selection is ap
plied
to organisms and their
fit to the environment *now*. Evolution does
not anticipate future environments.
Evolution, like all other physcial/material processes is
driven by efficient causes. Teleology has no part in it.
Bob Kolker
John Alway
> On 9 Oct 1998 17:35:38 GMT, Robert J. Kolker proclaimed that:
> > John Alway wrote:
> [on the experimental method]
> > > It was a very powerful addition, but not crucial, since anthropology
> > > and paleontology rarely if ever use it.
> > Anthropology and paleontology are descriptive and retrodictive.These
> > "sciences" consist of constructing just-so stories to tie togehter
> > aritifacts and fossils. The most objective parts of these sciences
> > are the dating techniques and chemical analysis techniques which are
> > the gifts are physics, and experimentally based science.
> As a enthusiast of palaeontology I must object to this characterization.
> It is true that "gut feeling" palaeontology has a larger presence, but it
> is far from the only work done in palaeo.
Actually, piecing together facts to explain phenomenon and
hypothesizing throughout the process is science. Darwin's theory of
evolution explains causally how living entities come to be.
If Bob wants a practical application he should look into evolutionary
algorithms, which have a great deal of promise in the area of invention,
and in searching an unmapped territory, among other things. A guy in
Spain is working on the concept of a family of robots that evolve over
time. They are used today by some experts in the stock market to
predict stock market curves (although I question the true value of this
technology in that realm!)
...John
Charles W. Johnson
> Charles W. Johnson wrote:
> > Technology is not the "figure of merit of a science" and I do not know
> > what could ever motivate you to say so.
> Common sense. Science has produced technology
> which makes our lives longer, better, safer and
> easier. It promotes survival and even flourishing.
Usually anyway. I do not dispute the claim that technology is a valid
indication of science's value, just that it is not the only measure.
> > The purpose of science is to
> > form and evaluate rational beliefs, not to produce technology.
> Clearly finding out the truth of things is anintermediate step to
> making useful implements.
Not just making useful implements, but also making better decisions.
The "dismal science" of economics does not produce technology, but it
does help us make better decisions about resources.
> But truth without application is mental mastribation.
If you want to call it that. It's still an emotionalistic boon.
> > hypothesis to explain the data. Palaeontology is one of the primary
> > sources of data for evolutionary biology, which has an extraordinary
> > explanative power. Anthropology similarly lets us understand more
> > about the dynamics of human societies than we could otherwise, which
> > is certainly important and useful knowledge (especially for those of
> > us who would like to correct some dynamics within our own society).
> > [snip]
> > Nothing in modern biology makes much over-arching sense without the
> > illuminating factor of evolution. And what we know about evolution
> > derives in large part from palaeontology.
> Evolution has nothing whatever to do with teleology.Natural
> selection is ap plied to organisms and their fit to the environment
> *now*. Evolution does not anticipate future environments.
Indeed. Evolution approximates teleology and can lead to highly
sophisticated systems. But it is not teleology itself. I'm not sure
what your point in bringing it up is, however.
For what it's worth, the memetic approach to information propagation
would turn human efforts at engineering into a form of this
margin-based evolution.
> Evolution, like all other physcial/material processes is
> driven by efficient causes. Teleology has no part in it.
Thank you for your prompt reply.
-CWJ
genein
GRADinc <gra...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19981011125938...@ng56.aol.com>...
> Again the point is from the Rennasiance
> to steam power was 3 (maybe 4) hundred
> years.
> From Hero to the fall of Rome was
> 500 years.
> What were they doing all that time?
i thought that was explained....its painful to have to go through it all
again...
> Hero was 100 BC, Roman civilization
> fell ca 400 BC. Still seems sort of slow to me.
if i were speeding by a pony express rider in a saab 9000 turbo he would
"seem" slow to me..
> >....and btw he was not in the elizabethen era.
>
> Francis Bacon was. Charles Babbage was not, Hero
> certainly was not.
you were speaking of that era when you mentioned its accomplishements and
i pointed out roger bacon 13th century was your man (steam engines
recall?) and hero 100 bc...how francis a philosopher entered the picture i
am not sure....babbage was mentioned lumped together with elizabethen
accomplishements....don't confuse me.
>
> >do you smile upon the first man who invented the wheel? or realized the
> >value of fire?
>
> No I smile upon the men in the New World (Inca's) who
> invented the wheel and just used it as a child's toy.
the exact place and date of this "invention" is not known, best guess is
believed to be ancient mesopotamia during the 4th millennium bc....i then
looked in my history books and it appears that the earliest unequivocal
evidence of the wheel's existence appeared in ancient sumeria where a
"pictograph" of a wheeled cart that dates somewhere around 3200 bc was
found.....that would be modern iraq btw...
> >?....how about the iron age? which projected us along our
> >road to civilization, everything has its beginnings and to scoff at
those
> >who started and kept the ball rolling would be wrong....can you agree?
>
> That is my point., the ball was not really kept rolling after
> Hero. Hero realized the power of steam then it was not
> used for other than opening temple doors for 18 centuries.
please read the periods in question....i find nothing but advancements
that led to other advancements...do not compare a space shuttle with the
first wheeled cart.
> >science does grow more
> >rapidly as it advances, something like a snowball rolling downhill
>
> This may be the explanation of course, but it does make
> me smile. A little more attention to physics and the Romans
> could have lived in greater luxury than all their slaves provided.
...the necessity of that time was not greater luxury but a growth of power
which eventually led to luxury which led to its downfall......they did
what had to be done relative to that time period.....
> >you cannot invent the electric shave without knowledge of electricity,
>
> The Elizabethans (nothing special about them,. just an
> English speaking group toward the end of the Rennaisance)
> didn't know about electricity, but the Englishman Faraday
> had discovered all that was needed to make a shaver within
> 200 years.
faraday was a pioneer in experiments in electricity and magnetism and
somewhat of a chemist....he is known for his "lines of magnetic force"
which have become common ideas in modern physics......nothing of the times
suggests the possibility of an electric shaver..
> >combustion engine in a car is useless without the invention of the
> >wheel...
>
> Actually roads are important something the Romans invented -
> something the Inca's didn't have.
the roads were an improvement not an invention by the romans...the
etrucans and greeks also had roads...
> I heard that the railroad gauge is what it is today because the
> early trains used the same tools as used by wagon makers.
> Wagon makers made axles to match the ruts in roads which
> went back to Roman times. The orignal Roman axles were the
> size they were because that was the width of two horses asses.
you must have seen the same show i did on pbs.
.....can you imagine a modern day office
> >building housing thousands of workers.....and the flush toilet was not
> >invented?...perhaps this more than anything will illustrate my point.
>
> Interesting question. The skyscraper predated the Thomas
> Crapper toilet design I believe. A computer was once upon
> a time a job for a person, perhaps a toilet would be a job
> for the lowest classes, carrying odiferous loads in freight
> elevators.
please sift it through your mind for a moment...i worked in the seagram
building on park ave for a few years...populations in the thousands or the
trade center for that matter...the slop bucket brigade would have to
number in the hundreds in constant movement and where would they go? and
what if they decided to strike?..if you have never lived or worked in a
major city you may not be able to see this very real problem and no you
can't toss it out the window since they don't open and perhaps for other
reasons as well....but you are missing the point....what we do today
influences what we are tomorrow and these very worthy people of the past
who were just as intelligent as we are today helped us enormously relative
to their time and we in turn may appear antiques to those in the distant
future but surely we are not without value...the rim of the wheel turns
slowly relative to the hub but this is what the vehicle sits on.
g.
> Tom Clarke
>
GRADinc
genein
I forgot the point of this subthread which was to challenge
the assertion that Aristotle had invented science and that
all that followed was a mere footnote.
>> From Hero to the fall of Rome was
>> 500 years.
>> What were they doing all that time?
>i thought that was explained....its painful to have to go through it all
>again...
Yes you said that they were doing stuff that provided the
foundations for what we moderns are doing, but
if Hero could move a temple door with steam (as a parlor
trick) then Hero's apprentice could have moved an
irrigation pump with steam. Hero's apprentice's
apprentice could have powered a grist mill with steam ...
etc.
Trying to steer back to the original point, Aristotle provided
part of what was needed for modern science, but the rest
was not supplied until the Rennaisance. The extra ingredient
might be philosophical - the experimental method or maybe its
just the practical turn of mind of the modern world.
Re the Roger vs Francis Bacon confusion:
>you were speaking of that era when you mentioned its accomplishements and
>i pointed out roger bacon 13th century was your man (steam engines
>recall?) and hero 100 bc...
Did Roger Bacon invent steam power? I know he is
credited with gunpowder.
>how francis a philosopher entered the picture i
>am not sure....
He injected the experimental method into natural philosophy,
something that Aristotle missed.
>> That is my point., the ball was not really kept rolling after
>> Hero. Hero realized the power of steam then it was not
>> used for other than opening temple doors for 18 centuries.
>please read the periods in question....i find nothing but advancements
>that led to other advancements...do not compare a space shuttle with the
>first wheeled cart.
In another attempt to return to the trigger for this subthread,
then should it be said"
Do not compare a modern scientist to Aristotle (the first scientist)?
>> This may be the explanation of course, but it does make
>> me smile. A little more attention to physics and the Romans
>> could have lived in greater luxury than all their slaves provided.
>...the necessity of that time was not greater luxury but a growth of power
>which eventually led to luxury which led to its downfall......they did
>what had to be done relative to that time period.....
OK. I know the Roman's liked luxury, I thought greater luxury,
private symphony orchestras, hundred horse chariots, all that
we take for granted would have motivated them. If power was
a greater motivator for them then certainly moderns have that
a-plenty and the Romans could have had it too if their
philosophy of science had been complete.
Which brings us back to Aristotle. I maintain that the philosophy
of science known to the ancients was incomplete - was not
completed until the Rennaisance era.
>faraday was a pioneer in experiments in electricity and magnetism and
>somewhat of a chemist....he is known for his "lines of magnetic force"
>which have become common ideas in modern physics......nothing of the times
>suggests the possibility of an electric shaver..
You mentioned electric shaver.
Faraday formulated the laws of induction which enabled him to
build the first machine to convert rotary motion into electricity,
the first dynamo in 1831.
http://members.aol.com/jnaudin509/images/farhom.htm
Maxwell found the mathematical theory for
Faraday's laws, and Edison, Tesla and others perfected the
machines based on Faradays laws. Among these machines was the
electric motor which makes the electric shaver possible.
>> Actually roads are important something the Romans invented -
>> something the Inca's didn't have.
>the roads were an improvement not an invention by the romans...the
>etrucans and greeks also had roads...
Do any of the Greek and Etruscan roads survive. The Romans
built roads that lasted. I think some are even used today.
>please sift it through your mind for a moment...i worked in the seagram
>building on park ave for a few years...populations in the thousands or the
>trade center for that matter...the slop bucket brigade would have to
>number in the hundreds in constant movement and where would they go?
Instead of passageways filed with sewage pipes, there would
be hidden corridors for the slop brigade to go the slop elevator.
> and what if they decided to strike?
No worse than elevator operators prior to automation.
>you are missing the point....what we do today
>influences what we are tomorrow and these very worthy people of the past
>who were just as intelligent as we are today helped us enormously relative
>to their time and we in turn may appear antiques to those in the distant
>future but surely we are not without value...the rim of the wheel turns
>slowly relative to the hub but this is what the vehicle sits on.
OK so long as those at the hub stay at the hub. Aristotle is an
ancient and can only move so fast. He has long been superseded
by moderns such as Francis Bacon, Galileo etc.
To assert that nothing has happened since the days of the
ancient hub is, to me, anti-progress.
Tom Clarke
genein
GRADinc <gra...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19981012112824...@ng91.aol.com>...
>
> genein
>
> I forgot the point of this subthread which was to challenge
> the assertion that Aristotle had invented science and that
> all that followed was a mere footnote.
grad:
>> Admitted Aristotle invented science, less the
>> experimental method provided by Bacon.
gene:
>aristotle did not invent science...
grad:
I'll let others argue this.
gene:
and so thanks to modern technology i was able to retrieve this early
edition..as you can see you were incorrect...aristotle was not the
challenge...it just meandered into the elizabethan era, with steam
engines, batteries, electric generators etc.....please see below. that was
the beginning of a post with so many twists and turns it would be hard to
follow but my system does have them all and i reviewed some of them.
grad:
The Elizabethans didn't have electricity either.
But in the intervening 400 yearsEuropeans invented
steam power, batteries, electric generators,
microscopes, photography, vacuum tubes,
transistors, computers, antibiotics etc.
> >> From Hero to the fall of Rome was
> >> 500 years.
> >> What were they doing all that time?
>
> >i thought that was explained....its painful to have to go through it
all
> >again...
>
> Yes you said that they were doing stuff that provided the
> foundations for what we moderns are doing, but
> if Hero could move a temple door with steam (as a parlor
> trick) then Hero's apprentice could have moved an
> irrigation pump with steam. Hero's apprentice's
> apprentice could have powered a grist mill with steam ...
> etc.
neatly said.
>
> Trying to steer back to the original point, Aristotle provided
> part of what was needed for modern science, but the rest
> was not supplied until the Rennaisance. The extra ingredient
> might be philosophical - the experimental method or maybe its
> just the practical turn of mind of the modern world.
but you are now making another point and going in an entirely different
direction
now which point on the compass are you facing?
>
> Re the Roger vs Francis Bacon confusion:
roger bacon came on the scene because of his experiments and knowledge of
steam engines (13th century) as opposed to your elizabethan era
claim...and babbage was mentioned because he was lumped into this era
although in fact a product of the 19th century
>
> >you were speaking of that era when you mentioned its accomplishements
and
> >i pointed out roger bacon 13th century was your man (steam engines
> >recall?) and hero 100 bc...
>
> Did Roger Bacon invent steam power? I know he is
> credited with gunpowder.
no one person invented steam power bacon was the earlist westerner to
experiment with it...and he had knowledge of gunpowder, he did not invent
it..the chinese were known to be aware of it very early in our
civilization....
> >how francis a philosopher entered the picture i
> >am not sure....
>
> He injected the experimental method into natural philosophy,
> something that Aristotle missed.
but we were not going in the direction of aristotle as you can see
above...you claimed you would let others argue his case....again i don't
know how he materalized except perhaps a similar name triggered him into
existence.....
> In another attempt to return to the trigger for this subthread,
> then should it be said"
> Do not compare a modern scientist to Aristotle (the first scientist)?
again, that was not the trigger....and so i am at a loss as to how to
respond..
> >...the necessity of that time was not greater luxury but a growth of
power
> >which eventually led to luxury which led to its downfall......they did
> >what had to be done relative to that time period.....
>
> OK. I know the Roman's liked luxury, I thought greater luxury,
> private symphony orchestras, hundred horse chariots, all that
> we take for granted would have motivated them.
are we now in rome? then no, the romans as a fighting machine were not
overly fond of luxury in fact were very stoic...
If power was
> a greater motivator for them then certainly moderns have that
> a-plenty and the Romans could have had it too if their
> philosophy of science had been complete.
>
> Which brings us back to Aristotle. I maintain that the philosophy
> of science known to the ancients was incomplete - was not
are we now talking about philosophy rather than history or inventions?? ok
topic: "philosophy of science known to the ancients was incomplete"
question: who do you consider ancient....aristotle?
> completed until the Rennaisance era.
and the rennaisance era was incomplete as well lets say relative to....
> >faraday was a pioneer in experiments in electricity and magnetism and
> >somewhat of a chemist....he is known for his "lines of magnetic force"
> >which have become common ideas in modern physics......nothing of the
times
> >suggests the possibility of an electric shaver..
>
> You mentioned electric shaver.
yes to make a point that i now have fading hopes of making understood...
> Faraday formulated the laws of induction which enabled him to
> build the first machine to convert rotary motion into electricity,
> the first dynamo in 1831.
yes i know, i read it in my encyclopedia as well...
> >the roads were an improvement not an invention by the romans...the
> >etrucans and greeks also had roads...
>
> Do any of the Greek and Etruscan roads survive. The Romans
> built roads that lasted. I think some are even used today.
i said that the romans *improved* on those of the greeks and etruscans and
kept them in good repair...they did not invent the road however.
> >please sift it through your mind for a moment...i worked in the seagram
> >building on park ave for a few years...populations in the thousands or
the
> >trade center for that matter...the slop bucket brigade would have to
> >number in the hundreds in constant movement and where would they go?
>
> Instead of passageways filed with sewage pipes, there would
> be hidden corridors for the slop brigade to go the slop elevator.
>
> > and what if they decided to strike?
>
> No worse than elevator operators prior to automation.
i see you did not take my advice on thinking it through......you must
admit this, where do you store an elevator during a strike? and do they
have an odor? lets say in terms of thousands of "honey buckets" and where
oh where does it all go?
hundreds and hundreds of tall buildings that exist in major cities...the
national guard would not visit that city of they declared an emergency....
.the rim of the wheel turns
> >slowly relative to the hub but this is what the vehicle sits on.
>
> OK so long as those at the hub stay at the hub. Aristotle is an
> ancient and can only move so fast. He has long been superseded
> by moderns such as Francis Bacon, Galileo etc.
and yet another analogy bites the dust.......what can i say? it was not
meant to be argued, it served as a pointing device...
> To assert that nothing has happened since the days of the
> ancient hub is, to me, anti-progress.
how did you manage to extract that?.......both the rim and the hub are an
integral part of the whole.....it just a means of explaining, putting over
a point, not meant as a new path to a separate debate...
g.
Tom Clarke
>
Robert J. Kolker
GRADinc wrote:
> Yes you said that they were doing stuff that provided the
> foundations for what we moderns are doing, but
> if Hero could move a temple door with steam (as a parlor
> trick) then Hero's apprentice could have moved an
> irrigation pump with steam. Hero's apprentice's
> apprentice could have powered a grist mill with steam ...
> etc.
>
This is an obvious extropolation for us. But for a culturefounded on slave
labor such an idea probably would
not have occurred to anyone (but a slave of course, and
who cares about slaves?). You also must remember that
to do any work with steam you need high pressure which
means you have to be able to build boilers and cylinders
that can take the pressuer, which means you have to have
the metallurgy, etc. etc.. Puting steam to work requires an
intellectual and material infra-structure which was not in
place when Heron (circa 100 *C.E*) built his steam toy.
> Trying to steer back to the original point, Aristotle provided
> part of what was needed for modern science, but the rest
> was not supplied until the Rennaisance. The extra ingredient
> might be philosophical - the experimental method or maybe its
> just the practical turn of mind of the modern world.
>
As indicated above, you would have to have an ongoingtechnology than can work
with iron and steel. And as
you rightly point out you need a mentality that is congruent
with puting new things together with practical tasks. The
Greek philosophers were hung up to one degree or another
on First Principles and tended to disdain the practical as
a manifestation of the imperfect. Plato was very much of
this persuasion and Aristotle less so. Even the magnificent
Archimedes, the greatest scientist (that we know of) from
antiquity, thought of his practical enterprises (building war
machines to defend Syracuse) as less than first class under-
takings.
> .......................snip.....................
> He injected the experimental method into natural philosophy,
> something that Aristotle missed.
>
Actually this is an overstatement. In volume 2 of Will Durantsset on history he
quotes from Artistotle how to set up
an experiment for tracking the development of chicken
embryos in eggs. It is very modern in its setup and
conception. When it came to things biological, Aristotle
was first rate. For things mechanical and mathematical
much less than first rate. Since Aristotle did so much and
was concerned with so many fields of learning some of
his work was bound to better than other parts of his
work. His main contribution was to de-mystify nature and
purge the supernatural from our understanding of the world.
> >> That is my point., the ball was not really kept rolling after
> >> Hero. Hero realized the power of steam then it was not
> >> used for other than opening temple doors for 18 centuries.
>
> >please read the periods in question....i find nothing but advancements
> >that led to other advancements...do not compare a space shuttle with the
> >first wheeled cart.
>
> In another attempt to return to the trigger for this subthread,
> then should it be said"
> Do not compare a modern scientist to Aristotle (the first scientist)?
>
Aristotle live from 384 B.C.E. to 320 B.C.E. His life overlappedPlaton's. In
fact Aristotle was a student of Platon for about 20
years.
> >> This may be the explanation of course, but it does make
> >> me smile. A little more attention to physics and the Romans
> >> could have lived in greater luxury than all their slaves provided.
>
> >...the necessity of that time was not greater luxury but a growth of power
> >which eventually led to luxury which led to its downfall......they did
> >what had to be done relative to that time period.....
>
> OK. I know the Roman's liked luxury, I thought greater luxury,
> private symphony orchestras, hundred horse chariots, all that
> we take for granted would have motivated them. If power was
> a greater motivator for them then certainly moderns have that
> a-plenty and the Romans could have had it too if their
> philosophy of science had been complete.
>
> Which brings us back to Aristotle. I maintain that the philosophy
> of science known to the ancients was incomplete - was not
> completed until the Rennaisance era.
And not even then. Science is a work in progress and has undergoneremarkable
changes in concept and philosophy in this century.
The practical foundations for fiddling and observing were really laid
during the Middle ages. The school at the Cathedral at Chartres
in France, did investigations into natural phenomena and even
had scholars who questions some of Aristotle's views (what was
know of Aristotle at the time. His works only became know to
Europeans through translations made by the Arabs since
the originals were lost when the Library at Alexandria was
........................snip............................
> No worse than elevator operators prior to automation.
>
> >you are missing the point....what we do today
> >influences what we are tomorrow and these very worthy people of the past
> >who were just as intelligent as we are today helped us enormously relative
> >to their time and we in turn may appear antiques to those in the distant
> >future but surely we are not without value...the rim of the wheel turns
> >slowly relative to the hub but this is what the vehicle sits on.
>
> OK so long as those at the hub stay at the hub. Aristotle is an
> ancient and can only move so fast. He has long been superseded
> by moderns such as Francis Bacon, Galileo etc.
>
What has really changed is attitudes. As I pointed out theGreeks tended to hang
up on first principles. Plato (and
Socrates) believed that if you didn't have a perfect
definition for something you did not understand it at all.
Moderns tend to be partial and incremental in their
understanding. A modern will go ahead based on
a hunch, or a hypothesis or an incomplete understanding
of nature with a faith (expectation) that further work will
bring further improvement. You don't have to know
everything to know something.
It is this willingness to settle for good as opposed to
perfect that differentiates the modern philosophical
scientific orientation from the Greeks. The best
(at times) is the enemy of the good.
> To assert that nothing has happened since the days of the
> ancient hub is, to me, anti-progress.
>
Worse than that, it is false. There can be no doubtthat by the time of the
Renaissance, the best
European thinkers had outdistanced the ancients.
Arichimedes is one of the few ancients who hold up
even by modern standards. The Objectivist fixation
on Aristotle indicates the same fixation with first
principles at the expense of getting stuff done with
what one has. Go one, and perfection will come
in its own good time.
Bob Kolker
GRADinc
genein
>a post with so many twists and turns it would be hard to
>follow
It seems I even contradict myself ...
>gene:
>>aristotle did not invent science...
>grad:
>I'll let others argue this.
Grad:
>> the point of this subthread which was to challenge
>> the assertion that Aristotle had invented science and that
>> all that followed was a mere footnote.
OK. Forget Aristotle for now, lets do history.
>roger bacon came on the scene because of his experiments and knowledge of
>steam engines (13th century)
I did not know of his work with steam. Were there other
steam investigators between R. Bacon and Thomas Newcomen?
>as opposed to your elizabethan era claim...
Claim? I was probably a bit early. Newcomen's pump engine
did not appear until 1712.
>.and babbage was mentioned because he was lumped into this era
>although in fact a product of the 19th century
I mentioned him because of the abacus which you
mentioned.
>> Did Roger Bacon invent steam power? I know he is
>> credited with gunpowder.
>t...and he had knowledge of gunpowder, he did not invent
>it..the chinese were known to be aware of it very early in our
>civilization....
Yes, the Chinese invented it, or used it earlier.
[Did you see the PBS explosives show? It suggested
that they were boling honey and sulfur and saltpeter to
make a medical potion - mixture sort of makes sense -
when it ignited - and this provided the clue that led to
gunpowder.
Roger Bacon in the west experimented and perfected
what he had learned or heard about "gun powder".
Hmm. Thus R. Bacon experimented ...
....
>question: who do you consider ancient....aristotle?
Aristotle lived in what is usually termed the ancient world.
[re the use of a slop bucket brigade instead of modern
flush toilets and plumbing in skyscrapers]
>> > and what if they [the brigade] decided to strike?
>> No worse than elevator operators prior to automation.
>i see you did not take my advice on thinking it through......you must
>admit this, where do you store an elevator during a strike? and do they
>have an odor?
Probably the member of the brigade would be well paid
relative to other menial laborers to avoid strike or it would
give something to do with the drug-war prisoners, or ...
The supervisors could carry the slops during the strike -
that's about all supervisors are good for anyway :-/
Maybe there wouldn't be any skyscrapers. Are skyscrapers
necessary to non-toiletry modern civilization?
> lets say in terms of thousands of "honey buckets" and where
>oh where does it all go?
Well the hypothesis was not flush toilets so it could go
into sewers or into trucks (like the drain field pump put
trucks) and then into barges and into the sea as it
does (or until recently did) in New York.
>hundreds and hundreds of tall buildings that exist in major cities...the
>national guard would not visit that city of they declared an emergency....
Wasn't there a garbage strike in New York 20 years or
so ago during which things got pretty ripe?
<what follows in non-historical>
>> To assert that nothing has happened since the days of the
>> ancient hub is, to me, anti-progress.
>how did you manage to extract that?
My confusion, I suspect. Others have said as much,
not you though.
I try to argue that Aristotle was not the grand exalted
inventor of all human knowledge by pointing out
that had he been so, you would think the ancients would
have progressed faster than they did.
Then you jumped in and defended the ancients - which
is OK, there is plenty of room for interpretation etc there -
but it confused the issue - it espcially confused me.
Tom Clarke
Charles W. Johnson
> Charles W. Johnson wrote:
> > On 9 Oct 1998 17:35:38 GMT, Robert J. Kolker proclaimed that:
> > > John Alway wrote:
> > [on the experimental method]
> > > > It was a very powerful addition, but not crucial, since anthropology
> > > > and paleontology rarely if ever use it.
> > > Anthropology and paleontology are descriptive and retrodictive.These
> > > "sciences" consist of constructing just-so stories to tie togehter
> > > aritifacts and fossils. The most objective parts of these sciences
> > > are the dating techniques and chemical analysis techniques which are
> > > the gifts are physics, and experimentally based science.
> > As a enthusiast of palaeontology I must object to this characterization.
> > It is true that "gut feeling" palaeontology has a larger presence, but it
> > is far from the only work done in palaeo.
> Actually, piecing together facts to explain phenomenon and
> hypothesizing throughout the process is science. Darwin's theory of
> evolution explains causally how living entities come to be.
Indeed. This is the kind of reasoning that I refer to in another post
as using natural experiemnts (as opposed to laborotory
experiments). This is the method that the social sciences most often
use as well. However, I think what he was getting at is that
palaeontology has a penchant for rather arbitrary explanations
developed ad hoc, from little more than "gut feelings." This has been
unfortunately true in the past. But experimental biology, cladistics,
computer simulations and so forth are playing a larger and larger
role.
> If Bob wants a practical application he should look into evolutionary
> algorithms, which have a great deal of promise in the area of invention,
> and in searching an unmapped territory, among other things. A guy in
> Spain is working on the concept of a family of robots that evolve over
> time. They are used today by some experts in the stock market to
> predict stock market curves (although I question the true value of this
> technology in that realm!)
To get a bit more "out there," there is also the prospect of molecular
nanotechnology, which as a self-replicating systems would be subject
to the dynamics of evolutionary change.
Understanding natural selection has also helped us understand diseases
better, and hopefully it will let us adopt better antibiotic strategies
in the future.
And not to let pure evolutionary biology hog the spotlight,
palaeontology (for good or for ill) has made us aware of the risk* of
bolide impact, by way of the Alvarez theory and the subsequent
discoveries verifying it. And the study of mass extinctions in
general, other than just the K-T, should give us some more perspective
into mass ecological failures, which would serve to insert some actual
scientific voices into a forum of debate dominated largely by
pseudoscience and emotionalistic rhetoric.
* No, I don't think this risk is particularly significant. But hey, at
least it got some of the GDP in circulation this summer ...
Robert J. Kolker
John Alway wrote:
> If Bob wants a practical application he should look into evolutionary
> algorithms, which have a great deal of promise in the area of invention,
> and in searching an unmapped territory, among other things. A guy in
> Spain is working on the concept of a family of robots that evolve over
> time. They are used today by some experts in the stock market to
> predict stock market curves (although I question the true value of this
> technology in that realm!)
>
The so-called genetic algorithm is based on a parodyof how chromosomes spli
t and
cross-link. What it is
is a method of varying the algorithm then applying a
selection criterion to the result. Presumably, one
should evolve, by way of the selection, an algorithm
that does the job. What job? The job that it is implicit
in the selection criterion. It turns out that the genetic
algorthm is based on a superficial similacarum of
chromosomes and genes. Real genes and chromosomes
express themselves in much more complicated ways.
See Dawkins --- The Extended GenoType.
BTW, genetics is a real science and it produces useful things
like cures for diseases.
These algorthms are remniscent of a class of learning
devices, linear threshold logics in which the parameters
are varied until a logical function is developed that
separates two sets of inputs by means of a hyperplane.
Once variant of network threshold functions is a parody
on nerve cells. The are called perceptrons, or some such.
I do not wish to leave the impression that I oppose research
in esoteric areas. As a matter of historical fact, many investigations
in so-called pure or basic science have lead to useful technology.
So persuing basic science, has a good chance of paying off
down the road. However, science, whiile in the basic or pure
state has one main purpose --- to satisfy the curiosity of the
person doing it. You might say it is done to scratch an itch.
Bob Kolker
John Alway
> John Alway wrote:
> > If Bob wants a practical application he should look into evolut
> > ionary
> > algorithms, which have a great deal of promise in the area of invention,
> > and in searching an unmapped territory, among other things. A guy in
> > Spain is working on the concept of a family of robots that evolve over
> > time. They are used today by some experts in the stock market to
> > predict stock market curves (although I question the true value of this
> > technology in that realm!)
> The so-called genetic algorithm is based on a parodyof how chromosomes spli
> t and
> cross-link. What it is
> is a method of varying the algorithm then applying a
> selection criterion to the result. Presumably, one
> should evolve, by way of the selection, an algorithm
> that does the job. What job? The job that it is implicit
> in the selection criterion. It turns out that the genetic
> algorthm is based on a superficial similacarum of
> chromosomes and genes. Real genes and chromosomes
> express themselves in much more complicated ways.
> See Dawkins --- The Extended GenoType.
I've read a bit on genetic algorithms, since I have an interest in one
day trying them out for some ideas I have. You are exactly right,
they use the basic concept behind genes when they write those
algorithms. However, they also use the theory of natural selection.
Without it the algorithm would not work! There is a process of mating
the genes, testing their phenotypes (which could be any number of
things) by some simulated test and against some standard, and then
selecting from the most robust members in order to mate again. The
process can go on for ever, presumably seeing ever stronger members.
This tool has a great deal of promise in the area of innovation. I
for see a day when this tool in conjunction with virtual reality
technology will provide 3D, real time simulations giving engineers ideas
when they are in innovative mode.
...John
Robert J. Kolker
> This tool has a great deal of promise in the area of innovation. I
> for see a day when this tool in conjunction with virtual reality
> technology will provide 3D, real time simulations giving engineers ideas
> when they are in innovative mode.
Aritifical Intelligence used to be a "promising" area of discoveryand innov
ation
too. Its promise has not come to fruition however.
My reservations about genetic algorithms is that it is basically a
an automated search of the space of algorthms that hopefully
will achieve a solution to satisfy some selection criterion.
Such searches have problems.
1. You don't know how long the search will take.
2. You don't know that the search will pick up on
a local maximum and miss out on a really good
solution just over the horizon.
As you know, evolution by natural selection is no
guarantee of perfection. Neither is purposeful
design. However I have this old fashioned belief
(it may very well be wrong) that purposeful design
of algorithms based on the context of an explicitly
stated problem and closely related issues is more
likely to produce an optimal or near optimal solution
to the given problem.
On the other hand, some problmes are insulble
(for example the Halting Problem for Turing Machines)
and some others are intrinsically hard (for example
the Traveling Salesman Problem). I see no reason to
believe that genetic algorithms are going to do any
better than the old fashioned method of analysis and
mathematical inspiration.
It just occurred to me that mathematical breakthroughs
from the subsconscious may be the result of a built
in genetic algorithm implicit in our mental functionings.
But that is pure speculation on my part and I have no
hard evidence to support it. Just a hunch.
To cap this post off, I simply say I have my reservations
about mechanized cut and try variation of algorithms. But
who know? I could be dead wrong on this.
Bob Kolker
Stephen Grossman
<rum...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> But c'mon...do you think cavemen adding or developing rudimentary
> geometry came _subsequent_ to explicit philosophy? Do you suppose they
> were aware of epistemology _before_ they knew that one buffalo over
> here and one buffalo over there meant they had two buffalo to eat?
Exactly to the extent that philosophy is made explicit can people control
their thinking and actions.