Before the Classical Greek Philosophers¶
Overview¶
Religious ideas about thermodynamics
Creation myths
How religion works (priests, heresies)
Elements of pre-classical thinking in modern society.
Introduction¶
As modern men, we fool ourselves into thinking that we have understanding. The ancients were the same way, and from prehistoric times the hubris of this thought has kept humanity back, and it threatens to keep us back.
In my videos, I try to draw a clear line between science and religion. It’s not that they are set in opposition to each other, it’s that they are different things.
Religion is how we approach our beliefs. Beliefs are things that we think we know, or wish were true, but we can’t provide any scientific evidence for. This is great if these beliefs can lead you to do good things – such as my belief that we can question the status quo and examine the fundamental concepts behind ideas, and even test our ideas out with experimentation. But often these beliefs hold us back.
We talk of self-fulfilling prophecy, and I believe this is a true thing. If we think we can’t understand, then we won’t. If we think something is beyond our grasp, then it is.
I love the teachings of Jesus, who said, “Seek and ye shall find, Ask and it shall be answered. Knock and it shall be opened.” This sort of belief leads people to question, to search for, and to try and open previously closed doors.
Science is a process whereby we can detect error, or rather, an incongruence between our thoughts and reality. Science relies on three fundamental ideas: First, the idea that perhaps our closely-held beliefs are wrong. Second, that our ideas should be logical and reasonable, that is, non-contradictory and consistent from a logical framework. Third, that if our ideas about the universe are correct, then we should be able to perform experiments and note any deviations from our ideas.
Note that science is entirely different from religion. It’s not that they’re opposite, they provide two different approaches to obtaining knowledge. One starts with a positive assertion that is accepted without evidence. The other starts with a positive assertion that is rejected with evidence.
It’s important to remember that the great scientists who laid the groundwork for modern science were not all atheists. In fact, few, if any, of them actually were. Most were devout individuals, or at least, conformists. Most did not set out to question their religion, but many did set out with the intention to better understand it.
Take, for instance, Isaac Newton. His work gave us the foundation for understanding physics that propelled us into the modern era. Yet he was also an alchemist and engaged in analyzing proppecies concerning the end times. This seem so contradictory to us in our modern age, but back then, it was completely natural. Those who seemed to profess the greatest degree of faith in their religion also seemed to propel science forward.
What the Ancients Believed¶
We don’t know a great deal about what people thought before the ancient Greeks. What little writing we do have is hard to understand, and there is not enough of it to get a good picture of the various ideas, especially about something so fundamental like thermodynamics. We of course have ancient scripture, such as the Bible, describing encounters with God or with the gods, and in these texts we find some ideas that are scientifically sound and some that aren’t.
Most religions had some sort of creation myth. These myths were different from each other, but all tried to explain existence itself, along with the condition we find ourselves in.
Polytheists seemed to have assigned various phenomena of nature to different gods. For instance, lightning storms were blamed on Zeus. I imagine that people would try to appease or influence the gods to get the sort of result they wanted. I doubt they were all unsuccessful. But I’m sure more than a few chalked up their good fortune to the gods or God.
Cargo Cult¶
I like to share the story Richard Feynman shared about the monkey at the runway. The monkey was put in a cage, waiting to be loaded on to an airplane. As this was a busy airport, airplanes would rev their engines and rocket into the sky, creating a tremendous noise. The monkey, frightened, would shake the bars of his cage. After a few times of this, the monkey began to believe that the planes would flee due to him shaking the bars of his cage.
We might laugh at such a story, but we found a Cargo Cult on a pacific island. During World War II, the United States military chose an island which only had primitive people for their airport. They brought in ships with men and gear and within a few days, laid out steel grating for a runway, and then airplanes began landing at seemingly regular intervals. These airplanes bought food and supplies, which the soldiers would share with the impoverished natives.
After the war, the military stopped using the base to stage aircraft. They packed up all their equipment, and left, leaving nothing behind. No longer did airplanes come carrying chocolate and canned foods.
The natives wanted the airplanes to come back, so they went to work, recreating from bamboo and such an entire airport, almost exactly like the one the Americans had built. They wore headsets and waved their arms like the Americans did, but no aircraft ever came. They continued doing this for decades, building an entire cult around it.
I wish this were a problem that affected only ancient man, but it still infects us in our culture today.
How many go about their business never wondering why the things they do have their intended effect? How many chalk up success or failure just to raw chance and never bother to pry at the underlying mechanism? How many emulate features and attributes of successful people, but never obtain similar success because they were missing the actually important elements?
From There to Here¶
How did we get from this ancient philosophy to modern science?
We know, mostly accurately, what the ancients thought of thermodynamics. We are pretty certain they were familiar with similar phenomena a child might experience growing up. They even took advantage of some of these phenomena to build things and perform what they might have called miracles.
The first step off of this road is to question what you know, or rather, what you have been told. Just because a priest tells you something doesn’t mean the priest is right. You don’t have to look very hard at, say, Christian history, to see that priests are often wrong about things!
The ancient Greeks started the process of breaking free from this style of thinking. Although the Greeks were not all necessarily atheists, they understood that gods weren’t much different from humans, and that humans could understand and manipulate nature the same way the gods did. Greeks wanted to understand how the gods did their business, and take advantage of it for their own ends.
Of the greatest gifts that the Ancient Greeks gave modern man, I would say their ability to question what would otherwise be considered sacred, as well as the ability to think clearly and logically, going back to first principles, or even beyond if need be, is what stands out. The conclusions they arrived at through thinking weren’t worth very much, except to provide those living through the Renaissance something to disagree with.
But more importantly was the ideas that came later, to test and experiment and verify that the ideas that pass logical muster are actually sound. That would start happening as part of the rise of Empiricism after the Renaissance.
Church History¶
Although this video is about what happened before the classical greeks, I want to add that Europe, in the Middle Ages, experienced the same transformation from deeply devout and unquestionable beliefs into healthy skepticism and experimentation. It is remarkable how our philosophical ancestors, in their quest to be more devoted to God, engaged with the Greek Philosophers, bringing their own ideas to the table, and emphasizing the importance of logic and reason.
The Renaissance was a renewal, a rediscovery of ancient ideas. During the Renaissance, the Europeans entered into a period of time not unlike the time of the Classical Greeks. This was the springboard from which modern science could evolve.
