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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: What if Christianity never existed
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hatless
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# 3365
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Posted
I remember an uncle, many years ago, asking me how much water you would need to float the Queen Mary. A cupful, he said, if you has a dock that was a perfect fit for it.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I remember an uncle, many years ago, asking me how much water you would need to float the Queen Mary. A cupful, he said, if you has a dock that was a perfect fit for it.
I think, it still needs to displace it's weight, so that water would be heading up the sides of the dock as it's descending (unless you can keep the edges sealed as you lower it, easier with a cube).
Even then a cupful is 250cc, while the QM's 250m long, each cc of water (less than a teaspoon, is being spread over an area 1m*(however far it needs to go along the side), leading to a 'depth' of much less than 1 micrometer (and such that the middle of the plates with deform that much, which the edge of the plates makes firm contact).
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
Off to think that through a bit more. There would be the virtual displacement mentioned before. And so the water would stop rising when it's Hydrostatic head was equiv to the normal floating point of the boat (except with it being so close, you'd have surface tension effects).
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
If you think of Galileo's wooden rod again, and imagine it's quite a tight fit in the glass tube, say the rod is 0.5m long and 5cm in diameter, and the glass cylinder is 0.451m deep and 5.2cm in diameter, and the rod has a density 90% of water. When you put the rod in to the glass cylinder full of water, nearly all of it will overflow leaving a 1mm layer of water around the rod. It still floats though, because of the weight of water, now on the carpet, which it displaced.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
Yes, I was clearly wrong in the first bit of the ship case (because the initial movement of fluid is so much I didn't think of it stopping).
And of course the water that's now on the carpet never needed to actually be there, and isn't doing anything now. It just makes it even more obvious that it is displaced when it literally moves, rather than the water rising at the edges.
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
In any event... the trajectory of scientific discovery within Renaissance Europe was very much one of re-discovery. The Latin and Greek texts that had been lost to Europe and then copied back from the Arabic and Persian were the starting point. The Arabic and Persian texts that came along with them were the springboard that led to the questioning of the wisdom of the ancients.
Science was far, far more advanced in North Africa and the ME/Asia during the Middle Ages than in Europe (excepting Spain). And Jews were in the position of being able to translate books from Arabic to Persian to Hebrew to Latin and Greek and back again, serving in royal courts across the Islamic world.
How much the Church did to suppress scientific innovation is up for debate, but if the trajectory of Islamic science had continued beyond the 16th century (when, more or less, theology turned against science) then there's little doubt that that would be the real Jonbar point.
Given the Persians passion for scientific discovery wasn't interrupted by adoption of Islam, I feel that we'd be in a familiar world, albeit with radically different cultural references.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Odd how theology can turn against science. This seems to be happening in the USA too.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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ACK
Shipmate
# 16756
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan: From a historical rather than faith based perspective, I have heard that Cyrus the Great is probably responsible for this not happening. He had a policy of setting Persia apart from earlier empires by letting local populations stay in place (or return from exile) and keep their religious beliefs, rather than enslaving or killing them all. Without that? Judaism probably doesn't make it long enough for Jesus to hit the scene.
Agree with you that was his policy and why they returned to Judea, but my understanding is that there was a strong Jewish community in Babylon during the Exile. That is where much of the Hebrew Bible came together, and what is means to be Jewish was codified. The driving force being that they were in a foreign land and wanted to make it clear what was different about them and the other cultures in Babylon. Most of them did not return under Cyrus's offer.
Plus only the elite went into exile, the poor were left in Judea.
Also, the northern kingdom, Israel/Samaria fell a century earlier to Assyria, with the elite going into exile and other people imported, creating a mixed race, still following a form of the same religon, even though the Samaritans were despised by the southern kingdom.
That is, even without Cyrus, Judaism would have survived in some form or another.
Another major event was the destruction of the Temple in the 1st Century AD. Two sects of Jewish origin actually managed to dust themselves off and survive that and define what their faith meant without the Temple. One was the Christians, the other the Pharisees, who put together the foundations of modern Judaism.
I think without Christianity, the Pharisees vision would have filled more or less the space Christianity takes. I am assuming in that, that Paul, in the absence of Christianity, had put his zeal behind it.
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'It's the only thing that worries me about going to Heaven. Would I ever get used to the height.' Norman Clegg
Posts: 56 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2011
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
Here's the passage from the book I was referring to. Wootton. The upshot is that Archimedes' principle is only true as stated in an unbounded body of liquid.
Wootton's entire book is about how the practice of science as done by the Greeks and Arabs (and Chinese and others) changed into the practice of science as done by Western Europe in the eighteenth century and onwards. He is incidentally a sceptic about Christianity's role in the process.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
In any event... the trajectory of scientific discovery within Renaissance Europe was very much one of re-discovery. The Latin and Greek texts that had been lost to Europe and then copied back from the Arabic and Persian were the starting point. The Arabic and Persian texts that came along with them were the springboard that led to the questioning of the wisdom of the ancients.
I think that the Latin and Greek texts in question were all available before we get to what we now call the Renaissance. Normally we don't talk about the thirteenth century when Aristotle became part of the scholastic canon as the Renaissance.
In some ways what is now called the Renaissance set the process of scientific discovery back half a century or so: Bradwardine, Oresme and other scholastics had been willing to question Aristotle, whereas humanists were far less so.
Wootton, in his book The Invention of Science, thinks that the main trigger to Europe as a whole rejecting the past as such was the discovery of the Americas (which the ancients clearly did not know about).
quote:
Science was far, far more advanced in North Africa and the ME/Asia during the Middle Ages than in Europe (excepting Spain). And Jews were in the position of being able to translate books from Arabic to Persian to Hebrew to Latin and Greek and back again, serving in royal courts across the Islamic world.
This is true. I should add that the non-Chalcedonian Christian groups were just as much involved as Jews under the Islamic courts.
quote:
How much the Church did to suppress scientific innovation is up for debate, but if the trajectory of Islamic science had continued beyond the 16th century (when, more or less, theology turned against science) then there's little doubt that that would be the real Jonbar point
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Theology in the Islamic world was in a poorer position to put a stop to science than it was in the Western Christian world. And in the Western Christian world it clearly didn't. I don't think al-Ghazali and his followers can be credited with inhibiting the progress of Islamic thought except in so far as something about the Islamic world (e.g. perhaps the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols) had already created conditions in which that could happen.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
I think the move towards non-belief (and secularism) was inevitable whichever way you look at it, because the advances in science and technology have replaced many religious answers to that why question.
Would there have been science without monotheism?
I have read all the intervening posts but thought I’d go back to this one anyway. I am very firmly of the opinion that science was inevitable, especially since it has been going on since humans started making better stone tools and has gradually come to the present time when changes and improvements (or not) happen in far less time. Whatever religious, faith beliefs there were throughout history, there was the in-built human drive to find out how things worked and then to improve on them. Progress might have been quicker if non-believers, from the earliest unknown ones, via Epicurus and other ancient Greek thinkers to Hume, had been paid more attention to! quote:
Science is a direct result of the belief that one can learn about God by studying His world. Without the idea that the world is rational because it is the creature of a rational god, we may never have had science.
Science would have happened regardless of whether any god was believed to exist I think. The movements of people, the battles, conquests and defeats would probably have happened differently, but that human drive was, and I’d say, still is, unstoppable.
[ 01. July 2017, 15:24: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The invisible effects of Christianity, which subverted Rome, wouldn't have happened from that source. So the contagious humanist, revolutionary aspects of the social gospel would have come from other sources. They were there in the confluence of Jewish and Greek, particularly Stoic thought. Nero's excesses weren't just disapproved of by his Christian victims, but by civilized Romans. The visible effects of Christianity are as the beast's prophet; the religious, mystic justifier of the state. There was no change, apart from a possibly enhanced degree of effectiveness. The Empire fell with that of the Sasanians in deadlock. Islam arose. And found its limits.
I find this proposition the most fascinating: that the church, as well as being the sole European repository of social authority, knowledge, the arts in the dark ages, perpetuated the latter for a thousand years. The church wasn't concerned with worldly affairs: economics, trade, technology.
Tertullian: 'What is there in common between Athens and Jerusalem?'.
Basil of Caesarea: 'Let Christians prefer the simplicity of our faith to the demonstrations of human reason'.
Augustine: 'For to spend much time on research about the essence of things would not serve the edification of the church.', "in his Confessions condemning as a 'disease' the yearning to discover 'the hidden powers of nature… which to know profits not'.".
We lost Aristotle and a thousand years of practical intellectual work. And its mutual effects on population, society, technology. We would be now where we'll be in the year 2525 ...
And we wouldn't have any warrant whatsoever for believing in a best-case God. Could Jewish thought have got there? Some would say it did. Without Jesus? Not a chance. There is no evidence for such a God without Him, even though Isaiah was a socialist who informs Islam.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Dafyd,
That Archimedes didn't fully present a unified floating theory does not invalidate him as an example of (rudimentary in his case) scientific approach outside of monotheism. Just as the shortcomings of Newton's gravitational theory do not invalidate him.
As far as James Fraser, didn't look at the page beyond seeing reference to ancient discovery.
Regardless, my point that monotheism is not the backbone of science stands.
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I remember an uncle, many years ago, asking me how much water you would need to float the Queen Mary. A cupful, he said, if you has a dock that was a perfect fit for it.
You would need more than a cup, I think. Even spread to one water molecule thick, I'm not certain there would be enough surface area to surround the ship.
But it would not take much.
quote:
Originally posted by ACK:
I think without Christianity, the Pharisees vision would have filled more or less the space Christianity takes. I am assuming in that, that Paul, in the absence of Christianity, had put his zeal behind it.
Why? Judaism isn't an evangelical tradition. When their ties to the state ended, so to did any serious expansion. They are a great religion more for their influence in two that did spread than any expansion themselves. A video time-line. Not a perfect example as Christianity doesn't exist in this thought experiment and Islam would be different if it did exist.
Still, Judaism spread as a component of the state, no reason to think it would when it wasn't.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
That Archimedes didn't fully present a unified floating theory does not invalidate him as an example of (rudimentary in his case) scientific approach outside of monotheism. Just as the shortcomings of Newton's gravitational theory do not invalidate him.
You're missing the point. It's not that Archimedes was incomplete or wrong. It's that he didn't use experiments to establish or test his theory. He reached it by a priori geometric reasoning. Science is an enterprise to which experimental testing is central.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
That Archimedes didn't fully present a unified floating theory does not invalidate him as an example of (rudimentary in his case) scientific approach outside of monotheism. Just as the shortcomings of Newton's gravitational theory do not invalidate him.
You're missing the point. It's not that Archimedes was incomplete or wrong. It's that he didn't use experiments to establish or test his theory. He reached it by a priori geometric reasoning. Science is an enterprise to which experimental testing is central.
So, Einstein didn't do science? Science begins as an exploration. Experiments strengthen the hypothesis, but it needed to start somewhere. You are shaving the nits off camel's back so that it can fit through a needle. Or something.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
As far as I know Bruce Cockburn took the images from some South American indigenous imagery and found they resonated with other things. There is a collective unconscious which is Jung's term: the spirits of ancestors is an indigenous idea that parallels. To not grieve so much for kokum (grandmother) because there are elements obvious of her within daughter (it isn't reincarnation, nor earthly rebirth). All The Diamonds In The World is a great song.
The Huron were almost exterminated by the Iroquois. Huron aligned with French, Iroquois with English. Waynadot (various spellings) is Huron name for themselves as far as I know. Cultures and languages are as different among indigenous groups as Chinese is to English is to Hungarian.
I suspect that God had nothing to do with Roman or Greek or anyone's else's ascendency. Working out all of it within what humans do. And it is a work in progress.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
Roses are reddish
Violets are bluish
If it wasn't for Jesus
We'd all be Jewish
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Science is an enterprise to which experimental testing is central.
So, Einstein didn't do science? Science begins as an exploration. Experiments strengthen the hypothesis, but it needed to start somewhere.
Science is a social enterprise. You can participate even if you aren't doing experiments yourself. And there are some branches of science where experiments aren't entirely feasible (e.g. palaeontology, string theory). But the enterprise is based around an ideal of submitting theories to experimental or at least empirical verification. That's why in the last two hundred years our culture has been excited about science in a way that the Romans and Greeks were not.
Someone who comes up with a theory that they don't even consider testing empirically isn't engaged in the social enterprise we call science.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
The question is, where do the timelines diverge?
Events in Bronze Age Canaan prevent the establishment of Israel? Israel conquered and assimilated by Philistines? No Cyrus the Great? No Alexander the Great? No Roman Empire? Jesus of Nazareth dies young? St. Paul stays Jewish? Rome stays stable and an Emperor embraces Manicheanism? Constantine loses at Milvium Bridge? Julian doesn't invade Mesopotamia?
The possibilities are pretty much endless. The Confederacy winning the Civil War allows for a variety of outcomes. How much more so an event centuries or millennia ago.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
The simplest would be some variation on Jesus not being born (yet).
Theologically, it requires the least assume our beliefs are wrong. You can just say the we're still living in pre-the-incarnation times, if you want. Then you don't have to explain a (failing) Jesus away, and you still get to keep all the OT as happening. It won't be perfect, but you only have to assume what your assuming.
Similarly historically it keeps everything pre-change, while not having to deal with the outcomes of a partial event.
However the consequences, will constantly be reinforced, and make speculation at any point instantly meaningless. I think much more than other contra-factuals, which you can isolate a little more.
[ 01. July 2017, 21:03: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think I must have got the revised version of Archimedes' principle wrong somehow. (If my statement were correct no part of an object less dense than water would sit under the water.) The point stands that Galileo's experiment floated a wooden rod in water that weighed less than the rod. According to Archimedes that shouldn't be possible.
I'd be interested in reading Galileo's account - do you have a reference for that experiment? I looked through his Discourse on Floating Bodies briefly but didn't see it. (He does seem pretty supportive of Archimedes against Renaissance detractors, though.)
In any case, it seems to me your criticism of Archimedes depends on taking a rather narrow view of what he meant by "the weight of the fluid displaced". Galileo's experimental result is in agreement with Archimedes if the "fluid displaced" is taken to be "the volume below the surface which is occupied by the object rather than fluid." I think this is justified by his explanation of Proposition 5 in On Floating Bodies, in which the portion of the "fluid displaced" is identified as being equal to the portion of the it "immersed when the fluid is at rest."
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think I must have got the revised version of Archimedes' principle wrong somehow. (If my statement were correct no part of an object less dense than water would sit under the water.) The point stands that Galileo's experiment floated a wooden rod in water that weighed less than the rod. According to Archimedes that shouldn't be possible.
I'd be interested in reading Galileo's account - do you have a reference for that experiment? I looked through his Discourse on Floating Bodies[/URL] briefly but didn't see it. (He does seem pretty supportive of Archimedes against Renaissance detractors, though.)
Did you see my link to Wootton's book in my later post? I don't have the book to hand so I can't look up Wootton's references.
quote:
In any case, it seems to me your criticism of Archimedes depends on taking a rather narrow view of what he meant by "the weight of the fluid displaced". Galileo's experimental result is in agreement with Archimedes if the "fluid displaced" is taken to be "the volume below the surface which is occupied by the object rather than fluid." I think this is justified by his explanation of Proposition 5 in On Floating Bodies, in which the portion of the "fluid displaced" is identified as being equal to the portion of the it "immersed when the fluid is at rest."
It's not an explanation. It's a proof. Does nobody read Euclid anymore?
Anyway I got the error in Archimedes' proof wrong. Archimedes is correct in the case that he is considering. That case is where the fluid is free to move across the entire sphere. (See the diagram.) It's just that it doesn't apply in the cases which he doesn't consider, namely where the fluid is in a bounded container and therefore cannot move sideways without limit. My point is that the only situation in which he could have experimentally tested his results would be in a bounded container - to which his result does not apply - so the fact that he doesn't mention those cases shows that he never tested his results experimentally.
The interpretation of 'immersed when the fluid is at rest' seems to me clearly to mean 'immersed once the fluid has settled down and is not moving'. If I understand Wootton's explanation, this is not true. In the general case the volume that is displaced is equal not to the volume of the object underwater once the water is at rest but to the volume of the object under the original surface level without the object.
In the limit case that Archimedes is considering where the fluid can move sideways without constraint the two levels are equivalent. But under actual experimental conditions they differ. Or so I understand. (Archimedes' proof fails under such circumstances if I understand correctly because he assumes in his first postulate that the only pressures in the water are exerted downwards.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think I must have got the revised version of Archimedes' principle wrong somehow. (If my statement were correct no part of an object less dense than water would sit under the water.) The point stands that Galileo's experiment floated a wooden rod in water that weighed less than the rod. According to Archimedes that shouldn't be possible.
I'd be interested in reading Galileo's account - do you have a reference for that experiment? I looked through his Discourse on Floating Bodies[/URL] briefly but didn't see it. (He does seem pretty supportive of Archimedes against Renaissance detractors, though.)
Did you see my link to Wootton's book in my later post? I don't have the book to hand so I can't look up Wootton's references.
quote:
In any case, it seems to me your criticism of Archimedes depends on taking a rather narrow view of what he meant by "the weight of the fluid displaced". Galileo's experimental result is in agreement with Archimedes if the "fluid displaced" is taken to be "the volume below the surface which is occupied by the object rather than fluid." I think this is justified by his explanation of Proposition 5 in On Floating Bodies, in which the portion of the "fluid displaced" is identified as being equal to the portion of the it "immersed when the fluid is at rest."
It's not an explanation. It's a proof. Does nobody read Euclid anymore?
Anyway I got the error in Archimedes' proof wrong. Archimedes is correct in the case that he is considering. That case is where the fluid is free to move across the entire sphere. (See the diagram.) It's just that it doesn't apply in the cases which he doesn't consider, namely where the fluid is in a bounded container and therefore cannot move sideways without limit. My point is that the only situation in which he could have experimentally tested his results would be in a bounded container - to which his result does not apply - so the fact that he doesn't mention those cases shows that he never tested his results experimentally.
The interpretation of 'immersed when the fluid is at rest' seems to me clearly to mean 'immersed once the fluid has settled down and is not moving'. If I understand Wootton's explanation, this is not true. In the general case the volume that is displaced is equal not to the volume of the object underwater once the water is at rest but to the volume of the object under the original surface level without the object.
I got "immersed when the fluid is at rest" from "On floating bodies" (see previous link) so that's what I think Archimedes meant by "fluid displaced."
I don't see why one should prefer Wootton's interpretation of Archimedes' phrase to Archimedes' own interpretation ("For let the solid be EGHF, and let BGHC be the portion of it immersed when the fluid is at rest" - assuming that T.L. Heath, "sometime fellow of Trinity College", knew what he was translating.) Why insist that it meant "the volume of the object under the original surface level without the object?" Why should we think that Archimedes believed the original surface level had anything to do with it? If there are other people than Wootton who have pointed out Archimedes' supposed error, it seems odd (though not conclusive) that it doesn't seem to show up in Google searches.
If "fluid displaced" means "volume below the water line at rest" and not "volume below original water line" then Archimedes will agree with Galileo's observation; this doesn't provide support for the contention that Archimedes never experimented.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Latchkey Kid
Shipmate
# 12444
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Posted
A theory could be made that the growth of new religions and schisms in religions were satisfying unmet needs of societies. Tribal gods to Judaism to Christianity to Islam and various splits in Christendom, to Bahai and Sikhism and various splits in Islam, and from Christendom to post-Christian religions such as Mormonism and Christian Science.
Indian sourced religions have similar trajectories, but I understand that Buddhism has a much more civilised approach to schisms than does Christianity.
PS. I don't think that (one type of) Christianity is the only inspired religion, but I can't change my spiritual heritage.
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'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
I understand that Buddhism has a much more civilised approach to schisms than does Christianity.
PS. I don't think that (one type of) Christianity is the only inspired religion, but I can't change my spiritual heritage.
Yet people move on from their spiritual heritage all the time. New religions and religious movements wouldn't exist if that weren't the case. Christians are particularly prone to this, ISTM.
In what sense does Buddhism have a more civilised approach to schism than Christianity?
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
If Christianity is a pious fraud, then something like it couldn't have not come in to existence at that time and place. At the confluence of Athens and Jerusalem. Rome and India. It is deterministic, a function of social evolution.
As it was, all of that was going on, but the nucleation point for phase change was the Incarnation. But what medium changed phase? Gelled? Condensed? Did a hard layer of human hearts begin to soften, warm, melt that otherwise wouldn't for millennia, if ever? Humanism would have developed in pace with far earlier acquired science and technology, but it couldn't coalesce around a transcendent existential hope. Until Christ. The phase change is to a still all but peripherally unseen, unfelt vapour that yet percolates the sand of human hearts.
Like the unbelievable reality of God and the supernatural, there is no evidence that Christianity ever did exist except in Christ and all the very little that has been done in His true light.
Actual reality is all but utterly overwhelming.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I've actually done this in a book: no Christianity, and no Islam (partly for balance, and partly because I think ... well, maybe without ME Christianity, there might not have been Islam, or at least a radically different Islam).
Can you give us a link to the book ? Sounds worth a read.
I'd agree - Mohammed was inspired by Christianity, so no Islam as such in this alternate reality.
America colonised by the Vikings ?
Weaker Europe (no Holy Roman Empire).
What happens to the Ottoman empire without Islam ?
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Jay-Emm
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# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I'd agree - Mohammed was inspired by Christianity, so no Islam as such in this alternate reality.
America colonised by the Vikings ?
Weaker Europe (no Holy Roman Empire).
What happens to the Ottoman empire without Islam ?
Ditto (or at least different in many bits). Whatever extent God had in the creation of and response to Islam the base would have been totally different (so he'd have had to act differently for the same effects, or the same for different-to the extent that saying God must is meaningful).
None of the little Christendom or Islamic natural togetherness. The energy of the crusades going into one more internal squabble than actually happened.
Mongols going much further west than they did (partly as the otherwise-muslim world would have fallen quicker, partly as Europe did at least partially unite against them)
There had been an empire in Persia (the Sassanian). That might have regrown before and then following the mongols.
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The interpretation of 'immersed when the fluid is at rest' seems to me clearly to mean 'immersed once the fluid has settled down and is not moving'. If I understand Wootton's explanation, this is not true. In the general case the volume that is displaced is equal not to the volume of the object underwater once the water is at rest but to the volume of the object under the original surface level without the object.
I got "immersed when the fluid is at rest" from "On floating bodies" (see previous link) so that's what I think Archimedes meant by "fluid displaced."
I don't see why one should prefer Wootton's interpretation of Archimedes' phrase to Archimedes' own interpretation ("For let the solid be EGHF, and let BGHC be the portion of it immersed when the fluid is at rest" - assuming that T.L. Heath, "sometime fellow of Trinity College", knew what he was translating.) Why insist that it meant "the volume of the object under the original surface level without the object?" Why should we think that Archimedes believed the original surface level had anything to do with it? If there are other people than Wootton who have pointed out Archimedes' supposed error, it seems odd (though not conclusive) that it doesn't seem to show up in Google searches.
If "fluid displaced" means "volume below the water line at rest" and not "volume below original water line" then Archimedes will agree with Galileo's observation; this doesn't provide support for the contention that Archimedes never experimented.
OK. I agree with you on your interpretation of Archimedes. Apologies if I was not clear. Archimedes is clearly talking about the volume of the object below the water at equilibrium. And I think Wootton agrees with you too.
I would assume that if there is a mistake going on somewhere it is in my interpretation of Wootton. Certainly my first post is completely wrong about the point at issue (I'd forgotten that it has to do with bounded containers).
Anyway: if I read Galileo's Theorem I correctly, Wootton is right to say that Archimedes' principle only applies in a special case. Alternatively Archimedes' principle is correct if you gloss 'the weight of the fluid displaced' as 'the weight of the fluid that would occupy the volume of the object underwater'. But the volume of the fluid that is actually physically displaced will be less that the fluid that would occupy the volume of the object underwater by the volume of the object that lies between the original water level and the new water level.
On the sphere of the earth the level by which the water is raised will be negligible. (And the same for any sufficiently large container). Therefore the difference between the volume of fluid physically displaced and the volume of the object underwater is negligible. But this is not so in a bounded container.
The conclusion is that Archimedes' theorem 6 is incorrect if it is taken to imply that you can't float an object if the object weighs more than the water available for the object to displace. In a bounded container the quantity of water that the object's volume occupies once floating would be considerably greater than the actual volume displaced.
The case against Archimedes using experiments is that a) nothing in his expressed reasoning process requires experiments or refers to any experiments - Galileo does do so in both his introduction and his conclusion; b) he does not ever discuss how his principle is affected by the change in water level or distinguish between volume of water displaced and volume of water that would occupy the volume of the object - for Galileo who we know is actually performing experiments that is the most salient and obvious part of the business that he discusses first.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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ACK
Shipmate
# 16756
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Why? Judaism isn't an evangelical tradition. When their ties to the state ended, so to did any serious expansion. They are a great religion more for their influence in two that did spread than any expansion themselves. A video time-line. Not a perfect example as Christianity doesn't exist in this thought experiment and Islam would be different if it did exist. Still, Judaism spread as a component of the state, no reason to think it would when it wasn't.
Thanks for the timeline - really interesting.
My feeling is that maybe without Christianity, Judaism would have filled that space is because I suspect the time was right for something to spread out of Judaism. Without it happening with Christianity, would that conversion drive have happened to some other part or off-shoot of Judaism?
i.e. people like Paul might have taken Judaism to the nations instead, or something else coming out of Judaism. Maybe not. But Judaism might have become an evangalising religion. Is is a religion with a history of change in time of stress. It changed during the Babylonian exile, it changed when in contact with the Greeks, it changed from a Temple religion to a religion of Book after the destruction of the Temple.
There is a conflict in the Hebrew Bible between books like Ezra and Nehemiah, with the concept of racial purity and the religion only being for their race, and Ruth and Jonah, with a different perspective on foreigners. Isaiah (2nd one) suggests God is the God of all nations with Israel to be the light of the nations. Sometimes this is seen as happening through Jesus, identifying him as the suffering servant, bringing justice to the nations.
Was the forfilment of the idea of something errupting out of Judaism to the gentiles inevitable at this time, and if Christianity had not happened it would have worked in some other way?
Maybe not...
In the early days there was an argument over whether you needed to be or become a Jew to be a Christian. Would Christianity have had much impact with people not already Jews if it required circumcism and obedience to all Jewish law?
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'It's the only thing that worries me about going to Heaven. Would I ever get used to the height.' Norman Clegg
Posts: 56 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2011
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I've actually done this in a book: no Christianity, and no Islam (partly for balance, and partly because I think ... well, maybe without ME Christianity, there might not have been Islam, or at least a radically different Islam).
Can you give us a link to the book ? Sounds worth a read.
I'd agree - Mohammed was inspired by Christianity, so no Islam as such in this alternate reality.
America colonised by the Vikings ?
Weaker Europe (no Holy Roman Empire).
What happens to the Ottoman empire without Islam ?
Rome and the Sasanians would still have exhausted themselves and created a vacuum for Muhammad. I fail to see how the absence of a Syriac minority would have prevented the rise of Islam in reaction to polytheism and Judaism alone. I see these things as sinks not saddles in chaos terms.
If the Enlightenment began a thousand years earlier in which case we'd have been here a long, long time ago. A dominant materialist West vs. the rest.
[ 02. July 2017, 15:47: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dave W.
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# 8765
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Posted
I can't address Wootton's argument directly - for me, the link you gave doesn't lead to a specific passage, and the Galileo/Archimedes bit doesn't seem to be in the free sample Google provides.
But I don't see anything wrong with Archimedes' principle as presented by Archimedes - that is, the volume of "fluid displaced" is the volume of the "portion of [the body] immersed when the fluid is at rest." In this view Archimedes is entirely compatible with Galileo's observations, whether the water is in a bounded container or not. Galileo himself didn't seem troubled either - he mentions Archimedes many times in his Discourse on Floating Bodies but generally to defend him against attacks by one Signor Buonamico.
Maybe Archimedes did experiments, maybe he didn't. (If he wasn't interested in the practical applications, it's kind of a mystery that he spent so much of Book II examining the flotation of boat-like shapes.) But I don't think he made any errors that make it obvious that he didn't do experiments. For that project, I suspect Aristotle is a better target.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
I can't address Wootton's argument directly - for me, the link you gave doesn't lead to a specific passage, and the Galileo/Archimedes bit doesn't seem to be in the free sample Google provides.
If you Google 'Galileo Archimedes Principle' a link to the relevant passage in the book appears six or seven entries down.
quote:
But I don't see anything wrong with Archimedes' principle as presented by Archimedes - that is, the volume of "fluid displaced" is the volume of the "portion of [the body] immersed when the fluid is at rest."
I think it is natural to take 'the volume of fluid displaced' to mean the volume of the portion of [the body] below the original level of the fluid. Because that's the fluid that's actually been displaced. Maybe the problem lies with the translation. Archimedes has to find some way to talk about the volume in which there is no fluid because that volume is occupied by the floating body, and maybe 'fluid displaced' is the best way to do so. In the case Archimedes considers there is no difference. But in any case where the level of water changes there is a difference. The phraseology in the translation is at the most generous ambiguous. And clearly either Archimedes or the translator didn't spot that.
quote:
Maybe Archimedes did experiments, maybe he didn't. (If he wasn't interested in the practical applications, it's kind of a mystery that he spent so much of Book II examining the flotation of boat-like shapes.) But I don't think he made any errors that make it obvious that he didn't do experiments. For that project, I suspect Aristotle is a better target.
I think that if Book II is about boat-like shapes it is as in the joke about spherical cows. He's talking about solids formed by rotation which, aside from coracles and such like, boats are not.
The point of addressing Archimedes is that he's the strongest case and the most likely counterexample to the generalisation. If Archimedes falls on the applied mathematician side of the applied mathematician/ physicist line then it's plausible that all Greek natural philosophers did so.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I remember an uncle, many years ago, asking me how much water you would need to float the Queen Mary. A cupful, he said, if you has a dock that was a perfect fit for it.
I think, it still needs to displace it's weight, so that water would be heading up the sides of the dock as it's descending
The Queen Mary drew 39', was close to 1000' long at the waterline, and had a 118' beam. That gives it a wetted area of something like 140,000 square feet when afloat.
A cup of water distributed over that area forms a layer 20nm thick.
Of course, you couldn't actually get the QM into this interestingly tight dock, because it has to wrap around rivet heads and things. But as a thought experiment - sure.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
Am I alone in remembering from school the 'eureka can' experiment? The idea there is to show the weight of displaced water (in a bounded system) to be equal (+- errors) to the mass of the floating body.
Not saying the experiment was ever carried out by Archimedes, of course.
The derivation behind this even drove me back to websites dealing with boundary integrations (Green's functions) etc. Didn't take long to remember why I now sweep up the lab and sharpen the drill bits ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
I can't address Wootton's argument directly - for me, the link you gave doesn't lead to a specific passage, and the Galileo/Archimedes bit doesn't seem to be in the free sample Google provides.
If you Google 'Galileo Archimedes Principle' a link to the relevant passage in the book appears six or seven entries down.
Maybe so when you Google it; I get a couple of Google Books results, but Wootton isn't among them. quote:
quote:
But I don't see anything wrong with Archimedes' principle as presented by Archimedes - that is, the volume of "fluid displaced" is the volume of the "portion of [the body] immersed when the fluid is at rest."
I think it is natural to take 'the volume of fluid displaced' to mean the volume of the portion of [the body] below the original level of the fluid. Because that's the fluid that's actually been displaced. Maybe the problem lies with the translation. Archimedes has to find some way to talk about the volume in which there is no fluid because that volume is occupied by the floating body, and maybe 'fluid displaced' is the best way to do so. In the case Archimedes considers there is no difference. But in any case where the level of water changes there is a difference. The phraseology in the translation is at the most generous ambiguous. And clearly either Archimedes or the translator didn't spot that.
"Clearly"? Maybe Archimedes didn't say anything about the "original level of the fluid" because he realized, correctly, that it's entirely irrelevant to the problem. All that matters is how much volume is below the surface at rest, which is what Archimedes says. I don't see why one should insist on a reading which runs counter to the text, unless it's really important to show an error (which Galileo himself doesn't seem to complain about) to support an argument about lack of experiments. quote:
quote:
Maybe Archimedes did experiments, maybe he didn't. (If he wasn't interested in the practical applications, it's kind of a mystery that he spent so much of Book II examining the flotation of boat-like shapes.) But I don't think he made any errors that make it obvious that he didn't do experiments. For that project, I suspect Aristotle is a better target.
I think that if Book II is about boat-like shapes it is as in the joke about spherical cows. He's talking about solids formed by rotation which, aside from coracles and such like, boats are not.
Good point. quote:
The point of addressing Archimedes is that he's the strongest case and the most likely counterexample to the generalisation. If Archimedes falls on the applied mathematician side of the applied mathematician/ physicist line then it's plausible that all Greek natural philosophers did so.
Yes, it's clear that Wootton is trying to make that case - but this is pretty weak evidence. ("Ah, but Archimedes never explicitly considered narrow containers - and if we ignore his gloss on "fluid displaced" and replace it with our own which critically relies on an "original level" to which he never refers, he's wrong - which proves he never did experiments!")
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
I can't address Wootton's argument directly - for me, the link you gave doesn't lead to a specific passage, and the Galileo/Archimedes bit doesn't seem to be in the free sample Google provides.
If you Google 'Galileo Archimedes Principle' a link to the relevant passage in the book appears six or seven entries down.
Maybe so when you Google it; I get a couple of Google Books results, but Wootton isn't among them. quote:
quote:
But I don't see anything wrong with Archimedes' principle as presented by Archimedes - that is, the volume of "fluid displaced" is the volume of the "portion of [the body] immersed when the fluid is at rest."
I think it is natural to take 'the volume of fluid displaced' to mean the volume of the portion of [the body] below the original level of the fluid. Because that's the fluid that's actually been displaced. Maybe the problem lies with the translation. Archimedes has to find some way to talk about the volume in which there is no fluid because that volume is occupied by the floating body, and maybe 'fluid displaced' is the best way to do so. In the case Archimedes considers there is no difference. But in any case where the level of water changes there is a difference. The phraseology in the translation is at the most generous ambiguous. And clearly either Archimedes or the translator didn't spot that.
"Clearly"? Maybe Archimedes didn't say anything about the "original level of the fluid" because he realized, correctly, that it's entirely irrelevant to the problem. All that matters is how much volume is below the surface at rest, which is what Archimedes says. I don't see why one should insist on a reading which runs counter to the text, unless it's really important to show an error (which Galileo himself doesn't seem to complain about) to support an argument about lack of experiments. quote:
quote:
Maybe Archimedes did experiments, maybe he didn't. (If he wasn't interested in the practical applications, it's kind of a mystery that he spent so much of Book II examining the flotation of boat-like shapes.) But I don't think he made any errors that make it obvious that he didn't do experiments. For that project, I suspect Aristotle is a better target.
I think that if Book II is about boat-like shapes it is as in the joke about spherical cows. He's talking about solids formed by rotation which, aside from coracles and such like, boats are not.
Good point. quote:
The point of addressing Archimedes is that he's the strongest case and the most likely counterexample to the generalisation. If Archimedes falls on the applied mathematician side of the applied mathematician/ physicist line then it's plausible that all Greek natural philosophers did so.
Yes, it's clear that Wootton is trying to make that case - but this is pretty weak evidence. ("Ah, but Archimedes never explicitly considered narrow containers - and if we ignore his gloss on "fluid displaced" and replace it with our own which critically relies on an "original level" to which he never refers, he's wrong - which proves he never did experiments!")
So, if Christianity never existed, would the Queen Mary Rose have been launched in a tea cup in 1434?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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wild haggis
Shipmate
# 15555
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Posted
Really gone off! Pooh!!!
The thread is about religion not science.
Let's face it without Judio/Christianity/Islam, certainly in Britain we'd all still be building monoliths, stone circles and chasing each other with clubs.
Three cheers for the Flintstones.
I'm Wilma in disguise! Watch out or I'll make you eat dinosaur stew.
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wild haggis
Posts: 166 | From: Cardiff | Registered: Mar 2010
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by wild haggis:
Really gone off! Pooh!!!
The thread is about religion not science.
Let's face it without Judio/Christianity/Islam, certainly in Britain we'd all still be building monoliths, stone circles and chasing each other with clubs.
Three cheers for the Flintstones.
I'm Wilma in disguise! Watch out or I'll make you eat dinosaur stew.
See now that's an interesting thought. I think the reverse is true: without Christianity, we'd probably have invented something else to take its place in our cultures.
In a parallel universe, I suspect there is a religion with grand buildings and leaders wearing silly hats which revere Plato and read reverently from The Republic.
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arse
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
We'd have had the same patriarchal, redemption through violence, mystery religion that the People of the Book still have, the anything but the radical inclusion in social justice of Jesus that is resurfacing at the margins where it will remain. But we'd have it with no warrant whatsoever. Not that that's ever stopped us.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
]Yes, it's clear that Wootton is trying to make that case - but this is pretty weak evidence.
I'll just point out that you don't know what case Wootton is trying to make as you haven't read him. He isn't directly reflecting on Archimedes' practice - that's a conclusion I've drawn from his argument about Galileo.
quote:
("Ah, but Archimedes never explicitly considered narrow containers - and if we ignore his gloss on "fluid displaced" and replace it with our own which critically relies on an "original level" to which he never refers, he's wrong - which proves he never did experiments!")
Archimedes does not gloss 'fluid displaced'. He equates it with the volume of the body under water. An equation of two physical quantities is not a gloss of the name of one of the quantities.
You are assuming that because Archimedes cannot have made a mistake he cannot have literally meant 'fluid that has been displaced' and must have meant the correct volume. If you found the equivalent formulation (and didn't recognise it) in a schoolboy exam paper you would assume that the schoolboy had made a schoolboy error.
At the very least from Archimedes' text one wouldn't realise that it was an error that one had to avoid.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ACK:
My feeling is that maybe without Christianity, Judaism would have filled that space is because I suspect the time was right for something to spread out of Judaism.
Well, it kinda depends. If you take the OPs position that everything is the same except no Jesus, then yes. Because all the reasons for Jesus would still exist. This then becomes what other way did God reveal the TRUTH.ᵗᵐ
However, if you remove that inevitability, I don't see any impetus in Judaism for evangelicalism.
quote:
Originally posted by wild haggis:
Really gone off! Pooh!!!
The thread is about religion not science.
And never the two shall meet?
quote:
Let's face it without Judio/Christianity/Islam, certainly in Britain we'd all still be building monoliths, stone circles and chasing each other with clubs.
A great dismissal of the other religious traditions that did science independently of the those three.
BTW: Judio? Is that a martial arts radio channel?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Dave W and Dafyd:
The geek slap-fight is interesting and all, but I've a question for you:
Do you think monotheism is important to scientific discovery?
That is the claim that started this tangent.
Dafyd, the difference between Einstein and Archimedes is one of time. The scientific method is prescriptive, yes. So you can make the argument that Archy didn't use that. But his was one of making that first observation, that first leap. That he didn't stick the landing is a secondary issue to the exploration of the how of universe that is the basis of science.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
]Yes, it's clear that Wootton is trying to make that case - but this is pretty weak evidence.
I'll just point out that you don't know what case Wootton is trying to make as you haven't read him. He isn't directly reflecting on Archimedes' practice - that's a conclusion I've drawn from his argument about Galileo.
Sorry - I meant clear from what I thought was your representation of Wootton. You haven't provided a usable link, or even a quote, so you're quite correct that I can't be sure how much of this is coming from you and how much is coming from him. quote:
quote:
("Ah, but Archimedes never explicitly considered narrow containers - and if we ignore his gloss on "fluid displaced" and replace it with our own which critically relies on an "original level" to which he never refers, he's wrong - which proves he never did experiments!")
Archimedes does not gloss 'fluid displaced'. He equates it with the volume of the body under water. An equation of two physical quantities is not a gloss of the name of one of the quantities.
I don't know why you're quibbling over the term gloss ("a brief explanation of a difficult or obscure word or expression"), but if you insist on "equation" then Archimedes still gets exactly the right answer. quote:
You are assuming that because Archimedes cannot have made a mistake he cannot have literally meant 'fluid that has been displaced' and must have meant the correct volume.
No, I'm pointing out that he indicates exactly what he means in the text immediately following the statement of the proposition, which leads to the right answer. You (and possibly Wootton, I don't know!) seem to be insisting on an interpretation based only on what you think is "natural" and that ignores what he wrote. quote:
If you found the equivalent formulation (and didn't recognise it) in a schoolboy exam paper you would assume that the schoolboy had made a schoolboy error.
Oh I would, would I? I'm not at all confident of your ability to spot schoolboy errors regarding Archimedes' principle; I can't imagine the basis for your opinion on what assumption I would make. quote:
At the very least from Archimedes' text one wouldn't realise that it was an error that one had to avoid.
I'm sure the number of errors Archimedes doesn't warn you to avoid is limitless.
lilBuddha:
I don't see any particular reason to think that monotheism per se is particularly important to scientific discovery.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by wild haggis:
Let's face it without Judio/Christianity/Islam, certainly in Britain we'd all still be building monoliths, stone circles and chasing each other with clubs.
(Think you may have been sarcastic, but in any case)
The romans were about to invade semi-successfully, shortly after Christianity existed but before it (or Judaism) had much chance to change the world.
Before that the southern British were definitely pro-European, and picking up Romanish behaviours.
And regardless of the roman influence the stone circles were (two thousand) years before. What they were doing, now, I'm not sure (related to the druids at anglesey). Though Britain had always been part of Europe.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Dave W and Dafyd:
The geek slap-fight is interesting and all, but I've a question for you:
Do you think monotheism is important to scientific discovery?
That is the claim that started this tangent.
Dafyd, the difference between Einstein and Archimedes is one of time. The scientific method is prescriptive, yes. So you can make the argument that Archy didn't use that. But his was one of making that first observation, that first leap. That he didn't stick the landing is a secondary issue to the exploration of the how of universe that is the basis of science.
While they consider, Islamic monotheism embraced Greek scientific discovery whereas Christian rejected it for a thousand years.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Do you think monotheism is important to scientific discovery?
I don't think it is now (although intellectual environments that don't share a couple of deep features with monotheism may not be conducive to it).(*)
Do I think monotheism was important to the birth and early development of the sixteenth/seventeenth century scientific revolution. The jury is out.
The first scientist who can reasonably be called experimental, Alhazen, was a monotheist. The scientific revolution took place in a largely monotheist culture. China, despite an impressive tradition of natural philosophy, never had a scientific revolution. China was philosophically more advanced than Europe at almost every point up to the fifteenth century; by the end of the seventeenth century Jesuits earned a place in the Qing Emperors court by explaining Western astronomy.
Respectable academics have come up with post facto explanations of how monotheism contributed to this. Other academics disagree. Neither position would be considered cranky.
Yes, I think monotheism probably did contribute but I'm aware that although I think it's a side that the evidence supports it's not a side that the evidence compels; I'm picking the side for reasons beyond what the direct evidence compels it.
(*) The feature here is roughly that the universe is such as to be intellectually comprehensible, consistent and unified. This is obviously shared by the leading forms of scientific materialism, and AIUI by e.g. Chinese philosophy; but not by, say, Lovecraftian materialism.
quote:
Dafyd, the difference between Einstein and Archimedes is one of time. The scientific method is prescriptive, yes. So you can make the argument that Archy didn't use that. But his was one of making that first observation, that first leap. That he didn't stick the landing is a secondary issue to the exploration of the how of universe that is the basis of science.
I am not sure what you are saying here nor what reasons you think you're giving that I should agree with you.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Do you think monotheism is important to scientific discovery?
I don't think it is now (although intellectual environments that don't share a couple of deep features with monotheism may not be conducive to it).(*)
(*) The feature here is roughly that the universe is such as to be intellectually comprehensible, consistent and unified.
Seriously? God created everything in six days: boom. That? That you think is intellectually stimulating for science? Or were you meaning other monotheistic religions than Christianity, Judaism and Islam?
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Do I think monotheism was important to the birth and early development of the sixteenth/seventeenth century scientific revolution. The jury is out.
No jury necessary. Those who think this is a factor are confusing stability and natural progress with influence from religion.
IMO, monotheism is neither inherently boon nor bane to scientific progress.
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The first scientist who can reasonably be called experimental, Alhazen, was a monotheist.
Ibn al-Haytham. But anyway, he is the father of the scientific method, not science.
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The scientific revolution took place in a largely monotheist culture.
In a culture that happened to be monotheistic during a time when people were making scientific progress.
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China, despite an impressive tradition of natural philosophy, never had a scientific revolution. China was philosophically more advanced than Europe at almost every point up to the fifteenth century; by the end of the seventeenth century Jesuits earned a place in the Qing Emperors court by explaining Western astronomy.
When China was in decline. But no, it must have been the Christians.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
lilbuddha wrote:
quote:
Seriously? God created everything in six days: boom. That? That you think is intellectually stimulating for science? Or were you meaning other monotheistic religions than Christianity, Judaism and Islam?
I don't think the point was that everything about monotheism automatically leads to rigorous application of the scientific method. Rather, it's that monotheism contains within itself the ideas that eventually give rise to the scientific method.
Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but I don't think you can refute the argument simply by pointing out instances of monotheists, even in their sacred texts, making unscientific claims.
[ 04. July 2017, 01:05: Message edited by: Stetson ]
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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