The First Scientist: Anaximander and his legacy

marcus

Apeiron, Whowee, you are both most welcome!
Here is an online intro to Anaximander from Dirk Couprie a guy in the Netherlands who I think does history of science/philosophy and is something of an expert in this area
http://www.iep.utm.edu/anaximan/

Apeiron I think you are right---likely more emphasis on innovation of method and the remarkable scientific insights arising therefrom.

But don't you think that raising interest in Ionian Sixth Century BCE will make it more likely that we will see more written about A. including his metaphysics? Also the scientific concepts are they not aspects of the metaphysics? Do they not play a role?
For example in Chapter 5, the French edition discusses the idea of a natural substance which we do not see. A substance X. Which we infer by reason to exist and use to explain phenomena that we do see. Somewhat like quarks, which we believe exist but cannot isolate.
It seems that Thales, the teacher of Anaximander, proposed that the world was made of Water, or that it arose from the principal of Water. Anaximander took the original step of criticising his teacher's doctrine (which was not the custom in those days) and reasoning that Water was unsatisfactory and a fundamental principal/substance. He instead proposed a Substance X. An unknown indefinite something.

I think the Ionian Sixth is an amazing period, like the Italian Renaissance. The more written about it the better, and the more I read about it the more remarkable I find it.

It seems to reveal the beginnings of both critical philosophy on the one hand
and naturalistic science on the other.

You evidently know considerably more about A's thought than I. I like it that he managed to figure out that the sun's heat drives the water cycle, i.e. where rain comes from, and proposed a natural cause for thunder. He argued that all land animals (including humans) developed from sea life, and that the earth floats in emptiness so that the stars can pass beneath it. It does not rest on turtles or elephants, in other words.
=================

Since he was born ca. 610 BCE, Anax could have met Sappho ( b. circa 620 BCE ) she was only a few years older. and the young Pythagoras (b. ca. 570 BCE) could well have come to Miletus to visit with him. These remarkable people lived on nearby islands---close to Anax in space and time.

apeiron

What would be great is if Rovelli twigs that Anaximander had the original background independent model of the universe.

The apeiron was not really a substance but a pre-substance state. Other philosophers talked about air, water, etc, but Anaximander was doing his best to get away from anything concrete or essential at all. So this "stuff" was not a substance but instead just an unbounded potential, a vagueness.

So just as we are trying to do today with LQG for instance, Anaximander was trying to imagine a cosmos boot-strapping out of simple possibility.

Yes, everyone talks as though Anaximander just had a different kind of substance in mind. But he in fact went beyond the creation of substantial being.

marcus

I really like this post. There is a lot of truth to it. The Undefinedness of the Apeiron "primal principle" is remarkably close in spirit to the Background Independence first realized in a universe model by Einstein in 1915 General Rel. General Relativity has no prior geometry that it is built on.

In GR, the geometry comes into existence in dynamic interaction with matter in motion.
The geometry, represented by a distance relation or "metric" defined at each point of an otherwise formless set of points, is a solution to the equation, not a fixed premise. There is no "background" metric fixed ahead of time.

So there is a formlessness that indeed is reminding us of the apeiron of Anax'er. A geometric backgroundlessness.

This is an intriguing post. I was reluctant to cover it up with my own post, so I just did not say anything for a few days.


I too wonder what Rovelli would say if he saw this. (Since he writes about both background independent quantum gravity and about Anax'er.)

marcus

For anyone coming new to the thread here are some links to information.

US publisher Westholme's page for forthcoming English edition
http://www.westholmepublishing.com/t...scientist.html
Amazon pages
http://www.amazon.com/First-Scientis...dp/1594161313/
http://www.amazon.ca/First-Scientist...dp/1594161313/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Scient...dp/1594161313/

French publisher's page for the 2009 edition
http://www.dunod.com/sciences-techni...mandre-de-mile
Amazon.fr page
http://www.amazon.fr/Anaximandre-Mil...dp/2100529390/

Since the French version has already come out, we can tell a fair amount about the book by translating the French TOC:
ROUGH INTERPRETIVE TRANSLATION
Sommaire Introduction.

1. Le VIe siècle.==The Sixth Century BCE
Un panorama du monde.
Le savoir du VIe siècle : l’astronomie.==Science in the Sixth Century: Astronomy
Les dieux.==The Gods
Milet.==The City of Miletus

2. Les contributions d’Anaximandre. ==Anaximander's Contributions

3. Les phénomènes atmosphériques.==Meteorology (Understanding rain, thunder,..)
Le naturalisme cosmologique et biologique.==Naturalism in Cosmology and Biology

4. Flotte la Terre.==The Earth Floats in Space

5. Entités invisibles et lois naturelles.==Invisible Entities and Natural Laws
Y a-t-il dans la nature quelque chose que nous ne voyons pas?==Can Unseen Stuff Help Explain?
L’idée de loi naturelle : Anaximandre, Pythagore et Platon.==The Idea of Natural Law (Originated with Anax. Pyth. Plato)

6. Quand la révolte devient vertu.==(Rational) Revolt Becomes Respectable

7. Écriture, démocratie et mélange des cultures.==Writing, Democracy, Crossfertilization
La Grèce archaïque
L’alphabet grec.
Science et démocratie.==Science and Democracy (Are Related)
Le mélange des cultures.==Cultural Mixing

8. Qu’est-ce que la science?==What Characterizes Science?
Penser Anaximandre après Einstein et Heisenberg.==Significance of Anax'der's Thought Seen Post-GR and QM, i.e. from Post-Einstein-Heisenberg Perspective (!)
L’effondrement des illusions du XIXème siècle.==Collapse of 19-th Century Illusions(!)
La science ne se réduit pas à des prédictions vérifiables.==Real Science Can Not Be Reduced To Testable Predictions (!!!)
Explorer les formes de pensée du monde.==Exploring How to Think the World
L’évolution de l’image du monde.==Getting a New Picture of the World
Règles du jeu et commensurabilité.==Rules of Play--Continuity of Understanding
Éloge de l’incertitude.==Best Understanding Recognizes Uncertainty

9. Entre relativisme culturel et pensée de l’absolu. Navigating Between Cultural Relativism and the Absolute-Avoiding Dangerous Foolishness on Either Side.

10. Peut-on comprendre le monde sans les dieux?==Can We Get Along Without Gods?
Le conflit.

13. La pensée pré-scientifique.==Pre-Scientific Thought
La nature de la pensée mystico-religieuse. Les différentes fonctions du divin.

14. Conclusion : l’héritage d’Anaximandre==Anaximander's Legacy to Us

This is just the TOC of the French version which has been out since 2009. It would be natural for changes, revisions, additions to occur, that could appear first in the English edition.
I see the English edition publisher says the book is 256 pages. For a rough guess about material being added one can compare with the French edition, which is listed as 192 pages. Some of the difference could be due to other factors such as typesize.

marcus

Apeiron has already indicated some of what he thinks is important to know about Anax'der.

I will tell some of my own reflections on him. For me Anax'der's realization that the the Earth floats in space---that space and stars are in all directions and that there is no special "UP" direction---is something I feel close to when I see the half moon in the sky.

The half moon allowed someone who came after Anax to deduce by geometric reasoning that the sun is 18 or 20 times farther than the moon.

Because Anax made a geometric model of the Earth Moon Sun system which embodied a certain ad hoc wrong ratio = 3/2. The Sun was farther than the Moon by a factor of 3/2. So that was wrong but it opened up the question. Could you get a better handle on that ratio?

Only 300 years after Anaximander, someone did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos
The article suggests that the figure of 18-20 may have been a lower bound. It's not entirely clear. The main thing is he got a handle on the problem, and improved on Anaximander's value for the ratio of distances, and he used geometry to do it.
Here's another article, with diagrams:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristar..._and_Distances

So when I see the half moon in the sky I think of those guys. Anaximander born 610 BCE Miletus and Aristarchus born 310 BCE on Samos, a nearby island.

marcus

This is part of the Heritage, the Legacy. I want to share this with whoever could get a kick out of it.

Imagine you can measure the angle between the moon and sun fairly accurately at a time when there is a half moon in the sky.
Say you are looking south and the half moon is near the mid-sky line and the sun is near setting.
Then there is a big triangle with a right angle at the moon (because you see it as a half moon.)

Say you measure the angle between them as 80 degrees. He did it more accurately---this will be very quick and dirty. You can draw a right triangle with the two angles 80 degrees and 10 degrees. 10 degrees is about 1/6 ratidan, so you can estimate that the distance to the sun is some 6 times bigger than the distance to moon.

Not to pretend to be too accurate, if you can determine that the angle seen at earth is AT LEAST 85 degrees then you can decide that the angle seen at sun is LESS or equal 5 degrees which is less or equal 1/12 radian. So distance to sun is AT LEAST 12 TIMES the moon distance.

So that is already better than Anaximander! He had the ratio something like 3/2!!!!!!

The thing is Anax opened the question and led the way with a geometric model. So you were going to apply geometry. And he made it fashionable to improve on your teacher because he did that with his teacher Thales. Critical (if respectful) attitude to authority.
And he even put out some low-hanging ready to pick fruit----this 3/2 number. Once there is a number, people like Aristarchus are going to feel challenged to improve on it.

Don't worry about sines and cosines right now. When you get down to angles smaller than 10 degrees the ratio of sides is roughly the same as the ratio of angles.

And Aristarchus did better than 80 degrees, he thought the spread between moon and sun was OVER 85 DEGREES. Actually, we are told, 87 degrees (hard to imagine him measuring so fine as that though.)

Next time I see the half moon I might think of it as "Anaximander moon". Even though the first person to use the half moon to get a handle on the proportions of the universe was someone who came 300 years after.

Anaximander started the ball rolling as regards both geometric models of the universe (with no up, down, or elephants) and applying critical reason to assess and improve on one's antecedents. Once the ball was rolling you could say that one day Aristarchus would have to come along and invent the heliocentric universe and the rest is history. :-D Well that's one way to look at it.

marcus

EDITED VERSION OF PREVIOUS POST.
(Needed editing but I ran out of time)
This is part of the Heritage, the Legacy. I want to share this with whoever could get a kick out of it.

Imagine you can measure the angle between the moon and sun fairly accurately at a time when there is a half moon in the sky. Say you are facing south and you see the half moon is high to the south and the sun near setting. Then there is a big triangle EMS with a right angle at the moon (because you see it as a half moon.)

Then say you measure the angle between them as 80 degrees. He did it more accurately---this will be quick and dirty. You can draw a right triangle with the right angle at the moon, 80 degrees at earth, 10 degrees at sun. 10 degrees is about 1/6 radian, so you can estimate EM/ES = 1/6

Distance to the sun is some 6 times bigger than the distance to moon.

Not to pretend to be too accurate, if you can determine that the angle seen at earth is AT LEAST 85 degrees then you can decide that the angle seen at sun is LESS or equal 5 degrees which is less or equal 1/12 radian. So distance to sun is AT LEAST 12 TIMES the moon distance.

So that is already better than Anaximander! He had the ratio be only something like 3/2!!!!!!

The thing is Anax opened the question and led the way with a geometric model. So you were mentally prepared to apply geometry to the heavens. And he made it fashionable to improve on your teacher because he did that with his teacher Thales. Critical (if respectful) attitude to authority.
And he even put out some low-hanging ready-to-pick fruit----this 3/2 number. Once there is a number, people like Aristarchus are going to feel challenged to improve on it.

Getting down to a little bit more detail (only if you want to), Aristarchus thought that in that triangle the angle seen at the sun was "one thirtieth of a quadrant". He did not use degrees, he measured by fractions of a quadrant (another name for right angle). A thirtieth of a quadrant is one twentieth of a "sextant". A sextant (i.e. 60 degrees) is quite close to the angle that today we call a radian. Using what you know about the sine of small angles, 1/20 = EM/MS and MS is so close to ES that one can put 1/20 = EM/ES. So the sun is 20 times the distance to the moon. In reality it is considerably farther, but this is all just approximate anyway. It's got to be pretty good for 3rd Century BCE!

Next time I see the half moon I might think of it as "Anaximander moon". Even though the first person to use the half moon to get a handle on the proportions of the universe was someone who came 300 years later.

Anaximander started the ball rolling as regards both geometric models of the universe (with no up, down, or elephants) and applying critical reason to assess and improve on one's antecedents. Once the ball was rolling you could say that one day Aristarchus would have to come along and invent the heliocentric universe and the rest is history. :-D Well that's one way to look at it.

Reality is what we keep learning about.

What keeps surprising us no matter how accurately we have modeled it.

fuzzyfelt

Thank you, I know I'm going to enjoy reading this thread more thoroughly!

(I'd read Miletus was at the mouth of a river, which it isn't anymore.)

marcus

September release date on the publsher's page:
http://www.westholmepublishing.com/t...scientist.html

marcus

Anaximander got the ball rolling in cosmic models, by conceiving of the earth as unsupported in space, with the stars, moon, and sun going around at different distances.
His was the ancestor of the Ptolemaic, and eventually Copernican, world models.

but his numbers, his ratios of distances, were wrong. He had the sun only 3/2 farther than the moon.

How could a person back then have determined the ratio better?
This author has imagined a method that someone in classical times could have used:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.0836
http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.0836

Aristarchus, born 300 years after Anax, in 310 BCE, had a method involving measuring the angle between the halfmoon and the sun. He got that the sun was at least 12 times farther, if I remember right. His way is not as good as this modern guy's (which in theory Aristarchus might have used if he had thought of it.)

If I had to choose, I like Aristarchus method. I understand it better. However, other people may find the alternative interesting.

marcus

This map shows how the Miletus harbor used to look in classical times.

Samos, where Pythagoras lived, was just a short way out to sea, from the bay and harbor.

A river called MEANDER flowed into the bay near the city. The river had lots of S-curves. We get our word "meander" from it. It means to do like the Meander river did,

The map shows how the river silted in and what was Miletus harbor became dry land.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mi...ion_map-en.svg

fuzzyfelt

Very nice. I hadn't noted the connection between the river's name and the verb - interesting!

marcus

US publisher's page still gives September 2011 as their estimated date the book will appear
http://www.westholmepublishing.com/t...scientist.html

The Amazon.com page has the earlier estimates August 2011 (I'm inclined to think the later date more realistic.)
http://www.amazon.com/First-Scientis...dp/1594161313/

The book is already on sale in the UK!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Scient...dp/1594161313/

I'll carry along some other links and information for any interested newcomers:
Canadian Amazon page:
http://www.amazon.ca/First-Scientist...dp/1594161313/

French publisher's page for the 2009 edition:
http://www.dunod.com/sciences-techni...mandre-de-mile

Amazon.fr page:
http://www.amazon.fr/Anaximandre-Mil...dp/2100529390/

French edition TOC with sporadic rough interpretive translation:
Sommaire Introduction.

1. Le VIe siècle.==The Sixth Century BCE
Un panorama du monde.
Le savoir du VIe siècle : l’astronomie.==Science in the Sixth Century: Astronomy
Les dieux.==The Gods
Milet.==The City of Miletus

2. Les contributions d’Anaximandre. ==Anaximander's Contributions

3. Les phénomènes atmosphériques.==Meteorology (Understanding rain, thunder,..)
Le naturalisme cosmologique et biologique.==Naturalism in Cosmology and Biology

4. Flotte la Terre.==The Earth Floats in Space==Earth Adrift in Space (not needing to be anchored to supports)

5. Entités invisibles et lois naturelles.==Invisible Entities and Natural Laws
Y a-t-il dans la nature quelque chose que nous ne voyons pas?==Can Unseen Stuff Help Explain?
L’idée de loi naturelle : Anaximandre, Pythagore et Platon.==The Idea of Natural Law (Originated with Anax. Pyth. Plato)

6. Quand la révolte devient vertu.==(Rational) Revolt Becomes Respectable

7. Écriture, démocratie et mélange des cultures.==Writing, Democracy, Crossfertilization
La Grèce archaïque
L’alphabet grec.
Science et démocratie.==Science and Democracy (Are Related)
Le mélange des cultures.==Cultural Mixing

8. Qu’est-ce que la science?==What Characterizes Science?
Penser Anaximandre après Einstein et Heisenberg.==Significance of Anax'der's Thought Seen Post-GR and QM, i.e. from Post-Einstein-Heisenberg Perspective (!)
L’effondrement des illusions du XIXème siècle.==Collapse of 19-th Century Illusions(!)
La science ne se réduit pas à des prédictions vérifiables.==Real Science Can Not Be Reduced To Testable Predictions (!!!)
Explorer les formes de pensée du monde.==Exploring How to Think the World
L’évolution de l’image du monde.==Getting a New Picture of the World
Règles du jeu et commensurabilité.==Rules of Play--Continuity of Understanding
Éloge de l’incertitude.==Best Understanding Recognizes Uncertainty

9. Entre relativisme culturel et pensée de l’absolu. Navigating Between Cultural Relativism and the Absolute-Avoiding Dangerous Foolishness on Either Side.

10. Peut-on comprendre le monde sans les dieux?==Can We Get Along Without Gods?
Le conflit.

13. La pensée pré-scientifique.==Pre-Scientific Thought
La nature de la pensée mystico-religieuse. Les différentes fonctions du divin.

14. Conclusion : l’héritage d’Anaximandre==Anaximander's Legacy to Us


The English edition publisher says the book is 256 pages. For a rough guess about material being added one can compare with the French edition, which is listed as 192 pages. Some of the difference could be due to other factors such as typesize.
However it would be natural for changes, revisions, additions to have occurred in the intervening 3 years and to appear in the English edition.

apeiron

Given that this is turning into the longest teaser campaign for a book ever, you can read my own page summarising Anaximander's worldview at...

http://www.dichotomistic.com/logic_d...story_one.html

Or a good academic source is Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology by Charles Kahn.

marcus

A young Dutch expert on Anaximander I just now was thinking of is Dirk Couprie.
I will hunt up his website. He has a book out too, but a website is quick and free.
http://www.dirkcouprie.nl/home.html

Dirk says:
"My main professional interest is in Presocratic philosophy and cosmology, and especially those of Anaximander, who lived at Miletus, 610-547 B.C."

and he gives some links:

"For more information on my latest book Heaven and Earth in Ancient Greek Cosmology: From Thales to Heraclides Ponticus click here.
Here is a special link to my article on Anaximander in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy."

marcus

Apeiron, great to hear from you! I got out Charles Kahn's book from the library a couple of months back and dipped into it. There is also a young Dutch historian of science who has been studying Anax and thinking about his importance---he has a website, I put his name (Dirk Couprie) and a link to his website in the preceding post.

I like very much how you start your page. Ionia was the birthplace of rational thinking for many reasons. It is worth quoting bold blue:


Greek philosophy began some two centuries before Athens in the scattered city states and colonies of Ionia, now the coast of Turkey. Ionia was the birthplace of rational thinking for many reasons.

The great civilisations of Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus had been agriculture-based, inward-looking, feudal and bureaucratic. The Ionian cities survived on fishing and trading. They were ruled by laws rather than kings. They had a wealthy merchant class who travelled widely. And by this time – around the 7th century BC – there was writing to record people’s ideas.

These first thinkers also had the advantage that they could come at the problem of existence with an utterly fresh eye. To use a memorable phrase, they saw: "the world lit by a kind of six-o'clock-in-the-morning light and the dew imperishably on the grass."

There were many famous Ionians - Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno, Empedocles and Democritus are just some of them. Thales is conventionally considered the very first philosopher. But I would rather accord that honour to Anaximander of Miletus.


from Apeiron's http://www.dichotomistic.com/logic_d...story_one.html

marcus

I was mistaken about Dirk Couprie's age, when I posted earlier. For some reason I had gotten the idea that he was an under-40 scholar. He was born in 1940!

When I posted earlier I did not have a working link to his article on Anaximander in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I will hunt up one.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...www.google.com

The regular IEP site is temporarily not responding.

I think Couprie's IEP article on Anaximander is quite helpful. He has also written a book, with two other historians of science, called "Anaximander in Context".

He also has a bibliography on Anaximander. Lengthy interesting list of writings.
http://www.dirkcouprie.nl/Anaximander-bibliography.htm
From the looks of it, the field of Anaximander Studies is expanding