Is there a more complete scientific model than Anaximander's?
Despite an immense amount of detail and data in the physical sciences, and a spattering of psychology sociology, etc, I am not aware of any more complete model of the of the reality we experience than the one proposed Anaximander did in 600BCE.
Put in modern terms, Anaximander proposed that out of the boundless, chaos and order emerged to fight with each other, binding geometric areas of the boundless into different combinations of the primal elements, as a product of their conflict.
Their battle created the four primal elements, earth, water, air, and fire, from which all mass, energy, time, and mind are formed. Small amounts of the other primal elements, added to each of main primal elements, creates the variety of material, temporal, and spiritual forces that we experience. Following then is a summary of the metaphysical model which Anaximander proposed, the study of which has historically be known as alchemy. From the perspective of modern science, however, it is only a model, commonly known as 'the philosopher's stone,' by which predictions of the future may be made.
The irony, it seems to me, is that no scientist has yet to propose as a complete a model for the reality we experience as stated here, in modern terms, by Amaximander's alchemical model.
The difficulty is that its cosmogony can only be examined hermeneutically. While there is an immense amount of detail and data in the post-information era, wisdom has been in short supply, and wisdom is a prerequisite for hermeneutic investigation.
Put in modern terms, Anaximander proposed that out of the boundless, chaos and order emerged to fight with each other, binding geometric areas of the boundless into different combinations of the primal elements, as a product of their conflict.
Their battle created the four primal elements, earth, water, air, and fire, from which all mass, energy, time, and mind are formed. Small amounts of the other primal elements, added to each of main primal elements, creates the variety of material, temporal, and spiritual forces that we experience. Following then is a summary of the metaphysical model which Anaximander proposed, the study of which has historically be known as alchemy. From the perspective of modern science, however, it is only a model, commonly known as 'the philosopher's stone,' by which predictions of the future may be made.
- Matter is mostly comprised of the heavy primal earth element, with differing amounts of primal water and primal air to make the different chemical elements and compounds. Small amounts of primal fire, mixed with primal earth, causes matter to change states.
- Movement in the space-time continuum is mostly comprised of the water element, which we observe as time. But in the boundless, time is simply another dimension like those of space.
- Forces, both physical and spiritual, are mostly comprised of the fire element, which exists in the boundaries between the primal earth, water, and air elements, in residual from the battle between order and chaos. The physical forces, containing different small amounts of primal water and earth, are gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces. Of particular note here also are spiritual forces, made by binding primal fire with primal air. Equivalent to the physical forces noted above, spiritual forces such as 'fate' enable the higher-order spiritual entities, such as Titans, impose the forces of nature on the will of men, Gods, and elementals. Fate is the highest-order spiritual force. Lower-order spiritual forces, such as love and hate, are under the control of Gods.
- The mind is mostly comprised of the air element. There are minds with souls, collectively known as the human race; elemental minds which in concert control natural forces (such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and the habits of animals) that are not free, and have no soul, but which are mostly untamed by the force of order; minds of Gods, wherein emotions and powers battle with other conceptually, resulting in the forces of love and war that we experience; and there are the distant and almost totally impenetrable minds of bygone Titans, who created the world of Gods and men.
The irony, it seems to me, is that no scientist has yet to propose as a complete a model for the reality we experience as stated here, in modern terms, by Amaximander's alchemical model.
The difficulty is that its cosmogony can only be examined hermeneutically. While there is an immense amount of detail and data in the post-information era, wisdom has been in short supply, and wisdom is a prerequisite for hermeneutic investigation.
Comments (48)
As I say, its only a model. It can't be correct or incorrect. Your statement shows little understanding for the philosophy of science. One uses models to form a theory, then tests the theory with a hypothesis. The hypothesis is either correct or incorrect.
Let's assume the hypothesis is correctly drawn from the model, which is defined by the field of science called logic.
The model itself is neither correct nor incorrect. It is only a model. Note, also, a theory can never be proven, only substantiated.
It has been a long-standing naive confusion in the modern world, so you are not to be blamed for misunderstanding that, only for not accepting it now you've been told.
"Chaos and order emerged to fight with each other" is an empirical statement, isn't it?
No, that is Anaximander's first proposition, or assertion, in his model of how the universe that we experience derives, or fits within, the boundless, called the 'Apeiron.' He also believed that, in addition to the known universe, there are an infinite number of unknown universes, now called 'possible worlds.' But he did not argue that point, it was only a belief.
He did argue that Apeiron is primally ordered, but paradoxes in the primal order then created Heraclitean chaos. That is, he disagreed with Heraclitus, who said chaos was primary. There is a directly equivalent debate in Far Eastern philosophy, known as the conflict between yin and yang. Neoconfucianists assert that the passive, ordered nature of yin is primary; whereas, Taoists assert that the active, chaotic nature of yang is primary instead.
But Anaximander is not just describing primal forces. He presents a building-block model. Therefore, it was argued, to create a model, chaos must be secondary to order, otherwise no model is possible at all. By contrast, Heraclitus, like Taoists, can only say that chaos makes all prediction indeterminate.
Anaximander's point is that order can be observed empirically, and therefore, the Apeiron must be ordered, even though boundless.
Further, he asserted that there were two main types of the water element: ordered time, also known as chronological time; and unbounded time, also known as Ionic or Eonic time, within which the main eras, or ages of the human race are defined: the golden age, silver age, bronze age, and iron age.
That's not not an empirical claim for that. It's an empirical claim.
You've got that disease where you can't keep your responses brief, by the way.
no a second time, it is one step above claim, it is the model. The model makes no claims. It is an abstract but ordered construction, like mathematics. One draws theories from the model which can be tested empirically. the model itself makes no claims. It is merely a model.
"One step above claim"--what in the world would that refer to?
Aren't assertions or propositions claims about things?
If one considers a map of the universe in terms of entropy, instead, then, we know that organic compounds can reach a far greater degree of ordered construction than any other matter we have been able to find, all the way from the DNA in viruses to the human brain. One human brain has more neural connections in it than stars in our galaxy.
Thus, from the perspective of entropy, the world we know as the earth, with all the people on it, is actually the center of the known universe. As entropy is a measure of order, versus chaos, it should be the primary measuring stick for the universe, not geometric space, according to Anaximander's model.
Homer's iliad
Homer's Odyssey
Hesiod's Theogeny
Hesiod's Work and Days
Theologians and moral philosophers may wish to argue with the beliefs laid down by these prior authors as to whether Gods exist or not. Anaximander was really not concerned with which Gods really exist, if at all. There were many competing pantheons at the time. Even across the Greek city states, there were many variations in the Hellenic Pantheon (as Hesiod's Theogeny is now known).
Anaximander was more concerned with making his model compatible with existing thought on the higher forces. He didn't care whether Love and War were really sentient Gods. He merely stated that such abstractions exist, but are not physical, because, unlike us, their bodies contain no Earth element. there's been alot of confusion on that point in the last three thousand years.
So for Anaximander, empirical observations were drawn on, for example, the accounts of Aphrodite and Ares facing off during the siege of Troy.
How would it enable a prediction of an event if it's just any arbitrary thing we're making up?
What you are doing is like confusing mathematics, numeric quantities, and equations. The field of mathematics, which is a domain of science, defines a numerical model, whereby fixed quantities may be added to themselves to make equiproportional geometric sequences, known as numbers. From the numbers you can make more abstract theories of relationships, instantiated by equations. Equations assert something which may be considered to be true or false.
Mathematics just provides the numerical model. You don't say mathematics is true or false. You don't say the numerical model is true or false. You say the equations drawn from the numerical model are true or false. That's exactly the same for any other model in science.
So now you're going to explain how it would enable a prediction of an event if it's just any arbitrary thing we're making up?
That's what I asked because it's what I hoped you'd answer.
If you're asking me, I think Anaximander was right. The Apeiron is primarily ordered, so predictions are possible. But they only appear to be predictions to us because we have limited perception through the water element, otherwise we would simply be able to observe future events without needing a model to predict them.
Anaximander deduces a theory, that anything which disturbs the order must be transient. Therefore, he hypothesizes, wars are limited in effectiveness, and he points to the Iliad as substantiation.
What I was asking you was to explain the notion that models have nothing to do with what the actual world is like, yet they somehow enable predictions about the actual world. How would that work?
So now we don't know whether they do or not?
My contention here is that Anaximander's model is useful, in fact, it is far more productive of theory than the piecemeal scatterings of bits in the social sciences, even now.
I thought I was asking you a question.
The social sciences are not exactly ‘scientific’ and would have more in relation with Anaximander than the hard scientific methodology of physics. Modern science, as we know it, is barely a century or two old.
No problem. I was literally, straightforwardly asking the question I asked.
I think the main problem with Anaximander's theory, if you want to see it as a modern scientific theory, is that it's not falsifiable (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability). That means that you should be able to conceive an experiment whose result could be NOT in agreement with your theory.
However, it is true that some modern models of the universe have the same problem.
Well so far I only stated one, which was Anaximander's first theory: because the universe is primarily ordered, chaos is transient. Therefore chaotic powers, such as war, are ultimately ineffective. And he substantiated the theory with the 7-year Trojan war, after which the victorious King of Kings was murdered by his own wife while in the bathtub. As was written down, about 100 years earlier, as Homer's Iliad.
Agamemnon's death may seem inconsequential to the Trojan war he started, but, again, according to the ancient Greeks, the act of starting war summoned the three Moirai, the Fates. Even the King of Kings could not escape the vengeance of the Moirai, even by winning a war to prove himself right. And even the Gods could not stop his fate, the Moirai being more powerful than the Gods. In Hesiod's cosmogony, the Moirai are the force by which Titans control both Gods and the human race.
Anaximander observes that war is transient, and therefore ineffective compared to the primarily ordered universe. Fate is the power which ensures that war ultimately does not reward its instigators. He looks to the one historical text he has, the Iliad. And its main protagonist, Agamemnon, was victorious in the war he started, but the account ends with him being murdered by his own wife.
The power of Anaximander's theory is echoed by Xenophon, recording the futility of Cyrus' expedition to conquer Persia; and then by Alexander the Great, whose empire broke apart almost straight away upon his death. So the idea of Anaximander also became the main subject of the tragic playwrights, such as Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus during the height of Athenian culture 300 years after Anaximander. That's because there had been three major failed conquests, by the time they started enactment of the stories for the illiterate, over a long weekend every year.
If it's true, the Bush family will never be in the White House again. That would be my projection. But as you observe, that is open for debate.
He thought the world was the center of the universe. From an entropic view, science so far finds that he is still right about that.
He had an opinion on the beginning of the world, that chaos emerged from paradox, battling with the order of the Apeiron, to create the Universe we experience. The four alchemical elements of earth, water, air and fire are simply products of that battle.
But he did also say chaos is impermanent, so the universe must also end. In which case, there would be no physical matter any more. Time would end. Titans, Gods, elementals, and humans would cease to exist. All that would remain would be boundless energy, with no physical or spiritual power acting on it.
This is a foreshadowing of evolution. In the 2nd edition of OofS, Darwin mentions an passage from Aristotle who built upon the idea, showing that in the pre Christian era it was commonly held that struggle results in refinement, and lack of fitness leads to extinction.
We have Tornadoes, Volcanoes, Earthquakes and Tidal Waves, which are elemental chaos. You might say the Climate is elemental harmony but obviously on a massive scale!
Well, the ladedaimonikans agreed with that, but most of the Greek city states preferred the struggle of commerce to the struggle of war.
The Greeks also did not believe in any personal God. Most people just had to take it as it was thrown at them, and they tried to get the God's attentions at temples, but didnt really put much hope in it.
The thing about the Spartans was they were a small tribe keeping order over the majority of Helots.
The Greeks defended themselves if they had to, but after Alexander the Great, there was not another attempt to conquer other nations. That together with Troy was enough for them. But Hollywood doesn't like that. What Hollywood likes is Virgil's reinterpretation of the Iliad, making the Trojan Horse a clever trick rather than an ignoble deception, and ending the story with Troy's successful demolition rather than the horrible fates of the victors. Mostly now Hollywood tells Virgiil's Aeniad, with Greek names, glorifying war rather than imparting wisdom as to its folly. hat was Rome's preference, and it fits with the USA's own history or violence and aggression, so that's the story Hollywood tells.
The Greeks favored independence, and it was very difficult for them to gather themselves to fight the Persian retaliations of the two Xerxes. But the Greeks believed in their independence and fought viciously to defend it. Now, Hollywood loves to describe the Persian invasions as unjust attempts at conquest, rather than the retaliation it actually was.
The Greeks favored free trade and economic competition instead, to which war was a terrible impedance. The Greek view was that violent aggression was exciting but foolish, and they taught that view to new generations with Homer, Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus.
You have never read either Homer or Virgil, have you? You got it exactly backwards. Virgil takes up the Trojans' narrative (for obvious reasons), and for him Greeks are the enemy, and the story of the Trojan Horse is a story of low cunning. Later Dante, who was raised on the Latin tradition, picked up Virgil's narrative and went so far even as to put Ulysses not in Limbo, with other heroes of antiquity, but in the lowest region of Hell, with liars and fraudsters.
I dont see what you think I got backwards about the greeks. What I do observe is that the majority of the world is entirely sucked in to Hollywood's version. Some time ago there was even a version that made the whole Trojan War an act of vengeance by abused women. That's what sells now so thats what it makes. Homer's point was that Agamemnon was a power-hungry, war-crazed megalamaniac who didnt care about women at all. It's true he abused women, but it wasnt anything against women in particular, he abused anyone he could in his desire for power. Sacrificing his daughter for success in war, and supporting a competition for Helen's marriage against her own wishes were just symptomatic.
I studied this for more years than I'd care to remember.
So no I reject your insulting comment.
I think you might be ignoring the rest of Greek literature.
Hollywood is shite at inventing stuff.
Since the story of the TH was mentioned in Homer, it was part of the myth for maybe a 1000 years before Virgil was born. I do not call that "entirely an invention".
You are confusing your personal reception of the myth with how it was better know by the people of the time.
thats what I thought too, but when I looked it up, I found only six lines about it. Out of 3,000 lines it is unlikely so little would be written about the now famous ruse which reportedly ended the war, and so its far more likely they were inserted later where they could find a spot for it. They didnt teach me that at school either, I had to figure it out for myself.
And now for the notable problem: if you have been besieged for 10 years and found the camp mysteriously empty with a wooden effigy of a horse on wheels, you would not go through the effort of wheeling it into your city. You'd just burn the entire camp as fast as possible in case they came back. But no, they wanted what they are meant to have thought must be their enemy's idol as a trophy?? Even though they knew it wasn't?
Well that's just perfect for the Romans. Oh those Ilians were so stupid, snicker snicker.
But for the Greeks, somehow it just does not jibe with two dozen chapters on armored warriors bludgeoning each other with blunt bronze swords in front of the city gates, when they could just have walked around to the back of the city where there were no city walls.
You might want to look at the archaeology too. Depictions of the horse appear on aryballoi and other vases from the archaic to the early ancient period right up to and beyond Virgil.
Virgil simply did not invent the story
https://theshieldofachilles.net/prologue/corinthian-aryballos-depicting-the-trojan-war-from-1887-jahrbuchdeskaiserich-1200x500/
It's also in Euripedes'Trojan Women.
However it does not dilute my point. Even if it was not added later, the horse thing was not important to Homer or the Greeks, and I still believe the thing was a fabrication. in particular, because we know there were no stone walls on the back of Troy, only the front. The most there could have been was a wooden barricade, and no remnants of that were found either. You won't find much written about it, it's something you might have to see for yourself.
There are many candidates for Troy on this site, but you cannot discover what is basically a fiction, based on events that may or may not have happened.
Read Odyssey bk 2 and tell me where all those ships came from.
Explain why Homer uses Bronze age and Iron age references. Why does his work point to the early Iron Age but there are references to boar's tusk helmets, and tower shields which were from a much earlier age. Why is the social relationships between the Basileis incompatible with Mycenean political structures.
Have you ever met a talking horse, seen arrows of disease; met any witches; seen Poseidon or any Cyclopses?
In a fantasy story you are allowed to have a fabrication. 90% of the story is fabrication and more to do with the politics of the late Archaic period than anything to do with a real battle.
Have you ever studied this seriously?