Friday, August 01, 2008

Human Ingenuity

What art was to the ancient world,
science is to the modern.
Benjamin Disraeli

Just another example of human hubris, in fact. That statement represents the incautious thought of a fine mind, one that still could not bend itself around the reality that human capability, foresight, wisdom and manual dexterity was not just the purview of his time, but was within the ownership of timeless humankind. Human beings were capable of distinguishing themselves intellectually, creatively,millennia before the advent of modernity.

There are no studies that would even suggest that the human mind has developed in capacity beyond what it was capable of demonstrating through observation, repetition and knowledgeable hypothesis in the ancient world. Well before the modern era, before the advent of Christianity, the ancient Egyptians advanced technologies modern science still cannot fathom. Of course in the really ancient world of hunting-gathering, humankind already expressed its timeless ability to create and to manage, to prosper.

From their trepanning techniques in relieving pressure on the brain through bold surgical expedients, to building the Pyramids using technology still hypothesized about by modern architecture, to using still little-understood chemical combinations to mummify human remains ancient Egyptian application to modify their environment amazes. Their fabulous work in the fields of alchemy, biology, chemistry, dentistry, anaesthesiology, and electromagnetic energies still awe modern science.

Men love to wonder,
and that is the seed of our science.
Emerson, Society and Solitude
The ancient Greeks are said to have produced the first philosopher to attempt an explanation for the physical world around us as constructed by nature, not by a powerful heaven-seated god. Greek philosophy had its base in logic and the science of mathematics, technology and nature.Millennia before the 15th century when Europeans were convinced the earth was flat and a ship could fall off the earth if it sailed too far, they knew the earth was round. In fact, Eratosthenes of Alexandria (194 b.c.) actually measured the Earth's circumference.

Botany, agriculture, the study and classification of plants; geology, the form and origin of Earth, volcanoes and earthquakes were given logical explanations through close study; close enough to rival current geologists' and vulcanologist's' knowledge of Earth's eruptions and upheavals. Greeks knew of atoms, conceiving of their existence as the smallest indivisible particle possibly to be conceived; its very name, "atom" means indivisible. We do know now, a result of our Pandora's-curiosity, that the atom can be split, cataclysmically.

Philosophy, and the study of the human mind, human emotions and behaviours were all part of the Greek tradition of learning and understanding about ourselves and the world about us. Biology was studied by Hippocrates and Aristotle and Galen, said to be the father of modern medicine. From 7000 to 3300 B.C.E. the sciences were pursued in India; astronomy and mathematics, building techniques, farming, metalwork, flintknapping, tanning, bead production and dentistry. Along with hydrography, meteorology and sewage collection and disposal.

Equipped with his five senses,
man explores the universe around him
and calls the adventure Science.
Edwin Powell Hubble

All of this represents, from the ancient world to the present, humankind's capacity to derive knowledge from the natural world that surrounds us, to reflect on the near-perfection of nature, to manifest understanding of the events that impact upon our lives, to lead to methods by which we would not only learn to respect nature and our place within it, but also manipulate to some great degree the opportunities that nature exposes us to. Then, unfortunately, transcend the reasonable. We are by our very nature, immoderate.

It's humbling to realize just how little we have advanced, in fact, from the reality of the powerful minds that have superseded us, from ancient times to the present. Our lives are different, we have progressed exponentially; we exploit resources to manipulate our environment to create ever greater comforts and luxuries for ourselves, reaping the benefits of the technologies that have come before us, building upon them and reaching ever higher, for satisfaction in achievement - and excess.

Economics, the science of
managing one's own household
Seneca
But we've done a rather too-enthusiastic managing of the various opportunities we've seized, grasping too greedily resources that enhance our lives but will never again be available, once we've exhausted their treasury. We've been extraordinarily busy on this globe we inhabit, like mischievous and clever children left alone in a candy shop while the owner slips out for a moment of relief from the boisterous activities of unsocialized, uncivil brats.

Scientific reorganization of national energy
and resources, co-ordinating industrial democracy
to effect the will of the people
William H. Smyth; definition of technocracy

It's amazing, though, to realize how incredibly enterprising and capable the human mind is, in utilizing its skilfully manipulative appendages to produce amazing pieces of scientific machinery. We feel so utterly superior in all that we've accomplished, through our modern design and architecture and technical expertise gleaned over thousands of years through metal extraction and refining, through machining and production.

We should sit back and take notice, take a deep breath, and come to the realization that we're still those mischievous children. Our predecessors have done most of the heavy lifting in the cerebral department. Their intelligent theorizing and study have paved the way for modern understanding and further examination of everything that surrounds us.

And when we learn, for example, that there is in existence a mechanical piece of astronomical machinery dating to the 5th Century B.C. that surpasses in intelligent design and artistic purpose what can be produced today, we should witness that with appropriate awe. An ancient bronze mechanical device that had been recovered from a Roman-era shipwreck; Greek in origin and manufacture, used to predict eclipses and planetary movement.

Precision-made, of 82 bronze wheels and dials and plates. A clockwork mechanism to turn hands on a dial demonstrating the movement of heavenly bodies. Inscribed carefully with the names of the Greek Nemean, Isthmia, Pythia and Olympic Games. Its maker some obscure scientific-mechanical genius, enthralled by the heavens above, enraptured by humankind's place under the mantle of stars, celebrating civilization's excellence in physical performance.

The Antikythera Mechanism. Its maker long forgotten, its mechanism now corroded and incapable of producing its clockwork design. Its marvellous construction, connoting the marvel of humankind's prescience and creative imagination teach us perspective, tell us we are but part of a continuum, a hugely vast and infinitely long voyage of discovery. Informing us also not to take ourselves too seriously, for time passes and so do we.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley

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posted by Pieface @ Friday, August 01, 2008

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