Gender and function: classified by action (Foucault, order, 144, 152)
Animals are grouped into various classifications. Which part of the animal kingdom, phylum or species they belong to. In recent centuries more scientific research has divulged deeper layers of connection as well as genealogy. Classifications did exist in the ancient world but it was more function than appearance. Such classification was not necessarily out of scientific ineptitude but scientific attitude.
Ancient civilisations lacked the technological advancements of today. They didn’t have cars or computers. With our advanced transportation and microscopic capabilities we have unearthed more knowledge that previously known. Yet there are also inventions that we still are ignorant to. Greek fire, Roman concrete, and Damascus steel. These inventions were close to the heart of the maker so with the fall of the empire so died its secrets. Secrecy was of utmost necessity. Deriding the taboo of ancient stupidity though does not claim genius. Nor comparable to the modern day. Even some of these lost treasures were archaic to the technology of today. For greek fire whether a flamethrower or napalm we’ve reached it. Nepenthe was an ancient painkiller, yet today we have opium and hemp. Finding these clues today are interesting historical facts but aren’t necessary for implementation with the exception of Roman concrete. Almost all others can be replicated better. There is a genius but the current technological frame is overpowered.
Modern inventions overwhelm the old. The ancients pale in comparison but conventionally were incredibly innovative. Arguing about a thirty point game twenty years ago versus today is an imbalanced relation. Today’s game is faster more possessions three point shooting and offence heavy. Scoring 30 points out of 120 point win versus 30 points in a 90 point win is a different animal. There is no fair quota because even the percentile fails to cross generational bounds. Some teams focused on team play while others had a single scorer. Accolades are great but when it doesn’t translate to victory what is the purpose. Are players better than their predecessors? Presumably yes. They are more skilled. Could a young Jordan apply the same marks today as he did in the 90s? Yes. Could LeBron do the same? Yes. There would be struggles. Modern players would suffer with the stiffer rules back then whether it be hand checking or dribbling. Older players would suffer from pace and new rules. Stephen Curry is not the first shooter but is the most recognisable in a game that has became a shooter’s game. Jerry West and Rick Barry preceded him. Skill has grown but it doesn’t change the capability of old.
It all comes down to the rules of the game. Ancients were not privy to modern advances. Microscopes and time to indulge in the molecular aspects. Could Aristotle and Einstein switch places? Yes. Would they thrive? Yes. Would they put up the same equations? Not necessarily but they would find success anyway. Genius is not a product of time but a product of resources. The rules of old saw the world in a vastly different format. Context is heavy but capability synonymous. Modern ignorance to ancient inventions is due to extinction. Experiments are attempted but it is shooting blind. Unlike modern inventions that occur with the evolution of technology, ancient inventions are trying to recreate the old. An academic exercise for a YouTube channel. One is for fun the other for enhancement. Interesting facts or helpful knowledge. The resources privilege the present. The application of scientific fact was at times mistaken. Spontaneous generation for example though some still dispute this. Heliocentrism began with Pythagorus thought fully instated by Aristarchus of Samos. Late antiquity India and medieval Islam gradually developed heliocentric perspectives. This was all theory since no one had been to space. Even Ptolemy’s qualms with the theory were scientific. Using the tools he had he hypothesised incorrectly but syllogistically sound.
The modern age with the enlightenment expanded scientific inquiry into modes of holistic expansion. Using Newton’s outlook of a complex machine there are many different parts. Each cog can be deduced in its own right. Many of the academic movements in sociology and philology sought to determine the objective past in all its parts. A more mechanistic picture that sits alongside Kant’s divine idea. The world is an assembly of parts to be connected. The body is not a holistic sector but broken into pieces. Each piece to be evaluated on its own terms. Western medicine works in such a mechanistic division. Science has its own expertise as it prevails in decoding the nuances in reality. The westernisation is foiled into mechanistic idealism. It is simply a different way of arriving at the truth of the world. For example, either mathematical formulas or pictures from space will provide the necessary solution that the moon revolves around the earth. Healers may provide different remedies based on their knowledge of the body whether it be a specific part or the interaction with other parts of the body. Snuff or caffeine will startle you awake. It is the practice of experimentation no matter the resources available.
Ancients are seen as pseudoscientific mystical fantatics. They sung hymns and told stories. Myths are fables. They are not real science. Yet the astrological core of mythology may point to illustrative truths about the world. Fantastical stories veil the truth behind the curtain. Creationism is a type of Big Bang. While literalism has undermined the mythological prose, the narratives convey a deeper truth beyond the fable liturgy. The transition to rational logic from religious mythology was not all too foreign. Presocratic philosophers living in Ionia, Asia Minor received scientific education from their Egyptian neighbours to he south and Indian neighbours not too far west. Mythology or religion for that matter are symbols to articulate values. Removing the mythical phenomena transformed science into a numbers game. It became more empirical than historical. Outside the confines of the greek deities. Removing the deified characters and awesome movements. Nature became central. Thales was to Hesiod as Maimonides was to Akiva. Demythologising and de-personifying the transcendent into an intellectual account. The mission was the same, the variables different. Existential inquiries were nothing new but mathematically accounting for them. Stripping them of divine flesh was revolutionary.
More discoveries have been made but the world is the same it has always been. The distance between Ptolemaic science and Newtonian science is wider than the current shifts. Scholastics and Newtonianism is varied. The enlightenment has had a monolithic expansion. A progressivist direction of experimentation. Such singularity was absent to ancient science. A more organismic model of scientific inquiry. Its combination with philosophical thought displayed a speculative approach. One conjured on potentiality than actuality. It was the potentiality in favour of unassailable authority throughout the Middle Ages, that Ptolemy’s model was upheld. It was only with empirical investigation that his conclusions were overturned. Portuguese seafarers navigated their way finding measurements to be imprecise. The theory was close but not close enough. Obvious justifiable defences were brought up but eventually discarded. Scholastics were apologists for their antiquity ancestors. Even Copernicus who reversed the antiquity answer was more an ancient-minded thinker than a modern one. It is not a measure of accuracy but methodology. Though his disdain for unquestioned authority was quintessentially modern. His greatest ally was Pythagorus. The mathematical formulas work. It need to be solely an empirical onslaught (despite the debate concerning empiricism’s legitimacy) but also a quantitative analysis stemming from the ancients to the moderns.
Renaissance humanism attempted to reinvigorate the hellenism of old. To spread greek ideas and literature throughout. To educate and evolve. Large amounts of ancient data were utilised to further their ideals. Copernicus borrowed ancient data to validate his ideas. Copernicus is the end of the old era. His line to Newton is evolutionary. A straight line of gradual progress. Humanism updated the ancients. Scholastics had seemingly meddled little with ancient authority. Passing down information, sometimes adding nuance but rarely deviating. It was a return to origin that needed a new perspective. Finding more than one perspective on the matter. Ptolemaic science held a strong leash yet Ptolemy’s predecessors felt differently. It was through a reassessment of divergent ancient opinions that Copernicus revamped a new direction. The ingenious way of toppling the long held dogma was to demonstrate an alternate ethos. One with an even greater historical legacy that being Pythagorus. Hermeneutically outside the traditional acceptance yet still canonically acceptable. Newton followed this newly constructed hermeneutic that led to Kepler and Galileo. The church appealed to their Ptolemaic tradition with religious lacing dismissing the Pythagorean legitimacy. Their high court supremacy decided the truth. Yet Galileo pursued a genuine authoritative position that couldn’t bear their disdain.
Copernicus was a quasi-ancientest and Galileo a modernist. His science was organismic not mechanistic. It was Galileo who ultimately toppled Aristotle. He who fully outwitted the church to the heliocentric model. Using telescopic observations to finally settle the dispute. The seafarers decades earlier visually discounted the measurements of mapping and Galileo did so with astronomy. Mechanistically the use of observational inventions aided in overturning speculative logic. Empirical conclusions were far more authentic. Witnessing the truth rather than pondering it. Understanding phenomena for what it is without any purposeful intent. No historical lesson for nationalising, embellishing for patriotism. In order to do so, models must be made such as a textbook that academically seeks explanation. A globe or a diagram of a volcano for better illustration. The mechanical view did follow the scholastics. These mechanistic models helped facilitate deeper mechanistic thinking and mechanistic experimentation. Using the ancients as a foundation they derived considerable analysis. Evading the dogmatic scientism that forbade any alterations based on biblical literalism. Magically cultivating mechanical usages. Projecting the natural world upon an experimental lens to produce a scientific conclusion.
Post-renaissance thinking took a huge turn toward mechanistic thinking. Its former organismic counterpart was all about projection by analogy. Using metaphors whether mythologically or practically. Whether with gods or man. Referring to metaphors beyond human control. Machines took the place of living beings. Fabricating their truth into robotic function. Alchemy produces chemicals beyond the natural frame. Inventions enable unnatural behaviour. Seeing green grass versus producing green shade with blue and yellow. Experimentation allowed scientists to manipulate reality with other matter. Machines could transcend god himself. No wonder Nietzsche declared god dead. Man took over the creation role with his machinery expertise. The taboo has become real. The jester has stolen the king’s thorny crown. Man has deceived and usurped god. The Middle Ages in their religious zeal pressed the Aristotelian physics to the brim. Nature could never refuse God, never betray its routine. Nature is found eternally in its consistent cycle. Natural history was by the book. Educated and relied upon. Yet voyages beyond to new areas criticised with their experience. Adventures added new seas and islands. Instead of denying these claims, it brew a novel experiential position. Pondering discussions was no more, not the visual explorer could argue on the basis of eye-witness instead of theoretical mathematics.
This shift prospers engineers and artisans to produce new work. Mechanicians are a product of early modern thought. Looking to the past for assistance they toppled the hierarchical force-fed dogma. New science sought to use anthropocentric capabilities to further human knowledge. To dwell in illiberal arts. The British empiricists became huge in diagnosing biology and physics. Experience took priority over education. The experiences of conversos in the inquisition the voyages of early navigators all at the same time. The onset of the second half of the millennium altered the world as we know it. Mechanistic outlooks became noticeable as they developed in the nineteenth century. Academia is a byproduct of altering the educational system. Professors are researchers before they are teachers. They teach for knowledge, they search for objectification. Westernisation grew and grew as its mechanistic outlook fuelled the scientific and economic aspect. Religious mythos were a prime pastime but a new age of dispersed human ideas will conquer the day.
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