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From what I understand, the Chinese had often recorded many facts about nature and mathematics very early and accurately. However they never really created much

From what I understand, the Chinese had often recorded many facts about nature and mathematics very early and accurately. However they never really created much laws. Laws of nature was a western invention. E.g. they observed accurately planetary movements, but never attempted to formulate the laws governing those movements. That sort of thinking was crucial for scientific thinking.

ue_ 10y ago
This is an interesting idea, even if it does play into the "exotic Oriental thinking" meme. I've seen this line of thinking usually attached with rubbish like "The Westerner wants to control the world, the Eastener only wants to explain it." However I think that first making observations and then the crucial step of extrapolating and making predictions based on those is as good as any formally named 'law'.
- jernfrost 10y ago
  Reading up on Copernicus, Kepler and astronomy gives a good idea I think about what I am getting at. Extrapolation isn't that easy to do with e.g. astronomy. Orbits don't go in straight predictable lines. They are ellipses where the speed will vary depending on where you are in the orbit. Kepler found that the are covered per time unit was constant, thus implying that when the orbits were closer to the sun they would speed up. I guess you could say extrapolation was what Kepler tried to do but it took him a lot of work to figure it out. The Chinese while very advance in many respect did not try doing that. What I've read is that they did not have the Judeo-Christian belief that the mind of God could be learned. The laws governing the motions of the heavens was assume inscrutable to the human mind.
sn41 10y ago
Maybe true. The emphasis was on calculations. For example, there was a heliocentric model in India [1], which was too complicated to come from a "simple" mechanical model, but was quite accurate. But I think we should not be too eager to jump on to "science is only from laws" bandwagon. Courses on the philosophy of science take this dogma to absurd extremes, ignoring how current science is often done. There is enough science done today where the laws are only vague, but we do predict useful stuff from simulations - climate models and earthquake modelling being the most prominent - despite not having "simple" laws behind them. As Freeman Dyson often observes, physicists still don't have a good explanation of why a bicycle doesn't topple when in motion - but we've been riding them for a century and half [2]. I think trial-and-error, and simulations also count as sophisticated science. It's more than a tad racist to insist that Egyptians, Babylonians, Chinese and Indians, as well as medieval Arab scientists were all child races incapable of truly knowing what they were doing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilakantha_Somayaji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilakantha_Somayaji [2] https://www.wired.com/1998/02/dyson/ https://www.wired.com/1998/02/dyson/
- gp7 10y ago
  I think you're being a little unfair to philosophy of science here, bearing in mind how poorly 'Leviathan and the air-pump' was received by actual scientists.
- ciphix 10y ago
  I totally uphold your idea. One more case, machine learning, especially deep learning, which lacks strict mathematical model and theoretical explanation, actually works pretty well on reality problems in fact. Maybe, it takes years for theorists to build a theoretical framework to explain, but it does not hinder us to exploit the technique.
- tiatia 10y ago
  "medieval Arab scientists" Ibn_al-Haytham was one of the inventors of the "scientific method". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Haytham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Haytham
  - microcolonel 10y ago
    At least as far as is quoted on that Wikipedia article, he gives a description of basic rigor, not the scientific method. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/The_Scientific_Method_as_an_Ongoing_Process.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/The_Scie...
- _Codemonkeyism 10y ago
  Feynman can counter this much better than I can, "Feynman on pseudo science" https://vimeo.com/118188988 https://vimeo.com/118188988
  - sn41 10y ago
    Ancient science is not the same as pseudoscience. The problem with a lot of the ancient sources is the lack of proofs. What I am arguing is that lack of proofs in ancient mathematical texts doesn't mean that it is all bunkum, and the authors did not know what they were talking about. I am not talking cultural relativism or "social science is a science" relativism. Again, another example: Euler is the father of modern analysis, through his "Analysis of the Infinite" [1]. None of his proofs are rigorous according to modern standards. Do you think Feynman would've called Euler a fool? [1] http://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/mathematical-treasures-eulers-analysis-of-the-infinite http://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/mathematica...
manmal 10y ago
Yes, induction is what makes our progress possible.
why-el 10y ago
You might be interested in (perhaps already know) of this book, which develops your idea in some detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_of_Infinity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_of_Infinity
iam-you 10y ago
I'm sure you probably didn't mean to be racist, but this is a pretty racist comment. Not only that, but you are tacitly implying that our civilization is superior to all these past civilizations. It's been well documented what these ancients were able to do, specifically the Egyptians. Are you saying they were just simply looking at effects without trying to understand causes (just little playful kids)? are you saying their thinking wasn't scientific? This of the people who brought us writing and mathematics
- jernfrost 10y ago
  Pointing out that western civilization did something isn't the same as claiming only people of western decent is capable of doing something. Christopher Columbus, was a westerner and went to America. That is just stating a fact of something that happened. That doesn't imply that if Christopher Columbus had black skin it would have been an impossible feat for him to accomplish. Isaac Newton would not have been prevented from inventing calculus if he had slanted eyes. "Are you saying they were just simply looking at effects without trying to understand causes" As a matter of fact, yes. Chinese astronomer e.g. as far as I know, recorded lots of details about the movements of celestial bodies, but never attempted to device laws governing these movements. The greeks did with their Ptolemaic world view even if they were screwed up. It gave a starting point for Copernicus and Kepler to improve on. "are you saying their thinking wasn't scientific" Yes, I am. There is no racist undertone there, as much as you like to hunt for it. This was a product of the society and traditions they lived in, not their skin color, slant of eyes or whatever you might want to make a big deal about. "This of the people who brought us writing and mathematics" Should get your facts straight before you try to belittle me. Mathematics isn't simply numerals. You can do mathematics just fine without indian/arabic numerals. More important for science, it was the greeks who made the first formal mathematical proofs. And who do you presume are these people who "gave" us writing? Are you assuming writing came to Europe from India, China, Egypt or something?
  - iam-you 10y ago
    I'm not presuming anything. writing came from Egypt, likely mathematics too, and where do you think the greeks get their knowledge from? Egypt. Obviously, they were creative in their own right, but that doesn't change the fact of where this stuff originated.
MichaelMoser123 10y ago
Proofs were not always of the same rigor - what was once considered a proof may not be so by modern standards. Now what this book shows is that 2100 years ago some level of proof was also a requirement in Chinese mathematics; this makes classical Greek/western thought look not quite as unique as it is portrayed.

ue_ 10y ago

This is an interesting idea, even if it does play into the "exotic Oriental thinking" meme. I've seen this line of thinking usually attached with rubbish like "The Westerner wants to control the world, the Eastener only wants to explain it." However I think that first making observations and then the crucial step of extrapolating and making predictions based on those is as good as any formally named 'law'.

jernfrost 10y ago
Reading up on Copernicus, Kepler and astronomy gives a good idea I think about what I am getting at. Extrapolation isn't that easy to do with e.g. astronomy. Orbits don't go in straight predictable lines. They are ellipses where the speed will vary depending on where you are in the orbit. Kepler found that the are covered per time unit was constant, thus implying that when the orbits were closer to the sun they would speed up. I guess you could say extrapolation was what Kepler tried to do but it took him a lot of work to figure it out. The Chinese while very advance in many respect did not try doing that. What I've read is that they did not have the Judeo-Christian belief that the mind of God could be learned. The laws governing the motions of the heavens was assume inscrutable to the human mind.

sn41 10y ago

Maybe true. The emphasis was on calculations. For example, there was a heliocentric model in India [1], which was too complicated to come from a "simple" mechanical model, but was quite accurate. But I think we should not be too eager to jump on to "science is only from laws" bandwagon. Courses on the philosophy of science take this dogma to absurd extremes, ignoring how current science is often done. There is enough science done today where the laws are only vague, but we do predict useful stuff from simulations - climate models and earthquake modelling being the most prominent - despite not having "simple" laws behind them. As Freeman Dyson often observes, physicists still don't have a good explanation of why a bicycle doesn't topple when in motion - but we've been riding them for a century and half [2]. I think trial-and-error, and simulations also count as sophisticated science. It's more than a tad racist to insist that Egyptians, Babylonians, Chinese and Indians, as well as medieval Arab scientists were all child races incapable of truly knowing what they were doing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilakantha_Somayaji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilakantha_Somayaji [2] https://www.wired.com/1998/02/dyson/ https://www.wired.com/1998/02/dyson/

gp7 10y ago
I think you're being a little unfair to philosophy of science here, bearing in mind how poorly 'Leviathan and the air-pump' was received by actual scientists.
ciphix 10y ago
I totally uphold your idea. One more case, machine learning, especially deep learning, which lacks strict mathematical model and theoretical explanation, actually works pretty well on reality problems in fact. Maybe, it takes years for theorists to build a theoretical framework to explain, but it does not hinder us to exploit the technique.
tiatia 10y ago
"medieval Arab scientists" Ibn_al-Haytham was one of the inventors of the "scientific method". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Haytham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Haytham
- microcolonel 10y ago
  At least as far as is quoted on that Wikipedia article, he gives a description of basic rigor, not the scientific method. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/The_Scientific_Method_as_an_Ongoing_Process.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/The_Scie...
_Codemonkeyism 10y ago
Feynman can counter this much better than I can, "Feynman on pseudo science" https://vimeo.com/118188988 https://vimeo.com/118188988
- sn41 10y ago
  Ancient science is not the same as pseudoscience. The problem with a lot of the ancient sources is the lack of proofs. What I am arguing is that lack of proofs in ancient mathematical texts doesn't mean that it is all bunkum, and the authors did not know what they were talking about. I am not talking cultural relativism or "social science is a science" relativism. Again, another example: Euler is the father of modern analysis, through his "Analysis of the Infinite" [1]. None of his proofs are rigorous according to modern standards. Do you think Feynman would've called Euler a fool? [1] http://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/mathematical-treasures-eulers-analysis-of-the-infinite http://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/mathematica...

manmal 10y ago

Yes, induction is what makes our progress possible.

why-el 10y ago

You might be interested in (perhaps already know) of this book, which develops your idea in some detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_of_Infinity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_of_Infinity

iam-you 10y ago

I'm sure you probably didn't mean to be racist, but this is a pretty racist comment. Not only that, but you are tacitly implying that our civilization is superior to all these past civilizations. It's been well documented what these ancients were able to do, specifically the Egyptians. Are you saying they were just simply looking at effects without trying to understand causes (just little playful kids)? are you saying their thinking wasn't scientific? This of the people who brought us writing and mathematics

jernfrost 10y ago
Pointing out that western civilization did something isn't the same as claiming only people of western decent is capable of doing something. Christopher Columbus, was a westerner and went to America. That is just stating a fact of something that happened. That doesn't imply that if Christopher Columbus had black skin it would have been an impossible feat for him to accomplish. Isaac Newton would not have been prevented from inventing calculus if he had slanted eyes. "Are you saying they were just simply looking at effects without trying to understand causes" As a matter of fact, yes. Chinese astronomer e.g. as far as I know, recorded lots of details about the movements of celestial bodies, but never attempted to device laws governing these movements. The greeks did with their Ptolemaic world view even if they were screwed up. It gave a starting point for Copernicus and Kepler to improve on. "are you saying their thinking wasn't scientific" Yes, I am. There is no racist undertone there, as much as you like to hunt for it. This was a product of the society and traditions they lived in, not their skin color, slant of eyes or whatever you might want to make a big deal about. "This of the people who brought us writing and mathematics" Should get your facts straight before you try to belittle me. Mathematics isn't simply numerals. You can do mathematics just fine without indian/arabic numerals. More important for science, it was the greeks who made the first formal mathematical proofs. And who do you presume are these people who "gave" us writing? Are you assuming writing came to Europe from India, China, Egypt or something?
- iam-you 10y ago
  I'm not presuming anything. writing came from Egypt, likely mathematics too, and where do you think the greeks get their knowledge from? Egypt. Obviously, they were creative in their own right, but that doesn't change the fact of where this stuff originated.

MichaelMoser123 10y ago

Proofs were not always of the same rigor - what was once considered a proof may not be so by modern standards. Now what this book shows is that 2100 years ago some level of proof was also a requirement in Chinese mathematics; this makes classical Greek/western thought look not quite as unique as it is portrayed.