4 ms·

Sure, but now we're not saying "Europe had an intellectual tradition, thus it succeeded", but "Europe didn't have a centralized bureaucracy, thus it succeeded".

Sure, but now we're not saying "Europe had an intellectual tradition, thus it succeeded", but "Europe didn't have a centralized bureaucracy, thus it succeeded". It wasn't an issue of nourishing intellectuals, which China had been doing for centuries, and it wasn't an issue of regular war against peer armies, which again, had been happening in China for centuries. So now the question is: why did Europe care about telescopes, and China didn't? My intuition is that telescopes didn't solve any problems for Chinese emperors/subjects, and so they didn't care about their invention. Similarly, if it were important for China to know that the Earth was round, they would've figured it out. > The Chinese still thought the Earth was flat until the Jesuits arrived: I think this might add some nuance to what "thinking the Earth was flat" meant: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7ug0yf/copernicus_and_heliocentrism_met_with_a_lot_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7ug0yf/coper...

throw0101a 5y ago
> So now the question is: why did Europe care about telescopes, and China didn't? Copying another comment I made in this thread (much hand-waving and unsubtly/non-nuance): ---- Literacy, individualism, lack of tribalism/clans, a 'mechanistic'/logical/Aristotelian view of reality (which led to the development of science), a 'general' of separation spiritual and civil powers (Matthew 22:15–22, Mark 12:13–17, Luke 20:20–26). Max Weber (1864-1920) was one of the first people to ask this question: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber For more recent thoughts, see The WEIRDest People in the World by Heinrich: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_Wor... And Toby Huff (The Rise of Early Modern Science, Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Huff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Huff Intellectual Curiosity makes some interesting observations from the historical record: the telescope was invented in 1608 (where it ended up revolutionizing things), and the Europeans brought the technology to Imperial China and Mughal India. They brought it as 'supplicants' to the court to try to grant greater access to each nation; the Jesuits in China used it to show that their 'superior' knowledge of the universe and reality to help with converting folks to Christianity/Catholicism (e.g., by better predicting eclipses). Neither country was interesting and continued, through a top-down decree, to simply do things the way they always did them. The telescope arrived in the the Ottoman Empire by osmosis, and they didn't do much with it either. Fast forward 100+ years and the scientific/technological advances made through curious minds allowed by a different worldview allowed the Europeans to develop more efficient (product output per energy input) economies and then walk all over the rest of the planet. The Indians and Chinese were arguable equally (if not more) advanced in the 1600s, but by the 1700s and later they were 'primitive' in comparison to the Europeans. ---- * https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=30742959 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=30742959 > I think this might add some nuance to what "thinking the Earth was flat" meant To add nuance to nuance: IIRC, the only way to really "prove" or provide evidence of the Earth's motion around the sun was through parallax of stars. Things came close with Bradley and stellar aberration in ~1728: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bradley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bradley Giuseppi Calandrelli finally directly measures parallax in α-Lyrae in 1806. The Earth's motion (rotation) around its axis was demonstrated by Guglielmini: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Guglielmini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Guglielmini And it's not like folks didn't think of the possibility, as even Aristotle wrote in De Caelo (II.14): > Again, everything that moves with the circular movement, except the first sphere, is observed to be passed, and to move with more than one motion. The earth, then, also, whether it move about the centre or as stationary at it, must necessarily move with two motions. But if this were so, there would have to be passings and turnings of the fixed stars. Yet no such thing is observed. The same stars always rise and set in the same parts of the earth. * http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/heavens.2.ii.html http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/heavens.2.ii.html * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Heavens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Heavens
- karpierz 5y ago
  That's... a lot of handwaving. Going through this: > lack of tribalism/clans The government structure of European states was hereditary. A clan would lay claim to a region and support/fight other clans in their claims. > a 'mechanistic'/logical/Aristotelian view of reality I don't know that this is true? For example, where does the soul exist in a mechanistic view of reality? > a 'general' of separation spiritual and civil powers This is a better description of China than Europe. Churches were authority figures, held land, and vied with monarchs and nobles for political power. You'll need to be much more specific as to what you mean. > Fast forward 100+ years and the scientific/technological advances made through curious minds allowed by a different worldview allowed the Europeans to develop more efficient (product output per energy input) economies and then walk all over the rest of the planet. What do you mean "walk all over the rest of the planet"? Europeans were limited to small coastal trading posts until the late 19th century. When you look at a 18th century map and see "all of central America belongs to Spain", that doesn't mean that Spain could project power over all of it. It was an aspirational "we own this" combined with "other powers best not try to take this from us". It didn't mean that they had meaningful control or ownership of the region. > The Indians and Chinese were arguable equally (if not more) advanced in the 1600s, but by the 1700s and later they were 'primitive' in comparison to the Europeans. Can you define what you mean by "advanced" and "primitive"? How would one measure that?
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > That's... a lot of handwaving. Going through this: Yes. This an HN comment, not an anthropological/sociological/historical analytical paper. Weber, Tuff, Heinrich have written books on this, Needham has written volumes. The rest of us are just hand waving here.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Did China nourish intellectuals? There is a famous Dutch 17th century painting of scientists cutting into corpses to find out how the human body works. This never happened outside Europe until centuries later for various religious and moral reasons. Curiosity, ambition and lack of scruples to experiment.
- karpierz 5y ago
  > This never happened outside Europe until centuries later for various religious and moral reasons. Can you point to the research you've read that indicates that this never happened outside of Europe, because of religious/moral reason? Anatomical dissection happened in a variety of places, including a criminal in 200-300 BCE China. https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ar.24503 https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002...
- pvaldes 5y ago
  > scientists cutting into corpses to find out how the human body works. This never happened outside Europe until centuries later Egypt had been cutting corpses and doing sophisticated surgery 2000 years before that

throw0101a 5y ago

> So now the question is: why did Europe care about telescopes, and China didn't? Copying another comment I made in this thread (much hand-waving and unsubtly/non-nuance): ---- Literacy, individualism, lack of tribalism/clans, a 'mechanistic'/logical/Aristotelian view of reality (which led to the development of science), a 'general' of separation spiritual and civil powers (Matthew 22:15–22, Mark 12:13–17, Luke 20:20–26). Max Weber (1864-1920) was one of the first people to ask this question: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber For more recent thoughts, see The WEIRDest People in the World by Heinrich: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_Wor... And Toby Huff (The Rise of Early Modern Science, Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Huff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Huff Intellectual Curiosity makes some interesting observations from the historical record: the telescope was invented in 1608 (where it ended up revolutionizing things), and the Europeans brought the technology to Imperial China and Mughal India. They brought it as 'supplicants' to the court to try to grant greater access to each nation; the Jesuits in China used it to show that their 'superior' knowledge of the universe and reality to help with converting folks to Christianity/Catholicism (e.g., by better predicting eclipses). Neither country was interesting and continued, through a top-down decree, to simply do things the way they always did them. The telescope arrived in the the Ottoman Empire by osmosis, and they didn't do much with it either. Fast forward 100+ years and the scientific/technological advances made through curious minds allowed by a different worldview allowed the Europeans to develop more efficient (product output per energy input) economies and then walk all over the rest of the planet. The Indians and Chinese were arguable equally (if not more) advanced in the 1600s, but by the 1700s and later they were 'primitive' in comparison to the Europeans. ---- * https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=30742959 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=30742959 > I think this might add some nuance to what "thinking the Earth was flat" meant To add nuance to nuance: IIRC, the only way to really "prove" or provide evidence of the Earth's motion around the sun was through parallax of stars. Things came close with Bradley and stellar aberration in ~1728: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bradley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bradley Giuseppi Calandrelli finally directly measures parallax in α-Lyrae in 1806. The Earth's motion (rotation) around its axis was demonstrated by Guglielmini: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Guglielmini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Guglielmini And it's not like folks didn't think of the possibility, as even Aristotle wrote in De Caelo (II.14): > Again, everything that moves with the circular movement, except the first sphere, is observed to be passed, and to move with more than one motion. The earth, then, also, whether it move about the centre or as stationary at it, must necessarily move with two motions. But if this were so, there would have to be passings and turnings of the fixed stars. Yet no such thing is observed. The same stars always rise and set in the same parts of the earth. * http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/heavens.2.ii.html http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/heavens.2.ii.html * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Heavens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Heavens

karpierz 5y ago
That's... a lot of handwaving. Going through this: > lack of tribalism/clans The government structure of European states was hereditary. A clan would lay claim to a region and support/fight other clans in their claims. > a 'mechanistic'/logical/Aristotelian view of reality I don't know that this is true? For example, where does the soul exist in a mechanistic view of reality? > a 'general' of separation spiritual and civil powers This is a better description of China than Europe. Churches were authority figures, held land, and vied with monarchs and nobles for political power. You'll need to be much more specific as to what you mean. > Fast forward 100+ years and the scientific/technological advances made through curious minds allowed by a different worldview allowed the Europeans to develop more efficient (product output per energy input) economies and then walk all over the rest of the planet. What do you mean "walk all over the rest of the planet"? Europeans were limited to small coastal trading posts until the late 19th century. When you look at a 18th century map and see "all of central America belongs to Spain", that doesn't mean that Spain could project power over all of it. It was an aspirational "we own this" combined with "other powers best not try to take this from us". It didn't mean that they had meaningful control or ownership of the region. > The Indians and Chinese were arguable equally (if not more) advanced in the 1600s, but by the 1700s and later they were 'primitive' in comparison to the Europeans. Can you define what you mean by "advanced" and "primitive"? How would one measure that?
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > That's... a lot of handwaving. Going through this: Yes. This an HN comment, not an anthropological/sociological/historical analytical paper. Weber, Tuff, Heinrich have written books on this, Needham has written volumes. The rest of us are just hand waving here.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

Did China nourish intellectuals? There is a famous Dutch 17th century painting of scientists cutting into corpses to find out how the human body works. This never happened outside Europe until centuries later for various religious and moral reasons. Curiosity, ambition and lack of scruples to experiment.

karpierz 5y ago
> This never happened outside Europe until centuries later for various religious and moral reasons. Can you point to the research you've read that indicates that this never happened outside of Europe, because of religious/moral reason? Anatomical dissection happened in a variety of places, including a criminal in 200-300 BCE China. https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ar.24503 https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002...
pvaldes 5y ago
> scientists cutting into corpses to find out how the human body works. This never happened outside Europe until centuries later Egypt had been cutting corpses and doing sophisticated surgery 2000 years before that