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It's outstanding how advanced the ancient Greeks were. What characteristics allowed their civilization to flourish so rapidly in science to the extent that they

It's outstanding how advanced the ancient Greeks were. What characteristics allowed their civilization to flourish so rapidly in science to the extent that they weren't matched in Europe until the Renaissance?

nologic01 3y ago
Deep, grounded answers are lacking because we don't have something like a theory of social/cultural evolution. Many potential factors are clearly not relevant: was not a major population center like Egypt, was not particularly rich in resources, was not a serious military might like Persia (except, though, in maritime context), was not centralized (quarreling city-states). Economically it was based on slave labor like the entire region. It was an extrovert society (trading a lot, establishing seaside colonies all over the Med etc), but so were the Phoenicians. Maybe in the end it was just a non-linear cascade that is hard to explain "linearly" after the fact. Maybe using their interactions to copy and cross-fertilize what all the pre-existing cultures had to offer created a domino effect where one thing led to another (eg. improved script -> better education -> smarter logistics -> more spare time -> more philosopher-scientists -> more mathematics, you get the picture). Its equally important to understand what caused the eventual decline. The depressing fact that "progress" is not monotonic. Could we be heading toward a new middle ages?
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spenczar5 3y ago
It could be a selection effect too. The Greek world is unusually well-studied. This tunnel was discovered and excavated in the 1800s by German and French archaeologists. It helps that the Greek world was close to Europe and has a large literary legacyy (partially because of continuity through Rome). Compare that to ancient Mesoamerican or African or Indian civilizations, which have a relatively shorter period of intense study, but every decade we seem to come away more impressed. For example, Nazca puquios are still a bit of a mystery but are extremely sophisticated tunnel and irrigation systems: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puquios https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puquios
dr_dshiv 3y ago
Currency, colonies, cultural coherency (shared language and festivals) along with massive internal competition. Militarily strong city states, within which verbal argumentation flourished. All that was prior to literacy, which hit around 750 BC. Then one big thing was the development of a philosophical perspective that treated math as the basis of reality. That was also re-emerged as a trigger of the scientific revolution. Attributed to Pythagoras—but he deliberately never wrote anything down. What’s nice about not having written doctrines is that they can more easily evolve. The Pythagoreans, btw, also apparently conducted the first hypothesis driven experiment — testing their mathematical model of musical consonance by generalizing it from stringed instruments (where small integer ratios of string length produce consonance) to bronze chimes (where they found small integer ratios or chime thickness also produced consonance). The recognition that “all is number” corresponds with (but doesn’t necessarily cause) big leaps in collective cultural progress.
smitty1e 3y ago
One major input would be climate and resources. Much communication around the Mediterranean helped them. Saying "geography is destiny" is probably too strong, but the generally advanced cultures around the Med and Levant certainly played off of each other.
cm277 3y ago
Er, the Romans pretty much continued the science and engineering of the Greeks --the management of water alone was a massive engineering feat that wouldn't be matched for centuries. But mainly science and engineering was killed off by a cult that thought such things were against their beliefs and dogma. They were particularly successful in moving all literature and existing written studies to their cult offices or destroying them altogether. Eventually, the power of this cult waned a bit and science started flourishing again, a few centuries later.

nologic01 3y ago

Deep, grounded answers are lacking because we don't have something like a theory of social/cultural evolution. Many potential factors are clearly not relevant: was not a major population center like Egypt, was not particularly rich in resources, was not a serious military might like Persia (except, though, in maritime context), was not centralized (quarreling city-states). Economically it was based on slave labor like the entire region. It was an extrovert society (trading a lot, establishing seaside colonies all over the Med etc), but so were the Phoenicians. Maybe in the end it was just a non-linear cascade that is hard to explain "linearly" after the fact. Maybe using their interactions to copy and cross-fertilize what all the pre-existing cultures had to offer created a domino effect where one thing led to another (eg. improved script -> better education -> smarter logistics -> more spare time -> more philosopher-scientists -> more mathematics, you get the picture). Its equally important to understand what caused the eventual decline. The depressing fact that "progress" is not monotonic. Could we be heading toward a new middle ages?

deleted 3y ago
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spenczar5 3y ago

It could be a selection effect too. The Greek world is unusually well-studied. This tunnel was discovered and excavated in the 1800s by German and French archaeologists. It helps that the Greek world was close to Europe and has a large literary legacyy (partially because of continuity through Rome). Compare that to ancient Mesoamerican or African or Indian civilizations, which have a relatively shorter period of intense study, but every decade we seem to come away more impressed. For example, Nazca puquios are still a bit of a mystery but are extremely sophisticated tunnel and irrigation systems: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puquios https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puquios

dr_dshiv 3y ago

Currency, colonies, cultural coherency (shared language and festivals) along with massive internal competition. Militarily strong city states, within which verbal argumentation flourished. All that was prior to literacy, which hit around 750 BC. Then one big thing was the development of a philosophical perspective that treated math as the basis of reality. That was also re-emerged as a trigger of the scientific revolution. Attributed to Pythagoras—but he deliberately never wrote anything down. What’s nice about not having written doctrines is that they can more easily evolve. The Pythagoreans, btw, also apparently conducted the first hypothesis driven experiment — testing their mathematical model of musical consonance by generalizing it from stringed instruments (where small integer ratios of string length produce consonance) to bronze chimes (where they found small integer ratios or chime thickness also produced consonance). The recognition that “all is number” corresponds with (but doesn’t necessarily cause) big leaps in collective cultural progress.

smitty1e 3y ago

One major input would be climate and resources. Much communication around the Mediterranean helped them. Saying "geography is destiny" is probably too strong, but the generally advanced cultures around the Med and Levant certainly played off of each other.

cm277 3y ago

Er, the Romans pretty much continued the science and engineering of the Greeks --the management of water alone was a massive engineering feat that wouldn't be matched for centuries. But mainly science and engineering was killed off by a cult that thought such things were against their beliefs and dogma. They were particularly successful in moving all literature and existing written studies to their cult offices or destroying them altogether. Eventually, the power of this cult waned a bit and science started flourishing again, a few centuries later.