This grand experiment would be tested, time and time again over the millennia which was to follow.
It should be were not was to agree with the plural millenia (or else millenia should be changed to millenium). The comma is also unnecessary here and interrupts the flow of the sentence.
Sorry my introduction was so long I didn’t know quite how to write what I wanted to write and I am not a good enough writer to do a series of posts on it.
There should be a period after “long”. You might also consider putting a comma between “write” and “and” (between the two main clauses).
Comment:
I don’t doubt the role Christianity had in modern science. However, I think it’s worth pointing out that there are pre-Christian elements which had an important part to play too. Would you allow that Platonism, i.e. the idea of universal ideas that can be accessed by reason has had an influence? What about pre-Socratic movements like Pythagorianism and Miletian science? I mean, it seems to me that rationalism and science have a complex history with many precursers. I also think the translation of logos with rationality is unsatisfying and doesn’t really capture St John’s meaning. It misses the obvious reference to Genesis where it is the word that brings order to chaos, and life out of literally nothing, through the Holy Spirit. The word is of course rational, but it represents more than that. It is a specific kind of word: an imperative. This suggests to me that logos signifies God’s authority over His creation and His holiness (as well as His love in breathing creation into being through the logos). St Jerome also uses verbum to translate John.
Thank you for your corrections. I always appreciate anyone who is willing to help me become a better writer.
However, I think it’s worth pointing out that there are pre-Christian elements which had an important part to play too.
For logic and reason you absolutely have a point. For science I don’t think that the impact was much greater than giving formal logic and a mathematical basis. They lacked not only the investigative spirit that science requires, but the ability to reason that they should investigate.
For a simple example, the earliest heliocentric model was from the Pythagoreans and I can’t credit them as having anything like science in its proposition. For the Pythagoreans fire is nobler than earth and the center is a nobler position. So fire has to be in the center.
Aristotle noted of them that:
In all this they are not seeking for theories and causes to account for observed facts, but rather forcing their observations and trying to accommodate them to certain theories and opinions of their own. – Aristotle, On the heavens II.13.293a
This is the same Aristotle who noted that heavy objects should fall faster than light objects on account of their being heavier. Not only did Aristotle never trudge to the top of a cliff with a heavy rock and a light rock of roughly the same shape and an observer down the bottom to see which landed first—the thought never even occurred to him that this was something that there would even be any benefit in doing.
I also think the translation of logos with rationality is unsatisfying and doesn’t really capture St John’s meaning.
Here (and everything afterward) I agree with you. It misses a great deal of meaning (creativity is missing for one, so too and more importantly is love), but it captures a part of the meaning which I was hoping would be conveyed. Correct me if I’m wrong but rationality is a subset of logos—though logos is greater, rationality is contained within.
Not only did Aristotle never trudge to the top of a cliff with a heavy rock and a light rock of roughly the same shape and an observer down the bottom to see which landed first
Corrections:
This grand experiment would be tested, time and time again over the millennia which was to follow.
It should be were not was to agree with the plural millenia (or else millenia should be changed to millenium). The comma is also unnecessary here and interrupts the flow of the sentence.
Sorry my introduction was so long I didn’t know quite how to write what I wanted to write and I am not a good enough writer to do a series of posts on it.
There should be a period after “long”. You might also consider putting a comma between “write” and “and” (between the two main clauses).
Comment:
I don’t doubt the role Christianity had in modern science. However, I think it’s worth pointing out that there are pre-Christian elements which had an important part to play too. Would you allow that Platonism, i.e. the idea of universal ideas that can be accessed by reason has had an influence? What about pre-Socratic movements like Pythagorianism and Miletian science? I mean, it seems to me that rationalism and science have a complex history with many precursers. I also think the translation of logos with rationality is unsatisfying and doesn’t really capture St John’s meaning. It misses the obvious reference to Genesis where it is the word that brings order to chaos, and life out of literally nothing, through the Holy Spirit. The word is of course rational, but it represents more than that. It is a specific kind of word: an imperative. This suggests to me that logos signifies God’s authority over His creation and His holiness (as well as His love in breathing creation into being through the logos). St Jerome also uses verbum to translate John.
Thank you for your corrections. I always appreciate anyone who is willing to help me become a better writer.
For logic and reason you absolutely have a point. For science I don’t think that the impact was much greater than giving formal logic and a mathematical basis. They lacked not only the investigative spirit that science requires, but the ability to reason that they should investigate.
For a simple example, the earliest heliocentric model was from the Pythagoreans and I can’t credit them as having anything like science in its proposition. For the Pythagoreans fire is nobler than earth and the center is a nobler position. So fire has to be in the center.
Aristotle noted of them that:
This is the same Aristotle who noted that heavy objects should fall faster than light objects on account of their being heavier. Not only did Aristotle never trudge to the top of a cliff with a heavy rock and a light rock of roughly the same shape and an observer down the bottom to see which landed first—the thought never even occurred to him that this was something that there would even be any benefit in doing.
Here (and everything afterward) I agree with you. It misses a great deal of meaning (creativity is missing for one, so too and more importantly is love), but it captures a part of the meaning which I was hoping would be conveyed. Correct me if I’m wrong but rationality is a subset of logos—though logos is greater, rationality is contained within.
Have you done this?
Not a cliff, but every child who has graduated highschool in my country has done this experiment from the top of a multi-story building.
I have done this. In year 10.
We tried to troll the teacher saying that the larger object landed first. He claimed this was due to ‘parallax error’.
Science is murkier than it looks.
Sounds like a nice country.
It’s not too bad. Like most countries it has its own particular problems.