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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Stuff to Blow Your Mind Podcast.

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Speaker 1: My name is Joe McCormick. This episode is publishing on

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Speaker 1: a Tuesday, which means we would normally have an all

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Speaker 1: new core episode of the show for you, but my

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Speaker 1: regular co host Robert Lamb is a little bit under

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Speaker 1: the weather this week, so instead we are bringing you

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Speaker 1: an episode from the vault while Rob recovers. So he

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Speaker 1: should be back on Mike soon and we should be

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Speaker 1: able to continue the series that we were in the

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Speaker 1: middle of before this week, So that was a series

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Speaker 1: on childhood amnesia. More on that in the future, but

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Speaker 1: for now, we hope you enjoyed this vault episode called

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Speaker 1: The Stargazer and the Well, which originally published May fifth,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In

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Speaker 1: today's episode, we're going to discuss a very old association

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Speaker 1: between astronomy and wells, and this ties into various ancient

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Speaker 1: anecdotes and also archaeological sites. Basically getting it down to

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Speaker 1: this idea that if you have a well if you

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Speaker 1: have a deep pit or even a long tube, that

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Speaker 1: this could allow an individual to see starlight during the day.

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Speaker 1: Had you ever heard of this, Joe, No, I don't

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Speaker 1: think not before you brought this up. Yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: and this is one that there was more to it

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Speaker 1: the more I kept looking into it, but instantly it's

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Speaker 1: kind of a captivating idea of you know nothing about

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Speaker 1: it because there's something about the two extremes in play here,

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Speaker 1: the bottom of an earthly pit and the light of

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Speaker 1: distant stars. You know, it reminds me of that that

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Speaker 1: that far more recent quote by author Oscar Wilde in

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Speaker 1: his play A Lady Windermere's Fan, which, even if you're

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Speaker 1: not familiar with that source, you may have heard this,

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Speaker 1: this particular quote quote, we are all in the gutter,

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Speaker 1: but some of us are looking at the stars. Well

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Speaker 1: that's a great sentiment. Yeah, I guess I take it

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Speaker 1: to mean that maybe one's character is defined not by

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Speaker 1: the not by where your body is, but by where

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Speaker 1: your thoughts are aimed. Yeah. Now, one guess starting place

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Speaker 1: for this is that a lot of the especially more

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Speaker 1: recent writings you see and illusions referring to this, well,

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Speaker 1: astronomy situation will frequently point out that, okay, well you

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Speaker 1: had you had Aristotle mentioning and passing, and of course

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Speaker 1: plenty of the elder mentions it. So let's start with

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Speaker 1: the Aristotle quote. He does mention it kind of has

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Speaker 1: an aside, and it is in chapter five of the

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Speaker 1: fourth century BC text Generation of Animals. Okay, so this

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Speaker 1: is going to be setting up the relationship between looking

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Speaker 1: out of a well or a tube and seeing the

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Speaker 1: stars in the daytime. Right, So this is what Aristotle says. Quote.

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Speaker 1: The cause of some animals being keen sided and others

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Speaker 1: not so is not simple but double. For the word

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Speaker 1: keene has pretty much a double sense, and this is

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Speaker 1: the case in like manner with hearing and smelling. In

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Speaker 1: one sense, keen site means the power of seeing at

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Speaker 1: a distance. In another, it means the power of distinguishing

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Speaker 1: as accurately as possible the objects seen. These two faculties

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Speaker 1: are not necessarily combined in the same individual. For the

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Speaker 1: same person, if he shades his eyes with his hand

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Speaker 1: or look through a tube, does not distinguish the differences

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Speaker 1: of color either more or less in any way, but

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Speaker 1: he will see further. In fact, men in pits or

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Speaker 1: wells sometimes see the stars. But one of the curious

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Speaker 1: things here though, and this is ultimately the like the

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Speaker 1: hard fact that we will keep coming back to and

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Speaker 1: thinking about this, is that during the day we cannot

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Speaker 1: see the stars, right, you know, not with the naked eye.

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Speaker 1: And I think i've read that like the brightest star

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Speaker 1: not counting the sun. Of course, the brightest star in

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Speaker 1: the night sky would have to be something like five

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Speaker 1: times as bright for the human eye to see it

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Speaker 1: during the day. So this is one of those things

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Speaker 1: that's right from the get go here, it's not going

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Speaker 1: to match up with any experience out there. Though, if

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Speaker 1: you have had the experience of standing in a pit

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Speaker 1: and looking up and seeing the night sky during the daytime,

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Speaker 1: certainly right in and tell us more about this. But

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Speaker 1: but for the most part, yeah, it goes against everything

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Speaker 1: we expect to be true from our modern perspective. And

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Speaker 1: yet we see multiple references to this being a reality.

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Speaker 1: And granted a lot of these are secondhand in the

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Speaker 1: nature of a lot of these ancient texts. For instance,

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Speaker 1: plenty of the elder who's kind of a champ end

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Speaker 1: of the second or third hand account of the natural world,

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Speaker 1: he chimes in on this a little bit in natural history. Quote,

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Speaker 1: the sun's radiance makes the fixed stars invisible in daytime,

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Speaker 1: although they are shining as much as in the night,

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Speaker 1: which becomes manifest at a solar or eclipse, and also

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Speaker 1: when the star is reflected in a very deep Well. Oh, well,

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Speaker 1: he's doing really good up until that very last part. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's that's something you said. I mean, because first

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Speaker 1: of all, a lot of this, a lot of the

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Speaker 1: times we're talking not talking about, like, you know, just

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Speaker 1: pure folklore here, we're talking about very learned individuals of

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Speaker 1: their age, individuals who who you know, often knew something

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Speaker 1: or a lot concerning astronomy during their time, and they're

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Speaker 1: chiming in on this as if it is true or

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Speaker 1: said to be true. Well, I mean, he is absolutely

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Speaker 1: correct that the stars are still shining during the daytime

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Speaker 1: just like they are at night. It's the problem is

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Speaker 1: simply that their light is drowned out by the glare

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Speaker 1: of the sun. So it's not as if, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you might assume, if you were just going by intuition,

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Speaker 1: that the stars turn off their lights during the day

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Speaker 1: or something, you know, that they somehow disappear no, that

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Speaker 1: they're still there. They're always there, we just can't see

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Speaker 1: them because there's too much light from this other light source. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So so almost everything oh yeah about that statement is corrected.

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Speaker 1: But at the end he loves it. Now. One of

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Speaker 1: the sources I was looking at for this is a

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three paper by Eiden Psi Aali and this

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Speaker 1: was republished in two thousand and seven by the Foundation

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Speaker 1: for Science, Technology and Civilization. So Psi Aali major Turkish

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Speaker 1: science historian. So important that he's actually on a bank note.

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Speaker 1: You can if you look him up on like Wikipedia,

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Speaker 1: you can see see his face on currency. Wow. But

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Speaker 1: this is a very nice little overview of this concept

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Speaker 1: and touches on, you know, the fact that it not

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Speaker 1: only pops up in the history of astronomy, but it

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Speaker 1: also pops up in folklore and literature of vary as

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Speaker 1: different cultures. And the idea is basically what we've been discussing,

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Speaker 1: that one may stand at the bottom of a well

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Speaker 1: or something similar, like a great pit or some sort

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Speaker 1: of natural formation of caves, and if you look up

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Speaker 1: you can glimpse the stars during the day. And Psiali

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Speaker 1: writes that sometimes this is just a vague tidbit without

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Speaker 1: any specifics, like it's just alluded to, Oh, one can

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Speaker 1: do this, and this has been done. But other times

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Speaker 1: it's connected to specific individuals and times. So the author

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Speaker 1: mentions several more examples here, and I'm going to touch

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Speaker 1: on them here. So first of all, it points out

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Speaker 1: that Greek astronomer Cleomides says that the sun appears larger

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Speaker 1: when seen from the bottom of a deep cistern because

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Speaker 1: of the darkness and the moisture of the air, though

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Speaker 1: it does not make mention of actual what we'll discuss

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Speaker 1: in a bit, actual observation wells some sort of a

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Speaker 1: well or deep shaft in the earth that is used,

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Speaker 1: that is either built or repurposed or used for looking

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Speaker 1: at the stars. Another individual he points to is the

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Speaker 1: writings of Islamic philosopher Abu Barrakat al Baghdatti, who lived

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Speaker 1: ten eighty through eleven sixty four or eleven sixty five CE,

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Speaker 1: And this individual actually wrote a text titled on the

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Speaker 1: reason why the stars are visible at night and hidden

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Speaker 1: in daytime, and in this he contends that it comes

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Speaker 1: down to illumination of part of the atmosphere immediately above

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Speaker 1: the observer, and he does not mention observation wells specifically either,

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Speaker 1: And then you have Leonardo da Vinci also contending that

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere is dense and full of moisture particles that

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Speaker 1: during the daylight reflect radiance to obscure the stars. So

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Speaker 1: again there's another example. Davinci's not talking about observation wells.

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Speaker 1: But Psyali contends that all three of these lines of

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Speaker 1: thinking quote would seem to be in agreement with, or

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Speaker 1: even inspired by, the claim that from the bottom of

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Speaker 1: a well or in a tall tower, which is to say,

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Speaker 1: at the bottom of a tall tower, which would prevent

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Speaker 1: the illumination of a portion of the atmosphere immediately above

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Speaker 1: the observer, star has become visible in daytime. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: I think I'm catching onto the intuitive current that's driving this.

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Speaker 1: Might it be something like this. I can see the

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Speaker 1: stars in the nighttime when things are dark. Therefore, darkness

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Speaker 1: is what allows me to see the stars. So if

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Speaker 1: I get down at the bottom of a well or

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Speaker 1: the bottom of a tower, where I can look out

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Speaker 1: through the top, the dark environment that I have enclosed

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Speaker 1: myself in will somehow like create the conditions of night

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Speaker 1: where I can normally see the stars. Is it something

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Speaker 1: like that? It seems to be again, this is something

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Speaker 1: where it again this is this is not true, This

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Speaker 1: is not seemed to be exactly what happens when one

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Speaker 1: is standing in a pit looking up, standing in a

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Speaker 1: well et ce. So we can't we you know, we

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Speaker 1: can't break down the exact process of this because this

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Speaker 1: is not a reality. But yeah, this seems to be

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Speaker 1: what the basic argument seems to be like if you

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Speaker 1: can as closely as possible approximate nighttime during the day

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Speaker 1: for your local self and then look up at the sky,

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Speaker 1: maybe then you would see the stars. Except that doesn't

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Speaker 1: actually happen, right, But again, important knowledgeable individuals who are

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Speaker 1: writing about this and repeating its signal boosting it. If

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Speaker 1: you will, you have you know, ultimately have the likes

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Speaker 1: of say Roger Bacon mentioning it. Seemed to be familiar

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Speaker 1: with the concept, and multiple Islamic authors, according to Sosiali,

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Speaker 1: reference it, and that some of these points to specific

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Speaker 1: observation wells, not just in the generality of this being

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Speaker 1: a thing. So a few examples of this. Maraga Observatory,

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Speaker 1: founded in twelve fifty seven, was said to be in

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Speaker 1: observation well, but Salways thinks this may be a mistake

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Speaker 1: in reference not to the observatory but to caves beneath

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Speaker 1: the observatory. That quote do not, so far as is known,

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Speaker 1: form any vertical well. Another one he mentions is the

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Speaker 1: Jaja bay Marassa of Kishier, Anatolia, founded in twelve seventy two.

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Speaker 1: This was used as an observatory and was said to

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Speaker 1: have an observation well formed via a circular hole cut

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Speaker 1: in the roof of the dome of the Madrassa building,

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Speaker 1: and that this was for daytime star observation. Now, on

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Speaker 1: this count, Psiali writes that there is evidence of their

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Speaker 1: having been a well here. But first of all, it

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Speaker 1: was probably not dry, and this could mean that if

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Speaker 1: it was used for an astronomical aid, it was so

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Speaker 1: that one could look at the reflection of the sky

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Speaker 1: in the water. And there are references apparently to this practice.

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Speaker 1: Oh okay, so this connects to I think the way

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Speaker 1: that Plenty in particular phrased it as opposed to Aristotle,

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Speaker 1: because Plenty said that you could see the stars reflected

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Speaker 1: in a very deep well, And so I'd wonder there

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Speaker 1: that there might be different optical effects at play. If

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Speaker 1: you're not standing in the bottom of a well looking

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Speaker 1: up trying to see the stars in daytime, but looking

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Speaker 1: down at the water in a dark well to see

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Speaker 1: if it's quote unquote reflecting the nighttime stars even during

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Speaker 1: the daytime, right, Yeah, so I think there could It

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Speaker 1: seems to be the case where you're dealing with a

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Speaker 1: different reported phenomena becoming confused with each other, you know, like,

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Speaker 1: can you can you look up from from the bottom

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Speaker 1: of well and see the sky? Yes? Can you see stars? Well, yes,

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Speaker 1: potentially if it is nighttime, but then that can be

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Speaker 1: you know, crossed into something else. Likewise, you could have

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Speaker 1: a situation where where the reflection in the well, in

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Speaker 1: the well water could be used to see the stars

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Speaker 1: at night, but that doesn't mean you can see them

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Speaker 1: in the daytime. Now. A third example that Ssiali brings

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Speaker 1: up is the is Ten Bowl Observatory found it in

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Speaker 1: fifteen seventy nine, and it did have this particular site

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Speaker 1: apparently did have an observation well or tower, and there

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Speaker 1: is confirmation of this in both Turkish and European sources. However,

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Speaker 1: the observatory was demolished not long after its founding. So

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Speaker 1: Siali says it might never have been used, or just

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Speaker 1: there are no records of it being used. I saw

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Speaker 1: some different dates on this. Perhaps it might have been

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Speaker 1: founded in fifteen seventy seven, but it seems like it

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Speaker 1: was destroyed in something like fifteen eighty, just a very

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Speaker 1: short period later, and the destruction was possibly due to

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Speaker 1: religious opposition to astronomy. So Siali mentions that there's a

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Speaker 1: sixteen thirty mention of observers and students glimpsing the stars

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Speaker 1: in the daytime from the bottom of a very deep

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Speaker 1: well in Cuimbra, Portugal, and there are also accounts from

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Speaker 1: Spain apparently. And then we have an individual by the

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Speaker 1: name of Erhard Weigel, court mathematician to Duke Wilhelm the

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Speaker 1: fourth of Bavaria. He had a house built in sixteen

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Speaker 1: sixty seven in Jenna, and it was said to have

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Speaker 1: a quote slant tube built into the wall in order

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Speaker 1: to allow the daytime observation of the stars. You shared

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Speaker 1: with me a painting of all Erhard here. And this

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Speaker 1: guy is such a mood he's I don't even know

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Speaker 1: how to describe this he. I mean, he looks like

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Speaker 1: a very sensitive boy posing for a photo with his dog,

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Speaker 1: you know, like pointing to the dog, except it's just

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Speaker 1: like a big table of mathematical figures. Yeah. Yeah. My

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Speaker 1: first thought was like, here is a man who loves

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Speaker 1: his maths. If you look him up on Wikipedia, you'll

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Speaker 1: see this particular painting. There are other images of him

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Speaker 1: that are not that don't strike the same tone. But

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Speaker 1: I do really like this painting. It looks like he's

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Speaker 1: like doing his equations and he's going, who's a good

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Speaker 1: boy now? Sayali also mentions that the Paris Observatory he

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Speaker 1: found in sixteen sixty seven through sixteen seventy five feet

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Speaker 1: a vertical hole which, via the caves below, formed a

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Speaker 1: fifty five meter deep well. Quote It was said that Cassini,

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Speaker 1: shortly after the foundation of the observatory, considered the possibility

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Speaker 1: of its use for daytime observation of the stars, as

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Speaker 1: one of the brightest stars of the constellation Perseus, he said,

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Speaker 1: would come within the field of view of the well,

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Speaker 1: and approximately forty years now. This is interesting to keep

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Speaker 1: in mind talking about the field of view of the well,

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Speaker 1: because I think this can be telling and given some

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Speaker 1: of the analysis out there. Cassini apparently used the well

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Speaker 1: himself and had another well built. But around this time,

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Speaker 1: Sili says, astronomical advancements may have made venturing down into

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Speaker 1: a well just increasingly obsolete. However, Siali mentions that there

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Speaker 1: were rumors that a janitor at the observatory had a

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Speaker 1: side hustle of taking people down into the pit to

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Speaker 1: glampst the stars. What is this the seventeenth century? Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: well I'm not sure exactly when this, uh, when the janitors.

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Speaker 1: This may may have come later. Okay, yeah, but it

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Speaker 1: sounds very at groundpo doesn't huh. One more example that

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Speaker 1: Siali mentions is the Chrest Monster Observatory in Austria found

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Speaker 1: a seventeen forty eight that has a fifty nine meter

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Speaker 1: deep well said to have been used as an observation

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Speaker 1: well as well. Well. Given all of these examples and

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Speaker 1: anecdotes from history of people saying they could do this

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Speaker 1: or building facilities in which to do this, I'm starting

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Speaker 1: to have my doubts. I'm like, wait a minute, can

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Speaker 1: you actually I don't know, I mean, like, would all

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Speaker 1: these people be building starlight tubes and observation wells and

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Speaker 1: towers and stuff and talking about this all the time.

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Speaker 1: If there weren't something to this story I'm having, I'm

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Speaker 1: doubting myself. Yeah, I had the same experience with it,

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Speaker 1: And and Sialia is basically discussing the same thing. He's like,

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Speaker 1: it would just be strange if this idea persisted for

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Speaker 1: so long and people did all these things, if there

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Speaker 1: wasn't something to it, if there wasn't some factual basis

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Speaker 1: to the whole enterprise, because you know, dudes are incorporating

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Speaker 1: this into their house plans, you know, a buddy. He

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Speaker 1: does point out, Yeah, there was. There were. There were

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Speaker 1: certainly skeptics as well, including Alexander von Humboldt, who who

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Speaker 1: discussed on the show before old friend of the Show,

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Speaker 1: the subject of a really great biography by Andrea Wolfe

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Speaker 1: called The Invention of Nature I highly recommend. Very interesting.

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Speaker 1: I'd say Von Humboldt was very important for promoting a

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Speaker 1: kind of a total view of science that kind of

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Speaker 1: the connected all of the natural world together into a

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Speaker 1: vast system of interlocking causes and effects, and viewed nature

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Speaker 1: not just as discreet entities of here's this animal and

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Speaker 1: here's this plant, but as an ecology as a system

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Speaker 1: of interactions in which everything affected every other thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so he comes along and you know, he's evidently

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Speaker 1: he's read about this and he's familiar with the concept.

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Speaker 1: But then he's he says, well, I've okay, I spoke

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Speaker 1: with Chimney Sweeps, I spoke with Miners, I've spoke with

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Speaker 1: other people who had ventured down into into conditions just

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Speaker 1: like this. And apparently he sought those conditions out himself,

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Speaker 1: and he did not experience this. He was not able

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Speaker 1: to see the stars. No, when he spoke to had

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Speaker 1: direct experience of having seen the stars this way. And

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Speaker 1: he's just one of There are a few other historical

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Speaker 1: critics of the notion as well that Psiali mentions. But

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Speaker 1: but I think Alexander van Homboldt probably though this is

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Speaker 1: one of the more robust ones coming along where he's

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Speaker 1: just saying, yeah, nobody I spoke to has actually experienced this,

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Speaker 1: and and ultimately Psyali even though he's like, again he's thinking,

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Speaker 1: there's you know, people have been doing this and circulating

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Speaker 1: this idea. There's is there absolutely nothing to it? He

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Speaker 1: does stress that quote, although such wells were connected with observatories,

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Speaker 1: there is no evidence that such observatories were systematically made

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Speaker 1: and utilized by astronomer, So the whole practice could have

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Speaker 1: been largely theoretical, even a you know, an ultimate basis

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Speaker 1: for it could ultimately be more imagination than anything. But

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Speaker 1: he thinks that the whole enterprise might have been connected

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Speaker 1: more to focusing on particular areas of the sky. So again,

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Speaker 1: come think, think about like what this would mean to

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Speaker 1: stand at the bottom of a well and look up

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Speaker 1: through the circular aperture of the well and behold the sky,

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Speaker 1: behold the sky at night to see the stars. You

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Speaker 1: would it would in a sense, you know, it would

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Speaker 1: limit what you could see. It would take that just

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Speaker 1: overwhelming starscape and limit it to just a single circle

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Speaker 1: of observation. Yeah, maybe if you were trying to focus

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Speaker 1: on particular stars as they passed through during a night

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Speaker 1: or something. I don't know. And then likewise, I guess

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Speaker 1: if you had a similar setup and you were looking

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Speaker 1: at stars were flected in the water, you could and

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Speaker 1: it was very still water and the reflection was just right,

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Speaker 1: you could have something similar going on. But in terms

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Speaker 1: of yeah, basically, anybody who comes up against this idea

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Speaker 1: of it being somehow a way to see the stars

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Speaker 1: during the daylight. Every nobody agrees that this is possible.

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Speaker 1: For instance, this is This is brought up in the

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Speaker 1: book Bad Astronomy by phil Plate, for example, and he

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Speaker 1: also points out that Charles Dickens wrote of it as well,

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Speaker 1: and he says that he's never heard a decent explanation

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Speaker 1: as to why this would work well. One nice takedown

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Speaker 1: of the whole idea came from the Reverend William Frederick

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Speaker 1: Archdall Ellison in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixteen, writing quote, A very little scientific reason,

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Speaker 1: even without experiment, will be sufficient to dispose of it.

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Speaker 1: For what is it which hides the star in the daytime?

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Speaker 1: It is merely the glare of our atmosphere, illuminated by

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Speaker 1: the Sun's rays. As the atmosphere extends to a height

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Speaker 1: of fifty miles or more above the Earth's surface, a

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Speaker 1: shaft or chimney one hundred to two hundred feet high

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Speaker 1: could do but little to take away that glare. And

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Speaker 1: anyone who has ever actually looked up from the bottom

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Speaker 1: of such a shaft, as I have from the bottom

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Speaker 1: of a colliery. This is a British term by the

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Speaker 1: way a coal mine and the buildings and equipment associated

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Speaker 1: with it nine hundred feet below the surface must have

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Speaker 1: been struck not by the darkness of the little disc

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Speaker 1: of sky visible, but by its dazzling brilliance. And this

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Speaker 1: is something that people come back to. It's like, if

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Speaker 1: you actually seek out this experience of gazing up through

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Speaker 1: a shaft at the sky, at the daytime sky, it's

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Speaker 1: the sky's not going to be dark, it's going to

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Speaker 1: be super bright. It's going to be overwhelmingly bright. Now

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Speaker 1: I totally agree with that. That seems right to me.

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Speaker 1: I do have a counterposing idea. I wonder if you

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Speaker 1: were able to build a tower like some of these

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Speaker 1: supposed observation towers that extended up beyond the top of

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere, then that might actually work. Ooh, I did

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Speaker 1: not see anyone discussing this idea, This idea that through

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Speaker 1: some sort of futuristic megaproject we might be able to

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Speaker 1: make the daytime a well observatory possible. Yeah, like you

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Speaker 1: build a space elevator and it's just it's a tube

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Speaker 1: going up beyond the atmosphere. Even then, I'm not positive

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Speaker 1: that would work. I think it probably would. I guess

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Speaker 1: it might depend on where the sun is at the

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Speaker 1: moment relative to like is any of the sunlight shooting

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Speaker 1: down in there. So many commentators also speak to this

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Speaker 1: whole notion being predicated on a misunderstanding of what a

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Speaker 1: telescope does, certainly in the later cases and later circulation

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Speaker 1: of the idea, and that you know, ultimately it's focusing

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Speaker 1: more on the tube rather than the lenses, which are

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Speaker 1: vital to the workings of a telescope, right, not understanding

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Speaker 1: that the purpose of the telescope is to gather light

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Speaker 1: from a from a wider surface and then project that

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Speaker 1: down into your eye to increase the resolution. One such

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Speaker 1: commentator was Patricia O'Grady, who wrote on the subject in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and two in a paper title day Leaves

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Speaker 1: of my Leidas The Beginnings of Western philosophy and Science.

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Speaker 1: She contends that such wells were used at night as

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Speaker 1: a means of isolating portions of the night sky for

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Speaker 1: consideration and study. Quote, descending into a well and peering

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Speaker 1: up the extent of the well would isolate areas to

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Speaker 1: be observed, and the rim of the well being similar

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Speaker 1: to that to the tube about which Aristotle wrote, would

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Speaker 1: be a sort of quote unquote telescope but lacking magnification.

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Speaker 1: M Yeah, okay, yeah, so you know it's there was

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Speaker 1: so much more too than I expected. But it seems

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Speaker 1: like we can think of observation wells as being a

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Speaker 1: mix of secondhand accounts signal boosted by important writers and

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Speaker 1: thinkers during their times, backed up by hypothetical models, as

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Speaker 1: well as the seeming at least limited use of such

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Speaker 1: wells as a means of isolating portions of the night

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Speaker 1: sky for study at night. Yeah, that all seems reasonable

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Speaker 1: to me. I'm still hung up on the idea that

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Speaker 1: there could also be some kind of garbling of a

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Speaker 1: report of an optical effect that somebody got from looking

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Speaker 1: down at the sunlight reflected in water in a dark well,

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Speaker 1: and that maybe ripples in the water or something. I've

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Speaker 1: never tried it, so I don't know what that would

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Speaker 1: be like, but I could imagine that could look like

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Speaker 1: many points of light instead of one. Yeah. That's a

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Speaker 1: good point, now, Rob. It's funny you mentioned this book

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Speaker 1: by Patricio Grady about Theles of Melitas, because the other

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Speaker 1: half of this coin the idea of a stargazer in

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Speaker 1: a well connects very directly to a famous anecdote about

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Speaker 1: this philosopher. So Thals of Melitas was a pre Socratic

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Speaker 1: Greek philosopher who lived from the late seventh century to

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Speaker 1: the mid sixth century BC. He was one of the

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Speaker 1: famous Seven Sages of Greece, and as he was revered

430
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:31,040
Speaker 1: by other ancient philosophers and writers as in many ways

431
00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:34,400
Speaker 1: kind of the primary patriarch of wisdom. He was thought

432
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 1: to be in a sense the first philosopher, and in

433
00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 1: more recent centuries he's been seen by some as quote

434
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: the father of science, though I think both of those

435
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:47,199
Speaker 1: designations are a good bit overstated. Though Thyles was a

436
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:50,160
Speaker 1: very interesting figure. Going to the idea of him being

437
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:52,640
Speaker 1: the quote father of science, I would say in an

438
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:57,920
Speaker 1: informal way, there were empirical observations and experiments and deterministic

439
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:01,200
Speaker 1: theories of nature. Of course, all go on before Thales,

440
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 1: no doubt, but he was famous in ancient Greece for

441
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 1: appealing to natural material causes rather than ad hoc mythological

442
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 1: explanations when trying to understand nature and the world. So,

443
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 1: like many ancient Greek philosophers, from Pythagoras to Socrates, we

444
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:24,120
Speaker 1: actually have no surviving copies of any text by Thles himself,

445
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 1: so if he wrote anything down himself, we no longer

446
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 1: have it. The only sources we have for his life

447
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 1: and his work are what other people wrote about him,

448
00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 1: which of course makes it complicated to know with much

449
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:39,239
Speaker 1: certainty what he actually said and believed. So everything that

450
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 1: follows that we're going to say about Thales comes with

451
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:45,480
Speaker 1: the major caveat that it is based on secondary sources,

452
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: often writing much later than Thaile's own lifetime, because it's

453
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: all we have. Thales was known for wisdom in not

454
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:56,680
Speaker 1: just what we would later call science, but in many domains,

455
00:26:56,760 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 1: including in mathematics. He was famous for bringing Egyptian geometry

456
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:06,439
Speaker 1: to Greek thought, and for philosophy and politics. He was

457
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 1: given credit for the maxim know Thyself, which I have

458
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 1: to say I find one of the most powerful aphorisms

459
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 1: of all time. You know, know thyself is two words long,

460
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:20,160
Speaker 1: and it really hits you. It's like a wrecking ball,

461
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: like it manages to be simultaneously empowering and humbling. And

462
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 1: there's a whole rich tradition of other philosophers simply trying

463
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:32,439
Speaker 1: to explain what they think is meant exactly by the

464
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 1: statement know thyself. Is it an admonition to know your

465
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 1: place and be humble in the face of the gods?

466
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 1: Is it a warning to know your own limitations? Is

467
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:49,120
Speaker 1: it an exhortation to deeper philosophical understanding, to understand what

468
00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:52,360
Speaker 1: you are in a way? Maybe it's all of these things. Yeah,

469
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 1: that's it's a great naval gazer. That one. More, the

470
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:59,680
Speaker 1: more you think about it, the slippery it becomes. Now,

471
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 1: at this time, there was not much of a division

472
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:05,639
Speaker 1: between what we would today call science and what the

473
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: ancient Greeks would call philosophy. It was it was sort

474
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: of all the same thing. It was the pursuit of knowledge.

475
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 1: But I guess the more scientific version of ancient Greek

476
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:19,919
Speaker 1: philosophy would be the kind that focused on explanations of

477
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: the natural world and appealing to natural causes. A lot

478
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: of the science that Thilees believed in has not exactly

479
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:31,680
Speaker 1: held up to later scrutiny. For just one example, he

480
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:35,439
Speaker 1: was known for arguing that earthquakes were caused by the

481
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 1: fact that the continents, the land on which we walk,

482
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: is actually part of a great a great disc that

483
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: floats on water and sometimes the continents or the discs

484
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 1: on which the continent's rest are rocked by waves in

485
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 1: the underlying cosmic ocean. For ancient accounts of this belief

486
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: of Thiles, I want to go back to actually a.

487
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: Patricio Grady, the source you mentioned earlier. In her book

488
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:02,440
Speaker 1: on Thles, she, for example, quote Seneca, who says the

489
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 1: cause of earthquakes is said to be in water by

490
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 1: more than one authority, but not in the same way

491
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,720
Speaker 1: Thales of Melitas judges that the whole earth is buoyed

492
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 1: up and floats upon liquid that lies underneath the disc

493
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 1: is supported by this water, he says, just as some

494
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 1: big heavy ship is supported by the water which it

495
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 1: presses down upon. And elsewhere. Seneca actually mocks Thales for

496
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 1: his beliefs. He says the following theory by Thales is silly,

497
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 1: for he says that this round of lands is sustained

498
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:37,160
Speaker 1: by water and is carried along like a boat. And

499
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 1: on the occasions when the earth is said to quake,

500
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 1: it is fluctuating because of the movement of the water.

501
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 1: It is no wonder therefore, that there is abundant water

502
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: for making the rivers flow, since the entire round is

503
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 1: in water. Reject this antiquated, unscholarly theory. There is also

504
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:56,040
Speaker 1: no reason that you should believe water enters this globe

505
00:29:56,080 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 1: through cracks and forms. Bilge Okay, I will not believe

506
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: in the billage then again convinced me. But also to

507
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 1: continue with the ocean theme, Thaley's quite remarkably believed that

508
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 1: the entire basis of matter was water. And it can

509
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 1: be difficult to parse exactly what he means by this,

510
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:22,240
Speaker 1: but I think it's commonly interpreted to mean that all

511
00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 1: matter is in some way a form of water. So

512
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: much like liquid water can turn into vapor, or it

513
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: can freeze into a solid ice cube, then it can

514
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: take on other forms as well, and in fact it

515
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 1: does take on all the forms we see in the world.

516
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: Every piece of matter is some type of water or

517
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: is in some way derived from water. And of course

518
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: this is wrong, but it does wander kind of close

519
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 1: to a profound truth that would be discovered much later,

520
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 1: which is that as fundamentally different as all the substances

521
00:30:56,200 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: of the world, blood magma would air. As different as

522
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 1: all these things might seem, they're actually made of exactly

523
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 1: the same fundamental building blocks. Not water, but the subatomic

524
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 1: particles protons, neutrons, electrons in different quantities and arrangements. So

525
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 1: he was wrong about the water part but I do

526
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:18,840
Speaker 1: think it's still a rather profound hypothesis that at bottom,

527
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:21,960
Speaker 1: all matter is made of the same stuff. Now, coming

528
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 1: back to the designation that some authors have used for Thales,

529
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 1: as quote the Father of Science, I think one of

530
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 1: the big stories leading to that designation, Like I know this,

531
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 1: there was a piece at some point that Isaac Asimov

532
00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: wrote about this. The connecting point here is that there

533
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 1: are reports from the ancient world that Thailes did occasionally

534
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 1: make testable predictions that proved correct, such as in Matters

535
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 1: of Astronomy, where the historian Herodotus claims that Thales correctly

536
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 1: predicted a solar eclipse in advance with profound geopolitical implications

537
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 1: for an ongoing war with between the Meads and the Lydians.

538
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 1: So to fill out this story a bit, I'm going

539
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:09,840
Speaker 1: to describe and quote from Herodotus the translation by A. D. Godly,

540
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: So a bit of background. Herodotus tells us that at

541
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:18,719
Speaker 1: some point in history, a tribe of nomadic Scythians escaped

542
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 1: some trouble in their own lands, and they escaped into

543
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 1: the territory of the Medians or the Meads, who were

544
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: ruled by a king named Siaxaris. The Scythians asked for mercy,

545
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 1: and Ssiaxaris granted it, and even gave over some Median

546
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 1: young men to the Scythians to sort of like live

547
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: with them and learn their language and to learn archery

548
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 1: from them. But there came a day when the Scythians

549
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 1: returned from a hunt with nothing to offer their new king,

550
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 1: and Siasaries being short tempered, he took their lack of

551
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:57,240
Speaker 1: game as an insult, and he gave him a really

552
00:32:57,280 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: bad chewing out. I think the direct quote is he

553
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 1: treated them contemptuously. So in revenge for being dressed down,

554
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: some of the Scythians took the young Meads their pupils

555
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 1: and killed them and dressed their bodies and presented them

556
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 1: to the king as if they were animals killed in

557
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: a hunt. Then they immediately fled the domain of the

558
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 1: Meads and went to the domain of a king named

559
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: al Yadis of Sardists. All right, this is already spiraling

560
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 1: out of control. This is a bad situation, right, So

561
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 1: Sayaxares was tricked, and indeed he did eat the flesh

562
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 1: of his young countrymen, thinking it was wild game. And

563
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 1: after he found out, he wasn't very happy about it,

564
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: and he went to al Yadis and said, Hey, these

565
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:44,560
Speaker 1: guys made me do cannibalism. You need to give them

566
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 1: over to me. So now I'm just going to quote

567
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 1: from the Herodotus translation. After this, since al Yadis would

568
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 1: not give up the Scythians to Siasaries at his demand,

569
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:56,959
Speaker 1: there was a war between the Lydians and the Meads

570
00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 1: for five years, each won mini victory over the other,

571
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 1: and once they fought a battle by night. They were

572
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: still warring with equal success when it happened at an

573
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:10,360
Speaker 1: encounter which occurred in the sixth year, that during the

574
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 1: battle the day was suddenly turned to night. Thals of

575
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 1: Melitas had foretold this loss of daylight to the Ionians,

576
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 1: fixing it within a year, at which the change did

577
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:26,120
Speaker 1: indeed happen. So when the Lydians and Meads saw the

578
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 1: day turn tonight, they stopped fighting, and both were the

579
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:33,719
Speaker 1: more eager to make peace, And apparently they did make

580
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:37,520
Speaker 1: peace by securing a marriage between between the children of

581
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 1: the two kings. Happy ending there you go, though, I

582
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:42,319
Speaker 1: have to imagine there was a good bit of like, hey,

583
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 1: remember when your dad did cannibalism, and then my dad

584
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 1: helped the people who made him do it. There's probably

585
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 1: still some bad blood. But you know, you get a

586
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:52,800
Speaker 1: nice wedding ceremony in there. You know, it's well catered.

587
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:57,880
Speaker 1: It's gonna it's gonna could calm a lot of the waters. Yeah.

588
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 1: So anyway, the story again is that Thales predicted this

589
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 1: solar eclipse that interrupted the middle of a battle. He

590
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 1: predicted it in advance. Later scientists have worked out that

591
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 1: this must be a reference to the solar eclipse of

592
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:15,719
Speaker 1: May twenty eight, five eighty five BC, because that's the

593
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 1: only one within the right time frame that would have

594
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:20,839
Speaker 1: been visible at the place in question, and that does

595
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 1: all work out. But if it's true that Thales predicted

596
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,840
Speaker 1: the eclipse in advance, this is an absolutely extraordinary claim,

597
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,760
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of modern scholars have doubts

598
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:35,319
Speaker 1: about this story. So we know lunar eclipses where the

599
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:38,840
Speaker 1: shadow of the Earth passes over the face of the moon,

600
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 1: these have been predicted going way way back, long before Thayles.

601
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 1: The court Astronomers of ancient China and ancient Babylon were

602
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:50,600
Speaker 1: able to figure out these patterns and draw up tables,

603
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:55,359
Speaker 1: allowing them to predict lunar eclipses, but solar eclipses, where

604
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,919
Speaker 1: the Moon passes directly between the Earth and the Sun,

605
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:03,760
Speaker 1: blocking out the sunlight, these are much much harder to predict,

606
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 1: especially because they are localized to specific vantage points on

607
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:10,919
Speaker 1: Earth's surface. I mean, there are solar eclipses all the time,

608
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 1: but living wherever you do, you don't see most of them.

609
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:16,919
Speaker 1: They're they're on some other part of the globe. Yeah,

610
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 1: Like if you've scout tried to scout one out for yourself,

611
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: you may have encountered this situation where you know, someone's like, hey,

612
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:25,720
Speaker 1: there's a solar eclipse coming up, and you're like, great,

613
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:28,680
Speaker 1: when can we see it? And it's like, well, on

614
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:31,960
Speaker 1: this date, if we're in Arkansas or parts of Texas, right,

615
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:35,320
Speaker 1: there's the solar eclipse coming, we have to travel to

616
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:39,840
Speaker 1: Baffin Island. Yeah, that sort of thing. But that being said,

617
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:42,320
Speaker 1: I mean, if you have the ability to go witness

618
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:46,800
Speaker 1: solar eclipse under safe circumstances, that absolutely do so, because

619
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 1: it's it's wonderful. Oh absolutely, yes, it is worth it

620
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 1: is one of the most magical experiences of my life. Now,

621
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:56,720
Speaker 1: the first solar eclipse is that we know for sure

622
00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:00,399
Speaker 1: we're predicted in advance, came after we had much better

623
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 1: astrophysical theories in hand. This would be in the early

624
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 1: eighteenth century. The first case where we know for sure

625
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:10,360
Speaker 1: that someone accurately predicted to solar eclipse was on May third,

626
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:15,760
Speaker 1: seventeen fifteen, when English astronomer Edmund Halley of Halley's Comet fame,

627
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 1: built upon the scientific revolution unlocked by Isaac Newton's theory

628
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 1: of universal gravitation. Halle was a friend of Newton's and

629
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 1: he used Newton's new theories to accurately pinpoint and eclipse

630
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:31,680
Speaker 1: that would be visible in London. And I think he

631
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 1: got it right within a margin of about four minutes.

632
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:39,520
Speaker 1: But Hallie's prediction and all subsequent solar eclipse predictions, they

633
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:42,879
Speaker 1: require a lot of information that was, as far as

634
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: we know, not available in ancient Greece. And unfortunately no

635
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 1: writings of Thailees exist today. As I said, and Herodotus

636
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:53,160
Speaker 1: does not bother to mention the method by which Thaylees

637
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:56,560
Speaker 1: made this prediction. I don't think other authors who mentioned

638
00:37:56,880 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: this story share any further insights either, and so we

639
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: and we also don't know what the level of precision

640
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:07,319
Speaker 1: of this prediction would have been, though the herodotus does

641
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 1: say that it took place that year, which makes me

642
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 1: wonder if it's possible Thailies just said there will be

643
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 1: a solar eclipse sometime this year and got extremely lucky.

644
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 1: But ultimately we don't know. We don't know what was

645
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 1: going on here if he actually did make the prediction

646
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,640
Speaker 1: and it was correct. Did he just have an amazing

647
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:27,759
Speaker 1: stroke of luck, or did he have some kind of

648
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:33,799
Speaker 1: incredibly advanced type of knowledge about astrophysics that nobody else

649
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:35,920
Speaker 1: at the time had and he left no record of it.

650
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:38,800
Speaker 1: And as with the observation, wells, we're dealing with you

651
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:43,319
Speaker 1: secondhand accounts in vague references here, right, So also we

652
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 1: don't even know for sure it's true that he made

653
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:48,720
Speaker 1: this prediction, though it seems to be a widely attested story,

654
00:38:49,239 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 1: and we do know the eclipse did happen. Now, I

655
00:38:58,120 --> 00:39:02,320
Speaker 1: was reading about a few other scientific contributions of Thales.

656
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: One source I was looking at was by W. KC.

657
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: Guthrie called a History of Greek Philosophy volume one, the

658
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:14,240
Speaker 1: earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans. This was Cambridge University Press,

659
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, and Guthrie collects a lot of observations.

660
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 1: He writes that Thales made gave guidance about the relative

661
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 1: usefulness of different constellations for c navigation, pointing out that

662
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:34,200
Speaker 1: the minor bear the little bear constellation was better than

663
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:37,160
Speaker 1: the Great bear for finding the poll and this story

664
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: was related by Callimachus. Apparently, the use of the minor

665
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 1: bear was already in practice by the Phoenicians, and Thales

666
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 1: showed why it was better than the Greek standard of

667
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:50,160
Speaker 1: versa major. He apparently also is said to have used

668
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 1: geometry to measure the dimensions of the pyramids, and to

669
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 1: show how you could calculate how far away a ship

670
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:02,759
Speaker 1: at c was. And in summary, writing about the Thile's

671
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:07,520
Speaker 1: reputation in ancient Greece, Guthrie says, quote, once he had

672
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 1: achieved in the popular mind the status of the ideal

673
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:13,840
Speaker 1: man of science, there is no doubt that the stories

674
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:17,440
Speaker 1: about him were invented or selected according to the picture

675
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 1: of the philosophic temperament, which a particular writer wished to

676
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 1: convey and so Guthrie goes on to describe an example

677
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:29,879
Speaker 1: of what he calls this quote mutually canceling propaganda, which

678
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,840
Speaker 1: is the contrast between the story of the olive presses

679
00:40:34,200 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 1: and the story of the fall into a well or

680
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 1: into a pit. And these are given respectively by Aristotle

681
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:42,319
Speaker 1: and Plato. I'm going to start with the story of

682
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: the olive presses, which we have from Aristotle, so this

683
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 1: is an Aristotle's politics translation by Benjamin Jowitt. I'm just

684
00:40:50,320 --> 00:40:54,440
Speaker 1: going to read directly. Aristotle says, there is the anecdote

685
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:58,920
Speaker 1: of Thales, the Miletian and his financial device, which involves

686
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:02,719
Speaker 1: a principle of universal application, but is attributed to him

687
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:06,520
Speaker 1: on account of his reputation for wisdom. He was reproached

688
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:10,399
Speaker 1: for his poverty, which was supposed to show that philosophy

689
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 1: was of no use. According to this story, he knew

690
00:41:14,160 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 1: by his skill in the stars, while it was yet winter,

691
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: that there would be a great harvest of olives in

692
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 1: the coming year. So having little money, he gave deposits

693
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 1: for the use of all the olive presses in chias

694
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:30,320
Speaker 1: and militas, which he hired at a low price. Because

695
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:33,440
Speaker 1: no one bid against him when the harvest time came

696
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 1: and many were wanted all at once, and of a

697
00:41:36,719 --> 00:41:39,720
Speaker 1: sudden he let them out at any rate which he pleased,

698
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 1: and made a quantity of money. Thus he showed the

699
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 1: world that philosophers can easily be rich if they like,

700
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 1: but that their ambition is of another sort. And you

701
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:54,200
Speaker 1: notice at the beginning that Aristotle said this financial device,

702
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:58,560
Speaker 1: he says, involves a principle of universal application. So Aristotle

703
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 1: is actually saying, you know, the thing that they lees

704
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 1: is doing this story is a well known move. It's

705
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 1: called monopoly. The exploitation of a monopoly is a standard,

706
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:12,840
Speaker 1: well known commercial and political practice, and he gives examples

707
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:15,719
Speaker 1: having to do with like cornering the iron supply in

708
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 1: a local area or something. Of course, the principle is,

709
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:21,840
Speaker 1: if you're the only person selling something and it's in demand,

710
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 1: then you can set whatever price you want. So you know,

711
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 1: when a smart person figures out how to create a monopoly,

712
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:31,520
Speaker 1: how to be the only person offering a good or

713
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 1: service that is needed, they will use this to their advantage.

714
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 1: I guess, with the caveat of unless they're a philosopher

715
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:41,480
Speaker 1: who is above worldly concerns, it will only gouge to

716
00:42:41,560 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 1: make a point. Yeah. I love this. It's like there's like, hey, hey, Thailees,

717
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:50,360
Speaker 1: if you're so smart, why aren't you rich? And he's like, oh, yeah,

718
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 1: well I could do that if I wanted to hear,

719
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:54,959
Speaker 1: he proves himself and then it goes back to whatever

720
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 1: he was doing beforehand, right, Yeah, So it portrays that

721
00:42:57,680 --> 00:43:02,320
Speaker 1: the Lees as worldly, full of potential for practical cunning,

722
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:06,319
Speaker 1: but simply lacking interest in financial gain unless it's to

723
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 1: own the haters. All right. So that's one vision, one

724
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:16,640
Speaker 1: invoked vision of Thales. What's another one. Well, here's where

725
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:18,920
Speaker 1: we come back to the idea of the stargazer in

726
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:23,000
Speaker 1: the well. So Plato tells this totally different story of Thales.

727
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:27,759
Speaker 1: This takes place in Plato's Theatitis dialogue. And if you've

728
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:31,280
Speaker 1: ever taken a logic or a philosophy course that tried

729
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 1: to define the word knowledge, you might have encountered the Theatitas,

730
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 1: because I believe this is the one where Socrates builds

731
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 1: up to a definition of knowledge as something like true belief,

732
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:47,839
Speaker 1: with an account sometimes paraphrased as justified true belief. So

733
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:52,360
Speaker 1: under this definition, to know something, to actually have knowledge,

734
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 1: it means you have one a belief to which is true,

735
00:43:56,239 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 1: because if you believe something but it's false, that's not knowledge.

736
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 1: And three, it is something of which you are aware

737
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:07,000
Speaker 1: of a warrant for believing. So if you believe something

738
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 1: and it turns out to be true, but you had

739
00:44:09,160 --> 00:44:12,400
Speaker 1: no good reason for believing it, that's still not knowledge.

740
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:14,520
Speaker 1: Like if if I believe I'm going to win the

741
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:16,759
Speaker 1: lottery this year, and then I happened to win the

742
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:19,400
Speaker 1: lottery this year, that was not knowledge. I had no

743
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 1: good reason to believe that. I just got lucky. But anyway,

744
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:25,840
Speaker 1: the story of the stargazer in the well is actually

745
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 1: a digression within this dialogue. So I'm quoting from the

746
00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 1: Fowler translation of Plato here. So this is Socrates speaking,

747
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:38,840
Speaker 1: and Socrates says, take the case of Thles, he speaking

748
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 1: to somebody named Theodorus. Take the case of Thales. Theodorus,

749
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:45,279
Speaker 1: while he was studying the stars and looking upwards, he

750
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:48,920
Speaker 1: fell into a pit sometimes translated as a well, and

751
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:53,439
Speaker 1: a neat witty Thracian servant girl jeered at him, They say,

752
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 1: because he was so eager to know the things in

753
00:44:56,160 --> 00:44:58,759
Speaker 1: the sky that he could not see what was there

754
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:02,240
Speaker 1: before him. It is very feet. The same jest applies

755
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 1: to all who pass their lives in philosophy, and you

756
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:09,319
Speaker 1: can't actually find these charges in their original form in

757
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:13,960
Speaker 1: stuff like rob did you ever read the Clouds by Aristophanes?

758
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: The play Mocking Socrates? No, I don't think I did.

759
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:20,400
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, so it's a whole play is just vicious,

760
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 1: brutal mockery of Socrates in the school of philosophers of Athens,

761
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:30,239
Speaker 1: showing them to be absolute buffoons who are wasting their

762
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:34,480
Speaker 1: lives just making up garbage about trivial and unimportant topics.

763
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 1: And so in a way, I wonder if you know

764
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:40,319
Speaker 1: this is kind of responding to that sort of criticism,

765
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:43,799
Speaker 1: because yeah, it's the same kind of thing. It's like, oh,

766
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 1: you know, you think you're so smart, but you actually

767
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:48,279
Speaker 1: just fall into pits all the time, or you trip

768
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:50,399
Speaker 1: and fall into well because you're trying to figure out

769
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,560
Speaker 1: ursa major and ursa minor. Yeah, nothing you do is

770
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:58,400
Speaker 1: practical and you're in the bottom of well, how'd you

771
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 1: get their, old man, you must have tripped. It's also

772
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 1: the classic oh philosophy major, how what are you going

773
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 1: to do with that? And then so Socrates goes on

774
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,720
Speaker 1: to explain his view. I've made some abridgments to this section,

775
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 1: but I just want to read part of what he says.

776
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 1: Socrates says, hence it is my friends, such a man,

777
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:19,400
Speaker 1: both in private when he meets with individuals, and in public,

778
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:21,840
Speaker 1: as I said in the beginning, when he is obliged

779
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:24,600
Speaker 1: to speak in court or elsewhere about the things at

780
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:27,640
Speaker 1: his feet and before his eyes, is a laughing stock,

781
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:31,560
Speaker 1: not only to Thracian girls, but to the multitude in general.

782
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:35,000
Speaker 1: For he falls into pits and all sorts of perplexities

783
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:39,320
Speaker 1: through inexperience, and his awkwardness is terrible, making him seem

784
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:42,440
Speaker 1: a fool. For when it comes to abusing people, he

785
00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:45,880
Speaker 1: has no personal abuse to offer against anyone, because he

786
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:49,000
Speaker 1: knows no evil of any man, never having cared for

787
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:53,040
Speaker 1: such things. So his perplexity makes him appear ridiculous. And

788
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:56,719
Speaker 1: as to laudatory speeches and the boastings of others, it

789
00:46:56,800 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 1: becomes manifest that he is laughing at them, not pretending

790
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 1: to laugh, but really laughing, and so he is thought

791
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:07,080
Speaker 1: to be a fool. When he hears a panegyric, meaning

792
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:09,880
Speaker 1: like a sort of a sermon praising the virtues of

793
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:12,920
Speaker 1: a public figure. When he hears a panegyric of a

794
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:15,799
Speaker 1: despot or a king, he fancies he is listening to

795
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:19,600
Speaker 1: the praises of some herdsman, a swineherd, a shepherd, or

796
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:22,839
Speaker 1: a neat herd, for instance, who gets much milk from

797
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 1: his beasts. But he thinks that the ruler tens and

798
00:47:25,800 --> 00:47:29,160
Speaker 1: milks a more perverse and treacherous creature than the herdsman,

799
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: and that he must grow coarse and uncivilize no less

800
00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:35,799
Speaker 1: than they, for he has no leisure and lives surrounded

801
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:38,800
Speaker 1: by a wall, as the herdsman live in their mountain pens.

802
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:42,120
Speaker 1: And when he hears that someone is amazingly rich because

803
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:45,439
Speaker 1: he owns ten thousand acres of land or more. To him,

804
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:48,240
Speaker 1: accustomed as he is to think of the whole earth,

805
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 1: this seems very little. And he goes on and on

806
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:54,640
Speaker 1: at length, talking about how, you know, the common man

807
00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 1: might think himself very important because he claims to trace

808
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:03,280
Speaker 1: his ancestry back to to Heracles and Amphytrion. And meanwhile

809
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:08,279
Speaker 1: the philosopher is like, but everybody has thousands of ancestors

810
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:11,040
Speaker 1: of all kinds, what does that matter? And he just

811
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 1: goes on and on, listing all these cases of the

812
00:48:13,560 --> 00:48:17,760
Speaker 1: concerns of regular people who are squabbling over like power

813
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 1: and money and prestige and hierarchy, and the philosopher who

814
00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 1: seems to them to be a fool because he cares

815
00:48:24,600 --> 00:48:27,759
Speaker 1: not for those things. Now, I think it's interesting to

816
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:32,120
Speaker 1: sort of compare and contrast Aristotle's vision of the of

817
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 1: Thales here versus Socrates' vision of Thales. Both essentially assume

818
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 1: that true philosophers, and I think the modern reader might

819
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:44,879
Speaker 1: might sort of read this in a more inclusive way,

820
00:48:44,920 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 1: just as the thoughtful person thoughtful people that they are

821
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 1: above petty worldly concerns. But the olive press story communicates

822
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 1: a kind of deliberate aloofness which can be subverted and

823
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:03,439
Speaker 1: cast side anytime when some wisecracker comes along and says,

824
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:05,759
Speaker 1: you know, like you said, Robert, hey, Thles, if you're

825
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 1: so smart, how come you're not as rich as me?

826
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 1: The point is here, Well, Thelees could be if he

827
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 1: wanted to, that's just not his concern. Meanwhile, in the

828
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:18,839
Speaker 1: story told in the Plato's Dialogue here Socrates makes it

829
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:22,279
Speaker 1: sound like falling into the ditch and being mocked by

830
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:26,600
Speaker 1: the Thracian girl. It does communicate the same kind of aloofness,

831
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:31,760
Speaker 1: but in a more helpless and involuntary mode, like well, okay, yeah,

832
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:33,880
Speaker 1: he might be so wrapped up in the stars that

833
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:36,040
Speaker 1: he falls into pits all the time and he's always

834
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:38,800
Speaker 1: ending up at the bottom of wells, But that's actually

835
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:41,920
Speaker 1: a sign of a virtuous mind, concerned with the stars

836
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:45,560
Speaker 1: and concerned with the nature of reality, rather than the

837
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 1: nasty pettiness that occupies your mind, all of the grubby

838
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 1: business and politics and social gossip and hierarchy that you're

839
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:58,120
Speaker 1: so obsessed with. Which is funny though, because it essentially

840
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:00,520
Speaker 1: comes down to these philosophers putting them selves at the

841
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:02,719
Speaker 1: top of a hierarchy and saying like, you know, my,

842
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:06,400
Speaker 1: my life of the mind is so much more virtuous

843
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 1: than your existence. Yeah, I mean a little bit of hypocrisy. Yeah, yeah.

844
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:16,360
Speaker 1: In both cases, the philosopher is disconnected from this world,

845
00:50:16,960 --> 00:50:20,359
Speaker 1: and you know it didn't It basically just comes down

846
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:22,400
Speaker 1: to the nuances of what you're saying about that, like

847
00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:25,759
Speaker 1: it's it's it's uh, they're disconnected from this world, yes,

848
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 1: but if they wanted to game this world like other people,

849
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:31,080
Speaker 1: they could easily or you know, even if they're falling

850
00:50:31,080 --> 00:50:34,920
Speaker 1: down wells. It's like, yeah, he's not concerned with wells

851
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:37,799
Speaker 1: and pits. Oh, you're so obsessed with the well thing.

852
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:42,439
Speaker 1: Come on. But it is interesting how this ties back

853
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 1: in because you know, they Lees is said to be

854
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:50,160
Speaker 1: an individual who is very interested in the stars. Here

855
00:50:50,200 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 1: he is falling into a well. And indeed some have

856
00:50:55,040 --> 00:50:58,520
Speaker 1: looked at this, in particular that paper I cited earlier,

857
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 1: and you also cited this off there. Patricia O'Grady um

858
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:06,719
Speaker 1: looks at this and says, yeah, this connection between an

859
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 1: individual who is who analyzes the stars and fall in

860
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:15,000
Speaker 1: a well that they fall into. Perhaps this is also

861
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:18,880
Speaker 1: connected to the idea of a well being an observatory

862
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:21,960
Speaker 1: and they LEAs may have. And again we're dealing with

863
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 1: second accounts and fictionalized and mythologicalized versions of reality. But

864
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:31,480
Speaker 1: on some level, maybe you have this individual falling into

865
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:35,160
Speaker 1: a well because that's the kind of place that that

866
00:51:35,239 --> 00:51:38,640
Speaker 1: astronomers and philosophers go to. They're climbing to the bottom

867
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:41,399
Speaker 1: of a well to look up at the stars and

868
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:43,360
Speaker 1: and I don't know, it kind of falls that that

869
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 1: that kind of just that basic vision uh kind of

870
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:50,840
Speaker 1: falls into these uh, these these views of philosophy that

871
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:53,719
Speaker 1: we've been discussing. Well, another theme that emerges for me

872
00:51:53,840 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 1: is just the the tenuous and artificial nature of the

873
00:51:57,000 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 1: distinctions between practical and impractical knowledge knowledge that knowledge which

874
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:07,000
Speaker 1: seems impractical today may in several hundred years becoming incredibly practical.

875
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:11,359
Speaker 1: The astronomy and the geometry of these ancient Greek philosophers

876
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:15,520
Speaker 1: might have seemed absolutely ridiculous and of no practical use

877
00:52:15,560 --> 00:52:18,880
Speaker 1: whatsoever to to somebody at the time, but then they

878
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:22,439
Speaker 1: would sort of be built upon in generations to form

879
00:52:22,520 --> 00:52:26,799
Speaker 1: the foundation of all existing technology, navigational techniques and you

880
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 1: know everything like that. M yeah, yeah, I'm also suddenly

881
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 1: struck by how how one could conceivably compare a stylight

882
00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:40,080
Speaker 1: a you know, an individual a hermit atop a pillar,

883
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:44,560
Speaker 1: to the idea of a of an astronomer crawling down

884
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:47,600
Speaker 1: to the bottom of a pit. You know, both are

885
00:52:47,680 --> 00:52:50,320
Speaker 1: kind of like they're removed from from the surface world,

886
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:53,000
Speaker 1: from the from the affairs of man, and in either

887
00:52:53,040 --> 00:52:56,720
Speaker 1: case it's about, you know, contemplating things beyond the realm

888
00:52:56,719 --> 00:52:59,839
Speaker 1: of man. This is funny. I've thought of potentially doing

889
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:03,759
Speaker 1: something about the stylite tradition on our on our show before.

890
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 1: I can't remember. Has it ever come up in an episode?

891
00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 1: It was like, it's a particular type of asceticism where

892
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 1: you would, you know, you would subject yourself to just

893
00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:15,480
Speaker 1: living at the top of a pillar. Yeah, yeah, I

894
00:53:15,520 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 1: feel like it's come up. I don't know if we did. Yeah,

895
00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:21,319
Speaker 1: I feel like it's come up at least once, But

896
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:24,319
Speaker 1: I don't remember the context. Maybe when we were talking

897
00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 1: about Diogenes and living among the dogs, Oh, Diogenes the

898
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:33,200
Speaker 1: cynic Yeah, living in a jar with some dogs eating

899
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:39,480
Speaker 1: fava beans or not fave Lupin's I think okay, I'd

900
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:43,040
Speaker 1: forgotten about the being consumption. Yes, yeah, okay, I've actually

901
00:53:43,040 --> 00:53:45,640
Speaker 1: got a call to listeners. I'm curious if, if you're

902
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:49,320
Speaker 1: somebody out there with a good basis in astronomy and physics,

903
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:54,000
Speaker 1: what do you think is the most plausible scenario by

904
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:57,600
Speaker 1: which Thales could have truly predicted the five eighty five

905
00:53:57,640 --> 00:54:00,200
Speaker 1: eclipse If the story is true, if you actually made

906
00:54:00,239 --> 00:54:02,840
Speaker 1: the prediction and it was not just a lucky guess

907
00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:06,240
Speaker 1: but actually justified true belief, that he had a warrant

908
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:09,799
Speaker 1: for believing that, what could it have been? Yeah? Right

909
00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 1: in let us know. Likewise, if you have any thoughts

910
00:54:12,160 --> 00:54:16,600
Speaker 1: about the concept of glimpsing the stars from the bottom

911
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:19,000
Speaker 1: of a well, the bottom of a pit. All right,

912
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:21,200
Speaker 1: we're gonna go and close out this episode, but yeah,

913
00:54:21,239 --> 00:54:23,719
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone. Core episodes of Stuff

914
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind published on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and

915
00:54:26,560 --> 00:54:29,200
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed listener mail

916
00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:32,200
Speaker 1: on Mondays, Artifact or Monster Fact on Wednesdays, and on Friday,

917
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:34,080
Speaker 1: we do Weird House Cinema. That's our time to set

918
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:36,800
Speaker 1: aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film.

919
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:40,000
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth

920
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch

921
00:54:42,680 --> 00:54:45,000
Speaker 1: with us for feedback on this episode or any other,

922
00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:46,960
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

923
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:49,680
Speaker 1: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff

924
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:59,440
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your

925
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:02,560
Speaker 1: Mind It's production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from My

926
00:55:02,640 --> 00:55:06,000
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

927
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:16,120
Speaker 1: you listening to your favorite shows