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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you 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 uh. This ties into various

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Speaker 1: ancient anecdotes and also archaeological sites. Uh, basically getting it

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Speaker 1: down to this idea that if you have a well,

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

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Speaker 1: that this could allow an individual to see starlight during

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Speaker 1: the day. How had you ever heard of this, Joe, No,

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Speaker 1: I don't think not before you brought this up. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is and and this is one that there was

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Speaker 1: more to it than the more I kept looking into it. Um,

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Speaker 1: But instantly it's kind of a captivating idea if you

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Speaker 1: know nothing about it, because there's something about the two

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Speaker 1: extremes in play here, the bottom of an earthly pit

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Speaker 1: and the light of distant stars. You know, it reminds

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Speaker 1: me of that that that far more recent quote by

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Speaker 1: author Oscar Wilde in his play A Lady Windermere's Fan,

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Speaker 1: which even if you're not familiar with that source, you

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Speaker 1: may have heard this, this particular quote quote, we are

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Speaker 1: all in the gutter, but some of us are looking

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Speaker 1: at the stars. Well that's a great sentiment, I guess

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Speaker 1: I take it to mean that maybe one's character is

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

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Speaker 1: but by where your thoughts are aimed. Yeah. Now, one

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Speaker 1: guess starting place for this is that a lot of

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Speaker 1: the especially more recent writings you see and illusions referring

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

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Speaker 1: well you had, you had Aristotle mentioning and passing, and

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Speaker 1: of course plenty of the elder mentions it. Um. So

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Speaker 1: let's start with the the Aristotle quote. He does mention

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Speaker 1: it kind of as an aside, and it is in

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Speaker 1: chapter five of the fourth century BC text Generation of Animals. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so this is going to be setting up the relationship

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Speaker 1: between looking out of a well or a tube and

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Speaker 1: seeing the stars in the daytime. Right, So this is

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Speaker 1: what Aristotle says. Quote. The cause of some animals being

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Speaker 1: keen sided and others not so is not simple but double.

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Speaker 1: For the word keene has pretty much a double sense.

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Speaker 1: And this is the case in like manner with hearing

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Speaker 1: and smelling. In one sense, keen site means the power

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Speaker 1: of seeing at a distance, and another it means the

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Speaker 1: power of distinguishing as accurately as possible the objects scene.

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Speaker 1: These two faculties are not necessarily combined in the same individual.

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

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Speaker 1: his hand or look through a tube, does not distinguish

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: and thinking about this, is that during the day we

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Speaker 1: cannot see the stars, uh not not, you know, not

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Speaker 1: with the naked eye. And I think i've read that

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

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Speaker 1: the brightest star in the night sky would have to

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Speaker 1: be something like five times as bright for the human

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Speaker 1: eye to see it during the day. So this is

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Speaker 1: one of those things that's right from the get go here.

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Speaker 1: It's not going to match up with any experience out there. Though,

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

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Speaker 1: pit and looking up and seeing the night sky. Uh,

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Speaker 1: during the daytime, certainly, right in and tell us more

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Speaker 1: about this. But um, but for the most part, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it goes against everything we expect to be true from

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Speaker 1: our modern perspective. And yet we see multiple references to

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Speaker 1: this being a reality. And granted a lot of these

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Speaker 1: are second hand, uh. In the nature of a lot

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Speaker 1: of these ancient texts, for instance, plenty of the elder,

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Speaker 1: who's kind of a champion of the second or third

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Speaker 1: hand account of the natural world, he chimes in on

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Speaker 1: this little bit in natural history quote, the son's radiance

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Speaker 1: makes the fixed stars invisible in daytime, although they are

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Speaker 1: shining as much as in the night, which becomes manifest

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Speaker 1: at a solar eclipse, and also when the star is

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Speaker 1: reflected in a very deep well. Oh well, he's doing

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Speaker 1: really good up until that very last part. Yeah, And

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

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Speaker 1: a lot of this, a lot of the times we're

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Speaker 1: talking not talking about like, you know, just pure folklore here,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about very learned individuals of their age, individuals

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Speaker 1: who who you know, often knew something or a lot

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Speaker 1: concerning as astronomy during their time, and they're chiming in

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Speaker 1: on this as if it is true or said to

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Speaker 1: be true. Well, I mean, he is absolutely correct that

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Speaker 1: the stars are still shining dear in the daytime, just

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: mean you might assume if you were just going by

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

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Speaker 1: day or something, or you know, that they somehow disappear. No,

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Speaker 1: that they're still there. They're always there. We just can't

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Speaker 1: see them because there's too much light from this other

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Speaker 1: light source. Yeah. So so almost everything, yeah about that

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Speaker 1: statement is corrected. But at the end, uh he loves now.

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Speaker 1: One of the sources I was looking at for this

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Speaker 1: is a nine three paper by Eiden uh Psi Ali,

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

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Speaker 1: Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilization. So Psi Ali major

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Speaker 1: Turkish science historian. So so important that he's actually on

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Speaker 1: a bank note. You can if you look him up

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Speaker 1: on like Wikipedia, you can see uh see his face

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Speaker 1: on currency. But but this is a very nice little

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Speaker 1: overview of this concept and touches on you know the

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Speaker 1: fact that it not only pops up in the history

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Speaker 1: of astronomy, but it also pops up in folklore and

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Speaker 1: literature of various different cultures. And the idea is basically

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Speaker 1: what we've been discussing, that one may stand at the

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Speaker 1: bottom of a well or you know, something similar, like

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Speaker 1: a great pit or some sort of natural formation of caves,

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Speaker 1: and if you look up you can glimpse the stars

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Speaker 1: during the day. And Psiali writes that sometimes this is

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Speaker 1: of just a vague tidbit without any specifics, like it's

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Speaker 1: just alluded to, Oh, one can do this, and this

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Speaker 1: has been done. But other times it's connected to specific

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Speaker 1: individuals and times. So the author mentions several more examples here,

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Speaker 1: and I'm gonna gonna touch on them here. So first

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Speaker 1: of all, it points out that Greek astronomer Cleomides says

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Speaker 1: that the sun appears larger when seen from the bottom

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Speaker 1: of a deep cistern because of the darkness and the

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Speaker 1: moisture of the air, though it does not make mention

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Speaker 1: of actual what we'll discuss in a bit, actual observed

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Speaker 1: nation wells, some sort of a well or deep shaft

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Speaker 1: in the earth that is used that is either built

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Speaker 1: or repurposed or used for um looking at the stars.

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Speaker 1: Another individual he points to is the the writings of

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Speaker 1: Islamic philosopher Abu Barrakat al Baghdatti, who lived ten eighty

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Speaker 1: through eleven sixty four or eleven sixty five CE. And

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

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Speaker 1: why the stars are visible at night and hidden in daytime,

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Speaker 1: And in this he contends that it comes down to

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Speaker 1: illumination of part of the atmosphere immediately above the observer. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And he does not mention observation wells specifically either, And

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

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

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Speaker 1: the daylight reflect radiance to obscure the stars. So um, again,

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Speaker 1: there's another example. Da Vinci is not talking about observation wells.

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Speaker 1: But Psiali contend 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 again this is it's this is not true, This

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Speaker 1: is not this is not seemed to be exactly what

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Speaker 1: happens when one is standing in a pit, looking up,

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Speaker 1: standing in a well, etcetera. So we can't well, you know,

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

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

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Speaker 1: be what the basic argument seems to be. Like, if

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

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Speaker 1: day for your local self and then look up at

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Speaker 1: the sky, maybe then you would see the stars. Except

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Speaker 1: that doesn't actually happen right, But again important knowledgeable individuals

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Speaker 1: were writing about this and repeating its signal boosting and

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Speaker 1: if you will you have you know ultimately had the

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Speaker 1: likes of say Roger Bacon, mentioning it seemed to be

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

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Speaker 1: reference it and um and that some of these points

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Speaker 1: is the specific observation wells not just in the generality

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Speaker 1: of this being a thing. So a few examples of this.

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Speaker 1: Um Maraga Observatory founded in twelve fifty seven was said

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Speaker 1: to be in observation well, but I thinks this may

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Speaker 1: be a mistake in reference, uh, not to the observatory,

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Speaker 1: but two caves beneath the observatory that quote do not

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Speaker 1: so far as is known, form any vertical well. Another

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Speaker 1: one he mentions is the Jaja bay um Marassa of Kishier, Anatolia,

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Speaker 1: founded in twelve seventy two. This was used in as

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Speaker 1: an observatory and was said to have an observation well

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Speaker 1: formed via a circular hole cut in the roof of

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Speaker 1: the dome of the Madrassa building, and that this was

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Speaker 1: for daytime star observation. Now on discount Psiali writes that

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Speaker 1: there is evidence of their having been a well here.

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Speaker 1: But but first of all, it was probably not dry. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And this could mean that if it was used for

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Speaker 1: as an astronomical aid, it was so that one could

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Speaker 1: look at the reflection of the sky in the water.

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Speaker 1: And there are references apparently to this practice. Oh okay,

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Speaker 1: so this connects to I think the way that play

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Speaker 1: Knee in particular phrased it as opposed to Aristotle, because

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

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Speaker 1: a very deep well. And so I'd wonder there that

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Speaker 1: there might be different optical effects at play if you're

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Speaker 1: not standing in the bottom of a well looking up

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

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

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Speaker 1: it's quote unquote reflecting the nighttime stars even during the daytime. Right, yes,

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Speaker 1: I think there could. It seems to be the case

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Speaker 1: where you're dealing with with a different um reported phenomena

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Speaker 1: becoming confused with each other, you know, like, can you

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

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

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Speaker 1: potentially if it is nighttime. Uh, But then that can

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: them in the date time. Now. A third example that

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Speaker 1: ssially brings up is the is Ten Bowl Observatory, founded

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Speaker 1: in fifteen seventy nine, and it did have that This

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Speaker 1: particular site apparently did have an observation well or tower,

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Speaker 1: and there is confirmation of this in both Turkish and

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Speaker 1: European sources. However, the observatory was demolished not long after

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Speaker 1: its founding, so uh Siali says it might never have

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Speaker 1: been used or we you know, we just there are

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Speaker 1: no records of it being used. I saw some different

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Speaker 1: dates on this. Perhaps it might have been founded in

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Speaker 1: fifteen seventy seven, but it seems like it was destroyed

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Speaker 1: in something like fifteen eighty, just a very short period later,

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Speaker 1: and the destruction was possibly due to religious opposition to astronomy.

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Speaker 1: So Sili mentioned that there's a sixteen thirty mention of

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Speaker 1: observers and students glimpsing the stars in the daytime from

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Speaker 1: the bottom of a very deep Well in Coimbra, Portugal,

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Speaker 1: and they're also accounts from Spain apparently. And then we

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Speaker 1: have an individual by the name of Hard vigl Uh,

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Speaker 1: mathematician to Duke Wilhelm the fourth of Bavaria. He had

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Speaker 1: a house built in sixteen sixty seven in Jenna, and

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Speaker 1: it was said to have a quote, slanting tube built

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Speaker 1: into the wall in order to allow the daytime observation

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Speaker 1: of the stars. You shared with me a painting of

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Speaker 1: all ear Hard here. And this guy is such a

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Speaker 1: mood he's I don't even know how to describe this

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Speaker 1: he he. I mean, he looks like a very sensitive

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Speaker 1: boy posing for a photo with his dog, you know,

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Speaker 1: like pointing to the dog. Except it's just like a

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Speaker 1: big table of mathematical figures. Yeah. Yeah. My first thought

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Speaker 1: was like, here is a man who loves his maths. Uh.

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Speaker 1: If you look him up on Wikipedia, you'll see this

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: his equations and he's going, who's a good boy? Yeah. Now.

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Speaker 1: Siali also mentions that the Paris observatory he found in

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Speaker 1: sixteen sixty seven through sixteen seventy five featured a vertical

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

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Speaker 1: meter deep well. Quote, it was said the Cassini, shortly

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

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

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Speaker 1: 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 this can be telling

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Speaker 1: and given some of the analysis out there, Cassini apparently

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Speaker 1: used the well himself and had another well built. But

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Speaker 1: around this time, Sili says, astronomical advancements may have made

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Speaker 1: venturing down to a well just increasingly obsolete. Um. However,

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Speaker 1: silely mentioned that there were rumors that a janitor at

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Speaker 1: the observatory had a side hustle of taking people down

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Speaker 1: into the into the pit to goainst the stars. What

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Speaker 1: what is this the seventeenth century? Yeah, um, well, I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure exactly when this uh when the janitors This

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Speaker 1: may may have come later okay, but it sounds very

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Speaker 1: at groundpo doesn't uh huh. One more example that Sali

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Speaker 1: mentions is the Chrestminster Observatory in Austria, found seventy eight

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Speaker 1: that has a fifty nine meter deep well said to

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Speaker 1: have been used as an observation well as well well,

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Speaker 1: given all of these examples and anecdotes from history of

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Speaker 1: people saying they could do this or building facilities in

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Speaker 1: which to do this, I'm starting to have my doubts.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, wait a minute, can you actually I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I mean, like, would all these people be building starlight

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Speaker 1: tubes and observation wells and towers and stuff and talking

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Speaker 1: about this all the time if there weren't something to

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Speaker 1: this story. I'm I'm having I'm doubting myself. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: had the same experience with it, and and Ssiali is

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Speaker 1: basically discussing the same thing. He's like, it would just

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Speaker 1: be strange if this idea persisted for so long and

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Speaker 1: people did all these things, if there wasn't something to it,

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Speaker 1: if there wasn't some factual basis to the whole enterprise,

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Speaker 1: Because you know, dudes are incorporating this into their house plans,

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Speaker 1: you know, buddy, he does point out, Yeah, there was

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Speaker 1: there were. There were certainly skeptics as well, including Alexander

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Speaker 1: von Humboldt, who we've we've discussed on the show before,

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Speaker 1: old friend of the show, the subject of a really

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Speaker 1: great biography by Andrea Wolf called The Invention of Nature

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Speaker 1: I highly recommend, very interesting. I'd say Von Humboldt was

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Speaker 1: very important for promoting a kind of a total view

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Speaker 1: of science that kind of the connected all of the

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Speaker 1: natural world together into a a vast system of interlocking

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Speaker 1: cause as and effects, and viewed nature not just as

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Speaker 1: discreet entities of here's this animal and here's this plant,

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Speaker 1: but as an ecology, as a system of interactions in

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Speaker 1: which everything affected every other thing. Yeah, and so he

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

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Speaker 1: this and he's familiar with the concept. But then he's

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Speaker 1: he says, well, I okay, I spoke with with Chimney Sweeps,

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Speaker 1: I spoke with miners, I've spoke with other people who

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Speaker 1: had ventured down into um into conditions just like this,

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Speaker 1: And apparently he sought those conditions out himself, and he

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Speaker 1: did not experience this. He was not able to see

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Speaker 1: the stars no, when he spoke to had direct experience

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Speaker 1: of having seen the stars this way. Uh, And he's

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Speaker 1: just one of There are a few other historical critics

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Speaker 1: of the notion as well that psi Ali mentions. Um,

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

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Speaker 1: the one of the more robust ones coming along, where

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Speaker 1: he's just saying, yeah, nobody I spoke to has actually

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Speaker 1: experienced this, and uh and and ultimately Psyli, even though

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Speaker 1: he's like again he's thinking, there's you know, people have

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Speaker 1: been doing this and circulating this idea. There there's is

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Speaker 1: there absolutely nothing to it. He does stress that quote,

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Speaker 1: although such wells were connected with observatories, there is no

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Speaker 1: evidence that such observatories were systematically made and utilized by astronomer.

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Speaker 1: So the whole practice could have been you know, largely theoretical.

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Speaker 1: Uh even you know, an ultimate basis for it could

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Speaker 1: ultimately be more imagination than anything. But he thinks that

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Speaker 1: the whole enterprise might have been connected more to focusing

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Speaker 1: on particular areas of the 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 um. Aperture of the well and behold

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Speaker 1: the sky, behold the sky at night to see the stars,

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

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

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Speaker 1: just overwhelming stars ape and limited to just a single

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Speaker 1: circle of observation. Yeah. Maybe if you were trying to

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Speaker 1: focus on particular stars as they passed through during the

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: and it was very still water and the reflection was

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Speaker 1: just right, you could have something similar going on. Um.

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Speaker 1: But in terms of yeah, basically, anybody who comes up

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Speaker 1: against this idea of it being somehow a way to

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Speaker 1: to see the stars during the daylight, uh, every nobody

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Speaker 1: agrees that this is possible. Uh. For instance, this is

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Speaker 1: this is brought up in the book Bad Astronomy by

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Speaker 1: Phil Plate, for example. UM. And he also points out

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Speaker 1: that Charles Dickens wrote of it as well, and he

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

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Speaker 1: why this would work. Well. One nice takedown of the

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Speaker 1: whole idea came from the Reverend William Frederick arch Doll

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Speaker 1: Ellison in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association, in writing, quote,

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Speaker 1: A very little scientific reasoning, even without experiment, will be

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Speaker 1: sufficient to dispose of it. For what is it which

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Speaker 1: hides the star in the daytime? It is merely the

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Speaker 1: glare of our atmosphere illuminated by the Sun's rays. As

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere extends to a height of fifty miles or

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Speaker 1: more above the Earth's surface, A shaft or chimney one

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Speaker 1: hundred to two hundred feet high could do but little

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Speaker 1: to take away that glare. And anyone who has ever

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Speaker 1: actually looked up from the bottom of such a shaft

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Speaker 1: as I have from the bottom of a colliery. Uh

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Speaker 1: this is a British term. By the way, um a

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Speaker 1: coal mine and the buildings and equipment associated with it

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Speaker 1: nine feet below the surface, must have been struck not

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Speaker 1: by the darkness of the little disc of sky visible,

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Speaker 1: but by its dazzling brilliance. And this is something that

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Speaker 1: people come back to. It's like, if you actually seek

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Speaker 1: out this experience of gazing up through a shaft at

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

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

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Speaker 1: super bright. It's gonna be overwhelmingly bright. Now, I totally

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: then that might actually work. Oh, I did not see

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Speaker 1: anyone discussing this idea, This idea that through some sort

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Speaker 1: of futuristic mega project, we might be able to make

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: in there. It's Many commentators also speak to this whole

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Speaker 1: notion being predicated on a misunderstanding of what a telescope does,

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Speaker 1: certainly in the later cases in later circulation of the idea,

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Speaker 1: and that you know, ultimately it's focusing more on the

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Speaker 1: tube but rather than the lenses, which are vital to

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

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Speaker 1: purpose of the telescope is to gather light from a

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

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Speaker 1: your eye to increase the resolution. One such commentator was

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Speaker 1: Patricio Grady, who wrote on the subject in two thousand

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Speaker 1: two in a paper title Dailies of My Leaders the

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Speaker 1: Beginnings of Western Philosophy and Science. She contends that such

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Speaker 1: wells were used at night as a means of isolating

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Speaker 1: portions of the night sky for consideration and study. Quote,

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Speaker 1: descending into a well and peering up the extent of

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Speaker 1: the well would isolate areas to be observed, and the

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Speaker 1: rim of the well being similar to that to the

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Speaker 1: tube about which Aristotle wrote, would be a sort of

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Speaker 1: quote unquot telescope, but lacking magnification. M M yeah, okay, yeah,

400
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Speaker 1: so um, you know it's it's there was so much

401
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Speaker 1: more to this than than I expected. But it seems

402
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Speaker 1: like we can think of observation wells as being a

403
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Speaker 1: mix of second hand accounts signal boosted by important writers

404
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Speaker 1: and thinkers during their times, backed up by hypothetical models,

405
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Speaker 1: as well as the seeming at least limited use of

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

407
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Speaker 1: night sky for study um at night. Yeah, that that

408
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Speaker 1: all seems reasonable to me. I'm still hung up on

409
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Speaker 1: the idea that there could also be some kind of

410
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Speaker 1: garbling of a report of an optical effects that somebody

411
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Speaker 1: got from looking down at the sunlight reflected in water

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Speaker 1: in a dark well, and that maybe ripples in the

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Speaker 1: water or something. I've never tried it, so I don't

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Speaker 1: know what that would be like, but I could imagine

415
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Speaker 1: that could look like many points of light instead of one. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a good point, now, Rob. It's funny you mentioned

417
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Speaker 1: this book by Patricia Grady about Thals of Melitas, because

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Speaker 1: the other half of this coin, the idea of a

419
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Speaker 1: stargazer in a well, connects very directly to a famous

420
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Speaker 1: anecdote about this. Uh. This philosopher, so Theles of Melitas,

421
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Speaker 1: was a pre Socratic Greek philosopher who lived from the

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Speaker 1: late seventh century to the mid sixth century BC. He

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Speaker 1: was one of the famous Seven Stages of Greece uh

424
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Speaker 1: and as he was revered by other ancient philosophers and

425
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Speaker 1: writers as in many ways kind of the primary patriarch

426
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Speaker 1: of wisdom. He was thought to be, in a sense,

427
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Speaker 1: the first philosopher, and in more recent centuries he's been

428
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Speaker 1: seen by some as quote the father of science, though

429
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Speaker 1: I think both of those designations are a good bit overstated.

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00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:58,119
Speaker 1: Though Thailes was a very interesting figure. Going to the

431
00:24:58,119 --> 00:25:00,680
Speaker 1: idea of him being the quote father or of science,

432
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:03,959
Speaker 1: I would say in an informal way, there were empirical

433
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:08,159
Speaker 1: observations and experiments and deterministic theories of nature, of course,

434
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:11,879
Speaker 1: all going on before Thailey's, no doubt, but he was

435
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:16,720
Speaker 1: famous in ancient Greece for appealing to natural material causes

436
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:21,399
Speaker 1: rather than ad hoc mythological explanations when trying to understand

437
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 1: nature in the world. So, like many ancient Greek philosophers,

438
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: from Pythagoras to Socrates, we actually have no surviving copies

439
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 1: of any text by Thailes himself, so if he wrote

440
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 1: anything down himself, we no longer have it. The only

441
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 1: sources we have for his life and his work are

442
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 1: what other people wrote about him, which of course makes

443
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 1: it complicated to know with much certainty what he actually

444
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:48,960
Speaker 1: said and believed. So everything that follows that we're gonna

445
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 1: say about Thailey's comes with the major caveat that it

446
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 1: is based on secondary sources, often writing much later than

447
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: Dailey's own lifetime, because it's all we have. Dailies was

448
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:03,280
Speaker 1: known for wisdom in UH, not just what we would

449
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:07,400
Speaker 1: later call science, but in many domains, including in in mathematics.

450
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 1: He was famous for for bringing uh Egyptian geometry to

451
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: Greek thought, and for philosophy and politics. He he was

452
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:20,199
Speaker 1: given credit for the maxim know thyself, which I have

453
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 1: to say I find one of the most powerful aphorisms

454
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 1: of all time. You know, know thyself is two words long,

455
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 1: and it really hits you. It's like a wrecking ball,

456
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:34,440
Speaker 1: like it manages to be simultaneously empowering and humbling. And

457
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: there's a whole rich tradition of other philosophers simply trying

458
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: to explain what they think is meant exactly by the

459
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:45,199
Speaker 1: statement know thyself? Is it? Is it an admonition to

460
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: know your place and be humble in the face of

461
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: the gods? Is it a a Is it a warning

462
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:54,359
Speaker 1: to know your own limitations? Is it an exhortation to

463
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:58,919
Speaker 1: two deeper philosophical understanding, to understand what you are? In

464
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:01,400
Speaker 1: a way, maybe it's all of these things. Yeah, that's

465
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 1: it's a great naval gazer, that one. The more the

466
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: more you think about it, the slipper area it becomes. Now.

467
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:11,119
Speaker 1: At this time, there was not much of a division

468
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:14,200
Speaker 1: between what we would today call science and what the

469
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: ancient Greeks would call philosophy. It was it was sort

470
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: of all the same thing. It was the the pursuit

471
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 1: of knowledge. But I guess the more scientific version of

472
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 1: ancient Greek philosophy would be the kind that focused on

473
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 1: explanations of the natural world and appealing to natural causes.

474
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 1: A lot of the science that the Leis believed in

475
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: has not exactly held up to later scrutiny. For just

476
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: one example, he was known for arguing that earthquakes were

477
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 1: caused by the fact that the continents, the land on

478
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:49,439
Speaker 1: which we walk, is actually part of a great a

479
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 1: great disc that floats on water, and sometimes the continents

480
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 1: or the disks on which the continents rest are rocked

481
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 1: by waves in the underlying cosmic ocean. UH For ancient

482
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: accounts of this belief of Thles, I want to go

483
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:05,919
Speaker 1: back to actually a Patricio Grady, the source you mentioned

484
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:09,480
Speaker 1: earlier in her book on Thailey's um. She, for example,

485
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: quote Seneca, who says the cause of earthquakes is said

486
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: to be in water by more than one authority, but

487
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: not in the same way Thals of Melita's judges that

488
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 1: the whole earth is buoyed up and floats upon liquid

489
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 1: that lies underneath the disc is supported by this water.

490
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: He says, just as some big heavy ship is supported

491
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: by the water which it presses down upon and elsewhere.

492
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 1: Syneca actually mocks Thles for his beliefs. He says, the

493
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:40,760
Speaker 1: following theory by Thailes is silly for he's for he

494
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: says that this round of lands is sustained by water

495
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 1: and is carried along like a boat. And on the

496
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 1: occasions when the earth is said to quake, it is

497
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 1: fluctuating because of the movement of the water. It is

498
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 1: no wonder, therefore, that there is abundant water for making

499
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 1: the rivers flow, since the entire round is in water.

500
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 1: Reject this antiquated, unsca doll early theory. There is also

501
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 1: no reason that you should believe water enters this globe

502
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 1: through cracks and forms. Builge okay, I will not believe

503
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: in the billage. Synegain convinced me. But also to continue

504
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 1: with the ocean theme, Thalley's quite remarkably believed that the

505
00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: entire basis of matter was water, and it can be

506
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,560
Speaker 1: difficult to parse exactly what he means by this, but

507
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 1: I think it's commonly interpreted to mean that all matter

508
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 1: is in some way a form of water. So much

509
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 1: like liquid water can turn into vapor, or it can

510
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 1: freeze into a solid ice cube, then it can take

511
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 1: on other forms as well, and in fact it does

512
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:47,520
Speaker 1: take on all the forms we see in the world.

513
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 1: Every piece of matter is some type of water, or

514
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 1: is in some way derived from water, And of course

515
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:57,959
Speaker 1: this is wrong, but it does wander kind of close

516
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:00,800
Speaker 1: to a profound truth that would be disc covered much later,

517
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 1: which is that, as fundamentally different as all the substances

518
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: of the world, blood magma would air. As different as

519
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 1: all these things might seem, they're actually made of exactly

520
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 1: the same fundamental building blocks, not water, but the sub

521
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: atomic particles protons, neutrons, electrons, in different quantities and arrangements.

522
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 1: So he was wrong about the water part, but I

523
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: do think it's still a rather profound hypothesis that at bottom,

524
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 1: all matter is made of the same stuff. Now, coming

525
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: back to the designation that some authors have used for

526
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: Thailey's as quote the father of science, I think one

527
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 1: of the big stories leading to that designation, like I

528
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: know this was there was a piece at some point

529
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 1: that Isaac Asimov wrote about this. The connecting point here

530
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 1: is that there are reports from the ancient world that

531
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 1: Thailes did occasionally make testable predictions that proved correct, such

532
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 1: as in Matters of Astronomy, where the historian Herodotus claims

533
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 1: that they these correctly predicted a solar eclipse in advance

534
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: with profound geopolitical implications for for an ongoing war with

535
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 1: between the Meads and the Lydians. So to uh, to

536
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: fill out this story a bit I'm gonna describe and

537
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: quote from Herodotus the translation by A. D. Godly, so

538
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: a bit of background. Herodotus tells us that at some

539
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 1: point in history, a tribe of nomadic Scythians escaped some

540
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: trouble in their own lands, and they escaped into the

541
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 1: territory of the Medians or the Meads, who were ruled

542
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 1: by a king named Psiak Saris. The Scythians asked for

543
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:44,240
Speaker 1: mercy and Psia Saris granted it, and even gave over

544
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:47,719
Speaker 1: some Median young men to the Scythians to sort of

545
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 1: like live with them and learn their language and to

546
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 1: learn archery from them. But there came a day when

547
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 1: the Scythians returned from a hunt with nothing to offer

548
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: their new king, and Sia Saris be being short tempered.

549
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: He took this their their lack of game as an insult,

550
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 1: and he gave him a really bad chewing out. I

551
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 1: think the direct quote is he treated them contemptuously. So

552
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:15,160
Speaker 1: in revenge for being dressed down, some of the Scythians

553
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: took the young Meads their their pupils and killed them

554
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,880
Speaker 1: and dressed their bodies and presented them to the king

555
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 1: as if they were animals killed in a hunt. Then

556
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: they immediately fled the domain of the Meads and went

557
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: to the domain of a king named al Yatis of Sartists.

558
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 1: All right, this is already spiraling out of control. This

559
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 1: is a bad situation. Right, So Sia Saries was tricked,

560
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:42,600
Speaker 1: and indeed he did eat the flesh of his young countryman,

561
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 1: thinking it was wild game. And after he found out,

562
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 1: he wasn't very happy about it, and he went to

563
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 1: al Yatis and said, Hey, these guys made me do cannibalism,

564
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: you need to give them over to me. So now

565
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 1: I'm just going to quote from the Herodotus translation after this,

566
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 1: since al Yatis would not give up the Scythians to

567
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 1: Sia Saries at his demand, there was a war between

568
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: the Lydians and the Meads for five years, each one

569
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 1: many victories over the other, and once they fought a

570
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:14,680
Speaker 1: battle by night. They were still warring with equal success

571
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 1: when it happened at an encounter which occurred in the

572
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 1: sixth year, that during the battle the day was suddenly

573
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 1: turned tonight. Thallis of Melitas had foretold this loss of

574
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 1: daylight to the Ionians, fixing it within a year, at

575
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 1: which the change did indeed happen. So when the Lydians

576
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: and Meads saw the day turn tonight, they stopped fighting,

577
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 1: and both were the more eager to make peace. And

578
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,719
Speaker 1: apparently they did make peace by securing a marriage between

579
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 1: the between the children of the two kings. Happy ending

580
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 1: there you go, though, I have to imagine there was

581
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 1: a good bit of like, hey, remember when your dad

582
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 1: did cannibalism, and then my dad helped the people who

583
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: made him do it. There's probably still some bad blood,

584
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: but you know, you get a nice wedding ceremony in there. Uh,

585
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 1: you know, it's well catered. It's gonna it's gonna could

586
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 1: calm a lot of the waters. Yeah. So anyway, the

587
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:11,960
Speaker 1: story again is that Thaileys predicted this solar eclipse that

588
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 1: interrupted the middle of a battle. He predicted it in advance.

589
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 1: Later scientists have worked out that this must be a

590
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 1: reference to the solar eclipse of May five b C,

591
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 1: because that's the only one within the right time frame

592
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: that would have been visible at the place in question,

593
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 1: and that does all work out. But if it's true

594
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 1: that Thaile's predicted the eclipse in advance, this is an

595
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:39,720
Speaker 1: absolutely extraordinary claim, and I think a lot of modern

596
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 1: scholars have doubts about this story. So we know lunar

597
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 1: eclipses where the shadow of the Earth passes over the

598
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 1: face of the moon, these have been predicted going way

599
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,800
Speaker 1: way back, long before Thailes the court. Astronomers of ancient

600
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 1: China and ancient Babylon were able to figure out these

601
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:01,640
Speaker 1: patterns and draw up tables allowing to predict lunar eclipses,

602
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:06,920
Speaker 1: but solar eclipses where the Moon passes directly between the

603
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: Earth and the Sun, blocking out the sunlight. These are

604
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: much much harder to predict, especially because they are localized

605
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 1: to specific vantage points on Earth's surface. I mean, there

606
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 1: are solar eclipses all the time, but living wherever you do,

607
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:24,000
Speaker 1: you don't see most of them. They're they're on some

608
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:27,320
Speaker 1: other part of the globe. Yeah, Like if you scout,

609
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:29,360
Speaker 1: try to scout one out for yourself. You may have

610
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 1: encountered this situation where you know, someone's like, hey, there's

611
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: a solar eclipse coming up, and you're like, great, when

612
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 1: can we see it? And it's like, well, on this date,

613
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:42,440
Speaker 1: if we're in Arkansas or parts of Texas, there's the

614
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 1: solar eclipse coming, we have to travel to Baffin Island,

615
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But that that being said, I mean,

616
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 1: if you have the ability to to go witness solar

617
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:55,919
Speaker 1: eclipse under safe circumstances, that absolutely do so, because it's

618
00:35:56,160 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: it's wonderful. Oh absolutely yes, it is worth it as

619
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:02,839
Speaker 1: one of the most magical experiences of my life. Now,

620
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 1: the first solar eclipses that we know for sure we're

621
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 1: predicted in advance came after we had much better astrophysical

622
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: theories in hand. Uh, This would be in the early

623
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: eighteenth century. The first case where we know for sure

624
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 1: that someone accurately predicted to solar eclipse was on May third,

625
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 1: seventeen fifteen, when English astronomer Edmund Halley of Hallie's comet fame,

626
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 1: built upon the scientific revolution unlocked by Isaac Newton's theory

627
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 1: of universal gravitation. Hall he was a friend of Newton's

628
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:37,480
Speaker 1: and he used Newton's new theories to accurately pinpoint and

629
00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 1: eclipse that would be visible in London. And I think

630
00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:43,759
Speaker 1: he got it right within a margin of about four minutes.

631
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:48,359
Speaker 1: But Hallie's prediction and all subsequent solar eclipse predictions, they

632
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: require a lot of information that was, as far as

633
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:55,880
Speaker 1: we know, not available in ancient Greece. And unfortunately, no

634
00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: writings of Dailey's exist today. As I said, and Herodotus

635
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 1: does not. Bother too mentioned the method by which the

636
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 1: Lees made this prediction. I don't think other authors who

637
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 1: mentioned this this story share any any further insights either, uh,

638
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:11,279
Speaker 1: and so we and we also don't know what the

639
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 1: level of precision of this prediction would have been, though

640
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 1: the Herodotus does say that it took place that year,

641
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 1: which makes me wonder if it's possible Thailies just said

642
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 1: there will be a solar eclipse sometime this year and

643
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:27,680
Speaker 1: got extremely lucky. But ultimately we don't know, We don't

644
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 1: know what was going on here. If he actually did

645
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 1: make the prediction and it was correct. Did he just

646
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:35,839
Speaker 1: have an amazing stroke of luck, or did he have

647
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:40,879
Speaker 1: some kind of incredibly advanced uh type of knowledge about

648
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 1: astrophysics that nobody else at the time had and he

649
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:46,400
Speaker 1: left no record of it. And as with the observation,

650
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 1: well as what we're dealing with, you know, second hand

651
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:52,200
Speaker 1: accounts and in vague references here, right, So also we

652
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:54,359
Speaker 1: don't even know for sure it's true that he made

653
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 1: this prediction, though it seems to be a widely attested story,

654
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 1: and we do know the eclipse did happen. Now, I

655
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 1: was reading about a few other scientific contributions of the Ley's.

656
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: One source I was looking at was by W. K. C.

657
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 1: Guthrie called A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume one, the

658
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 1: Earlier pre Socratics and the Pythagoreans. This was Cambridge University Press,

659
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, and Guthrie collects a lot of observations.

660
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:32,399
Speaker 1: He writes that Theile's made uh made gave guidance about

661
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:37,320
Speaker 1: the relative usefulness of different constellations for c navigation, pointing

662
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 1: out that the the minor bear the little bear constellation

663
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:44,800
Speaker 1: was better than the Great Bear for finding the poll

664
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 1: and this story was related by Callimachus. Apparently, the use

665
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: of the minor Bear was already in practice by the Phoenicians,

666
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:54,720
Speaker 1: and Thais showed why it was better than the Greek

667
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:58,400
Speaker 1: standard diversa major. He apparently also is said to have

668
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:03,839
Speaker 1: used geometry to measure the dimensions of the pyramids and

669
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:07,040
Speaker 1: uh and to show how you could calculate how far

670
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 1: away a ship at sea was. And in summary, writing

671
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:15,719
Speaker 1: about the Thailey's reputation in ancient Greece, Guthrie says, quote,

672
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 1: once he had achieved in the popular mind the status

673
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: of the ideal man of science, there is no doubt

674
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 1: that the stories about him were invented or selected according

675
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:29,359
Speaker 1: to the picture of the philosophic temperament which a particular

676
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:32,960
Speaker 1: writer wished to convey. And so Guthrie goes on to

677
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 1: describe an example of what he calls this quote mutually

678
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 1: canceling propaganda, which is the contrast between the story of

679
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 1: the olive presses and the story of the fall into

680
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 1: a well or into a pit, and these are given

681
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 1: respectively by Aristotle and Plato. I'm going to start with

682
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: the story of the olive presses, which we have from Aristotle,

683
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 1: so this is an Aristotle's politics translation by Benjamin Jowitt.

684
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 1: I'm just going to read direct lee. Aristotle says, there

685
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: is the anecdote of the LEAs the Miletian and his

686
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:10,360
Speaker 1: financial device, which involves a principle of universal application, but

687
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 1: is attributed to him on account of his reputation for wisdom.

688
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 1: He was reproached for his poverty, which was supposed to

689
00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:22,280
Speaker 1: show that philosophy was of no use. According to the story,

690
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 1: he knew by his skill in the stars, while it

691
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 1: was yet winter, that there would be a great harvest

692
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:31,440
Speaker 1: of olives in the coming year. So, having little money,

693
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:34,280
Speaker 1: he gave deposits for the use of all the olive

694
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 1: presses in chias and militas, which he hired at a

695
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 1: low price, because no one bid against him. When the

696
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 1: harvest time came and many were wanted, all at once,

697
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:47,399
Speaker 1: and of a sudden, he let them out at any

698
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: rate which he pleased and made a quantity of money.

699
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 1: Thus he showed the world that philosophers can easily be

700
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:56,200
Speaker 1: rich if they like, but that their ambition is of

701
00:40:56,239 --> 00:41:00,839
Speaker 1: another sort. And you notice at the beginning that Aristotle

702
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: said this, Uh, this financial device, he says, involves a

703
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 1: principle of universal application. So Aristotle is actually saying, you know,

704
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:12,360
Speaker 1: the thing that that Dailies is doing this story is

705
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: a well known move. It's called monopoly. Uh. The exploitation

706
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:19,680
Speaker 1: of a monopoly is a standard, well known commercial and

707
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:22,279
Speaker 1: political practice. And he gives examples having to do with

708
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 1: like cornering the iron supply in a local area or something.

709
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:28,760
Speaker 1: Of course, the principle is, if you're the only person

710
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:31,759
Speaker 1: selling something and it's in demand, then you can set

711
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 1: whatever price you want. Uh. So uh, you know, when

712
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 1: a smart person figures out how to create a monopoly,

713
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,360
Speaker 1: how to be the only person offering a good or

714
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:43,839
Speaker 1: service that is needed, they will use this to their advantage.

715
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: I guess, with the caveat of unless they're a philosopher

716
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:50,360
Speaker 1: who is above worldly concerns, it will only gouge to

717
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:55,960
Speaker 1: make a point. Yeah. I love this. It's like there's like, hey, hey,

718
00:41:56,080 --> 00:41:58,360
Speaker 1: Bailey's if you're so smart, why aren't you rich? And

719
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:00,160
Speaker 1: he's like, oh yeah, well I could do that out

720
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:02,920
Speaker 1: if I wanted to. Hear, he proves himself, and then

721
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:05,319
Speaker 1: it goes back to whatever he was doing beforehand. Right, yeah,

722
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:09,239
Speaker 1: So it portrays the Thiles as worldly and full of

723
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 1: potential for practical cunning, but simply lacking interest in financial

724
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:18,600
Speaker 1: gain unless it's to own the haters. Alright. So that's

725
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 1: one vision one invoked vision of Thles. What's another one. Well,

726
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 1: here's where we come back to the the idea of

727
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 1: the stargazer in the well. So Plato tells this totally

728
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 1: different story of Thailes. This takes place in Plato's the

729
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:38,040
Speaker 1: Attis dialogue. And if you ever taken a logic or

730
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:41,960
Speaker 1: a philosophy course that tried to define the word knowledge,

731
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: you might have encountered the atitas, because I believe this

732
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 1: is the one where Socrates builds up to a definition

733
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:52,719
Speaker 1: of knowledge as something like true belief, with an account

734
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 1: sometimes paraphrased as justified true belief. So under this definition,

735
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:01,840
Speaker 1: to know something, to actually have knowledge, it means you

736
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:05,759
Speaker 1: have one a belief to which is true. Because if

737
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: you believe something but it's false, that's not knowledge. And

738
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:12,560
Speaker 1: three uh, it is something of which you are aware of,

739
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 1: a warrant for believing. So if you believe something and

740
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:18,120
Speaker 1: it turns out to be true, but you had no

741
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:21,400
Speaker 1: good reason for believing it, that's still not knowledge. Like

742
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:23,800
Speaker 1: if if I believe I'm going to win the lottery

743
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:26,000
Speaker 1: this year, and then I happened to win the lottery

744
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 1: this year, that was not knowledge. I had no good

745
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 1: reason to believe that. I just I just got lucky.

746
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:34,160
Speaker 1: But anyway, the story of the stargazer in the well

747
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 1: is actually a digression within this dialogue. So I'm quoting

748
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:42,319
Speaker 1: from the Fowler translation of of Plato here. So this

749
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 1: is Socrates speaking, and and Socrates says, uh. Take the

750
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:48,840
Speaker 1: case of the Ley's he's being to somebody named Theodoras.

751
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: Take the case of Thales Theodorus. While he was studying

752
00:43:52,239 --> 00:43:55,160
Speaker 1: the stars and looking upwards, he fell into a pit

753
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:58,879
Speaker 1: sometimes translated as a well. And uh, and a neat

754
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:02,920
Speaker 1: witty Thracians irvant girl jeered at him. They say, because

755
00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 1: he was so eager to know the things in the

756
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 1: sky that he could not see what was there before

757
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:11,279
Speaker 1: him at his very feet. The same jest applies to

758
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: all who passed their lives in philosophy, and you can

759
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:18,719
Speaker 1: actually find these charges in their original form in uh

760
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:22,840
Speaker 1: stuff like rob did you ever read the Clouds by Aristophanes?

761
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:26,319
Speaker 1: The play Mocking Socrates? No, I don't think I did.

762
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, so it's a whole play is just vicious,

763
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:34,319
Speaker 1: brutal mockery of of Socrates in the school of philosophers

764
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 1: of Athens, showing them to be absolute buffoons who are

765
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:42,200
Speaker 1: wasting their lives just making up garbage about trivial and

766
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:45,040
Speaker 1: unimportant topics. And so in a way, I wonder if

767
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:48,360
Speaker 1: you know this is kind of responding to that sort

768
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 1: of criticism, because yeah, it's the same kind of thing.

769
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, you know, you think you're so smart,

770
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:56,439
Speaker 1: but you actually just fall into pits all the time,

771
00:44:56,520 --> 00:44:58,719
Speaker 1: or you trip and falling, well, because you're trying to

772
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:02,080
Speaker 1: figure out some major and ursa minor. Yeah, nothing you

773
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:05,919
Speaker 1: do is practical and you're in the bottom of well,

774
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:08,800
Speaker 1: how did you get their, old man? You must have tripped.

775
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:11,799
Speaker 1: It's also the classic oh philosophy, major, how what are

776
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 1: you going to do with that? And then so Socrates

777
00:45:15,120 --> 00:45:17,839
Speaker 1: goes on to explain his view, I've made some abridgements

778
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:20,520
Speaker 1: to this section, but I just want to read part

779
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:23,960
Speaker 1: of what he says. Socrates says, hence it is my friends,

780
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:27,120
Speaker 1: such a man, both in private when he meets with individuals,

781
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:29,879
Speaker 1: and in public, as I said in the beginning, when

782
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:32,800
Speaker 1: he is obliged to speak in court or elsewhere about

783
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 1: the things at his feet and before his eyes, is

784
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,920
Speaker 1: a laughing stock. Note not only to Thracian girls, but

785
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 1: to the multitude in general, For he falls into pits

786
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:46,359
Speaker 1: and all sorts of perplexities through inexperience, and his awkwardness

787
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 1: is terrible, making him seem a fool. For when it

788
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:52,759
Speaker 1: comes to abusing people, he has no personal abuse to

789
00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 1: offer against anyone, because he knows no evil of any man,

790
00:45:56,760 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 1: never having cared for such things. So his perplexity makes

791
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 1: him appear ridiculous. And as to laudatory speeches and the

792
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 1: boastings of others, it becomes manifest that he is laughing

793
00:46:07,719 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 1: at them, not pretending to laugh, but really laughing. And

794
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 1: so he has thought to be a fool. When he

795
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:17,440
Speaker 1: hears a panegyric, meaning like a sort of a sermon

796
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 1: praising the virtues of a public figure. When he hears

797
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:23,840
Speaker 1: a panegyric of a despot or a king. He fancies

798
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:27,680
Speaker 1: he is listening to the praises of some herdsman, a swineherd,

799
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:30,760
Speaker 1: a shepherd, or a neat herd, for instance, who gets

800
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:33,520
Speaker 1: much milk from his beasts. But he thinks that the

801
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 1: ruler tens and milks a more perverse and treacherous creature

802
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 1: than the herdsman, and that he must grow coarse and

803
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:43,640
Speaker 1: uncivilized no less than they, for he has no leisure

804
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:46,480
Speaker 1: and lives surrounded by a wall, as the herdsman live

805
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:49,360
Speaker 1: in their mountain pens. And when he hears that someone

806
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:52,680
Speaker 1: is amazingly rich because he owns ten thousand acres of

807
00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:55,920
Speaker 1: land or more to him, accustomed as he is to

808
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:59,120
Speaker 1: think of the whole earth, this seems very little. And

809
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 1: he goes on and at length talking about, how, you know,

810
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:06,520
Speaker 1: the common man might think himself very important because he

811
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:10,719
Speaker 1: claims to trace his ancestry back to Heracles and Inphitrion.

812
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:15,759
Speaker 1: And meanwhile the philosopher is like, but, but everybody has

813
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:18,720
Speaker 1: thousands of ancestors of all kinds, what does that matter?

814
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:21,359
Speaker 1: And he just goes on and on, listing all these

815
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:24,839
Speaker 1: cases of the concerns of regular people who are squabbling

816
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:29,400
Speaker 1: over like uh, power and money and prestige and hierarchy,

817
00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:31,799
Speaker 1: and the philosopher who seems to them to be a

818
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 1: fool because he cares not for those things. Now, I

819
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: think it's interesting to sort of compare and contrast Aristotle's

820
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:44,240
Speaker 1: vision of the of Thailes here versus socrates Is vision

821
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 1: of Thilies. Both essentially assume that true philosophers, and I

822
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:52,600
Speaker 1: think the modern reader might might sort of read this

823
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 1: in a more inclusive way, just as the thoughtful person.

824
00:47:55,560 --> 00:48:01,680
Speaker 1: Thoughtful people um that that they are above petty worldly concerns.

825
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:05,839
Speaker 1: But the olive press story communicates a kind of deliberate

826
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:09,840
Speaker 1: aloofness which can be subverted and cast aside any time

827
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 1: when some wise cracker comes along and says, you know,

828
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:15,120
Speaker 1: like you said, Robert, Hey, Thailey's if you're so smart,

829
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:17,800
Speaker 1: how come you're not as rich as me? The point

830
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 1: is here, Well, Silas could be if he wanted to,

831
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:23,920
Speaker 1: That's just not his concern. Meanwhile, in the story told

832
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:27,680
Speaker 1: in in the in Plato's dialogue, here Socrates makes it

833
00:48:27,719 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 1: sound like falling into the ditch and being mocked by

834
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: the Thracian girl. It does communicate the same kind of aloofness,

835
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 1: but in a more helpless and involuntary mode, like well, okay, yeah,

836
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:42,759
Speaker 1: he might be so wrapped up in the stars that

837
00:48:42,800 --> 00:48:44,880
Speaker 1: he falls into pits all the time and he's always

838
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 1: ending up at the bottom of wells. But that's actually

839
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:50,800
Speaker 1: a sign of a virtuous mind, concerned with the stars

840
00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 1: and concerned with the nature of reality, rather than the

841
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 1: nasty pettiness that occupies your mind all of the uh,

842
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 1: the grubby business and Paul politics and and uh and

843
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:05,560
Speaker 1: social gossip and hierarchy that you're so obsessed with. Which

844
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 1: is funny though, because it essentially comes down to these

845
00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 1: philosophers putting themselves at the top of a hierarchy and

846
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:12,920
Speaker 1: saying like, you know, my, my, my life of the

847
00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 1: mind is so much more virtuous than your existence. Yeah,

848
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:20,520
Speaker 1: I mean it's a little bit of hypocrisy. Yeah. Yeah.

849
00:49:20,520 --> 00:49:25,240
Speaker 1: In both cases, the the philosopher is disconnected from this world,

850
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:29,080
Speaker 1: and uh, you know it didn't It basically just comes

851
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 1: down to the nuances of what you're saying about that,

852
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 1: like it's it's it's uh, they're disconnected from this world, yes,

853
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 1: but if they wanted to gain this world like other people,

854
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:39,920
Speaker 1: they could easily, or you know, even if they're falling

855
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:43,760
Speaker 1: down wells, it's like, yeah, he's not concerned with wells

856
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 1: and pits. Oh, you're so obsessed with the well thing.

857
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:51,279
Speaker 1: Come on. But it is interesting how this ties back

858
00:49:51,320 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 1: in because um, you know, they leaves is said to

859
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:58,799
Speaker 1: be an individual who is very interested in the stars. Uh,

860
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 1: here he is falling into well and um, and indeed

861
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:06,520
Speaker 1: some have looked at this, in particular that that paper

862
00:50:06,560 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 1: I cited earlier and you also cited this author, Patricia

863
00:50:10,040 --> 00:50:13,799
Speaker 1: O'Grady um looks at this and and says, yeah, this

864
00:50:13,840 --> 00:50:19,000
Speaker 1: connection between an individual who is who analyzes the stars

865
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:22,400
Speaker 1: and fall and a well that they fall into. Perhaps

866
00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:25,799
Speaker 1: this is is also connected to the idea of a

867
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:29,880
Speaker 1: well being an observatory and the LEAs may have And

868
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:34,400
Speaker 1: again we're dealing with second accounts and fictionalized and mythologicalized

869
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 1: versions of reality. But on some level, maybe you have

870
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 1: this individual falling into a well, because that's the kind

871
00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 1: of place that uh, that astronomers and philosophers go to

872
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:48,480
Speaker 1: their climbing to the bottom of a well to look

873
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:50,920
Speaker 1: up at the stars and and I don't know, it

874
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:53,239
Speaker 1: kind of falls that that that that kind of just

875
00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:57,239
Speaker 1: that basic vision uh kind of falls into these uh,

876
00:50:57,280 --> 00:51:01,360
Speaker 1: these these views of philosophy that we've discussing. Well, another

877
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:04,400
Speaker 1: theme that emerges for me is just the tenuous and

878
00:51:04,520 --> 00:51:08,640
Speaker 1: artificial nature of the distinctions between practical and impractical knowledge.

879
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 1: That knowledge, that knowledge which seems impractical today may in

880
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:17,360
Speaker 1: several hundred years become incredibly practical. The astronomy and the

881
00:51:17,440 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 1: geometry of of these ancient Greek philosophers might have seemed

882
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:26,040
Speaker 1: absolutely ridiculous and and of no practical use whatsoever to uh,

883
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:28,239
Speaker 1: to somebody at the time, but then they would sort

884
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 1: of be built upon in generations to form the foundation

885
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:36,440
Speaker 1: of all existing technology, navigational techniques, and you know everything

886
00:51:36,480 --> 00:51:40,359
Speaker 1: like that. M yeah, yeah, I'm also suddenly struck by

887
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 1: how how one could conceivably compare uh stylight a you know,

888
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:50,800
Speaker 1: an individual a hermit atop a pillar, to the idea

889
00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:54,040
Speaker 1: of of an astronomer crawling down to the bottom of

890
00:51:54,080 --> 00:51:56,840
Speaker 1: a pit. Uh. You know, both are kind of like

891
00:51:56,840 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 1: they're they're removed from from the surface world, from the

892
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:02,319
Speaker 1: from the affairs of man, and in either case it's

893
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:06,040
Speaker 1: about you know, contemplating things beyond the realm of man.

894
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:09,440
Speaker 1: This is funny. I thought of potentially doing something about

895
00:52:09,520 --> 00:52:12,680
Speaker 1: the stylite tradition on our on our show before. I

896
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:14,480
Speaker 1: can't remember, has it ever come up in an episode?

897
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:17,400
Speaker 1: It was like, it's a particular type of asceticism where

898
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:20,480
Speaker 1: you would, uh, you know, you would subject yourself to

899
00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:23,839
Speaker 1: just living at the top of a pillar. Yeah, yeah,

900
00:52:24,239 --> 00:52:26,319
Speaker 1: I feel like it's come up. I don't know if

901
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:29,320
Speaker 1: we did. Yeah, I feel like it's come up at

902
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 1: least once, but I don't remember the context. Maybe when

903
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:37,120
Speaker 1: we were talking about Diogenes and living among the dogs, Oh,

904
00:52:37,239 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 1: Diogenes the cynic Yeah, living in a jar with some

905
00:52:41,239 --> 00:52:46,920
Speaker 1: dogs eating fava beans or not Favlopen's I think. Okay,

906
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:51,560
Speaker 1: I've forgotten about the being consumption. Yes, yeah, okay, I've

907
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:54,279
Speaker 1: actually got a call to listeners. I'm curious if if

908
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:57,000
Speaker 1: you're somebody out there with with a good basis in

909
00:52:57,040 --> 00:52:59,799
Speaker 1: astronomy and physics, um, what do you think is the

910
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:05,600
Speaker 1: most plausible scenario by which Thailies could have truly predicted

911
00:53:05,600 --> 00:53:08,440
Speaker 1: the five eclipse? If the story is true, if he

912
00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:11,000
Speaker 1: actually made the prediction and it was not just a

913
00:53:11,080 --> 00:53:14,440
Speaker 1: lucky guest but actually justified true belief that he had

914
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:18,399
Speaker 1: a warrant for believing that what could it have been? Yeah?

915
00:53:18,520 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 1: Right in, let us know. Likewise, if you have any

916
00:53:20,760 --> 00:53:24,680
Speaker 1: thoughts about the the concept of of glimpsing the stars

917
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:27,880
Speaker 1: from the bottom of a well, the bottom of the pit. Alright,

918
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:30,040
Speaker 1: we're gonna go and close out this episode, but yeah,

919
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:32,560
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone. Core episodes of Stuff

920
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind published on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and

921
00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:38,080
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed listener mail

922
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 1: on Monday's Artifact or Monster Fact on Wednesdays, and on Friday,

923
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 1: we do Weird How Cinema. That's our time to set

924
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:45,640
Speaker 1: aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film.

925
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:48,839
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth

926
00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:51,520
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch

927
00:53:51,560 --> 00:53:53,839
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

928
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:55,799
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

929
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:58,560
Speaker 1: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff

930
00:53:58,560 --> 00:54:08,319
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your

931
00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:11,280
Speaker 1: Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

932
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:13,359
Speaker 1: for my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

933
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:24,720
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.