WEBVTT - The Stargazer and the Well 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.720 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.439 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.480 today's episode, we're going to discuss a very old association 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:28.920 between astronomy and wells and uh. This ties into various 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:35.519 ancient anecdotes and also archaeological sites. Uh, basically getting it 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.560 down to this idea that if you have a well, 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.479 if you have a deep pit or even a long tube, 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:47.120 that this could allow an individual to see starlight during 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.960 the day. How had you ever heard of this, Joe, No, 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.080 I don't think not before you brought this up. Yeah, 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:54.800 this is and and this is one that there was 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.000 more to it than the more I kept looking into it. Um, 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:00.520 But instantly it's kind of a captivating idea if you 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:02.960 know nothing about it, because there's something about the two 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.200 extremes in play here, the bottom of an earthly pit 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.720 and the light of distant stars. You know, it reminds 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.160 me of that that that far more recent quote by 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:17.560 author Oscar Wilde in his play A Lady Windermere's Fan, 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:20.880 which even if you're not familiar with that source, you 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:23.880 may have heard this, this particular quote quote, we are 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:26.080 all in the gutter, but some of us are looking 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:29.959 at the stars. Well that's a great sentiment, I guess 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:32.399 I take it to mean that maybe one's character is 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.280 defined not by the not by where your body is, 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:40.039 but by where your thoughts are aimed. Yeah. Now, one 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.040 guess starting place for this is that a lot of 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:47.720 the especially more recent writings you see and illusions referring 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:53.600 to this well astronomy situation will frequently point out that, okay, 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.360 well you had, you had Aristotle mentioning and passing, and 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:59.320 of course plenty of the elder mentions it. Um. So 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:04.120 let's start with the the Aristotle quote. He does mention 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:07.000 it kind of as an aside, and it is in 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:11.680 chapter five of the fourth century BC text Generation of Animals. Okay, 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:13.799 so this is going to be setting up the relationship 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:15.680 between looking out of a well or a tube and 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:19.520 seeing the stars in the daytime. Right, So this is 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.160 what Aristotle says. Quote. The cause of some animals being 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.919 keen sided and others not so is not simple but double. 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.040 For the word keene has pretty much a double sense. 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:33.400 And this is the case in like manner with hearing 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:36.919 and smelling. In one sense, keen site means the power 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:39.560 of seeing at a distance, and another it means the 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:43.560 power of distinguishing as accurately as possible the objects scene. 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:48.040 These two faculties are not necessarily combined in the same individual. 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.240 For the same person, if he shades his eyes with 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.680 his hand or look through a tube, does not distinguish 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.520 the differences of color either more or less in any way, 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.560 but he will see further. In fact, men in pits 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:06.880 or wells sometimes see the stars. But one of the 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:09.600 curious things here, though, and this is ultimately the like 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:11.640 the hard fact that we will keep coming back to 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.200 and thinking about this, is that during the day we 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:19.880 cannot see the stars, uh not not, you know, not 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.120 with the naked eye. And I think i've read that 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:26.400 like the brightest star, not counting the sun. Of course, 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.120 the brightest star in the night sky would have to 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:31.600 be something like five times as bright for the human 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:33.880 eye to see it during the day. So this is 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.680 one of those things that's right from the get go here. 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:41.280 It's not going to match up with any experience out there. Though, 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:43.200 if you have had the experience of standing in a 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:45.760 pit and looking up and seeing the night sky. Uh, 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.800 during the daytime, certainly, right in and tell us more 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:52.480 about this. But um, but for the most part, yeah, 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.040 it goes against everything we expect to be true from 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.880 our modern perspective. And yet we see multiple references to 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:01.560 this being a reality. And granted a lot of these 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.320 are second hand, uh. In the nature of a lot 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:07.400 of these ancient texts, for instance, plenty of the elder, 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.200 who's kind of a champion of the second or third 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.800 hand account of the natural world, he chimes in on 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.520 this little bit in natural history quote, the son's radiance 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.960 makes the fixed stars invisible in daytime, although they are 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.680 shining as much as in the night, which becomes manifest 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.520 at a solar eclipse, and also when the star is 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.560 reflected in a very deep well. Oh well, he's doing 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:32.960 really good up until that very last part. Yeah, And 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.240 that's that's something you said. I mean, because first of all, 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:36.680 a lot of this, a lot of the times we're 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.160 talking not talking about like, you know, just pure folklore here, 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:44.240 we're talking about very learned individuals of their age, individuals 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.520 who who you know, often knew something or a lot 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:53.120 concerning as astronomy during their time, and they're chiming in 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.000 on this as if it is true or said to 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:57.800 be true. Well, I mean, he is absolutely correct that 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.000 the stars are still shining dear in the daytime, just 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.080 like they are at night. It's the problem. The problem 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:05.800 is simply that their light is drowned out by the 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.400 glare of the sun. So it's not as if, I 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:10.760 mean you might assume if you were just going by 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.479 intuition that the stars turn off their lights during the 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.920 day or something, or you know, that they somehow disappear. No, 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.400 that they're still there. They're always there. We just can't 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:22.560 see them because there's too much light from this other 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:25.960 light source. Yeah. So so almost everything, yeah about that 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:30.480 statement is corrected. But at the end, uh he loves now. 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:32.560 One of the sources I was looking at for this 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:37.760 is a nine three paper by Eiden uh Psi Ali, 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.320 and this was republished in two thousand seven by the 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:46.200 Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilization. So Psi Ali major 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:50.440 Turkish science historian. So so important that he's actually on 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:52.600 a bank note. You can if you look him up 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.400 on like Wikipedia, you can see uh see his face 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.359 on currency. But but this is a very nice little 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:02.440 overview of this concept and touches on you know the 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.160 fact that it not only pops up in the history 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.880 of astronomy, but it also pops up in folklore and 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.480 literature of various different cultures. And the idea is basically 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:13.440 what we've been discussing, that one may stand at the 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:16.400 bottom of a well or you know, something similar, like 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.320 a great pit or some sort of natural formation of caves, 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:21.880 and if you look up you can glimpse the stars 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:25.840 during the day. And Psiali writes that sometimes this is 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.960 of just a vague tidbit without any specifics, like it's 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.040 just alluded to, Oh, one can do this, and this 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.279 has been done. But other times it's connected to specific 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:40.599 individuals and times. So the author mentions several more examples here, 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.640 and I'm gonna gonna touch on them here. So first 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:47.880 of all, it points out that Greek astronomer Cleomides says 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.760 that the sun appears larger when seen from the bottom 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.840 of a deep cistern because of the darkness and the 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.719 moisture of the air, though it does not make mention 0:06:56.760 --> 0:06:59.960 of actual what we'll discuss in a bit, actual observed 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.120 nation wells, some sort of a well or deep shaft 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:06.080 in the earth that is used that is either built 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:10.440 or repurposed or used for um looking at the stars. 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.560 Another individual he points to is the the writings of 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:20.360 Islamic philosopher Abu Barrakat al Baghdatti, who lived ten eighty 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:24.600 through eleven sixty four or eleven sixty five CE. And 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:27.800 this individual actually wrote a text titled on the reason 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.880 why the stars are visible at night and hidden in daytime, 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.880 And in this he contends that it comes down to 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:39.320 illumination of part of the atmosphere immediately above the observer. Uh. 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:43.160 And he does not mention observation wells specifically either, And 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.160 then you have Leonardo da Vinci also contending that the 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.240 atmosphere is dense and full of moisture particles that during 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:54.240 the daylight reflect radiance to obscure the stars. So um, again, 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.560 there's another example. Da Vinci is not talking about observation wells. 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:01.600 But Psiali contend that all three of these lines of 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:04.200 thinking quote would seem to be in agreement with or 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:06.880 even inspired by the claim that from the bottom of 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.520 a well or in a tall tower, which is to say, 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.280 at the bottom of a tall tower, which would prevent 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:15.440 the illumination of a portion of the atmosphere immediately above 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.800 the observer star has become visible in daytime. Okay, so 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.440 I think I'm catching onto the intuitive current that's driving this. 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:26.200 Might it be something like this. I can see the 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:30.920 stars in the nighttime when things are dark. Therefore, darkness 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:33.760 is what allows me to see the stars. So if 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:35.760 I get down at the bottom of a well or 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:37.600 the bottom of a tower where I can look out 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.040 through the top, the dark environment that I have enclosed 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:45.520 myself in will somehow like create the conditions of night 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:48.440 where I can normally see the stars. Is it something 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:50.760 like that? It seems to be again, this is something 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:55.199 where again this is it's this is not true, This 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:57.160 is not this is not seemed to be exactly what 0:08:57.240 --> 0:08:59.959 happens when one is standing in a pit, looking up, 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.600 standing in a well, etcetera. So we can't well, you know, 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.839 we can't break down the exact process of this because 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.200 this is not a reality. But yeah, this seems to 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:11.880 be what the basic argument seems to be. Like, if 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:16.360 you can as closely as possible approximate nighttime during the 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:19.720 day for your local self and then look up at 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:22.679 the sky, maybe then you would see the stars. Except 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:28.840 that doesn't actually happen right, But again important knowledgeable individuals 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.960 were writing about this and repeating its signal boosting and 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:34.199 if you will you have you know ultimately had the 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.440 likes of say Roger Bacon, mentioning it seemed to be 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:41.760 familiar with the concept, and multiple Islamic authors, according to Psiali, 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.920 reference it and um and that some of these points 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:50.280 is the specific observation wells not just in the generality 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:53.000 of this being a thing. So a few examples of this. 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:58.040 Um Maraga Observatory founded in twelve fifty seven was said 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:00.679 to be in observation well, but I thinks this may 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:04.000 be a mistake in reference, uh, not to the observatory, 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.360 but two caves beneath the observatory that quote do not 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:11.040 so far as is known, form any vertical well. Another 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:17.720 one he mentions is the Jaja bay um Marassa of Kishier, Anatolia, 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.280 founded in twelve seventy two. This was used in as 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:25.000 an observatory and was said to have an observation well 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.760 formed via a circular hole cut in the roof of 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.960 the dome of the Madrassa building, and that this was 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:37.679 for daytime star observation. Now on discount Psiali writes that 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.160 there is evidence of their having been a well here. 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.080 But but first of all, it was probably not dry. Uh. 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.520 And this could mean that if it was used for 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.640 as an astronomical aid, it was so that one could 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.160 look at the reflection of the sky in the water. 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.920 And there are references apparently to this practice. Oh okay, 0:10:57.920 --> 0:10:59.920 so this connects to I think the way that play 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:04.120 Knee in particular phrased it as opposed to Aristotle, because 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.280 Plenty said that you could see the stars reflected in 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:11.600 a very deep well. And so I'd wonder there that 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:15.320 there might be different optical effects at play if you're 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:17.680 not standing in the bottom of a well looking up 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:20.360 trying to see the stars in daytime, but looking down 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.080 at the water in a dark well to see if 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:28.000 it's quote unquote reflecting the nighttime stars even during the daytime. Right, yes, 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:29.960 I think there could. It seems to be the case 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:35.559 where you're dealing with with a different um reported phenomena 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.800 becoming confused with each other, you know, like, can you 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.760 can you look up from from the bottom of well 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:45.800 and see the sky? Yes? Can you see stars? Uh? Well, yes, 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:49.040 potentially if it is nighttime. Uh, But then that can 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.600 be you know, crossed into something else. Likewise, you could 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.560 have a situation where where the reflection in the well 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:56.760 in the well water could be used to see the 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.400 stars at night, but that doesn't mean you can see 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:01.920 them in the date time. Now. A third example that 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:05.120 ssially brings up is the is Ten Bowl Observatory, founded 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:09.160 in fifteen seventy nine, and it did have that This 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:12.600 particular site apparently did have an observation well or tower, 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:15.520 and there is confirmation of this in both Turkish and 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:19.960 European sources. However, the observatory was demolished not long after 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:23.280 its founding, so uh Siali says it might never have 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:25.040 been used or we you know, we just there are 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:27.600 no records of it being used. I saw some different 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:29.880 dates on this. Perhaps it might have been founded in 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.079 fifteen seventy seven, but it seems like it was destroyed 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.640 in something like fifteen eighty, just a very short period later, 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.280 and the destruction was possibly due to religious opposition to astronomy. 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:45.480 So Sili mentioned that there's a sixteen thirty mention of 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.480 observers and students glimpsing the stars in the daytime from 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.800 the bottom of a very deep Well in Coimbra, Portugal, 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.800 and they're also accounts from Spain apparently. And then we 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.880 have an individual by the name of Hard vigl Uh, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.840 mathematician to Duke Wilhelm the fourth of Bavaria. He had 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.080 a house built in sixteen sixty seven in Jenna, and 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.320 it was said to have a quote, slanting tube built 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:14.199 into the wall in order to allow the daytime observation 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.520 of the stars. You shared with me a painting of 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.120 all ear Hard here. And this guy is such a 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:25.800 mood he's I don't even know how to describe this 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.640 he he. I mean, he looks like a very sensitive 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:32.480 boy posing for a photo with his dog, you know, 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:34.680 like pointing to the dog. Except it's just like a 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.800 big table of mathematical figures. Yeah. Yeah. My first thought 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.240 was like, here is a man who loves his maths. Uh. 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.600 If you look him up on Wikipedia, you'll see this 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.439 particular painting. There are other images of him that are 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:52.800 not that don't strike the same tone. But I do 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.720 really like this painting. It looks like he's like doing 0:13:55.760 --> 0:14:02.080 his equations and he's going, who's a good boy? Yeah. Now. 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.160 Siali also mentions that the Paris observatory he found in 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:09.600 sixteen sixty seven through sixteen seventy five featured a vertical 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.640 hole which, via the caves below, formed a fifty five 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.040 meter deep well. Quote, it was said the Cassini, shortly 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.720 after the foundation of the observatory, considered the possibility of 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.920 its use for daytime observation of the stars, as one 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.040 of the brightest stars of the constellation Perseus, he said, 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:28.400 would come within the field of view of the well, 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:32.240 and approximately forty years now. This is interesting to keep 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.480 in mind talking about the field of view of the well, 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.120 because I think this can be this can be telling 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:41.000 and given some of the analysis out there, Cassini apparently 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:45.000 used the well himself and had another well built. But 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:50.240 around this time, Sili says, astronomical advancements may have made 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:54.600 venturing down to a well just increasingly obsolete. Um. However, 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.240 silely mentioned that there were rumors that a janitor at 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.240 the observatory had a side hustle of taking people down 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:05.400 into the into the pit to goainst the stars. What 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:11.320 what is this the seventeenth century? Yeah, um, well, I'm 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.240 not sure exactly when this uh when the janitors This 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:18.080 may may have come later okay, but it sounds very 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:22.200 at groundpo doesn't uh huh. One more example that Sali 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:27.480 mentions is the Chrestminster Observatory in Austria, found seventy eight 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:30.280 that has a fifty nine meter deep well said to 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:34.240 have been used as an observation well as well well, 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:38.320 given all of these examples and anecdotes from history of 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:42.080 people saying they could do this or building facilities in 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.760 which to do this, I'm starting to have my doubts. 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.080 I'm like, wait a minute, can you actually I don't know. 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.680 I mean, like, would all these people be building starlight 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.720 tubes and observation wells and towers and stuff and talking 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.320 about this all the time if there weren't something to 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:01.480 this story. I'm I'm having I'm doubting myself. Yeah, I 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.680 had the same experience with it, and and Ssiali is 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.320 basically discussing the same thing. He's like, it would just 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.960 be strange if this idea persisted for so long and 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.360 people did all these things, if there wasn't something to it, 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:19.160 if there wasn't some factual basis to the whole enterprise, 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.320 Because you know, dudes are incorporating this into their house plans, 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:27.320 you know, buddy, he does point out, Yeah, there was 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:30.840 there were. There were certainly skeptics as well, including Alexander 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.840 von Humboldt, who we've we've discussed on the show before, 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.800 old friend of the show, the subject of a really 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:41.040 great biography by Andrea Wolf called The Invention of Nature 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:45.040 I highly recommend, very interesting. I'd say Von Humboldt was 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:50.880 very important for promoting a kind of a total view 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.400 of science that kind of the connected all of the 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:59.600 natural world together into a a vast system of interlocking 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:02.960 cause as and effects, and viewed nature not just as 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.439 discreet entities of here's this animal and here's this plant, 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:10.560 but as an ecology, as a system of interactions in 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:15.280 which everything affected every other thing. Yeah, and so he 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.639 comes along, and you know, he's evidently he's read about 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.480 this and he's familiar with the concept. But then he's 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.040 he says, well, I okay, I spoke with with Chimney Sweeps, 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:28.040 I spoke with miners, I've spoke with other people who 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:31.520 had ventured down into um into conditions just like this, 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:35.000 And apparently he sought those conditions out himself, and he 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:37.160 did not experience this. He was not able to see 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.359 the stars no, when he spoke to had direct experience 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:43.560 of having seen the stars this way. Uh, And he's 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.160 just one of There are a few other historical critics 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:49.080 of the notion as well that psi Ali mentions. Um, 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.680 but but I think Alexander van Homboldt probably this is 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.520 the one of the more robust ones coming along, where 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.680 he's just saying, yeah, nobody I spoke to has actually 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.360 experienced this, and uh and and ultimately Psyli, even though 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:04.439 he's like again he's thinking, there's you know, people have 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:07.399 been doing this and circulating this idea. There there's is 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:10.359 there absolutely nothing to it. He does stress that quote, 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:14.080 although such wells were connected with observatories, there is no 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:19.360 evidence that such observatories were systematically made and utilized by astronomer. 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.400 So the whole practice could have been you know, largely theoretical. 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:26.040 Uh even you know, an ultimate basis for it could 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:30.119 ultimately be more imagination than anything. But he thinks that 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.640 the whole enterprise might have been connected more to focusing 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:37.040 on particular areas of the of the sky. So again, 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.000 come think think about like what this would mean to 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:42.359 stand at the bottom of a well and look up 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:47.320 through the circular um. Aperture of the well and behold 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:51.200 the sky, behold the sky at night to see the stars, 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.720 you would it would in a sense, you know, it 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:58.359 would limit what you could see. It would take that 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:02.439 just overwhelming stars ape and limited to just a single 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:06.199 circle of observation. Yeah. Maybe if you were trying to 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:10.680 focus on particular stars as they passed through during the 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:13.399 night or something. I don't know. And then likewise, I 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:15.240 guess if you had a similar setup and you were 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:17.320 looking at stars were flected in the water, you could 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.560 and it was very still water and the reflection was 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:24.719 just right, you could have something similar going on. Um. 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.919 But in terms of yeah, basically, anybody who comes up 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.680 against this idea of it being somehow a way to 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:35.760 to see the stars during the daylight, uh, every nobody 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.639 agrees that this is possible. Uh. For instance, this is 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:41.800 this is brought up in the book Bad Astronomy by 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.320 Phil Plate, for example. UM. And he also points out 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:48.159 that Charles Dickens wrote of it as well, and he 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.520 says that he's never heard a decent explanation as to 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:55.720 why this would work. Well. One nice takedown of the 0:19:55.760 --> 0:20:00.680 whole idea came from the Reverend William Frederick arch Doll 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:06.720 Ellison in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association, in writing, quote, 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.480 A very little scientific reasoning, even without experiment, will be 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:13.720 sufficient to dispose of it. For what is it which 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:17.040 hides the star in the daytime? It is merely the 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:20.800 glare of our atmosphere illuminated by the Sun's rays. As 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:23.600 the atmosphere extends to a height of fifty miles or 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:27.040 more above the Earth's surface, A shaft or chimney one 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:30.200 hundred to two hundred feet high could do but little 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.280 to take away that glare. And anyone who has ever 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:36.160 actually looked up from the bottom of such a shaft 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.560 as I have from the bottom of a colliery. Uh 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:42.719 this is a British term. By the way, um a 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.679 coal mine and the buildings and equipment associated with it 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.480 nine feet below the surface, must have been struck not 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.240 by the darkness of the little disc of sky visible, 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.520 but by its dazzling brilliance. And this is something that 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:57.800 people come back to. It's like, if you actually seek 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:02.200 out this experience of gazing up through a shaft at 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:07.199 the at the sky, at the daytime sky, it's the 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:08.960 sky is not going to be dark, it's gonna be 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:13.000 super bright. It's gonna be overwhelmingly bright. Now, I totally 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:14.960 agree with that, that that seems right to me. I 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:19.480 do have a counterposing idea. I wonder if you were 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.600 able to build a tower like some of these supposed 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:27.080 observation towers that extended up beyond the top of the atmosphere, 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:32.120 then that might actually work. Oh, I did not see 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:35.840 anyone discussing this idea, This idea that through some sort 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:39.200 of futuristic mega project, we might be able to make 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:43.800 the daytime a well observatory possible. Yeah, like you build 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:46.600 a space elevator and it's just it's a tube going 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:49.800 up beyond the atmosphere. Even then, I'm not positive that 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.800 would work. I think it probably would. I guess it 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:55.439 might depend on where the sun is at the moment 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.520 relative to like is any of the sunlight shooting down 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:02.359 in there. It's Many commentators also speak to this whole 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:06.520 notion being predicated on a misunderstanding of what a telescope does, 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:10.600 certainly in the later cases in later circulation of the idea, 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:12.800 and that you know, ultimately it's focusing more on the 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:16.159 tube but rather than the lenses, which are vital to 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:19.800 the workings of a telescope, right, not understanding that the 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.520 purpose of the telescope is to gather light from a 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:25.360 from a wider surface and then project that down into 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:29.159 your eye to increase the resolution. One such commentator was 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:32.119 Patricio Grady, who wrote on the subject in two thousand 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:35.639 two in a paper title Dailies of My Leaders the 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:39.720 Beginnings of Western Philosophy and Science. She contends that such 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:43.159 wells were used at night as a means of isolating 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:46.840 portions of the night sky for consideration and study. Quote, 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:49.800 descending into a well and peering up the extent of 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:53.359 the well would isolate areas to be observed, and the 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:56.080 rim of the well being similar to that to the 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:59.240 tube about which Aristotle wrote, would be a sort of 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:05.240 quote unquot telescope, but lacking magnification. M M yeah, okay, yeah, 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:08.440 so um, you know it's it's there was so much 0:23:08.480 --> 0:23:10.520 more to this than than I expected. But it seems 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:13.239 like we can think of observation wells as being a 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:17.000 mix of second hand accounts signal boosted by important writers 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:21.040 and thinkers during their times, backed up by hypothetical models, 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:23.879 as well as the seeming at least limited use of 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:26.119 such wells as a means of isolating portions of the 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:30.040 night sky for study um at night. Yeah, that that 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:32.560 all seems reasonable to me. I'm still hung up on 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:35.200 the idea that there could also be some kind of 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:39.800 garbling of a report of an optical effects that somebody 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:43.800 got from looking down at the sunlight reflected in water 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:46.399 in a dark well, and that maybe ripples in the 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:48.680 water or something. I've never tried it, so I don't 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:50.560 know what that would be like, but I could imagine 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:55.120 that could look like many points of light instead of one. Yeah, 0:23:55.240 --> 0:24:04.080 that's a good point, now, Rob. It's funny you mentioned 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:08.840 this book by Patricia Grady about Thals of Melitas, because 0:24:09.359 --> 0:24:12.240 the other half of this coin, the idea of a 0:24:12.280 --> 0:24:17.359 stargazer in a well, connects very directly to a famous 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:22.480 anecdote about this. Uh. This philosopher, so Theles of Melitas, 0:24:22.560 --> 0:24:27.080 was a pre Socratic Greek philosopher who lived from the 0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:31.640 late seventh century to the mid sixth century BC. He 0:24:31.720 --> 0:24:34.960 was one of the famous Seven Stages of Greece uh 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:38.280 and as he was revered by other ancient philosophers and 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:42.040 writers as in many ways kind of the primary patriarch 0:24:42.080 --> 0:24:44.000 of wisdom. He was thought to be, in a sense, 0:24:44.160 --> 0:24:47.880 the first philosopher, and in more recent centuries he's been 0:24:47.920 --> 0:24:50.639 seen by some as quote the father of science, though 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:54.920 I think both of those designations are a good bit overstated. 0:24:55.000 --> 0:24:58.119 Though Thailes was a very interesting figure. Going to the 0:24:58.119 --> 0:25:00.680 idea of him being the quote father or of science, 0:25:00.760 --> 0:25:03.959 I would say in an informal way, there were empirical 0:25:04.000 --> 0:25:08.159 observations and experiments and deterministic theories of nature, of course, 0:25:08.280 --> 0:25:11.879 all going on before Thailey's, no doubt, but he was 0:25:12.200 --> 0:25:16.720 famous in ancient Greece for appealing to natural material causes 0:25:17.359 --> 0:25:21.399 rather than ad hoc mythological explanations when trying to understand 0:25:21.480 --> 0:25:25.800 nature in the world. So, like many ancient Greek philosophers, 0:25:25.840 --> 0:25:30.800 from Pythagoras to Socrates, we actually have no surviving copies 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:34.040 of any text by Thailes himself, so if he wrote 0:25:34.040 --> 0:25:36.960 anything down himself, we no longer have it. The only 0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:39.520 sources we have for his life and his work are 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:42.760 what other people wrote about him, which of course makes 0:25:42.800 --> 0:25:45.600 it complicated to know with much certainty what he actually 0:25:45.640 --> 0:25:48.960 said and believed. So everything that follows that we're gonna 0:25:48.960 --> 0:25:52.480 say about Thailey's comes with the major caveat that it 0:25:52.560 --> 0:25:55.800 is based on secondary sources, often writing much later than 0:25:55.920 --> 0:25:59.760 Dailey's own lifetime, because it's all we have. Dailies was 0:26:00.080 --> 0:26:03.280 known for wisdom in UH, not just what we would 0:26:03.320 --> 0:26:07.400 later call science, but in many domains, including in in mathematics. 0:26:07.400 --> 0:26:11.320 He was famous for for bringing uh Egyptian geometry to 0:26:11.760 --> 0:26:15.320 Greek thought, and for philosophy and politics. He he was 0:26:15.960 --> 0:26:20.199 given credit for the maxim know thyself, which I have 0:26:20.280 --> 0:26:23.160 to say I find one of the most powerful aphorisms 0:26:23.160 --> 0:26:26.720 of all time. You know, know thyself is two words long, 0:26:26.840 --> 0:26:29.000 and it really hits you. It's like a wrecking ball, 0:26:29.040 --> 0:26:34.440 like it manages to be simultaneously empowering and humbling. And 0:26:34.480 --> 0:26:37.600 there's a whole rich tradition of other philosophers simply trying 0:26:37.640 --> 0:26:41.320 to explain what they think is meant exactly by the 0:26:41.400 --> 0:26:45.199 statement know thyself? Is it? Is it an admonition to 0:26:45.320 --> 0:26:47.720 know your place and be humble in the face of 0:26:47.760 --> 0:26:50.600 the gods? Is it a a Is it a warning 0:26:50.680 --> 0:26:54.359 to know your own limitations? Is it an exhortation to 0:26:54.880 --> 0:26:58.919 two deeper philosophical understanding, to understand what you are? In 0:26:58.960 --> 0:27:01.400 a way, maybe it's all of these things. Yeah, that's 0:27:01.480 --> 0:27:04.800 it's a great naval gazer, that one. The more the 0:27:04.960 --> 0:27:08.560 more you think about it, the slipper area it becomes. Now. 0:27:08.600 --> 0:27:11.119 At this time, there was not much of a division 0:27:11.200 --> 0:27:14.200 between what we would today call science and what the 0:27:14.520 --> 0:27:17.320 ancient Greeks would call philosophy. It was it was sort 0:27:17.359 --> 0:27:19.320 of all the same thing. It was the the pursuit 0:27:19.400 --> 0:27:24.240 of knowledge. But I guess the more scientific version of 0:27:24.280 --> 0:27:27.800 ancient Greek philosophy would be the kind that focused on 0:27:27.960 --> 0:27:32.200 explanations of the natural world and appealing to natural causes. 0:27:32.920 --> 0:27:35.600 A lot of the science that the Leis believed in 0:27:36.160 --> 0:27:39.080 has not exactly held up to later scrutiny. For just 0:27:39.160 --> 0:27:43.440 one example, he was known for arguing that earthquakes were 0:27:43.520 --> 0:27:47.000 caused by the fact that the continents, the land on 0:27:47.040 --> 0:27:49.439 which we walk, is actually part of a great a 0:27:49.440 --> 0:27:53.679 great disc that floats on water, and sometimes the continents 0:27:53.760 --> 0:27:56.960 or the disks on which the continents rest are rocked 0:27:57.000 --> 0:28:01.040 by waves in the underlying cosmic ocean. UH For ancient 0:28:01.040 --> 0:28:03.280 accounts of this belief of Thles, I want to go 0:28:03.320 --> 0:28:05.919 back to actually a Patricio Grady, the source you mentioned 0:28:05.920 --> 0:28:09.480 earlier in her book on Thailey's um. She, for example, 0:28:09.600 --> 0:28:13.080 quote Seneca, who says the cause of earthquakes is said 0:28:13.080 --> 0:28:15.840 to be in water by more than one authority, but 0:28:15.960 --> 0:28:18.960 not in the same way Thals of Melita's judges that 0:28:19.040 --> 0:28:22.240 the whole earth is buoyed up and floats upon liquid 0:28:22.280 --> 0:28:25.560 that lies underneath the disc is supported by this water. 0:28:25.640 --> 0:28:28.800 He says, just as some big heavy ship is supported 0:28:28.800 --> 0:28:32.840 by the water which it presses down upon and elsewhere. 0:28:32.840 --> 0:28:36.639 Syneca actually mocks Thles for his beliefs. He says, the 0:28:36.680 --> 0:28:40.760 following theory by Thailes is silly for he's for he 0:28:40.840 --> 0:28:44.000 says that this round of lands is sustained by water 0:28:44.080 --> 0:28:46.320 and is carried along like a boat. And on the 0:28:46.360 --> 0:28:48.520 occasions when the earth is said to quake, it is 0:28:48.560 --> 0:28:51.440 fluctuating because of the movement of the water. It is 0:28:51.480 --> 0:28:54.400 no wonder, therefore, that there is abundant water for making 0:28:54.400 --> 0:28:57.440 the rivers flow, since the entire round is in water. 0:28:57.960 --> 0:29:01.800 Reject this antiquated, unsca doll early theory. There is also 0:29:01.920 --> 0:29:04.920 no reason that you should believe water enters this globe 0:29:04.920 --> 0:29:10.840 through cracks and forms. Builge okay, I will not believe 0:29:10.880 --> 0:29:14.400 in the billage. Synegain convinced me. But also to continue 0:29:14.400 --> 0:29:19.880 with the ocean theme, Thalley's quite remarkably believed that the 0:29:20.120 --> 0:29:24.920 entire basis of matter was water, and it can be 0:29:24.960 --> 0:29:27.560 difficult to parse exactly what he means by this, but 0:29:28.240 --> 0:29:31.520 I think it's commonly interpreted to mean that all matter 0:29:31.840 --> 0:29:34.440 is in some way a form of water. So much 0:29:34.480 --> 0:29:39.040 like liquid water can turn into vapor, or it can 0:29:39.120 --> 0:29:42.720 freeze into a solid ice cube, then it can take 0:29:42.720 --> 0:29:45.280 on other forms as well, and in fact it does 0:29:45.440 --> 0:29:47.520 take on all the forms we see in the world. 0:29:47.680 --> 0:29:51.080 Every piece of matter is some type of water, or 0:29:51.200 --> 0:29:55.200 is in some way derived from water, And of course 0:29:55.240 --> 0:29:57.959 this is wrong, but it does wander kind of close 0:29:58.000 --> 0:30:00.800 to a profound truth that would be disc covered much later, 0:30:01.280 --> 0:30:05.040 which is that, as fundamentally different as all the substances 0:30:05.080 --> 0:30:09.640 of the world, blood magma would air. As different as 0:30:09.680 --> 0:30:12.960 all these things might seem, they're actually made of exactly 0:30:13.000 --> 0:30:15.880 the same fundamental building blocks, not water, but the sub 0:30:15.920 --> 0:30:21.240 atomic particles protons, neutrons, electrons, in different quantities and arrangements. 0:30:21.280 --> 0:30:23.400 So he was wrong about the water part, but I 0:30:23.400 --> 0:30:27.680 do think it's still a rather profound hypothesis that at bottom, 0:30:27.800 --> 0:30:30.800 all matter is made of the same stuff. Now, coming 0:30:30.840 --> 0:30:33.920 back to the designation that some authors have used for 0:30:34.080 --> 0:30:37.400 Thailey's as quote the father of science, I think one 0:30:37.440 --> 0:30:40.160 of the big stories leading to that designation, like I 0:30:40.400 --> 0:30:43.000 know this was there was a piece at some point 0:30:43.080 --> 0:30:47.600 that Isaac Asimov wrote about this. The connecting point here 0:30:47.840 --> 0:30:50.240 is that there are reports from the ancient world that 0:30:50.680 --> 0:30:55.240 Thailes did occasionally make testable predictions that proved correct, such 0:30:55.280 --> 0:30:59.520 as in Matters of Astronomy, where the historian Herodotus claims 0:30:59.560 --> 0:31:03.600 that they these correctly predicted a solar eclipse in advance 0:31:04.120 --> 0:31:08.080 with profound geopolitical implications for for an ongoing war with 0:31:08.720 --> 0:31:12.720 between the Meads and the Lydians. So to uh, to 0:31:12.800 --> 0:31:15.640 fill out this story a bit I'm gonna describe and 0:31:15.720 --> 0:31:19.600 quote from Herodotus the translation by A. D. Godly, so 0:31:19.840 --> 0:31:23.280 a bit of background. Herodotus tells us that at some 0:31:23.320 --> 0:31:27.880 point in history, a tribe of nomadic Scythians escaped some 0:31:27.960 --> 0:31:30.760 trouble in their own lands, and they escaped into the 0:31:30.840 --> 0:31:35.640 territory of the Medians or the Meads, who were ruled 0:31:35.680 --> 0:31:39.600 by a king named Psiak Saris. The Scythians asked for 0:31:39.720 --> 0:31:44.240 mercy and Psia Saris granted it, and even gave over 0:31:44.320 --> 0:31:47.719 some Median young men to the Scythians to sort of 0:31:47.760 --> 0:31:49.800 like live with them and learn their language and to 0:31:49.880 --> 0:31:53.600 learn archery from them. But there came a day when 0:31:54.120 --> 0:31:57.560 the Scythians returned from a hunt with nothing to offer 0:31:57.600 --> 0:32:01.000 their new king, and Sia Saris be being short tempered. 0:32:01.040 --> 0:32:04.600 He took this their their lack of game as an insult, 0:32:05.000 --> 0:32:07.560 and he gave him a really bad chewing out. I 0:32:07.560 --> 0:32:11.920 think the direct quote is he treated them contemptuously. So 0:32:12.080 --> 0:32:15.160 in revenge for being dressed down, some of the Scythians 0:32:15.640 --> 0:32:19.920 took the young Meads their their pupils and killed them 0:32:19.960 --> 0:32:22.880 and dressed their bodies and presented them to the king 0:32:23.000 --> 0:32:25.720 as if they were animals killed in a hunt. Then 0:32:25.760 --> 0:32:28.960 they immediately fled the domain of the Meads and went 0:32:29.000 --> 0:32:33.240 to the domain of a king named al Yatis of Sartists. 0:32:33.520 --> 0:32:35.680 All right, this is already spiraling out of control. This 0:32:35.760 --> 0:32:39.640 is a bad situation. Right, So Sia Saries was tricked, 0:32:39.720 --> 0:32:42.600 and indeed he did eat the flesh of his young countryman, 0:32:43.040 --> 0:32:46.640 thinking it was wild game. And after he found out, 0:32:46.680 --> 0:32:49.160 he wasn't very happy about it, and he went to 0:32:49.200 --> 0:32:52.400 al Yatis and said, Hey, these guys made me do cannibalism, 0:32:52.440 --> 0:32:55.040 you need to give them over to me. So now 0:32:55.080 --> 0:32:58.600 I'm just going to quote from the Herodotus translation after this, 0:32:58.720 --> 0:33:01.160 since al Yatis would not give up the Scythians to 0:33:01.240 --> 0:33:04.520 Sia Saries at his demand, there was a war between 0:33:04.520 --> 0:33:08.000 the Lydians and the Meads for five years, each one 0:33:08.080 --> 0:33:10.840 many victories over the other, and once they fought a 0:33:10.840 --> 0:33:14.680 battle by night. They were still warring with equal success 0:33:14.720 --> 0:33:17.320 when it happened at an encounter which occurred in the 0:33:17.360 --> 0:33:21.160 sixth year, that during the battle the day was suddenly 0:33:21.240 --> 0:33:26.320 turned tonight. Thallis of Melitas had foretold this loss of 0:33:26.400 --> 0:33:29.920 daylight to the Ionians, fixing it within a year, at 0:33:29.960 --> 0:33:33.840 which the change did indeed happen. So when the Lydians 0:33:33.840 --> 0:33:37.560 and Meads saw the day turn tonight, they stopped fighting, 0:33:37.840 --> 0:33:41.520 and both were the more eager to make peace. And 0:33:41.600 --> 0:33:44.719 apparently they did make peace by securing a marriage between 0:33:44.760 --> 0:33:48.160 the between the children of the two kings. Happy ending 0:33:48.160 --> 0:33:50.280 there you go, though, I have to imagine there was 0:33:50.320 --> 0:33:52.200 a good bit of like, hey, remember when your dad 0:33:52.240 --> 0:33:54.800 did cannibalism, and then my dad helped the people who 0:33:54.800 --> 0:33:57.440 made him do it. There's probably still some bad blood, 0:33:57.480 --> 0:34:00.280 but you know, you get a nice wedding ceremony in there. Uh, 0:34:00.360 --> 0:34:04.440 you know, it's well catered. It's gonna it's gonna could 0:34:04.480 --> 0:34:07.880 calm a lot of the waters. Yeah. So anyway, the 0:34:07.920 --> 0:34:11.960 story again is that Thaileys predicted this solar eclipse that 0:34:12.080 --> 0:34:15.680 interrupted the middle of a battle. He predicted it in advance. 0:34:16.520 --> 0:34:19.000 Later scientists have worked out that this must be a 0:34:19.000 --> 0:34:23.520 reference to the solar eclipse of May five b C, 0:34:23.960 --> 0:34:26.600 because that's the only one within the right time frame 0:34:26.680 --> 0:34:29.200 that would have been visible at the place in question, 0:34:29.239 --> 0:34:32.560 and that does all work out. But if it's true 0:34:32.640 --> 0:34:35.640 that Thaile's predicted the eclipse in advance, this is an 0:34:35.680 --> 0:34:39.720 absolutely extraordinary claim, and I think a lot of modern 0:34:39.760 --> 0:34:43.040 scholars have doubts about this story. So we know lunar 0:34:43.080 --> 0:34:46.719 eclipses where the shadow of the Earth passes over the 0:34:46.760 --> 0:34:50.000 face of the moon, these have been predicted going way 0:34:50.080 --> 0:34:53.800 way back, long before Thailes the court. Astronomers of ancient 0:34:53.880 --> 0:34:58.000 China and ancient Babylon were able to figure out these 0:34:58.040 --> 0:35:01.640 patterns and draw up tables allowing to predict lunar eclipses, 0:35:02.360 --> 0:35:06.920 but solar eclipses where the Moon passes directly between the 0:35:06.920 --> 0:35:10.640 Earth and the Sun, blocking out the sunlight. These are 0:35:10.840 --> 0:35:15.200 much much harder to predict, especially because they are localized 0:35:15.239 --> 0:35:18.080 to specific vantage points on Earth's surface. I mean, there 0:35:18.239 --> 0:35:21.920 are solar eclipses all the time, but living wherever you do, 0:35:22.040 --> 0:35:24.000 you don't see most of them. They're they're on some 0:35:24.080 --> 0:35:27.320 other part of the globe. Yeah, Like if you scout, 0:35:27.360 --> 0:35:29.360 try to scout one out for yourself. You may have 0:35:29.440 --> 0:35:32.600 encountered this situation where you know, someone's like, hey, there's 0:35:32.600 --> 0:35:35.200 a solar eclipse coming up, and you're like, great, when 0:35:35.239 --> 0:35:38.120 can we see it? And it's like, well, on this date, 0:35:38.320 --> 0:35:42.440 if we're in Arkansas or parts of Texas, there's the 0:35:42.440 --> 0:35:45.160 solar eclipse coming, we have to travel to Baffin Island, 0:35:46.360 --> 0:35:49.040 that sort of thing. But that that being said, I mean, 0:35:49.080 --> 0:35:52.040 if you have the ability to to go witness solar 0:35:52.080 --> 0:35:55.919 eclipse under safe circumstances, that absolutely do so, because it's 0:35:56.160 --> 0:35:59.680 it's wonderful. Oh absolutely yes, it is worth it as 0:36:00.000 --> 0:36:02.839 one of the most magical experiences of my life. Now, 0:36:02.920 --> 0:36:05.960 the first solar eclipses that we know for sure we're 0:36:06.000 --> 0:36:10.080 predicted in advance came after we had much better astrophysical 0:36:10.120 --> 0:36:12.560 theories in hand. Uh, This would be in the early 0:36:12.600 --> 0:36:15.200 eighteenth century. The first case where we know for sure 0:36:15.680 --> 0:36:19.200 that someone accurately predicted to solar eclipse was on May third, 0:36:19.200 --> 0:36:24.640 seventeen fifteen, when English astronomer Edmund Halley of Hallie's comet fame, 0:36:25.600 --> 0:36:29.560 built upon the scientific revolution unlocked by Isaac Newton's theory 0:36:29.600 --> 0:36:32.640 of universal gravitation. Hall he was a friend of Newton's 0:36:32.719 --> 0:36:37.480 and he used Newton's new theories to accurately pinpoint and 0:36:37.520 --> 0:36:40.480 eclipse that would be visible in London. And I think 0:36:40.480 --> 0:36:43.759 he got it right within a margin of about four minutes. 0:36:44.080 --> 0:36:48.359 But Hallie's prediction and all subsequent solar eclipse predictions, they 0:36:48.440 --> 0:36:51.759 require a lot of information that was, as far as 0:36:51.760 --> 0:36:55.880 we know, not available in ancient Greece. And unfortunately, no 0:36:56.040 --> 0:36:59.120 writings of Dailey's exist today. As I said, and Herodotus 0:36:59.160 --> 0:37:01.600 does not. Bother too mentioned the method by which the 0:37:01.800 --> 0:37:05.080 Lees made this prediction. I don't think other authors who 0:37:05.080 --> 0:37:09.279 mentioned this this story share any any further insights either, uh, 0:37:09.320 --> 0:37:11.279 and so we and we also don't know what the 0:37:11.400 --> 0:37:14.560 level of precision of this prediction would have been, though 0:37:15.080 --> 0:37:18.200 the Herodotus does say that it took place that year, 0:37:18.680 --> 0:37:21.560 which makes me wonder if it's possible Thailies just said 0:37:21.880 --> 0:37:24.600 there will be a solar eclipse sometime this year and 0:37:24.680 --> 0:37:27.680 got extremely lucky. But ultimately we don't know, We don't 0:37:27.680 --> 0:37:30.120 know what was going on here. If he actually did 0:37:30.160 --> 0:37:32.560 make the prediction and it was correct. Did he just 0:37:32.640 --> 0:37:35.839 have an amazing stroke of luck, or did he have 0:37:36.000 --> 0:37:40.879 some kind of incredibly advanced uh type of knowledge about 0:37:40.920 --> 0:37:43.640 astrophysics that nobody else at the time had and he 0:37:43.719 --> 0:37:46.400 left no record of it. And as with the observation, 0:37:46.440 --> 0:37:48.480 well as what we're dealing with, you know, second hand 0:37:48.480 --> 0:37:52.200 accounts and in vague references here, right, So also we 0:37:52.200 --> 0:37:54.359 don't even know for sure it's true that he made 0:37:54.400 --> 0:37:58.000 this prediction, though it seems to be a widely attested story, 0:37:58.120 --> 0:38:06.880 and we do know the eclipse did happen. Now, I 0:38:06.960 --> 0:38:11.200 was reading about a few other scientific contributions of the Ley's. 0:38:11.360 --> 0:38:14.440 One source I was looking at was by W. K. C. 0:38:14.800 --> 0:38:18.520 Guthrie called A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume one, the 0:38:18.560 --> 0:38:23.120 Earlier pre Socratics and the Pythagoreans. This was Cambridge University Press, 0:38:23.200 --> 0:38:27.480 nineteen sixty two, and Guthrie collects a lot of observations. 0:38:27.520 --> 0:38:32.399 He writes that Theile's made uh made gave guidance about 0:38:32.400 --> 0:38:37.320 the relative usefulness of different constellations for c navigation, pointing 0:38:37.320 --> 0:38:42.040 out that the the minor bear the little bear constellation 0:38:42.280 --> 0:38:44.800 was better than the Great Bear for finding the poll 0:38:45.400 --> 0:38:49.040 and this story was related by Callimachus. Apparently, the use 0:38:49.080 --> 0:38:52.400 of the minor Bear was already in practice by the Phoenicians, 0:38:52.440 --> 0:38:54.720 and Thais showed why it was better than the Greek 0:38:54.760 --> 0:38:58.400 standard diversa major. He apparently also is said to have 0:38:58.719 --> 0:39:03.839 used geometry to measure the dimensions of the pyramids and 0:39:03.960 --> 0:39:07.040 uh and to show how you could calculate how far 0:39:07.120 --> 0:39:10.520 away a ship at sea was. And in summary, writing 0:39:10.520 --> 0:39:15.719 about the Thailey's reputation in ancient Greece, Guthrie says, quote, 0:39:15.840 --> 0:39:18.440 once he had achieved in the popular mind the status 0:39:18.440 --> 0:39:22.000 of the ideal man of science, there is no doubt 0:39:22.040 --> 0:39:25.600 that the stories about him were invented or selected according 0:39:25.640 --> 0:39:29.359 to the picture of the philosophic temperament which a particular 0:39:29.440 --> 0:39:32.960 writer wished to convey. And so Guthrie goes on to 0:39:33.000 --> 0:39:36.200 describe an example of what he calls this quote mutually 0:39:36.360 --> 0:39:41.480 canceling propaganda, which is the contrast between the story of 0:39:41.520 --> 0:39:45.200 the olive presses and the story of the fall into 0:39:45.239 --> 0:39:48.080 a well or into a pit, and these are given 0:39:48.120 --> 0:39:50.640 respectively by Aristotle and Plato. I'm going to start with 0:39:50.719 --> 0:39:53.440 the story of the olive presses, which we have from Aristotle, 0:39:53.560 --> 0:39:58.520 so this is an Aristotle's politics translation by Benjamin Jowitt. 0:39:58.840 --> 0:40:02.279 I'm just going to read direct lee. Aristotle says, there 0:40:02.400 --> 0:40:05.520 is the anecdote of the LEAs the Miletian and his 0:40:05.680 --> 0:40:10.360 financial device, which involves a principle of universal application, but 0:40:10.520 --> 0:40:13.880 is attributed to him on account of his reputation for wisdom. 0:40:14.360 --> 0:40:18.080 He was reproached for his poverty, which was supposed to 0:40:18.080 --> 0:40:22.280 show that philosophy was of no use. According to the story, 0:40:22.600 --> 0:40:25.120 he knew by his skill in the stars, while it 0:40:25.239 --> 0:40:28.040 was yet winter, that there would be a great harvest 0:40:28.080 --> 0:40:31.440 of olives in the coming year. So, having little money, 0:40:31.480 --> 0:40:34.280 he gave deposits for the use of all the olive 0:40:34.360 --> 0:40:38.160 presses in chias and militas, which he hired at a 0:40:38.200 --> 0:40:41.200 low price, because no one bid against him. When the 0:40:41.239 --> 0:40:44.960 harvest time came and many were wanted, all at once, 0:40:45.120 --> 0:40:47.399 and of a sudden, he let them out at any 0:40:47.480 --> 0:40:50.560 rate which he pleased and made a quantity of money. 0:40:50.600 --> 0:40:53.600 Thus he showed the world that philosophers can easily be 0:40:53.760 --> 0:40:56.200 rich if they like, but that their ambition is of 0:40:56.239 --> 0:41:00.839 another sort. And you notice at the beginning that Aristotle 0:41:00.920 --> 0:41:04.040 said this, Uh, this financial device, he says, involves a 0:41:04.080 --> 0:41:08.480 principle of universal application. So Aristotle is actually saying, you know, 0:41:08.760 --> 0:41:12.360 the thing that that Dailies is doing this story is 0:41:12.400 --> 0:41:16.960 a well known move. It's called monopoly. Uh. The exploitation 0:41:17.000 --> 0:41:19.680 of a monopoly is a standard, well known commercial and 0:41:19.719 --> 0:41:22.279 political practice. And he gives examples having to do with 0:41:22.320 --> 0:41:25.960 like cornering the iron supply in a local area or something. 0:41:26.320 --> 0:41:28.760 Of course, the principle is, if you're the only person 0:41:28.880 --> 0:41:31.759 selling something and it's in demand, then you can set 0:41:31.800 --> 0:41:35.120 whatever price you want. Uh. So uh, you know, when 0:41:35.120 --> 0:41:37.520 a smart person figures out how to create a monopoly, 0:41:37.560 --> 0:41:40.360 how to be the only person offering a good or 0:41:40.520 --> 0:41:43.839 service that is needed, they will use this to their advantage. 0:41:44.160 --> 0:41:47.520 I guess, with the caveat of unless they're a philosopher 0:41:47.520 --> 0:41:50.360 who is above worldly concerns, it will only gouge to 0:41:50.400 --> 0:41:55.960 make a point. Yeah. I love this. It's like there's like, hey, hey, 0:41:56.080 --> 0:41:58.360 Bailey's if you're so smart, why aren't you rich? And 0:41:58.360 --> 0:42:00.160 he's like, oh yeah, well I could do that out 0:42:00.160 --> 0:42:02.920 if I wanted to. Hear, he proves himself, and then 0:42:02.960 --> 0:42:05.319 it goes back to whatever he was doing beforehand. Right, yeah, 0:42:05.320 --> 0:42:09.239 So it portrays the Thiles as worldly and full of 0:42:09.320 --> 0:42:13.759 potential for practical cunning, but simply lacking interest in financial 0:42:13.800 --> 0:42:18.600 gain unless it's to own the haters. Alright. So that's 0:42:18.680 --> 0:42:25.000 one vision one invoked vision of Thles. What's another one. Well, 0:42:25.040 --> 0:42:27.000 here's where we come back to the the idea of 0:42:27.000 --> 0:42:30.560 the stargazer in the well. So Plato tells this totally 0:42:30.560 --> 0:42:34.279 different story of Thailes. This takes place in Plato's the 0:42:34.440 --> 0:42:38.040 Attis dialogue. And if you ever taken a logic or 0:42:38.080 --> 0:42:41.960 a philosophy course that tried to define the word knowledge, 0:42:41.960 --> 0:42:45.480 you might have encountered the atitas, because I believe this 0:42:45.560 --> 0:42:49.239 is the one where Socrates builds up to a definition 0:42:49.239 --> 0:42:52.719 of knowledge as something like true belief, with an account 0:42:52.920 --> 0:42:58.200 sometimes paraphrased as justified true belief. So under this definition, 0:42:58.760 --> 0:43:01.840 to know something, to actually have knowledge, it means you 0:43:01.920 --> 0:43:05.759 have one a belief to which is true. Because if 0:43:05.760 --> 0:43:08.680 you believe something but it's false, that's not knowledge. And 0:43:08.880 --> 0:43:12.560 three uh, it is something of which you are aware of, 0:43:12.600 --> 0:43:16.200 a warrant for believing. So if you believe something and 0:43:16.280 --> 0:43:18.120 it turns out to be true, but you had no 0:43:18.200 --> 0:43:21.400 good reason for believing it, that's still not knowledge. Like 0:43:21.480 --> 0:43:23.800 if if I believe I'm going to win the lottery 0:43:23.880 --> 0:43:26.000 this year, and then I happened to win the lottery 0:43:26.080 --> 0:43:28.560 this year, that was not knowledge. I had no good 0:43:28.600 --> 0:43:32.000 reason to believe that. I just I just got lucky. 0:43:32.040 --> 0:43:34.160 But anyway, the story of the stargazer in the well 0:43:34.280 --> 0:43:38.400 is actually a digression within this dialogue. So I'm quoting 0:43:38.520 --> 0:43:42.319 from the Fowler translation of of Plato here. So this 0:43:42.400 --> 0:43:46.040 is Socrates speaking, and and Socrates says, uh. Take the 0:43:46.080 --> 0:43:48.840 case of the Ley's he's being to somebody named Theodoras. 0:43:48.880 --> 0:43:52.200 Take the case of Thales Theodorus. While he was studying 0:43:52.239 --> 0:43:55.160 the stars and looking upwards, he fell into a pit 0:43:55.560 --> 0:43:58.879 sometimes translated as a well. And uh, and a neat 0:43:58.920 --> 0:44:02.920 witty Thracians irvant girl jeered at him. They say, because 0:44:02.920 --> 0:44:05.120 he was so eager to know the things in the 0:44:05.160 --> 0:44:08.080 sky that he could not see what was there before 0:44:08.160 --> 0:44:11.279 him at his very feet. The same jest applies to 0:44:11.320 --> 0:44:14.680 all who passed their lives in philosophy, and you can 0:44:14.760 --> 0:44:18.719 actually find these charges in their original form in uh 0:44:18.840 --> 0:44:22.840 stuff like rob did you ever read the Clouds by Aristophanes? 0:44:22.960 --> 0:44:26.319 The play Mocking Socrates? No, I don't think I did. 0:44:26.640 --> 0:44:29.200 Oh yeah, well, so it's a whole play is just vicious, 0:44:29.680 --> 0:44:34.319 brutal mockery of of Socrates in the school of philosophers 0:44:34.320 --> 0:44:38.440 of Athens, showing them to be absolute buffoons who are 0:44:38.480 --> 0:44:42.200 wasting their lives just making up garbage about trivial and 0:44:42.280 --> 0:44:45.040 unimportant topics. And so in a way, I wonder if 0:44:45.160 --> 0:44:48.360 you know this is kind of responding to that sort 0:44:48.360 --> 0:44:52.040 of criticism, because yeah, it's the same kind of thing. 0:44:52.120 --> 0:44:54.120 It's like, oh, you know, you think you're so smart, 0:44:54.160 --> 0:44:56.439 but you actually just fall into pits all the time, 0:44:56.520 --> 0:44:58.719 or you trip and falling, well, because you're trying to 0:44:58.719 --> 0:45:02.080 figure out some major and ursa minor. Yeah, nothing you 0:45:02.160 --> 0:45:05.919 do is practical and you're in the bottom of well, 0:45:06.920 --> 0:45:08.800 how did you get their, old man? You must have tripped. 0:45:09.000 --> 0:45:11.799 It's also the classic oh philosophy, major, how what are 0:45:11.840 --> 0:45:15.080 you going to do with that? And then so Socrates 0:45:15.120 --> 0:45:17.839 goes on to explain his view, I've made some abridgements 0:45:17.880 --> 0:45:20.520 to this section, but I just want to read part 0:45:20.600 --> 0:45:23.960 of what he says. Socrates says, hence it is my friends, 0:45:24.000 --> 0:45:27.120 such a man, both in private when he meets with individuals, 0:45:27.440 --> 0:45:29.879 and in public, as I said in the beginning, when 0:45:29.920 --> 0:45:32.800 he is obliged to speak in court or elsewhere about 0:45:32.840 --> 0:45:35.480 the things at his feet and before his eyes, is 0:45:35.520 --> 0:45:38.920 a laughing stock. Note not only to Thracian girls, but 0:45:39.000 --> 0:45:42.200 to the multitude in general, For he falls into pits 0:45:42.239 --> 0:45:46.359 and all sorts of perplexities through inexperience, and his awkwardness 0:45:46.400 --> 0:45:49.520 is terrible, making him seem a fool. For when it 0:45:49.560 --> 0:45:52.759 comes to abusing people, he has no personal abuse to 0:45:52.840 --> 0:45:56.279 offer against anyone, because he knows no evil of any man, 0:45:56.760 --> 0:46:00.160 never having cared for such things. So his perplexity makes 0:46:00.239 --> 0:46:03.920 him appear ridiculous. And as to laudatory speeches and the 0:46:04.000 --> 0:46:07.600 boastings of others, it becomes manifest that he is laughing 0:46:07.719 --> 0:46:11.680 at them, not pretending to laugh, but really laughing. And 0:46:11.719 --> 0:46:14.000 so he has thought to be a fool. When he 0:46:14.000 --> 0:46:17.440 hears a panegyric, meaning like a sort of a sermon 0:46:17.560 --> 0:46:20.600 praising the virtues of a public figure. When he hears 0:46:20.600 --> 0:46:23.840 a panegyric of a despot or a king. He fancies 0:46:23.880 --> 0:46:27.680 he is listening to the praises of some herdsman, a swineherd, 0:46:27.760 --> 0:46:30.760 a shepherd, or a neat herd, for instance, who gets 0:46:30.840 --> 0:46:33.520 much milk from his beasts. But he thinks that the 0:46:33.600 --> 0:46:37.160 ruler tens and milks a more perverse and treacherous creature 0:46:37.200 --> 0:46:40.000 than the herdsman, and that he must grow coarse and 0:46:40.160 --> 0:46:43.640 uncivilized no less than they, for he has no leisure 0:46:43.680 --> 0:46:46.480 and lives surrounded by a wall, as the herdsman live 0:46:46.520 --> 0:46:49.360 in their mountain pens. And when he hears that someone 0:46:49.480 --> 0:46:52.680 is amazingly rich because he owns ten thousand acres of 0:46:52.760 --> 0:46:55.920 land or more to him, accustomed as he is to 0:46:55.960 --> 0:46:59.120 think of the whole earth, this seems very little. And 0:46:59.160 --> 0:47:02.319 he goes on and at length talking about, how, you know, 0:47:02.400 --> 0:47:06.520 the common man might think himself very important because he 0:47:06.560 --> 0:47:10.719 claims to trace his ancestry back to Heracles and Inphitrion. 0:47:11.520 --> 0:47:15.759 And meanwhile the philosopher is like, but, but everybody has 0:47:15.800 --> 0:47:18.720 thousands of ancestors of all kinds, what does that matter? 0:47:19.160 --> 0:47:21.359 And he just goes on and on, listing all these 0:47:21.360 --> 0:47:24.839 cases of the concerns of regular people who are squabbling 0:47:24.920 --> 0:47:29.400 over like uh, power and money and prestige and hierarchy, 0:47:29.440 --> 0:47:31.799 and the philosopher who seems to them to be a 0:47:31.840 --> 0:47:35.719 fool because he cares not for those things. Now, I 0:47:35.760 --> 0:47:38.960 think it's interesting to sort of compare and contrast Aristotle's 0:47:39.040 --> 0:47:44.240 vision of the of Thailes here versus socrates Is vision 0:47:44.280 --> 0:47:49.160 of Thilies. Both essentially assume that true philosophers, and I 0:47:49.160 --> 0:47:52.600 think the modern reader might might sort of read this 0:47:52.680 --> 0:47:55.440 in a more inclusive way, just as the thoughtful person. 0:47:55.560 --> 0:48:01.680 Thoughtful people um that that they are above petty worldly concerns. 0:48:02.280 --> 0:48:05.839 But the olive press story communicates a kind of deliberate 0:48:05.880 --> 0:48:09.840 aloofness which can be subverted and cast aside any time 0:48:10.320 --> 0:48:12.520 when some wise cracker comes along and says, you know, 0:48:12.640 --> 0:48:15.120 like you said, Robert, Hey, Thailey's if you're so smart, 0:48:15.120 --> 0:48:17.800 how come you're not as rich as me? The point 0:48:17.880 --> 0:48:20.080 is here, Well, Silas could be if he wanted to, 0:48:20.239 --> 0:48:23.920 That's just not his concern. Meanwhile, in the story told 0:48:24.200 --> 0:48:27.680 in in the in Plato's dialogue, here Socrates makes it 0:48:27.719 --> 0:48:31.160 sound like falling into the ditch and being mocked by 0:48:31.160 --> 0:48:35.480 the Thracian girl. It does communicate the same kind of aloofness, 0:48:35.520 --> 0:48:40.600 but in a more helpless and involuntary mode, like well, okay, yeah, 0:48:40.640 --> 0:48:42.759 he might be so wrapped up in the stars that 0:48:42.800 --> 0:48:44.880 he falls into pits all the time and he's always 0:48:44.960 --> 0:48:47.680 ending up at the bottom of wells. But that's actually 0:48:47.719 --> 0:48:50.800 a sign of a virtuous mind, concerned with the stars 0:48:50.840 --> 0:48:54.440 and concerned with the nature of reality, rather than the 0:48:54.560 --> 0:48:58.000 nasty pettiness that occupies your mind all of the uh, 0:48:58.400 --> 0:49:01.719 the grubby business and Paul politics and and uh and 0:49:01.840 --> 0:49:05.560 social gossip and hierarchy that you're so obsessed with. Which 0:49:05.600 --> 0:49:07.640 is funny though, because it essentially comes down to these 0:49:07.640 --> 0:49:10.560 philosophers putting themselves at the top of a hierarchy and 0:49:10.600 --> 0:49:12.920 saying like, you know, my, my, my life of the 0:49:12.960 --> 0:49:17.680 mind is so much more virtuous than your existence. Yeah, 0:49:17.760 --> 0:49:20.520 I mean it's a little bit of hypocrisy. Yeah. Yeah. 0:49:20.520 --> 0:49:25.240 In both cases, the the philosopher is disconnected from this world, 0:49:25.880 --> 0:49:29.080 and uh, you know it didn't It basically just comes 0:49:29.120 --> 0:49:31.080 down to the nuances of what you're saying about that, 0:49:31.160 --> 0:49:34.640 like it's it's it's uh, they're disconnected from this world, yes, 0:49:34.680 --> 0:49:37.120 but if they wanted to gain this world like other people, 0:49:37.160 --> 0:49:39.920 they could easily, or you know, even if they're falling 0:49:39.960 --> 0:49:43.760 down wells, it's like, yeah, he's not concerned with wells 0:49:43.800 --> 0:49:46.640 and pits. Oh, you're so obsessed with the well thing. 0:49:46.800 --> 0:49:51.279 Come on. But it is interesting how this ties back 0:49:51.320 --> 0:49:55.000 in because um, you know, they leaves is said to 0:49:55.000 --> 0:49:58.799 be an individual who is very interested in the stars. Uh, 0:49:58.840 --> 0:50:02.960 here he is falling into well and um, and indeed 0:50:03.360 --> 0:50:06.520 some have looked at this, in particular that that paper 0:50:06.560 --> 0:50:10.000 I cited earlier and you also cited this author, Patricia 0:50:10.040 --> 0:50:13.799 O'Grady um looks at this and and says, yeah, this 0:50:13.840 --> 0:50:19.000 connection between an individual who is who analyzes the stars 0:50:19.480 --> 0:50:22.400 and fall and a well that they fall into. Perhaps 0:50:22.480 --> 0:50:25.799 this is is also connected to the idea of a 0:50:26.000 --> 0:50:29.880 well being an observatory and the LEAs may have And 0:50:29.920 --> 0:50:34.400 again we're dealing with second accounts and fictionalized and mythologicalized 0:50:34.760 --> 0:50:39.160 versions of reality. But on some level, maybe you have 0:50:39.200 --> 0:50:41.640 this individual falling into a well, because that's the kind 0:50:41.640 --> 0:50:46.040 of place that uh, that astronomers and philosophers go to 0:50:46.440 --> 0:50:48.480 their climbing to the bottom of a well to look 0:50:48.560 --> 0:50:50.920 up at the stars and and I don't know, it 0:50:51.000 --> 0:50:53.239 kind of falls that that that that kind of just 0:50:53.280 --> 0:50:57.239 that basic vision uh kind of falls into these uh, 0:50:57.280 --> 0:51:01.360 these these views of philosophy that we've discussing. Well, another 0:51:01.400 --> 0:51:04.400 theme that emerges for me is just the tenuous and 0:51:04.520 --> 0:51:08.640 artificial nature of the distinctions between practical and impractical knowledge. 0:51:08.760 --> 0:51:12.960 That knowledge, that knowledge which seems impractical today may in 0:51:13.239 --> 0:51:17.360 several hundred years become incredibly practical. The astronomy and the 0:51:17.440 --> 0:51:21.160 geometry of of these ancient Greek philosophers might have seemed 0:51:21.200 --> 0:51:26.040 absolutely ridiculous and and of no practical use whatsoever to uh, 0:51:26.080 --> 0:51:28.239 to somebody at the time, but then they would sort 0:51:28.280 --> 0:51:32.040 of be built upon in generations to form the foundation 0:51:32.120 --> 0:51:36.440 of all existing technology, navigational techniques, and you know everything 0:51:36.480 --> 0:51:40.359 like that. M yeah, yeah, I'm also suddenly struck by 0:51:40.400 --> 0:51:46.640 how how one could conceivably compare uh stylight a you know, 0:51:46.640 --> 0:51:50.800 an individual a hermit atop a pillar, to the idea 0:51:51.040 --> 0:51:54.040 of of an astronomer crawling down to the bottom of 0:51:54.080 --> 0:51:56.840 a pit. Uh. You know, both are kind of like 0:51:56.840 --> 0:51:59.480 they're they're removed from from the surface world, from the 0:51:59.719 --> 0:52:02.319 from the affairs of man, and in either case it's 0:52:02.320 --> 0:52:06.040 about you know, contemplating things beyond the realm of man. 0:52:06.480 --> 0:52:09.440 This is funny. I thought of potentially doing something about 0:52:09.520 --> 0:52:12.680 the stylite tradition on our on our show before. I 0:52:12.719 --> 0:52:14.480 can't remember, has it ever come up in an episode? 0:52:14.480 --> 0:52:17.400 It was like, it's a particular type of asceticism where 0:52:17.440 --> 0:52:20.480 you would, uh, you know, you would subject yourself to 0:52:20.800 --> 0:52:23.839 just living at the top of a pillar. Yeah, yeah, 0:52:24.239 --> 0:52:26.319 I feel like it's come up. I don't know if 0:52:26.360 --> 0:52:29.320 we did. Yeah, I feel like it's come up at 0:52:29.400 --> 0:52:32.680 least once, but I don't remember the context. Maybe when 0:52:32.680 --> 0:52:37.120 we were talking about Diogenes and living among the dogs, Oh, 0:52:37.239 --> 0:52:41.120 Diogenes the cynic Yeah, living in a jar with some 0:52:41.239 --> 0:52:46.920 dogs eating fava beans or not Favlopen's I think. Okay, 0:52:48.160 --> 0:52:51.560 I've forgotten about the being consumption. Yes, yeah, okay, I've 0:52:51.560 --> 0:52:54.279 actually got a call to listeners. I'm curious if if 0:52:54.320 --> 0:52:57.000 you're somebody out there with with a good basis in 0:52:57.040 --> 0:52:59.799 astronomy and physics, um, what do you think is the 0:53:00.000 --> 0:53:05.600 most plausible scenario by which Thailies could have truly predicted 0:53:05.600 --> 0:53:08.440 the five eclipse? If the story is true, if he 0:53:08.480 --> 0:53:11.000 actually made the prediction and it was not just a 0:53:11.080 --> 0:53:14.440 lucky guest but actually justified true belief that he had 0:53:14.480 --> 0:53:18.399 a warrant for believing that what could it have been? Yeah? 0:53:18.520 --> 0:53:20.600 Right in, let us know. Likewise, if you have any 0:53:20.760 --> 0:53:24.680 thoughts about the the concept of of glimpsing the stars 0:53:24.760 --> 0:53:27.880 from the bottom of a well, the bottom of the pit. Alright, 0:53:27.880 --> 0:53:30.040 we're gonna go and close out this episode, but yeah, 0:53:30.080 --> 0:53:32.560 we'd love to hear from everyone. Core episodes of Stuff 0:53:32.600 --> 0:53:35.440 to Blow Your Mind published on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 0:53:35.440 --> 0:53:38.080 the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed listener mail 0:53:38.080 --> 0:53:41.040 on Monday's Artifact or Monster Fact on Wednesdays, and on Friday, 0:53:41.080 --> 0:53:42.960 we do Weird How Cinema. That's our time to set 0:53:42.960 --> 0:53:45.640 aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film. 0:53:46.040 --> 0:53:48.839 Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth 0:53:48.920 --> 0:53:51.520 Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch 0:53:51.560 --> 0:53:53.839 with us with feedback on this episode or any other, 0:53:53.920 --> 0:53:55.799 to suggest a topic for the future, or just to 0:53:55.840 --> 0:53:58.560 say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff 0:53:58.560 --> 0:54:08.319 to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your 0:54:08.320 --> 0:54:11.280 Mind is production of I Heart Radio. 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