From: Eric Engle (engleerica_at_yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Mar 24 2004 - 08:57:21 PST
Re: Arabic mathematics
That is true, there were lots of arabic contributions to mathematics - up till
about 1400. Then not much since. Really strange... Though of course the Hindu's
contributed the idea of 0 and decimal numbers generally.
Anyway, Arabic contributions include al-jebra (which apparently means to carry
across) al is arabic for "the" so wherever you see it (algorithm for example)
you're probably having an arabic word.
They did a lot with astronomy, partly for divination partly for navigation.
Also Avicenna was big into Aristotle, as in while the catholic church was
busily burning books (or more accurately burning almost all copies - and
sequestering the rest in the vatican library: where do you think Sappho went?
Or Hypatia?) they were preserving the greatest scientist of all time. (Sorry,
even though he was a blatant racist & mysogenist Aristotle was a genius. This
brings me to "the truth is true no matter who says it"). Trust me, no Arabs and
no reformation and we would still be digging dirt denying our bodies and
praying for redemption. Now if we can just avoid blowing the planet to atoms or
poisoning ourselves with weaponized virii...
But this was all after the Greek enlightenment (yes, there was a Greek
enlightenment, which actually was *much more significant than the later
Scottish enlightenment)
I know of no Egyptian enlightenment. Unlike certain of the Politia in Greece,
Egypt was hierarchical and centralized. Consequently, like China, innovation
was basically crushed. Science was allowed, but only in the service of the
state.
Its not that the Greeks were smarter. But they had an advantage in climate and
geography that allowed enough independance to avoid the problems that
hierarchically centralized governments have: namely, crushing innovation.
Back to Egypt: Please, before regurgitating contemporary cultural myths think
about the facts. What was the symbol of egypt? A pyramid. A tomb. What kind of
tomb? A tomb for the pharoah - because He was God Incarnate. Why a Pyramid?
Because the pharoah was at the apex, resting on the lower inferior classes.
What clearer evidence of social stratification do you need?!?
And this is something people struggling for black liberation want as a symbol
of their greatness??
I always want to puke when people rave about the glories of ancient Egypt. It
was a slave society, pure and simple, where if you were Pharoah you were
litterally God and if you were low caste you were literally expendable scum.
Those stories about killing people who worked on the pyramids so that no one
would reveal royal secrets aren't jokes (and that incidentally happened in that
other great hierarchical society China). How do you think they built the
pyramids? Slave labor silly.
Europeans got lucky, pure and simple, a climate harsh enough to force
innovation, mild enough to allow survival but not so nice as to attract the
attention of conquerors. Lots of mountains also meant lots of independant
duchies which, when not making war on each other allowed innovation not because
(with isolated exceptions) these were fantastically liberal people but because
enough random elements leads to a few hits.
Science is and always has been the pursuit of heretics who unlike me at present
are smart enough to clam up and subvert. I'd rather avoid comparative
civilisation because people wind up reaching conclusions that stem from
geography and climate and attributing them instead to genetics. Any discussion
of race is today heretical.
Anyway, Arabic science largely dates from mohammed. It certainly does not
predate the Hellenic enlightenment. Egyptian mathematics by the way was
empirical, which is in itself good but never developed into a system like
Euclid's elements or Aristotle's logic. I've already explained why. Euclid by
the way, if I remember correclty wrote the elements in Egypt. However he was
one of many Greek colonists. Greeks colonized for example Nice and Marseille
(Nice is named for Nike, you know goddess of wingèd victory). I already
mentioned Heliopolis. Troy was in modern Turkey. They also had colonies in
Sicily. They got around.
However Athena indeed comes from Libya. Whether Libya (which then was not at
all a desert: the Sahara is probably an example of human induced
desertification) was at that time "black" (big hint, its not today so it
probably wasn't then...) is another matter. At any rate, the Egyptian
equivalent of Athena Tritogenia (named for lake Triton in Libya - except that
lake no longer exists - it was desertified) is Neith.
So, yes there were contacts between Egypt and Greece - and just about everyone
else in the meditarranean. But I don't think a careful examination of the
historical record leads where some of our current academics for political
reasons desperately wish it led. Thank Goddess: because the truth is it would
lead us to a nice stratified slave society where some are gods and others
trash.
Oh, as to the origin of this hopefully nicer thread: This is really obvious
folks, racism kills. Not "hurts people's feelings". Kills.
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