20 replies to this topic

[ih8eurocentrix]

Perhaps the greeks learnt many egyptian secrets and claimed them as there own

[MengTzu]

The quistion that could also be asked is were are the Chinese(And Japanese) . Da Vinci's, Nikola' Tesla's, Michelangelos, Pythagoras. Pascal, among many.

For some odd reason (or not so odd reason) the scientists and inventors of China weren't very well known. A Qing scholar named Ruan Yuan compiled a huge collective o biographis of like 300 some philosophers and scientists (the majority are Chinese, but some are not,) so may be you can find what you need from that.

I think it's obvious why we don't hear much about them: history is Eurocentric. From an Eurocentric point of view, Europeans are champions of scientists. Therefore non-European scientists become instinctively placed outside of the construct of "scientists." Also noteworthy is that even some Europeans with tremendous contribution to later scientific thought may also be forgotten for said contribution, such as St. Thomas Aquinas. These kinds of historical views impact even how the Chinese view themselves.

In any event, here might be something you guys are looking for:

various Chinese sciences

Chinese mathematicians

Chinese inventions

Particularly noteworthy is the Yi Ching, which is arguably THE foundation of Chinese thought in practically all areas of life. Chinese medicine, one of the things influenced by Yi Ching, is especially intriguing. My brother, who is a doctor who studied medicine in the College of Wisconsin, said that he didn't understand how Chinese medicine works, but apparently it works.

[jwrevak]

The quistion that could also be asked is were are the Chinese(And Japanese) . Da Vinci's, Nikola' Tesla's, Michelangelos, Pythagoras. Pascal, among many.
It is not only that these geniouses have made inventions and formulars in use today and in some cases not quite understood as yet (Tesla's Electrofuge). but that they are remembert. And people have ben able to learn and see what they have done and learn from that.

If one mostly reads common Western books, one rarely reads about Chinese inventors and scientists. This is both unfortuante and unsurprising. All cultures tend to be ethnocentric. However, for those who truly wish to understand the history of invention and science very helpful books are in print, including Needham's. There is also the attractively illustrated book for the layman, Robert Temple’s The Genius of China: 3,000 Years of Science, Discovery and Invention.

You can review a list of Chinese inventions, discoveries, etc. It includes, when known, the names of individual inventors and scientists by clicking here.

Nevertheless, it does appear that some important inventions and breakthroughs by Chinese have never been credited to a specific Chinese. Perhaps this is because in traditional China there was a tendency for the individual to eschew credit for doing or thinking something new and different. Instead the individual often gave credit to prior doers and thinkers, the older the better. The classic case is Confucius, who insisted, "I transmit but do not create. Being fond of truth, I am an admirer of antiquity (Analects 7)." However, I hasten to add that this outlook obviously didn't prevent many Chinese from doing and thinking new things.

It is no in dispute that the formular for various geometric princibles have been in use before, but why is it Pythagoras that is mostly remembert?.
The fact is that knowledge as such has always have a fairly free flow in western societies, help along by never ending conflikts for sure, but that cannot be the only reason. Why fks did the Egytians not leave behind some of their more advanced mathematical and enginering knowlegde, which were second to NONE in the time it was used?

Perhaps because they were well guarded secrets or considered "esoteric", i.e., wisdom meant for the few?

It must have been a cultural thing since we know that literacy was far more whitespread in Egytian society than most others up until the age of Napoleon.

Really? I find this hard to believe? The common Egyptian was literate? I don't think so.

Anyhow, perhaps a factor may have been that by the time of Herodotus few Egyptians could read hieroglyphics any longer. By late antiquity no one could read this script any longer. If advanced science and technology were recorded mostly in this script, perhaps this accounts for later ignorance of selected aspects of Egyptian Science and technology. Another problem may have been "accidents" of history. Many Egyptian books have been lost. We know that many treatises on science, technology, etc., once existed; however, to date, they have not been recovered.

But here is question of special relevance to China. It is well known among reasonably well informed individuals, that Chinese often experienced breakthroughs in science, technology, and math prior to the West. However, when the Jesuits arrived in China, many Chinese were amazed by the knowledge of these foreigners. They were apparently completely unaware that some of the things that they were amazed by were actually discovered by Chinese well before the West discovered them? How did that happen?!

The Chinese made important breakthroughs over and over up until 1600 or so. Further, they possessed an intellectual elite that recorded the culture's achievements in many areas. What accounts for Chinese ignorance of their own accomplishments upon the arrival of the Jesuits? I don't understand it.

[Liang Jieming]

But here is question of special relevance to China.  It is well known among reasonably well informed individuals, that Chinese often experienced breakthroughs in science, technology, and math prior  to the West.  However, when the Jesuits arrived in China, many Chinese were amazed by the knowledge of these foreigners.  They were apparently completely unaware that some of the things that they were amazed by were actually discovered by Chinese well before the West discovered them?  How did that happen?! 

The Chinese made important breakthroughs over and over up until 1600 or so.  Further, they possessed an intellectual elite that recorded the culture's achievements in many areas.  What accounts for Chinese ignorance of their own accomplishments upon the arrival of the Jesuits?  I don't understand it.

Ignorance and the sheer volume of works and records available that bury stuff. Kinda like today's world where so many people are ignorant of basic stuff not because the knowledge isn't available but because they choose not to bother finding out or its too labourious to dig the info nuggets out. Exact reason why westerns and easterners themselves remain ignorant of non-european achievements

[PandaBear]

we need to find a way to make our world a better place

[Gan]

I love science fiction. I went ahead to read the plot/synopsis of this book. It does sound familiar with many stories regarding Advance Aliens interacting with humans. Similar type of flair.

Well, I think one thing to remember is that science is understanding natural phenomenon and engineering is using that understanding and applied to daily life. Today, we try to fit it into theories, because they were formulated before, and were almost constantly being confirmed by experiments. Lots of different theories and beliefs were thrown out when it didn't work out. So, in a sense, between "Western or Modern" and "Chinese" science and engineering, in principle, there was little difference and more similarities.

A quick way for many people to see how far Chinese science and engineering progressed, is you try to fit the knowledge from Ancient records and processes of Ancient devices with the scientific knowledge and principles of engineering we currently have so far. See how they correlate than you can tell how advanced or developed it was. Try not to compare too much with today if that's possible, since there is a lot of what we know and have today, which is way too historically recent and too global (neither West or East) to have any meaningful comparison.

From what I know, and you can kind of argue, relatively speaking, that Chinese science (understanding of reality) and engineering (basically to build anything) was in several ways still useful and the most efficient they had ,comparably speaking with other places, up until maybe the 1850s. There are many reasons for that. One misconception a lot of people have is how history tends to portray the West and other places (like Japan or the Ottoman Empire) as being highly advanced. Actually, the methods, tools and knowledge was pretty much similar most of the time. Even during the famous Renaissance, to the Enlightenment, with the Industrial Revolution, and the Golden age of science, there were so many ideas and machines created which were either useless, didn't fit well with theory at the time or later (sometimes they were superstitions) or were no different in terms of of quality and productivity than other ideas and machines. It's only because we tend to record in great detail and talk more about the ones that work, the successes not the failures.

Sometimes, there's too much sensationalism and romanticism regarding the history of Western modernity, which correlates with too much grandeur and "hurt pride" with Chinese history, which leads into these many constant silly debates about China vs West. It clouds us from seeing how life actually was like. I mean, you have to see reality for what it is, and go beyond what is written by the victors. (you know that phrase, history is written by the victors?)

So, relating back to this topic, if hypothetically speaking, we humans were to come in contact with a very advance alien species, chances are they're not going to be portrayed as condescending, imperialistic invaders like many sci-fi stories tend to do. Rather, an advanced Alien civilization would have enough life experiences, knowledge and advanced technology to have no use for our resources. It would probably be very culturally developed in many areas like art and literature. I'm kind of making this up, but from what many people like Michio Kaku and other popular science fans say, there's a high probability that an Advanced alien species would most likely see us as amusement or quenching curiosity. Or, if the Aliens are not so innocent, it's not going to be as bad as many people think. It might resemble more like Zheng He's voyages (minus his military interventions) than Columbus/the Conquistadors.

Edited by Gan, 29 September 2010 - 03:51 AM.