This is very wrong-headed. Allow me to demonstrate and answer each of your specific objections.
1) You say that trees are "carbon-based" and that the water cannot account for that. But carbon itself could be water-based. As a spread out water, carbon is lighter and thus able to float on water. This fits our experience.
2) You claim that the tree matter comes from air, because the air is made of carbon. But since I've already shown that carbon could be made of water, isn't your objection defeated? No, sadly. Air is lighter than water and this implies that water can extenuated into air. Thus air is the base element for earth and water.
3) Then you bring up fire. Fire goes up and earth remains. Where does the fire go? It goes where you'd think: into the air. The heat given off is a temporary energy, which dissipates. But the matter of fire, is air escaping earth. Since we are jumping from earth to air and mostly bypassing water when we burn things, the change is not gradual and generates heat. (Although, I've heard tell of a distant Albion philosopher named "Faraday", likely a pun on the word "Faraway", who showed that a little bit of water comes from fire too and not only stale air.)
4) In any case, while mysteries of air remain to be explored, all the evidence you present is considtent with air being the fundamental element.
No most of the matter in a plant does come water. Plants have a water content of 16-66%, figure 40% on average so about 60% dry mass. But that mass is largely carbohydrate (CH2O) which is about 60% water. So the water content of plants is 40% + 0.6*60% = 76%. So figure the tree is about three quarters water, which falls from the sky.
The ancients could know this because of charcoal making. Those in the business would know how much charcoal you get from a given amount of wood. But it is quite likely that philosophers may not have hung about with charcoal makers.
I'm sorry but... what's the point of this? Sounds like a young sceptic talking about something we already know.
Ridiculing the ancients for not knowing about modern findings and methods is ultimate childishness, and I'm pretty sure all of this was refuted way long ago. "Why was this theory so popular?" Like, was there anything else? Jeez.
It's because some people started to question the nature of the universe all those centuries back that we have these new explanations, duh.
Michael, I may be wrong but I believe the discrepancy is in the analysis system you use and the ones the ancients did.
Namely, the Scientific Method, which proposes that to find the truth you must go through very methodical steps, analysing each factor and forming hypothesis, before drawing conclusions based on real world data and comparing that to the hypothesis in order to see where your assumptions fail.
This seems obvious to those of us who’ve been brought up in the scientific age but these philosophers were not thinking this way. Their assumptions were built on assumptions and they saw nothing wrong with this method of drawing conclusions.
There were also many things in society at the time which were considered immutable and any attempt at analysing the validity of them was considered ridiculous. This was likely one of those things.
(Additionally, any misgivings individuals may have had due to flaws in the theory you point out might have been brushed aside given lack of an alternative explanation and the inability to test differing theories.)
This is very wrong-headed. Allow me to demonstrate and answer each of your specific objections.
1) You say that trees are "carbon-based" and that the water cannot account for that. But carbon itself could be water-based. As a spread out water, carbon is lighter and thus able to float on water. This fits our experience.
2) You claim that the tree matter comes from air, because the air is made of carbon. But since I've already shown that carbon could be made of water, isn't your objection defeated? No, sadly. Air is lighter than water and this implies that water can extenuated into air. Thus air is the base element for earth and water.
3) Then you bring up fire. Fire goes up and earth remains. Where does the fire go? It goes where you'd think: into the air. The heat given off is a temporary energy, which dissipates. But the matter of fire, is air escaping earth. Since we are jumping from earth to air and mostly bypassing water when we burn things, the change is not gradual and generates heat. (Although, I've heard tell of a distant Albion philosopher named "Faraday", likely a pun on the word "Faraway", who showed that a little bit of water comes from fire too and not only stale air.)
4) In any case, while mysteries of air remain to be explored, all the evidence you present is considtent with air being the fundamental element.
I stand with Anaximenes.
No most of the matter in a plant does come water. Plants have a water content of 16-66%, figure 40% on average so about 60% dry mass. But that mass is largely carbohydrate (CH2O) which is about 60% water. So the water content of plants is 40% + 0.6*60% = 76%. So figure the tree is about three quarters water, which falls from the sky.
The ancients could know this because of charcoal making. Those in the business would know how much charcoal you get from a given amount of wood. But it is quite likely that philosophers may not have hung about with charcoal makers.
I'm sorry but... what's the point of this? Sounds like a young sceptic talking about something we already know.
Ridiculing the ancients for not knowing about modern findings and methods is ultimate childishness, and I'm pretty sure all of this was refuted way long ago. "Why was this theory so popular?" Like, was there anything else? Jeez.
It's because some people started to question the nature of the universe all those centuries back that we have these new explanations, duh.
Michael, I may be wrong but I believe the discrepancy is in the analysis system you use and the ones the ancients did.
Namely, the Scientific Method, which proposes that to find the truth you must go through very methodical steps, analysing each factor and forming hypothesis, before drawing conclusions based on real world data and comparing that to the hypothesis in order to see where your assumptions fail.
This seems obvious to those of us who’ve been brought up in the scientific age but these philosophers were not thinking this way. Their assumptions were built on assumptions and they saw nothing wrong with this method of drawing conclusions.
There were also many things in society at the time which were considered immutable and any attempt at analysing the validity of them was considered ridiculous. This was likely one of those things.
(Additionally, any misgivings individuals may have had due to flaws in the theory you point out might have been brushed aside given lack of an alternative explanation and the inability to test differing theories.)