Sometimes I wonder about how people used to understand the natural world, and whether they noticed the flaws in their understanding. The Theory of the Four Elements In ancient Greece, the orthodox theory of “chemistry” was that the physical world is composed of four elements. Earth was the heaviest element, followed by Water, followed by Air, followed by Fire. This explains why dirt sinks in water, why air bubbles rise in water, and why when you light a flame the flame points up in the air. Aristotle introduced a fifth element, “ether”, which the heavens were made of.
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.
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.
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.)