Considering the invention of the steam maschine and its improval the romans could have flown to the moon—if they had the right ideas regarding science and technology and how its usefull to improve on them.
Likewise alot of early human inventions seem to be rather accidents than systematic work. So its easily imaginable that on other earth the way up to our current standard took way longer, or alot less long.
Now also one can imagine how Aristotle or Socrates could have dreamt up the scientific method and get it tought.
Or that ppl. came to realize how killing and robbing each other is a net loss while cooperation helps alot.
But we are right now in the possition we ended up in. And there is room for hope and room for being afraid.
Actually, a lot of the ancient Greek philosophers despised empiricism. All they trusted to prove anything was deduction; they didn’t believe their senses at all.
But a lot didn’t. Most notably, Aristotle’s school and most of the pre-Socratics were empirical. So were the Epicurians, and in their own way the skeptics, cynics and stoics.
Aristotle and his followers failed to actually BE empirical because they propounded beliefs on everything and only had time for a few experiments, but you know, the Greeks had good enough data to need lots of epicycles.
Considering the invention of the steam maschine and its improval the romans could have flown to the moon—if they had the right ideas regarding science and technology and how its usefull to improve on them. Likewise alot of early human inventions seem to be rather accidents than systematic work. So its easily imaginable that on other earth the way up to our current standard took way longer, or alot less long.
Now also one can imagine how Aristotle or Socrates could have dreamt up the scientific method and get it tought. Or that ppl. came to realize how killing and robbing each other is a net loss while cooperation helps alot. But we are right now in the possition we ended up in. And there is room for hope and room for being afraid.
Actually, a lot of the ancient Greek philosophers despised empiricism. All they trusted to prove anything was deduction; they didn’t believe their senses at all.
But a lot didn’t.
Most notably, Aristotle’s school and most of the pre-Socratics were empirical. So were the Epicurians, and in their own way the skeptics, cynics and stoics. Aristotle and his followers failed to actually BE empirical because they propounded beliefs on everything and only had time for a few experiments, but you know, the Greeks had good enough data to need lots of epicycles.