WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.859 welcome to the deep dive we are shifting gears 00:00:02.859 --> 00:00:06.940 today we're not looking at modern tech or uh 00:00:06.940 --> 00:00:10.300 current events we are going way way back to the 00:00:10.300 --> 00:00:11.900 very beginning yeah or at least the beginning 00:00:11.900 --> 00:00:14.820 of a certain way of thinking exactly we are traveling 00:00:14.820 --> 00:00:17.679 back to the 6th century bc to the ionian coast 00:00:17.679 --> 00:00:21.100 and specifically to the city of miletus miletus 00:00:21.100 --> 00:00:24.170 yeah The birthplace of science, or at least, 00:00:24.170 --> 00:00:26.530 you know, the birthplace of the attempt at science. 00:00:26.670 --> 00:00:28.730 Right. And usually when we talk about this era, 00:00:28.789 --> 00:00:30.690 this Milesian revolution, everyone talks about 00:00:30.690 --> 00:00:33.210 Thales, you know, the guy who predicted the eclipse, 00:00:33.329 --> 00:00:35.429 fell into a well and said everything is water. 00:00:35.570 --> 00:00:37.710 Or they skip ahead to Pythagoras and his triangles 00:00:37.710 --> 00:00:40.450 or Socrates. But we are here to talk about the 00:00:40.450 --> 00:00:43.810 third man, the one who who usually just gets 00:00:43.810 --> 00:00:45.649 a paragraph in the textbooks, but might actually 00:00:45.649 --> 00:00:47.850 be the most important physicist of the bunch. 00:00:48.090 --> 00:00:50.789 Anaximetes. Anaximetes of Miletus. The man who 00:00:50.789 --> 00:00:52.820 looked. at the empty space in front of his face 00:00:52.820 --> 00:00:55.460 and said, this is it. This is everything. This 00:00:55.460 --> 00:00:58.659 is God. This is stone. This is the soul. It's 00:00:58.659 --> 00:01:01.219 so easy to overlook him because his answer, everything 00:01:01.219 --> 00:01:04.019 is air. It just sounds so simple, almost naive 00:01:04.019 --> 00:01:06.959 to our modern ears. It really does. But Anaximus 00:01:06.959 --> 00:01:10.480 is this forgotten genius. who basically invented 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:13.480 the concept of physical change. He didn't just 00:01:13.480 --> 00:01:15.159 tell us what the universe was made of. He was 00:01:15.159 --> 00:01:17.599 the first to really seriously try to explain 00:01:17.599 --> 00:01:20.739 how it all worked. And that is our mission for 00:01:20.739 --> 00:01:23.579 this deep dive. we are going to unpack the mind 00:01:23.579 --> 00:01:25.939 of the man who, in a sense, weighed the air. 00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:28.959 We're going to look at his arguments, his cosmology, 00:01:29.060 --> 00:01:32.319 which, spoiler alert, involves a flat earth riding 00:01:32.319 --> 00:01:34.519 on a cushion of wind. It gets wild. It does. 00:01:34.620 --> 00:01:36.459 And we'll look at his legacy. But before we get 00:01:36.459 --> 00:01:38.200 to the physics, we have to deal with the history. 00:01:38.439 --> 00:01:41.680 Oh. Or, well, the lack of it. Because we don't 00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:44.159 actually have his book, do we? We do not. And 00:01:44.159 --> 00:01:45.959 this is the great tragedy of pre -Socratic philosophy. 00:01:46.760 --> 00:01:48.980 I mean, Anaximenes is credited with writing a 00:01:48.980 --> 00:01:52.840 book. It was likely titled On Nature or Periphyseos, 00:01:52.939 --> 00:01:55.040 which became sort of the standard title for scientific 00:01:55.040 --> 00:01:57.640 works for centuries after him. But the scroll 00:01:57.640 --> 00:02:02.879 itself is gone, burned, lost, decayed. We just 00:02:02.879 --> 00:02:05.079 don't have it. So what are we even working with 00:02:05.079 --> 00:02:07.159 then? How do we know anything about him? We're 00:02:07.159 --> 00:02:09.259 working with what scholars call the doxographic 00:02:09.259 --> 00:02:12.629 tradition. Which is a fancy way of saying we're 00:02:12.629 --> 00:02:14.990 reliant on the people who read his book before 00:02:14.990 --> 00:02:17.710 it disappeared. So secondhand accounts. Very 00:02:17.710 --> 00:02:20.449 secondhand. We have fragments and summaries from 00:02:20.449 --> 00:02:23.050 Aristotle, who lived two centuries later. We 00:02:23.050 --> 00:02:25.930 have Theophrastus, who was Aristotle's student 00:02:25.930 --> 00:02:28.110 and was a bit more careful with the history, 00:02:28.250 --> 00:02:30.629 which is helpful. A bit more a historian. A bit 00:02:30.629 --> 00:02:32.789 more, yeah. And then we have later Roman and 00:02:32.789 --> 00:02:35.949 Byzantine commentators like Simplicius or Hippolytus, 00:02:35.949 --> 00:02:38.960 who were writing. you know, 800 or even a thousand 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:41.340 years after the fact. A thousand years. That 00:02:41.340 --> 00:02:44.020 feels incredibly precarious. It's like trying 00:02:44.020 --> 00:02:46.860 to reconstruct the plot of Hamlet by reading 00:02:46.860 --> 00:02:49.560 a review written by someone who heard about the 00:02:49.560 --> 00:02:51.719 play from their grandfather. That is a perfect 00:02:51.719 --> 00:02:53.699 analogy. It requires a lot of detective work. 00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:55.879 You have to constantly filter out the bias of 00:02:55.879 --> 00:02:59.039 the reporter. Aristotle, for instance, he tends 00:02:59.039 --> 00:03:00.960 to interpret everyone as if they were just trying 00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:05.020 and failing to be Aristotle. Right. He projects 00:03:05.020 --> 00:03:08.219 his own logic backward. Completely. So when we 00:03:08.219 --> 00:03:10.379 analyze Anaximetes, we're constantly asking, 00:03:10.539 --> 00:03:13.539 did he actually say this? Or is this Aristotle 00:03:13.539 --> 00:03:16.120 summarizing him in a way that serves Aristotle's 00:03:16.120 --> 00:03:19.439 own argument? But despite all that static, a 00:03:19.439 --> 00:03:22.759 very clear, distinct voice does come through. 00:03:22.819 --> 00:03:26.400 A voice that sounds different from his predecessors. 00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:28.719 Oh, very different. And to understand that voice, 00:03:28.840 --> 00:03:30.419 you have to understand where he was standing. 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:33.169 We have to talk about Miletus. Okay, let's set 00:03:33.169 --> 00:03:35.289 the scene. This wasn't some backwater village. 00:03:35.909 --> 00:03:39.750 Miletus in the 6th century BC was the jewel of 00:03:39.750 --> 00:03:41.909 Ionia. It was the New York City of the ancient 00:03:41.909 --> 00:03:44.090 Mediterranean, absolutely. It was located on 00:03:44.090 --> 00:03:46.409 the coast of modern -day Turkey, right at the 00:03:46.409 --> 00:03:49.150 mouth of the Meander River, a massive trade hub. 00:03:49.409 --> 00:03:51.370 So you have ships coming in from everywhere. 00:03:51.669 --> 00:03:53.849 Everywhere. You had ships from Egypt, from Phoenicia. 00:03:53.990 --> 00:03:56.310 You had caravans coming over land from Babylon 00:03:56.310 --> 00:03:59.069 and Persia. It was a true melting pot of cultures, 00:03:59.289 --> 00:04:02.800 goods, and most importantly, ideas. And that 00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:04.939 economic status is crucial, isn't it? Because 00:04:04.939 --> 00:04:06.860 you don't really get philosophy when you're starving. 00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:09.939 Exactly. The Greeks had a word for it. Skol. 00:04:10.099 --> 00:04:13.300 It means leisure. But it's the root of our word, 00:04:13.360 --> 00:04:16.660 skol. Yeah. Miletus was wealthy enough to support 00:04:16.660 --> 00:04:19.399 a class of people who didn't have to toil in 00:04:19.399 --> 00:04:21.360 the fields all day. Yeah. They had the time. 00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:24.800 The time to just think. To look up at the stars 00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:27.040 and ask questions that didn't have an immediate 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:29.980 practical application. Questions like... What 00:04:29.980 --> 00:04:32.040 is all this stuff? But it wasn't just the money. 00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:34.980 It was the information flow. You mentioned Egypt 00:04:34.980 --> 00:04:37.319 and Babylon. These weren't just trading partners. 00:04:37.579 --> 00:04:40.459 They were ancient reservoirs of knowledge. Right. 00:04:40.540 --> 00:04:42.899 And this is key. The Egyptians had been doing 00:04:42.899 --> 00:04:45.660 practical geometry for land surveying for centuries, 00:04:45.860 --> 00:04:47.720 you know, dealing with the Nile floods. Right. 00:04:47.779 --> 00:04:50.660 And the Babylonians had thousands of years of 00:04:50.660 --> 00:04:53.660 meticulous astronomical data. They knew the cycles 00:04:53.660 --> 00:04:55.579 of the stars and planets better than anyone. 00:04:56.160 --> 00:04:58.839 Miletus was the funnel where all this raw data 00:04:58.839 --> 00:05:01.019 arrived. But the Milesians did something different 00:05:01.019 --> 00:05:03.899 with it. That's the crucial twist. The Babylonians 00:05:03.899 --> 00:05:05.980 watched the stars to read omens from the gods. 00:05:06.300 --> 00:05:09.120 They were trying to predict the future. The Milesians 00:05:09.120 --> 00:05:11.300 watched the stars to find the mechanism. They 00:05:11.300 --> 00:05:13.319 wanted to know how the machine worked. They weren't 00:05:13.319 --> 00:05:14.939 looking for the will of the gods. They were looking 00:05:14.939 --> 00:05:18.209 for the laws of nature. Exactly. And this brings 00:05:18.209 --> 00:05:20.389 us to the Milesian school, this little cluster 00:05:20.389 --> 00:05:24.750 of thinkers. We have the big three, Thales, Anaximander, 00:05:24.910 --> 00:05:28.290 and our guide Anaximenes. And they are all monists. 00:05:28.829 --> 00:05:30.990 Now, we need to be careful with this word because 00:05:30.990 --> 00:05:33.769 monism sounds like a religion. It does. But in 00:05:33.769 --> 00:05:36.889 this context, it's material monism. It's the 00:05:36.889 --> 00:05:39.790 belief that despite the incredible diversity 00:05:39.790 --> 00:05:42.350 of the world, you know, trees, birds, oceans, 00:05:42.490 --> 00:05:45.870 fire, there is only one underlying substance. 00:05:46.600 --> 00:05:49.420 One arch. The arch. The beginning. The source. 00:05:49.600 --> 00:05:50.980 And the sustaining principle. The stuff that 00:05:50.980 --> 00:05:52.980 it's all made of. They believed if you could 00:05:52.980 --> 00:05:54.860 zoom in close enough, everything is made of the 00:05:54.860 --> 00:05:57.939 same fundamental Lego brick. They just disagreed 00:05:57.939 --> 00:06:00.120 on what that brick was. Okay, so let's walk through 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:02.699 it. Thales goes first. He looks at the harbor 00:06:02.699 --> 00:06:05.060 in Miletus. He looks at the blood in his veins. 00:06:05.259 --> 00:06:07.680 He sees that everything needs moisture to live. 00:06:07.819 --> 00:06:10.480 And he says... It's water. It's water. Which 00:06:10.480 --> 00:06:12.699 is a pretty rational starting point. It's a great 00:06:12.699 --> 00:06:15.439 start. Water is the only substance they saw naturally 00:06:15.439 --> 00:06:19.019 in three states. Solid ice, liquid water, and 00:06:19.019 --> 00:06:21.220 gaseous steam or mist. It's absolutely essential 00:06:21.220 --> 00:06:24.300 for life. Seeds are moist. It makes a lot of 00:06:24.300 --> 00:06:26.860 sense. But then comes Anaximander, who was the 00:06:26.860 --> 00:06:29.759 teacher of our guy Anaximenes. Yeah. He rejects 00:06:29.759 --> 00:06:32.360 water. He says it can't be water. He does. And 00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:34.899 Anaximander was a heavy hitter. I mean, a truly 00:06:34.899 --> 00:06:37.600 profound thinker. He argued that water couldn't 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:39.600 possibly be the arch because water has an opposite, 00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:42.889 fire. His logic was, if the universe started 00:06:42.889 --> 00:06:45.250 as infinite water, how could fire ever exist? 00:06:45.769 --> 00:06:48.529 The water would just drown it out. The fundamental 00:06:48.529 --> 00:06:50.930 substance can't be one of the things we see because 00:06:50.930 --> 00:06:52.709 it has to be able to become all of the things, 00:06:52.790 --> 00:06:54.790 including its opposite. So he goes abstract. 00:06:54.949 --> 00:06:57.290 He invents the aperon. The aperon. The boundless. 00:06:57.410 --> 00:06:59.709 The indefinite. He argued that the source of 00:06:59.709 --> 00:07:01.550 all things can't be one of the things. It has 00:07:01.550 --> 00:07:05.449 to be this case. This background energy. An infinite, 00:07:05.589 --> 00:07:07.910 undefined reservoir from which hot and cold, 00:07:07.990 --> 00:07:11.100 wet and dry separate out. It's a brilliant philosophical 00:07:11.100 --> 00:07:16.560 move. It solves the logical problem. But I imagine 00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:19.279 for a young student like Anaximenes, sitting 00:07:19.279 --> 00:07:21.839 at Anaximander's feet, it might have felt a little 00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:25.379 unsatisfying. That's the perfect word for it. 00:07:25.420 --> 00:07:28.120 It was logically sound, but it's physically empty. 00:07:28.439 --> 00:07:30.680 You can't see the epitome. You can't touch it. 00:07:30.699 --> 00:07:33.000 It doesn't really explain how a rock forms. It 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:35.759 just sort of says the infinite did it. It's almost 00:07:35.759 --> 00:07:39.350 like a placeholder for God. In a way, yeah. Anaximander 00:07:39.350 --> 00:07:42.389 traded Zeus for the Aperon, but he still left 00:07:42.389 --> 00:07:44.689 the actual mechanism vague. It was a principle, 00:07:44.829 --> 00:07:48.149 not a process. So Anaximenes steps up. He respects 00:07:48.149 --> 00:07:50.529 his teacher, but he sees the problem. He wants 00:07:50.529 --> 00:07:53.470 to save the rigor of Anaximander, but ground 00:07:53.470 --> 00:07:55.990 it back in the real, observable world of Thales. 00:07:56.230 --> 00:07:58.610 He needs a Goldilocks solution. Exactly. Not 00:07:58.610 --> 00:08:01.389 as specific as water, but not as vague as the 00:08:01.389 --> 00:08:04.829 infinite. Enter air. Now, when he says air, he 00:08:04.829 --> 00:08:06.970 doesn't just mean the oxygen and nitrogen mix 00:08:06.970 --> 00:08:09.110 we talk about today. This is a richer concept. 00:08:09.370 --> 00:08:13.069 Oh, much richer. For the Greeks, air was a dense 00:08:13.069 --> 00:08:16.769 concept. It meant the dark, misty lower atmosphere. 00:08:16.930 --> 00:08:19.569 It was distinct from the bright, clear aether 00:08:19.569 --> 00:08:22.389 of the upper sky where the gods lived. But for 00:08:22.389 --> 00:08:24.870 Anaximenes, it was the breath of the universe. 00:08:25.470 --> 00:08:28.870 So why air? Why is that the perfect Goldilocks 00:08:28.870 --> 00:08:30.910 substance? Well, think about its properties. 00:08:31.550 --> 00:08:34.389 It's invisible. Yet it's everywhere. You feel 00:08:34.389 --> 00:08:37.389 it on your skin. It occupies space. It has no 00:08:37.389 --> 00:08:40.090 defined shape, so it can take any shape. Exactly. 00:08:40.090 --> 00:08:42.769 It's boundless enough to satisfy an axamander's 00:08:42.769 --> 00:08:44.889 requirement for infinity, right? The air seems 00:08:44.889 --> 00:08:47.929 to go on forever. But it's also a physical, observable 00:08:47.929 --> 00:08:50.070 substance, which is what Thales wanted. You can 00:08:50.070 --> 00:08:51.950 feel the wind. And it's intimately connected 00:08:51.950 --> 00:08:54.409 to life. That's the clincher. You can live without 00:08:54.409 --> 00:08:56.210 water for days. You can live without food for 00:08:56.210 --> 00:08:57.809 weeks. You can live without air for, what, a 00:08:57.809 --> 00:09:00.190 few minutes? Right. And axamines saw that air, 00:09:00.370 --> 00:09:02.870 or breath, was the driver of all living things. 00:09:02.970 --> 00:09:04.909 It was dynamic. It was always moving. It was 00:09:04.909 --> 00:09:07.730 the source of life and motion. Okay, so he picks 00:09:07.730 --> 00:09:10.450 air. It's a brilliant synthesis of the two ideas 00:09:10.450 --> 00:09:13.070 before him. But this is where the other shoe 00:09:13.070 --> 00:09:16.029 drops. Because if I tell you everything is air, 00:09:16.169 --> 00:09:18.309 you should look at me like I'm crazy and tap 00:09:18.309 --> 00:09:19.950 on this granite table and say, this isn't air. 00:09:20.169 --> 00:09:22.409 This is hard. It's heavy. It hurts if I drop 00:09:22.409 --> 00:09:24.629 it on my foot. Right. How do you get a rock out 00:09:24.629 --> 00:09:26.970 of thin air? How does he bridge that gap? This 00:09:26.970 --> 00:09:29.590 is the moment. This is where Anaximenes earns 00:09:29.590 --> 00:09:32.049 his place in history and why I think he's the 00:09:32.049 --> 00:09:34.990 most important of the three. Thales and Anaximander 00:09:34.990 --> 00:09:38.190 identified the substance. Anaximenes identified 00:09:38.190 --> 00:09:40.950 the mechanism. He introduced the concepts of 00:09:40.950 --> 00:09:43.389 rarefaction and condensation. So he turns it 00:09:43.389 --> 00:09:47.169 into a sliding scale of density. Precisely. This 00:09:47.169 --> 00:09:49.710 is the birth of quantitative science. He was 00:09:49.710 --> 00:09:52.409 the first person to realize that the same substance 00:09:52.409 --> 00:09:55.009 can have wildly different properties based on 00:09:55.009 --> 00:09:57.289 how tightly packed it is. Let's break that down 00:09:57.289 --> 00:09:59.289 because that's a huge idea. Quantitative science. 00:09:59.629 --> 00:10:02.990 Before Anaximetes, qualities were seen as absolute 00:10:02.990 --> 00:10:06.049 things in themselves. Hot was a fundamental quality. 00:10:06.529 --> 00:10:09.149 Cold was a different quality. Hard was its own 00:10:09.149 --> 00:10:11.909 thing. And Anaximenes came along and said, no, 00:10:12.049 --> 00:10:15.809 those are just symptoms. They're illusions. The 00:10:15.809 --> 00:10:19.000 only real variable is density. The quantity of 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:21.759 stuff in a given space. So more or less of the 00:10:21.759 --> 00:10:24.659 same thing in the same amount of space changes 00:10:24.659 --> 00:10:27.419 its properties completely. Yes. If you have a 00:10:27.419 --> 00:10:29.700 little bit of air in a large space, that's one 00:10:29.700 --> 00:10:31.970 state. If you have a lot of air crammed into 00:10:31.970 --> 00:10:33.590 a small space, that's a totally different state 00:10:33.590 --> 00:10:35.590 with different qualities. So walk us through 00:10:35.590 --> 00:10:38.210 that spectrum. We start with our neutral, everyday 00:10:38.210 --> 00:10:41.049 air. What happens when we loosen it up? Rarefaction. 00:10:41.110 --> 00:10:43.769 If you rarefy air, make it thinner, spread it 00:10:43.769 --> 00:10:45.909 out, he said it becomes fire. Fire is just thin 00:10:45.909 --> 00:10:49.129 air. In his model, yes. It becomes hot and luminous 00:10:49.129 --> 00:10:51.590 because the particles, as we would say, have 00:10:51.590 --> 00:10:53.970 more room to move. It's less dense. Okay. Now 00:10:53.970 --> 00:10:55.470 let's go the other way. We start compressing 00:10:55.470 --> 00:10:57.710 it. What's the first step down from air? It becomes 00:10:57.710 --> 00:10:59.799 wind. Okay. Which makes sense, right? Wind is 00:10:59.799 --> 00:11:02.299 just moving compressed air. Okay. Squeeze it 00:11:02.299 --> 00:11:04.879 tighter. It becomes cloud. Even tighter. And 00:11:04.879 --> 00:11:06.940 the cloud condenses into water. And you can see 00:11:06.940 --> 00:11:08.879 that process in the sky. We can literally watch 00:11:08.879 --> 00:11:11.399 it happen. Yeah. But he doesn't stop there. Keep 00:11:11.399 --> 00:11:13.799 compressing the water. What do you get? Earth. 00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:17.919 Dirt. Earth? Solid ground. And then the ultimate 00:11:17.919 --> 00:11:20.399 compression. The densest possible state of air. 00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:24.220 Stones. Rocks. So a diamond, in his view, is 00:11:24.220 --> 00:11:26.460 just air that has been squeezed within an inch 00:11:26.460 --> 00:11:29.259 of its life. Correct. And he used this brilliant 00:11:29.259 --> 00:11:31.659 everyday analogy from the local industry in Miletus 00:11:31.659 --> 00:11:36.419 to explain this process. Felting. Felting, like 00:11:36.419 --> 00:11:39.720 making felt from wool. Exactly. Miletus was famous 00:11:39.720 --> 00:11:42.059 for its wool and its textiles, so everyone would 00:11:42.059 --> 00:11:44.559 have known the process of felting. You take loose, 00:11:44.580 --> 00:11:46.820 fluffy wool, which is mostly air, right? Right. 00:11:46.879 --> 00:11:49.100 And you press it, you beat it, you add moisture, 00:11:49.220 --> 00:11:51.379 and you compress it until all those individual 00:11:51.379 --> 00:11:53.740 fibers lock together and it becomes a hard, dense, 00:11:53.840 --> 00:11:57.070 water -resistant fabric. Wow. And Axiomini said 00:11:57.070 --> 00:11:59.049 the universe is doing the same thing. Nature 00:11:59.049 --> 00:12:01.730 is a felting machine. The wind is just felting 00:12:01.730 --> 00:12:03.730 the air into clouds, and the pressure in the 00:12:03.730 --> 00:12:06.090 clouds is felting them into water. That is so 00:12:06.090 --> 00:12:09.289 tactile. It takes this grand mystery of creation 00:12:09.289 --> 00:12:12.529 and turns it into a manufacturing process that 00:12:12.529 --> 00:12:15.009 anyone on the docks in Miletus could understand. 00:12:15.470 --> 00:12:17.889 It's science for the people. But he didn't just 00:12:17.889 --> 00:12:20.409 link density to hardness and state of matter. 00:12:20.570 --> 00:12:23.149 He linked it to temperature, which was the second 00:12:23.149 --> 00:12:26.779 part of his brilliant theory. Right, so rarefaction, 00:12:26.899 --> 00:12:29.899 making things thinner. He argued that creates 00:12:29.899 --> 00:12:33.980 heat, expansion is hot. And condensation, compressing 00:12:33.980 --> 00:12:37.259 things. Creates cold. Compression is cold. Expanded 00:12:37.259 --> 00:12:39.980 is hot. Compressed is cold. Yes. And I'm sure 00:12:39.980 --> 00:12:42.100 any listeners with a background in thermodynamics 00:12:42.100 --> 00:12:44.519 are probably screaming at their speakers right 00:12:44.519 --> 00:12:46.419 now. Because in modern physics, it's usually 00:12:46.419 --> 00:12:48.960 the opposite, right? The ideal gas law. If you 00:12:48.960 --> 00:12:51.000 compress a gas in a piston, it gets hot. It gets 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:53.759 very hot. Right. But Anaximenes wasn't working 00:12:53.759 --> 00:12:55.919 with pistons and closed systems. He was working 00:12:55.919 --> 00:12:59.480 with everyday observation. And he provided what 00:12:59.480 --> 00:13:02.399 might be the first recorded scientific experiment 00:13:02.399 --> 00:13:05.830 to prove his point. I love this. The famous breath 00:13:05.830 --> 00:13:08.230 experiment. It's so simple and so elegant. It 00:13:08.230 --> 00:13:10.090 really is. And you can do this right now as you're 00:13:10.090 --> 00:13:12.409 listening. Let's try it. Okay. It's very simple. 00:13:12.710 --> 00:13:16.090 First, open your mouth wide. Just relax your 00:13:16.090 --> 00:13:19.370 jaw. And blow gently onto the palm of your hand 00:13:19.370 --> 00:13:21.950 like you're fogging a mirror. Okay. Exhale gently. 00:13:22.230 --> 00:13:25.730 It's warm. It feels like a standard warm breath. 00:13:26.289 --> 00:13:29.370 Right. And axamine says, see, you opened your 00:13:29.370 --> 00:13:31.570 mouth. You let the air expand as it came out. 00:13:31.629 --> 00:13:34.590 Yeah. That is rarefaction. Therefore, it is warm. 00:13:35.049 --> 00:13:36.870 Simple enough. Okay, now the second part. Purse 00:13:36.870 --> 00:13:39.009 your lips. Tighten them like you're about to 00:13:39.009 --> 00:13:40.830 whistle or like you're trying to cool down a 00:13:40.830 --> 00:13:44.009 spoonful of hot soup and blow a sharp, fast stream 00:13:44.009 --> 00:13:47.330 of air onto your hand. Okay. Sharp exhale. Whoa, 00:13:47.509 --> 00:13:50.769 that's cold. It's distinctly cold. It is. And 00:13:50.769 --> 00:13:53.549 an ax meanie says, see, you compress the air 00:13:53.549 --> 00:13:55.409 with your lips. You forced it through a small 00:13:55.409 --> 00:13:58.809 opening. That is condensation. Therefore, it 00:13:58.809 --> 00:14:01.149 is cold. It is such a convincing demonstration. 00:14:01.529 --> 00:14:03.190 I mean, we know why it feels cold now. It has 00:14:03.190 --> 00:14:05.090 to do with the Venturi effect and rapid evaporation. 00:14:05.230 --> 00:14:07.269 The fast moving air pulls heat away from your 00:14:07.269 --> 00:14:09.690 skin. But for him, the correlation was perfect 00:14:09.690 --> 00:14:12.590 and undeniable. It was empirical. He wasn't quoting 00:14:12.590 --> 00:14:14.669 a holy text. He wasn't citing an ancient myth. 00:14:14.830 --> 00:14:17.330 He was using his own body as a scientific instrument 00:14:17.330 --> 00:14:19.769 to demonstrate a cosmic law. He's saying the 00:14:19.769 --> 00:14:22.370 laws that govern the stars are the same laws 00:14:22.370 --> 00:14:24.980 that govern your mouth. That is a massive conceptual 00:14:24.980 --> 00:14:27.659 leap. It implies that the universe is uniform 00:14:27.659 --> 00:14:30.799 and knowable. It's not gods do magic up there 00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:33.980 and we do physics down here. It's all physics. 00:14:34.019 --> 00:14:36.639 Yeah. All the way down. So once he established 00:14:36.639 --> 00:14:39.460 this powerful mechanism that density determines 00:14:39.460 --> 00:14:43.070 reality, he had a tool. And now he had to use 00:14:43.070 --> 00:14:45.250 that tool to build a universe. He had to explain 00:14:45.250 --> 00:14:47.870 the Earth, the stars, everything. Exactly. He 00:14:47.870 --> 00:14:50.429 had to build a cosmology. And this brings us 00:14:50.429 --> 00:14:52.950 to his cosmology, which, I have to be honest, 00:14:53.070 --> 00:14:54.950 is a bit of a mixed bag from our perspective. 00:14:55.250 --> 00:14:58.230 He starts with the Earth, and he believes the 00:14:58.230 --> 00:15:00.990 Earth is flat. He does. He believed the Earth 00:15:00.990 --> 00:15:04.519 was a broad, flat disk. Like a tabletop. Which 00:15:04.519 --> 00:15:06.100 feels like a step backward, doesn't it? I mean, 00:15:06.120 --> 00:15:07.980 Thales thought it was a log floating in water. 00:15:08.320 --> 00:15:09.980 Anaximander thought it was a cylinder hanging 00:15:09.980 --> 00:15:12.080 freely in space, which is surprisingly advanced. 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:15.480 Why did Anaximenes go back to a simple flat disk? 00:15:15.899 --> 00:15:18.779 Because of his air theory. It had to be consistent 00:15:18.779 --> 00:15:21.340 with his mechanism. If the Earth is made of condensed 00:15:21.340 --> 00:15:23.740 air, it's heavy. It needs something to support 00:15:23.740 --> 00:15:27.500 it. Water in Thales' model. Right. But for Anaximenes, 00:15:27.759 --> 00:15:31.009 the support system had to be air. He argued that 00:15:31.009 --> 00:15:33.210 the earth rides on the air underneath it like 00:15:33.210 --> 00:15:36.509 a lid on a pot of boiling steam. And this is 00:15:36.509 --> 00:15:38.470 his famous analogy. The leaf analogy. Like a 00:15:38.470 --> 00:15:40.830 leaf on the wind. He argued that if the earth 00:15:40.830 --> 00:15:43.210 were a ball or a cylinder, the air would just 00:15:43.210 --> 00:15:45.629 slip around it and it would fall. But because 00:15:45.629 --> 00:15:48.590 it's a broad, flat plate, it traps the air underneath 00:15:48.590 --> 00:15:50.570 it. It creates a cushion of pressure that holds 00:15:50.570 --> 00:15:52.870 it up. So he's using the principle of air resistance 00:15:52.870 --> 00:15:55.470 to explain why the earth doesn't fall through 00:15:55.470 --> 00:15:57.990 the infinite air. It's actually a very clever 00:15:57.990 --> 00:16:00.360 aerodynamic argument. Even if the premise is 00:16:00.360 --> 00:16:03.480 wrong, it's internally consistent. Okay, so we 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:06.500 are on a giant leaf floating in an infinite column 00:16:06.500 --> 00:16:10.240 of air. What about the stuff above us? The sun, 00:16:10.480 --> 00:16:13.580 the moon, the stars, how are they formed? This 00:16:13.580 --> 00:16:15.799 is where he applies the rarefaction part of his 00:16:15.799 --> 00:16:17.740 theory. And we get into some really interesting 00:16:17.740 --> 00:16:20.159 textual debates. He says the Earth... Being moist 00:16:20.159 --> 00:16:22.580 lets out exhalations. Like Earth. Essentially, 00:16:22.759 --> 00:16:25.600 yeah. Moisture rises from the Earth. As this 00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:27.840 moist air rises up into the sky, the pressure 00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:30.879 lessens and it expands. It rarefies. And what 00:16:30.879 --> 00:16:33.059 happens when air rarefies? It gets hot and becomes 00:16:33.059 --> 00:16:36.039 fire. Exactly. So the stars, the sun, and the 00:16:36.039 --> 00:16:38.259 moon, they were all ignited exhalations from 00:16:38.259 --> 00:16:41.100 the Earth. They are bodies of fire created by 00:16:41.100 --> 00:16:43.259 the thinning of the atmosphere as you go higher. 00:16:43.629 --> 00:16:46.149 So the cosmos is being fueled by the Earth. It's 00:16:46.149 --> 00:16:48.909 a cycle of condensation down here and rarefaction 00:16:48.909 --> 00:16:52.029 up there. It's a complete system. But here's 00:16:52.029 --> 00:16:54.970 where the controversy starts. We have conflicting 00:16:54.970 --> 00:16:57.769 reports from our ancient sources on how these 00:16:57.769 --> 00:17:00.649 stars are arranged and how they move. Some sources, 00:17:00.769 --> 00:17:03.269 like Hippolytus, say he thought the stars were 00:17:03.269 --> 00:17:05.349 like fiery leaves floating on the upper air, 00:17:05.430 --> 00:17:07.170 just like the Earth floats on the lower air. 00:17:07.289 --> 00:17:09.069 So they're just drifting around up there. Right. 00:17:09.130 --> 00:17:12.109 But other, sometimes more reliable, sources describe 00:17:12.109 --> 00:17:15.970 the stars as Nails. Nails. Nails or studs driven 00:17:15.970 --> 00:17:18.569 into a crystalline surface. Like bronze nails 00:17:18.569 --> 00:17:21.289 hammered into a great transparent shield that 00:17:21.289 --> 00:17:24.069 rotates around us. That implies a solid sky. 00:17:24.470 --> 00:17:28.809 A dome. It does. A dome made of perhaps extremely 00:17:28.809 --> 00:17:32.589 condensed and frozen air. Like ice. And this 00:17:32.589 --> 00:17:35.589 is a huge deal. Because if he believed the fixed 00:17:35.589 --> 00:17:38.869 stars were like nails stuck in a rotating sphere. 00:17:39.170 --> 00:17:42.059 Then what about the planets? The wanderers. Exactly. 00:17:42.059 --> 00:17:44.259 What about them? Because they don't move with 00:17:44.259 --> 00:17:47.140 the background stars. This suggests a possibility 00:17:47.140 --> 00:17:49.220 that he distinguished between the fixed stars, 00:17:49.460 --> 00:17:52.259 the nails, and the freely floating bodies like 00:17:52.259 --> 00:17:55.240 the sun, moon, and planets, the leaves. And if 00:17:55.240 --> 00:17:57.519 that's true? If that's true, he might have been 00:17:57.519 --> 00:17:59.279 the first Greek thinker to formally separate 00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:01.859 the planets from the stars and propose a two 00:18:01.859 --> 00:18:04.730 -tiered system. The foundation of the celestial 00:18:04.730 --> 00:18:06.970 spheres model that would dominate astronomy for 00:18:06.970 --> 00:18:09.630 the next 2 ,000 years, right up to Copernicus. 00:18:09.750 --> 00:18:12.470 Wow. That is a pivotal moment. But I have to 00:18:12.470 --> 00:18:14.609 ask about the sun. Because in any flat Earth 00:18:14.609 --> 00:18:16.289 model, the biggest problem is always sunset. 00:18:16.650 --> 00:18:18.569 If the Earth is a flat table, where does the 00:18:18.569 --> 00:18:20.369 sun go at night? Does it go under the table? 00:18:20.569 --> 00:18:22.309 Most people who thought about it assumed so. 00:18:22.509 --> 00:18:24.670 That was the underworld theory. And Xenium, he 00:18:24.670 --> 00:18:26.990 said, absolutely not. He was adamant that the 00:18:26.990 --> 00:18:29.069 sun and moon never, ever go under the Earth. 00:18:29.170 --> 00:18:31.549 So where do they go? Around. He used the hat 00:18:31.549 --> 00:18:34.809 analogy. He said to imagine a felt cap on your 00:18:34.809 --> 00:18:36.829 head. You can spin the cap around your head. 00:18:37.089 --> 00:18:39.950 The brim stays parallel to the ground. It never 00:18:39.950 --> 00:18:42.309 goes under your chin. So the sun circles the 00:18:42.309 --> 00:18:44.990 earth laterally, like a game of tetherball played 00:18:44.990 --> 00:18:47.470 on a giant disc. Perfect analogy. It circles 00:18:47.470 --> 00:18:49.430 around to the north at night. Okay, but then 00:18:49.430 --> 00:18:52.309 why does it get dark? If it's just circling to 00:18:52.309 --> 00:18:54.450 the other side of the yard, shouldn't we still 00:18:54.450 --> 00:18:57.230 see its glow? This is his explanation for that. 00:18:57.410 --> 00:18:59.589 He argued that the northern parts of the earth 00:18:59.589 --> 00:19:02.119 were elevated. that there were massive towering 00:19:02.119 --> 00:19:04.839 mountains in the far north. So when the sun circles 00:19:04.839 --> 00:19:07.460 around to the north, it is hidden from our view 00:19:07.460 --> 00:19:10.500 because it goes behind these higher lands. That 00:19:10.500 --> 00:19:12.579 feels like a bit of a stretch. I can't explain 00:19:12.579 --> 00:19:15.700 the sunset, so there must be invisible giant 00:19:15.700 --> 00:19:18.519 mountains in, what, Russia? It is a stretch. 00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:21.440 It's an ad hoc solution. But notice what he's 00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:24.079 not doing. He's not saying the sun god Apollo 00:19:24.079 --> 00:19:26.019 takes his chariot into a cave for the night. 00:19:26.140 --> 00:19:28.740 He's not saying the sun dies and is reborn each 00:19:28.740 --> 00:19:31.220 morning. He's inventing a physical geography 00:19:31.220 --> 00:19:34.720 to explain an optical phenomenon. Exactly. He's 00:19:34.720 --> 00:19:37.319 wrong. But he's wrong for the right reasons. 00:19:37.460 --> 00:19:39.640 He's desperately trying to keep the model physical 00:19:39.640 --> 00:19:42.420 and consistent without resorting to gods or magic. 00:19:42.700 --> 00:19:45.000 And that commitment to naturalism is really the 00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:47.140 core of his project. And it brings us to the 00:19:47.140 --> 00:19:49.839 weather, to meteorology. In the ancient world, 00:19:49.940 --> 00:19:52.500 this was the scariest stuff. Thunder, lightning, 00:19:52.680 --> 00:19:55.180 earthquakes. That was the gods screaming at you. 00:19:55.279 --> 00:19:58.019 It was. If the ground shook, Poseidon the Earthshaker 00:19:58.019 --> 00:20:00.519 was angry. You needed to sacrifice a bull immediately. 00:20:00.940 --> 00:20:02.559 And Aximenes looked at an earthquake and said, 00:20:02.660 --> 00:20:06.039 no, that's just structural fatigue. How did he 00:20:06.039 --> 00:20:08.779 explain earthquakes with air? He actually used 00:20:08.779 --> 00:20:11.920 a geology analogy here, a non -air one. He said 00:20:11.920 --> 00:20:14.339 the earth is like an old wooden ship or mud brick 00:20:14.339 --> 00:20:17.380 wall. When it gets too dry during a drought, 00:20:17.460 --> 00:20:19.900 it cracks and fissures appear. And when it gets 00:20:19.900 --> 00:20:22.660 too wet after heavy rains, parts of it get saturated 00:20:22.660 --> 00:20:25.559 and swell and then collapse. So earthquakes are 00:20:25.559 --> 00:20:27.460 caused by the material of the earth expanding 00:20:27.460 --> 00:20:30.099 and contracting. So earthquakes happen in cycles 00:20:30.099 --> 00:20:33.380 of drought and heavy rain? Yes. It's just the 00:20:33.380 --> 00:20:35.200 expansion and contraction of the material itself. 00:20:35.359 --> 00:20:37.640 No angry gods, just moisture cycles and physics. 00:20:37.920 --> 00:20:40.420 That must have been terrifying to people. I mean, 00:20:40.440 --> 00:20:43.200 it's liberating, but also, if Poseidon isn't 00:20:43.200 --> 00:20:46.180 causing the earthquake, then sacrificing a bull 00:20:46.180 --> 00:20:48.759 won't stop the next one. You're just stuck on 00:20:48.759 --> 00:20:51.000 a cracking rock. That is the double -edged sword 00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:53.160 of science, isn't it? It gives you understanding, 00:20:53.339 --> 00:20:56.279 but it takes away the illusion of control. You 00:20:56.279 --> 00:20:58.880 can't bribe the laws of physics. What about lightning? 00:20:59.079 --> 00:21:02.240 That's Zeus's personal trademark. For Anaximenes, 00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:05.599 lightning is just wind. Specifically, he says 00:21:05.599 --> 00:21:07.900 it's wind that gets trapped inside a thick, dark, 00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:11.200 moist cloud. The pressure builds up, it's condensation 00:21:11.200 --> 00:21:13.460 again, and eventually the pressure is too great. 00:21:13.680 --> 00:21:16.039 The cloud rips open violently. It's a bursting 00:21:16.039 --> 00:21:18.259 balloon. It's a bursting balloon. And the flash 00:21:18.259 --> 00:21:21.220 is the escaping air igniting for a moment, and 00:21:21.220 --> 00:21:23.220 the thunder is the roar of it tearing through 00:21:23.220 --> 00:21:25.700 the cloud. Again, not terribly far off from the 00:21:25.700 --> 00:21:27.920 modern idea of pressure differentials and charge 00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:29.940 separation, even if he missed the electricity 00:21:29.940 --> 00:21:32.779 part. Exactly. But his most beautiful explanation, 00:21:32.819 --> 00:21:35.420 I think, has to be the rainbow. The rainbow, 00:21:35.640 --> 00:21:38.359 usually associated with the goddess Iris, the 00:21:38.359 --> 00:21:41.180 messenger. Right. A direct message from the gods. 00:21:42.039 --> 00:21:44.599 And Axiomines is the first recorded thinker to 00:21:44.599 --> 00:21:47.119 try to explain the rainbow as a purely optical, 00:21:47.299 --> 00:21:50.440 natural event. He said it's not a physical object 00:21:50.440 --> 00:21:52.519 in the sky at all. He said it was a reflection. 00:21:52.680 --> 00:21:55.400 A reflection of what? Of the sun's rays. Specifically, 00:21:55.819 --> 00:21:59.019 sunlight bouncing off a dense, dark cloud that 00:21:59.019 --> 00:22:01.140 is so compressed it can't be penetrated by the 00:22:01.140 --> 00:22:04.039 light. The light hits the air as a wall and reflects 00:22:04.039 --> 00:22:06.180 back to our eyes. And the colors, where did the 00:22:06.180 --> 00:22:09.140 colors come from? This is amazing. He theorized 00:22:09.140 --> 00:22:11.059 that the colors were created by the interaction 00:22:11.059 --> 00:22:13.220 of the bright sunlight with the dark medium of 00:22:13.220 --> 00:22:15.960 the cloud. He's trying to derive the spectrum 00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:18.640 from a mixture of light and darkness. The first 00:22:18.640 --> 00:22:21.799 scientific theory of color. The very first. He's 00:22:21.799 --> 00:22:24.079 wrong, of course, about darkness being an ingredient. 00:22:24.460 --> 00:22:26.380 But he's right that it's an interaction between 00:22:26.380 --> 00:22:28.660 light and the atmosphere. He's on the right track. 00:22:28.720 --> 00:22:30.880 He's asking the right questions. So we have a 00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:33.579 universe that is self -regulating. It runs on 00:22:33.579 --> 00:22:36.259 density, heat, and wind. Earthquakes, lightning, 00:22:36.460 --> 00:22:39.099 rainbows, all explained. But Anaximenes didn't 00:22:39.099 --> 00:22:41.400 stop at the rocks and the clouds. He turned the 00:22:41.400 --> 00:22:43.720 camera around. He looked at the observer. The 00:22:43.720 --> 00:22:46.299 soul. The psyche. This is the part that, for 00:22:46.299 --> 00:22:48.640 me, is the most profound. Because up until now, 00:22:48.680 --> 00:22:51.480 he's been a physicist, a meteorologist. Now he 00:22:51.480 --> 00:22:53.779 becomes a metaphysician. The distinction wouldn't 00:22:53.779 --> 00:22:55.740 have existed for him. To him, the soul was just 00:22:55.740 --> 00:22:58.160 another physical thing that needed explaining 00:22:58.160 --> 00:23:00.940 with his system. And what is the soul? Well, 00:23:00.980 --> 00:23:02.420 what's the most obvious difference between a 00:23:02.420 --> 00:23:04.619 living person and a dead one? One is breathing. 00:23:04.740 --> 00:23:06.779 The other isn't. Exactly. When someone dies, 00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:09.299 they stop breathing. The breath leaves the body. 00:23:09.420 --> 00:23:12.480 The corpse is heavy. Cold and inert. The living 00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:15.920 person is warm, moving, and breathing. So an 00:23:15.920 --> 00:23:18.680 axomenes makes the connection. The soul is air. 00:23:18.940 --> 00:23:21.900 Pneuma. Yes. The Greek word pneuma, which gives 00:23:21.900 --> 00:23:24.559 us pneumatic drills and pneumonia, originally 00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:27.740 meant wind or breath. But it also carried the 00:23:27.740 --> 00:23:30.940 meaning of spirit or life force. An axomenes 00:23:30.940 --> 00:23:32.799 took that linguistic connection and made it a 00:23:32.799 --> 00:23:36.220 literal physical fact. Our internal life force 00:23:36.220 --> 00:23:39.480 is a pocket of the divine air. And there's a 00:23:39.480 --> 00:23:41.880 specific fragment, fragment B2, that sums this 00:23:41.880 --> 00:23:44.079 up perfectly. It's one of the only direct quotes 00:23:44.079 --> 00:23:46.200 we're pretty sure is authentic. It's a beautiful 00:23:46.200 --> 00:23:49.279 line. It reads, Just as our soul, being air, 00:23:49.500 --> 00:23:52.460 holds us together, so do breath and air encompass 00:23:52.460 --> 00:23:56.140 the whole world. Just as our soul holds us together, 00:23:56.240 --> 00:23:58.420 so does air encompass the whole world. Let's 00:23:58.420 --> 00:24:00.599 unpack that. Because there is so much in that 00:24:00.599 --> 00:24:03.720 one sentence. It is the first explicit statement 00:24:03.720 --> 00:24:06.779 we have in Western philosophy of the microcosm 00:24:06.779 --> 00:24:09.170 and the macrocosm. The little world and the big 00:24:09.170 --> 00:24:12.289 world. Exactly. The idea that the little world, 00:24:12.450 --> 00:24:15.450 the human being, is a perfect analogy for and 00:24:15.450 --> 00:24:18.569 functions exactly like the big world, the entire 00:24:18.569 --> 00:24:21.349 universe, or cosmos. He's saying that the force 00:24:21.349 --> 00:24:23.750 that keeps my body coherent and prevents it from 00:24:23.750 --> 00:24:26.309 falling apart into a pile of dust, my soul, my 00:24:26.309 --> 00:24:29.309 breath, is the exact same substance and force 00:24:29.309 --> 00:24:31.589 that holds the entire universe together. It's 00:24:31.589 --> 00:24:34.720 a grand unifying theory of everything. It means 00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:36.720 you can study the universe by studying yourself. 00:24:37.079 --> 00:24:39.140 Yeah. And you can understand yourself by studying 00:24:39.140 --> 00:24:41.519 the storms and stars. It completely bridges the 00:24:41.519 --> 00:24:44.660 gap between what we would call biology and cosmology. 00:24:44.839 --> 00:24:47.519 It also implies that the universe is alive. Yes. 00:24:47.900 --> 00:24:51.109 This is a concept called hylozoism. The belief 00:24:51.109 --> 00:24:54.369 that matter is alive. If our soul is air and 00:24:54.369 --> 00:24:56.710 the universe is just an infinite amount of air, 00:24:56.890 --> 00:24:59.509 then the universe itself is essentially a giant 00:24:59.509 --> 00:25:02.670 living soul. It's a living, breathing organism. 00:25:02.950 --> 00:25:05.369 That is a staggering thought, that we are just 00:25:05.369 --> 00:25:08.289 little eddies of breath swirling inside a massive 00:25:08.289 --> 00:25:10.950 cosmic inhalation. And did he take this to a 00:25:10.950 --> 00:25:13.890 religious place? If air is the divine principle? 00:25:14.109 --> 00:25:16.930 He did, but in a revolutionary way. He didn't 00:25:16.930 --> 00:25:19.309 deny the existence of the traditional gods like 00:25:19.309 --> 00:25:21.970 Zeus and Apollo, but he demoted them. He said 00:25:21.970 --> 00:25:23.829 the gods themselves arose from the air. They 00:25:23.829 --> 00:25:25.250 weren't the creators. They were just another 00:25:25.250 --> 00:25:27.269 product of the fundamental substance like we 00:25:27.269 --> 00:25:29.930 are. So air is the true divinity, the ultimate 00:25:29.930 --> 00:25:31.990 source. The ultimate source. This idea had a 00:25:31.990 --> 00:25:34.289 huge influence. The Stoics picked this up centuries 00:25:34.289 --> 00:25:36.940 later, the idea of the universal pneuma. that 00:25:36.940 --> 00:25:39.279 binds the cosmos together. The concept of the 00:25:39.279 --> 00:25:40.900 Holy Spirit is the breath of life in Christian 00:25:40.900 --> 00:25:43.680 theology. It all tracks back to Anaximenes connecting 00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:46.259 the wind outside to the breath inside. So we 00:25:46.259 --> 00:25:49.740 have this incredible, coherent intellectual architecture, 00:25:49.960 --> 00:25:52.740 the density theory, the empirical experiments, 00:25:53.079 --> 00:25:56.400 the flat earth cosmology, the microcosm, macrocosm. 00:25:57.000 --> 00:25:59.819 Why then did he fall off the map? Why is he the 00:25:59.819 --> 00:26:02.359 forgotten Milesian today? It's a classic case 00:26:02.359 --> 00:26:05.279 of history being written by the victors or in 00:26:05.279 --> 00:26:07.259 this case by the critics. And the biggest critic 00:26:07.259 --> 00:26:10.599 was Aristotle. Right. Aristotle really set the 00:26:10.599 --> 00:26:13.000 canon for philosophy for the next 2000 years. 00:26:13.359 --> 00:26:15.880 And he was looking for a specific kind of logic, 00:26:15.940 --> 00:26:19.140 his own system of causes. He labeled Anaximenes 00:26:19.140 --> 00:26:21.619 a simple monist and kind of filed him away as 00:26:21.619 --> 00:26:24.720 just a stepping stone to, well, to more sophisticated 00:26:24.720 --> 00:26:26.819 thinkers like himself. He put him in a box. He 00:26:26.819 --> 00:26:28.980 put him in a box labeled early and naive. And 00:26:28.980 --> 00:26:31.619 that reputation stuck. It's ironic because in 00:26:31.619 --> 00:26:34.460 late antiquity, Anaximenes was actually considered 00:26:34.460 --> 00:26:36.579 the most important of the three Milesians by 00:26:36.579 --> 00:26:38.460 many writers. And there was a modern critique 00:26:38.460 --> 00:26:41.660 too, right? From a very surprising source, Werner 00:26:41.660 --> 00:26:44.519 Heisenberg, the quantum mechanics guy. Yes. Heisenberg, 00:26:44.660 --> 00:26:46.740 one of the fathers of quantum physics, was fascinated 00:26:46.740 --> 00:26:48.799 by the pre -Socratics and wrote about them. And 00:26:48.799 --> 00:26:51.859 he was fascinatingly harsh on Anaximenes. Heisenberg 00:26:51.859 --> 00:26:55.480 loved Anaximander. He saw the abstract apirin 00:26:55.480 --> 00:26:58.140 as a brilliant ancient precursor to the modern 00:26:58.140 --> 00:27:01.440 concept of energy. or the quantum field, this 00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:04.140 pure, undifferentiated potential from which all 00:27:04.140 --> 00:27:07.059 reality emerges. So when Anaximenes went back 00:27:07.059 --> 00:27:09.680 to a concrete substance like air, Heisenberg 00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:12.240 saw that as a step backward. Exactly. He called 00:27:12.240 --> 00:27:15.240 it a retrogression. He thought Anaximenes dragged 00:27:15.240 --> 00:27:17.619 philosophy back down into the mode of simple 00:27:17.619 --> 00:27:20.339 materialism and away from the profound abstraction 00:27:20.339 --> 00:27:23.000 of his teacher. But that feels so unfair, doesn't 00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:25.319 it? Because he's ignoring the key contribution. 00:27:26.039 --> 00:27:28.700 Anaximenes added the mechanism. That's the entire 00:27:28.700 --> 00:27:32.359 defense. Without Anaximenes' mechanism, Anaximenes' 00:27:32.539 --> 00:27:35.460 apron is just poetry. Anaximenes is the one who 00:27:35.460 --> 00:27:37.539 gave us the tools to actually measure and describe 00:27:37.539 --> 00:27:40.000 change. And that's why the people who came after 00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:42.359 him, like the atomists, Lucimpus and Democritus, 00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:44.640 they owe him everything. Connect that for us. 00:27:44.700 --> 00:27:47.259 How do we get from felting air to atoms? The 00:27:47.259 --> 00:27:49.619 atomists said the world is made of tiny, uncuttable 00:27:49.619 --> 00:27:52.220 particles moving in a void. Okay, great. But 00:27:52.220 --> 00:27:54.079 how do those identical particles create a soft 00:27:54.079 --> 00:27:57.720 feather and a hard rock? Density. Packing. Arrangement. 00:27:58.029 --> 00:28:00.410 The atomists took Anaximenes' core theory of 00:28:00.410 --> 00:28:03.529 rarefaction and condensation and simply applied 00:28:03.529 --> 00:28:06.650 it to atoms instead of air. A rock is just atoms 00:28:06.650 --> 00:28:10.269 packed tightly together. A feather is atoms with 00:28:10.269 --> 00:28:12.470 a lot of void between them. So the fundamental 00:28:12.470 --> 00:28:15.450 logic of modern physics, that quantitative arrangement 00:28:15.450 --> 00:28:18.069 determines qualitative properties, it starts 00:28:18.069 --> 00:28:20.009 right there. It starts with the wool -felting 00:28:20.009 --> 00:28:22.269 man in Miletus. His influence is everywhere. 00:28:22.859 --> 00:28:25.740 Plato references his theory of matter, the seven 00:28:25.740 --> 00:28:28.700 states from stone to fire in the Timaeus. Diogenes 00:28:28.700 --> 00:28:31.380 of Apollonia basically revived his entire air 00:28:31.380 --> 00:28:33.700 -based system a century later. And we shouldn't 00:28:33.700 --> 00:28:35.319 forget his writing style. You mentioned he wrote 00:28:35.319 --> 00:28:37.279 a book. Yes, and this is another innovation. 00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:39.559 Before the Milesians, wisdom was transmitted 00:28:39.559 --> 00:28:42.509 through poetry. Homer. Hesiod. If you wanted 00:28:42.509 --> 00:28:44.390 to say something profound and true, you wrote 00:28:44.390 --> 00:28:47.170 it in hexameter verse. It was often cryptic, 00:28:47.190 --> 00:28:50.130 flowery, mythological. Anaximes is credited with 00:28:50.130 --> 00:28:52.269 writing in prose. Plain, simple, descriptive 00:28:52.269 --> 00:28:54.609 prose. What was called the simple and economical 00:28:54.609 --> 00:28:57.410 Ionic style. He wasn't trying to dazzle you with 00:28:57.410 --> 00:28:59.890 rhymes or divine inspiration. He was trying to 00:28:59.890 --> 00:29:02.430 communicate facts as clearly as possible. He 00:29:02.430 --> 00:29:04.529 essentially invented the format of the scientific 00:29:04.529 --> 00:29:06.630 paper. You could absolutely make that argument. 00:29:06.789 --> 00:29:09.289 Here's the observation. Here's the theory. Here's 00:29:09.289 --> 00:29:11.690 the proof. It's a democratization of knowledge. 00:29:12.170 --> 00:29:14.829 You don't need to be a divinely inspired bard 00:29:14.829 --> 00:29:17.130 to understand the universe. You just need to 00:29:17.130 --> 00:29:19.549 read the sentence and think about it. So let's 00:29:19.549 --> 00:29:22.039 zoom out. We've spent the hour with a man who 00:29:22.039 --> 00:29:24.420 believed the stars were fire nails and the earth 00:29:24.420 --> 00:29:27.640 was a floating leaf. It's easy for us to chuckle 00:29:27.640 --> 00:29:30.000 at the specific conclusions, but when you look 00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:32.700 at the structure of his thought, it feels surprisingly, 00:29:32.900 --> 00:29:35.839 almost unnervingly modern. It really does. He 00:29:35.839 --> 00:29:38.640 was wrong about the way it's not air, but he 00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:41.019 was so profoundly right about the how. The how? 00:29:41.160 --> 00:29:43.039 What do you mean? He was right that the universe 00:29:43.039 --> 00:29:45.440 is likely a single system governed by uniform 00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:48.200 laws. He was right that quantitative changes 00:29:48.200 --> 00:29:51.039 in structure create qualitative changes in properties. 00:29:51.440 --> 00:29:54.039 He was right that physical processes can explain 00:29:54.039 --> 00:29:56.940 complex phenomena without invoking gods. And 00:29:56.940 --> 00:29:59.180 he was right that there is a deep structural 00:29:59.180 --> 00:30:01.839 connection between the observer and the cosmos. 00:30:02.160 --> 00:30:04.680 I keep going back to that star stuff idea that 00:30:04.680 --> 00:30:07.470 we all love today. The idea that Carl Sagan made 00:30:07.470 --> 00:30:10.710 so famous. We are made of stardust. It's the 00:30:10.710 --> 00:30:13.190 modern version of Fragment B2, isn't it? It really 00:30:13.190 --> 00:30:16.029 is. We know now that the carbon in our cells, 00:30:16.190 --> 00:30:18.769 the oxygen we breathe, the iron in our blood, 00:30:18.809 --> 00:30:21.630 it was all forged in the nuclear furnaces of 00:30:21.630 --> 00:30:24.809 stars. Stars that lived and died and exploded, 00:30:24.890 --> 00:30:27.690 scattering that debris across the galaxy to eventually 00:30:27.690 --> 00:30:31.440 form the Earth. And us. And us. Anaximenes thought 00:30:31.440 --> 00:30:33.660 it was air thickening into Earth and thinning 00:30:33.660 --> 00:30:35.960 back into the fire of the stars. We know it's 00:30:35.960 --> 00:30:38.720 atomic fusion and gravity and supernova. But 00:30:38.720 --> 00:30:41.039 the fundamental sentiment, the core insight, 00:30:41.240 --> 00:30:43.779 is identical. The boundary between me and the 00:30:43.779 --> 00:30:45.960 universe is an illusion. It's all the same stuff, 00:30:46.039 --> 00:30:47.819 just arranged differently for a little while. 00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:50.559 And that realization that we are not separate 00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:53.240 from nature, but a direct manifestation of it, 00:30:53.319 --> 00:30:55.500 is perhaps the most important insight a human 00:30:55.500 --> 00:30:58.410 being can have. And Axmedes was the first person 00:30:58.410 --> 00:31:01.349 we know of to articulate it clearly as a physical 00:31:01.349 --> 00:31:04.309 fact without hiding behind a myth. He stripped 00:31:04.309 --> 00:31:06.690 away the gods to show us the gears of the machine. 00:31:06.910 --> 00:31:09.230 And even if he didn't quite understand how the 00:31:09.230 --> 00:31:11.670 gears turned, he knew they were there. And that 00:31:11.670 --> 00:31:14.210 changed everything. It was the beginning of the 00:31:14.210 --> 00:31:17.109 long, difficult road to understanding where we 00:31:17.109 --> 00:31:19.690 actually are and what we actually are. And I 00:31:19.690 --> 00:31:21.470 think that's a perfect place to land. So we're 00:31:21.470 --> 00:31:22.849 going to leave you with a final thought to mull 00:31:22.849 --> 00:31:25.529 over. Anaximenes believed our souls were made 00:31:25.529 --> 00:31:27.910 of air, the same air that supports the Earth 00:31:27.910 --> 00:31:31.289 and becomes the stars. If he were alive today, 00:31:31.609 --> 00:31:33.769 looking at our modern understanding that we are 00:31:33.769 --> 00:31:37.190 literally made of star stuff, atoms created inside 00:31:37.190 --> 00:31:40.869 distant suns, would he feel vindicated? Would 00:31:40.869 --> 00:31:43.069 he see our science not as a reputation of his 00:31:43.069 --> 00:31:46.599 idea, but as its ultimate confirmation? The confirmation 00:31:46.599 --> 00:31:48.640 that the boundary between the stuff out there 00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:51.380 and the stuff inside us really is just a matter 00:31:51.380 --> 00:31:54.119 of density and organization. Something to think 00:31:54.119 --> 00:31:55.920 about. Thanks for taking this deep dive with 00:31:55.920 --> 00:31:56.839 us. We'll see you next time.