WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.640 You know, we spend a massive amount of time on 00:00:02.640 --> 00:00:05.440 this show talking about let's call them the greatest 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:08.580 hits. of history the big names yeah the people 00:00:08.580 --> 00:00:12.400 whose names are chiseled onto the marble facades 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:15.859 of libraries we talk about socrates we talk about 00:00:15.859 --> 00:00:19.739 plato aristotle the rock stars they are the rock 00:00:19.739 --> 00:00:22.559 stars the household names i mean you walk into 00:00:22.559 --> 00:00:24.320 a bookstore if you can even find one anymore 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:27.620 their faces are on all the covers in the classic 00:00:27.620 --> 00:00:30.460 section they're like the beatles of ancient philosophy 00:00:30.460 --> 00:00:32.960 that's a very fair comparison they really do 00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:34.880 take up all the oxygen in the room when we talk 00:00:34.880 --> 00:00:37.369 about greek thought Exactly. But today we're 00:00:37.369 --> 00:00:40.210 going to do something completely different. We're 00:00:40.210 --> 00:00:41.890 going to veer off the beaten path. We're talking 00:00:41.890 --> 00:00:45.070 about a guy who, frankly, doesn't get the press 00:00:45.070 --> 00:00:47.469 he deserves. Not at all. He is not a household 00:00:47.469 --> 00:00:50.049 name. If you mentioned him at a dinner party, 00:00:50.250 --> 00:00:52.850 most people would probably think you were mispronouncing 00:00:52.850 --> 00:00:55.649 Alexander. But, you know, based on the stack 00:00:55.649 --> 00:00:57.570 of research we've gone through for this, he might 00:00:57.570 --> 00:00:59.750 just be the most important thinker you've rarely, 00:00:59.850 --> 00:01:02.009 if ever, heard of. It's a bold claim, I know. 00:01:02.649 --> 00:01:04.510 But I'm inclined to agree with it. I mean... 00:01:05.290 --> 00:01:07.569 If we're looking for the specific moment in human 00:01:07.569 --> 00:01:09.329 history when we started to think differently, 00:01:09.450 --> 00:01:11.549 and I mean really differently, like a fundamental 00:01:11.549 --> 00:01:14.790 shift in our cognitive operating system, we have 00:01:14.790 --> 00:01:18.329 to look at this man. This is the moment humanity 00:01:18.329 --> 00:01:21.530 stopped looking up at the sky and seeing gods 00:01:21.530 --> 00:01:24.870 and started seeing machinery. We're talking about 00:01:24.870 --> 00:01:27.569 Anaximander of Miletus. Anaximander. It's a great 00:01:27.569 --> 00:01:30.629 name. And the hook for me, the thing that really 00:01:30.629 --> 00:01:33.250 grabbed me when I was prepping for this, is that... 00:01:33.609 --> 00:01:35.969 Modern scientists are obsessed with him. They 00:01:35.969 --> 00:01:39.390 are. We have Carlo Rivelli, a world -class theoretical 00:01:39.390 --> 00:01:42.549 physicist, literally calling this guy the first 00:01:42.549 --> 00:01:45.409 scientist, not one of the first, the first, period. 00:01:45.549 --> 00:01:48.349 And Rivelli isn't using that title lightly. You 00:01:48.349 --> 00:01:50.290 know, he's not just trying to sell books. He 00:01:50.290 --> 00:01:53.189 is making a serious argument that Anaximander 00:01:53.189 --> 00:01:55.689 represents the singularity of scientific thought. 00:01:55.829 --> 00:01:57.310 Right. So if you remember, we're going back to 00:01:57.310 --> 00:01:59.590 the 6th century BC. We're talking about 2 ,600 00:01:59.590 --> 00:02:02.959 years ago. This is a world that is almost entirely 00:02:02.959 --> 00:02:05.840 defined by mythology. Okay, let's set the stage 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:07.760 for that. Because it's hard for us to really 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:09.520 imagine now. We live in a world of cause and 00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:11.860 effect. But back then... Back then, if there 00:02:11.860 --> 00:02:14.479 was thunder, it wasn't a low -pressure system 00:02:14.479 --> 00:02:16.719 colliding with a high -pressure system. It was 00:02:16.719 --> 00:02:19.639 Zeus. It was Zeus. And he was angry. If the ground 00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:22.319 shook, it wasn't tectonic plates shifting. It 00:02:22.319 --> 00:02:24.840 was Poseidon striking the Earth with his trident. 00:02:25.020 --> 00:02:28.520 If you got sick. Apollo's arrows. The world operated 00:02:28.520 --> 00:02:31.659 entirely on the whims of powerful, invisible, 00:02:31.979 --> 00:02:34.979 and often very capricious entities. It was a 00:02:34.979 --> 00:02:37.520 world of personality, not physics. And that's 00:02:37.520 --> 00:02:39.659 what makes Anaximander so wild. He looks at that 00:02:39.659 --> 00:02:41.659 world, a world of magic and monsters, and like 00:02:41.659 --> 00:02:44.060 you said, divine temper tantrums, and he just 00:02:44.060 --> 00:02:47.020 decides that because Zeus said so, isn't a good 00:02:47.020 --> 00:02:48.979 enough answer anymore. Exactly. He's the figure 00:02:48.979 --> 00:02:51.979 who arguably invents the idea that nature follows 00:02:51.979 --> 00:02:55.439 laws. Laws. Impersonal laws. necessary laws, 00:02:55.639 --> 00:02:57.819 and most importantly, laws that are understandable 00:02:57.819 --> 00:03:00.780 by the human mind. He takes the gods out of the 00:03:00.780 --> 00:03:03.419 equation and replaces them with forces. That 00:03:03.419 --> 00:03:06.120 is the mission for this deep dive. We are going 00:03:06.120 --> 00:03:09.439 to explore how one man initiated this massive 00:03:09.439 --> 00:03:13.240 shift. We're going to look at his map, which 00:03:13.240 --> 00:03:15.599 is a huge deal. I mean, literally drawing the 00:03:15.599 --> 00:03:17.580 world for the first time. A world he could see 00:03:17.580 --> 00:03:19.580 as an object. We're going to look at his concept 00:03:19.580 --> 00:03:22.349 of the infinite. which sounds kind of trippy 00:03:22.349 --> 00:03:25.590 but is actually super logical. And we're going 00:03:25.590 --> 00:03:27.810 to talk about his ideas on evolution and space, 00:03:28.090 --> 00:03:31.050 which are surprisingly accurate and, let's be 00:03:31.050 --> 00:03:33.930 honest, sometimes completely bizarre. Bizarre 00:03:33.930 --> 00:03:36.949 is a generous word for some of it, but yes. It's 00:03:36.949 --> 00:03:40.069 that perfect mix of genius and, well, what seems 00:03:40.069 --> 00:03:43.009 to us like... Before we really jump in, though, 00:03:43.069 --> 00:03:44.530 we should clarify what we're actually working 00:03:44.530 --> 00:03:46.330 with here, because unlike Plato, where we have 00:03:46.330 --> 00:03:48.490 these beautiful, intact volumes of dialogues, 00:03:48.810 --> 00:03:51.469 Anaximander is a bit of a ghost, isn't he? He 00:03:51.469 --> 00:03:53.370 is a puzzle with most of the pieces missing. 00:03:53.449 --> 00:03:56.169 We don't have his complete works, but we have 00:03:56.169 --> 00:03:58.770 our ancient testimonies. So other people talking 00:03:58.770 --> 00:04:01.069 about him. Exactly. Later writers, Aristotle, 00:04:01.409 --> 00:04:03.689 Theophrastus, Simplicius, Hippolytus, who were 00:04:03.689 --> 00:04:06.469 describing what Anaximander said centuries earlier. 00:04:06.939 --> 00:04:08.879 It's been like playing a game of telephone across 00:04:08.879 --> 00:04:11.080 a thousand years. But we do have something special, 00:04:11.159 --> 00:04:13.199 right? Something direct from the source. We do. 00:04:13.360 --> 00:04:17.819 And it's so precious. We have fragments. Specifically, 00:04:18.079 --> 00:04:21.279 one significant fragment from his book, On Nature. 00:04:21.860 --> 00:04:24.500 And the very existence of this book is a milestone 00:04:24.500 --> 00:04:27.759 in itself. Why? It's considered the first philosophical 00:04:27.759 --> 00:04:30.279 prose ever written by a Greek. And why does that 00:04:30.279 --> 00:04:33.600 matter? Prose versus poetry. Oh, it matters a 00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:36.660 huge amount. Before an axamander. Wisdom was 00:04:36.660 --> 00:04:38.800 conveyed in poetry. You think of Homer's Iliad 00:04:38.800 --> 00:04:41.339 or Hesiod's Theogony. Right. It's all epic verse. 00:04:41.600 --> 00:04:43.839 And poetry is rhythmic. It's narrative. It's 00:04:43.839 --> 00:04:46.100 designed to be memorized and sung. It's about 00:04:46.100 --> 00:04:49.699 storytelling. And Aximander wrote intros. That 00:04:49.699 --> 00:04:52.899 signals a total shift in intent. He wasn't telling 00:04:52.899 --> 00:04:55.379 a story about heroes. He was explaining a system. 00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:57.500 He's not trying to be Homer. He was writing a 00:04:57.500 --> 00:05:00.199 treatise. He was trying to be precise, not just 00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:02.819 evocative. It's the difference between, I don't 00:05:02.819 --> 00:05:05.939 know. Song lyrics and a user manual. That is 00:05:05.939 --> 00:05:08.399 a perfect analogy. He was writing the first user 00:05:08.399 --> 00:05:10.680 manual for the universe. So let's get into the 00:05:10.680 --> 00:05:13.199 context. We need to transport ourselves back 00:05:13.199 --> 00:05:17.319 to the 6th century BC. We're in the city of Miletus. 00:05:17.800 --> 00:05:20.500 Now, when I think of ancient Greece, I think 00:05:20.500 --> 00:05:23.920 of Athens. The Parthenon, men in Togus debating 00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:27.939 democracy. But Miletus isn't Athens. No, this 00:05:27.939 --> 00:05:30.680 is way before the golden age of Athens. Miletus 00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:33.449 was a city in Ionia. on the coast of modern -day 00:05:33.449 --> 00:05:37.350 Turkey. And in the 6th century BC, Miletus was 00:05:37.350 --> 00:05:40.230 arguably the most vibrant, wealthy, and intellectual 00:05:40.230 --> 00:05:43.829 city in the entire Greek world. So it was the 00:05:43.829 --> 00:05:45.550 place to be. It was the New York City of the 00:05:45.550 --> 00:05:48.069 ancient Mediterranean. A trade hub. A massive 00:05:48.069 --> 00:05:50.149 trade hub. You had a harbor just teeming with 00:05:50.149 --> 00:05:52.089 ships. You had caravans coming in from the east. 00:05:52.230 --> 00:05:54.430 You had goods and people coming in from Babylon, 00:05:54.730 --> 00:05:57.889 from Egypt, from Phoenicia, from the Greek mainland. 00:05:58.170 --> 00:06:01.069 And when you trade goods, you trade ideas. Precisely. 00:06:01.319 --> 00:06:03.899 That is the key. Miletus was a melting pot. You've 00:06:03.899 --> 00:06:05.899 got Babylonian astronomers who have been charting 00:06:05.899 --> 00:06:07.939 the stars for centuries. You've got Egyptian 00:06:07.939 --> 00:06:10.399 surveyors who basically invented geometry to 00:06:10.399 --> 00:06:12.699 remeasure the Nile fields after the floods. All 00:06:12.699 --> 00:06:15.279 these different knowledge systems. And you've 00:06:15.279 --> 00:06:18.560 got Greek curiosity. All of it mixing together 00:06:18.560 --> 00:06:21.139 in this one harbor town. It's interesting how 00:06:21.139 --> 00:06:23.319 often innovation happens in places like that. 00:06:23.420 --> 00:06:25.600 Places where different cultures crash into each 00:06:25.600 --> 00:06:27.620 other. It forces you to question your assumptions. 00:06:28.040 --> 00:06:30.680 Think about it. If you live in a secluded village, 00:06:31.209 --> 00:06:33.790 Everyone believes the same creation myth. Sure, 00:06:33.949 --> 00:06:35.810 it's the only story you've ever heard. But in 00:06:35.810 --> 00:06:38.930 Miletus, the Babylonians are saying the god Marduk 00:06:38.930 --> 00:06:42.490 created the world. The Egyptians say it was Adam. 00:06:42.589 --> 00:06:45.949 The Greeks say it was Gaia. And eventually, a 00:06:45.949 --> 00:06:47.850 smart person sitting in the marketplace starts 00:06:47.850 --> 00:06:50.550 to wonder, they can't all be right. And maybe, 00:06:50.709 --> 00:06:52.870 maybe none of them are right. Exactly. It breeds 00:06:52.870 --> 00:06:55.670 skepticism. And from that skepticism, you get 00:06:55.670 --> 00:06:57.930 the Milesian school. It starts with Thales. We 00:06:57.930 --> 00:06:59.449 have to talk about Thales because he was the 00:06:59.449 --> 00:07:01.639 teacher. He's often called the father of Western 00:07:01.639 --> 00:07:04.240 philosophy, and an Axmander was his student. 00:07:04.399 --> 00:07:06.980 The master and the apprentice. So let's talk 00:07:06.980 --> 00:07:08.959 about Thales for just a second, just to establish 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:11.860 the baseline. Thales is famous for one big idea. 00:07:12.180 --> 00:07:14.600 All is water. He thought everything was made 00:07:14.600 --> 00:07:17.259 of water, which, you know, looking back from 00:07:17.259 --> 00:07:19.620 our perspective, sounds a little ridiculous. 00:07:20.259 --> 00:07:23.240 My desk is water. My dog is water. It sounds 00:07:23.240 --> 00:07:25.680 silly to us, but you have to give Thales credit. 00:07:25.860 --> 00:07:27.860 He was trying to do something truly radical. 00:07:28.279 --> 00:07:30.199 He was saying that despite all the diversity 00:07:30.199 --> 00:07:33.360 we see in the world, trees, rocks, birds, clouds, 00:07:33.560 --> 00:07:37.720 it all comes from one underlying substance, a 00:07:37.720 --> 00:07:40.699 single arch. The origin point. He's looking for 00:07:40.699 --> 00:07:43.220 a grand unified theory. And why water? Was he 00:07:43.220 --> 00:07:45.769 just... I don't know, thirsty? No, no, it was 00:07:45.769 --> 00:07:48.470 observation. He saw that water is everywhere. 00:07:48.610 --> 00:07:50.589 It falls from the sky. It springs from the ground. 00:07:50.850 --> 00:07:53.509 Life needs it to survive. Seeds are moist. Okay. 00:07:53.550 --> 00:07:56.089 And crucially, water changes. It can be ice, 00:07:56.230 --> 00:07:58.509 which is solid. It can be liquid. And it can 00:07:58.509 --> 00:08:00.670 be steam, which is a gas. If you don't have a 00:08:00.670 --> 00:08:03.250 microscope or a periodic table, water is actually 00:08:03.250 --> 00:08:05.149 the most logical candidate for the fundamental 00:08:05.149 --> 00:08:07.850 stuff. Okay, so credit where credit is due. Thales 00:08:07.850 --> 00:08:10.269 takes the first step. But here's where the Greek 00:08:10.269 --> 00:08:12.389 miracle, or what we might call the invention 00:08:12.389 --> 00:08:15.790 of science, really happens. Anaximander is Thales' 00:08:15.910 --> 00:08:18.290 student. He respects him. He learns the system. 00:08:18.449 --> 00:08:21.350 But then he disagrees. That dynamic is the most 00:08:21.350 --> 00:08:23.329 important thing we will talk about today. This 00:08:23.329 --> 00:08:26.490 is what Rovelli really harps on. In so many ancient 00:08:26.490 --> 00:08:29.529 traditions, religious schools, or even other 00:08:29.529 --> 00:08:31.949 philosophical schools like the Pythagoreans later 00:08:31.949 --> 00:08:34.990 on, the whole goal is to preserve the master's 00:08:34.990 --> 00:08:38.429 teaching. You memorize it. You protect it. Ipsidixit, 00:08:38.429 --> 00:08:41.090 he himself said it. That was the proof. Unqualified 00:08:41.090 --> 00:08:43.289 acceptance. You don't question the guru. Right. 00:08:43.389 --> 00:08:46.350 Or you have the opposite. Rival schools that 00:08:46.350 --> 00:08:48.950 just want to tear each other down. Unqualified 00:08:48.950 --> 00:08:51.889 criticism. You're wrong because you're not us. 00:08:52.070 --> 00:08:55.330 And Axamander introduced a third way. He deeply 00:08:55.330 --> 00:08:57.990 understood Thales' ideas. He appreciated the 00:08:57.990 --> 00:09:01.009 brilliance of seeking a single source. But then 00:09:01.009 --> 00:09:03.090 he said, I think you're wrong about the details 00:09:03.090 --> 00:09:05.860 and I can prove it. It's the birth of constructive 00:09:05.860 --> 00:09:08.519 criticism. It's the scientific method. I stand 00:09:08.519 --> 00:09:10.840 on the shoulders of giants so I can see further 00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:13.120 than they did. Exactly. It's not heresy. It's 00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:15.600 progress. It's iteration. So let's get into the 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:18.139 argument. Why did Anaximander have a beef with 00:09:18.139 --> 00:09:20.399 the water theory? He didn't just say, I don't 00:09:20.399 --> 00:09:22.879 like it. He had a logical proof, didn't he? He 00:09:22.879 --> 00:09:25.340 did. And it's a brilliant piece of logic. It's 00:09:25.340 --> 00:09:28.220 all based on the concept of opposites. In the 00:09:28.220 --> 00:09:30.259 ancient world, they understood matter through 00:09:30.259 --> 00:09:34.220 qualities. Hot versus cold. Wet versus dry. The 00:09:34.220 --> 00:09:36.919 elemental cage match. Right. And these qualities 00:09:36.919 --> 00:09:40.419 are mutually exclusive. Water is, by definition, 00:09:40.679 --> 00:09:44.700 wet and cold. Okay. Fire is, by definition, hot 00:09:44.700 --> 00:09:47.679 and dry. Makes sense. Axmander argued that if 00:09:47.679 --> 00:09:49.860 the primary substance of the universe, the arch, 00:09:49.919 --> 00:09:52.460 was water, then fire could never exist. Walk 00:09:52.460 --> 00:09:54.500 me through that. Why not? Well, if everything 00:09:54.500 --> 00:09:57.500 starts as water, then the universe is infinitely 00:09:57.500 --> 00:10:00.600 wet and cold at its core. So where does the dry 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:02.700 and hot come from? Right. How do you get fire 00:10:02.700 --> 00:10:05.120 out of water? You can't. If the source is infinite 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:07.600 water, the wetness would be total. It would overwhelm 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:09.539 any spark of fire before it could ever exist. 00:10:09.820 --> 00:10:12.639 Water destroys fire. There are opposites. That 00:10:12.639 --> 00:10:15.259 is actually really solid logic. If the universe 00:10:15.259 --> 00:10:17.299 was just made of infinite water, we'd never have 00:10:17.299 --> 00:10:19.919 the sun. We'd never have heat. Exactly. So he 00:10:19.919 --> 00:10:22.580 argued that the source of all things cannot be 00:10:22.580 --> 00:10:24.860 one of the things we see. It can't be water. 00:10:24.919 --> 00:10:27.740 It can't be fire. It can't be air. Why not? Because 00:10:27.740 --> 00:10:30.139 any one of those defined elements would destroy 00:10:30.139 --> 00:10:33.350 its opposite. So the source has to be something 00:10:33.350 --> 00:10:35.429 else, something neutral, something that lies 00:10:35.429 --> 00:10:37.610 underneath all the elements. And this leads us 00:10:37.610 --> 00:10:41.110 to his big concept, the apuron. The apuron. It 00:10:41.110 --> 00:10:43.470 sounds like a Marvel villain. The apuron is coming. 00:10:43.889 --> 00:10:46.789 But what does it actually mean? It's usually 00:10:46.789 --> 00:10:49.409 translated as the infinite, the boundless, or 00:10:49.409 --> 00:10:52.389 the indefinite. The Greek word paras means limit 00:10:52.389 --> 00:10:55.909 or boundary. Apuron means without limit. So try 00:10:55.909 --> 00:10:58.210 to visualize this for me. Is it a fog? Is it 00:10:58.210 --> 00:11:00.889 energy? What is it? He posited that there's this 00:11:00.889 --> 00:11:04.230 primordial mass, ageless and deathless, that 00:11:04.230 --> 00:11:07.090 surrounds the entire cosmos. It isn't water. 00:11:07.149 --> 00:11:10.169 It isn't fire. It's the raw potentiality from 00:11:10.169 --> 00:11:13.379 which all things arise. Think of it like... Clay 00:11:13.379 --> 00:11:15.860 or gold. You can make a ring out of gold or a 00:11:15.860 --> 00:11:18.840 necklace or a coin. But the gold itself isn't 00:11:18.840 --> 00:11:20.840 a ring. It's the stuff that becomes the ring. 00:11:21.019 --> 00:11:23.279 The eperon is the stuff that becomes the elements. 00:11:23.299 --> 00:11:25.379 So it's this cosmic soup of undefined potential 00:11:25.379 --> 00:11:28.120 that just generates the universe. That's a helpful 00:11:28.120 --> 00:11:30.399 way to visualize it. It encompasses everything. 00:11:31.019 --> 00:11:33.460 And because it's infinite boundless, it can keep 00:11:33.460 --> 00:11:36.080 generating worlds and life without ever running 00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:39.059 out. It solves the problem of where did fire 00:11:39.059 --> 00:11:42.100 come from? Right. It came from the eperon. just 00:11:42.100 --> 00:11:44.980 like water did. They are siblings born from the 00:11:44.980 --> 00:11:47.480 same mother. That's surprisingly abstract for 00:11:47.480 --> 00:11:50.820 a guy living 2 ,600 years ago. He isn't pointing 00:11:50.820 --> 00:11:54.000 at a river or a mountain. He is inventing a metaphysical 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:57.019 concept to solve a logical error in his teacher's 00:11:57.019 --> 00:11:59.299 theory. And he backs it up with what is essentially 00:11:59.299 --> 00:12:02.519 a law of conservation. We actually have that 00:12:02.519 --> 00:12:04.679 surviving fragment of his writing, the only direct 00:12:04.679 --> 00:12:07.740 quote we have that explains how this works. It 00:12:07.740 --> 00:12:10.100 is one of the most famous sentences in all of 00:12:10.100 --> 00:12:11.899 ancient philosophy. I have it right here in the 00:12:11.899 --> 00:12:13.840 notes. I want to read it slowly because it sounds 00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:15.620 like poetry, but you're telling me it's physics. 00:12:15.779 --> 00:12:29.700 He says, It just gives you chills. It's beautiful. 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:32.299 It is beautiful, but let's be real. It's also 00:12:32.299 --> 00:12:35.059 pretty cryptic. justice and recompense for their 00:12:35.059 --> 00:12:38.039 injustice, what on earth is he talking about? 00:12:38.419 --> 00:12:42.399 Is nature committing crimes? Is a rock committing 00:12:42.399 --> 00:12:45.440 a felony? No, not quite. You have to remember, 00:12:45.559 --> 00:12:47.620 he doesn't have the vocabulary of modern science 00:12:47.620 --> 00:12:49.919 yet. He doesn't have words like thermodynamics 00:12:49.919 --> 00:12:52.940 or equilibrium or conservation of energy. So 00:12:52.940 --> 00:12:55.480 he uses the language he has, the language of 00:12:55.480 --> 00:12:59.440 law and society, words like dike justice. So 00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:01.960 translate the metaphor for me. What is the injustice? 00:13:02.970 --> 00:13:05.590 Think of the elements as being at war for territory. 00:13:06.110 --> 00:13:08.970 Let's take the seasons. Summer is hot and dry. 00:13:09.350 --> 00:13:12.090 In the Greek view, when summer is dominant, it 00:13:12.090 --> 00:13:14.389 is committing an injustice against winter, which 00:13:14.389 --> 00:13:16.909 is cold and wet. Okay, so summer is taking up 00:13:16.909 --> 00:13:18.990 too much space. It's encroaching. It's aggressive. 00:13:19.409 --> 00:13:23.100 And necessity and time are the judges. Time forces 00:13:23.100 --> 00:13:25.539 summer to pay recompense by yielding to winter. 00:13:25.679 --> 00:13:28.299 The pendulum has to swing back. Nothing can dominate 00:13:28.299 --> 00:13:30.659 forever. So it's a cosmic balancing act. He's 00:13:30.659 --> 00:13:33.139 describing a state of dynamic equilibria. If 00:13:33.139 --> 00:13:35.019 one element takes too much, it has to pay it 00:13:35.019 --> 00:13:37.379 back by being destroyed or receding. That sounds 00:13:37.379 --> 00:13:40.019 a lot like Newton's third law. Every action has 00:13:40.019 --> 00:13:42.340 an equal and opposite reaction. Or just the general 00:13:42.340 --> 00:13:46.750 idea of equilibrium in physics. Energy in. Energy 00:13:46.750 --> 00:13:49.769 out. It is the ancestor of those ideas. It's 00:13:49.769 --> 00:13:52.789 the concept that the universe is a closed system 00:13:52.789 --> 00:13:56.029 where checks and balances are enforced. But they 00:13:56.029 --> 00:13:58.509 aren't enforced by Zeus throwing a lightning 00:13:58.509 --> 00:14:01.009 bolt because he's in a bad mood. No, it's automatic. 00:14:01.450 --> 00:14:04.389 They are enforced by the ordinance of time. It's 00:14:04.389 --> 00:14:07.710 an impersonal mechanical process. The sun must 00:14:07.710 --> 00:14:10.799 retreat in winter, not because it wants to. but 00:14:10.799 --> 00:14:13.299 because it is necessary. That distinction, personal 00:14:13.299 --> 00:14:15.419 versus necessary, that's the whole game, isn't 00:14:15.419 --> 00:14:17.639 it? It is. It's the shift from God willed it 00:14:17.639 --> 00:14:20.019 to that's how the machine works. Now, I saw in 00:14:20.019 --> 00:14:21.600 the notes that some people take a much darker 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:24.019 view of this fragment. Friedrich Nietzsche, the 00:14:24.019 --> 00:14:25.799 German philosopher, apparently had a field day 00:14:25.799 --> 00:14:28.179 with this one. Oh, yes. Nietzsche loved the pre 00:14:28.179 --> 00:14:31.139 -Socratics. Ah. But he interpreted this fragment 00:14:31.139 --> 00:14:33.480 through a very pessimistic, very Nietzschean 00:14:33.480 --> 00:14:35.639 lens. He thought an axamander was saying that 00:14:35.639 --> 00:14:39.379 existence itself is the crime. Wait, what? Just 00:14:39.379 --> 00:14:41.519 being alive? Life is the injustice. According 00:14:41.519 --> 00:14:44.799 to Nietzsche's reading, yes. By separating from 00:14:44.799 --> 00:14:47.879 the eternal unified apron and becoming an individual 00:14:47.879 --> 00:14:53.320 thing, a person, a rock, a season, you are breaking 00:14:53.320 --> 00:14:55.779 the unity. You've been committing an injustice 00:14:55.779 --> 00:14:58.659 against the whole just by being an individual. 00:14:58.899 --> 00:15:01.559 So your death. Your destruction. Your death is 00:15:01.559 --> 00:15:04.080 the penance you pay for the sin of having been 00:15:04.080 --> 00:15:08.629 born. Wow. That is incredibly bleak. Sorry for 00:15:08.629 --> 00:15:10.490 existing. I'll make up for it by dying. It's 00:15:10.490 --> 00:15:12.409 very dramatic. It turns the universe into a Greek 00:15:12.409 --> 00:15:15.769 tragedy. But I should say, most modern scholars 00:15:15.769 --> 00:15:18.730 like Rovelli and others, they lean more toward 00:15:18.730 --> 00:15:20.850 the equilibrium interpretation. That makes more 00:15:20.850 --> 00:15:22.809 sense. It's about the balance of physical forces, 00:15:22.970 --> 00:15:25.289 not a moral judgment on the tragedy of existence. 00:15:25.570 --> 00:15:28.149 It's physics, not original sin. That seems to 00:15:28.149 --> 00:15:29.950 fit better with the rest of his work. He doesn't 00:15:29.950 --> 00:15:32.049 seem like an emo philosopher weeping about existence. 00:15:32.289 --> 00:15:34.009 He seems like a guy trying to figure out how 00:15:34.009 --> 00:15:36.389 the machine runs. Exactly. And speaking of the 00:15:36.389 --> 00:15:39.720 machine. We have to talk about the earth. Because 00:15:39.720 --> 00:15:42.379 this is where an axamander completely blows my 00:15:42.379 --> 00:15:44.620 mind. This is the moment where the bottom drops 00:15:44.620 --> 00:15:46.679 out of the ancient world. This is the floating 00:15:46.679 --> 00:15:48.539 earth theory. Okay, let's look at the before 00:15:48.539 --> 00:15:53.240 picture. Thales, the water guy, he thought the 00:15:53.240 --> 00:15:56.720 earth floated on water. Like a log or a raft. 00:15:57.019 --> 00:15:59.259 Which was a very common view in the Near East 00:15:59.259 --> 00:16:02.179 and Egypt. It makes intuitive sense, right? It 00:16:02.179 --> 00:16:04.919 explains why the ground feels solid. But we have 00:16:04.919 --> 00:16:07.840 earthquakes. Maybe the water underneath is rocking 00:16:07.840 --> 00:16:10.299 like a ship in a storm. But there's a problem 00:16:10.299 --> 00:16:13.299 with that, a big logical trap. The infinite regress 00:16:13.299 --> 00:16:16.340 problem. If the Earth rests on water, what does 00:16:16.340 --> 00:16:18.840 the water rest on? A bowl, a rock. And what does 00:16:18.840 --> 00:16:21.240 the rock rest on? A turtle. Just turtles all 00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:23.080 the way down. Exactly. You eventually run out 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:24.840 of support, so you just keep pushing the problem 00:16:24.840 --> 00:16:27.220 down one level. And Axmander saw this logical 00:16:27.220 --> 00:16:30.659 trap, and he just stepped right out of it. He 00:16:30.659 --> 00:16:33.019 did something completely unprecedented. He proposed 00:16:33.019 --> 00:16:34.899 that the Earth floats in the center of the infinite. 00:16:35.480 --> 00:16:38.279 It rests on nothing. I want the listener to really 00:16:38.279 --> 00:16:41.700 pause on that image. We are in the 6th century 00:16:41.700 --> 00:16:45.480 BC. There are no telescopes, no satellites, no 00:16:45.480 --> 00:16:48.419 pictures of the blue marble from space. And this 00:16:48.419 --> 00:16:52.059 guy stands up and says, hey everyone, the Earth 00:16:52.059 --> 00:16:54.139 is just hanging there in empty space. It's not 00:16:54.139 --> 00:16:57.559 sitting on anything. I mean, why did he think 00:16:57.559 --> 00:17:00.100 it didn't fall? He used what we call the principle 00:17:00.100 --> 00:17:02.480 of sufficient reason. Or sometimes it's called 00:17:02.480 --> 00:17:05.220 the logic of indifference. He argued that if 00:17:05.220 --> 00:17:07.200 the Earth is truly in the center of the universe 00:17:07.200 --> 00:17:09.480 and the universe is uniform all around it. Then 00:17:09.480 --> 00:17:11.440 there is no reason for it to go left or right 00:17:11.440 --> 00:17:14.759 or up or down. Exactly. It is equidistant from 00:17:14.759 --> 00:17:17.119 everything. Why would it fall down? In the cosmos, 00:17:17.359 --> 00:17:19.930 there is no down. Down is just the direction 00:17:19.930 --> 00:17:22.069 toward the Earth, but the Earth itself has no 00:17:22.069 --> 00:17:24.470 preferred direction to travel in the void. It 00:17:24.470 --> 00:17:26.509 stays where it is because of equilibrium. That 00:17:26.509 --> 00:17:29.470 is a staggering leap of abstraction. He realized 00:17:29.470 --> 00:17:32.109 that down is relative. He realized that space 00:17:32.109 --> 00:17:34.990 doesn't have a bias. Karl Popper, the famous 00:17:34.990 --> 00:17:37.410 philosopher of science, called this one of the 00:17:37.410 --> 00:17:39.910 boldest, most revolutionary, and most pretentious 00:17:39.910 --> 00:17:41.849 ideas in the whole history of human thinking. 00:17:42.160 --> 00:17:44.680 It really is. It frees the Earth. And once you 00:17:44.680 --> 00:17:46.779 free the Earth from resting on roots or pillars 00:17:46.779 --> 00:17:50.140 or water, you open the door for astronomy, for 00:17:50.140 --> 00:17:53.259 real astronomy. Yes. That's the key consequence. 00:17:53.559 --> 00:17:56.839 Yeah. Before this, you had a huge problem. Where 00:17:56.839 --> 00:17:59.539 does the sun go at night? Right. It sets in the 00:17:59.539 --> 00:18:03.019 west, and then it rises in the east. Yeah. How 00:18:03.019 --> 00:18:05.329 did it get back? Did it sneak back around the 00:18:05.329 --> 00:18:08.369 side? Did it float on a river? Did a god carry 00:18:08.369 --> 00:18:10.269 it in a boat? Because it couldn't go under the 00:18:10.269 --> 00:18:12.369 earth. The earth was sitting on something. Exactly. 00:18:12.670 --> 00:18:16.369 But now, Anaximander can say, it goes under us. 00:18:16.730 --> 00:18:19.029 Because the earth is floating, the stars and 00:18:19.029 --> 00:18:22.009 the sun can pass underneath the earth. It allows 00:18:22.009 --> 00:18:25.160 for a full... 360 -degree model of the cosmos. 00:18:25.519 --> 00:18:27.799 The Earth becomes an object suspended in space. 00:18:28.039 --> 00:18:30.279 It's the moment the universe became 3D. It really 00:18:30.279 --> 00:18:32.740 is. Now, before we give him a Nobel Prize, we 00:18:32.740 --> 00:18:34.740 have to talk about the shape of the Earth. Because 00:18:34.740 --> 00:18:37.579 while he got the floating part right, he didn't 00:18:37.579 --> 00:18:39.559 quite get the shape right. No. He didn't think 00:18:39.559 --> 00:18:42.539 it was a sphere. No. He thought it was a cylinder. 00:18:42.680 --> 00:18:45.460 A cylinder. Like a soup can. Like a column of 00:18:45.460 --> 00:18:49.380 stone. A drum. He believed its height was one 00:18:49.380 --> 00:18:52.000 -third of its diameter. And we live on the flat 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:54.259 top surface. Okay, so it's a flat disk, but with 00:18:54.259 --> 00:18:56.859 thickness. Why a cylinder? I mean, why not a 00:18:56.859 --> 00:18:59.079 box? Why not a sphere? Well, he probably looked 00:18:59.079 --> 00:19:01.809 around and saw the horizon look flat. So the 00:19:01.809 --> 00:19:03.750 flat earth part comes from direct observation. 00:19:04.049 --> 00:19:08.250 But he needed it to have depth to be a stable 00:19:08.250 --> 00:19:10.869 object. The column is a sturdy shape. It feels 00:19:10.869 --> 00:19:12.589 significant. And you have to remember, Miletus 00:19:12.589 --> 00:19:15.470 is full of stone columns. It's a familiar architectural 00:19:15.470 --> 00:19:18.029 shape. So we are living on the top of a giant 00:19:18.029 --> 00:19:20.509 cosmic column floating in the void. Precisely. 00:19:20.509 --> 00:19:22.609 It's still a huge step up from floating log. 00:19:22.849 --> 00:19:24.849 So we have this drummer thinking in the void, 00:19:24.950 --> 00:19:26.990 what's going on above it. Because his map of 00:19:26.990 --> 00:19:29.579 the heavens is... Well, it's mechanical, which 00:19:29.579 --> 00:19:31.799 is cool, but it's also wildly different from 00:19:31.799 --> 00:19:33.819 what we know. It is the first mechanical model 00:19:33.819 --> 00:19:37.839 of the universe. He moves away from God's driving 00:19:37.839 --> 00:19:41.400 chariots to wheels of fire. Wheels of fire. Let's 00:19:41.400 --> 00:19:43.059 unpack that. That sounds like some heavy metal 00:19:43.059 --> 00:19:45.880 imagery. It is quite metal. He imagined that 00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:48.299 at the beginning of the world, a ball of flame 00:19:48.299 --> 00:19:50.819 surrounded the earth like bark on a tree. Ooh, 00:19:51.019 --> 00:19:54.400 that's a great image. A cosmic skin. And then... 00:19:54.589 --> 00:19:57.250 This ball of flame broke apart and formed into 00:19:57.250 --> 00:20:00.230 rotating rings, or wheels, surrounding the earth. 00:20:00.390 --> 00:20:02.390 Okay. These wheels are hollow, they're opaque, 00:20:02.650 --> 00:20:05.970 made of a dark, misty air. But they're filled 00:20:05.970 --> 00:20:09.210 with fire. So giant, hollow donuts filled with 00:20:09.210 --> 00:20:11.950 fire. Correct. And we can't see the fire directly 00:20:11.950 --> 00:20:14.410 because of the mist, but there are holes in the 00:20:14.410 --> 00:20:18.009 wheels, vents, or as he described them, like 00:20:18.009 --> 00:20:20.289 the hole in a flute or a nozzle. And the fire 00:20:20.289 --> 00:20:22.589 shines through these holes, and that's the sun. 00:20:22.940 --> 00:20:25.039 That is the sun. The sun isn't an object. It 00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:27.960 isn't a god. It isn't a rock. It is a hole in 00:20:27.960 --> 00:20:30.359 a giant fire wheel that lets us see the fire 00:20:30.359 --> 00:20:32.920 inside. That is fantastic. It explains why the 00:20:32.920 --> 00:20:35.019 sun is so bright. It's pure fire. What about 00:20:35.019 --> 00:20:37.339 the moon? Same thing. A different wheel with 00:20:37.339 --> 00:20:39.880 a hole and the phases of the moon. Let me guess. 00:20:40.660 --> 00:20:42.799 The hole is opening and closing. That's it. Like 00:20:42.799 --> 00:20:44.920 a shutter on a camera. Then an eclipse. The hole 00:20:44.920 --> 00:20:48.349 gets completely blocked. It's so... Mechanical. 00:20:48.450 --> 00:20:50.730 It's cosmic plumbing. It's not a god getting 00:20:50.730 --> 00:20:53.250 angry and hiding the sun. It's a nozzle getting 00:20:53.250 --> 00:20:55.910 clogged or a shutter closing. That's the genius 00:20:55.910 --> 00:20:58.849 of it. Yeah. He is looking for a mechanism. He 00:20:58.849 --> 00:21:01.309 even tried to calculate the sizes. He said the 00:21:01.309 --> 00:21:04.269 sun wheel was 27 or 28 times the size of the 00:21:04.269 --> 00:21:07.109 Earth and the moon wheel was 19 times the size. 00:21:07.289 --> 00:21:10.109 He's using numbers. He's using ratios. He's trying 00:21:10.109 --> 00:21:13.259 to quantify the cosmos. Why those numbers, though? 00:21:13.319 --> 00:21:15.839 27, 19. They seem a little random. They aren't 00:21:15.839 --> 00:21:18.480 random to a Greek. They are multiples of 3 and 00:21:18.480 --> 00:21:22.839 9. They're sacred or mathematical ratios. Even 00:21:22.839 --> 00:21:24.400 if the numbers were wrong, and they were very 00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:27.160 wrong, the fact that he felt the need to use 00:21:27.160 --> 00:21:30.200 numbers is the breakthrough. He is claiming that 00:21:30.200 --> 00:21:32.299 the universe has a mathematical structure. He's 00:21:32.299 --> 00:21:34.819 trying to decode the blueprint. And he also realized 00:21:34.819 --> 00:21:37.579 that these things are far away. He's the first 00:21:37.579 --> 00:21:41.009 to conceive of depth in space. The stars aren't 00:21:41.009 --> 00:21:43.269 painted on a dome just above our heads. They 00:21:43.269 --> 00:21:45.569 are wheels at massive distances. But he got the 00:21:45.569 --> 00:21:47.789 order wrong, right? He did. This is one of the 00:21:47.789 --> 00:21:49.650 bizarre parts. He thought the stars were the 00:21:49.650 --> 00:21:52.269 closest wheels to Earth, then the moon, and the 00:21:52.269 --> 00:21:55.529 sun was the farthest away. So stars, then moon, 00:21:55.710 --> 00:21:58.769 then sun. Why would he think the stars are closer? 00:21:59.529 --> 00:22:02.730 We aren't entirely sure, but perhaps because 00:22:02.730 --> 00:22:05.089 the fire of the sun is so intense, he assumed 00:22:05.089 --> 00:22:07.349 it must be on the largest, most massive wheel 00:22:07.349 --> 00:22:10.420 way out there. Or maybe he thought the sheer 00:22:10.420 --> 00:22:12.500 number of stars meant they had to be on the smaller 00:22:12.500 --> 00:22:16.200 inner rings. But again, the details matter less 00:22:16.200 --> 00:22:18.960 than the structure. The big idea. The big idea. 00:22:19.480 --> 00:22:22.140 Celestial bodies at different distances operating 00:22:22.140 --> 00:22:25.460 by understandable laws. This theme of laws just 00:22:25.460 --> 00:22:27.859 keeps coming up. It extends to the weather, too. 00:22:27.980 --> 00:22:30.000 I mean, if you live in ancient Greece, thunder 00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:32.240 and lightning are the domain of Zeus. That's 00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:34.579 his brand. That's his logo. It's his whole deal. 00:22:34.880 --> 00:22:38.309 And Anaximander says, actually, no. Right. He 00:22:38.309 --> 00:22:40.789 demystifies the weather completely. He says thunder 00:22:40.789 --> 00:22:43.470 and lightning are caused by wind. Wind? How does 00:22:43.470 --> 00:22:46.049 wind make lightning? Well, he believed that wind 00:22:46.049 --> 00:22:48.309 gets trapped inside thick clouds. It builds up 00:22:48.309 --> 00:22:50.769 pressure, and eventually it bursts out violently. 00:22:51.089 --> 00:22:53.109 Okay. The ripping of the cloud is the noise. 00:22:53.190 --> 00:22:55.289 That's the thunder. And the rift in the cloud 00:22:55.289 --> 00:22:58.490 reveals the fire or the glow inside. That's the 00:22:58.490 --> 00:23:00.910 lightning. So it's like a balloon popping. Exactly. 00:23:00.990 --> 00:23:04.049 It's a physical interaction of elements. Air 00:23:04.049 --> 00:23:08.049 and cloud. No God required. It's a pneumatic 00:23:08.049 --> 00:23:10.829 explanation for a divine phenomenon. He really 00:23:10.829 --> 00:23:12.970 was stripping the magic out of everything, wasn't 00:23:12.970 --> 00:23:15.069 he? He was stripping the caprice out of it. He 00:23:15.069 --> 00:23:17.309 wasn't removing the wonder. He was removing the 00:23:17.309 --> 00:23:20.029 idea that it happened because someone was angry. 00:23:20.269 --> 00:23:22.309 He also had this theory about the sea drying 00:23:22.309 --> 00:23:25.549 up, which feels weirdly prescient given our current 00:23:25.549 --> 00:23:27.069 conversations about climate change, although 00:23:27.069 --> 00:23:29.349 his reasoning was totally different. He believed 00:23:29.349 --> 00:23:31.849 the Earth was originally much wetter than it's 00:23:31.849 --> 00:23:34.880 once covered in moisture. the sun is slowly drying 00:23:34.880 --> 00:23:37.599 it up. So the oceans are shrinking. Right. The 00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:41.319 sea is just the remnant of this primordial moisture. 00:23:41.500 --> 00:23:43.819 And rain is just moisture that the sun has pumped 00:23:43.819 --> 00:23:46.099 up, which then falls back down. The water cycle. 00:23:46.380 --> 00:23:49.180 Essentially, yes. He described evaporation, and 00:23:49.180 --> 00:23:51.220 he predicted that eventually the sun would dry 00:23:51.220 --> 00:23:53.740 up the sea completely. So a slow, inevitable 00:23:53.740 --> 00:23:57.000 desiccation of the planet. Cheerful guy. A realist, 00:23:57.019 --> 00:23:59.559 perhaps. He likely saw that the coastline of 00:23:59.559 --> 00:24:02.470 Miletus was changing. The river meander was silting 00:24:02.470 --> 00:24:05.029 up the harbor. He just extrapolated that local 00:24:05.029 --> 00:24:07.890 drying to a global scale. But speaking of beginnings, 00:24:08.130 --> 00:24:11.049 we have to talk about where we came from. Because 00:24:11.049 --> 00:24:12.970 Anaximander's thoughts on the origin of life 00:24:12.970 --> 00:24:16.490 are, frankly, shocking. He basically invents 00:24:16.490 --> 00:24:20.369 evolution 2 ,400 years before Darwin. Proto -evolution 00:24:20.369 --> 00:24:23.869 is a fair term. And what's brilliant is how he 00:24:23.869 --> 00:24:26.400 gets there. He doesn't have fossils in the way 00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:28.839 we do. He starts with a simple observation about 00:24:28.839 --> 00:24:31.220 human babies. They're useless. They're helpless. 00:24:31.839 --> 00:24:34.500 Extended infancy. Think about a horse or a cow. 00:24:34.839 --> 00:24:38.000 A foal can walk within minutes of being born. 00:24:38.099 --> 00:24:40.240 It can run. It can feed itself pretty quickly. 00:24:40.420 --> 00:24:43.579 Yeah. A human baby. It can't lift its head. It 00:24:43.579 --> 00:24:46.500 can't eat solid food. It needs intense care for 00:24:46.500 --> 00:24:49.240 years. It's true. We were born half -baked. And 00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:50.900 Axmander looked at that and said, wait a minute. 00:24:51.500 --> 00:24:54.859 In the primeval harsh world, if the first humans 00:24:54.859 --> 00:24:57.059 had appeared as helpless infants, they would 00:24:57.059 --> 00:24:59.000 have been eaten or died of exposure immediately. 00:24:59.539 --> 00:25:01.660 So Adam and Eve couldn't have just popped into 00:25:01.660 --> 00:25:03.619 existence as babies. They wouldn't have survived 00:25:03.619 --> 00:25:06.460 the first night. Right. So he concluded that 00:25:06.460 --> 00:25:08.819 humans must have originated from something else, 00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:10.920 something that grows up faster, something that 00:25:10.920 --> 00:25:12.380 could protect them while they were vulnerable. 00:25:12.680 --> 00:25:16.700 And his answer was fish. Fish or fish -like creatures. 00:25:17.279 --> 00:25:19.619 He believed life began in the moisture in the 00:25:19.619 --> 00:25:22.279 sea, triggered by the heat of the sun. The first 00:25:22.279 --> 00:25:24.799 creatures were covered in a spiny bark, maybe 00:25:24.799 --> 00:25:26.980 scales or a shell. Okay, so life starts in the 00:25:26.980 --> 00:25:29.720 ocean? Check. That aligns with modern science. 00:25:30.059 --> 00:25:32.579 Then he argues that humans grew inside these 00:25:32.579 --> 00:25:34.880 fish -like creatures. We were held prisoners 00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:38.079 inside them, protected until puberty. Wait, until 00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:41.059 puberty? So we were just hanging out inside a 00:25:41.059 --> 00:25:43.460 giant fish for like 12 years? That was his theory. 00:25:43.980 --> 00:25:45.980 We stayed inside until we were strong enough 00:25:45.980 --> 00:25:49.480 to feed ourselves. Then the fish burst and humans 00:25:49.480 --> 00:25:51.920 emerged onto dry land ready to survive. That 00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:53.940 is wild imagery. It sounds like a Cronenberg 00:25:53.940 --> 00:25:57.259 movie or alien. It does. But the logic behind 00:25:57.259 --> 00:25:59.920 it is impeccable. He identified a biological 00:25:59.920 --> 00:26:03.559 constraint, infant vulnerability, and he hypothesized 00:26:03.559 --> 00:26:06.099 a biological solution for it. Gestation in a 00:26:06.099 --> 00:26:08.059 different host. It connects humans to the animal 00:26:08.059 --> 00:26:10.279 kingdom. We aren't separate creations of a god. 00:26:10.400 --> 00:26:12.440 We are part of a lineage that came from the sea. 00:26:12.750 --> 00:26:16.029 That is a massive conceptual leap. He just missed 00:26:16.029 --> 00:26:18.269 the mechanism of natural selection and replaced 00:26:18.269 --> 00:26:20.809 it with bursting fish. Which, given the tools 00:26:20.809 --> 00:26:23.730 he had, is forgivable. He figured out adaptation. 00:26:23.990 --> 00:26:26.769 He figured out origins. He just missed the how. 00:26:27.009 --> 00:26:29.450 Exactly. He deduced the history of life from 00:26:29.450 --> 00:26:31.569 the frailty of a child. So we've got the infinite 00:26:31.569 --> 00:26:34.509 void, the floating drummer, the fire wheels, 00:26:34.690 --> 00:26:37.509 and the fish people. This guy is batting a thousand 00:26:37.509 --> 00:26:40.750 on creativity. But Anaximander wasn't just a 00:26:40.750 --> 00:26:43.549 theorist sitting in an ivory tower. He was a 00:26:43.549 --> 00:26:46.170 practical guy. A leader in Miletus, yeah. And 00:26:46.170 --> 00:26:48.289 he is credited with making the first map. The 00:26:48.289 --> 00:26:51.809 first map of the entire inhabited world. Now 00:26:51.809 --> 00:26:54.470 Babylonians had maps, but they were often local 00:26:54.470 --> 00:26:58.130 property lines, cities, or strictly symbolic. 00:26:59.440 --> 00:27:01.819 An axamander attempted to draw the whole known 00:27:01.819 --> 00:27:05.160 world, Europe, Asia, and Libya, which was their 00:27:05.160 --> 00:27:07.460 word for Africa. Why is that such a big deal? 00:27:07.500 --> 00:27:09.299 I mean, we take maps for granted. We have Google 00:27:09.299 --> 00:27:11.640 Maps in our pocket. Because to draw a map of 00:27:11.640 --> 00:27:14.059 the world, you have to adopt a God's eye view. 00:27:14.500 --> 00:27:16.500 You have to mentally lift yourself out of your 00:27:16.500 --> 00:27:18.940 physical location and imagine looking down on 00:27:18.940 --> 00:27:20.819 the earth from above. It's a feat of abstract 00:27:20.819 --> 00:27:23.140 thinking. It really is. You're converting the 00:27:23.140 --> 00:27:25.559 world into an object that can be seen and measured. 00:27:25.740 --> 00:27:28.579 It's not just turn left at the big rock. It's... 00:27:28.910 --> 00:27:31.309 This is the shape of the landmass. Exactly. It 00:27:31.309 --> 00:27:34.289 visualizes the world as a graspable object. It 00:27:34.289 --> 00:27:36.769 was likely a circular map with the ocean flowing 00:27:36.769 --> 00:27:39.630 around the outside of the river Oceanus. Miletus 00:27:39.630 --> 00:27:41.390 or maybe Delphi would have been right in the 00:27:41.390 --> 00:27:44.029 center. And this wasn't just for fun, for philosophy. 00:27:44.450 --> 00:27:47.809 Miletus was a trade hub. This was useful. Incredibly 00:27:47.809 --> 00:27:50.849 useful for navigation, for trade, for politics. 00:27:51.650 --> 00:27:54.390 If you want to found colonies on the Black Sea, 00:27:54.490 --> 00:27:57.900 which Miletus did. Extensively. You need to know 00:27:57.900 --> 00:28:00.839 where it is relative to you. Knowledge is power. 00:28:01.259 --> 00:28:03.880 And a map is a tool of control and expansion. 00:28:04.299 --> 00:28:06.960 He also introduced the gnomon to Greece. The 00:28:06.960 --> 00:28:09.660 gnomon. It sounds fancy, but it's a simple vertical 00:28:09.660 --> 00:28:12.119 rod, a stick in the ground. Yeah. The Babylonians 00:28:12.119 --> 00:28:14.000 probably invented it, but an axamander refined 00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:16.319 its use in Greece. It's basically a sundial stick. 00:28:16.579 --> 00:28:19.680 Yes. But it's not just about telling time. By 00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:21.359 measuring the shadow, you can track the seasons. 00:28:21.480 --> 00:28:23.500 The shadow is longest on the winter solstice 00:28:23.500 --> 00:28:25.880 when the sun is low and shortest on the summer 00:28:25.880 --> 00:28:27.980 solstice when the sun is high. And I read that 00:28:27.980 --> 00:28:30.279 he used this to determine the equinoxes with 00:28:30.279 --> 00:28:33.819 real accuracy. Which requires geometry. It implies 00:28:33.819 --> 00:28:36.039 he wasn't just sticking a stick in the ground. 00:28:36.220 --> 00:28:38.759 He was understanding the geometry of the sun's 00:28:38.759 --> 00:28:41.579 path across the sky. He was modeling the heavens. 00:28:42.319 --> 00:28:44.000 There's also this story about an earthquake. 00:28:44.460 --> 00:28:47.599 Cicero mentions it. Apparently, Anaximander warned 00:28:47.599 --> 00:28:50.119 the Spartans to sleep outside because an earthquake 00:28:50.119 --> 00:28:52.859 was coming. And lo and behold, the city collapsed 00:28:52.859 --> 00:28:56.599 and part of Mount Tejistis split off. How? Did 00:28:56.599 --> 00:28:59.119 he have a magical sense? Was he a mystic? Or 00:28:59.119 --> 00:29:01.680 was he just incredibly lucky? Well, Cicero and 00:29:01.680 --> 00:29:03.720 others debate this. Some called it admirable 00:29:03.720 --> 00:29:06.470 inspiration. But if we look at Anaximander's 00:29:06.470 --> 00:29:09.269 character, the naturalist, the observer, it's 00:29:09.269 --> 00:29:11.569 far more likely he was observing natural signs. 00:29:11.710 --> 00:29:14.710 Maybe the strange behavior of animals, maybe 00:29:14.710 --> 00:29:16.609 the release of gases from the ground, maybe the 00:29:16.609 --> 00:29:19.430 water levels and wells changing. He believed 00:29:19.430 --> 00:29:22.220 nature followed laws. If an earthquake is a physical 00:29:22.220 --> 00:29:24.759 event, it might have physical precursors. So 00:29:24.759 --> 00:29:26.819 even his magic trick was probably just really 00:29:26.819 --> 00:29:29.220 good observation. Exactly. He was paying attention 00:29:29.220 --> 00:29:31.799 to the world, not the omens. I want to zoom out 00:29:31.799 --> 00:29:34.819 a bit to his legacy. We've covered a lot of specific 00:29:34.819 --> 00:29:38.019 theories, but what is the big picture here? There's 00:29:38.019 --> 00:29:41.259 a note in our source material about the plurality 00:29:41.259 --> 00:29:43.480 of worlds. This connects right back to the apron. 00:29:44.200 --> 00:29:47.700 Since the source of all things is infinite, Anaximander, 00:29:48.089 --> 00:29:51.109 and later the atomists, believed that our world 00:29:51.109 --> 00:29:53.890 isn't the only world. The multiverse. In a sense, 00:29:54.029 --> 00:29:56.230 yeah. He believed that worlds are constantly 00:29:56.230 --> 00:29:58.470 appearing and disappearing within the apron. 00:29:58.829 --> 00:30:02.369 Infinite worlds in an infinite time frame, like 00:30:02.369 --> 00:30:05.069 bubbles in a cosmic foam. That is mind -bending. 00:30:05.089 --> 00:30:06.849 It makes you feel very small. And that's a very 00:30:06.849 --> 00:30:09.849 modern feeling. Science often does that. It displaces 00:30:09.849 --> 00:30:12.170 us from the center. Copernicus moved the Earth 00:30:12.170 --> 00:30:14.809 from the center, and Aximander moved our entire 00:30:14.809 --> 00:30:17.990 world into a sea of infinite other worlds. But 00:30:17.990 --> 00:30:19.710 let's go back to that idea of the scientific 00:30:19.710 --> 00:30:22.150 method. We touched on it with Faley's, but I 00:30:22.150 --> 00:30:24.750 want to dig a little deeper here. Carlo Rovelli 00:30:24.750 --> 00:30:26.930 makes a really strong case that an axamander 00:30:26.930 --> 00:30:29.849 invented the process of science. Rovelli argues 00:30:29.849 --> 00:30:31.910 that an axamander initiated a tradition that 00:30:31.910 --> 00:30:35.589 is unique. It's the ability to say, I value your 00:30:35.589 --> 00:30:37.650 knowledge, but I think you are wrong about this 00:30:37.650 --> 00:30:42.109 specific detail, and here's why. It is the institutionalization 00:30:42.109 --> 00:30:45.069 of criticism. It's not heresy. It's progress. 00:30:45.670 --> 00:30:49.230 Precisely. In many ancient cultures, Egypt, Babylon, 00:30:49.549 --> 00:30:52.049 China, questioning the cosmological order was 00:30:52.049 --> 00:30:54.150 dangerous. It was an affront to the gods or the 00:30:54.150 --> 00:30:57.710 king. Stability was the goal. An axamander and 00:30:57.710 --> 00:31:00.329 the Milesians in general created a safe space 00:31:00.329 --> 00:31:02.569 for intellectual rebellion. How? They stripped 00:31:02.569 --> 00:31:04.289 the gods out of the equation and replaced them 00:31:04.289 --> 00:31:06.769 with forces. Once you remove the god, you can 00:31:06.769 --> 00:31:08.730 criticize the theory without being a blasphemer. 00:31:08.930 --> 00:31:11.650 That is a crucial distinction. If the sun is 00:31:11.650 --> 00:31:14.210 a god, analyzing it is rude. If the sun is a 00:31:14.210 --> 00:31:16.349 hole in a wheel of fire, analyzing it is just 00:31:16.349 --> 00:31:18.849 mechanic. Exactly. He made the world safe for 00:31:18.849 --> 00:31:21.529 analysis. And he used familiar terms to explain 00:31:21.529 --> 00:31:23.869 unfamiliar concepts. He translated mythology 00:31:23.869 --> 00:31:26.410 into physics. He didn't just tear down the old 00:31:26.410 --> 00:31:28.190 house. He built a new one using some of the old 00:31:28.190 --> 00:31:31.289 bricks, words like justice and time, but with 00:31:31.289 --> 00:31:33.349 a completely different architectural plan. And 00:31:33.349 --> 00:31:36.529 we see echoes of him even in modern quantum mechanics, 00:31:36.690 --> 00:31:40.049 apparently. We do. The physicist Max Born actually 00:31:40.049 --> 00:31:43.250 suggested that the primordial substance of quantum 00:31:43.250 --> 00:31:45.890 mechanics, the underlying field from which particles 00:31:45.890 --> 00:31:48.150 pop in and out of existence, should be called 00:31:48.150 --> 00:31:52.529 the aperon. No way! Really? Yes. Because, like 00:31:52.529 --> 00:31:55.750 in Aximander's aperon, the quantum field is indefinite. 00:31:55.750 --> 00:31:58.029 You can't observe it directly, but it's the source 00:31:58.029 --> 00:32:00.950 of all observable reality. It defies standard 00:32:00.950 --> 00:32:03.450 definitions of matter. just like the appearance 00:32:03.450 --> 00:32:06.650 did. That is a direct line from 600 BC to the 00:32:06.650 --> 00:32:09.069 20th century. It shows that the fundamental questions 00:32:09.069 --> 00:32:11.390 haven't changed. What is everything made of? 00:32:11.529 --> 00:32:13.849 How did it start? How does it stay balanced? 00:32:14.289 --> 00:32:16.589 And Axe Manor was the first to frame these questions 00:32:16.589 --> 00:32:18.430 in a way that science could eventually try to 00:32:18.430 --> 00:32:20.690 answer. It's incredible. He floats the earth 00:32:20.690 --> 00:32:24.170 in a void. He evolves humans from fish. He replaces 00:32:24.170 --> 00:32:27.069 Zeus with natural law. He essentially lights 00:32:27.069 --> 00:32:29.130 the match that becomes the torch of science. 00:32:29.390 --> 00:32:31.009 And he does it all while living in a time when 00:32:31.009 --> 00:32:33.119 most people were... you know afraid of the dark 00:32:33.119 --> 00:32:35.980 so what does this all mean for us why does an 00:32:35.980 --> 00:32:38.200 axamander matter today other than as a really 00:32:38.200 --> 00:32:40.819 cool history lesson i think he matters because 00:32:40.819 --> 00:32:44.240 he teaches us courage intellectual courage it 00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:46.579 takes bravery to look at the world see everyone 00:32:46.579 --> 00:32:49.059 believing one thing that the earth sits on water 00:32:49.059 --> 00:32:52.140 that zeus throws bolts and to say i think it 00:32:52.140 --> 00:32:55.039 works differently it takes braver to accept that 00:32:55.039 --> 00:32:56.880 the earth isn't resting on a sturdy foundation 00:32:56.880 --> 00:33:00.029 but is floating in nothingness He was comfortable 00:33:00.029 --> 00:33:02.150 with uncertainty. He was comfortable with the 00:33:02.150 --> 00:33:05.109 infinite. He wasn't afraid of the vastness. He 00:33:05.109 --> 00:33:08.450 didn't need the comfort of a turtle to rest the 00:33:08.450 --> 00:33:11.970 world on. No. He embraced the void. And that 00:33:11.970 --> 00:33:14.369 is the spirit of exploration, isn't it? You have 00:33:14.369 --> 00:33:16.450 to leave the safe harbor to find the new world. 00:33:16.589 --> 00:33:19.690 That is a great takeaway. There is one final 00:33:19.690 --> 00:33:21.630 thought I'd like to leave you with. A provocative 00:33:21.630 --> 00:33:24.210 thought based on his surviving fragment. Let's 00:33:24.210 --> 00:33:26.569 hear it. We talked about his fragment. About 00:33:26.569 --> 00:33:29.769 existence paying penance to the infinite. If 00:33:29.769 --> 00:33:32.410 an axamander is right, and everything that exists, 00:33:32.670 --> 00:33:36.529 you, me, the stars, the earth, is just a temporary 00:33:36.529 --> 00:33:39.690 theft from the infinite of Peron, a momentary 00:33:39.690 --> 00:33:43.269 disruption of the eternal silence, then we're 00:33:43.269 --> 00:33:48.369 a fleeting injustice, a beautiful temporary imbalance, 00:33:48.809 --> 00:33:51.150 and eventually we have to pay the debt. We have 00:33:51.150 --> 00:33:53.210 to return to the source. It suggests that our 00:33:53.210 --> 00:33:55.450 existence isn't the point of the universe. The 00:33:55.450 --> 00:33:58.869 point is the balance. We are just... the noise 00:33:58.869 --> 00:34:01.549 in the system. That is both terrifying and oddly 00:34:01.549 --> 00:34:03.690 comforting. We're just borrowed stardust waiting 00:34:03.690 --> 00:34:06.630 to be returned. We're part of the cycle. Exactly. 00:34:06.869 --> 00:34:08.949 Well, on that existential note, this has been 00:34:08.949 --> 00:34:11.030 a fascinating journey into the mind of the first 00:34:11.030 --> 00:34:13.789 scientist, an axamander of Miletus, the man who 00:34:13.789 --> 00:34:15.889 saw the infinite. Thanks for diving in with us. 00:34:16.010 --> 00:34:17.590 It was a pleasure. And thank you for listening. 00:34:17.789 --> 00:34:20.369 Keep looking up, keep questioning, and don't 00:34:20.369 --> 00:34:22.730 be afraid of the void. We'll catch you on the 00:34:22.730 --> 00:34:23.590 next deep dive.