Yep, Sister Sarah...she's just perfect for the GOP.
It's a little bit like not quite knowing who Democritus was, isn't it
now?
I dunno. I know who he was. You are the one who said he wasn't a
scientist because the term did not come into use until centuries later.
That certainly was lame. There are any number of classical world
scientists who would be accepted as scientists today no matter what they
were called in their day. Archimedes of Syracuse, for example, a
full-fledged mathematician, physicist, astronomer.
In fact, your comment made you look even more like a ninny.
A ninny to you? Empiricism can be traced at its meaningful earliest
to Aristotle, a philosopher subsequent to Socrates. Even still,
empirical science didn't truly develop into a structured methodology
until much later, and many attribute that seminal structure to Sir
Francis Bacon. What Democritus and his school proposed was a
philosophical and epistomological understanding of the structure of
reality. It was akin to other early philosophers describing the
universe as being composed of the 4 elementals or of mostly water. It
was that what Democritus proposed was uncannily close to what came to
be discovered empirically from the time of the Enlightenment that he
was honored with having the term "atom" adopted from his school of
thought. That's as close as it gets. Democritus was a philosopher,
simply put, and not a scientist, retroactively or otherwise.
You are uninformed.
Yeah, right:
Democritus' physical and cosmological doctrines were an elaborated and
systematized version of those of his teacher, Leucippus. To account for
the world's changing physical phenomena, Democritus asserted that space,
or the Void, had an equal right with reality, or Being, to be considered
existent. He conceived of the Void as a vacuum, an infinite space in
which moved an infinite number of atoms that made up Being (i.e., the
physical world). These atoms are eternal and invisible; absolutely
small, so small that their size cannot be diminished (hence the name
atomon, or “indivisible”); absolutely full and incompressible, as they
are without pores and entirely fill the space they occupy; and
homogeneous, differing only in shape, arrangement, position, and
magnitude. But, while atoms thus differ in quantity, differences of
quality are only apparent, owing to the impressions caused on our senses
by different configurations and combinations of atoms. A thing is hot or
cold, sweet or bitter, or hard or soft only by convention; the only
things that exist in reality are atoms and the Void. Thus, the atoms of
water and iron are the same, but those of water, being smooth and round
and therefore unable to hook onto one another, roll over and over like
small globes, whereas those of iron, being rough, jagged, and uneven,
cling together and form a solid body. Because all phenomena are composed
of the same eternal atoms, it may be said that nothing comes into being
or perishes in the absolute sense of the words, although the compounds
made out of the atoms are liable to increase and decrease, explaining a
thing's appearance and disappearance, or “birth” and “death.”
Just as the atoms are uncaused and eternal, so too, according to
Democritus, is motion. Democritus posited the fixed and “necessary” laws
of a purely mechanical system, in which there was no room for an
intelligent cause working with a view to an end. He explained the origin
of the universe as follows. The original motion of the atoms was in all
directions—it was a sort of “vibration”; hence there resulted collisions
and, in particular, a whirling movement, whereby similar atoms were
brought together and united to form larger bodies and worlds. This
happened not as the result of any purpose or design but rather merely as
the result of “necessity”; i.e., it is the normal manifestation of the
nature of the atoms themselves. Atoms and void being infinite in number
and extent, and motion having always existed, there must always have
been an infinite number of worlds, all consisting of similar atoms in
various stages of growth and decay.
Democritus devoted considerable attention to perception and knowledge.
He asserted, for example, that sensations are changes produced in the
soul by atoms emitted from other objects that impinge on it; the atoms
of the soul can be affected only by the contact of other atoms. But
sensations such as sweet and bitter are not as such inherent in the
emitted atoms, for they result from effects caused merely by the size
and shape of the atoms; e.g., sweet taste is due to round and not
excessively small atoms. Democritus also was the first to attempt to
explain colour, which he thought was due to the “position” (which he
differentiated from shape) of the constituent atoms of compounds. The
sensation of white, for instance, is caused by atoms that are smooth and
flat so as to cast no shadow; the sensation of black is caused by rough,
uneven atoms.
Democritus attributed popular belief in the gods to a desire to explain
extraordinary phenomena (thunder, lightning, earthquakes) by reference
to superhuman agency. His ethical system, founded on a practical basis,
posited an ultimate good (“cheerfulness”) that was “a state in which the
soul lives peacefully and tranquilly, undisturbed by fear or
superstition or any other feeling.”
From Britannica.
Let's see...atoms, motion, infinity, source of sensations, explanation
of color...
*You* are underinformed. You sort of remind me of a poster here who
called himself "Reggie." He, too, was a gasbag.
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