Cyprus-Forum.com

[Get Real!]

As someone who actually studied mathematics to PhD level before becoming schizophrenic, ...

Excellent! Now tell them all about the “smelly Arab” accomplishments in mathematics so they can have a fit while I sit back and have a good laugh!

Well I could be boring and relate how the Arab world elucidated calculus before Newton but to stay on topic they were also interested in oracles... there is a long forgotten system of divination that they used similar to the Yi Jing in China and the Obi in West Africa... indeed in West Africa there was a time when the two systems sat side by side and they compared notes... it seems however that the Arab practitioners took a similar view to me, and correct me if I am wrong, that the number of combinations didn't matter, it was the bias in the interpretation that was important... the system was as widespread as Greece, I believe, and some of their machines for generating combinations are still in existence...

And what would've been a typical application of the day for such a machine other than research?

[tsukoui]

As someone who actually studied mathematics to PhD level before becoming schizophrenic, ...

Excellent! Now tell them all about the “smelly Arab” accomplishments in mathematics so they can have a fit while I sit back and have a good laugh!

Well I could be boring and relate how the Arab world elucidated calculus before Newton but to stay on topic they were also interested in oracles... there is a long forgotten system of divination that they used similar to the Yi Jing in China and the Obi in West Africa... indeed in West Africa there was a time when the two systems sat side by side and they compared notes... it seems however that the Arab practitioners took a similar view to me, and correct me if I am wrong, that the number of combinations didn't matter, it was the bias in the interpretation that was important... the system was as widespread as Greece, I believe, and some of their machines for generating combinations are still in existence...

And what would've been a typical application of the day for such a machine other than research?

Well that was the problem that ultimately led to its downfall... it seems many people started setting themselves up as fortune tellers... it is true that by repeatedly consulting random events in relation to the real world one can sensitize oneself to the subtleties of the world and thus perhaps become better at predicting events... but fortune telling ultimately is nothing more than attempting to stamp authority over the future... which in corrupt hands is dangerous to say the least... you only have to look at the hedge funds of today... interestingly legitimate questions like whether or not to marry are actually quite sensible applications as they help to add diversity to the gene pool... other questions are equally legitimate so long as you treat it as an exercise in self development... in effect you are sensitizing yourself to more subtle conditions... I know nothing of the bias in these texts... at any rate hadiths were issued to close them down... so they must have been on to something, even if it was lining their own pockets...

[GreekIslandGirl]

Antikythera ...

[tsukoui]

Antikythera ...

Oracle you are a genius!... Defend Greeks all you like, but don't you think you'd do better if you spoke Chinese?

[supporttheunderdog]

yes but the mechanism may well reflect Babylonian Astonomical ideas not Greek, see

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101124/ ... 8496a.html

[tsukoui]

yes but the mechanism may well reflect Babylonian Astonomical ideas not Greek, see

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101124/ ... 8496a.html

that is a very sloppy reading of an interesting article... we know Babylonian Astronomical ideas predate Hellenic ones... but the implication is that maybe the mechanics of building such a machine influenced the development of the "eccentric theory" of the solar system which would suggest that the Babylonians did not build such machines...

[GreekIslandGirl]

There was a documentary a while back by that most eminent Prof of History at Oxford with a throwaway comment that I hope he has now written up. He investigated some of the common myths pervading the people/tribes which inhabited the Greek areas, Babylonia, Hittite areas etc and he found evidence to show that contrary to what some people prefer to say, that is, that the Classical Greeks visited these areas and then got some of their now well-known ideas (which they then took further than was imaginable for 2,500 years ago) from the Babylonians, Hittites etc; that in fact when the evidence is interpreted with more insight that the Babylonians, Hittites Phoenicains etc did in reality visit the Greeks either in Greek areas or exchanged their ideas, myths, concepts, tools etc, in neutral territories. The Babylonians etc. then took Greek myths and ideas back to their own areas to develop them in a slightly different way (but never got as far as Greeks).

I'll try and find any of this in text.

[GreekIslandGirl]

I think the bit I heard was from this series of documentaries by Prof. Robin Lane Fox on the journeys of the people from the Greek island of Euboea.

For those who can get BBC, here's the link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00c5q0y

First bit of evidence of writing of Greek (from the sanctuary of Apollo) using early Greek letters and also Semitic letters on a Euboean pot. From 9th Century BC.

[wyoming cowboy]

As someone who actually studied mathematics to PhD level before becoming schizophrenic, ...

Excellent! Now tell them all about the “smelly Arab” accomplishments in mathematics so they can have a fit while I sit back and have a good laugh!

Well I could be boring and relate how the Arab world elucidated calculus before Newton but to stay on topic they were also interested in oracles... there is a long forgotten system of divination that they used similar to the Yi Jing in China and the Obi in West Africa... indeed in West Africa there was a time when the two systems sat side by side and they compared notes... it seems however that the Arab practitioners took a similar view to me, and correct me if I am wrong, that the number of combinations didn't matter, it was the bias in the interpretation that was important... the system was as widespread as Greece, I believe, and some of their machines for generating combinations are still in existence...

And what would've been a typical application of the day for such a machine other than research?

Well that was the problem that ultimately led to its downfall... it seems many people started setting themselves up as fortune tellers... it is true that by repeatedly consulting random events in relation to the real world one can sensitize oneself to the subtleties of the world and thus perhaps become better at predicting events... but fortune telling ultimately is nothing more than attempting to stamp authority over the future... which in corrupt hands is dangerous to say the least... you only have to look at the hedge funds of today... interestingly legitimate questions like whether or not to marry are actually quite sensible applications as they help to add diversity to the gene pool... other questions are equally legitimate so long as you treat it as an exercise in self development... in effect you are sensitizing yourself to more subtle conditions... I know nothing of the bias in these texts... at any rate hadiths were issued to close them down... so they must have been on to something, even if it was lining their own pockets...

it is true that by repeatedly consulting random events in relation to the real world one can sensitize oneself to the subtleties of the world and thus perhaps become better at predicting events...

basically what you're saying Tsakoui, is that ....things tend to repeat but only the variables change....

[yialousa1971]

"Since from the mythical days of the Argonauts to the present, neither the peninsula of Hellas nor Ionia and the Aegean Islands have been large enough to hold the far-wandering Hellenes."
Carleton Stevens Coon