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Pythagorean Theorem proof in a 2100 year old Chinese book

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Re: Pythagorean Theorem proof in a 2100 year old Chinese book

#121

Post by good_vibes »

jdietrich wrote: post #96
good_vibes wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big Pharm and meat-based diet do a lot more harm to the entire biosphere and individuals than Ayurvedic medicine and yoga. Don't even get me started. I don't know much about Eastern medicine outside of India to be honest. One exception: Chinese people buy tiger bone Viagra, elephant tusk art, rhino horn something, and shark fin soup. I was born Hindu but became closer to Buddhist as I learned more about the scientifi…

Meat is unarguably bad, but the pharmaceuticals industry is the closest thing we have to a miracle factory. It has spared us from the miseries of polio, tuberculosis, smallpox, AIDS, surgery without anaesthetic and a thousand other horrors. Diseases that were once death sentences are now treatable with medications that cost pennies. Countless millions of lives have been saved by vaccination. Ayurvedic medicine clearl…

I should explain more clearly that I am all for Western and Eastern medicine finding a middle path. What I am against and referring to is how agribusiness, poor nutrition, clever marketing, and healthcare (mostly disease-care) create a lot of needless suffering. A lot of prescriptions are only there to take care of health problems that could have been prevented with proper nutrition and a more integrated, instead of reductionist, model for medicine.

I think I should explain my thoughts on HN a little clearer going forward.

Re: Pythagorean Theorem proof in a 2100 year old Chinese book

#122

Post by good_vibes »

arjo129 wrote: post #105
bmh100 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These divisions are very important. As long as mystical beliefs towards Eastern thought are used to cause real harm through herbal remedies and supplements, the public must be taught to give it less importance. Among critical thinkers, it is valuable to look for similarities in scientific histories.

Last I checked homeopathy was western. i think your bias towards eastern medicine would be better founded if you were to say faith healing rather than eastern. Within eastern medicine one also finds people who used early forms of experimentation to derive working cures. Examples of working medical cures include boswellia used to treat bursitis, artemisin used to treat malaria. Also both Chinese and Indians had develo…

Exactly. I believe it is possible to synthesize the logic of the West and the intuition of the East.

Re: Pythagorean Theorem proof in a 2100 year old Chinese book

#123

Post by gatlinnewhouse »

arjo129 wrote: post #105
bmh100 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These divisions are very important. As long as mystical beliefs towards Eastern thought are used to cause real harm through herbal remedies and supplements, the public must be taught to give it less importance. Among critical thinkers, it is valuable to look for similarities in scientific histories.

Last I checked homeopathy was western. i think your bias towards eastern medicine would be better founded if you were to say faith healing rather than eastern. Within eastern medicine one also finds people who used early forms of experimentation to derive working cures. Examples of working medical cures include boswellia used to treat bursitis, artemisin used to treat malaria. Also both Chinese and Indians had develo…

It should be noted as well that the concept of the "Eastern" is also Western in origin.

A good read about this is Orientalism by Edward Said.

Re: Pythagorean Theorem proof in a 2100 year old Chinese book

#124

Post by jsmthrowaway »

good_vibes wrote: post #84
E6300 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Big Pharm and meat-based diet do a lot more harm to the entire biosphere and individuals than Ayurvedic medicine and yoga. Cars kill more people per year than heroin, therefore heroin is healthier than cars. Let's wait until pseudo-scientific treatments become multi-billion dollar industries and then we'll talk about what does more harm to what.

I'm not talking about pseudo-scientific anything dude. 1.) A meat-based diet is directly linked to higher cancer rates. "The World Health Organization has determined that dietary factors account for at least 30 percent of all cancers in Western countries and up to 20 percent in developing countries. When cancer researchers started to search for links between diet and cancer, one of the most noticeable findings was th…

> 4.) Yoga, meditation, plant-based diet have all played a major part in creating the modern world including computers and the internet. If people don't have discernment to know true from false, that is their shortcoming and not Dharma. ;)

I was interested in your argument about meat and then I got to this, which immediately unraveled any point you had for me.

Investments in military technology played a major part in creating the modern world including computers and the Internet. That hippies were so intimately involved at a few important points is more a reflection of the time period and culture than causality, more an observation of the type of people drawn to the work for a season. Stating that we have the existence we have in large part because of yoga and meditation and not eating meat is so revisionist and misguided that I don't even know how to dispute it. I'm sorry, but that's just blatantly ridiculous because it's such a complete inversion of the actual truth.

That you take it further and imply someone is defective and invoke Dharma for believing otherwise is quite something. You should really bring it down a bit if you want your point to make sense, because you're coming across as far more arrogant than I think you intend.

Re: Pythagorean Theorem proof in a 2100 year old Chinese book

#125

Post by y2kenny »

Houshalter wrote: post #49
mariodiana wrote: post #39

My understanding is that the 3-4-5 relationship was known for a long, long time before Pythagorus. I think the ancient Egyptians knew of the relationship. But that's not the same thing as a proof: meaning, the fact has been integrated with the fundamentals of a wider body of knowledge. I see the illustration, but I don't understand how that's a "proof."

>I see the illustration, but I don't understand how that's a "proof." That's an illustration of the proof. Here is a more modern, animated example: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Pythagor... The Chinese proof looks more like this one though: https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ylzhg.gif There is also explanation in the annotations.

This reminds me of this children toy: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%83%E5%B7%A7%E6%9D%BF

Re: Pythagorean Theorem proof in a 2100 year old Chinese book

#126

Post by good_vibes »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #124
good_vibes wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about pseudo-scientific anything dude. 1.) A meat-based diet is directly linked to higher cancer rates. "The World Health Organization has determined that dietary factors account for at least 30 percent of all cancers in Western countries and up to 20 percent in developing countries. When cancer researchers started to search for links between diet and cancer, one of the most noticeable findings was th…

> 4.) Yoga, meditation, plant-based diet have all played a major part in creating the modern world including computers and the internet. If people don't have discernment to know true from false, that is their shortcoming and not Dharma. ;) I was interested in your argument about meat and then I got to this, which immediately unraveled any point you had for me. Investments in military technology played a major part in…

Your missing the forest for the trees. I find many of the comments to my original comment to be very reductionist and misguided.

Semantics. What I typed, how he reacted, how I reacted, and now your reaction. We are so far from my original thought that I don't know how to respond. In fact, I think I'm going to stop here because I am wasting time talking about nothing of consequence.

Re: Pythagorean Theorem proof in a 2100 year old Chinese book

#127

Post by jernfrost »

sn41 wrote: post #58
jernfrost wrote: post #50

From what I understand, the Chinese had often recorded many facts about nature and mathematics very early and accurately. However they never really created much laws. Laws of nature was a western invention. E.g. they observed accurately planetary movements, but never attempted to formulate the laws governing those movements. That sort of thinking was crucial for scientific thinking.

Maybe true. The emphasis was on calculations. For example, there was a heliocentric model in India [1], which was too complicated to come from a "simple" mechanical model, but was quite accurate. But I think we should not be too eager to jump on to "science is only from laws" bandwagon. Courses on the philosophy of science take this dogma to absurd extremes, ignoring how current science is often done. There is enough…

Even simulations are based on formulating rules or laws in which the different parts operate within. I think you are bringing up an awful lot of straw-men to counter my point. I never suggested one should be narrow minded about it, simply that by merely having observations, we don't really have science. IMHO science relies on having theories which we can formulate rules or laws from which makes it possible to make predictions. What else besides explaining things and making predictions is the point of science?

"It's more than a tad racist to insist that Egyptians, Babylonians, Chinese and Indians, as well as medieval Arab scientists were all child races incapable of truly knowing what they were doing."

What on earth are you rambling about? Were have I made even the faintest suggestion that that is the case? Different civilizations has invented different things and advanced at different levels and different times through our history. Pointing this out isn't racist with respect to other people. Is is racist against Europeans to suggest that Indians invented the zero and our numerals. Am I then suggesting that those stupid childish Europeans couldn't come up with even basic stuff like numerals themselves?

Is it racist to point out that native Americans didn't invent quantum mechanics?

Anyway I don't believe there is such a thing as human races, but there definitely are differences between various cultures and civilizations.

It is an undeniable fact that western civilization was the main driver of the scientific revolution. Should it then not be interesting to understand why it was that the west advanced so much further than the others. One of the key observations which helps understand this is the western preoccupation with formulating laws of nature early on.

How else can you explain how a relatively poor and backwater region of the world could end up eclipsing, far richer, more populous and advance regions such as the Arab world, China, India?

Re: Pythagorean Theorem proof in a 2100 year old Chinese book

#128

Post by jernfrost »

arjo129 wrote: post #105
bmh100 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These divisions are very important. As long as mystical beliefs towards Eastern thought are used to cause real harm through herbal remedies and supplements, the public must be taught to give it less importance. Among critical thinkers, it is valuable to look for similarities in scientific histories.

Last I checked homeopathy was western. i think your bias towards eastern medicine would be better founded if you were to say faith healing rather than eastern. Within eastern medicine one also finds people who used early forms of experimentation to derive working cures. Examples of working medical cures include boswellia used to treat bursitis, artemisin used to treat malaria. Also both Chinese and Indians had develo…

You are trivializing the significant difference modern western science based medicine and earlier medicine. Of course people could come up with all sorts of practical solutions to various ailments and conditions through trial, error and observations. That however does not make it scientific. There is no scientific theory in you Chinese and Indian examples on which to make predictions and explanations. One example would be e.g. germ theory. It allows one to make predictions about things not yet observed. It helps explain why washing your hands is good. Now you can learn this from practical observations, but if you have no idea that the reason is due to germs being removed, then it prevents you from experimenting with and finding alternative cleaning agents or practices.

Re: Pythagorean Theorem proof in a 2100 year old Chinese book

#129

Post by jernfrost »

good_vibes wrote: post #72
bmh100 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These divisions are very important. As long as mystical beliefs towards Eastern thought are used to cause real harm through herbal remedies and supplements, the public must be taught to give it less importance. Among critical thinkers, it is valuable to look for similarities in scientific histories.

Big Pharm and meat-based diet do a lot more harm to the entire biosphere and individuals than Ayurvedic medicine and yoga. Don't even get me started. I don't know much about Eastern medicine outside of India to be honest. One exception: Chinese people buy tiger bone Viagra, elephant tusk art, rhino horn something, and shark fin soup. I was born Hindu but became closer to Buddhist as I learned more about the scientifi…

Modern medicine, big Pharma and meat based diets are orthogonal to each other. Modern medicine has saved hundreds of millions of lives, while alternative medicine is leading people astray and ruining lives every day.

Sorry for the harsh words, but I've seen the damage, and I am tired of how alternative medicine is handled with silk gloves and shown infinite respect, in the name of being open minded.

Re: Pythagorean Theorem proof in a 2100 year old Chinese book

#130

Post by y2kenny »

gus_massa wrote: post #92
yeukhon wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also while those are Han, the language is sophisticated to regular Chinese readers. I can't even make sense of the words (individually yes) as a native Chinese speaker. A far as paper writing, I found [1] which said roughly 100 A.D. some paper production began. [1]: http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/tien-hsia.php?searchte...

Can you make an annotated version? Nothing fancy, if you add the translation with paintbrush and host it in imgur, I'll be completely happy.

It's traditional chinese but it's a challenge. This is my best guess: http://imgur.com/a/rnXPW

Looks like they were using colour as variable/labels.

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