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Al-Jazari

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Re: Al-Jazari

#81

Post by scottlocklin »

otakucode wrote: post #66
Nux wrote: post #19

The Islamic Golden Age is pretty fantastic, not the first time I heard about it and usually a cause of pride among my muslim friends (and for good reason). Too bad we're witnessing the Islamic Dark Ages right now.

To use strokes so broad that any historian would like to harm me... what happened was basically that the Islamic world came up against the Crusades, and with Catholics murdering them with terrible savagery, they decided to seal themselves off from the world. And in that seclusion they missed out on the most important development in human history - The Enlightenment. Possible the greatest achievement of The Enlightenm…

"what happened was basically that the Islamic world came up against the Crusades, and with Catholics murdering them with terrible savagery..."

I think you mean the Mongols. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_%281258%29

Re: Al-Jazari

#82

Post by ramblerman »

chetanahuja wrote: post #77
knodi123 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more about tribalism. "I share in the glory of every member of my tribe".

Also known as "Teamwork". The basic mechanisms of tribalism are the same whether the scale is a world religion, a country, a ship's crew, a basketball team or whatever.

Being part of the team that achieved something versus vicariously enjoying a victory of ancestors you never knew is not really the same thing.

Re: Al-Jazari

#83

Post by davidw »

otakucode wrote: post #66
Nux wrote: post #19

The Islamic Golden Age is pretty fantastic, not the first time I heard about it and usually a cause of pride among my muslim friends (and for good reason). Too bad we're witnessing the Islamic Dark Ages right now.

To use strokes so broad that any historian would like to harm me... what happened was basically that the Islamic world came up against the Crusades, and with Catholics murdering them with terrible savagery, they decided to seal themselves off from the world. And in that seclusion they missed out on the most important development in human history - The Enlightenment. Possible the greatest achievement of The Enlightenm…

Another take on why Europe surged ahead economically:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Long-Divergence-Islamic-Middle/dp/...

"Timur Kuran argues that what slowed the economic development of the Middle East was not colonialism or geography, still less Muslim attitudes or some incompatibility between Islam and capitalism. Rather, starting around the tenth century, Islamic legal institutions, which had benefitted the Middle Eastern economy in the early centuries of Islam, began to act as a drag on development by slowing or blocking the emergence of central features of modern economic life--including private capital accumulation, corporations, large-scale production, and impersonal exchange."

Re: Al-Jazari

#84

Post by MisterBastahrd »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #62
frozenport wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like they have been going for the last 700 years. Which makes me feel that the feelings of pride my Muslim friends feel are unjustified as they have very little in common with the world that made al-Jazari. Or perhaps more importantly, the rest of the world has advanced in 700 years, but they have staid behind.

Generally, I don't completely get why do humans feel pride for things they didn't have anything to do with? Probably has something to do with ego.

I once had a friend who was routinely incorrect in his football predictions tell me that I, who won about 85% of the office pools during my time there, didn't know anything about the sport because my team had never won a Super Bowl. I then informed him that he must know five times less than everyone else in the room, given that he was a Bucs fan and virtually all of our coworkers were Cowboys fans.

We'll talk over the phone periodically about football, and my predictions about his team are usually spot on for the season. When he asks me how I'm so good at predicting what will happen with his team given that I really don't follow them all that closely, I just tell him that the Saints finally won a Super Bowl, and hence my knowledge was greatly enhanced.

Re: Al-Jazari

#85

Post by crystaln »

oblio wrote: post #4

Please continue posting such links. I know some people would like only links about "hacking" (i.e. coding), but such articles really make me understand the "we are standing on the shoulders of giants" quote. Especially about lesser advertised cultures such as the Islamic one.

I highly recommend picking up a book covering the history of invention and thought rather than waiting for such posts to hit meme status at random moments on HN.

Re: Al-Jazari

#86

Post by MisterBastahrd »

acqq wrote: post #73
michaelsbradley wrote: post #60

The medieval polymaths were a fascinating bunch! Hildegard of Bingen[1] was a contemporary of al-Jazari, and one of the most influential European women of the late Middles Ages. In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI named her a Doctor of the Church[2] – a title given by the Catholic Church to only 35 people over the past 2,000 years! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen [&] http://www.hildegard-society.org/p/aca…

But I don't see that she did any engineering, which is why al-Jazari is potentially interesting. Regarding al-Jazari, the question is only how significant he really was, compared to the centuries older Greek engineers like those that produced, for example, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

Importance is a matter of influence, I suppose. I'm sure there have been repeat discoveries in the past which have been lost to the ages due to a variety of factors. The ones that remained a part of stable civilizations are the ones we remember.

Re: Al-Jazari

#87

Post by oblio »

crystaln wrote: post #85
oblio wrote: post #4

Please continue posting such links. I know some people would like only links about "hacking" (i.e. coding), but such articles really make me understand the "we are standing on the shoulders of giants" quote. Especially about lesser advertised cultures such as the Islamic one.

I highly recommend picking up a book covering the history of invention and thought rather than waiting for such posts to hit meme status at random moments on HN.

Who said that I don't read those? Your reply is a bit condescending. The stages of learning include total ignorance, when you don't know that you don't know something (or that the thing you don't know would interest you). We're social animals for several reasons - one of them is that we can teach each other. HN is quite a knowledgeable community, so the advice/pointers are in general more useful than just random Google searches or sifting through Amazon reviews, for example.

Re: Al-Jazari

#88

Post by acqq »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #86
acqq wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I don't see that she did any engineering, which is why al-Jazari is potentially interesting. Regarding al-Jazari, the question is only how significant he really was, compared to the centuries older Greek engineers like those that produced, for example, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

Importance is a matter of influence, I suppose. I'm sure there have been repeat discoveries in the past which have been lost to the ages due to a variety of factors. The ones that remained a part of stable civilizations are the ones we remember.

I am however suggesting that the Arabs and Turks haven't actually reinvented the art of engineering which was known in the antique times as they obviously invaded the exact places where that art was already present and that there must be some of them that found that art interesting who are the ones who preserved it in the times of religious fanaticism and destruction.

Re: Al-Jazari

#89

Post by throwaway283719 »

maximumoverload wrote: post #74
infinitone wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see where you're coming from, but your conclusion is incorrect. Monotheistic religions, atleast the unfabricated, do not profess the idea that this material world is wholly bad. It professes balance, between the material and the spiritual, and that if you lose balance and become too materialistic (as what we see in today's 'depression' cases) you will fall astray. I think this idea is very true, and we see that bot…

> Monotheistic religions, atleast the unfabricated Ummmm. Are there any unfabricated religions?

I think the majority opinion is that there is exactly one unfabricated religion.

Re: Al-Jazari

#90

Post by askar_yu »

walterbell wrote: post #40

Can anyone recommend books on the cross-cultural history of mathematics? I've found these: 1) Georges Ifrah, "Universal History of Numbers", http://www.amazon.com/Universal-History-Numbers-Prehistory-I... "the first complete account of the invention and evolution of numbers the world over ... Dubbed the "Indiana Jones of numbers," Georges Ifrah traveled all over the world for ten years to uncover the little-known det…

slightly OT, but I've enjoyed N J Wildberger's lectures on History of Math:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW8Cy6WrO94&list=PL55C7C83781...

It's a good coverage of fundamental theorems in Math with well balanced historical touch.

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