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Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

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Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#251

Post by simonh »

codegladiator wrote: post #222
simonh wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do with assumptions about how smart people in the past were, we have every reason to believe they were just as smart as us. In fact we have direct evidence from surviving mathematical texts, treatises on philosophy, etc that they could be highly original and insightful thinkers. Smarts is simply not at all the issue and frankly you describing diligent scholars who clearly have huge appreciation and…

I can understand why the op was down voted, but just assuming that a civilization was "not smart" simply because we cannot find evidence feels dumb. > The real bigots are the conspiracy nuts who think ancient civilizations we know of couldn't have achieved the many things we evidence of, and think it must have been aliens You are not presenting any evidence that it was otherwise. I am not saying that this device was…

> I can understand why the op was down voted, but just assuming that a civilization was "not smart" simply because we cannot find evidence feels dumb.

As I explained very carefully, this has nothing to do with them being smart or dumb. We already know they were very smart from their written records. I explained how we know that. They just didn’t have our technology. It turns out they had more technology than we previously suspected, that’s all.

> You are not presenting any evidence that it was otherwise.

It’s not possible to prove a negative. The only route to reasonably reliable knowledge is following the evidence and preferring the simplest explanations for things.

If I have to provide evidence it wasn’t aliens to doubt that explanation, do I also have to provide evidence it wasn’t Atlanteans, and evidence that it wasn’t time travelers, and evidence that it wasn’t extra dimensional beings? If I can’t provide that evidence what do we conclude, that it was probably alien time travelling extradimensional beings from Atlantis?

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#252

Post by sammalloy »

ceejayoz wrote: post #54
rozab wrote: post #11

Jonathan Blow's talk 'Preventing the Collapse of Civilization' goes into detail about how technology can regress, with the Mechanism being one example. This kind of thing is far more common than we think, most would be surprised to learn that Ancient Greece had writing for about 600 years before forgetting it. There was no writing in Greece for over 400 years, until they adopted the Phoenician alphabet around 730 BC.…

One of the interesting possibilities for the Fermi Paradox is the fact that we've wiped out the readily accessible deposits of iron, coal, oil, etc. A second go at the industrial revolution would be much harder, if we regressed that far.

> One of the interesting possibilities for the Fermi Paradox is the fact that we've wiped out the readily accessible deposits of iron, coal, oil, etc. A second go at the industrial revolution would be much harder, if we regressed that far.

It’s odd to me that we don’t see this specific point discussed all that much. Sure, it comes up here and there now and then, but I think it deserves an extended discussion. My understanding, based on what I’ve read about this implication, is that we as a human species only get one chance to evolve beyond the gravity well of our planet. If we fuck this up, and by all accounts it looks like we are, we will be condemned to extinction on Earth.

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#253

Post by not-my-account »

anyfoo wrote: post #231
tzs wrote: post #67

I think we tend to underestimate what ancient technology could produce because we forget that in ancient times they often operated on longer timescales than we do. With our technology for example we could make all the parts for the Antikythera mechanism in a short time. The ancient Greeks definitely had no technology that would have allowed them to do that, so we see the existence of the Antikythera mechanism as a gr…

That some things in history took the span of multiple generations to finish was quite the revelation to me. The Cologne Cathedral took over 600 years to finish. As another example, this amusing video [1] tells the story of how King Louis XIV wanted a map of the entirety of his kingdom from Cassini, and how it was apparently Cassini's great grandson (4 generations over 120 years) who finally concluded the project. For…

I am guessing that [1] pointed to this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTyX_EJQOIU

I don't see the reference.

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#254

Post by zajio1am »

Gravityloss wrote: post #178
colordrops wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same goes for the perfectly fitted stones in Inkan walls in Peru. They weren't built by aliens or telekinesis, but rather unoccupied workers that rubbed on the stones all day for decades. There is plenty of evidence that these walls and cities were never in a "finished" state, but always in progress, with partially complete stones and scattered pieces not yet near the wall in many sites.

Then there are projects like Colosseum which took only 7-8 years to build. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum or Parthenon that took 9 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon

I guess that in modern world, such buildings would not even get paperwork/permits in 7-9 years.

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#255

Post by lowbloodsugar »

ch4s3 wrote: post #191
lowbloodsugar wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we are the Romans. We can make swords and bread! We'll do great in WWIII!

Because we hit max depth, I'll respond to your bizarre fever dream about the Millennium Challenge and some hypothetical war with China. The only things that matters in a war between nuclear states is that both sides view it as too terrible to entertain. Nuclear subs mean that the US always has the option to deal a killing blow even if everything else fails. And if it comes to that, nothing else matters anyway, so why…

I mean I think you hit the nail on the head with nuclear, and I hope the war won't go nuclear. But the war will result in the complete impotence of the USA. China will become like the British empire: its influence will be everywhere. The USA will have no influence. In 50 years, at the outside, the USA will have a worse standard of living than China. China will out innovate us. Out sell us. Out market us. Out maneuver us. We've lost the Philippines, but that's ok because its far away. We'll keep saying that until Mexico is part of the Chinese empire.

The point is that the war wont go nuclear. It'll say conventional, and that's why we'll lose. We won't have the bottle to pull the trigger. Think you can bluff the Chinese? Lol. "Oh, we are really sorry that you aircraft carrier got sunk in an amazingly tragic accident involving our hypersonic missile test. That is terrible." "Ok, but this is the fifth time, if it happens again we'll nuke you, we swear."

Really the only conclusion I can form from the USA's willful inaction is that the politicians are already bought and paid for.

>and at the end of the day there's relatively little reason for us to have a major conflict

That's exactly what will be said in the USA. "Well, they've put missile bases on these man-made islands, but that's little reason to go to war." "Well, they've bought and paid for contracts that would previously go to US companies through bribery and corruption (or rather spending more on bribery and corruption than we did), but that's little reason to go to war." "Oh, they sunk a carrier and they're really sorry about it, but that's little reason to go to war".

One day the world will be China's, and the USA will have spent fifty years repeatedly, impotently, drawing lines in the sand.

Put another way: The Soviets had nukes, but by the 1980s we'd beaten them. Products all over the world had Made in USA written on them. US products, US money all over the world, protected by US military technology. Now swap Russia with USA, and USA with China, 1980 with 2040. 2030?

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#256

Post by JJMcJ »

JJMcJ wrote: post #230
ds206 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a link or more information regarding the pyramid block formation?

Sorry, I don't. I just so it in passing and didn't book mark it.

. . . just saw it in passing . . .

Typo

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#257

Post by utopcell »

jacobolus wrote: post #145
db48x wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He hasn’t completely finished his reconstruction, but he hasn’t entirely been on a hiatus either. He co–authored a paper on the calendar ring of the mechanism: https://bhi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/BHI-Antikythera... But he hasn’t made many videos the last year or two.

Some of his videos are only available via Patreon.

I support him on Patreon and I don't think that's true. They are just released earlier there.

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#258

Post by stopglobalism »

rozab wrote: post #11

Jonathan Blow's talk 'Preventing the Collapse of Civilization' goes into detail about how technology can regress, with the Mechanism being one example. This kind of thing is far more common than we think, most would be surprised to learn that Ancient Greece had writing for about 600 years before forgetting it. There was no writing in Greece for over 400 years, until they adopted the Phoenician alphabet around 730 BC.…

Holy cow, this is absolutely fascinating. Figured it deserves more than just an upvote-- This speaker you linked mentions another fascinating talk within his lecture:

"1177 B.C.: When Civilization Collapsed | Eric Cline"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4LRHJlijVU

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#259

Post by dabfiend19 »

anyfoo wrote: post #231
tzs wrote: post #67

I think we tend to underestimate what ancient technology could produce because we forget that in ancient times they often operated on longer timescales than we do. With our technology for example we could make all the parts for the Antikythera mechanism in a short time. The ancient Greeks definitely had no technology that would have allowed them to do that, so we see the existence of the Antikythera mechanism as a gr…

That some things in history took the span of multiple generations to finish was quite the revelation to me. The Cologne Cathedral took over 600 years to finish. As another example, this amusing video [1] tells the story of how King Louis XIV wanted a map of the entirety of his kingdom from Cassini, and how it was apparently Cassini's great grandson (4 generations over 120 years) who finally concluded the project. For…

the cathedral in Barcelona was the first time thing I toured where I really thought about multi-generational projects.

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#260

Post by socialdemocrat »

The reason mechanisms like this are so mind blowing is because one simple has no precious artifacts from this time period which would make us aware of the fact that they had the technology to make such objects.

And by technology I don’t mean modern day CNC machines. However we know that sophisticated mechanical work began again in The 1400s with various clock makers.

However these still typically had a variety of tools and measuring instruments. It is not immediate obvious that ancient Greeks would have variety of files, calipers, lathes etc which appropriate techniques developed to use them to make sophisticated machinery.

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