Sleepwalkers

Reading "Sleepwalkers" was very interesting, and I was attracted to a few concepts. The first that caught my eye was Saint Lactantius and how he "set himself to demolish the notion of the rotundity of the earth." Its amazing that he got success, because his argument was based on the idea that "people can't walk with their feet above their heads, rain and snow can't fall upwards." At the time, that was all that was needed in order to convince the masses that the earth was flat. This is assuming that all objects are pulled directly down, so all objects have a different end point it is going towards, which is directly below them. Since its flat, and all objects drop directly downwards, they must all be going towards different points, and not one common point.

Today, we realize that all objects on earth are going towards one point, the center of the earth. If the earth was flat, then objects near the edge when dropped would fall on a diagonal, and only objects directly in the middle would go downward.

Later on, the English monk Bede accepted the sphereality of the earth, but still clung to old notions. He said that yes, there were land on the antipodal regions, so it was a sphere, but "denied that there were people living in the antipodal regions." This was said because the ocean that separated the lands was too large, and couldn't be crossed, so descendents of Adam can not be there. It really makes no sense. If the earth is a sphere, then if u carry on a straight line, you will come back to where you started. So by saying that the ocean is too large to cross, you're denying that the Earth is round.

There were always other religions besides Christianity when it was around. Bede is saying that because there is no possibility that people of the antipodal regions believe in Christ, they therefore do not exist. What is Bede to say to those of another faith right in front of him. You do not believe in Christ, so ou don't exist? It just doesn't seem logical to me.

Another really interesting part was about the chain and how everything is continuous and lines are blurred. Between plants and animals there are practically half animal-half plant mixes. It is all a continous chain and everything is attached. I also liked the part about inanimate vs animate objects. If a rock was observed along with a plant, it is clearly seen that the rock is inanimate and the plant is animate. If a plant and an animal are observed however, the plant is clearly the inanimate one and the animal the animate. I've never really thought of it like that before, but it really goes to show that perspectives and viewpoints are very key. If we only see rocks and plants, we would only categorize animated objects as those of movement like plants. We would not know of how the animals are so much more animated and have so much more movement.

This reading of "Sleepwalkers" dwelled on the fact that science was at a standstill for many centuies and during the medieval ages. But, why did this happen? What was the reason for it stoppage? Koestler blames it on the fact that people started to believe things contrary to what the experienced; what they have seen. They had "a complete disregard for reality," which obviously makes advancement hard. Earlier ages have tried to explain what they saw, maybe not correctly, but accepted it and tried. In this age though, the people didn't even try to explain it, just threw out the observations and reality.

Finally, the arab philosophers. Koestler clearly doesn't like them and seems to blame them for the standstill. It reminds me of the saying "evil prevails when good men do nothing". The arabs had all the information from the earlier ages at their fingertips, yet they did NOTHING in the eyes of Koestler. They could have carried on the torch of theoretical science, but they did seem to make advancement in practical science, but Koestler doesn't pay much attention to that. He belittles them, putting everything on their shoulders. "During the centuries when they were the sole keepers of the treasure, they did little to put it to use." They were just the "go-betweens", carrying the knowledge for centuries and passing it on, but not advancing it.