Funny how you mention the atoms, since the idea of atoms goes back to the ancient greeks, they coined the term. Obviously they had no way to prove it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom#History_of_atomic_theory
That's why I mentioned it - I cannot see in Democritus' theory anything but idle speculation.
Re:Seneca on The Shortness of Time (2017)
by mntmoss on Monday February 03, 2020 @08:01AM
(#22223733)
Knowing more simply means that there is more philosophy to be done. Every scientific breakthrough comes with a renewed discussion of its best purpose in society.
How does knowing more about the physical world help me understand myself better ?
People more than two millennia later still find what he said relevant. What is it that we have produced in the last century would meet that test ? How much of that will be due to our increased knowledge and technology ?
Re:Seneca on The Shortness of Time (2017)
by Vaskivo on Monday February 03, 2020 @06:52AM
(#22223384)
Knowing genetics makes you understand why and how you are similar to your parents.
Knowing that physical and psychological state are linked, and that they affect each other.
We have ways of introspecting one's mind and body and understand the the "whys" of being an individual and also Human.
Re:Seneca on The Shortness of Time (2017)
by heavenlyblue on Saturday February 08, 2020 @04:46AM
(#22274952)
Except genetics is too low level to describe anything but the most basic features.
On that matter - my dad and my grandpa were alcoholics; and thus I have the same vice if I don’t pay attention to my motivations in life.
However knowing genetics didn’t help me understand that :)
Well, yes and no. We certainly know a lot more than people knew back then. We know vastly more about the cosmos, we know about atoms, we know about evolution, we know much about the brain.
We also face very different challenges than people millennia ago - we have weapons of mass destruction, more obesity than famine (in developed countries), social media, and so on.
Thus, I'd say only a small part of philosophy is still applicable and valuable today. (For example, Seneca was a Stoic, and Stoicism had much to say about physics and logic, which is pretty obsolete now, I'd say.)
There's a potential fallacy there, like thinking that old music was better, when what we still hear today is just the very best of old music.