Antikythera Orrery

The Antikythera Mechanism is a delicate instrument that shows how much the Greeks knew. For example, the clockface measures the 365 day year, with an adjustment for leap years. It could be used to predict lunar phases and eclipses. It assumed the Moon rotated around the Earth, and the planets around the Sun. This should dispel, once and for all, confusion about what the ancients knew. The foundations of modern astronomy were invented, lost and reinvented.

One interpretation of recent improvements in the standard of living and human knowledge is that human brains are still evolving. In other words, we are smarter than our ancestors either because of increased brain size (neural capacity) or improved neural function. I have considered this possibility, and do not entirely reject it, when trying to explain anomalies like the Antikythera Mechanism.

Last year, there were several reports about continuing growth of human brains. [Cf. Stern & Woods: "Is brain evolution still continuing in modern humans?" European Journal of Human Genetics14, 799–800. doi:10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201624 (2006)] [Cf. Balter, "Are Human Brains Still Evolving?," Science 9 September 2005: Vol. 309. no. 5741, pp. 1662 - 1663 DOI: 10.1126/science.309.5741.1662 (subscription required)] References to the original research are shown in those commentaries.

I think there is a problem of time scale with brain growth hypothesis. Our brains are much larger and more complex than those of very ancient ancestors. Brain development probably had something to do with the development of speech and language over 50,000 years ago. It might be associated with the advent of our species about 250,000 years ago. On the other hand, human knowledge has been increasing exponentially during the last 5,000 years since the invention of writing. In the 5,000 years before that, human skills were developing (such as the invention of agriculture), but  there is no evidence of radical upgrades in the knowledge base. The effects of brain size and complexity seem to appear on time scales much longer than 10,000 years, but that likelihood does not obviate the possibility of major changes due to sudden mutation.  It could be that the rise of civilizations has been a selective event favoring adaptations that increase intelligence.

Small brains did not prevent Homo habilus from controlling fire or making excellent stone tools. Hunter-gatherer cultures established themselves millions of years ago, and prevailed until a mere 10,000 years ago. If there was any recent evolutionary event of significance, it must have occurred around 10,000 years ago with the introduction of agriculture. Agriculture was not invented in one place, as it appeared in different forms in the Middle East, Egypt, China, Central America and South America. An argument can be made about connections between civilizations near the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East. But China was very far away and South America entirely disconnected from Mesopotamia and Egypt, so agriculture was probably invented independently in several regions. That conclusion is supported by the fact that other ancient technologies, such as metal working, started in different civilizations at different times, and not at all in the Western Hemisphere. Pre-Columbian Americans had wooden tools and few or no wheels. Each of the regional centers of civilization followed a different developmental path.

Developmental differences strongly suggest their explanation is cultural, not genetic. That is, all of the peoples of the world have sufficient brains to invent or discover everything we know today, and they almost certainly had the same abilities 5,000 years ago. That there are no significant intellectual differences among racial and ethnic groups is shown by the actual abilities of almost everyone, everywhere to learn modern science and appreciate various cultural heritages.

What is stunning is that the ancients reached the takeoff point - the status reached about 500 years ago in Europe - and crashed. By "takeoff point," I mean a stage of technical civilization which allows very rapid development and subsequent transformation of the civilization. This is, admittedly, not well defined, as every moment could be considered a takeoff point. Nevertheless, I have in mind a model of successive S curves: a plateau of stasis followed by an exponential curve to a new plateau and then another exponential growth, etc. For Europe, the Renaissance was clearly the takeoff point for our present society. That takeoff was followed by another takeoff, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and then a third takeoff, the Information Revolution, in which we are now embroiled. Each of these takeoffs were revolutions that transformed the society which engendered them, and eventually all other societies as well. Even Aborigines and Reservation Indians live in houses of modern design, not grass shacks or tepees. Whether the changes were good or bad, there have been massive changes in the conditions of human life on account of new technologies during the last five centuries.

As I understand History, the Chinese were actually ahead of Europeans in the race to modernity until the late Ming Dynasty. Many, perhaps most, of the inventions celebrated as European were actually in use in China well before the Europeans "invented" them. (The Stalinist propensity to claim the invention of everything is actually a common human trait which we invariably revile in others, but excuse in ourselves.) The Gutenberg press was certainly a step forward in its use of movable type, but the printing press was known in China for centuries before Gutenberg. Other Chinese developments included paper money, uniform currency, gun powder, cannons and water clocks. In the Sixteenth Century, China had a very active merchant trade with South Asia and a large Navy. A recent book, 1421, explores the possibility that the Chinese discovered America long before Columbus. But, it all comes to nothing, because the Ming Dynasty committed suicide in the 1600s, starting  with the abolition of the Navy and prohibition of foreign trade. Unfortunately, the succeeding Ching Dynasty hailed from Manchuria and had little use for oceans, foreigners or the Han Chinese. Thus began China's descent into a Dark Age until the 1911 Revolution.

While China went into hibernation, the Europeans pressed forward. When the newly aggressive Europeans ran into the Chinese in South Asia and the South Seas 400 years ago, the sides were equal. The Emperor's disastrous policies eventually allowed the Europeans to get an advantage, including footholds in China such as Hong Kong and Shanghai. Except for the 1911 Revolution and World War I, China would probably have been entirely absorbed into Russia and Japan, and colonized by the other European powers. Starting in the 1930s, Japan tried to rip off Manchuria and as much of coastal China as possible, but that attempt only failed because Japan lost World War II.

All of those misfortunes were the result of an incredibly parochial Imperial policy, based on the feeling that China and the Chinese were indeed superior to all those Barbarians. China's Imperial government perceived the presence of  foreigners as a useful evil, because the Barbarian traders would deliver tribute to the government. In other words,  the government expected tribute from foreigners whom it considered inferior, which relieved Chinese subjects from the dirty tasks of making, transporting and selling things. The Chinese government had no concept of balance of trade, tariffs or taxes, or any of the other economic paraphernalia we carry with us these days. It did not perceive the Mercantilist Theory on which the foreigners operated as inimical to its interests. Thus, for 150 years until 1949, China became a land of  foreign devils living in colonial enclaves, foreign imports, opium addiction and many other evils. What Chinese officials considered tribute was offered as bribes, so the Mandarins were thoroughly corrupted. In many respects, the Ching Dynasty ruled China as do latter day Conservatives in the United States.

The point of this essay is not to discuss Chinese or American History. Rather, it is to point out that the deliberate folly of a government can ruin a country. It is also to point out that other policies, sometimes even supposedly evil ones, can improve the lot of a society. All of those effects fall within the purview of culture; i.e., they are in some sense chosen within a given framework. Thus, the Antikythera Mechanism and other late Hellenistic developments dead-ended because of the culture in which they were artifacts, not because of any genetic change or disability, or because they were premature. Greco-Roman culture was simply not prepared for the sort of technical society we now have. Ancient people saw devices like the Antikythera Mechanism and Heron's steam turbine as curiousities, not tools or machines. Even if ancient inventors or other smart people foresaw what could be contrived with geared mechanisms and steam pressure, there was no social or economic support for such developments. In contrast, when the steam engine was invented in Scotland, it had an immediate, profitable purpose in pumping water out of coal mines. The modern inventors, including the very estimable James Watt, not only had prescient ideas about the uses of their science and engineering, they had an ambitious capitalist class ready to invest in crazy projects. It was only 50 years from the Watt engine to railroads and Fulton's Hudson River steam boats. Such things and thinking didn't happen in either ancient Rome or China, so it took more than a millennium before geared clocks were the rage in Europe.

The story of the Antikythera Mechanism and others gadgets like it is told as "so near, but so far." We are tantalized by that gadget because we can see what it was all about. We have that understanding because we are obsessed with the gadgets and machine world we created. But the important lesson of that ancient device is what its possessors didn't see. It raises the question what is it we do not see about ourselves which, as S. J. Gould used to say, is "Hiding in plain sight."