Other schools of science

[jrmu@xxxxxxxxxx]

There was now I remember the Hundred Schools of Thought in China. In the
Mohism school of philosophy, atoms and elements were also proposed,
analogous to what Democritus proposed in Greece, at about roughly the
same era as well (~300BC).

It's a bit hard to trace their legacy because around 100BC, the Emperor
of China burned all the competing schools of philosophy besides Legalism
(the Fa school). It very well may have been these and similar political
events in history prevented revolutions in science in India and China.
At a time when China could have entered its own Renaissance, it was
sacked by the Mongolians.

I don't know enough about Indian culture, but a quick search on the web shows Indian philosophers also had proto scientific ideas. Since Indian and Chinese cultures both had similar proto-scientific ideas as the Greeks, I highly doubt that the Greeks were unique with their philosophy.

The main things that made the Greeks much more influential was not
superiority in their philosophy, but

1) The conquest of the known world by Alexander
2) The conquest of the known world by the Romans
3) The conquest of the known world by the Europeans
4) THe conquest of the known world by the Americans

As we can see, these are due to military warfare rather than any
inherent superiority in the philosophy.

As for Alexander, he probably would have been just as brutal as our
Chinese Qin Shi Huang if he had lived to an old age. Alexander died
while young, but we see him killing off his friends and forcing his
subjects to pay him obeisance just like Emperor Qin.

-- 
Aaron Lin
jrmu@xxxxxxxxxx
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