Why I lost respect for Aristotle

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philosopher
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Why I lost respect for Aristotle

Post by philosopher »

Aristotle taught that heavy objects fall faster than light objects.

This can easily be demonstrated to be false.

He also taught the geocentric universe, which is false as well, and easily observable.

As something that is so easily proven to be false, is taught by someone, means that I lose all respect for the person who said such rubbish.

It means I cannot trust any of his other works either, unless they are proven to be worthy of any degree of respect.

I suspect that, if Aristotle had lived in our time, he would have been a Trump-supporter watching Fox News, based on Aristotle's stupidity & hatred towards even the simplest scientific experiments, personal bias and rubbish talk.

In any case, the Aristotelian world view is the reason for the Catholic stupidity throughout the history of Western Europe. He is responsible for the Catholic Church who threatened to burn Galileo Galilei alive on the stake for questioning the long-held belief of the geocentric universe.

Thus, Aristotle is indirectly responsible for the Trumpish politics dominating the Western world throughout its entire history.

We should celebrate people like Einstein instead. He was wrong too, but at least he did some effort into arguing and questioning his own ideas and carrying out scientific experiments. At least he had some degree of intelligence, unlike the Aristotelians!
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HexHammer
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

Post by HexHammer »

philosopher wrote: Fri Aug 24, 2018 1:28 pmAristotle taught that heavy objects fall faster than light objects.
Overly simplified physics say heavy and light objects falls at same speed, but advanced physics says that heavy objects falls slightly faster since the mutual gravity pull are stronger.

If you experiment with big led bars, they will attract each other, where light objects doesn't.
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

Post by mickthinks »

I doubt Aristotle gives a shit what you think.
philosopher
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

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HexHammer wrote: Fri Aug 24, 2018 8:28 pm
philosopher wrote: Fri Aug 24, 2018 1:28 pmAristotle taught that heavy objects fall faster than light objects.
Overly simplified physics say heavy and light objects falls at same speed, but advanced physics says that heavy objects falls slightly faster since the mutual gravity pull are stronger.

If you experiment with big led bars, they will attract each other, where light objects doesn't.
Thanks. I'd like some source, as I've been unable to google it.

But anyways, Aristotle was not aware of advanced physics. He couldn't possible know of this. In the ancient time, the only way to make sense of the world, would be to apply classical physics.

Judging by any means and taking the historical and technological context into consideration, I would still say Aristotle deserves no respect, because he didn't say heavy objects fall faster because of mutual gravitational pull, but because he judged this view from his own gut-feelings, intuition of which he refused to carry out any scientific experiments to demonstrate his point.

So, even though he arrived at the right conclusion, his arguments and thinking was all wrong.
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Ridiculous thread. Aristotle lived 'how' long ago? You expect him to have known what modern physicists know?
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HexHammer
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

Post by HexHammer »

philosopher wrote: Fri Aug 24, 2018 10:10 pm
Judging by any means and taking the historical and technological context into consideration, I would still say Aristotle deserves no respect, because he didn't say heavy objects fall faster because of mutual gravitational pull, but because he judged this view from his own gut-feelings, intuition of which he refused to carry out any scientific experiments to demonstrate his point.

So, even though he arrived at the right conclusion, his arguments and thinking was all wrong.[/quote]Yes ofc his thinking was all wrong, it is expected from such ancient philosopher, so what you say is irrelevant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqYZplC-wyg
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Greta
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

Post by Greta »

At the time, the relative lack of knowledge about nature meant that the ancient philosophers tended to produce "rocks and diamonds" from a modern perspective. The ancient philosophers were brilliant trailblazers and those on the leading edge of any movement are not playing it safe, and can easily make mistakes or fail to take unknowns into account.

However, some of their insights were deeply influential and helpful. While I don't know much about the ancient thinkers, I expect that innovations like Aristotelian logic would have assisted in questioning the dictates handed down from unaccountable self-declared authorities that people were otherwise simply expected to believe.
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

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vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Fri Aug 24, 2018 11:03 pm Ridiculous thread. Aristotle lived 'how' long ago? You expect him to have known what modern physicists know?
No. I was saying that because Aristotle could not possibly have known modern physics saying that heavy objects fall (slightly) faster than light objects, he had to carry out experiments using old-fashioned, simple methods, telling him that they fall at the same speed.

The fact that Aristotle did not carry out such a simple experiment to see if he was right/wrong, but taught the opposite because of his "gut-feelings", I don't care whether Aristotle arrived at the right conclusion, because he arrived there for the completely wrong reasons.

This questions the entire Aristotelian theory of everything, simply because he did not even put in any effort to prove his assumptions.

If you actually try your best at demonstrating something, you always have an excuse if later technology proves the opposite, because you could do no other. It is better to have the right reasoning but wrong conclusion, than to have the right conclusion for the wrong reasons.
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Another insane forum member :roll:
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

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philosopher wrote: Sat Aug 25, 2018 3:05 pm
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Fri Aug 24, 2018 11:03 pm Ridiculous thread. Aristotle lived 'how' long ago? You expect him to have known what modern physicists know?
No. I was saying that because Aristotle could not possibly have known modern physics saying that heavy objects fall (slightly) faster than light objects, he had to carry out experiments using old-fashioned, simple methods, telling him that they fall at the same speed.

The fact that Aristotle did not carry out such a simple experiment to see if he was right/wrong, but taught the opposite because of his "gut-feelings", I don't care whether Aristotle arrived at the right conclusion, because he arrived there for the completely wrong reasons.

This questions the entire Aristotelian theory of everything, simply because he did not even put in any effort to prove his assumptions.

If you actually try your best at demonstrating something, you always have an excuse if later technology proves the opposite, because you could do no other. It is better to have the right reasoning but wrong conclusion, than to have the right conclusion for the wrong reasons.
Aristotle DID carry out experiments.

His experimental findings justified his position.

If anyone, then you are to blame for stating such obvious falsehoods as "all objects fall at the same speed when dropped." You not only have the experimental possibility, but the accumulated knowledge of the entire Western civilization along with physics behind you, and you still draw the wrong conclusion.
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

Aristotle exists if and only if Plato exists and vice versa...Aristotle and Plato are polar duals that stem from and go back to Socrates in regards to methodology.
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

Post by Systematic »

So, philosopher (OP), have you ever heard of the concept of throwing out the baby with the bathwater?
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

Post by Speakpigeon »

It makes very, very, very little sense for you to assess as you do Aristotle's potential merits against today's standards.

If it was possible for you to prove that you would have done better than Aristotle had you been born in his time, you would have had a point. But you can't do that.

The only way we can compare anything is between Aristotle and other people living in his time. And guess what?

Oh and yes, it is also possible to compare your own performance with that of Aristotle. So, can you tell us what major discovery you can be credited with?

Aristotle has been read by most of the great thinkers throughout history and he is in fact still read. On one very important point I also happen to believe, with very, very good reasons, that he was correct when, on the same point, millions of intellectual workers with university training and alive today are all wrong. Me, I say, it is definitely very, very impressive.

So, what about you?

Well, I guess we all know the answer. we only need to look at any one of your posts.
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Scott Mayers
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

Post by Scott Mayers »

philosopher wrote: Fri Aug 24, 2018 1:28 pm Aristotle taught that heavy objects fall faster than light objects.

This can easily be demonstrated to be false.
This is naive to the thinking. The reasoning that went into it was something like this:

You have a pair of twins that want you, as a parent, to pull them on equal sleds or wagons. Is it not reasonable to presume that pulling one child is 'easier' than pulling them both?

Then, given Aristotle did not know that a 'vaccuum' could exist, should a heavier object be 'pulled' towards it, like the twins but in the downward direction, why and how does the Earth 'know' to adjust its force to apply the pull the same? That is, if it were to pull one twin down, would it not require twice the force to pull down the two together?

The error is not Aristotle's. The error lied with the Catholic Church and others who felt that his words were 'qualified' absolutely given he has been valuable in other areas, like logic and classification that played a role in biology, etc.
He also taught the geocentric universe, which is false as well, and easily observable.

As something that is so easily proven to be false, is taught by someone, means that I lose all respect for the person who said such rubbish.

It means I cannot trust any of his other works either, unless they are proven to be worthy of any degree of respect.
You are being unfair here. The geocentric theory wasn't even about religious reasons BY Aristotle because the Christian church that later enforced his writings as qualified did not relate to the irrationality associated with that. Rather, this related to geometry and Euclid. Since Aristotle's best lied with logic with the support of the other Greeks in math, etc, SYMMETRY was what this related to.

If you do not assume a 'special creation' of the universe, then it was assumed that the nature of totality should not 'favor' any unique shapes that are not themselves balanced with symmetry. This relates to Totality as a whole but in his time, the Universe was only the world they could count on (as we still do). As such, if there were non-symmetric relationships UNDERLYING reality, then this would mean that nature would necessitate non-symmetric realities. This also becomes reflective upon other things, like politics. If nature is not 'balanced' or treats it parts as 'equal', then could this mean that people are not intrinsically equal? Why does logic have relative deterministic outcomes that represent 'fairness' and 'balance'? If reality on the level of the whole were sincerely unbalanced, the fear was that reality would remain perfectly INDETERMINATE!

So, while the thinking particularly was in error, Aristotle was not irrational in the least. It was his paradigm that differed.
I suspect that, if Aristotle had lived in our time, he would have been a Trump-supporter watching Fox News, based on Aristotle's stupidity & hatred towards even the simplest scientific experiments, personal bias and rubbish talk.

In any case, the Aristotelian world view is the reason for the Catholic stupidity throughout the history of Western Europe. He is responsible for the Catholic Church who threatened to burn Galileo Galilei alive on the stake for questioning the long-held belief of the geocentric universe.

Thus, Aristotle is indirectly responsible for the Trumpish politics dominating the Western world throughout its entire history.

We should celebrate people like Einstein instead. He was wrong too, but at least he did some effort into arguing and questioning his own ideas and carrying out scientific experiments. At least he had some degree of intelligence, unlike the Aristotelians!
What an odd connection. Should you prove to be wrong, should others treat you with disgust too?

[N.B.: There seems to be an unusual amount of Australian or at least non-North-American representation here ....given the use of the words, "rubbish" and "bollocks". This is just an aside note given I live in Canada and would expect that the participation you'd think should be spread out more evenly if we weren't being redirected. For whatever reason, Google and other search engines treats Canada as though it were in Europe and favors redirection to there rather than to the U.S., which we actually relate more closely to. ????]
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Re: Why I lost respect for Aristotle

Post by Impenitent »

Aristotle taught Alexander that bodies fall when dead and Alexander was great...

-Imp
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