Pushing the Future

I read this morning (yea, I wake up early, big deal. Sue me if you want), Dubner wrote that the Ancient Greeks were smarter than thought. Yea, if you have been following BBC’s RSS headlines, you’d probably see the news about the world’s first computer by the Greeks (in your face, Babbage!), and that it was a millenia ahead of its time.

Dubner asked: why didn’t the technology move forward for an entire millennium?

One simple answer could be attributed to the Dark Ages. Mediaeval knights, dedicated to preserving their religion, destroyed “heretical” relics of importance (one wonders why the stone henge got preserved).

Imagine, a Roman officer asking a simple Greek: “What does this do?”,
and the Greek replies “To tell when the moon shall be full“,
and the Roman officer says: “Heretical! Only God determines when the moon shalt be fulleth! Off with his head!”

Okay, the “off with his head” part is an overdramatization . But the point is that the ancient people, they’d destroy anything that is not in accordance to their beliefs (it happens even today. Remember the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan?)

The Great Library of Alexandria was destroyed by conquerers, ranging from Julius Caesar to the Muslim invaders to Egypt. People think sources of knowledge are dangerous to the know-less-men. And in this day, warfare is over knowledge. What an irony.

So, what does this has gotta do with Pushing the Future? Let’s get back to Dubner’s question – why didn’t the technology move forward for a whole millenium?

Interestingly, I’ve did some look up on this, and have questioned myself similar questions before and I’ve kinda narrowed it down to a few reasons -

• Inacceptance
• Destruction
• No Marketing or No Apparent Usefulness
• Secrecy

Inacceptance of a new theory or a new technology is always common. Take for example me, in 2001. Together with cfgt and wKkay, we were finalists in this national programming competition thingy, and there about 3 entries (out of 9 finalists) that involves an online diary. They were the first blogs, in that competition, but I told cfgt that “the concept of an online diary will never take off“. Look who’s using WordPress now, lol.

As Dubner had given his example of Hippocrates and his observation on genetics, people couldn’t accept them, even Aristortle. Then again, Hippocrates’ idea didn’t appeal to the people of that time. He merely suggested “… producing an individual with the characteristics of both.” His lack of specificness has led to the general inacceptance of the idea of genetics then.

Destruction, we’ve discussed. Humans are extremely destructive creatures. Give a kid a pre-built Lego model and some Lego bricks. Chances are that he/she will destroy the model than to put on new bricks. The Cultural Revolution by Chairman Mao of China, in emulating the first Emperor of China, Shi Huangdi, had put a great deal of ancient chinese knowledge into the fire. So did Caesar, who razed down possibly the Library of Alexandria. And so did the mediaeval zealots, putting to death anyone who claimed to have extra knowledge for fear of it being heretical.

Need I say some more?

Some inventions have No Apparent Use or Lack Marketing back then. Using again, the Chinese (seeing that I myself am Chinese, lol). In the Three Kingdoms dynasty, the Wheelchair was invented. It was invented by Zhuge Liang, but of course its purpose was not to aid the ill nor aid in a person’s mobility. It was invented as a personal chair for Zhuge Liang. That’s all.

Granted, it’s not scientific breakthrough that will significantly change the world, but think of how many inventions have passed on thusly because it was invented for the wrong thing. Only in recent years with the advent of Post-It Notes and masking tape, that people realise that things needn’t always be invented for a purpose. Some inventions come from accidents. And of course, one such regretable invention was Gunpowder (invented by the Chinese )

Heron of Alexandria (You’d expect the Greeks to be smart enough to invent surnames for goodness sake) for example, created a steam engine, but he didn’t consider the invention to be practical, and the invention had to wait for another 1500 years before it would be popularized for use.

Oh, did you know that Heron of Alexandria also invented the world’s first coin operated vending machine? It vended Holy Water (yes, folks, in ancient times, Holy Water can be bought from a vending machine)

All these supposedly pointless inventions, some which are extremely great ideas (like Leo da Vinci’s plastic) have whiled away in the mists of history. I mean, what do the ancient Chinese need parachutes for?

Secrecy is also another reason why some inventions never lived to push forth technology through its times. Again, let’s take the Chinese as an example. As a Chinese, I can tell you that we are a secret lot. Thtere is this Sith-like concept that is deeply ingrained within the Chinese culture. A Master/Teacher would always fear that the student will be more powerful/knowledgable than he/she, so he/she will only teach 90% of what he/she knows, keeping the last 10% as a back up, in case of anything that might happen. As such, Chinese inventions rarely go past 2 Generations.

Take for example, during the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang (previously mentioned as the inventor of the Wheelchair) invented a device called “木牛流马” (literally – Wooden Cow, Flowing Horse), and it was described to be a device to help soldiers carry their goods. It was shaped like a cow or a horse, and will supposedly move by its own. To get it started, a twist on the device’s tongue is suffice. To stop it, twist the tail. Unfortunately, Mr. Zhuge Liang was a very secretive guy. The secrets to his device died with him, and only little remnants were found. From the remnants, to this day, debates are still held to debate as to what the device really was. I’ve watched heated debates on TV, suggesting it to be a mere wheelbarrow, while the other party was suggesting it to be an automotive robot of some kind. Who will ever know?

The Chinese buried many of their inventions with them, sadly, and also have caused many others to literally bury their secrets.

In a recent excavation in Tibet, archeologists made an interesting find. It seemed that the ancient Tibetans had pretty modern surgical knowledge since the 3rd Century B.C! What’s more interesting is that in the stone tablets excavated, there were even drawings of sperms and eggs in action. (I saw this on Discovery Channel or one of Phoenix TV’s documentary progams)

To answer Dubner’s question – why this medical knowledge didn’t push technology ahead of its time? It’s a no brainer. These medical knowledge were underground, literally. They were hidden from some invaders (was it the Mongols?) to prevent the knowledge from being destroyed.

It would be interesting to see that 1000 years from now, stuff like Velcro and Teflon (both are accidental inventions) would be hailed as the greatest inventions of the 21st Century, and the people would be like: WTF?! Why didn’t we think of this? How could the people 1000 years ago be so smart?

Because we can always count on humans being barbaric and destroying everything, we can count on humans forever being secretive (check your blogs, how many of you have private posts. I do. Many too, more in my dead old blog) , or worse.. maybe in the future, things get so litigative that people are scared to invent new things for the fear of being sued. Note, in history, that every technological rise is followed by a sudden darkness (the dark ages, the Qing Dynasty and the Cultural Revolution, and so on and so forth)

We can count on humans to push the future, only to bring it back to the stone age by their own ignorance and their own ego. For now, we can only wonder: Why in the world the Baghdad Battery exists? Why did the Ancient Chinese needed up to 7 digits of Pi (3.141592654… I can do 9, with the calculator )? Or do they even need drilling technologies that allowed them to drill down 4800 feet in the first place? (I’m sure the ancient Chinese didn’t drill for oil)

Perhaps in asking the reasons for the existence of these inventions and discovery, rather than only knowing the functions will help us discover why these things didn’t push the future.

Till then, I’d still be using plastic Credit Cards, wearing Teflon-coated pants (Dockers FTW!) and listening to The Inquisition Song by Mel Brooks. Have a nice day!

Meanwhile, if you want to look up medical information ranging from basic things like first aid to life-changing topics such as pregnancy information then you can go online and find plenty of health info if you visit a medical search engine available on the Internet.