Interesting take, though it is a bit unfair to take Ptolemy as the flag bearer of Greek science, since he was writing in imperial times, mostly trying to reconstruct hellenistic theories from whatever books were left after the catastrophic decline of scientific knowledge following the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean three centuries earlier. Perhaps both the Indic system and whatever survived in the west in Ptolemy's time are echoes of the same hellenistic sources, now mostly lost.
'after the 9th century, science in India declined, and after the 11th century, very little science was left. In the book “History of Hindu Chemistry” [15], Acharya P C Ray attributed the decline and fall of science in India to three causative factors:
1. Due to the ascent of a rigid caste system, the doers and the thinkers no longer exchanged knowledge and experience.
2. The do’s and don’ts of the shastras (in particular, the Manu Samhita) made it impossible for practitioners of medicine and surgery to teach the next generation because dissection of dead bodies became impossible (only shudras were allowed to touch cadavers).
3. A large section of the intelligentsia became influenced by the ‘maya’ philosophy of Shankara, which saw the material world as an illusion. Naturally, they were no longer inclined to probe the character of the material world.
After the 11th century, the light of science was practically extinguished, and India plunged into a Dark Age.'
Based on reading Narasimha's expository writings on science and engineering, I very much doubt that what he referred to as the "Indic style" in science bears _any_ relationship to Modi's demagoguery about the "Indian knowledge system." The latter is the target of the blistering criticism in the piece you are linking.
Can you expand on why you think Sutton's Bitter Lesson smuggles metaphysics through the backdoor? It seems to me that the Bitter Lesson openly embraces a metaphysical commitment to parsimony.
This is not at all what I am saying. I am saying that there is a maximalist reading of it that smuggles in metaphysics. Sutton's post is quite short and to the point, and he limits himself to engineering principles for building AI systems, without making any claims about whether the Universe itself is fundamentally computational. I argue that this supports a minimalist reading, which embraces a pragmatic, rather than metaphysical, commitment to parsimony.
Interesting take, though it is a bit unfair to take Ptolemy as the flag bearer of Greek science, since he was writing in imperial times, mostly trying to reconstruct hellenistic theories from whatever books were left after the catastrophic decline of scientific knowledge following the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean three centuries earlier. Perhaps both the Indic system and whatever survived in the west in Ptolemy's time are echoes of the same hellenistic sources, now mostly lost.
an answer to “the Indian half of Needham’s question” is given in the (blistering) overview of the "Indic Systems of Knowledge" at
https://breakthroughindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Breakthrough-Feb22.pdf:
'after the 9th century, science in India declined, and after the 11th century, very little science was left. In the book “History of Hindu Chemistry” [15], Acharya P C Ray attributed the decline and fall of science in India to three causative factors:
1. Due to the ascent of a rigid caste system, the doers and the thinkers no longer exchanged knowledge and experience.
2. The do’s and don’ts of the shastras (in particular, the Manu Samhita) made it impossible for practitioners of medicine and surgery to teach the next generation because dissection of dead bodies became impossible (only shudras were allowed to touch cadavers).
3. A large section of the intelligentsia became influenced by the ‘maya’ philosophy of Shankara, which saw the material world as an illusion. Naturally, they were no longer inclined to probe the character of the material world.
After the 11th century, the light of science was practically extinguished, and India plunged into a Dark Age.'
Based on reading Narasimha's expository writings on science and engineering, I very much doubt that what he referred to as the "Indic style" in science bears _any_ relationship to Modi's demagoguery about the "Indian knowledge system." The latter is the target of the blistering criticism in the piece you are linking.
Very true, - the article is about IKS, not having much to do with your topic, - but the quote is an aside answer to the aside question you mentioned.
I should take a closer look at Needham's writings on this, given that he was a biochemist.
Can you expand on why you think Sutton's Bitter Lesson smuggles metaphysics through the backdoor? It seems to me that the Bitter Lesson openly embraces a metaphysical commitment to parsimony.
This is not at all what I am saying. I am saying that there is a maximalist reading of it that smuggles in metaphysics. Sutton's post is quite short and to the point, and he limits himself to engineering principles for building AI systems, without making any claims about whether the Universe itself is fundamentally computational. I argue that this supports a minimalist reading, which embraces a pragmatic, rather than metaphysical, commitment to parsimony.