"All things are made on water."
Philosophy is a Greek word. Its creation by Greeks living on the coast of Asia Minor in the 6th Century BCE marks the first major ship away from the Theistic view of the world. It's chief revelation is that the world is governed by rules that men can study and understand. Mind you, this does not deny the existence of God, but does say that man can understand (at least part) of God's grand design.
Without this idea, no games would be possible.
This article looks at two of the most important Pre-Socratic philosophers and their impact on how we play games.
WHAT DO WE KNOW FOR CERTAIN ABOUT THALES AND PYTHAGORAS?
Both men lived in the 6th Century. Thales lived in Miletus, a port on the Asian coast. Pythagoras came from Samos, also on the Asian coast, who traveled in Egypt and ended up in Italy.
Thales was a teacher and a man of business. He cornered the market on olives, made a fortune and predicted an eclipse in 585 BCE. The eclipse he probably found predicted in Egyptian or Babylonian texts (brought in by one of the many Asian merchants who frequented the port). But his philosophic ideas were original.
Pythagoras was also a teacher but not a man of business, so naturally he had to travel to make a living. (Even in the past teachers were not well paid.) We know he went to Egypt and that he immigrated to Southern Italy to escape political repression. Aside from being a philosopher, Pythagoras was an Orphic mystic. Which meant he believed in the transmigration of souls, and that people's souls were somehow linked with beans (thus a prohibition on eating beans!)
Beyond these few strange stories we know only the few ideas that history attributes to them.
THALES AND GEOMETRY
The Theistic view of the world long before suggested that the world was orderly and that man could effect the world if he followed set procedures/rituals. That the sole cause of change in the world was God. Miracles were the order of the day. Thales suggested that maybe the order of the world was based on laws, which men could study and understand using reason.
Thales was a student of geometry (probably to learned from Egyptian merchants). With this tool he noticed that one could discern how far a ship was on the horizon if one knew the length of one side of the triangle and the angles to the ship from the two sides of that line. No God told him the distance, he deduced it based on what he knew about the rules of geometry. He knew these rules from studying small triangles. He generalized what he knew about small scale triangles to very large ones. This may seem obvious modern educated people but it is a big step for the Iron Age.
If the world operates off of rules/laws that can be known by man - more importantly, by man's reason - then maybe things happen for reasons other than that God caused them to happen. In addition to this one can take laws that apply to small things and generalize them to bigger situations. So the world works off rational laws that can be known by man. Man can make use of these laws to achieve his own means (predicting how far a ship is off so you can know how much time you have to corner the olive press market!)
Thales' use of geometry was the first use of a model to understand and predict what will happen in the world. The "laws of nature" are universally accepted now, but it is a complete break from the past. It is the beginning of the materialist view of the world. Games are all materialist models of the world.
Games are small models of the world that if generalized can, in theory, tell us something about what will happen. These models try to recreate the patterns/geometry of what we see happen in the world. We generalize from the small to the big. Rational rules imply that they work the same every time. So some God does not drive the sun across the sky, it flies across the sky because of a natural law. By studying the sun, we can learn its laws by observation.
Which leads to Thales' statement that everything in the world is made of water. Odd on the surface, but consider what it was based on. Miletus is a port, the hinterland in dry and barren. All life looks out to sea. Thales saw clouds form out at sea. Clouds that brought rain to the shore. Much of the water returned to the sea by run off. Puddles were left and that water evaporated back into the air. Thales saw the water cycle in action. From this observation of nature he deduced a "law". He then generalized the law to the whole world. The fact that he was wrong is irrelevant. No model is ever perfect. What Thales did was to set the pattern for all later philosophers - look at nature, try to find patterns, make models that explain what you see.
PYTHAGORAS AND MATHEMATICS
All students of mathematics at some time or other learn the Pythagorean theorem (A squared + B squared = c squared). A mathematical formula the uses numbers to describe what Thales did with geometry. Pythagoras and his disciples believed that numbers could be used to explain everything in the world. A radical change from the miracle theory of causation. Since not only is God conforming to rational rules, but man can reduce these rules to mere numbers!
Pythagoras lived some fifty years after Thales and thus was influenced by the notion that one should look at nature to find patterns. One pattern noticed was that musical notes can be modeled by mathematical ratios. Just as with the Pythagorean theorem something observable in the world can be modeled using numbers.
Pythagoras believed in the harmony of the universe and taught mathematics as a way for men to better appreciate the beauty of this harmony. Pythagoras, unlike Thales started a school and thus spread his belief in the usefulness of numbers far and wide.
Pythagorean theory influences us today whenever we use numbers in games. Mathematical formulas like probability curves, combat tables that use numerical ratios, and any kind of formulas, all owe a debt to the Greek.
It is hard to underestimate the power of the modern world's belief in numbers. They pervade science and are at the heart of most games. Computer games are the worse offenders in this regard. On the surface they may show no numbers but in their guts they are no more than little Pythagorean calculators churning out numbers to create patterns to create an illusion of reality.
BORING DEAD WHITE GUYS, WHO CARES?
It has been suggested that Greek philosophy is a bad thing. That it oppresses women, children, the poor, and non-western cultures. It is further pointed out that other cultures have creates philosophies of their own that are just as valid as the Greeks, yet they are not taught in schools. All of which may be true. BUT!!! That does not lessen the importance of the ideas of these long dead white guys (both of whom were Asians NOT Europeans).
What Thales and Pythagoras did was go beyond the Theistic view of the world. This is something that the Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists and even Confucians did not do. It is true that many of these people's made great contributions in mathematics and science, but they did not take the next step - to leave God behind and look to reason for answers. This is the first step of individualism, materialism, and humanism.
One may rant and rave against the many sins of individualism, materialism and humanism for days and still not escape the reality that they are the driving forces of western civilization. Theistic hierarchies (like some Protestant Churches, the Church of Rome, and the Ulema in Iran) may try to suppress these ideas as heresy, but in 2,500 years they have not succeeded in getting rid of them. Like it or not they are here to stay.
DON'T COMPUTERS MAKE ALL THIS IRRELEVANT?
If anything is true, it is that computers and technology have only increased the importance of the first Greek philosophers on our world view. First radio, then television, the satellite broadcasts, and now the internet carry the message of western thought to the furthest reaches of the Earth. This technology exists due to scientific exploration of natural processes. And model building now pervades every aspect of our lives.
Do you doubt me? Just think how many numbers that are applied to you. Now imagine if they all just disappeared (along with all the things they represent). What would your life be like? Startling, isn't it?
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© Copyright 1999 by Chris Engle.
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