Chapter 6 Chapter 1 New Atlantis

Since the American manned spacecraft landed on the moon, human civilization has further expanded into outer space.Soviet Russian astronomer Kardashiv believes that today's human civilization is about to migrate to other planets in the solar system and the Milky Way. In the seventeenth century, Sir Bacon studied the needs of the future and made an evaluation of aristocratic philosophy.Bacon's ideas are astonishing, yet they are built upon modern and future civilizations, and they contributed to scientific revolutions such as the Industrial Revolution and so on.That was a century and a half after the idea, and a direct result of it.The idea that Bacon speaks simply of the general function of science, which seeks to deal with and benefit men, is quite common to us, but at that time it was unprecedented.In the days before Bacon, science, or another way of calling natural philosophy, was thought to have quite a different purpose.It would be vulgar and absurd to think that science and technology are related, or that they should be.All natural philosophy is the business of scholars, the petty thinkers who are regarded as the classical Senecans, the eminent Stoics, and above all the Platonics.

In the days before Bacon there were indeed scientific advances.Galileo, through his primitive telescope, observed that Jupiter has its own satellites, which surround Jupiter instead of the earth; Copernicus also proved that the sun is the true center of the great solar system.But this serious information is not recognized by the educated public as true science, and many fundamental questions have occupied many intelligent and skeptical minds in previous centuries.What is the best?Is pain good or bad?Are all things predetermined?Can we be sure that we have nothing?Can a wise man be unhappy?Is the violation of human rights reprehensible?Men of insight for several generations have been arguing about these issues, but there have been no verifiable results, and they have been accumulated in human knowledge.Abiraides, the most venerable philosopher of the twelfth century, was typical of his time when he declared that dialectics was the only way to truth.John of Salisburg, clerk to Archbishop Petite, visited a school of philosophy and found them still arguing about thirty-year-old issues.These scholars have been going round in circles, and, in the words of one historian: they have filled the world with old wives' foot-bindings, and they have left as ignorant laymen as they found.

Bacon's previous scientific theories were all limited by classical principles. These ideas hindered the progress of knowledge for nearly two thousand years.Posidonius, a distinguished writer in Caesar's day, ventured in an article to quote the principle of arches and the application of metals as some humble invocation of man to natural philosophy, and Seneca rejected these statements, As an insult, he thinks that natural philosophy has nothing to do with teaching people to build arches across their heads, or to use metals.A true philosopher does not care whether he has an arch over his head, or whether he will be exposed to the wind and rain, he will never study the use of metal, Seneca's philosophy teaches us to live without doing, one of his pages The manuscript shows the attitude to science in the pre-Bacon era:

In our time there is also the invention of such transparent windows, these ducts that diffuse warm air throughout the building, in short, that it achieves perfection, a writer can keep pace with the fastest speaker, but such The invention of gadgets is the monotonous work of the humblest slave; philosophy depends on the lowly, and it is not her business to teach the people how to use their hands. Her main subject is the shaping of the soul, otherwise we would be taught that the first shoemaker was A philosopher! These views convinced almost all the wise men and religious authorities before Bacon. It was strongly influenced by Aristotle and supported by Plato and Socrates. As Russell said: Aristotle in morality Ethical prejudice, carried forward by Plato, ruined Greek science.Even Archimedes, the greatest engineer of antiquity, who, with his deadly mechanical inventions, held the Roman army at bay for three years, felt a kind of guilt about such work, the rigor of a high philosophy of mind. caused by.

Bacon left Trinity College, Cambridge at the age of fifteen, under the old stubborn John.Waikitt's guidance, his cautious dialectical teachings, and even in that era, he was said to have a great and well-thought-out philosophical reform project, which made him famous throughout the century.Wakeite's teachings to Bacon made Bacon hate Platonic and Aristotle-style philosophical schools, and also matured his mind.He decided to imitate Plato to write his vision of Utopia.These two Utopias, Plato's Republic and Bacon's New Atlantis, represent the ideal worlds of the two great men, but how different they are!What Plato wanted was a physical, authoritative world, somewhat of a Spartan type, where each citizen kept his place.While Bacon was inspired by the enterprising capitalism of Elizabethan England, he imagined a commercial and scientific Eastern society where everyone shared in the benefits of corporate success.

It is interesting to compare the differences between the two philosophies in detail.For Plato, it was disgusting that modern science turned to astronomy, and he declared that it was really philosophical to use astronomy in determining the seasons, in agriculture and navigation, or for other practical purposes, or even in the search for an understanding of the universe. vulgarity and frivolity.Knowledge of the motions of celestial bodies is of no use to him, and the shapes of the constellations are a simple example: we must go beyond them, we must ignore them, we must have astronomy, which is as astronomical as rough geometric drawings. Its real purpose is not to make life more vulgar, but to elevate the mind to the point of seeking true knowledge.This kind of argument is not considered by Bacon. For Bacon, astronomy is only useful when it is related to truth and interests. He compared Plato's astronomy to Prometheus' cow, which has a smooth and beautiful hide, which is quite beautiful. , but it is filled with waste, and there is nothing to eat.

Plato found that the invention of writing did not contribute much, because it only taught people to idle around, to keep books and not to write down their chapters. One can have information when one wants it. Man, all the books of Plato must be discarded immediately before reading, and develop memory and improve wisdom by themselves.But Bacon, it is conceivable, at least not to see why we do not need the technique of memory, is useful to humans.He compared them with walking rope and juggling, and said: These two arts are the same, the one abuses the mind and the other the body, and both will amaze us, but neither will adore us.

Plato also looked down on medicine.He has no sick and wounded.Prolonging life by medicine is a long death for him, and such a weak state of health should allow him to die, such people are not fit for war, politics or research. If they are engaged in psychological research, they will be dizzy dazzled, and hindered a serious discussion.Plato had no objection to surgery on the wounded in battle or accident, but he had no sympathy for the sick of aging. Bacon had no time for such vulgar matters, he believed that the patient's life should be terminated, and that his well-being was better than his pain. He himself had no interest in studying medicine. He asked to study to find ways to alleviate the symptoms of debilitating diseases. Bacon responded by declaring Christ's miracle of healing.

The serious philosophy of Plato and Seneca dominated for a long time.During this period, the wise men of mankind have been turned in the wrong direction: poverty is a novelty; luxury is a crime; scientific reasoning is only tolerating; its function is to fix the intellect, not to enhance material comforts and discover truth. , or making money; intelligent argument is the most eminent activity, and it must not be tainted by materialism.Even in the Middle Ages, these ideas were misunderstood as the teachings of the ancients and were polluted.Extravagance and hypocrisy were alive and well, and apart from Dante's few, none of these were considered great sins. What a man does is far less important than what he says. It's an ingenious marriage of classical philosophy and Old Testament aphorisms.Church leaders can rank them with every luxury and health, George.Orwell's discovery of doublethink seems as applicable to the Middle Ages as it is to our own, and he ridicules that it was someone's fault.

This general state of mind explains many things, such as why Galileo was condemned by churchmen as vulgar and irreverent; it also explains why MartinLuther would say that Copernicus was a fool, and that his theory of the solar system was anti-biblical and outrageous; few opposed Seneca.He wrote a pamphlet on virtue, and in his writing days he extolled poverty and slandered the vices of luxury. When assessing the value of a philosopher, personal faults must also be taken into account, so that we can justly admit that Bacon also had a dirty political experience.In order to please Queen Elizabeth I, he painstakingly sent to the guillotine a friend who had spent most of his life finding lucrative positions for his friend Bacon; In 621 he accepted a bribe and lost his seat in the Senate, but unlike Seneca, his contribution to civilization far outweighed his personal flaws, and after fifteen hundred years Seneca's teachings remained We are given nothing but unresolved and meaningless theoretical disputes.Scientific achievement before Bacon's time despised classical philosophy and, as we have seen, was limited by it.But in the three hundred years after Bacon, thanks to his works, we have modern life with its magical conveniences: electronics, nuclear power, electronic computers, highways, jet airplanes, space travel, and the richness and excellence of modern astronomy and atomic theory , we can measure the smallest particles, cure some of the worst diseases, cross oceans in a matter of hours, and show the edge of the universe, all thanks to the claims of a corrupt politician three hundred years ago who believed that seeking truth and Interest is far more effective than arguing about its literal meaning.

Bacon himself did not know these things at all, and if he had been magically stored in the 1970s, he would still be superior to his contemporaries, but he is considered the founder of knowledge is power, he clearly saw how technology It is his Utopia, the concept described in the book New Atlantis, published in 1627.A novel, some parts of which would later be used by Swift as Gulliver's Travels, this work contains a complete account of how science and technology are organized to be beneficial to business.The hero described by Bacon sailed across the ocean and discovered the legendary Kingdom of Pensalien.This is not a satire on British politics. Penn Salem is not like England in Bacon's time, but a bit like modern Japan.The people of this kingdom are quite advanced, they have flying machines and submarines, refrigerators and hearing aids, the fruit of some clever social and economic organization.One of the most important places in Pensalien is Solomon's Palace, which functions as a clean house for industrial and scientific materials Solomon's Palace specially employs people called merchants of light, who play the role of industrial spies, travel secretly to foreign countries, and collect useful information for Bin Salian.Words such as beneficial invention appear frequently in this novel.Penn Salem's internal political structure was designed to accommodate this premise.The noblest thing a man can do is to invent something that will benefit his employer, and invent something that will raise the standard of living of his customers. That is a state capitalism aimed at increasing individual happiness and property.The information obtained by the Merchant of Light is to be tested and analyzed by the Destroyer, who in turn considers its practical use to the donor, and he then reports to his business associates, after reviewing these useful things and considering the practicality of human life and knowledge. thing.But that is not the companion of the ruler, the real ruler is pure science, the translator of nature, who has the power to determine new fields of study, who guides the merchants of light, who orders previous inventions to be improved by experience to greater observations, principles, and maxims. It is difficult to imagine how strongly Bacon's ideas had affected the mind of the seventeenth century.It was realized for the first time that man must have a hidden purpose, must be able to carry out a long-term project, and that science would make work more profitable if research were systematically organized and free from religious interference.This kind of view is quite new, and this kind of concept will be put into practice immediately.In 1660, hardly more than a generation after the publication of New Atlantis, the Royal Society was formed and began to fulfill the scientific laws of Penn Salem.The society states in its records that its foundation was the practical fruit of one of the oldest philosophic transactions of Bacon.The poet Abraham.Curley wrote an ode to the Royal Society in which he said: Bacon, like Moses, takes us to The barren wilderness he walked, Standing on that extraordinary border, Bless this promised land, And from the summit of his noble intellect Look at yourself and reach out to us. King Charles II, like his grandfather James I, was an enthusiast for science, and he chartered the society and attended certain meetings.Sir Newton, with his theory of universal gravitation, became the most famous member and later became the second president. He laid the foundation of modern physics, and the expectations of human beings seemed limitless.There were far more educated people in the 1700s than in 1600. In 1600, for example, comets were regarded as bad omens. In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, it is said: When the beggar dies, no comet appears; God can only be furious at the death of the prince. A few dramatists might have written such a sentence in 1700, but at that time, comets were no longer regarded as an omen, but were known to be just asteroids obeying the law of universal gravitation.In 1770, the general view of educated people was quite modern, and a century ago, it was even considered to be like Francis.Drake and John.Adventurers like Dee are in the general medieval style, and this great change seems to be caused by Bacon's theory.Within a century, a succession of advances took place that seemed impossible, or at least thought to be later.From the introduction of clinical medicine by Thomas Sittingham in 1666;Huygens revealed the wave theory of light in 1678; Newton developed differentiation from his theory of gravity in 1693; the eighteenth century produced the modern theory of combustion, and Lafleur's transformation of matter Theory; Edward.Ginner's smallpox inoculation; New Atlantis reappeared with four successful technologies, and the most important new development in Bacon's philosophy came in 1751 when Diderot and Darienne published the Encyclopedia The first volume of the entire book, this book collects a large collection of known scientific facts and theories that directly influenced the Industrial Revolution.The two editors say they are inheriting the work of Bacon: we are honoring the greatest, most easy-going and most heart-wrenching figure of all philosophers, and to this great writer our encyclopedia project is still in progress. in debt to him. The revolution that Bacon facilitated is regarded as the most important revolution that has never occurred in human society. In many collections of essays and novels, he wrote down a series of events that are happening one by one today.Wars and economic depressions have long been impossible to ignore; even when circumstances compelled us to, hoping to stop all economic growth, this only reverted to poverty, disease, and urban squalor. However, if Bacon, or people like him, had never existed, the world today would not be a little higher than when they were born, and we are still in the shackles of the non-experimental philosophy of Seneca and Plato.The roots of these two opposing philosophies are easy to identify.The historian Macquarie wrote a funny fantasy play in 1837, in which Seneca and Bacon are two travelers who meet, they come to a smallpox-infested city, all the houses are closed, Trade is suspended, and mothers weep for their children.Seneca gave a lecture on the nobility of pain, and Bacon got out a lancet and began the inoculation.Then they came across a group of miners, all of them dismayed, because underground mining trapped many of their fellows, and Seneca asked them to turn this tragedy to the benefit of their wisdom, Bacon had no such good sentences, he devised a safe lights, and rescue some trapped people.On the seashore, they met a businessman in distress, with his hands folded on his chest, his valuables were lost, and he was reduced from a rich man to a beggar in an instant. Seneca advised him to look for it in the things left around him. Joyful, Bacon built a diving bell and recovered most of its value.A plot like this proves the complete difference between the ancient oral philosophy and the modern hands-on philosophy. Bacon's revolution is still in its infancy today. Modern technology looks miraculously advanced, but this is only compared with the technology of a hundred years ago.Centuries from now, our most sophisticated electronic computers will be nothing more than scrap metal, and our fastest airplanes will be fascinating exhibits in museums of anthropology.The theme of this book is to illustrate the progress of economy and technology, which is constantly advancing, not just for the next generation, not just for the next century, but after 10,000 years, the earth will no longer provide living space, space will have been developed by then, and the world around the sun will The planets are all habitable and industrialized.Jupiter, the largest planet, would be destroyed by disintegration, its lobes trapping the sun's radiation more efficiently. But these grand plans are just the beginning. Beyond the farthest planet in our solar system, there is also our great galaxy. They are truly the world of mankind for ten thousand years. No string of jewels on earth can compare The color photos of the Milky Way and stars taken through a large telescope are brilliant and dazzling.The brightest blue giant star, the white and yellow star about the size of the sun, and the blood-red silent sun will confuse observers.Behind this gauzy cloud, an orange nebula of dust and hydrogen gas, a new star is born, and that's the underlying meaning of Bacon's New Atlantis!Human exploration and colonization of these vast expanse of suns and their companions shows the true future of human action.In this book, the possibility of human beings traveling interstellar space at a speed beyond the imagination of the laws of physics will be demonstrated; how can we imagine it?No planetary civilization will be confined to a single world, nor will it only interact with each other in the steadily developing solar world.Cowardly in the endless interstellar space, as the Romans feared the vast Atlantic Ocean.We must envision a succession of human empires in the galaxy, perhaps dominating millions of extraplanetary systems.Economic, social and psychological needs lead us to this stage. Soviet Russian astronomer Kardashiv, when predicting intelligent civilizations in the universe, said that planetary civilizations can be divided into three types. According to Kardashiv’s words, the modern world is the first type of civilization, which can only use stored energy. Energy on a single planet.The second category is a solar system civilization whose superstars will be destroyed and its materials used, but compared with the third category, it is still nothing.The third type of civilization is that the entire galaxy is developed and utilized.Kardashiv's prophecy seems to apply to ourselves, the sun has reached the halfway point of its own life, and the galaxy will be more than ten times older than it is now, according to the great astronomer James.As King said in 1930: We live at the beginning of extraordinary times, and we shall enter into the fresh glory of the dawn, an endless day unfolding before us with unimaginable chances of achievement, and our descendants after a long age, looking on the other side to distant ages, will see The modern age is but a hazy morning in human history, and contemporary figures will appear in vague, heroic roles who, through ignorance, error, and superstition, have found truth.