Current Events > If Library of Alexandria wasn't destroyed, how much more might we have advanced?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ubergeneral3 posted...

Things would have been the same.

People say that many things had been lost but I have my doubts that it either wasn't recovered or would have mattered.

Say for instance the Newton's three laws were in a book on that library. Would this be a huge discovery? Sure. But it wouldn't change history.

really the biggest losses were books about practices like the text the emperor Claudius wrote about the Etruscans. If we had that it might answer some of the questions we have about them.

What really set humans back wasn't losing the libraray. It was losing the Romen Empire.

That doesn't make sense, if Newton's laws were already known, then Newton would have the freedom to expand on that knowledge, but because it wasn't there we had to wait a few hundred years for Newtonian mechanics. How does that change nothing?

Hexagon posted...

Ubergeneral3 posted...

Things would have been the same.

People say that many things had been lost but I have my doubts that it either wasn't recovered or would have mattered.

Say for instance the Newton's three laws were in a book on that library. Would this be a huge discovery? Sure. But it wouldn't change history.

really the biggest losses were books about practices like the text the emperor Claudius wrote about the Etruscans. If we had that it might answer some of the questions we have about them.

What really set humans back wasn't losing the libraray. It was losing the Romen Empire.

That doesn't make sense, if Newton's laws were already known, then Newton would have the freedom to expand on that knowledge, but because it wasn't there we had to wait a few hundred years for Newtonian mechanics. How does that change nothing?

I also question whether the fall of the Roman Empire was a bad thing. But really, if the knowledge only existed in the library with no humans knowing of it, then it was destined to be lost to history anyway. Having knowledge stored doesn't count as having learned knowledge.

Thank god for the Renaissance...
---

wah_wah_wah posted...

You would like to see it as this catastrophic out-of-nowhere event that didn't happen in any context of an era that disregarded knowledge because it then justifies your own ignorance. If anything the destruction of that library should have taught, it is that reservoirs of knowledge are fleeting, so learn as much as you can from them while they are still with us.

Putting words in my mouth when it is you who is making assumptions here.
---

Dathrowed1 posted...

wah_wah_wah posted...

You would like to see it as this catastrophic out-of-nowhere event that didn't happen in any context of an era that disregarded knowledge because it then justifies your own ignorance. If anything the destruction of that library should have taught, it is that reservoirs of knowledge are fleeting, so learn as much as you can from them while they are still with us.

Putting words in my mouth when it is you who is making assumptions here.

You were very vague and negative in your criticisms so I assumed your position was the same as everyone parroting this idea that the loss of that library was the significant event, and not that no human being retained much of the knowledge in the library.

This is a myth.

https://www.quora.com/How-has-the-burning-of-the-Library-of-Alexandria-affected-the-world-and-where-would-we-be-if-it-never-happened/answers/673006 [gmail account required]

https://historyforatheists.com/2017/07/the-destruction-of-the-great-library-of-alexandria/ [Extremely long read but no account needed]

Plenty of other sources on the web if you just search.


"But the idea that the loss of the Great Library somehow set back human progress by centuries is not based simply on the size of the collection but also on the idea that it was somehow unique and that it contained works not found elsewhere. There is no evidence to support this. As far as we can ascertain, the Library's collection included more or less the same kind of works we find elsewhere in the ancient world. And there is nothing in those works to indicate that the Greeks and Romans were somehow on the verge of some kind of scientific or technological revolution. So the idea that the loss of the Library's collection somehow led to the loss of unique advanced information found nowhere else in the world is pure fantasy." - Tim O'Neill

Maruame posted...

This is a myth.

https://www.quora.com/How-has-the-burning-of-the-Library-of-Alexandria-affected-the-world-and-where-would-we-be-if-it-never-happened/answers/673006 [gmail account required]

https://historyforatheists.com/2017/07/the-destruction-of-the-great-library-of-alexandria/ [Extremely long read but no account needed]

Plenty of other sources on the web if you just search.


"But the idea that the loss of the Great Library somehow set back human progress by centuries is not based simply on the size of the collection but also on the idea that it was somehow unique and that it contained works not found elsewhere. There is no evidence to support this. As far as we can ascertain, the Library's collection included more or less the same kind of works we find elsewhere in the ancient world. And there is nothing in those works to indicate that the Greeks and Romans were somehow on the verge of some kind of scientific or technological revolution. So the idea that the loss of the Library's collection somehow led to the loss of unique advanced information found nowhere else in the world is pure fantasy." - Tim O'Neill

I mean, yeah. Even if the sources were nowhere else in the world... then that would mean human beings didn't take the time to learn what was in the library anyway, and therefore it was already totally disregarded. You don't need to physically destroy a library in order to lose its knowledge. You only have to stop caring about what is inside of it.

Centuries
---