Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 23:33:42 -0400
To: Athena Discuss 
Subject: Re: evading evidence

paul manansala wrote:
(( cuts ))
> 
> However, I'm firmly convinced that it is mostly intuitive and
> mathematical thinking that leads to discovery in these sciences,
> and that axioms and analysis usually come later. So, to me its not
> much of a big deal whether they used axioms or not.

I quite agree.  As it happens, I have been to Egypt, also to
Greece (India and China also but that's beside the point right
now).  I remember having the same reaction that Ben-Jochanan
has spoken of.  "But these Egyptians were black people!"  I
had absorbed a Western education which told me first came the
Egyptians, who btw were white, then came the Greeks.  The Egyptians
developed empirical methods of geometric mensuration because
the Nile flooded every year, and that served as a spur for 
the methods developed.  But it was the Greeks who took it to
a higher level, conceptually and theoretically.  Well, the 
first lie that was exploded was that the Egyptians were white.
By the overwhelming evidence of statuary and paintings that
I could see with my own eyes, it was clear that they were black
people, certainly what would count as black in the United 
States or the Caribbean. The second was the expectation
that the glory of Greece would somehow surpass Egypt.  Not so
at all.  Not even by a long shot.  You have to stand within
the temple, say, at Karnak, then go to the Acropolis, to very
quickly realize that the latter is first of all a copy, and 
*much* less impressive in scale.  And if you walk around the base
of the Great Pyramid at Giza, and contemplate the sheer
vastness of that structure, you quickly realize that this, and the
other pyramids, were built by men who knew what they were doing.
It was a matter of plan and execution -- calculation -- rather than 
of general idea followed by a lot of empirical muddling through.  
To see it is to be convinced that these master builders knew their
geometry, trigonometry, and statics.  Geometry is to the pyramids
as climbing Mt. Everest is to building a Hilton Hotel atop it.
The first, impressive though it is, is as nothing compared to
the latter; and the latter may be taken as proof that you had
truly mastered the former.  Nothing I saw in Greece came even close to
matching the Egyptian accomplishment.  Which is why I have very
little difficulty crediting the Egyptians by inference from 
indirect evidence.  And I too do not feel the need for the 
"smoking gun" direct evidence that would remove all doubt. 
I do suspect, however, that the disparagers of a black ancient
Egypt would do the dance of distortion and denial even if there were
direct evidence.
 
> Paul Kekai Manansala

Regards,

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