[tied] Re: Why borrow 'seven'? (was: IE right & 10)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
wrote:

> > The calendar and stories about which
> > things
> > > > are sacred, like the moon, were both ways of describing what
> > only
> > > > later got to be called nature. In other words, this
> > understanding
> > > of
> > > > weeks also spread because it was useful, not just because

the

> > moon
> > > > was considered sacred.
> > > >
> > > > ...or so it seems given the evidence we now have.
> > > >
> > >
> > > I know. It was their version of quantum mechanics.
> > > But all civilisations will have to deal with the problem of

the

> > > starting point of the chain of causation. There must

necesarily

> be
> > > a 'primus movens' or 'prima causa', otherwise it's turtles all
> the
> > > way down. Something that is directly connected to 'the other
> side'.
> > >
> >
> > Are you saying that it is confrontation with this question that
> > caused the splitting of knowledge about nature and knowledge

that

> > you just have to have faith in? You might be right, but I think
> that
> > it might not have happened until much later. An ancient pagan
> could
> > be a cold scientist, patriotic politician and religious savant,
> > without using double think. After Hellenistic times, from

whatever

> > source, you get a tension between "Jerusalem" and "Athens" which
> had
> > only been an undercurrent felt by the deepest thinkers, like
> perhaps
> > Plato, before then.
>
> I used to think so too. It's standard fare to divide the world

into

> objective IE and subjective Middle East, but I think it goes much
> further back. And the reason is a vague impression I get from the
> overlapping set of terms from Møller's and Manansala's list; the
> whole 'this side' and 'the other side' terminology. A very old
> metaphor that recurs in all the crossing-the-river terminology of
> passinng to the other world. As exactly as I can say it: the set
> of 'semantic vectors' needed to span the semantic space described

by

> the Møller-Manansala set includes one to describe that dichotomy,
> namely *(H-)bh/p-r/l- "across, life, grain, offspring" etc.

My question comes from a philosopher who would put the "discovery of
nature" as the first step towards the discovery of philosophy. Of
course Plato only comes after philosophy, traditionally started in
Asia Minor by Thales. But that raises the question of whether Thales
was bringing a now lost near eastern tradition into the Greek
speaking world. Thales was supposed to have travelled. I see no
reason to say philosophy was IE. Jerusalem and Athens is just a
short hand.

Coming back to my philosopher, a German emigrant named Leo Strauss,
he seems to have thought that the first mention of nature as
something more than just the "way" of something, was in the Odyssey.
I believe the nature under discussion was that of a particular
magical root.

This philosopher saw our concept nature as a replacement of
something like the English word "way", as in the way of women. The
nature of a woman, is rather something which can be correctly or
wrongly followed, and therefore existing apart from each thing.

Interested in your thoughts on this.

Best Regards
Andrew