by Nikos Kambanis.
Greece is the cradle of civilization. The pre-Socratic philosophers inspired everything. From political history and theory, to mathematics, medicine and the art of thinking. An idea by producer Frixos Konstantinos, highlights exactly this and identifies the unsurpassed influence of Greek culture on the achievements of the modern world.
How is rock music connected to the heart of modern medicine? Every vehicle we drive, every computer we use, every thought we have… none of it really belongs to the present. This groundbreaking concept examines how even the latest technological breakthrough can trace its original DNA back 2,500 years and sheds light on the few shadows that haunt the deeper aspects of “Western Thought”.
The pre-Socratics design the modern geographical concept, creating a familiar thinking with which we understand the world today.
Also known as pre-Socratic, these are the young, heterogeneous and “semi-crazy” naturalists, itinerant teachers and enthusiastic mystics. They are the fathers of Western civilization. Men who are frantically searching for a stable and logical way to explain the world. The pre-Socratics design the modern geographical concept, creating a familiar thinking with which we understand the world today.
These thinking people are the architects of the intellectual revolution that creates the first true cosmopolitan and multicultural era of human evolution (the classical world), laying the foundations of today’s civilization. Almost everything that can be interpreted about anything can be traced back to these ancient masters, including the question, “Who am I?”
With their unique and commonly accepted blend of advanced mathematics and deep skepticism, the pre-Socratics discovered everything. From the secrets of musical harmony to the hidden geometry of nature. They founded the terms of politics, art, science, even the idea of being a human being.
The ancient Mediterranean is an amazing changing world. Democracy, urban planning, theatre, entertainment and sculpture are driven by new thinking and innovation. To understand pre-Socratic thought, we enter their world. Internal upheavals reveal a world that shocks and surprises us. He is dangerous, violent and unstable, ceding power to incomprehensible and supernatural forces.
So what have the pre-Socratics done for us?
1. The hidden world
From ancient thought to the latest technology at CERN, we delve into the depths of science and technology. The pre-socratics are extremely innovative. Democritus discovers the atom, Thales and Empedocles, the periodic table many thousands of years before modern scientists confirm them and Parmenides science fiction theories about time and space. All this still surprises us today.
2. Engineering in the new world
How do theories of engineering lead to revolutions of social life and wars? Pythagorean theories were used in the construction of the Statue of Liberty and other main buildings. The Gotthard Base tunnel owes its existence to the pre-Socratic Eupalin, who built a long tunnel using only pickaxes. The sceptical Thales changes warfare forever by using a brazen tactic. Splitting the Red River and making an unpredictable attack on Persia. All these examples show how engineering is developing new ideas and concepts about the relationship between the individual and the many, the state, history and imagination.
3. The birth of the West
The West is for most people, the everyday people, the detail in everyday Western thinking. One does not have to go to extremes to fall under pre-Socratic influences. It’s everywhere, all around us. How did we gain the concept of mind, body and soul? The attractive tone coming from the radio? Our obsession with diet and drugs? All revealed through visits to the nanotech, medical center with a stop at the New York Symphony Orchestra (stopping for a Pythagorean lunch). And finally a visit to composer Michael Nyman displays the power of Pythagorean music of the spheres, a beautiful union of philosophy, art and engineering.
