Wolfgang Korsus
Dipl.Ing. NT , Astrophysiker
Klingenberg 40
25451 Quickborn
TEL.: +49 4106 69295
Handy: +49 162 5680456
Website : wolfgang.korsus.net
CURIOSITY AND GREED ⇶ DISCOVER AND EXPAND
The first two words of which I always say: they always have a subsequent content that usually tastes bitter !!!……. ⇒…got it?
Don’t be surprised, I have a question to ask:
When would you readers actually let antiquity end? With the closing of the school of philosophy founded by Plato in Athens or the arrival of the Goths in front of Rome? Stupid question, isn’t it?
I asked this unusual question to get you closer to the year 500.
But at the same time, what else was going on in the world at that time? As you can imagine, apart from Greece and Rome, there are certainly a few other stories…….roughly speaking, the Han dynasty ruled China. Advanced civilizations were also visible on the Indus, in Mesopotamia and in Egypt. Actually, I have always stayed on this side of the Atlantic. Now I’m talking about a new continent and making my own experiences.
Yes, the cultures of the Mayas, the Aztecs and the Incas flourished here.
Only you have already read it……When the population increases, it also consumes more of its environment. Be it grain or meat or other foods. Man is an incredibly stupid animal that protects itself from nature, but expands culture and does it better and better.
As we now know, it was the Greeks who began to work against nature. Because it worked. All cultures were capable of building houses. What remained important was the location, i.e. where? This required a special „looking around“. But CURIOSITY is also part of it, it’s there in huge quantities.
New resources are developed easily and with pleasure. Almost simultaneously, agriculture is being developed all over the world, including America, of course. That will probably be something for the explorers and conquistadors when they explore and conquer the American continent and, as always happens, slay and murder everything they don’t like or is rebellious.
Europe had no contact with America. You may not believe it, but completely similar structures developed on both continents. I’ll list: cities, irrigation, agriculture and also social structures.
‼ There was no difference between the cultures, because man is the culture-forming being. ‼
In addition to their biological natural origins, humans actually have a second nature, please listen. …..This is called culture. This can truly adapt to changing environmental conditions faster than the genes of the biological genome. What could be the reason why we are experiencing such incredibly rapid developmental steps today? I’m looking at cultural evolution, on top of which we also have technical and even digital evolution, and their characteristic speed is: the speed of light, the highest effect transport speed in the universe.
Where do we stand? The Roman Empire has come to an end and nothing new has happened culturally in Europe. I say that the European continent is sinking culturally while other parts of the world are changing. Something like a new spiritual current is forming and I already dare to recognize the way that the current is spreading from North Africa to the Middle East.
Now my innate hostility towards religion is coming up again. Because I know that thousands of people are still dying every day in the name of these fairy tales. I leave it to each individual reader to pick out the scenes of the religious destruction of living beings from the media themselves.
Back to the material of that time → → → Embedded in a new religion, the spiritual current holds the bullshit of ancient knowledge in its hands and preserves it. This is the golden age of Islam. Thanks to the Moorish sciences and the flourishing Islamic intellectual life, the know-how of the Greeks and Romans was preserved. … ….at least something usable …..It could also mean: We are in a time with different cultural developments. They look like this: There are no more city foundations in the Occident and that will take a while. At the moment I’m talking about formerly large Roman metropolises, be it Rome itself or cities like Trier, Regensburg or Xanten, because they all shrank after the migration of peoples. Supplying the population was one of the major problems at this time, not least because the climate was cooling down. You can imagine that numerous crop failures followed. Europe became a lame runner. I say that Europe was only running at half speed, the population was also declining and this led to a drop in resource consumption.
However, as I expected, the success curve of human activity then pointed upwards again. The Arab expansion could serve as an example of this and the cities of „Mecca“ and „Medina“ were the first to spread the ideas and religion of Islam. This feels like a big advertising campaign for a religious competition company. In the course of this expansion, which led to the Iberian Peninsula, cities were of course founded, cities developed into new condensation nuclei of a new culture. A new, already familiar game began. I say nowadays: the same game started again and the religious charlatans brought themselves a continuing income.
This time, however, it was not the forest, the fire or the goats that had to be used, with the already well-known consumption of resources. My aim is to make it clear that this expansive development was a constant experiment in recipes for success, and the more successful the culture is, the more resources it consumes!
Surely, dear readers, you know what happens next. Yes, of course, the cultural construction curve then sloped downwards again.
Now the Arabs were overrun by the Mongols in the 13th century. They were an expansive equestrian people from the vastness of the Asian steppe who, after merciless conquest and, as always, bestial killing, then created a huge trading area between Europe and Asia with the Pax Mongolica. This was certainly a kind of great free trade agreement. The Mongols also guaranteed the free and secure exchange of goods.
As always when something new is introduced, the question arises: for whom was this particularly important or beneficial? They say: for cities like Genoa or Venice. At that moment, I started reading up on the history of these two cities. I found what I was looking for, a sentence that struck my CPU…. unfortunately it was a very big sledgehammer: „The Venetians would have cut a swathe through Europe!“ How did that work?
They were the resource grabbers, because they grabbed everything to build their city and their ships. Hear, hear, even the wood for the foundations of their palazzi was brought from the Dolomites !!!! was brought here. I say: „Europe wasn’t exactly inviting in the Middle Ages“. That certainly doesn’t interest the plague, because it broke out in 1347 and it was the great plague . In six years, 25 million people died, a third of the Western population. A cold spell was also responsible for this, so in between …… The mortality rate was correspondingly high, and on top of that there were enormous problems with agricultural supplies, all that remains for me to say is this:
‼ The people of Europe were in a damned bad way because of the aforementioned events. ‼
I’ll leave Europe for a moment and turn to another topic. There is the overland route to Asia. You soon realize that your own homeland (Europe) is basically just a small appendage of the great Asia. Vast, extreme spaces opened up in the Far East, China and many other countries to the right and left of the Silk Road! This „Marco Polo“ came back to Venice and poured out his travel experiences on the table of those who stayed, better he told: „What do you think is going on back there in the Far East!“
I continue. The Europeans discovered India and China. Dear readers, do you see the light? The Europeans, they were never discovered, but they discovered everything, even down to the globe, „Australia“.
A true splendor, they can call themselves the most curious people on this „mini-planet „Earth“. -To put it in positive terms. The Chinese have also achieved incredible things. They sailed with a huge fleet as far as the East African coast. Then they turned back. The Europeans did things differently, they sailed around Africa to find a sea route to India. The important thing was that they wanted to trade.
But things don’t always go the way you want them to, and that’s what happened in this case. This time, the Arabs and Ottomans realized that this did not suit them. This made life somewhat difficult for Italian, Portuguese and Spanish traders, i.e. trade by land.
But Europeans are very curious and they tried to find a new route across the sea to India that had not yet been tested. Vasco da Gama was the first, and he succeeded. This was the beginning of a true voyage of discovery. I call it the continent discovery phase. This had a certain typically human meaning, namely EXPLOITATION.
We humans discover in order to exploit what we have discovered. My thoughts now land on Aristotle; he read the simplest sentence out of himself and that is:
“ Man should use nature to his advantage“.
Man loves to make himself independent of nature. As soon as he has used up the local resources, yes, don’t wait long, he looks for new, different and larger spaces.
Why, you ask? Answer: Because he is becoming more and more successful. Question 2: Why do you think he is becoming more and more successful? Answer: Yes, it has a cognitive apparatus that enables it to create a second „nature“ called „culture“.
If you want to describe the culture created and lived by humans, the first thing you come to is an intellectual dead end. Because from the beginning to the end, it is always linked with a big question mark. Because human concepts of culture are very different. Why do I ask? Yes, which culture do you mean? It’s hard to count the number of peoples, races and nations. Not only sculpture, music and theater belong to culture…..but many other things, including technology. When know-how and, a little later, know-why get involved, it becomes frightening. I realize that this state drifts into a – turn the wheel again, but much faster.
Let’s concentrate first on the „know-how then…you know what?
How far we have come so far. I mention „building houses“ and building ships. Winches“ were also known. Winch ? So let’s set sail……yes, there was someone
who wanted to find a completely new way to India. This was the start of what was certainly the greatest and most momentous story of discovery.
A courageous, steadfast and highly curious man was needed. He was to explore a fast trade route to India. His name was Columbus and he set sail from Palos de la Frontera in Andalusia on August 3, 1492 with his „only three ships, Santa Maria, Pinta and Nina, bound for the Canary Islands. This can be found in all textbooks and history books. All right, I’ve read it like that and I assume it was true.
He made a lot of calculations, including some wrong ones. One basis for his attempt was his extremely low calculation of the earth’s circumference, which made reaching the Asian continent with ships across the Atlantic seem „possible“. He didn’t think the earth was that big …….so think again! The media reporting did not yet exist, so he would have known that 200 years before our era there was someone in Egypt who already knew better back then. We are talking about Eratosthenes, who calculated the circumference of the earth almost correctly using a simple rod and the shadow it casts.
Lo and behold, he set off and, as a precautionary measure and knowing that the journey would be very strenuous, he had his ships overhauled and provisions taken on arrival in the Canary Islands. On September 6, the voyage continued, leaving the islands to the west, supposedly to reach India.
To make good progress with your sailing ships, you need water, which the Atlantic had, as well as wind. As a result, they made faster progress than planned. However, it should be noted that the art of sailing at the time essentially consisted of sailing before the wind. Sailing against the wind was not an option back then, because adjusting the sails accordingly was not an option! Simply put, Columbus was lucky, of course. ……Or as they said back then: God is with him! Even today, such inane sentences are striking!
Very strong winds drove him westwards. Another ten days or so passed before seaweed and a few flocks of birds were sighted, so it was thought that land could not be far away. A few days later, however, it became clear that they had been mistaken. Stupidly, the wind shifted and Columbus‘ companions became increasingly determined to turn back. Why? They didn’t really know where the journey was actually going. Was the end of the world possibly ahead of them? When sailors become restless and skeptical, a mutiny is just around the corner. When Christopher Columbus changed course to the „southwest“ on October 7, it turned out to be a fortunate (divine) decision. And 4 days later, on October 11, heavy seas suddenly arose. Now flowering branches and a worked wooden stick drifted past the ship. The men also spotted reeds in the water. The desire to turn back naturally gave way to expectant excitement and anticipation of the long-sought destination. Now Columbus spoke up and ordered his men to take the night watches very seriously. He made promises of the kind that the first person to see land would receive a special reward – and off they went! The moment of discovery followed. On the morning of October 12, 1492, a sailor by the name of „Rodrigo de Triana“ sighted „land“ off the bow of the Pinta – what must follow? Yes. The cannon was fired, all the sailors were roused and the good news was announced. We now know that the land sighted belonged to the „Bahamas“ group. Done, we were good. But of course we now know that Columbus did not discover India, no, he discovered America, a continent. But now there was only a brief celebration and then, as always when people discover something, murder and manslaughter ensued ‼
ϔ Unfortunately, a great tragedy began with this discovery. ϔ
Let me give you a few figures: There were 100 million people living in America at the time Columbus landed. The same number as in the „Old World“. Of course, they lived differently, with different animals, different plants, a different culture… Because as we know today, Central America was the most densely populated region of the continent in the 15th century.
What is happening now is a „global transformation“. Thousands of ships will discover these two American continents „after“ Columbus, explore, conquer, gut, I almost said gnaw down to the bone, because they killed what the weapons gave them.
The so-called Columbian Exchange, an exchange of plant and animal species, was somewhat more peaceful for humans. Corn and potatoes came to Europe. The domesticated animals that come to America are domestic pigs, cows, sheep and horses because Europe exports mass deaths, but apart from killing humans and animals, even more, mass deaths caused by pathogens!
Attention, never forget :
‼ Native Americans are almost completely wiped out by smallpox, measles
-and influenza. ‼
‼ The Europeans kill almost the entire American population. Not only intentionally, – but simply through pathogens.
‼ Scientists today estimate that more than 90 million indigenous people in North, Central and South America were killed by pathogens from the Occident within a few decades.
‼ A large proportion of the survivors, not to conceal the fact, were brutally killed with weapons!
The effect of the extermination of the Native Americans accumulated as a „signal“ in the carbon dioxide concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere around the year 1609. That’s an obvious perverse connection, I know. Because the aborigines are being severely ravaged by the epidemics, a huge area of agricultural land lies fallow. It is the forests that are reclaiming these areas and sequestering an enormous amount of carbon in the process. This is considered to be one of the most important triggers for the „%Little Ice Age“, which was very clearly felt in Europe from around 1570 to the middle of the 19th century. Today, as a scientist, I am wondering whether this incision is not the beginning of the Anthropocene; thus the discovery of America would mark the beginning of the geological age, which is not only miserably characterized by man, but also represented the beginning of ‼self-destruction‼.
SALVATION IN THE LAST MINUTE ….. I dread….. unfortunately, I am a strange creature, referred to as a human being.
The Columbian Exchange
The term Columbian Exchange has been used since the 1970s to describe the enormous spread and interaction between the eastern and western hemispheres of agricultural goods and flora and fauna products that were initially new to the respective continents.
Europe at the end of the 15th century …….a place full of people…. worse than a 21st century garbage dump!
The Old Continent had 100 million subjects to deal with when Columbus set sail in 1492 to find a west passage to India. The century before that had lost 25 million to the plague. So there were a few fewer of these subjects (humans) now. That corresponds to a third of the population of Europe at the time. The continent was in a shitty ….. state, recovered from the Black Death but politically a torn sheet that was ecologically bled dry. I am not surprised, because religious zeal, the pursuit of profit and power led to ever new, violent, warlike conflicts on the continent. Even trade with the Orient via the Silk Road no longer worked. It had just been interrupted by the Ottomans.
Europe’s rulers (insignificant intellectual garbage) were forced to find new routes to India and China, to occupy new land, to find new trade routes, to develop new riches (I prefer to say: to steal or rob)
Now to the eternal theme of the planet „wood“, the fuel of the Middle Ages, the building material for ships. Two topics as dangerous as fuel. Wood, the most sought-after raw material in Europe since antiquity. (from around 800 BC to 600 AD) Despite the merciless deforestation of the great producer of oxygen, thousands of years later, in the Middle Ages, the hunger for wood could hardly be curbed or satisfied. The most important building, fuel and material of the time was the same wood, …..es had the same importance in the Middle Ages …. as oil has had for us for more than 100 years. ‼ ‼ ‼
When expansions (buildings) took place, this could only be done with wood. Wood was also the word when greed was involved. There was also a constant greed for riches and land, the potentates, or rather rulers of the Middle Ages, kings, princes and popes, constantly equipped themselves with new armies; and one thing is certain, the armament of the armies destroyed vast amounts of wood, because the furnaces in which the iron for the weapons and armor were melted and forged were fired with charcoal.
But it was not only wars that decimated the forests, but also the construction of castles and fortifications, houses and towns.
VENICE fits like a glove when it comes to wood, because this city was literally built on and from wood. ‼
Wood was also the building material for the ships used by traders and merchants to transport their goods, rulers their armies, explorers and conquerors. The clear-cutting of European forests for over a thousand years had left behind huge wastelands from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea; the forests had been almost completely destroyed.
The death of the forests had taken place, or to put it more compassionately, the forests had been almost completely destroyed. Poor nutrition in particular and, as already mentioned, ruthless deforestation naturally led to the silting up and pollution of the rivers, or rather cesspools, in which no fish had swum for a long time.
Farmers and ordinary people in Europe had less food on average than the hunters, gatherers and farmers in North and South America. Hunting in Europe had anyway degenerated into the privilege of the parasitic nobility, who claimed the last forests for themselves. All that remains for me to say is, fuck the self-proclaimed nobility. Even today, in many places in Europe, the pack still calls itself nobility.
This is how Europe came to feed the same number of people on one tenth of the area as North and South America in the 15th century.
Attention, the imported potato, it did not yet grow in Europe. In addition to vegetables, the fields mainly grew cereals.
There was a significant contrast to the Native Americans: in Europe, farmers also raised livestock……
In America, however, there were no domesticated animals, no pigs, cows, sheep or horses – I say not yet. Reconquista the death of Arab, Islamic influence. On January 2, 1492, the last Moorish ruler in Europe had to admit defeat to the armies of Ferdinand II and Isabella I. This meant that the Iberian Peninsula was once again firmly in the hands of „Christian murderers“. The Muslims were finally expelled, and with them all Jews were banished from Spain. The western Reconquista, the reconquest, was to be followed by the American Conquista, the conquest.
Conquista
In the race with Portugal, Isabela 1. had it in his head that Christopher Columbus should find the sea route to India. The Italian Christopher Columbus wanted to set off with a small fleet of three sailing ships. It doesn’t work without promises. He had thus promised the Queen that he would reach the Chinese city of Quinsay (in the language of the time, China was counted as „India“) after about three weeks on his way west across the Atlantic.
Columbus set sail on August 3, 1492. He had said three weeks, but it turned out to be more than three months. It was not to take three weeks, as he himself had estimated, but more than three months. On October 12, 1492, he landed on the island of Guanahani, which is now part of the Bahamas, and shortly afterwards he discovered Cuba and Hispanola. A logbook of sorts was written, and on October 28th the following entry was made: „I have never seen a more beautiful place. The riverbanks on both sides were lined with blossoming trees entwined with greenery that looked very different from the trees at home. They were hung with flowers and fruit of all kinds, among which countless tiny birds could be heard chirping sweetly. There was an abundance of palm trees that belonged to a different species than those of Guinea and Spain.“ He continued: „I boarded the sloop and traveled a good distance up the river. I confess to having felt such intense pleasure at the sight of these flowering gardens and the singing of the birds that I could not bring myself to tear myself away and continue on my way.“ And he concludes with the sentence: „This island is probably the most beautiful that human eyes have ever seen.“
An outstanding writer, a person with a strong sensitivity to nature (there have only been very few of these in recent centuries)
On 16. January 1493 he returned to Europe, and two months later he disembarked there. Now came the big promises to Isabella and Ferdinand: „I can bring back as much gold as they need and as many slaves as they want from the newly discovered territories. Meanwhile, other Portuguese were searching for a sea route to India, but along the African coast……. with little success.
Vasco da Gama would not succeed in reaching India’s Malabar Coast until May 1498, after sailing around the Cape of Good Hope and following the East African coast to Malindi.
Columbian Exchange
I’ll try to give you a short review now, because there has been an abundance of news.
I’ll start with C. Columbus‘ first voyage. It was undertaken by him with 87 men and three ships, his second expedition already counted 17 ships and 1,500 men, a huge increase. You can probably guess, dear readers, what misdeeds were to follow.
That was not all, the Spaniards also brought a large number of domestic pigs and horses to the New World. It was said that the Columbian Exchange was picking up speed. However, the invasion of the New World was not only accomplished with ships, weapons and force, no, it goes without saying that BACTERIA, VIRUSES AND PARASITES were always involved. Of course, the American Indians did not know firearms or horses, but above all they were not at all immune to diseases such as measles and influenza.
They were worst hit by the pathogens that caused smallpox, tuberculosis and bubonic plague. As you can imagine, bacteria and viruses killed faster and much more efficiently than any of the conquerors‘ weapons. It was simply a safe and quantitative introduction of diseases. Now numbers must follow, the New World had about 100 million people around 1500, as many as the Old World. However, within a few decades, more than 90 million Indians in North, Central and South America were carried off by the pathogens from the Occident, a particularly high success rate. A joke, on the other hand, is the remark I made: but a hundred years after the introduction of the potato tuber, the population on the other side of the Atlantic doubled. Now that’s what I call a truly nutritious success rate ‼ ‼ ‼ ‼
The Columbian Exchange laid a very serious foundation for Europe’s hegemony over the rest of the world. It was the beginning of an era that started in 1492 and set the course for multiple revolutionary historical developments in world history in a social, economic and political context for the next 450 years. Yes, this is all a man-made destiny !!!
Europe, the Columbian Exchange was a double stroke of luck, wasn’t it ?
A continent that had ecologically destroyed and consumed itself – through its wars and its rapidly growing population, and the associated hunger for food and wood.
But the discovery of the New World (think about it!) opened up almost inexhaustible sources of food and raw materials and at the same time led to a millionfold loss of human life on the American side, more through imported diseases than through the weapons and violence of the European conquerors.
So now I’ll turn this around and say that if dangerous pathogens had reached EUROPE to this extent through the Columbian Exchange, the world would look VERY different today.
I am by no means referring to Europe as the new world, no. From an ecological point of view, Europe at the end of the 15th century was at a point that I compare with today’s global situation.
The fact is that the forests were severely damaged, almost destroyed, most of the waters were polluted, the necessary raw materials were as good as used up and food was scarce.
What happened now, man a curious man, he followed her. (The curious) I say it a little more nobly. He discovered new horizons. They had already existed during sea voyages and Europe discovered a new continent. His head snapped out of the Columbian Exchange noose. Today, however, we only have this „one“ Earth and not a New World that can be discovered and richly plundered. The consequences of the Columbian Exchange were the most extensive and momentous continental exchange of plants and animals. It changed life on the European, American, African and Asian continents. I simply say absolutely no society on earth was untouched by its effects.
My list :
Potatoes, unknown outside South America before 1492, became a staple food in Europe.
The horse, first brought to the New World by the Spanish, changed the lifestyles of many Native Americans on the prairies.Tomato sauce, made from tomatoes from the New World, became an Italian trademark.
Coffee and sugar cane from Asia grew on large plantations in Latin America.
Oranges were grown in Florida, bananas in Ecuador.
Today, huge herds of cattle roam through Argentina and Texas.
Rubber trees and cocoa grow in Africa, and corn eats up more and more arable land to be fed to cattle in fattening stables.
COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE
Old World New World Animals Horses Donkeys Pigs Cattle Goats Sheep Western Honeybee Turkey Llamas Alpacas Guinea pigs Plants Rice Wheat Barley Oats Rye Turnips Onions Cabbage Lettuce Peaches Pears Oranges Lemons Sugarcane Grapes Turnip Corn Potatoes Peanuts Tomatoes Pumpkins Pineapples Papayas Avocados Phaseolus Cacao Peppers Sweet potato Tobacco Vanilla Cinchona bark Cassava
Diseases Bacterial: Tuberculosis Cholera Bubonic plague Viral: Smallpox Yellow fever Measles Parasitic:
Malaria
Bacterial: Syphilis
Europe, America, Africa, Asia, Australia, there are no more continents on our planet that we can still discover (I beg your pardon?), whose resources would be available to us. What a pity, conquering, bringing diseases, killing natives, robbing gold and rare earths, that’s what gives mankind fun and satisfaction. Today, when we talk about a globalized economy that is supposed to grow and needs more market shares and market participants, it is confronted with the finite nature of the earth as a resource. Planet Earth is spherical and has a finite surface. On this finite surface, there is only a finite amount of resources available. I’m sorry, that’s all there is to it, more is simply not possible. But please, Mars is a journey of no return. A second Earth is not available for discovery and exploitation. However, it is hard to believe, but this animal species „humans“ reproduce like a meadow sown with grass seeds. Today we are 8 billion x perhaps even 8.3 billion, it is certainly not surprising if ten or twelve billion of this animal species soon populate planet Earth to death ‼
If I look at the user quality of this animal species, I have to make a strong distinction. A European, for example, consumes far more resources than a person in Bangladesh or Nepal. There is a burning need to add a factor to European, American, Japanese, Chinese and Australian people to see how many people the planet Earth can support at a certain level.
I say 4.x billion would be enough, because, dear readers, do a research protocol and you will understand the current living situation of the 8.3 animals/humans currently alive
In other words, the Anthropocene as a scientific term for a geological era is unfortunately only a symptom description. It shows that this age is dominated by a kind of animal that is capable of going far beyond its nature, which could perhaps be called the first nature. The human animal can relate to itself and think about what it actually wants. Above all, what drives me? The desire for growth is so deeply ingrained in us, so deeply rooted in evolutionary terms, that it unfortunately has a particularly positive effect on us. Of course, this means that we can’t easily get out of this growth dilemma because nature has provided for this in almost every living being. As the ancient Greeks already demanded, we would therefore actually have to get out of nature in order to finally see things clearly: What are our limitations? Only then can we understand how nature can be protected as the basis of our lives. The Age of Discovery, which will take place over the next few hundred years, will be accompanied by an era that in Europe is known as the Enlightenment. The Renaissance, the beginning of European emancipation, should also be mentioned here.
European emancipation,
the step into the Renaissance around the 14th-16th centuries. I describe it more as a liberation from a state of dependence;
The individual (human being) tries to perceive himself as a human being – also in the mirror of antiquity, which has been rediscovered. It resembles a discovery of dignity in oneself and attempts to pull out of this deep swamp of merely vegetating, towards a human being who understands himself not only physically, materially, but also as a spiritual being.
This expansive „emancipation movement“ emerged at the end of the Renaissance. To get out of Europe, yes, to discover other cultures, to use them, ……… and of course to exploit them. After Columbus and his friends sailed and sailed around the world, revolutions took place in Europe, worldview revolutions: A truly masterful production of science then takes place under the direction of Copernicus.
The astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus simply lifts the Earth out of the center of the world and puts it where it belongs……. into an orbit ……
From then on, the Earth is the third planet orbiting a star that we call the sun. He did not do this to humiliate or put people down, far from it, but to define them as cultural beings. Copernicus teaches us that we do not need to rely solely on our senses, because that is far too little. We are not animals. We can rely on spiritual principles that say much more, even about reality, than all our actual sensors.
After Copernicus, it will be Kepler and Galileo who will create further theories about the world, for they will begin to create the know-why, very simply…….the „why things are the way they are“.
It is easy to imagine that they will come up with another „why“ ………. „Why“ ? It can be assumed that the principle of doubt will be elevated to the scientific method.
Let’s take a look back and say that before, everything was simply a matter of faith. Whoever believes is right. No matter what he believes, he is always right. There was no shaking that. Now this „doubt“ is not a state of mind, but a method: I think, therefore I am. That’s Descartes in a nutshell. Galileo lets himself be heard, he begins to carry out experiments and Kepler looks deep into the universe and discovers the laws of planetary motion. Simply amazing !!!
Now a special term comes into play, namely: This is the beginning of the European Enlightenment. ‼
After all, people already had know-how. There were people like Archimedes, who had already built enormous machines around 250 before the Christ Child. Above all war machines, but also useful well systems, there was all kinds of „technology“ back then. Although the word „Technikum“ should have been called something else at that time. But now, very suddenly, a new transformation of human knowledge is taking place. The already familiar question: Why? That is why I take the liberty of saying :
The more precisely I know „cause“ and „effect“, the better my technique becomes, the more I can apply and use it under all possible, even completely different boundary and initial conditions.
Aristotle would smile proudly and be pleased. Because we are going beyond our normal „nature“, not only developing culture in the sense of the ability to act, but even accelerating it through new „forces“. Did I just say forces? For the first time, a force actually appears that is supposed to prevail between the planets and the sun. The force of gravity, or rather gravitation. Put simply, masses always attract each other. The remark ⇒ ⇒ ⇒ ⇒ ⇒ A hundred years later, Isaac Newton would formulate a law from this. But I didn’t want to go that far just yet.
A quick piece of information from me, let’s briefly think back to this man: The Waldseemüller map from 1507 … and why America is called America ⇒ The Waldseemüller map from 1507, because the name „America“ for the new continent appears on it for the first time. It also shows four different „Indies“: India intra Gangem (-India on this side of the Ganges, roughly corresponding to present-day India and Bangladesh), India extra Gangem (-India beyond the Ganges, roughly Myanmar and Thailand), India Meridionalis („Southern India“, eastern Indochina) and India Superior („Upper India“, today eastern China), so these four „Indies“ extended as far as eastern China.
One more little thing about Christopher Columbus: until his death, he was convinced that he had discovered a new sea route to „India“. That’s why he called the islands he discovered on his way west „#West Indies“ and their inhabitants Indians. Interesting misconception ‼ ………..and an initial statement by „Amerigo Vespucci“, who took part in the first voyage to America in 1497, was the „first“ European to express his conviction that the New World was a „continent“ in its own right.
The numerous editions of his writings, above all his description of the second voyage, which was published under the title Mundus Novus (In 1502, Amerigo Vespucci wrote his travelogue „Mundus Novus“ as a letter to the Florentine nobleman Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici – and thus wrote world history), contributed significantly to spreading the „truth“ about the extent and significance of the discovery of America: He says it was not a few islands that were discovered but, he emphasizes, a whole new world on a new continent.Martin Waldseemüller’s decision meant that on my world map of 1507 it will say: the new continent is America. A brief derivation: Waldseemüller derived the name from the Latinized name Americus Vespucius and wrote together with Matthias Ringmann in the Cosmographiae Introductio 1507: „Now in truth these parts of the new world were especially explored and another part discovered by Americus Vesputius … and it is not to be seen why anyone should forbid calling the new land Amerige, land of Americus, after its discoverer Americus, a particularly astute man, or America, since both Europe and Asia have their names from women …“ At the end of the 15t. Columbus had discovered the New World, the last truly great continent. Just 15 years later, in 1507, the German „geographer Martin Waldseemüller“ produced the first world map on which „America“ could be read …… Columbus thought for a long time that he had discovered Japan with the islands of the Caribbean. However, the first person to really perceive the continent as a ‼new ‼continent was Amerigo Vespucci. Martin Waldseemüller’s map, on which this continent was outlined for the first time, is the new map of „knowledge“. Thus a new world view took shape and globalization began with those who sailed their ships across the globe for the first time. Some even circumnavigated it, while others discovered new continents. For me, this is the beginning of the Anthropocene: „Man is here“.