The origins of logic and medical diagnostics?

the quintessential Mesopotamian preoccupation is the restless urge to predict the future. A good percentage of intellectual thought over the best part of three millennia was lavished on the desire to penetrate the veil, fuelled by the conviction that human beings could, everything being equal, obtain the needed information from the gods through well-established procedures. This field of activity generated a vast literature of carefully assembled one-line omens on this pattern:

If A happened, B will happen.

One example exemplifies how a diviner operated in about 1750 BC while examining the surface of a freshly extracted liver from a healthy sheep for diagnostic marks:

Protasis: If there are three white pustules to the left of the gall bladder
Apodosis: the king will triumph over his enemy.

routine vs intellectual

( more sumerian stuff... )

*** essentially, he draws an axis with look–up on one end and logical operation on another.

*** in the two major "if" cases — divination and medicine — prediction is derived from facts. The key difference is that in divination facts are created, e.g. by killing a healthy sheep and examining its organs, and in medicine facts are determined by evaluating the patient's body for symptoms.

The alphabet: invented and lost

( more sumerian stuff... )

Гибридные режимы: политическая наука о новых формах авторитаризма.

Краткое содержание лекции: Да, ужас! Но не ужас - ужас - ужас!


Originally posted by _niece at Гибридные режимы: политическая наука о новых формах авторитаризма. Запись онлайн-лекции.

Полтора часа прикладной политологии (включая вопросы слушателей): гибридные режимы, гражданское общество, соломенные самолеты и исторический оптимизм. Транскрипт тоже обещают, но не прямо сейчас.

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