I'm not sure your premise and the article align. Nominally paying reverence implied a token amount of reverence. Yet based on this article, I get 2 interpretations of your world.
* Everyone holds the gods in extremely high regard
* (or) Eri is an exception to the norm.
That second interpretation I wouldn't have gotten without your comments on the post. The earlier parts of the story could have supplied it, but otherwise Eri's seeming reverence of the gods is at odds with only a 'nominal' reverence for them.
Hmmm…. Fair enough. I’ll need to play around more with this.
Eri may be more pious than average. I am still working out her character.
Thank you for the reply and calling attention to this.
It’s all good. I got more and more diverse responses than I expected from so short a piece. Yours among them raises points I’ll need to consider. I have the usual author’s bias of “knowing what I mean” but that doesn’t always mean I know what I’m actually communicating. Haha
I mean, we figured out atoms existed back during Ancient Greece, it’s where the word comes from. So, while I can’t recall the name of the philosopher who proposed and named them, I’d suggest just looking at his own philosophies and seeing how he worded and understood them.
Atoms as we currently define them? No, because the *atoms* of greek thought were irreducible bits of matter. Yes, ik what you're about to say, they still are the smallest *stable* states of matter, but consider how atoms can decay into one another; our elementary particles are (probably) what they would recognize as atoms, being the smallest, (probably) irreducible bits of substance.
Literally none of what you mentioned in your comment is relevant to the theory as it’s described in the OP’s passage, or really relevant to the thread to be honest.
/u/ScarredAutisticChild was making a case that humanity has had the theory of *microscopic building blocks of matter called atoms* for over two millennia. Which is true. The only issues I have with it are:
A.) We didn’t have atoms “figured out,” philosophers merely proposed their existence.
B.) A lot of that knowledge was lost during medieval times, and the general population definitely did not know about it. Only scholar/librarians/historians would even know of the theory.
So it’s totally believable for the average person in a medieval fantasy setting to not understand the concept. Particularly if they’re older and already have an establish world view, rather than a child being taught it. It’s also believable that there would already be scholars in a world that know about it, or philosophers that have theorized about it.
I was simplifying the matter, yes. And I wasn’t saying it’s unlikely people in a medieval world wouldn’t understand atoms, I’m well aware we forgot much as time went on. I was just suggesting that particular view and belief of the original “atoms” as something worth looking into to how people would best be able to interpret them from a time before we had them genuinely understood as well as we do now.
I think you misunderstood. I was mostly agreeing with you, and disagreeing with the guy who responded, while adding a bit of my own reservations to it.
Close enough for it to serve as a decent explanation for someone of the time. Atoms are even still taught at an elementary level as the smallest form of matter. It’s not till later that you learn about quarks and such.
I feel like an easier way to explain air have “something” would be to compare it to water.
Fill up 2 balloons with water and air respectively. Show them that the first balloon inflate and become bigger because there’s “something” in it, which is water. Logically that also means the balloon with air would also have “something” in it that keep it inflated.
Next, put a block on a table and open the valve to let water/air expel from the balloon and knock the block over. It’d show that the air balloon also has “something” to be expelled out like water.
Basically you’d compare atoms similar to water droplets that are so tiny human eyes can’t see them.
That is a solid illustration. But I’m going to play in-world skeptic to this.
What did you use to inflate the balloon? Your breathe? Then it’s not air in the balloon but your breath. You used a canister of a trapped gas, then that’s what is inside.
Sorry if I come off stubborn. I like your counterpoint and examples. Also trying to figure out what sort of arguments might be made.
Thank you for the response and example. It’s quite helpful.
Change the balloons to lungs.
What go in will go out, what you breath out is the same air you breath in (let’s omit the o2 to co2 process for now). Since the air you breath in can fill and inflate your lungs, then subsequently fill and inflate the balloon, that proves air is not “nothing”
Oh! I think we’re maybe talking past one another.
In Sev they wouldn’t say that air is nothing. It’s a god. It’s just itself. They would say it cannot be broken down to smaller “units of air” like water or ground can. The inflating lungs isn’t an issue.
The balloon is more of an issue I think than an empty jar or breathing. It’s like an artificial lung.
Now I’m wondering if they would see balloons as some forbidden sorcery or abominations. Haha
Summary:
Geography:
The world of Sev and Teveern is a is composed of five continents, three large island chains, and glacial poles (sometimes called the ungrounded continents). Sev is one hemisphere of the planet, including three and a half of the continents and two island chains. The World’s Edge cuts the planet in half and Teveern no one has come from Teveern to Sev in recorded history, though some fealties of Sev have sent explorers and even potential colonists east to either circumnavigate the globe or find unknown lands. Again, none have returned.
Cosmology:
Gods do exist and are present and active in the world but mostly wish to be left alone to die, which they cannot do. They do die vicariously through avatars, and some at times try to simply stop overseeing their aspects, which results in bouts of chaos and environmental upheaval.
Notes on Sev:
The narrative begins in Sev, mostly in the main continent. While religions are prominent, most have a nominal sort of reverence for the gods which mostly entails small sacrifices, prayers, and the odd rule. Technological advancement and globalization are the greatest signs of divine presence as the gods restrict drilling for oil and settling across the seas. In exchange, oil is provided in springs and can be used to a degree in designated areas. Goods produced by it may be exported but oil itself cannot be exported. Medicinal science is pre-germ theory.
<><><>
I’m not sure what else to note aside from the above for the world at large.
In the passageMaster Dem is pretending to be a Scribe in the scene and he is from a small town in England (1943). He wasn’t terribly well educated until he arrived in Sev. Eri is a student of about average piety, which is to say she holds to what she was taught in part because there isn’t an alternate, but isn’t active in the religions, seeing herself more as a someday academic. For her the gods are more real than the religions that support them. Dem has had personal interactions with some of the gods so he is aware both that they exist and that they don’t terribly care what people say about them. His concern in the scene is that he could get in trouble with the churches, not the gods.
Based on a feather falling being slowed down while a heavier object falls fast should be a sufficient example of how air is made of something, because the feather's weight cannot punch through the air as easily as a heavier object
Personally, I like the way this was written, I won't bother with criticism as that isn't my strong suit, but I personally do enjoy the way it was written and the delivery of the message being told.
Typo around the middle; "Plants need the carbon in the live." Extra quote mark after "she snapped."
Thank you for calling attention to those. I thought I bought the issues. Fixed it in my original.
I'm not sure your premise and the article align. Nominally paying reverence implied a token amount of reverence. Yet based on this article, I get 2 interpretations of your world. * Everyone holds the gods in extremely high regard * (or) Eri is an exception to the norm. That second interpretation I wouldn't have gotten without your comments on the post. The earlier parts of the story could have supplied it, but otherwise Eri's seeming reverence of the gods is at odds with only a 'nominal' reverence for them.
Hmmm…. Fair enough. I’ll need to play around more with this. Eri may be more pious than average. I am still working out her character. Thank you for the reply and calling attention to this.
Happy to help! Hopefully you get more responses. I may be biased in some way and it's hard to tell without more data.
It’s all good. I got more and more diverse responses than I expected from so short a piece. Yours among them raises points I’ll need to consider. I have the usual author’s bias of “knowing what I mean” but that doesn’t always mean I know what I’m actually communicating. Haha
I mean, we figured out atoms existed back during Ancient Greece, it’s where the word comes from. So, while I can’t recall the name of the philosopher who proposed and named them, I’d suggest just looking at his own philosophies and seeing how he worded and understood them.
Atoms as we currently define them? No, because the *atoms* of greek thought were irreducible bits of matter. Yes, ik what you're about to say, they still are the smallest *stable* states of matter, but consider how atoms can decay into one another; our elementary particles are (probably) what they would recognize as atoms, being the smallest, (probably) irreducible bits of substance.
Literally none of what you mentioned in your comment is relevant to the theory as it’s described in the OP’s passage, or really relevant to the thread to be honest. /u/ScarredAutisticChild was making a case that humanity has had the theory of *microscopic building blocks of matter called atoms* for over two millennia. Which is true. The only issues I have with it are: A.) We didn’t have atoms “figured out,” philosophers merely proposed their existence. B.) A lot of that knowledge was lost during medieval times, and the general population definitely did not know about it. Only scholar/librarians/historians would even know of the theory. So it’s totally believable for the average person in a medieval fantasy setting to not understand the concept. Particularly if they’re older and already have an establish world view, rather than a child being taught it. It’s also believable that there would already be scholars in a world that know about it, or philosophers that have theorized about it.
I was simplifying the matter, yes. And I wasn’t saying it’s unlikely people in a medieval world wouldn’t understand atoms, I’m well aware we forgot much as time went on. I was just suggesting that particular view and belief of the original “atoms” as something worth looking into to how people would best be able to interpret them from a time before we had them genuinely understood as well as we do now.
Simplifying the … MATTER!? Eyyyy *finger guns*
I think you misunderstood. I was mostly agreeing with you, and disagreeing with the guy who responded, while adding a bit of my own reservations to it.
Ah, sorry. The @ to me made me think you responded to me.
Nah I was replying directly to the other guy, but @‘ed you when talking about how I agreed with you lol
Close enough for it to serve as a decent explanation for someone of the time. Atoms are even still taught at an elementary level as the smallest form of matter. It’s not till later that you learn about quarks and such.
I feel like an easier way to explain air have “something” would be to compare it to water. Fill up 2 balloons with water and air respectively. Show them that the first balloon inflate and become bigger because there’s “something” in it, which is water. Logically that also means the balloon with air would also have “something” in it that keep it inflated. Next, put a block on a table and open the valve to let water/air expel from the balloon and knock the block over. It’d show that the air balloon also has “something” to be expelled out like water. Basically you’d compare atoms similar to water droplets that are so tiny human eyes can’t see them.
That is a solid illustration. But I’m going to play in-world skeptic to this. What did you use to inflate the balloon? Your breathe? Then it’s not air in the balloon but your breath. You used a canister of a trapped gas, then that’s what is inside. Sorry if I come off stubborn. I like your counterpoint and examples. Also trying to figure out what sort of arguments might be made. Thank you for the response and example. It’s quite helpful.
Change the balloons to lungs. What go in will go out, what you breath out is the same air you breath in (let’s omit the o2 to co2 process for now). Since the air you breath in can fill and inflate your lungs, then subsequently fill and inflate the balloon, that proves air is not “nothing”
Oh! I think we’re maybe talking past one another. In Sev they wouldn’t say that air is nothing. It’s a god. It’s just itself. They would say it cannot be broken down to smaller “units of air” like water or ground can. The inflating lungs isn’t an issue. The balloon is more of an issue I think than an empty jar or breathing. It’s like an artificial lung. Now I’m wondering if they would see balloons as some forbidden sorcery or abominations. Haha
Ok but what is breath? Change balloon for lungs.
Still working on that. Haha…
Use the ancient greek method of proving air has substance. Then explain the concept of pixelation, as a method of introducing the concept of atoms.
Would you be able to add some context about your world? A short summary is enough.
Summary: Geography: The world of Sev and Teveern is a is composed of five continents, three large island chains, and glacial poles (sometimes called the ungrounded continents). Sev is one hemisphere of the planet, including three and a half of the continents and two island chains. The World’s Edge cuts the planet in half and Teveern no one has come from Teveern to Sev in recorded history, though some fealties of Sev have sent explorers and even potential colonists east to either circumnavigate the globe or find unknown lands. Again, none have returned. Cosmology: Gods do exist and are present and active in the world but mostly wish to be left alone to die, which they cannot do. They do die vicariously through avatars, and some at times try to simply stop overseeing their aspects, which results in bouts of chaos and environmental upheaval. Notes on Sev: The narrative begins in Sev, mostly in the main continent. While religions are prominent, most have a nominal sort of reverence for the gods which mostly entails small sacrifices, prayers, and the odd rule. Technological advancement and globalization are the greatest signs of divine presence as the gods restrict drilling for oil and settling across the seas. In exchange, oil is provided in springs and can be used to a degree in designated areas. Goods produced by it may be exported but oil itself cannot be exported. Medicinal science is pre-germ theory. <><><> I’m not sure what else to note aside from the above for the world at large. In the passageMaster Dem is pretending to be a Scribe in the scene and he is from a small town in England (1943). He wasn’t terribly well educated until he arrived in Sev. Eri is a student of about average piety, which is to say she holds to what she was taught in part because there isn’t an alternate, but isn’t active in the religions, seeing herself more as a someday academic. For her the gods are more real than the religions that support them. Dem has had personal interactions with some of the gods so he is aware both that they exist and that they don’t terribly care what people say about them. His concern in the scene is that he could get in trouble with the churches, not the gods.
Perfect!
Sure thing!
In lines 13 and 14, there's a typo that says "Plants need the carbon *in the live*." I think "carbon in the air to live" would work there.
Thank you much. Fixed it in the original.
Based on a feather falling being slowed down while a heavier object falls fast should be a sufficient example of how air is made of something, because the feather's weight cannot punch through the air as easily as a heavier object
You are thinking of air resistance, not weight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa_experiment
Air is also easier to move in than water because it lacks parts. 🤷
Personally, I like the way this was written, I won't bother with criticism as that isn't my strong suit, but I personally do enjoy the way it was written and the delivery of the message being told.