Three Guys from Miletus
—a mini play
(At the home of Thales and his wife)
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THALES: (Sitting, reading a paper titled
The Miletus World News, 585 B.C.
) What are you doing, honey?
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WIFE: Nothing (as she tinkers with some sticks and cloth).
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THALES: Doesn’t look like nothing to me. Looks like you’re making something.
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WIFE: Oh, it’s really nothing, dear. (We hear a crack of thunder and see a pulse of bright light.)
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THALES: This weather is really beginning to get on my nerves.
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WIFE: I know. I pray to Zeus every day for it end.
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THALES: Don’t waste your time. Zeus is only an old shepherd’s tale. There are no gods.
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WIFE: Do you really think so?
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THALES: I know so. We’re much more sophisticated in the world today.
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WIFE: Well, if there aren’t any gods, where did the sky, the earth, the plants and animals . . . all this . . . you and me . . . where did it all come from?!! Nothing?!!
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THALES: Don’t be ridiculous. Any fool knows that something cannot come from nothing.
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WIFE: Yes. . . I’m waiting. What’s the something then?
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THALES: Well, the water, of course. The first element of which all things are made.
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WIFE: Water?
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THALES: Water.
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ANAXIMENES: (Entering soaking wet from the rain outside) I beg to differ, Thales. Don’t you mean the air?
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THALES: Don’t you ever knock? And no, I most certainly do not mean the air. It’s water. That’s the first element. The one you appear to be drenched in at the moment.
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ANAXIMENES: Oh this, this is what you mean (wringing his garment)? This is simply condensed air.
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WIFE: Let me take that for you, Anaximenes. I’ll hang it over here by the fire to dry.
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ANAXIMENES: And that (pointing to the fire) is simply rarefied air.
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THALES: And the mud you’ve gotten all over my newly tiled floor, I suppose that’s air, too?
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ANAXIMENES: (Proudly) Super condensed air!
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THALES: (Under his breath) What an air-head, stupid idiot.
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ANAXIMANDER: (Knocks and enters, having overheard Thales last statement) Calm yourself, friend, our young philosopher has a point—not the right point, mind you, but a point just the same.
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WIFE: Good evening, Anaximander. (Handing him a cup of wine) Here, this will warm you up.
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ANAXIMANDER: Good evening my dear lady, and thank you. (Looking at her cloth and sticks) What are you making?
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WIFE: Well, if you really want to know, I had an idea to . . .
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THALES: (Annoyed and cutting his wife off) So you’ll tell old Anaxi’ what you’re doing, but not me, heh?
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WIFE: (Nodding to Anaximander, resigned) It’s nothing really.
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THALES: Nothing . . . that’s how this argument started in the first place, isn’t it?
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WIFE: The only one I see arguing is you! Anyone tries to express an idea and you jump all over them . . . water, air . . . who cares what the first element is anyway? If you really don’t believe in the gods anymore, what difference does it make? Or do you plan on praying to thin air from here on in?
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THALES: (Sarcastically) Thin water perhaps.
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ANAXIMENES: (Embarrassed) Well, I guess I’d better be going.
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WIFE: (Consoling) You’ll do no such thing. Don’t mind him (nodding toward her husband). I’m interested in hearing what you have to say even if my husband is behaving like a tyrant. Besides, your cloak is still wet. So . . . you think that everything that exists is made up of air?
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ANAXIMENES: Yes ma’am . . . everything starts with air . . . water, fire, earth . . . everything.
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THALES: Nonsense. Everything is made up of water! Look at what happens near water. Animals and people drink it, plants grow because of it. And water can change form. It can get cold and turn into ice or hot and turn into vapor, and the ice can melt and the vapor can turn into droplets of . . . (again, sarcastically) let’s see . . . what are we talking about? . . . Water!!!
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ANAXIMENES: (Enthusiastically) But that’s only because it’s all really air in the first place, either packed tightly or spread out very thin (checking himself) . . . uh . . . sir.
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ANAXIMANDER: Hmm. Interesting ideas. But perhaps this world is only one of many worlds . . . worlds that are born and die in something I like to call “the boundless.”
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THALES: The boundless? (Nodding towards his wife) No more wine for Anaximander.
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ANAXIMANDER: The boundless. That substance that comes before and remains after all things have come and gone.
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THALES: (Sarcastically) Oh,
that
boundless.
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WIFE: Well, I’m finished (holds up her creation). And now I think I’ll take a walk.
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THALES: Are you crazy? It’s pouring out there.
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WIFE: That’s why I made this (opening up her makeshift umbrella), a protection from the rain. While you were all so busy nitpicking over your chicken-or-the-egg theories of the first element, I decided to do something useful. (She leaves the house.)
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THALES: (Exasperated) Women.
In the case of Thales—who accurately predicted a solar eclipse in 585 B.C. and believed the source for all things to be water—his early views are not so far removed from the following excerpt from “The Circulation of the Atmosphere and Oceans” (Chapter Five,
Global Environmental Change
by Dr. Turekian, page 87):
“The atmosphere and the oceans are both fluids. The absorption and release of heat from the sun drives the movement of each of these fluids on Earth. The oceans and the atmosphere are in intimate contact and influence each other’s behavior. The oceans, with their large reservoir of heat, tend to control the temperature of the air. The winds, on the other hand, control the circulation of the surface oceans. Both the atmosphere and the oceans respond to the differences in heat delivery from the sun seasonally and with latitude.”
Students will be introduced to Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) who was born in Macedonia, but lived in Athens. Aristotle believed that the human soul was a reflection of the natural world or that people basically learned to think and feel through the senses (sight, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling). He thought that each aspect of nature had
substance
, which simply meant that it was made up of something. And that each thing had
form
, which meant that it did something; it functioned. From these ideas, he felt that the changes that happened in nature were accomplished by the transformation of substances from possible or potential forms to actual forms, and that there were four causes that changed or transformed nature: material (its substance), efficient (conditions that affect it), formal (what it does) and final (purpose or reason for existing). This became the nature of scientific reasoning today, although we no longer look to science to understand the purpose or reasons for the existence of the universe and nature.
Chart Demonstration:
Referring to their Science text,
Exploring Planet Earth,
students will be instructed to draw and label a chart (using large white sheets and color markers) depicting the water cycle. The labeling must also include:
Material Cause, Efficient Cause, Formal Cause,
and
Final Cause
(the latter will, of course, be a product of the student’s imagination). They will also present their work to the class. An example is given below:
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MATERIAL CAUSE (Substances): Water and Sunlight exist
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EFFICIENT CAUSE (Conditions that affect water): Sun provides energy that causes water to
evaporate
(go from a liquid state to a gas) and rises high into the atmosphere where the gas (or vapor) forms into clouds.
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FORMAL CAUSE (The nature of water to fall and flow back to the ocean): When the gas particles cool, they
condense
into liquid form and fall as rain, or
precipitate
. They can also fall in solid form as snow or hail. The water that falls to Earth will return to the ocean at some point. Sometimes water soaks into the ground and comes up again in springs; this water flows into rivers and gets carried back to the ocean. Sometimes the water that is soaked into the ground stays there as ground water, which moves directly into the ocean.
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FINAL CAUSE: Water’s purpose is intended to support life on Earth (among some other things)
