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Cultural Roots of Technology: an Interdisciplinary Study of Automated Systems from the Antiquity to the Renaissance

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Cultural Roots of Technology: an Interdisciplinary Study of Automated Systems from the Antiquity to the Renaissance UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO FACOLTÀ DI SCIENZE MATEMATICHE, FISICHE E NATURALI DIPARTIMENTO DI INFORMATICA E COMUNICAZIONE SCUOLA DI DOTTORATO DI RICERCA IN INFORMATICA CICLO XXIII TESI DI DOTTORATO DI RICERCA CULTURAL ROOTS OF TECHNOLOGY: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF AUTOMATED SYSTEMS FROM THE ANTIQUITY TO THE RENAISSANCE INF/01 NADIA AMBROSETTI TUTOR: Ch. mo Prof. GIANFRANCO PRINI DIRETTORE DELLA SCUOLA: Ch. mo Prof. ERNESTO DAMIANI ANNO ACCADEMICO 2009/2010 muta cantare, insensata vivere, immobilia moveri Cassiodorus, Variae, I, 45, 10 Contents 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 5 1.1 Literature Review .................................................................................................................. 5 1.1.1 Monographic Studies ..................................................................................................... 5 1.1.2 General Studies ............................................................................................................ 10 1.2 Research Question Definition ............................................................................................. 13 1.2.1 What is an Automaton? ................................................................................................ 14 1.2.2 Automata Features and Need for Classification .......................................................... 17 1.2.3 Historical Period Definition ......................................................................................... 20 1.2.4 Method ......................................................................................................................... 21 1.2.5 Facing Cross-Historical, and Interdisciplinary Comparison Issues ............................. 22 1.2.6 Representing behavior and design principles: animation vs. UML ............................. 23 2 Automated Systems from the Antiquity to the Renaissance ...................................................... 25 2.1 The Myth of Ancient Egyptian Automata ........................................................................... 25 2.2 The Greek World ................................................................................................................. 27 2.2.1 The Golden Age Theme: αὐηόκαηνο βίνο .................................................................... 28 2.2.2 Automata in Greek Mythology and Literature ............................................................. 34 2.2.3 Philosophy and Automata ............................................................................................ 42 2.2.4 Oracles ......................................................................................................................... 48 2.3 The ―Thauma Connection‖: from Alexandria to the Roman Empire .................................. 48 2.3.1 Antikythera................................................................................................................... 49 2.3.2 The school of Alexandria ............................................................................................. 49 2.3.3 The Pervasive Technology of the Roman Age ............................................................ 77 2.4 Early and Late Middle Ages ................................................................................................ 84 2.4.1 China ............................................................................................................................ 84 2.4.2 Byzantium .................................................................................................................... 89 2.4.3 Arabo-Islamic World ................................................................................................... 96 2.4.4 Europe ........................................................................................................................ 124 2.5 The Renaissance ................................................................................................................ 165 2.5.1 From East to West ...................................................................................................... 165 2.5.2 Pneumatics and Automata Manuscripts ..................................................................... 165 2.5.3 Designed Automata .................................................................................................... 172 2.5.4 Attributed Automata .................................................................................................. 177 2.5.5 Imagined Automata .................................................................................................... 184 3 2.5.6 On the Shoulders of the Giants: the Translations Wave ............................................ 190 2.5.7 Late Renaissance Automata ....................................................................................... 192 2.5.8 From the Courts to the Gardens and Chambers ......................................................... 194 3 Classification Issues ................................................................................................................. 209 4 The Automaton Meme ............................................................................................................. 212 4.1 Meme and memetics .......................................................................................................... 212 4.2 Memetics and History of Culture ...................................................................................... 213 4.3 Survival of the Automaton Meme ..................................................................................... 214 4.4 Our Study .......................................................................................................................... 216 4.4.1 Foreword .................................................................................................................... 216 4.4.2 Building a Binary Table ............................................................................................. 217 4.4.3 Building a Distance Matrix ........................................................................................ 217 4.4.4 Generation of the Philogenetic Tree .......................................................................... 218 4.4.5 Main issues of the Automaton Philomemetic Tree .................................................... 220 5 Conclusions and Future Work.................................................................................................. 223 5.1 Goals of the Thesis ............................................................................................................ 223 5.2 Conclusions and Contributions of this Thesis ................................................................... 223 5.2.1 Sources Collection and Study .................................................................................... 223 5.2.2 Modeling and Classification ...................................................................................... 228 5.2.3 Evolutionary Study .................................................................................................... 229 5.3 Future Work ...................................................................................................................... 232 6 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 232 7 References ................................................................................................................................ 233 4 1 Introduction People (and scholars) have been fascinated by automata since Antiquity: automata have often been related to the idea of creation, suggesting that man could build another being, though artificial, by means of his competence and knowledge, forcing or imitating natural laws. Human interest about automata however seems not to be constant along the centuries: we witness an increase in the number of studies, and quotations, mainly in periods in which big and rapid technological development is in action, while in technological stagnation periods, references inevitably decrease. This study covers the part of the automata history that ranges from the Antiquity to the Renaissance, due to the strong interdependence of design and content, recurring during the considered centuries, as it will be more widely discussed in 1.2.3. 1.1 Literature Review A main question must firstly be faced, related to the word used to refer to automata. The etymology of the term passes through the Latin automatus, transliteration of the Greek adjective αὐηφκαηνο, coming from the determinative adjective αὐηὸο (self) and the verbal adjective καηὸο (having in mind, acting) 1. It was at first used to refer to any event or human behaviour that was spontaneous, without external intervention; only later, during the Hellenism, its use was extended to those mechanical devices, which perform, after a user‘s input, a finite number of default actions, typically, but not necessarily in a periodic sequence. It follows that in classical literature we find the words automatus / αὐηφκαηνο (and derived) used in contexts where no automata are involved (Homer, Ilias, II 408; Hesiod, Works and Days, 102-105; Aristophanes, Acharnians 976; Petronius, Satyricon, L and CXL), and, on the other side, we have descriptions of automata, where the term is not present (Homer, Ilias, XVIII 468-473; Odyssey,
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