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black_brook t1_ixe4cp6 wrote

Reply to comment by talossiannights in Ancient Egyptian mummification was never intended to preserve bodies by IslandChillin

Pre-scientific cultures did not distinguish between the symbolic / metaphorical and practical / physical the way we do. To say the reason wasn't this practical thing but instead was this symbolic thing is a modern failure to understand that. One doesn't preclude the other and even treating them as separable is questionable.

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MediumLong2 t1_ixf565j wrote

I think it's a little rude to call them pre-science. They had amazing engineers that could build giant pyramids and move heavy blocks of stone really high up off the ground via a clever system of ramps, pulleys, and possibly slave labor.

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Politirotica t1_ixf78cc wrote

>and possibly slave labor.

I thought the modern understanding was that they most likely weren't slaves?

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Stillcant t1_ixegenc wrote

Can you expand or provide evidence for this? It seems counterintuitive, implying less sophisticated thought, though people were just as intelligent

Wondering how you / anyone could know

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Rylovix t1_ixeluxv wrote

The implication has nothing to do with intelligence. Many religions have believed that the metaphysical is intertwined with the physical world in tangible ways. A perfect example of this is the Greeks. They saw their pantheon as human shaped arbiters but also as vast forces of nature, like war or the seasons. It was a way to relate nature to ourselves, give it a human face that people can petition to for some semblance of control and order in their lives. But specifically they believed that they could speak directly to the gods and the gods could manifest on earth. In this way they did not draw hard lines between the physical and metaphysical, more like lines of who gets where and how.

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BlahjeBlah t1_ixedtc0 wrote

Pre-scientific? What does that even mean? You don’t think Egyptians practiced science?

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wegqg t1_ixeem6b wrote

If you're asking if they followed the scientific method then no.

Pre-scientific communities did not delineate between physical and metaphysical.

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BlahjeBlah t1_ixezx5k wrote

You don’t think they came up with ideas, tested them, and then verified the outcome?

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__SPIDERMAN___ t1_ixf7cy9 wrote

How could you possibly know that? I'd say the fact that they built what they did is more evidence for science based thinking than anything..

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