Word: democritus
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...debated among the ancient Greeks, until philosophers like Democritus and Plato concluded correctly that the pain-perception center is the brain. Greek scientists found support for this theory by discovering that the brain is connected to a network of two types of nerve fibers, one set controlling motion, the other, sensation. This knowledge was lost in the Middle Ages, and superstition again took hold. Only when taboos against dissection were lifted during the Renaissance did thinkers like Leonardo da Vinci once again understand pain in terms of the nervous system...
...convention there is color, by convention sweetness, by convention bitterness, but in reality there are atoms and space. -Democritus...
...place itself." When he hears Herodotus lecture at the Odeon, Cyrus decides that the Greek historian has concocted a thoroughly slanted account of the so-called Persian Wars and that it is up to him to set the record straight. Because he has gone blind, Cyrus enlists his nephew Democritus as amanuensis. "So make yourself comfortable," he tells the young man. "I have a long memory, and I shall indulge...
...characters by telling what finally happens to them first. Aside from the old man's large memory, Creation is unified by a single irony: Cyrus tells of his search for religious certainty to the person who will one day become an eminent philosopher of materialism. Near the end, Democritus interjects: "Matter is all. All is matter." According to his secretary, then, Cyrus spent his life pursuing phantoms...