I knew all but 3, 4, and 7. Most of these were biology or chemistry related, and those are the main subjects I study in college. :)

Well, sometimes there's a third option. Captain Kirk does it all the time. :P

I wonder if any of these are used in modern pharmaceuticals. I imagine the more dangerous ones aren't, but it seems that maybe extracting the DNA that codes for the production of the active chemicals in these plants and inserting them into bacterial producers would be a cheap way to provide birth control and morning after pills.

He hilariously bluffed the USSR with the Star Wars Defense system. I think that counts for something. :P

I really liked this list. I got chills reading some of the entries. I thought that it sort of petered out towards the end, though; the speeches that were most goosebump-inducing for me were 10, 9, 8, 6, and 5.

I totally want to stay in the library hotel! I love rooms full of books. :)

I certainly don't view the ancient sages as cavemen. In fact, I am in awe of the atomists for discovering empirical truth through reason alone, though they were not right about everything, of course. I find it very interesting and uplifting to observe that humans are such rational creatures even in the absence of scientific knowledge.

I do realize that they saw the world differently. It is difficult for me to view the world through the same eyes they viewed it through because I have been trained to view the world a certain way, I have knowledge that contradicts their worldview, and I think that my personality simply isn't very fanciful. I do attempt to view their ideas from a logical standpoint, though, and they often were more justified in believing wrong things that we have since found evidence to contradict. I think that was one of the main points that this article conveys.

I simply don't see the logic in viewing the world in a spiritual manner. I don't see any evidence for the existence of souls, so I'm inclined to think that we don't have them. I can understand the emotion associated with transcendent experience, as all people are capable of experiencing that emotion, so I can understand what emotion many of the ancient philosophers were feeling when they talked about celestial fire or the apeiron, but I don't think that spirituality in the sense of attributing great significance to faith-based claims is a necessary part of what it is to be human. Many humans make it a part of themselves, but that in itself does not mean that it must be so.

I suppose on that last point we will simply have to agree to disagree. I don't expect to sway you. In my experience, philosophical and spiritual discussions rarely come to a consensus. :)

1) I would argue (and have argued in a paper) that Anaximenes is primarily an empiricist. He isn't listed here, but he is a presocratic philosopher and a descendant of Thales' ideology. Thales seems to be using his own observations when he states that the principle of all things is water. He notices that water tends to come from things and that things tend to come from water. He does not have the tools to examine much more deeply than that. I would say that most of them, particularly those interested in "saving appearances", as my teachers put it, are more concerned, or at least equally as concerned, with the physical world than/as with the spiritual.

Some certainly have spirituality mixed into their ideas, such as Heraclitus (if I remember correctly), who talked about celestial fire. Others, like Parmenides, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Zeno, etc. tend to operate more in the vein of rationalism. Their methodology might be something like meditation. Not all of the Presocratics think the same, though.

2) I may be reading into it too far, as I am taking two classes this semester that look at the Presocratics. I probably saw the hint of what my teachers went into greater depth about and then immediately thought that the author was doing the same.

3/4) I don't tend to think in spiritual terms, so maybe that's part of why I don't really see anything wrong with this. I can think in terms of philosophy and science, and the combination of the two, but I'm not a spiritual person, so I'm not very good at incorporating it into my thoughts. Frankly, some of the Presocratics don't seem particularly spiritual, either. Thales is hard to tell, but he seems more interested in explaining physical reality than spiritual transcendence. While Melissus is a rationalist and his views do not line up with the appearance of reality (being essentially the same as Parmenides' views), he does not seem to inject a lot of spiritualism into his philosophy.

5) I suppose to repeat and clarify what I have said above, I would say that some of them are scientists and philosophers and mystics, while some are missing one or two of those. I'm not an expert on Presocratics by any means, but some of them seemed to focus more on science and philosophy, while others are philosophers and mystics. Some are a mixture of the three.

I personally would also argue that whether they are mystics or not does not have any bearing on the importance of their ideas. Using mysticism to come to "truth" tends to not work very well. There is no justification through mysticism, and justification is a central idea in both science and philosophy. Even Thales attempted to justify his ideas, though, like most men of the time, his justifications were not very sound.

I think the point of all this should be that our knowledge of science was minimal and our grasp on logic still maturing in early Ancient Greece, so things that seemed logical were in fact good starting points, but were bound to be superseded by clearer rational formulations and better empirical evidence.

Actually, that idea didn't catch on until it was suggested by Semmelweiss, in the 1800's.

The list addresses the fact that they based their theories on their observations, but that their observations were limited/flawed, which I think is an important point to make. I would say that that provision does a good job of avoiding the modern interpretation, as the list writer attempts to address the ideas as people would view them in that time. The fact that there are some flaws in the ideas is important, though, as truth is important.

As to the spirituality of the men on the list, it isn't strongly emphasized, but particularly in the entry on Pythagoras, his view that "all is number" is given a spiritual cast. I don't know if I'd consider the spiritual aspects of the ideas important to the context of the list. The list is focused on scientific ideas. Insofar as these men are scientists, they made flawed hypotheses based on flawed observations.

Also, spirituality does not preclude philosophy. I study philosophy and not only is the department combined with the religious studies department, but religion is an oft-mentioned topic in classes and club meetings.