Myth, theory and technology of automatic control in ancient Greece

Abstract

Homer, seen from the viewpoint of Technology, reveals an abundance of technological findings and inventions, primitive and contemporary on the one hand, and imaginary concerning the future, on the other. These inventions include descriptions of automata, i.e., machines that move on their own, with internal energy, like living beings. Some of them are the automatic tripods, the adaptive bellows, the female robots of Hephaestus, and the automatic with artificial intelligence ships of Phaeacians. In addition to the introduction of the term `automata', Homer suggests the evolution of machines to automobile machines, to machines with `life'. Such a suggestion constitutes a leap in technology. In this way, Homer challenges the presocratic philosophers to discover the natural `roots' of the self-motion - the fundamental elements that have at their disposal the necessary energy, so as to be able to move by themselves. He also motivates the classical philosophers to investigate the concepts of system, of control, and of feedback. And Homer ends up to the engineers of the Hellenistic period, in order the Homeric automata to be transformed into science and applied technology - the science and the art of making automata, the so-called Automatopoietice.