Chi.: Chikyuu no Undou ni Tsuite

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I love that there's finally a manga about epistemology. I don't know what I'm going to do with this, but still.
 
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It truly is a brilliant piece of work; a journey through astrology, human nature and the pursuit born from one's curiosity accompanied by the challenges brought upon by the status quo these characters lived in and tried to overcome in search of the truth found within 'God's Creation'.

It's definitely one of those stories that leaves you contemplating after reading and after finishing the story.

Truly, a magnificent work of art and philosophical thought under the umbrella of scientific thought.

I thank the translation team for bringing this work into closer reach with us English readers and the author of this manga for crafting such a fine and thought-provoking piece of work.
 
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This looks interesting. I wish the cover would be changed tho so people might be more interested in it. If i havent seen the seven seas post about it, i wouldnt have discovered it
 
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This is a banger! :) If you're reading this, share this manga with your friends nerd!
 
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I've only read the first chapter, but it seems to underplay the enourmous role the Ptolemaic System and Aristotelian thought had in early modern cosmology, and overplay the role of the Catholic church in preserving geocentrism.

Some historical points to make on the topic which may help as we're reading this:

1. The medieval world thought that the center of the cosmos was corrupted with hell in the middle and the earth around it, whereas the heavens were where God dwelled. They did not think that the heavens revolved around the earth because it was special or perfect. Surrounding to isolate and stop the spread of evil would be closer to their view.
Part of the revulsion towards heliocentrism was because it included the heavenly sun in the earth's ignominy. They felt heliocentrism dragged the heavens down to the earth's level.
Modern writers are not often cognizant of this view and sometimes erroneously ascribe geocentrism to some kind of pro-earth chauvinism.

2. Initially the Catholic church was amenable to heliocentrism. Copernicus dedicated his work on heliocentrism to the current pope at the time.

3. Everyone, including Copernicus and Galileo, wrongly assumed spherical rather than the actual elongated orbits, and though the math didn't work well for either model under that assumption, it worked slightly better for the old geocentric model. Particularly for the movement of the moon which actually does orbit the earth, but also the stars which don't orbit either the earth or the sun.

4. The Catholic church only came down on the side of geocentrism after a series of actual scholarly debates between Galileo and Pope Urban VIII, who were former friends. Pope Leo had written a scholarly treatise and as part of the debate Galileo was supposed to refute it. Instead Galileo created an idiot strawman character called "Simpleton" to represent Pope Urban and parrot his claims which he then argued against. Urban was already worried about assassination and court intrigue so this went over about as well as expected. A trial was convened and Galileo was sentenced to house arrest. He was still allowed to go out as long as he didn't leave the city, and was buried in the Basilica of Santa Croce.

5. To my knowledge no scholar was ever tortured, let alone burned at the stake for advocating Copernican heliocentrism. Just as with modern scientific heretics they usually just lost their funding and their university positions.

6. This was only a problem in Catholic Europe. Protestant Europe embraced heliocentrism, although initially because the Catholics rejected it and screw those guys. Which is why Isaac Newton could freely publish "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" just 50 years after Galileo's trial, which provided an explanation for Kepler's laws in terms of universal gravitation and what came to be known as Newton's laws of motion.

Edit after more chapters:
A Polish inquisition in the 1400s would have looked at those documents and just gone "Huh, weird, the sun", and wouldn't have even cared. The only people they were interested in hunting for were proto-Protestant Hussites.

Enjoy this manga as great entertainment (because it is) but don't regard the story or its premise as historical or educational.
 
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I've only read the first chapter, but it seems to underplay the enourmous role the Ptolemaic System and Aristotelian thought had in early modern cosmology, and overplay the role of the Catholic church in preserving geocentrism.

Some historical points to make on the topic which may help as we're reading this:

1. The medieval world thought that the center of the cosmos was corrupted with hell in the middle and the earth around it, whereas the heavens were where God dwelled. They did not think that the heavens revolved around the earth because it was special or perfect. Surrounding to isolate and stop the spread of evil would be closer to their view.
Part of the revulsion towards heliocentrism was because it included the heavenly sun in the earth's ignominy. They felt heliocentrism dragged the heavens down to the earth's level.
Modern writers are not often cognizant of this view and sometimes erroneously ascribe geocentrism to some kind of pro-earth chauvinism.

2. Initially the Catholic church was amenable to heliocentrism. Copernicus dedicated his work on heliocentrism to the current pope at the time.

3. Everyone, including Copernicus and Galileo, wrongly assumed spherical rather than the actual elongated orbits, and though the math didn't work well for either model under that assumption, it worked slightly better for the old geocentric model. Particularly for the movement of the moon which actually does orbit the earth, but also the stars which don't orbit either the earth or the sun.

4. The Catholic church only came down on the side of geocentrism after a series of actual scholarly debates between Galileo and Pope Urban VIII, who were former friends. Pope Leo had written a scholarly treatise and as part of the debate Galileo was supposed to refute it. Instead Galileo created an idiot strawman character called "Simpleton" to represent Pope Urban and parrot his claims which he then argued against. Urban was already worried about assassination and court intrigue so this went over about as well as expected. A trial was convened and Galileo was sentenced to house arrest. He was still allowed to go out as long as he didn't leave the city, and was buried in the Basilica of Santa Croce.

5. To my knowledge no scholar was ever tortured, let alone burned at the stake for advocating Copernican heliocentrism. Just as with modern scientific heretics they usually just lost their funding and their university positions.

6. This was only a problem in Catholic Europe. Protestant Europe embraced heliocentrism, although initially because the Catholics rejected it and screw those guys. Which is why Isaac Newton could freely publish "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" just 50 years after Galileo's trial, which provided an explanation for Kepler's laws in terms of universal gravitation and what came to be known as Newton's laws of motion.

Edit after more chapters:
A Polish inquisition in the 1400s would have looked at those documents and just gone "Huh, weird, the sun", and wouldn't have even cared. The only people they were interested in hunting for were proto-Protestant Hussites.

Enjoy this manga as great entertainment (because it is) but don't regard the story or its premise as historical or educational.
This isn't entirely true. As you've hopefully finished the manga by now you should see it actually is rather faithful to characteristics of history as we know.

Your first point it detailed out in the second act.

To your second and fifth points you are correct and, in fact, the inquisition itself was a vehicle for the distribution of science and new ideas. Copernicus himself was actually sponsored, in a sense, by the church and died in good standing. The church didnt take a stance against Copernicanism until 1616 which you talk about in your fourth point, but it's worth noting Galileo's work wasnt banned solely because of his poor attitude and tendency to call people sheep. The church had a panel of experts review his work and, partially due to his adherence that Kepler was wrong, which turned out to be false, as well as worries his work was theologically erroneous it was banned. The political motive was certainly there, but the church had reason to believe he was both rude, AND wrong.

Now the educational aspects of the manga are pretty ubiquitous.
1. The ancient greek philosophers and their work mentioned, like aristarchus of samos, heracleides etc are all both real and accurate.
2. The discovery (by Galileo) of the phases of Venus was one of the key pieces of evidence against geocentrism.
3. The church sponsored scientific pursuits.
4. Many of the practices of the inquisition depicted, while theatricized, were also accurate. They did make accused wear monk habits and shackles on trial. They tended to show up unannounced after anonymous tips. They allowed accused to confess in exchange for simply releasing them. They did torture heretics.
This is where most of the inaccuracies also lie. The inquisition didn't torture until a person was convicted of heresy, which was a lot harder than most media make it out to be, and only did so until the 'heretic' agreed to convert. They also never executed anyone. This one is shocking to most people but if the inquisition got to the point of convicting someone as an unrepentant heretic they gave them to the local government to decide what to do with them. Only 2-7% of those resulted in death sentences and usually they just had to bear crosses, go to house arrest or prison, or be exiled.

This is just to say that the story can be regarded as very educational once you see most characters and situations are representations of historical events and not direct depictions of events themselves.
 
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this was difficult to go through. the expositions and dialogues packed like sardines thrown between murders did not help.
if you don't like seeing characters die like dogs it's something you have to get ready when reading this.

warning, heavy spoilers of the ending.

i'm seriously confused about the last character, his design (and off several others persons of his storyline) has ties with past dead characters yet his past storyline (and theirs) don't match at all, he's trained by a scholar that looks identical and has the same name as the first main character, who dies 10 years younger than shown (and is then burnt at the stake) thus is gone far too soon to teach him and murder his father, let alone that 20+ year gap mentioned by the inquisitor..
On top off that draka, the most survival oriented, motivated character dying in such a depressing manner, only for her courier pigeon to be sent off to someone who doesn't live to that destination anymore and to be "overheard" by the last MC... pardon me but who was it sent to? who was that guy? how did the bird know where to go and where did she pick it up? it literally appears out of thin air as they try to escape.

as for the priest/scholar who motivates him to enter the university... who the fuck is he? how am i supposed to know what he did before and who did he betray, the guy who allowed yolanda to escape, is he kolbe or Potoki?
i've had numerous issues keeping track of who was tied to whom for what reason through the story because the character design is hard to memorize. only the women were memorable (there's two, it helps lol).
 
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Dec 9, 2024
Messages
1
this was difficult to go through. the expositions and dialogues packed like sardines thrown between murders did not help.
if you don't like seeing characters die like dogs it's something you have to get ready when reading this.

warning, heavy spoilers of the ending.

i'm seriously confused about the last character, his design (and off several others persons of his storyline) has ties with past dead characters yet his past storyline (and theirs) don't match at all, he's trained by a scholar that looks identical and has the same name as the first main character, who dies 10 years younger than shown (and is then burnt at the stake) thus is gone far too soon to teach him and murder his father, let alone that 20+ year gap mentioned by the inquisitor..
On top off that draka, the most survival oriented, motivated character dying in such a depressing manner, only for her courier pigeon to be sent off to someone who doesn't live to that destination anymore and to be "overheard" by the last MC... pardon me but who was it sent to? who was that guy? how did the bird know where to go and where did she pick it up? it literally appears out of thin air as they try to escape.

as for the priest/scholar who motivates him to enter the university... who the fuck is he? how am i supposed to know what he did before and who did he betray, the guy who allowed yolanda to escape, is he kolbe or Potoki?
i've had numerous issues keeping track of who was tied to whom for what reason through the story because the character design is hard to memorize. only the women were memorable (there's two, it helps lol).

this was difficult to go through. the expositions and dialogues packed like sardines thrown between murders did not help.
if you don't like seeing characters die like dogs it's something you have to get ready when reading this.

warning, heavy spoilers of the ending.

i'm seriously confused about the last character, his design (and off several others persons of his storyline) has ties with past dead characters yet his past storyline (and theirs) don't match at all, he's trained by a scholar that looks identical and has the same name as the first main character, who dies 10 years younger than shown (and is then burnt at the stake) thus is gone far too soon to teach him and murder his father, let alone that 20+ year gap mentioned by the inquisitor..
On top off that draka, the most survival oriented, motivated character dying in such a depressing manner, only for her courier pigeon to be sent off to someone who doesn't live to that destination anymore and to be "overheard" by the last MC... pardon me but who was it sent to? who was that guy? how did the bird know where to go and where did she pick it up? it literally appears out of thin air as they try to escape.

as for the priest/scholar who motivates him to enter the university... who the fuck is he? how am i supposed to know what he did before and who did he betray, the guy who allowed yolanda to escape, is he kolbe or Potoki?
i've had numerous issues keeping track of who was tied to whom for what reason through the story because the character design is hard to memorize. only the women were memorable (there's two, it helps lol).
Yeah the ending kinda sucks why the fuck dos thet made a charater identical to Rafal just add an e he fucking died poisoned and then we're burnt


I kinda rushed my lecture and didn't gave the best of attention but there was a priest a colleague of Badeni that found things written on the heads of the homeless, did he wrote the book cause then it had other time skip

I hope the anime change the ending, it can end with Draka , but I am sure the part with the church burning will happen because of appears on the opening
 

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