Let us observe the Antikythera mechanism. It is made up of interdependent gears activated by a hand crank and thereby calculates and predicts certain astronomical phenomena shown on circular dials by rotating pointers. The whole complexity of it is contained in a box. In other words, the mechanism is a closed, self-contained system.[ii] Unlike modern computers, it is not connected to another such system or to external flows of data. In fact, interconnectivity to external flows of data is the raison d’être of modern computers. A free-standing computer not connected to the larger and ever growing network has no purpose; it is an absurdity. Unlike the Antikythera mechanism, a modern electronic computer must not only be fed with external data sent by other, similar machines connected to it (the World Wide Web), it also needs to spit out its own data back into the wider world of data. Their Ancient Greek analog counterpart needed no such openness.
What this implies is at the core of our argument. The Antikythera mechanism with its self-contained and self-sufficient system is a reproduction, at the scale of a hand-held box, of the cosmos as the Ancients saw it. In fact, on seeing it operating, one is immediately reminded of Plato’s cosmography described in the Timaeus (32c-35b on the self-sufficient world and its circular movement; 35c-36d on the numbers). His is a closed cosmos, self-standing, self-contained, self-moving and self-sufficient, divided along arithmetic proportions and beauty. It is as if Archimedes had condensed Plato and Aristotle into a single mechanical device. The cyclical movement of both the physical cosmos and of the pointers of its hand-held reproduction, the rotation of the ecliptic always returning upon itself creates a world resting in stability and harmony. It is also quite worthy to note that this situation had a correspondence in the polis as well as in the individual man (cf. the Republic): the person was made of a body and soul. The latter’s movements, when healthy, were in tune with the rotations of the cosmos.
