The human illusion of postulates

The impact of postulates on the human mind has never been wholly understood throughout human history. Almost every thinker tries to use more or less postulates to “start his thoughts.” Usually, those postulates reflect some “fundamental self-confirmed and ever-correct categories.”

In other words,

The example of Ptolemy is good because it shows that way of thinking. Ptolemy had no physical proof or evidence to support his point of view. Therefore, he proposed that “the Earth is located at the center of the universe.” That postulate led him immediately to another suggestion that the Earth cannot move because all things “move around a given center.” Therefore, the Earth cannot move because Ptolemy needs that point of view to use it in his further speculations. In other words, Ptolemy proposed a postulate-based theory (or point of view).

In Ptolemy’s case, his theory seemed correct to the majority of the population. However, it had an embedded problem that remained unexplained throughout its usage.

Fig. 1. Planetary loop example

It comes from observation of planetary motion in the sky. According to Ptolemy’s theory, planets make revolutions around the Earth by celestial spheres. The origin of those spheres is left unexplained by the theory. They “exist” and carry planets on them. Moreover, those spheres keep planets attached to them on the “celestial equator.”

Fig. 2. Ptolemy celestial sphere

However, observing planetary motion in the sky leads to the conclusion that some “celestial spheres” make “some other motion” instead of straight uniform rotation.

In that case, a “celestial sphere” should change its axis of rotation synchronously by changing the direction of its rotation back and forth. For example, the axis should make a continuous inclination from A1 to Ax and back to A1. After such “unusual changes,” the sphere restores its “original uniform motion.” Moreover, such “strange changes” show some periodical appearance that does not match the year. As a result, Ptolemy “just threw those aspects aside” of his theory as a little unexplainable thing of his “great theory” that does not need any explanation of such an “unimportant element.”

Therefore, such way of thoughts can be easily disproved by some aspects that are ever known but look "unimportant" to it. Usually, the destruction of a given postulate-based theory comes from applying a measuring instrument to unknown or unexplained aspects that exist in the theory's scope.

The best example of that way of destruction comes from Galileo Galilei. He was the first to apply a measuring instrument in the form of a telescope (he invented) to observe the sky.