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by tyg13 1073 days ago
To the contrary: the fact that only one ever was found, to me, suggests that it was the work of one brilliant mind whose work was not understood or continued by their culture.
2 comments

Even if it is a single creator, does it seem realistic that this was the first and only machine they built?
I’ve heard it argued by historians that there were likely to have been multiple prototypes of the antykythera mechanism, but each one was recycled to produce the next.
>each one was recycled to produce the next.

This could lend itself to the idea that one person made it, and if nothing whatsoever like it had ever come before you have to figure it took an awfully long time for one person to create something this complicated single-handedly.

Could be a number of years between iterations in a continuous improvement process that adds up to something like a life's work.

Maybe also could be passed down to a subsequent individual like a very specialized craft, and build technology across generations.

Given the tech that is the product of multiple major breakthroughs, I'd rate that to be doubtful.

While I don't think that the following implies that robots existed, to my above point recall that Talos of Greek Myth is a robot.

Which does imply that the concept of such tech was shared across the entire culture. Which, in turn, suggests that related tech is less likely to be the product of one mind.

Literally the entire SF genre is based around creating stories of things we’re unable to create.

Extrapolating automatons only requires having basic concepts of mechanical automation, which the Greeks very much had.

The idea of space flight predates powered flight by centuries.