[Nevermark]

Physics was also philosophy for eons in that theories were on par with hard knowledge about the gods and mermaids.

Most early physic had surprisingly little explanatory or experimental connection to the actual physical world.

But it often made up for that with a solid grounding in popular mythology and the produce of some extraordinary imaginations.

You know, like philosophy!

[thsksbd]

Thats a gross mischaracterization of the ancients.

Anyway, those crazies came up with atomistic theory to explain silly myths.... and ended up explaining phase change as an emergent phenomenon.

[Nevermark]

You are overlooking a lot. Then and today.

The ancients were not just the famous Greek, Roman, Babylonian, Indian and Chinese philosophers, who made progress in reasoning.

Human's across every culture have spun creative explanations for natural phenomena, going back as far as we have any records.

- Why does it rain? How can we make it rain?

- What are the planets? What do their cycles and alignments mean?

- What is an illness? How do we avoid it? Cure it?

Even those philosophers were not immune to this kind of thinking.

Non/Pre-scientific answers to unanswerable questions gave satisfied people’s need for order and gave them hope.

Today, many people still take such answers seriously where there is no science (afterlife, cosmic justice, ...), and even where there is (astrology, crystals, etc.)