Parmenides and Zeno

(Originally written August 12, 2015)

The Classical Mind
W.T. Jones
1980

The first physicists and cosmologists to use the new geometric method of deductive reasoning from self-evident starts found their logical conclusions clashed with real world experience and the problem of perception was born.

Parmenides was consumed with the problem of change.

Parmenides started with monism and added two tautologies:
1. What is, is
2. What is not, is not.

What is not, is not means that there is no nothing. 'Nothing' is essentially a meaningless word. His reasoning for this is that it is impossible to think of nothing. [FUTURE MODERN ANCIENT GREEKS - "Nothingness Bar, where it's truly possible to think of nothing" side effects may include, write an exceptionally long list]

From his two self-evident tautologies he declare that what is, is uncreated, indestructible, eternal and unchangeable.

1. It is uncreated because it was either created out of nothing or something. It can't be created out of nothing because nothing does not exist. It can't be created out of something because as a monist there is only one something.

2. It is indestructible because to destroy it would make it become nothing. There is no nothing.

3. It is eternal because 1+2

4. It is unchangeable because a) monism and b) if it changed into something new the old thing would be nothing. There is no nothing.

Zeno's Paradoxes

1. Motion is impossible. Before you go some place you must go half-way there. These half-ways there are infinite in number. It's impossible to go distances of an infinite number. Therefore, motion is impossible.

2. Achilles and the Tortoise

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
1974

Heraclitus - Everything Changes
Parmenides - Nothing Changes

Parmenides
-from Elea, Southern Italy
-circa 5th century B.C.
-met with Socrates circa 450 B.C.
-invented metaphysics based on logic
-senses are deceptive
-the multitude of things is an illusion
-had two strands of thought 1) way of truth 2) way of opinion

Way of truth - can't think about nothing, there is no nothing. No becoming, no passing away

Thought and language require objects outside themselves

"Parmenides maintains that not only must George Washington have existed in the past, but in some sense he must still exist since we can use his name significantly" (Russell, 49).

Parmenides argument: if a word can be used significantly it must mean something, not nothing. Therefore, the meaning of the word must have some existence.

Parmenides' argument relies on unchanging meaning of words.

Because of the continual 'existence' that words guarantee, there is really no past. Since there is no past, there is no change.

Early Greek Philosophy
Jonathan Barnes
2001

"What can be said and be thought of must be; for it can be, and nothing cannot" (Barnes, 81).

He warned against the senses and extolled man not to let habit and experience force you to trust the senses.

What is, is un-generated and indestructible. No past, no future, always is.

"Thinking and a thought that it is are the same thing" (Barnes, 83). [FUTURE MODERN ANCIENT GREEKS - the concept behind the Parmenidean Engine]
"Parmenides was the first to declare that the earth is spherical and lies in the middle of the universe - Diogenes Laertius" (Barnes, 89).