Chapter 64 Twelve Parmenides IV Suspicious Paradoxes

Philosophy in the Age of Greek Tragedy Twelve Parmenides IV Suspicious Paradoxes 12.1 The paradox of denying the senses Another concept, greater in content than that of beings, which Parmenides also discovered, though not as subtly as used by his student Zeno, is the concept of "infinity."There cannot be an infinite being, because in such an assumption would arise the contradictory concept of "a perfect infinite".If our reality, our existing world, has this "perfect infinity" quality everywhere, then, by its very nature, it means a violation of logic, and thus of reality, and is therefore a deception, a lie, a hallucinations.Zeno made special use of the method of indirect proof, for example, saying: "There cannot be motion from one place to another, for if there were such motion there would be perfect infinity, which is impossible. Achilles It is impossible for Rhys (Achilles, the hero in Greek mythology) to catch up with the tortoise who started slightly ahead in the race, because he must have run an infinite distance before reaching the point where the tortoise started, that is to say, he must first finish the section. half the distance, then a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth, and so on to infinity. If he in fact overtook the tortoise, then this is an illogical phenomenon, and it is decided Not truth, reality, real existence, but mere deception. For it is absolutely impossible to exhaust the infinite."

Another popular expression for this theory is "A flying arrow doesn't move".At each instant of its flight the arrow has a position in which it does not move.So, is the sum of an infinite number of rest positions equal to motion?Is stillness, which repeats infinitely, motion and thus its own opposite?Here, infinity is used as nitric acid to dissolve reality.But if the concept is fixed, permanent, existing (for Parmenides, being and thinking occur simultaneously), that is, if the infinite can never be perfected, if the static can never become For motion, then, the truth is that the arrow does not fly at all, it does not shift at all, it does not come out of rest, and time does not pass.In other words, there is neither time, nor space, nor movement in this so-called, ultimately fake reality.Finally, even the arrow itself is an illusion, because it comes from the many, from the phantasm of non-one aroused by the senses.Assuming that the arrow has an existence, then it is immobile, timeless, unmade, fixed, eternal--an absurd notion!Assuming that motion is a real reality, then there is no rest, and therefore arrows have no position, no space—an absurd idea!Assuming that time is real, it cannot be infinitely divided, and the time required for the flight of an arrow must consist of a finite number of instants, each of which must be an atom—an absurd idea!

All our notions fall into contradiction as long as their empirically derived content, derived from this intuitive world, is taken as "eternal truth" (veritas aeterna).If there is absolute motion, there will be no space; if there is absolute space, there will be no motion; if there is absolute being, there will be no "many"; if there is absolute "many," there will be no unity. 12.2 Being Is Identical to Thinking Do we feel that such logical thinking reveals that some concepts like the ones above have difficulty getting to the heart of things or untangling the knots of reality?However, Parmenides and Zeno, on the contrary, insisted on the truth and universal validity of concepts, and rejected the intuitive world as the opposite of these concepts, as objectified illogical and paradoxical things.

In all their arguments they start from an entirely unprovable, even improbable, premise: it seems that we have in that conceptual faculty the ability to determine existence and non-existence, objective reality and non-existence. The highest standard of objectivity.It seems that concepts should not be verified and modified against reality (from which they are in fact derived), but rather, concepts should measure and judge reality, and even blame it if it contradicts logic. In order to arrange this jurisdiction for the concept, Parmenides had to attribute to the concept that being which he only regarded as really being.Now, thinking and that one non-becoming, perfect being can no longer be seen as two different kinds of being, because being does not allow duality.Thus, the extremely bold idea of ​​the identity of thinking and being was born.

Here, intuitive forms, symbols, and metaphors are of no avail.This idea is completely unrepresentable, but it is necessary.But it lacks any possibility of sensualization, and it wants to celebrate its supreme victory over the world and sensory requirements.To put all fantasies to shame, according to Parmenides, thinking and that spherical, perfectly solid, inert being must become one and identical.Let the sameness defy the senses!It is this which most effectively insures that it does not come from the senses. 12.3 Questioning the conceptual world In addition, a pair of powerful arguments may be advanced against Parmenides, based on persons or on consensus; The identity of thought is not truth.

First, if rational thinking using concepts is real, then the multisummation movement must also be real, because rational thinking is moving, and it is a movement from concept to concept; movement between realities.There is no excuse for this, it is by no means possible to describe thinking as a dead static, a self-thinking that never moves. Second, if the senses provide only lies and illusions, and in fact there is only the identity of being and thinking, then what is the senses themselves?Obviously, it can only be part of the illusion, because it cannot be equated with thinking, and at the same time, its product (that is, the perceptual world) cannot be completely equal to the illusion.However, if the sense itself is an illusion, then what is the illusion from which it arises?As something unreal, how on earth can it still deceive?What doesn't exist can't lie at all.That is to say, the question of where illusions and illusions come from is always a mystery, even a paradox.

We call these two arguments, respectively, the objection to the workings of reason and the objection to the sources of illusion.From the first it follows that motion and mass are real, from the second that Parmenidean illusion is impossible.Both presuppose that Parmenides' main theory of existence is credible.But this theory simply means: only the existent has a being, the non-existent does not have a being. But if motion is such a being, then what applies to beings in general and in all cases also applies to motion.That is to say, motion is non-becoming, eternal, indestructible, neither increasing nor decreasing.

At the same time, if we deny that the world is an illusion with the help of the question of where the illusion comes from, if we defend the so-called becoming, change-our diverse, endless, and colorful living arena, so that it does not Parmenidean repudiation, then, we must describe this ever-changing world as the sum total of these really existing essences, which exist at the same time throughout eternity. Under the original assumption, there is no room for change or generation in the narrow sense.But now the "many" has a real existence, all qualities have a real existence; so does movement.Moreover, for every moment in this world, even if we randomly choose moments separated by thousands of years, we can certainly say that all the real essences in it are all existing here at the same time, unchanging, indestructible, and non-increasing. no reduction.A thousand years later they remain the same, unchanged.

If, despite all this, the world still looks different from moment to moment, then this is not a trick, nor is it just an illusion, but the result of perpetual motion.Real beings are sometimes moving in this way and sometimes in that way; they are sometimes combined with each other and sometimes separated; sometimes they are upward and sometimes downward;