Chapter 67 16 ANAXAGORAS Ⅳ Creative Impulse and Cosmic Game

Philosophy in the Age of Greek Tragedy 16 ANAXAGORAS Ⅳ Creative Impulse and Cosmic Game 16.1 Operational Mechanics Now, even assuming that primordial mix is ​​properly understood, it seems that this grand world-building scheme will at first be questioned by some mechanical workings.That is to say, even if the mind were somewhere to cause a rotational motion, the continuation of this motion would still be extremely difficult to imagine, especially considering that it was originally supposed to be infinite, and should gradually affect all existing matter. We can imagine from the outset that the pressure of all the rest of matter must suppress this feeble rotational motion which has just arisen.This did not happen, presupposing that the mobilizing "nus" suddenly plunged into it with terrible force, so fast that we must in any case call this movement a vortex, just as Democritus also imagined such a vortex. Same.And because this kind of vortex must be infinitely strong, so as not to be blocked by the entire infinite material world pressing on it, it must be infinitely fast, because the strength can only be expressed as speed.The larger the concentric circles, the slower this motion will be; then, if the motion can reach the end of the infinitely extended world, it must have only an infinitesimal rotational speed there.On the contrary, if we imagine that at the beginning, the motion was infinitely large or infinitely fast, then the initial circle must also be infinitely small.In this way, we get a point of rotation as the beginning, and this point has an infinitesimal material content.

However, this point can’t explain the continuous motion at all. We can imagine that the point of all original matter rotates, but all matter is still motionless and unseparated.However, if this point of infinitely small matter dominated and drawn by "Nus" does not rotate itself, but draws out an arbitrarily determined circle larger than its own body, then this is enough to hit, propel, throw, Bounces off other matter points, and thus gradually creates an active, spreading commotion, in which, as a first result, the separation of the air matter from the ether matter must take place.Just as the beginning of the movement itself is an arbitrary act of "nous", a circle is drawn at the beginning of the movement, and its radius is arbitrarily determined to be larger than a point. Such a property is also arbitrary.

16.2 The Arbitrariness of Art Here, of course, we can ask, what happened to the "Nus" suddenly at that time, so that it was going to hit any small point of matter among the countless points, making it spin and dance, and why this did not happen before.Anaxagoras might have answered the question thus: "Nus has the privilege of choosing at will; he can begin at once at will; he depends only on himself, while everything else is determined by external factors. He is under no obligation." , and therefore has no purpose that it has to pursue. If it once started the movement and set up a purpose for itself, it would be just..."—It is too difficult to finish this sentence!Heraclitus, however, finishes it; "That is," he says, "...a kind of game." It seems that this is the final solution or answer that the Greeks were about to say.The soul of Anaxagoras was an artist, and the most powerful mechanical genius and architectural genius, he created the most magnificent forms and orbits in the simplest way, as if creating a dynamic architectural structure, and After all, this comes from the kind of irrational arbitrariness hidden deep in the artist's instinct.It is as if Anaxagoras pointed to Phidias (ancient Greek sculptor Phidias) facing the giant artwork of the universe, just like facing the Parthenon temple, and shouted: "Becoming is not a moral phenomenon. , but only an artistic phenomenon!"

According to Aristotle, Anaxagoras's answer to the question why human life has value after all is: "To see the firmament and the order of the whole universe." Mystical awe, as we stand before an ancient temple with the same feeling.His teachings became a free-spirited religious discipline which defended itself by "hating and avoiding the irreverent mob," carefully choosing its adherents from among the noblest classes of Athens.In the hidden group of Anaxagoras in Athens, folk mythology was only recognized as a symbolic language, and all myths, gods, and heroes were here only regarded as hieroglyphs with natural meanings, even the Dutch The epic of the horse should also be an ode to the power of the "nus", to the struggle and law of the physis.From time to time, the voice of this lofty free spirit group resounds and reverberates among the people.Especially the great Euripedes, always fearless and innovative, who dared to bring to light through all kinds of tragic masks that which pierces the consciousness of the people like arrows, and the people can only rely on comic imitation. And ridiculous twists to get rid of this stuff.

However, the greatest follower of Anaxagoras was Pericles, the most powerful and strange man in the world.It was about him that Plato testified that only the philosophy of Anaxagoras allowed his genius to take flight.When he stood before his people as a famous orator, graceful and serene as a marble statue of Olympus, calm and self-possessed, in his immovable coat of folds, with the same expression of his face, his stern smile, and his voice always sonorous , is quite different from Demosthenes (ancient Greek statesman and orator Demos B thenes), and speaks in the style of Pericles, like thunder and lightning, as if destroying and saving,——At this time, He is the microcosm of Anaxagoras' universe, the portrait of the "Nus" in whom the "Nus" built for himself the most beautiful and strange house.The spiritual power that builds, moves, distinguishes, sorts, thinks, is full of artistic creativity, and is not determined by the outside world seems to be humanized in him and becomes clearly visible.

Anaxagoras himself said that the mere possession of such a marvelous organ as the hand in man is enough to show that he is the most intelligent being, and must contain "nous" more fully than all other beings. .From this he infers that the "Nus" continually builds for itself instruments of the magnitude of a material body in accordance with the extent and dimensions of a material body in which it occupies; The tool is the most beautiful and most suitable for the purpose. The most wonderful and most purposeful act of the "Nus" must have been that circular primitive movement, for before that the mind was still one.In this way, the effect of Pericles' speech must have often appeared to Anaxagoras, the audience, as a symbolic picture of this circular primitive movement; There is also a thought vortex moving in an orderly manner, which gradually expands, captures and drags away everything near and far with concentric circles, and finally reorganizes the entire country into order.

16.3 Cosmic Games In the eyes of later ancient philosophers, the need to use "nus" to explain the world like Anaxagoras' was a bit grotesque, even almost unforgivable.It seemed to them that he had invented a splendid tool, but could not understand it properly, and they wanted to make up for what had been delayed by the inventor. They do not understand the meaning of the commandment formulated by Anaxagoras in the pure spirit of the method of natural science, which in any case raises the question first of all why something arises (referring to its effective cause causa efficiens), rather than why something exists (referring to its ultimate cause causa finalis).Anaxagoras only used "nus" to answer the specific question: "Whence comes motion?" things: that all things are most beautiful, best, and most purposeful when they are in their own place in their own way.Anaxagoras, however, would have dared not apply this claim to any particular case; in his view, the existing world was by no means the most perfect world imaginable, for he saw that all things were born of each other, and found that no matter in the full world At the end of the space, or on a single entity, "Nus" has not yet completed the decomposition of the matrix.As far as he knew it, it was quite enough to find a movement which, by simple persistence, could bring about visible order out of an utterly mixed chaos.He carefully avoids mentioning the reasons for the movement, the rational purpose of the movement, and the like.For if the "nous" has a purpose which is necessary by its nature to be achieved by movement, it can no longer begin to move at any time it pleases.And so long as it is eternal, it must also have been permanently subject to this purpose, so that there cannot be a moment when there is no motion, and it is logically forbidden to even assume a beginning for motion.In this way, the idea of ​​primitive chaos, the basis of the entire Anaxagoras worldview, becomes logically impossible.

In order to avoid this difficulty caused by teleology, Anaxagoras must always emphasize and assert most forcefully: the mind is free as it pleases; all its actions, including the act of primitive motion, are of "free will" Behavior, on the other hand, and the rest of the world are formed after this primordial moment in a strictly determined, and mechanically determined, way.That absolutely free will, however, can only be conceived as aimless, of a nature similar to that of a child's play or the playful impulse of an artist when he creates. It would be a mistake to say that Anaxagoras suffered from the confusion of mind that so often happens to teleologists.Amazed by the extraordinary purposiveness, and the harmony of parts and wholes, especially in organisms, the teleologist assumes that whatever exists for the intellect must also be produced by the intellect, and that whatever What he acquires under the guidance of the concept of purpose must also be formed in nature through thinking and the concept of purpose (see Schopenhauer, volume 2, volume 2, chapter 26, on teleology).

For Anaxagoras, on the contrary, the order and purposiveness of things are merely the product of a blind mechanical movement.Moreover, only in order to be able to start this movement, to escape at a certain moment from the dead silence of chaos, Anaxagoras postulates free, self-determining "nus."What he cherishes is the randomness of "nous": because of this characteristic, it can be independent of cause, independent of purpose, and can function without condition and determination. .