ThinkBlog

http://home.ican.net/~arandall/Parmenides/

Parmenides is a fascinating fellow for his conception of that which exists. You can find a copy of his mostly-preserved book “On Nature” by clicking on the title of this post.

The power of his argument is that it’s so logical, and that’s the beauty of it for a number of reasons. He basically says that what is, IS and it could not be otherwise, nor could it be caused, but must be eternally extant, because for it not to have been would be for it to arise out of non-being, which is ridiculous (indeed, inconceivable: “neither may you know that which is not (for it is not to be accomplished) nor may you declare it” [28B.2 rev. Curd]).

He’s right, you know. You cannot conceive of non-being in its proper, “real” sense; all we may do is think of being, and put a negative in front of it. The void, for Parmenides, either has substance or does not exist; but think of it. Even the void must exist and have substance for us to be able to put a descriptor like a noun on it. You have a picture of the void in your head, which points to a concept of something that does actually exist–so that we can talk about it.

The logical consequence of Parmenides’ thinking, contra Heraclitus, is that you and I “is” as well–that is to say, we are not “parts of what is” or “fragments of all the being” but we are “is” and so is all that exists. So whether you live or die or whatever you do, you “is” (there’s no way to capture the Greek imperative better than using the present tense, at least in English). This seems to dovetail very well with Spinoza: God exists, and that which is, is a part of God (modes through which His attributes thought and extension are expressed). They arrive almost at the same spot: what is, cannot be otherwise, and all things are determined. That is a curiosity I’ll leave off for another day!

But there’s another logical consequence of Parmenides’ thoughts here, something he himself addresses. Ex nihilo nihil fit. Out of nothing, nothing proceeds. In other words, any genesis account–that is, the coming-to-being of the universe–is nonsense. He’s right, you know, logically. That’s why Creation is such a miracle. Whether you hold to an old-earth or young-earth hypothesis, string theory or any other sort of thing, God was its beginning and it could not have been otherwise because of the very miracle of creation—ex nihilo.

http://home.ican.net/~arandall/Parmenides/

Parmenides is a fascinating fellow for his conception of that which exists. You can find a copy of his mostly-preserved book “On Nature” by clicking on the title of this post.

The power of his argument is that it’s so logical, and that’s the beauty of it for a number of reasons. He basically says that what is, IS and it could not be otherwise, nor could it be caused, but must be eternally extant, because for it not to have been would be for it to arise out of non-being, which is ridiculous (indeed, inconceivable: “neither may you know that which is not (for it is not to be accomplished) nor may you declare it” [28B.2 rev. Curd]).

He’s right, you know. You cannot conceive of non-being in its proper, “real” sense; all we may do is think of being, and put a negative in front of it. The void, for Parmenides, either has substance or does not exist; but think of it. Even the void must exist and have substance for us to be able to put a descriptor like a noun on it. You have a picture of the void in your head, which points to a concept of something that does actually exist–so that we can talk about it.

The logical consequence of Parmenides’ thinking, contra Heraclitus, is that you and I “is” as well–that is to say, we are not “parts of what is” or “fragments of all the being” but we are “is” and so is all that exists. So whether you live or die or whatever you do, you “is” (there’s no way to capture the Greek imperative better than using the present tense, at least in English). This seems to dovetail very well with Spinoza: God exists, and that which is, is a part of God (modes through which His attributes thought and extension are expressed). They arrive almost at the same spot: what is, cannot be otherwise, and all things are determined. That is a curiosity I’ll leave off for another day!

But there’s another logical consequence of Parmenides’ thoughts here, something he himself addresses. Ex nihilo nihil fit. Out of nothing, nothing proceeds. In other words, any genesis account–that is, the coming-to-being of the universe–is nonsense. He’s right, you know, logically. That’s why Creation is such a miracle. Whether you hold to an old-earth or young-earth hypothesis, string theory or any other sort of thing, God was its beginning and it could not have been otherwise because of the very miracle of creation—ex nihilo.