Heraclitus realized that while a thing (an organization) can on average be identifiable for some period of time, strictly speaking the thing is uniquely different at each instant of time. And so while there may be a collection of events that can produce an identifiable organization called river, which on average persists unchanged for a certain time duration and in some region, this river is never ever really exactly the same. Logos (the cause of change, the law of nature), in the view of Heraclitus, is the only thing truly eternal. Although through a truly strict interpretation of a continuously changing nature without anything ever the same, even Logos should be changing. The modern physics equivalent of this is the hypothesis that the fundamental constants of nature, numbers that describe the various laws we have and are the reason the universe is what it is (such as the speed of light, Planck’s constant, or the gravitational constant), might after all be functions of space and time. If this is discovered to be true, then the order and organization of tomorrow’s nature (especially in the long run) will be so unknowingly different from today’s, a real intellectual treat for those inquiring minds who like the constant search and discovery and the journey more than the destination, for in such a case, the mysteries concerning the nature of nature will be forever changing, and so will our very knowledge about them.
Conclusion
Heraclitus declares the being (that which exists, nature) but identifies it with becoming. All follows from that: everything is constantly changing, material sameness is impossible, there is a plethora of different events that make nature a process, and described by warring opposites that nonetheless obey Logos. But Parmenides declares just the Being; only what is, is, and what is not, is not. All “follows” from that: change, he argues, is logically impossible and so what is, is one and unchangeable! This dazzling and absolute monism is in daring disagreement with sense perception but curiously it has found a well-known genius, Einstein, as a supporter.
The Heraclitean and Parmenidean worldviews are therefore antinomies (contradictions), for starting from a being the two philosophers developed a unique series of logical arguments and arrived at opposite results: for the Heraclitean, being is becoming, but for the Parmenidean, Being just is. It is Heraclitean change and plurality versus Parmenidean constancy and oneness. But it is a controversial constancy and oneness, for Being’s exact nature is uncertain.
* * *
1Origen, Against Celsus 6.42, trans. Graham, Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, 157 (text 58).
2Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics 1235a25–29, trans. Graham, Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, 157 (text 60).
3Hippolytus, Refutation 9.9.2. Or see Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1945), 43.
4Themestius, Orations 5.69b, trans. Demetris Nicolaides. Or see Graham, Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, 161 (text 75).
5Erwin Schrödinger, Nature and the Greeks and Science and Humanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 157.
6Leon Lederman and Dick Teresi, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993).
8Planck’s constant is a very small number equal to 6.63 × 10–34 joules × seconds.
7That is, it matters what you do first; measuring the position affects the velocity, measuring the velocity affects the position. Thus, the commutative law doesn’t apply here: position × velocity ≠ velocity × position.
9Although for the “block-universe” interpretation of relativity, change appears to be an illusion (see chapter 8).
10Plato, Cratylus 402a8–10, trans. Graham, Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, 159 (text 63).
11Clement, Miscellanies 5.103.6, trans. Demetris Nicolaides. Or see Graham, Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, 155 (text 47).
12Ibid., 5.104.3–5, trans. John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (London: A & C Black, 1920), chap. 3.
13Plutarch, On the E at Delphi 338d–e, trans. Graham, Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, 157 (text 55).
14Clement, Miscellanies 5.103.6. Or see Graham, Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, 155 (text 47).
15Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1989), 147.
16Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962), 37.
17Ibid., 45.
18Heraclitus, Homeric Questions 24, trans. Demetris Nicolaides. Or see Graham, Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, 159 (text 65).
19Schrödinger, Nature and the Greeks, 123–125.
8
The Unchanging Universe
Introduction
Philosophy was seriously shocked by the logic of Parmenides of Elea (ca. 515–ca. 445 bce). Being the first philosopher of ontology, Parmenides questioned the nature of existence itself and created his monistic philosophy by contemplating the most fundamental of questions: How can something exist? And what are the properties of that which does exist? And through purely rational arguments he marvelously reasoned out an answer that overturned completely the common perception of the world around us! In particular he asked, How could there be something instead of nothing? What does it mean to say that something exists? Can existence (nature) come to be from nothingness? Is there such a thing as nothingness? Has nature been caused by a primary cause—that is, by an absolutely first cause that permits no cause (no explanation) of its own? Does nature have an ultimate purpose that permits no purpose of its own? What is the nature of nature? Remnants from his profoundly abstract thought are present in modern cosmological models describing one indivisible and whole universe, unborn, eternal, imperishable, even unchanging.
Ironclad Logic
First he argued that we can think only about that which exists, the Being, “for the same is the thinking and the Being.”1 (Descartes’s famous “cogito ergo sum,” I think, therefore I am, is Parmenides’s quote in disguise.) On the contrary, he thought, we can neither speak about nor think about something that does not exist, Not-Being. For if we could, it would mean that Not-Being had properties (those mentioned speaking or thinking about it). But true nothingness is property-less. Therefore, the notion of nothingness (Not-Being) is impossible! This is in fact the critical premise of Parmenides’s theory. And to understand his arguments we must always remember that for him what does not exist, does not exist, neither now nor before or after, neither here nor there; that is, we cannot assume what does not exist now (or here), could exist later (or there), or could have existed before somewhere. No! Only what is, is—only Being exists. What is not, is not—Not-Being does not exist.
With this premise in mind, he proceeded to figure out if change is logically possible. Change, he maintained, requires that the notion of nothingness exists. But since such a notion is an impossibility, so then is change; Being is unchangeable—for if it could change, it would change into something that Being is not already, into something new that does not yet exist, thus into Not-Being, but this is an impossibility, for Not-Being does not exist ever anywhere. Analogously, if it could change, it would cease to be what it once was, thus what once existed (Being) would no longer exist; it would become Not-Being, but this is again an impossibility for Not-Being does not exist. In other words, that which exists (Being) cannot change because change requires that the notion of nothingness (Not-Being) exist. Because only then could Being have been it (Not-Being) and could have again become it. Simply put, we can say that change is impossible because it requires that something is either created from nothing or destroyed into nothing, but since the notion of nothingness does not exist, change does not exist either.
Being and the Block Universe
Does the universe change or not according to modern physics? In his deterministic conviction of nature, and emboldened by his special and general theories of relativity, Einstein considers the universe as a four-dimensional “block” (a space-time continuum like a loaf of bread2) which, remarkably, contains all moments of time (of past, present, a
nd future) always, and where change is an illusion. He said, “For we convinced physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent.”3
Specifically, the notion that the present, what exists, becomes the past, what does not exist (that, in Parmenidean logic, what exists, the present, Being, can become the past, what does not exist, Not-Being) and that the future, which does not yet exist, becomes the present (that, in Parmenidean logic, what does not yet exist, the future, Not-Being, can become the present, what exists, Being) is true in the Newtonian and the quantum-mechanical universe, but it is false in the Parmenidean theory (for Being cannot become Not-Being and vice versa). It is also false in Einstein’s block universe, because in relativity not only all locations of space exist always, but so do all moments of time, for space and time have no separate existence; rather, together they weave the very fabric of the continuum of space-time (the bread). Now, since all moments of time exist in the continuum always, they neither come to be (as if Not-Being became Being) nor cease to be (as if Being became Not-Being)! Parmenides might be smiling, I mean really. But how?
In a concrete example, according to relativity (for which time is relative), I’m still a baby relatively to a woman moving away from me4—namely, my past is part of her present;5 and my present will be part of her future. Yet, relatively to a man, moving toward me, I am the older person I will grow up to be—namely, my future is part of his present; and my present is part of his past. Generally, every event (space-time point) of my life, or even more generally, every event, period (like a smiling Parmenides), of past, present, and future, is always part of the space-time continuum—it exists as Being! Or to say the least, every event is part of someone’s present and thus it exists—it is Being!
The fact that all of space and all of time exist always justifies the terminology space-time continuum—or block, or loaf-of-bread universe for which all breadcrumbs (the “events”) are always in the bread (the space-time continuum). Since all events exist always, relativity then is in accordance with one of the Parmenidean inferences, that change is an illusion: things, or events, neither come to be (as if Not-Being became Being) nor cease to be (as if Being became Not-Being). What is, is, and what is not, is not. In the block universe, the present doesn’t change into the past, and the future doesn’t change into the present; to the contrary, in the block universe, the past is not gone, it is present; and the future, like the present, is, well, present, too.6 Time, in the continuum, doesn’t flow, for all of it, is always there. “I [Popper] tried to persuade him [Einstein] to give up his determinism, which amounted to the view that the world was a four-dimensional Parmenidean block universe in which change was a human illusion, or very nearly so. (He agreed that this has been his view, and while discussing it I called him ‘Parmenides’.)”7
Interestingly, diversity does exist in the block-universe interpretation since each space-time point is a unique event. But there is no change since all such diverse events exist unchangeable. The block universe is like a painting: all its points exist unchangeable, but they are also uniquely different, and together all form a beautiful diverse union, the canvas. Parenthetically, one interpretation of Parmenides’s universe might be so too, unchangeable but diversified.
Uncaused
Being is also unborn (it is uncaused; that is, it has not been caused by anything and thus has no beginning) and it is imperishable (it has no end, no ultimate purpose). It just is! It could not be born, Parmenides thought, for if it could, it would be born from either (a) Not-Being, but this is an impossibility, for Not-Being does not exist; or (b) Being, which is also an impossibility, for something cannot be born if it already exists; that is, something cannot be born from itself. Analogously, Being cannot perish; for nothingness, which Being must become in order to perish, does not exist. Hence, what is (Being) just is; it neither comes to be from nothing nor perishes into nothing. This remarkable Parmenidean thesis was embraced by the pluralists Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Democritus, and as we will see, it was applied in their own theories. Well, then, since Being is unborn, unchangeable, and imperishable, there is neither becoming nor passing away—nature just is!
Timeless and Omnipresent
Being is also always everywhere: there is neither a place nor a time where or when what is, is not already complete (e.g., of the same amount, appearance, and generally of the same properties). For if somewhere or sometime Being were less than complete, if it lacked something, it would mean that somewhere or sometime that something that Being would lack would not exist; it would be Not-Being, but since Not-Being does not exist, there is never any expectation for Being to be it. So Being is always complete everywhere. Hence, diversity and plurality are illusions of the senses.8 It is also motionless—for being always everywhere, there is never anywhere to go where it is not already. Similar-type arguments lead to the various properties of Being.
Oneness
The nature of nature (of Being) is of the purest oneness: there is only one thing, Being. It is an indivisible eternal whole, unborn, unchangeable, imperishable, continuous, indestructible, finite, and uniform (always the same everywhere). This is a dazzling but provocative oneness, for it is (or so it seems, anyway) logically sound, yet it is also daringly in stark contradiction to apparent reality. And what its exact meaning really is depends on how these properties of Being are regarded, literally or metaphorically, of material or immaterial nature. Being is that which is. All other characteristics beyond that are quite uncertain and debatable, for what is (what exists) is really the question for Parmenides. But irrespective of its nature, Being captures a highly valued place in ancient natural philosophy and modern physics alike—namely, oneness!
Modern physics embraces a kind of monism and wholeness, too, for it tries to ultimately unify all four forces (gravity, electromagnetism, the nuclear strong, and the nuclear weak) and all particles under a single overarching principle in which there will be only one unified force or, equivalently, one type of fundamental particle, suggesting a subtle interconnection and oneness in all apparent plurality. Hence, should the properties of Being be interpreted metaphorically, Being might be a metaphor of the one, unchangeable, universal, eternal, objective truth of nature (a unified force or grand idea of a theory of everything).
On the other hand, should the properties of Being be interpreted literally, then nature is one, uninterrupted, indestructible, indivisible, eternal, and material whole; it’s a kind of full and solid block of matter without parts (uniform). Such a type of full nature implies that there is no void (empty space). The void is Not-Being for Parmenides, true nothingness—it does not exist. But interestingly without the void it is difficult, if not impossible, to accept that motion and change are real. For the easiest way to understand the occurrence of motion and thus change, too, is to imagine the existence of empty space within which things could move. Assuming there is no empty space, motion is an illusion and so is change. The atomists Leucippus and Democritus found this conclusion utterly absurd but inspiring as well. For to create their atomic theory and explain motion and change rationally, they had to employ both: Parmenides’s Being—its material (solid-block-like) nature in particular—and his Not-Being.
Atom and Being, Void and Not-Being
So by giving Parmenides’s ideas a straightforward, literal, and material meaning, the antithetical notions of his Being (existence) and Not-Being (nonexistence) evolved in the minds of the atomists into the antithetical notions of “the full”9 (the atom) and “the empty”10 (the void, empty space), respectively, and became the essence of their atomic theory. Incidentally, the intellectual continuity in our efforts to know nature is unquestionable in this case. Now, there were many atoms (Beings) with key properties of Being (i.e., whole, indivisible, indestructible, solid, with no parts) and lots of empty space (Not-Beings) within which atoms can move. Interestingly, although the atomists could not counter Parmenides’s arguments against the existence of Not-Being
, they still identified it with a certain kind of nothingness that existed, the empty space. But empty space’s perception has been controversial ever since its conception.
Nothing Comes from Nothing
For Parmenides, there is no empty space, for empty space is nothingness, Not-Being, and Not-Being does not exist. How can something, which is nothing, really exist? Parmenides thought. How can something be defined and assigned properties when it is supposed to be property-less? It cannot, he argued. We are unable to even think of nothingness, he reasoned. Nothingness is a meaningless concept, for if nothingness existed, it would not really be nothingness; it would be something-ness. If we could refer to something and give it properties, that something could not be nothing; it would be something real and would exist.
Parmenides wanted to understand change, motion, and the empty space via purely logical arguments. For the empty space especially, he thought there was no good logical argument in support of its existence. Whether the empty space is a true nothing or not is a notion to be revisited in chapter 12. Nonetheless, Parmenides thought that empty space was a true nothing, and as seen earlier, he also argued that nothing comes from nothing—Being neither comes to be from nothing (it is unborn) nor passes away into nothing (it is imperishable).
In Search of a Theory of Everything Page 11
