Posts by Matt

That is a funny anecdotal story Elli.

After all I am Laughing Democritus!

Just so we are clear I’m not a great lover of Parmenides in general. I’m simply using his ideas on being and nothing to help conceptualize something that I’m sure is very troubling for many people...envisioning an eternal universe.

I mean whether we are talking about big bangs, singularities, collapsing fifth dimensional universes, steady state universes etc. there is the need to conceptualize this principle of the eternal universe. Something does not come from nothing ex nihilo.

If I was a Neoplatonist I would say the aggregate One manifests the universe and chain of being perpetually through emanationism. In the eternal now. None of that is provable in reality or observable. But they also held to an eternal universe. I believe the Aristotelians did too, as do many “eastern” philosophies that shall not be named here.

Also again even the biblical narratives and myths like Zurvanism in Iranian philosophy held to the notion of a pre-existing “thing”...god, principle,etc that either creates or simply manifests the universe, often from “itself” or a slain enemy like a dragon etc. like Tiamat in Babylonian myth. Creatio ex nihilo in concept anyway simply isn’t feasible...since everyone, no matter who, has a first principle.

I’m just grabbing some lunch and I’ll be back to ponder on those.

I’m going to get myself a Greek gyro to help my thinking.

Because there is something, the Epicurean gods have a potential of being. Based on Epicurean physics.

Based on Parmenidean logic they have a chance of existing that is greater than “not ever.”

The Epicurean gods are something. If nothing was, they would not theoretically be if they do in fact exist.

Because existence is...the Epicurean gods have an infinitely greater chance of existing rather than not....if nothing was.

🤯

Don’t get me wrong this stuff absolutely makes my brain smoke and my head hurt with idealist abstraction. It is for sure conceptual word play at its heart...

Whatever Parmenides posited beyond this ONE argument (I made a bad joke there)... the Parmenidean One.....

I don’t particularly need to know what else he posited since his end goal was not pleasure. This one particular argument bolsters my subjective analysis of the universe based on the Epicurean Canon.

I mean ultimately this is a very high level ontological concept explaining the very nature of why something is as opposed to not ever being.

If the opposite were true nothing would exist and we wouldn’t be able to discuss it.

I would argue that the simple fact that we observe “anything” tells us that there is “something” as opposed to this ontological concept of nothing. Its not replacing the Epicurean or Lucretian formula but if anything bolstering it from a logical perspective in my opinion.

The mere fact that Parmenides used the Epicurean Canon of his observation of things within his lifetime since he was a physical human being like us tells us he observed things like you and I do. He made his logical very abstract argument based on observations of reality just like we do. He saw a rock and knew it was a thing and not nothing.

We simply cannot argue the opposite of this concept because it’s impossible.

Since even one “atom” exists, the idea of true nothing which would have no ability to create or manifest anything cannot be...it argues for the eternity of matter existing perpetually.

Nothing would rule supreme!

Yes word play based on definitions, but sufficiently strong enough of a wordplay coupled with our own observations to make a very strong argument for it being true.

There would be no observable evidence of the opposite of his theory of “something” as opposed to “nothing” because we would not exist to theorize it or observe it.

Parmenides clearly was basing his argument on logical, not observable grounds.

And yes he apparently did try to argue that void was nothing and nothing is not possible, but I would contend that purely from a conceptual standpoint on the existence of the universe, his position of something “being” as opposed to nothing ever being...is sound. In my mind at least.

I don’t see conceptually how anything comes from nothing...

If we are talking about physics like vacuum fluctuation states etc. you are still talking about a “concept” a thing born of something. It’s still not NO-thing since it is a concept. Nothing cannot be a concept.

Karl Popper wrote:

“So what was really new in Parmenides was his axiomatic-deductive method, which Leucippus and Democritus turned into a hypothetical-deductive method, and thus made part of scientific methodology.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_comes_from_nothing

The idea that "nothing comes from nothing", as articulated by Parmenides, first appears in Aristotle's Physics:

τί δ᾽ ἄν μιν καὶ χρέος ὦρσεν ὕστερον ἢ πρόσθεν, τοῦ μηδενὸς ἀρξάμενον, φῦν; οὕτως ἢ πάμπαν πελέναι χρεών ἐστιν ἢ οὐχί.
^[1]

The above, in a translation based on the John Burnet translation, appears as follows:

“Yet why would it be created later rather than sooner, if it came from nothing; so, it must either be created altogether or not [created at all].”

I’ll go see if I can find some good information on Parmenides the post here.

I think Aristotle said that Parmenides ideas were “at the doorstep of madness.” But really discussing NO-thing and Something is important to Epicurean ideas.

He may have gone on to try to disprove void, I actually don’t know if that’s true, I’d have to look it up. He may have.

But for my purposes I see this as an important thought experiment for recognizing the eternity of the material universe.

I believe it had to do with a general ontological concept of the eternity of the universe.

That if nothing truly existed, there would be no universe. But since something is… And we know that for a fact, nothing cannot be. Had nothing “existed”, nothing would ever be.

“Nothing comes from Nothing and Parmenides” as the title?

Awesome! Thanks!