FROM THE DITHYRAMB TO DIALECTICS-PRESOCRATIC THINKING-CONTRADICTIVE MONADOLOGY AND UNIVERSAL CARTOGRAPHY
THEODORE KAVASIS
FROM THE DITHYRAMB TO DIALECTICS
PRESOCRATIC THOUGHT: PARMENIDES, ANAXIMANDER, HERACLETOS, ZENO CONTRADICTIVE MONADOLOGY AND UNIVERSAL CHARTOGRAPHY
INTRODUCING NOTE The purpose of this tractatus is to search about the birth of dialectic thinking in Ancient Greek world. How this kind of thinking rises up from the fragmentary texts of the presocratics and the tragic spirit, as a way of life, art and ethics. It’s unquestionable that Dialectico is not cleared and settled, because the efforts to be fully determined stopped, since the marxists, who where supposed to use Dialectico as an instrument of Logic, departing from the Hegelian Logic, had from the beginning enter in a road of logical eclecticism. Thought they rejected Aristotelian formal logic, they never stopped to use this one as a verification instrument in all their logic proceedings. It’s obvious that though marxists intended to use the Hegelian “dialectic logic principals”, these could not be used because they were not principals, but “general results” which cannot be used in the research. Moreover the dogmatic practice of the so called socialistic countries, converted Dialectico to a “curse” and avoiding example. Also the scientific successes of formal logic and determinism, would have buried Dialectico forever, but along with the comming up of “quantomechanics”, Dialectico rises again as the only logical way which could lead us to the New World. This dialectico has as a core the dithyramb, which is the tragic spirit, “the passing by two opposite doors simultaneously”, the spirit of the Contradictive Universality.
PART ONE: DITHYRAMB Greekness It is generally accepted that contemporary civilisation is founded upon Ancient Greek civilization. Most of the inquires that occupy us were addressed then and answers were given, which up on to a point are still accepted today. Our civilization is far ahead in many areas, being behind in others, but there is something very important which our civilization lacks today. I believe this to be the very core of civilization and without this we are heading to destruction. Therefore we should take another look at the dusty shelves of Greek civilization to see if something has been wrongly evaluated or historical circumstances have lead us to forget something significant; or perhaps our contemporary civilization has not shaken off the barbarity which inherited from the Ancient Roman civilization. Why everything that comes from Ancient Greek inheritance is of supreme quality and of invaluable aesthetics? There is a lot we don’t know about them, perhaps the most. Although our technological level is a supreme one, they continue to remain alive and smile condescendingly upon our achievements.
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To pinpoint where our civilization is inferior, it is necessary to make a research and once again answer the inquiry: how the Greeks created this civilization and where they based it on. There is a lot of argument from time to time about the landscape, the climate conditions, the sea, the trade, the wealth and the slaves. All these factors indeed played a role in the formation of this civilisation, but all regions around, being in similar conditions, with greater power and wealth, gave birth to darkness and barbarity. Persians, Phoenicians, Mesopotamians and Egyptians built civilizations, in some ways superior to that of Greeks: Phoenicians were advanced seafarers and traders; Persians were powerful world-leaders with advanced organization and discipline; Egyptians had high level of knowledge and taught Greeks many things. Greeks certainly borrowed elements from them but not these being considered as the basis for the future. Modern civilization, after a slow and difficult process, was built on the main characteristics of Greek civilization: these included rationalism as a practice and critique, representative government and dialectic thinking. (I don’t speak about democracy because that would forget the oligarchic governments of these times, which from a point of view, were more democratic in essence than nowadays democracies). These elements which are generally accepted as being the basis of modern civilisation, are a result of thousands years cultural process, standing on another foundation; a forgotten one that should be uncovered and become a renovating factor of our civilization, which nowadays looks for solutions to neomysticism and uncontrolled technological growth; that is to say, the ancient and modern barbarism. In my opinion, the cornerstone of Ancient Greek civilization is the tragic spirit. This spirit has been inherited by modern European civilization, but lies subconsciously forgotten, being violated by ignorance or folly. Nowadays that technology has the power to destroy the world, it’s obvious that civilization requires a moral support in order to avoid the problem of self-destruction. We must search deeply in the contemporary civilization to bring up to the surface the esthetic quality of tragic.
Hylozoism and Magic At a peak point in prehistoric civilization, some peoples believed that world is not an accumulation of things linked merely by some causal relationships, but it is a Whole, one Essence, one Being. They believed that the contrarieties, world is composed, are notisceaable as that because they are visible in reverse. More precisely, from the side of the Whole, these are not antagonistic but have a complementary character, expressing the supreme harmony of the Whole. It seems they believed that if they ceased to consider the world from “Self to the Other” but reversely, all problems would be solved. This process could have taken many forms and have been practiced differently by different peoples; in general though, these terms could be put under
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the heading of the worship of Nature. Thus some people believed that by communing directly with the Whole, which is Nature, they could cause phenomena favourable to them, such as rain or good harvest. It is reasonable for someone to aspire to this, if he believes that he communes directly to the Whole, and his every thought and action could influence the Whole, providing that he follows the correct procedure. This is probably the root of Magic, which is rather the practice of dealing with the Great One (mega-magnum), the Whole, the Nature. Nature is the God, therefore everything natural participates to divinity. All things are divine and among these some are exemptional: a refreshing spring, a beautiful landscape, a wonderful bull, an enchanting beach, a dark forest, a charismatic person, all of these were Sacred Signs of Nature, being divine messages. So human, should find the way, from signs such as these to commune directly with Nature by his own spiritual focusing, to obtain the a result of his participation. The practice of communing with Nature (God), must have been accompanied by a significant procedure, since mere contemplation cannot be enough when the object is social, such as harvest or rain. In the case of rain, for example, certain forces had to be evoked which were connected with natural phenomena and people should all together to commune causing the phenomenon. Harrison informs us: “witch-doctor’s method is simple and pleasant, using only two rattles. We know another rainmaker: king Salmoneus whose equipment was more complex. According to Apollodoros, Salmoneus claimed that himself was Zeus and depriving Zeus of his sacrificial offerings, ordered the people to sacrifice to him. Of course, says Harrison, he did nothing of this kind, this affair had nothing to do with the sacrifices or Zeus. He was trying as Apollodoros himself explained, to change the weather. Attaching bronze tanks to his chariot, he dragged them behind him and threw burning torches to the sky; the tanks crashed like thunder and the torches flashed like lightning”. According to Harrison, Virgil also told this story, looking the matter from the viewpoint of the orthodox theology. He consider Salmoneus to be a crazy blasphemous criminal, who forges the thunderbolt of Zeus and was thus condemned to Hades for eternity: “And i saw the cursed Salmoneus, desiring to be honoured by the Olympian lightning and thunder of Zeus; arrogantly, riding a fourhorses chariot across the land of Greeks and the sacred city of Elida, demanding divine honours. The miserable man believed that with sounds of bronzen tanks and sistrum, clouds and thunders to create but failed”. Farther on Harrison presents a vase on which Salmoneus is depicted wearing a olive garland woven with olive branches and sacred ribbons, holding a thunder in his right hand and brandishing a sword to the sky with his left hand, on the point of launching a thunderbolt. That he is olympian victor, is confirmed by the figure of Nike (Victory)behind him raising her hand as a disapproval sign. Salmoneus, even for an olympian victor, is going beyond limits. It is rumoured that Salmoneus and his people were destroyed by
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thundering. Harrison inform us that Salmoneus came from a primordial region of the eternal birth teretory of Magic, Pelasgian Thessaly.
Now let’s see this story by another way, with the help of Harrison but under a critical eye to her prepositions: In Elida (Ήλιδα), there was a temple dedicated to Hera (Ἥρα) in prehistoric times, before the founding the temple of Olympian Zeus. It is possible that the Sun-God, in a matrilinear society would be female, so the sun would be Hera or, as it’s written on ceramics Thera, which is possibly a corruption of the word “Therma” (warmth); Hera was the Universal Fire (Vesta-Εστία) long before become Estia, (hearth of House). We have seen temples of Hera to be founded at seashores, where, at the dawn, Sun rises below the earth, under the sea shining in sedgold. They where sure of that because they had seen volcanos having the same material and coming under the Earth, (godness-Γαία). It is said that after the Flood caused by volcanic wave of the Thira island volcano erruption, the “Idaean Dactylos”, Heracles (one of the mythic five bright fingers of the sacred cave-temple of cretan mountain “Idis”) arrived there, and established a temple dedicated to Zeus. (That is why it is said Olympic Gams begun there and founded by the Idaean Hercules). We know that before Zeus become the great god with Hera his wife, Hercules (Heracles) was reputed to be her lover; As Lecatsas mentions in his “Dionysos”: in mythology old love-affairs turn to hatred when events go wrong or differently. My opinion is that Hercules (Hera-cles) was the Cleos (brightness-glamour) of Hera, the light of the Sun (that’s why it was propriety for him to use bow and throw beam-arrows, as Apollo-Sun and Atremis-Moon could do). My opinion is that near by the temple of Hera, there was a temple of Hercules, which was not founded by Hercules. It was there, since the sacred contest was taking place, under protection and for the glory of Hera. Heracles, being the light of sun, was the life itself and that is why he was Zeus (full of life, blooming of life).
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That sacred contest was followed by the sacred wedding, and connected to the Divine Drama, where Hercules-Zeus (later Zagreus-Dionysos) was sacrificed by the Titans (white-ones), being ordered by Hera. Titans had cover their faces with titanus “white clay”, to perform their profane action of sacrifice, so they would not be theirselfs doing that). This had the meaning of winter and snow coming at a time when the northern Mediterranean was covered by ice, under the command of Hera (the Sun). Then Zeus was going down to the bowels of earth becoming lifeless, A-zeus, Adeus, Ades. In Heraion (templ of Hera), in Elida, where the centre of Magic was, crowds of people gathered from all parts of Greece, to participate or to be present in the sacred contest of the Olympic games), which then consist only of the 200 meters race. That was (dromos-drama, agon-struggle). At undefined prehistoric times, Salmoneus departed from Thessaly to participate in this contest. He was a Kouros and thus well enough initiated in the rule of being the chosen one as the representative of his town, (being in age of marriag, and so a priest of Zeus ―full of vitality and fertility). Alongside the race of Young Men, there was the race of Cores (young women) at the Heraion. The winners of these two games, would participate in the Sacred Marriage. The race of young men, was in honour of Heracles and the winner became a Zeus, (bursting of life, having a vital fury or “Mana” as Harrison suggests). Zeus, was the main attribute of Heracles and anyone who won the race, being in the state of grace took on this attribute. In general, Zeus represented life itself and for that reason, he was the dying-rebirthing one. He was to the bowels of earth (Catagogia) in the winter and in spring on the surface of earth blooming on (Epiphania). These days, the one who had to “possess” the attribute of god, being the best and primary being a human (because this was the highest sign of Nature), he had to be initiated as a priest to serve Zeus. This in short hed the meaning that the chosen Young Man, being in his high fertility and sexual activity should commit the Sacred Marriage with the chosen Young Woman. The final choice though would rest upon “who desired most”, among these eligible and he who could best attain to grace. There had to be divine assurance that the Olympic Victor who would be the sacred victim, would be revealed as Nature’s clearest sign. He would be the match for the Girl Victress who would assume the role of Hera that year. The Olympic winner, (Zeus, the full of vitallity one ― “ Zeon one”) as the picture of the jar shows, performed a Rain Dance. The interpritation of Harrison, for the case of Salmoneus presented on the jar in my oppinion, is wrong. Nike (Victory) does not follow but leads and the gesture she makes, does not show displeasure but the opposite; moreover the Kore (young woman), who follows, shows neither emparrassment nor displeasure, but accompanies the dance, which seems familiar to as. I believe this dance is a kind of Zeibekico (Zei-ue-kio, Zeibacchic), which is the lamentation of sacred fury, the sacred wailing of sacrifice and communing to the divine. In that case, with tambourines, rattles and a bronze thunderbold, he invokes or
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perhaps creates rain. (Something the Hero can do). We quote the phrase taken from the Hymn of the Kourites (young men): “and the Nyktipolos (acting at night) Zagreus roaring performe the ceremony”, which Harrison used so well, in her book “Themis: a Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion”, to show that Kourites were initiated males miming the thunderbolts and as she believes, they were performing the Rain Dance. “If someone is indeed a true Bacchus, miming virtuouslly the thunderbolts of Zeus, diserves a share”, as Plutarch sais. It is likely that the Olympian victor would live like a king: far from sorrows and cares, and he would fertilize the girl making her pregnant; their child would be Aristos (perfect), and this was to lead to the patrogrammic line of Aristocracy. The land given to him would be a Temenos (sacred piece of land); no one could take it from him. As George Thomson shows, in his “ Prehistoric Aegean Civilization”, land would never belong to a mortal, only heroes who were immortal, could have land forever. (Heroes were probably those who had devoted as sacrificial victims to Hera, and had been risen this way to the height of God). The mortals had the right to cultivate land, but every so often the land was redistributed by drawing lots under the clergy supervision (Thomson). The sacrifice used to take place at the end of the year, the winter solstice, which was the longest night and the shortest day, the day of Cronos. This day, the year was dying and at the same moment was born as a New. This day is dithyrambic, because Cronos (Time, Year) passes at the same moment two opposite doors: the door of death and the door of live. The sacred victim was Dithyramb itself. (According to the Christians, this happened to Christ. The name derives from “Christos”, meaning endowed with grace. So Jesus had the Grace to be a Sacred Victim). It is likely the victim cut the veins of his wrists and was led around supported by two priests among the participants who kissed his hands tasting at the same time the blood (from this comes the hand kissing of the Respected). The participants were in a frenzy and pledged to overpass themselves, in any deed their society called on them to perform. (This dithyrambic day passed to the christian world as Christmass but when the “sacred fathers of christianity” decided to separate the warship of Christ from the one of Bacchus, was during the forth century A.D., this day was transported two-three days later and devited to Christmas and New Year). Later, when Zeus became Father of Gods and his sacrificial place was taken by his horned son Zagreus, the patrogrammic and patriarchic society, used to sacrifice the White Bull, which represented Zeus or Dionysus-Zagreus. So if there was a human sacrifice during the Olympic Sacred Race, (dromos, drama) which was the only contest, it should have been occurred before 1700 b.C. before the eruption of Thera volcano. That’s the reason Pythagoras considered the Olympic games profane as they were bloody earlier.
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Now let us return to the story of Salmoneus: Suppose that he managed to cause rain by dancing. Then two possibilities could happen: A. Salmoneus overpassed human limits traveling around the Greek cities bringing the rain. This from one point of view was, Hubris (arrogance), since he was replacing God. Overpassing the Metro (human limit), he was cursed and burnt up by the same thunderbolt he had invoked. The Palladium, (divine fire, thunder) illuminates and burns according to how it is used. B. The other possibility is that Salmoneus imitated god so virtuously and created the phenomenon. The high standing of such a deed was Charis (grace), which happened to Semeli who was struck by Zeus thunderbolt and this way gave birth to the fireborn and thunderus Dionysos. Oppositely, according to the orthodox dogma, Semeli was fulminated, being foolish and interfering curious, as women were characterized during the time of male domination. But as exellently Harrison revealed, the true story was different. Semeli which was Gaia (Earth) had an intercourse with Uranos (sky) with the mediation of Keraunos (thunderbolt), burning her up. That was a state of Grace and the result was the birth of Vromius-Pyrigenes (thunder-fire-born) Dionysus. Something similar may be happened to Salmoneus. He imitated so virtuously Zeus thunders that he became one of them, being a God; that, as Harrison reveals, is a Grace. Empedocles at the end of his life fell into Aetna’s volcano considering this to be a supreme death. Let us consider Magus (megas-magnus-wichdoctor the person dealing with the great) from another viewpoint: Not long ago Pope John Paul and Archibishop Christodulos, both educated and logical persons, prayed for rain. We see scientists to accept the existence of God and doctors to say that “they have done their duty but the rest lies in God’s will”. God is ideal and distant; we address to something we cannot identify, essentially unknown. We address to the extreme abstraction: pure Mercy, pure Love and all pure ideals. This is the approach to pure abstract ‘Thing-itself’. If it rains, God has mercy on us; if not, we didn’t have enough faith, or God sets us to a suffering-trial or to punish us. The difference between Magians and Priests is that Magians don’t simply address to God mentally, but apply an imitation practice which is not abstract at all. Maybe the Magian practice today seems wrong, but it is in the correct way; he applies to Nature by imitation! Scientists today, do the same in extreme cases of drought; they bombard the atmosphere with “special bombs” hoping to cause rain; and because this practice is very doubtful, it is not a paradox the participants to wish for success. Wishing, is something like a prayer to the Unknown. In a general concept though, Magian and Scientist imitate the phenomena virtuously, communicating mentally with the Whole expecting a share. Magian is primitive but in a good way, while scientist knows more, their difference is quantitative. Let’s put Salmoneus next to Einstein. Their purpose is the same: a struggle for a 7
share from Nature; Einstein is more virtuous, imitates Nature better getting a bigger share. Even so, there is something making Salmoneus superior: he takes the first step. From a viewpoint primitive man being first to create a tool is superior to the one who discovered the wheel and superior to the one who discovers the airplane, because he discovers Science Itself. However they are all the same: they are Bacccoi tiptoeing in darkness holding a torch; they are Nyktelioi (Night-suns), Eosphoroi (Lucifers, light-bringers), they are the scientists. Salmoneus is not arrogant, on the contrary he performed his sacred duty, as the modern scientist. He invokes the forces of Nature virtuously, with modesty and logic. If scientist will be intoxicated from the share Nature offers, overpassing the Metro (human limit), will bring disaster to himself and his people. Palladia nature offers, are Doubl-Axes: These illuminate and burn. A scientist is Zeivekios, Iobacchus who, above all, sacrifices his life to the research; he is the only true priest of our times, because he serves the one true God, ―Nature; all the other priests are fake. It is him who handles the Palladia and Double Axes, because he has the Grace; he is the true Olympic victor and knows that Nature’s booties are sacred victims to be sacrificed and not wasted senselessly. These secrets must not be left to the whims of charlatans, barbarians and foolish profiteers. He is an Olympian victor, because he achieved that goal after life-long struggle and sacrifices, with only reward his passion for truth. Virtuous politicians should have next to them the priest, that nowadays is the scientist, who should have the last word. The legality of Salmoneus action has two dimensions: A. He attempts to act rationally, though his activity was wrong, because imitating the phenomena (being the basic experimental way even today), is a daidalian and complicated road, not having the expected results always; and in the case of Salmoneus many data for the “experiment” of rain creation were missing. B. If the Whole is a Being in which every one participates, human could gain the right to have a “share” transcendentally. He could invoke mentally Nature by imitaton, expecting his share; that primitively could be scientific. But what is science? where does it start and where it ends? Contemporary theories touching on quantomechanic paradoxes, claim that in quantic world experiments, scientist is not an objective observer any more; the object of measurement, the instrument of counting and human participant, compose an unseparated unity. It is said, that human in this kind of experiment, involves in the proceedings of world, being in a creative state. This is “legally” accepted, because of some instantaneous inter reaction activities, which are supposed to exist at the potentiality under-quantic level of the world: Since human decides the action of experiment Universe, as a Whole, receives the message before the process have been integrated, therefore Universe responts by its way to the decision of the human activity and will. So scientist, just like Salmoneus, commune subconsciously to the Whole invoking Universe to respond. We feel that ancient people considered human body to be a scientific instrument,
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which they used to enter in the secrets of Nature. As they stepped on fire, they invoked rain. Tomson maintains that they expressed their desire for the expected result and Harrison suggests that they submitted themselves to a kind of hysteria, under the influence of their Mana (menos, vital-fury). The rationalists present them to be primitives, who feel the urgent inner need to commune with the Whole (Nature), but they reject such a possibility. Science and determinism cannot accept something like that, but there where some ceremonial activities which rise our curiosity. It’s possible by using their body as scientific instrument, to achive results paradoxal to our logic but being in an other way scientific.
Minimal behaviour. The feeling of the opposite aspect of world, (the consideration from the Other towards Self), is an endless process, since Whole as Other cannot be tangible. So there is a bottomless meditation process and practical behaviour, as possible, everyday’s problems to be faced by an opposite view or both-ways. Whole, as a meaning itself, is Life and every individual Ego as extension of the Whole, communes naturally to it. Thus human path should be the respect for Life and practically takes the form of Minimal Behaviour. This was a complex way of life, which took different forms from people to people and in prehistoric Greece it peaked by taking on a tragic face, opening a new rout in civilization marching to the future. There has been an attempt through the method of Comparative Anthropology to interpret the phenomenon of Tragedy in Ancient Greece. I think we should gather conclusions through this method, but we must avoid exaggerations. The comparison itself between Ancient Greek civilization and Totem cults of today’s backward peoples is extreme. Totem spirit, as survives today, is a superstition netting and formal relics of an ancient way of thinking, which once flourished. It is a kind of social fossilization that may easily lead into a trap. This is because inspirational beliefs of that time, sink to popularism and naivety in periods of decline, giving completely different feeling of the original meaning. Yet research through ancient texts can be misleading. Many texts were written at a later time and probably perceived ideas through a different prism: some times influenced by religious fanaticism and other by a spirit of modernism of this particular period and finally by a spirit of scepticism, which is always caustic against everything transcendent. (Scepticism is the ingenuity of the average and typolatric clerks which always has the last word). So we have, on one hand, a decline in prehistoric values from essential to formal and on the other a sceptical critic approach in written information. On the contrary, in essential maters of ancient worship, having scientific dimension, we have a conscious silence, a religious homage with an ineffable procedure. “Arriton” was an univocal speech, which “the more it was spoken the less was understood”, because its essence was a transcendental practice, as the fire-walking is, which continues even today, not really being said by words, but by this transcendent activity. If this practice
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stops to occur for some years, when scholastics read about it will laugh. (As Lao-Tse said: if the sceptic doesn’t laugh may not be a great truth). We do not know what this survived practice used to signify. It could have been an expiation, or “catharsis”, after the sacred slaughter or perhaps the preparative purification before the slaughter. Anyway, we learn from this practice that human body is a scientific instrument, and the sages of prehistoric times knew how to use it. At the very least, they knew something we do not know and they could do things that seem inconceivable to a rationalist. The Comparative Anthropology method takes for granted that these people, if not barbarians, were primitive. Yet there is a question they should answer: Assuming that language discloses to a degree the civilisation and anthropologic development of society, how can be explained that some ancient languages are superior to the modern ones? Contemporary researchers do not understand what exactly is a transcendental practice and wishing to “embellish” or rationalize it, they bring it in their size “putting on it the narrow shoes of determinism” and contemporary rational empiro-criticism. Ancient thinkers accepted ration, but being wiser than us, used alternative and complementary logical methods also. Great researchers as Harrison, Thomson and Lekatsas accepted with certainty that Maenads and Bacchoi and all the participants in transcendental practices, used to take psychotropic essences, “getting high” and thought they were acting transcendentally but in fact they were deceiving themselves and the others. I believe this was not true, though we will never know the truth now. What really used to happen at the temple of Eleusinian Demeter? Is it not strange at a time Greeks were extreme rationalists and Romans out-and-out realists, the later to call priests from Eleusis to found a templ of Demeter and her Daughter in Rome? It hardly seems credible and yet it happened, despite the fact that Romans had many gods of their own, that were not inferior to the Greek gods. Indeed, though Romans may have admired Greek art and literature, at the same time they condemned and distrusted them.
In Harrison’s work: “The birth of Ancient Greek Religion”, published and translated from English by “Iamblichos”, i observe Harrison’s “reading” of the above picture: “The design of the Figure 1. comes from a “dipylon” amphora… in the center of the design a square table or altar is depicted. Up on this, there is a Mycenaean shield, probably made of some strow matting. In the right side of the figure 1. a seating man holds some object in each hand. From the object in his right hand projects a zigzag line”. Harrison goes on to confirm that “he is holding primitive musical instruments, gourd rattles, part of witch-doctor paraphernalia”. In another picture she presents similar rattles used for magic, by primitive tribes in Africa and America. Harrison continues: “The sound the gourd produces is infallible – it brings rain. Rain is accompanied by thunder and lightning. So the zigzag lines in figure 1 are lightning”.
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figure 1
I admire very much Harrison, but i cannot agree with her opinion. Indeed the certainty she is express is challenging. On the other side of the vase, there are chariots and soldiers; here we again see these zigzag lines on the horse-backs, which could not represent lightning, for why anyone to evoke rain at a time when he would wish the opposite? No one waged war in rain at these times. It’s no doubt that pictures in vases, narrate a story, but Harrison’s interpretation is forced and constrained. A visit to the Museum of Kerameikos Cemetery, will help us to ascertain that these ‘matting’ patterns, zigzags and a large group of other designs are symbols, whose role is that of a background upon the myth evolves. Let me attempt to ‘read’ the picture: someone went to battle and he was killed and buried. Black and white matting patterns are burial symbols meaning the continuous alternation of life and death . . The zigzags which is the most common motif in vases, represent the alternation between katagogia (going to the bowels of earth in winter) and epiphaneia (coming up to surface of earth at spring). These symbols pertain to the relationship of life and death, and by extension to the unity of the opposites generally.
The road of minimal behaviour might have been like this: 1. Because Nature is sacred, human should not consume more than the necessairy for living. Needs must be restricted to the minimum. 2. World is multi-dimensional, so at its ultimate depth it’s beyond rationality the way we understand it, because we “see” the world in reverse. The “chain of ratio” is unconsrainedly multy-diamensional because every element of Nature is sacred and never vanishes; whatever dies finds the way to return as different the time of its ripe. Everything lives-dying, changes-being the same, everything is contradictive. 3. No one can obtain something without a sacrifice. Life is a sacrifice process. Human in order to live, has to hunt, to fish, to eat seeds, roots or eggs. He has to cut trees for shelter, burn them for warmth and generally to consume. However frugal
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this life is, cannot avoid to be impure, because human even being virtuous must kill; therefor, every time human consumes must do it in the form of sacrifice. Victim being not a booty, cannot be dominated by no one, must be treated with respect because it is sacred, it is God himself. The act of sacrifice is contraditon because part of God’s body, is sacrificed for the sake of another part. Life is contradictory.
The barbarian song of joy at obtaining food and booty, should be transformed to a song of mourning which is “tragoudi”, or “tragedy”. This was the song of “trapeza” *(table), of food. Tragedy is the cheerful lament, mournful-merriment, of “tragos”, of the he-goat sacrifice. This is the point Greeks differentiated from the Archaic Mystic tradition. They combined the element of sacred communion with the daily celebration of joy, without allowing eudemonism or asceticism to predominate. Such deviations considered to be hubris (extreme arrogance). Greeks where conscious of that and they made this song (tragedy), an art of life. This approach to art, became a way of life and ethos of behaviour; so exactly this was their religion. The sacrificer must not be a butcher in a slaughtery, but in state of sacred inebriety, so not to be exactly himself, but a transcendent beings communing to god. This song should speak about the victim’s passion, (sacred passion), the pleasure of sacrificer for partaking of meat which was a sacred food; also about the dark fate of the sacrificer, who would also himself be a victim; and about Nature which is both sacrificer and victim of itself; and about all things which born-dying, descend to the bowels of earth and shoot up again; the endless cycle of life and death. ___________________________________________________ Liddell & Scott *τραγεῖν: infinitive of the verb τρώγω, (eat) τράγος: he-goat, bull, ram, –male animal– for sacrifice and eating
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Representative symbols
1. CYCLADIC. 3500-2800 b.C.
a. Dithyrambic spiral b. Dithyrambic interminable
Dithyramb: the simultaneous passing through two opposite gates; and finally the gate of life and the gate of death. Figure a. shows the unity of opposites. Figure b. shows small dithyrambs to develop an unlimited big one. This one reforming, becomes symbol of infinity, where the great is formed by the small and it is contained in to the small.
c. Dithyrambic limitless
Figure a. Spiral is related to the Eastern symbol of the opposites unity . Their difference is that the Asian one is closed since the Cycladic is open. The evolution in a closed system is predetermined and phenomenal. The whole is the beginning and the end; the small is contained in the big and the big, the Whole, is a sum of many small all. Opposites in this Sum are ultimate unchangeable elements and their dialogue reaches till their limits and never violates them, because they are not supposed to have any more structure. Their dialectical process is an oppositive one.
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The Cycladic open symbol, shows evolution to be real, change to be substantial, and nothing to be completely fixed or fulfilled, nothing to be predetermined. The big, (Whole), in this case is born from the continuous alternation of life and death of the small. The small at its ultimate point of existence or tending towards Zero, at the same time tends towards infinity. The dialogue of the opposites there, do not allow any unviolated limits eacth-other, being contradictive and real.
d. e. Figure d. I read: The Earth the Sun and the Sea are in continuous dialogue through Ether, who is infinite and in continuous change. Figure e. Dithyrambic spiral at the center could be the Sun and the symbols around, could show the alternation of Nature’s ascent and descent, of “epiphaneia” and “katagogia”.
CRETAN. 2500 bC.
f.
The geometric transformation of figure f.
Figure f. Cretan dithyramb, predecessor of the geometric meander, preserved till the end as the symbol of tragedy in Greek vases.
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ATTIC- GEOMETRIC 1000-700 b.C.
g. h.
i.
Figure g. Attic dithyramb: A cycle within a cycle, representing a mask within a mask, where the ultimate point is the cross, being a primitive dithyramb. Figures h.and i. Funereal dithyrambic symbols (epiphaneia-katagogia)
Epiphaneia-Katagogia
Greek Egyptian Hebrew
Hebrew-Dromos-Comos Hebrew reversible trends Hebrew synthesis (open) (going to the sacrifice and return) The Hebrew dithyramb was an open one, since Hebrews were nomadic-comercial; and paganist people; Jehovah was probably Jovacchos. After the acceptance of the Egyptian monotheism, along with their leader Moses as followers of the Pharaoh Akhenaton they escaped from Egypt. Old testimony mentions that while Moses was up to Sina mountain, they believed that Moses died and they returned to their old worship of the golden bull. (the symbol of nature’s fertility).
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the star of David (closed) Hebrew dithyramb
The monotheistic star of David shows opposites inter-reaction but each-one preserves its independence. This is precisely what deprives it of its dithyrambic nature. It changes from an open system to a closed one; the dark part in the middle is the dialogue, and the free corners are the ultimate unchangeable. In the Greek dithyramb we shall see below, (figure k), the opposites inter-expand each-other, entering eachother and not leaving any inviolated space between them, so that ultimate elements, containing both opposites simultaneously, compose a contradictive unity.
ATTIC 900 b.C. until HELLENISTIC and ROMAN period
Dithyramb thriambus (triumph) synthesis Figure k. is a Dithyramb completely developed: a double meander showing the flow and anti-flow of universe; one meander goes and the other returns (comos-dromos) and their crossing points are the dithyrambic positions; and the square between the crossing point positions, is thriabus (triumph), the passing by the third gate, of synthesis (composition), which analysed is again dithyrambic.
The Tragedy
Society, as time passed, took on a different everyday rhythm and daily tragic practice began to wear out. The table of the house was no longer a sacrificial altar. (Even nowadays there are people, who respect the table, do not through away the remaining food, because it is sacred, being sacrificial element and say grace prayer before the meal: these are vestiges of the ancient tragic practice). On exceptional sacred days, the winter solstice, which simultaneously was the first day of the year the last day also, (the greatest night and smallest day), when Chronos– Kronos–Year passed simultaneously two opposite gates, preplanned festivals of civilization took place. Their calendar was marked by this kind of dithyrambic days.
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Thus a myth was born wherein God, (Nature), sacrifices Itself every year and dying-revives simultaneously, being in a continuous state of collapsing-composition. Nature may have been represented by Zeus (bursting of life) or Ado-nes, (Ἀϊδο-νεύς, born in Ades, born in his death); But because in a later patriarchic society male great God could not die, in his place, Zagreus, his beloved son was sacrificed. He was born by Persephone who had the same fate; she spent half of her life with Zeus (the living one) and the other half to A-des (Azeus, having no breath). Since God himself could not sacrifice his own son, the Titans performed the profane deed. Humanity, which was created from the ashes of the fulgurate by Zeus Titans, contained within the eaten body of Zagreus by the Titans also; Thus humanity was both infamous and sacred. For that reason, man’s deeds are contradictive (dithyrambic), simultaneously both good and evil. When aspiring to goodness, he looks evil springing up deeply down within his deeds. That is why he had to avoid the extreme being modest; Metron, (human limit), was not to be overtaken because that was hubris (extreme arrogance). So they created myths where the heroes were perplexed in contradictory situations, because of their exaggerated aspirations. These myths revealed the contradictive nature of the world and society, that is its tragic nature. Thus we could say that Greek religion was related to the Magic of obtaining the Sacred “Mana”, as Harrison maintained, but this is not the root of the tragedy interpretation. Tragedy was the human behaviour to keep the Metron, being modest in relation with Nature and society.
Tragedy departs from the marching process (dromos-drama) of the victim sacrifice with respect, (agon-action) and ends to theatric acting which is imitation of the sacred action, (as it is terminated by Aristotle). Tragedy is synonymous to dithyramb which at the very beginning, was the “bull leading song” to the slaughter, as Pinter maintained. This song, dithyramb, tragedy, “fell” in a delirium of a contradictual speech about the ultimate point bull was led, (sacrificial death), which exactly this was the point life began, and that is why Zeus, Zagreus, –an other face of Dionysos– and at the end the white Bull, all together, were the dithyramb. All these together composed a contradictive dithyrambic process, which essentially was the exact moment of the slaughter. This was the, no space expanse and no time duration, zero spot; the nihil edge of the fading present, which only exists in the Sacred Now. (Past do not exist, Future do not exist, Present is Always Now, Being Always Other; this Is-Always-Itself-Nothing. This is Cronos, (time) eating itself.
Everything in Nature being conradictive is dithyrambic and social life of Greeks was an alive dithyrambic acting. This living acting, being alive in social life as ethos and unwritten law, became later an ideal reflexion, a mental creation, an imitation of the sacred action: theatre.
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The sacrifice
In very old times, as Harrison emphasizes the Bull was Zeus Cerameios (frenzy of vitality, furius bull, whose horn-stroke was the thunder); Zeus was ‘the bursting of life’, ‘raging in full frenzy’ and according to Harrison, this vital fury was the ‘Mana’. I believe that being a God, the Bull could not been led by a rope to slaughter, hurling itself around and putting up a fight, trying to escape and being cruelly pulled back; this would have been sacrilege. It is possible that in very early times, the bull was set free to stampede raving through the town, where the frenzied crowd, the participants, awaited him. Possibly in earlier times the killing took place there, while later the bull was delivered to a group (thiassos) of frenzied priests or Maenads, who committed the killing bare handed or with an ancient sacred stone tool. (For this reason it is said that sacrifice was performed without copper or iron). In later times when the bull was not a god anymore, but substituted for god who was anthropomorphic, was sacrificed ‘properly’ in dignity being prepared with soothing herbs; then it would have been led along the Sacrificial Way and through the sacrifice should be trans-substantiated to life and rise to the hight of god. The meaning of sacrifice is that the bull is turned to sacred food, (Communion Host) and those who take this ‘communion’ by eating, (participate), commit themselves to rise the bull’s death into life, through the fertility of their body, their sprit and their actions. (The same way, in Christian Holy Communion, the faithful in partaking of «body and blood» of Christ takes on responsibility to become sacred victim if his community asks to do so). The practice of sacrifice began with the sacred processional march of the bull «Dromos» (Drama), and ends at the Agona, which was the slaughter and finally followed Comos (the return). The whole event involved elevating the participants to a transcendental state. The bull entrance to Dromos, (sacrificial road), would be in a pandemonium of an incoherent accompaniment of music, dance and speech, revealing this way the Presence of Dionysos Bacchus, (the «Presence into the Absence» of Vromius, the one born in fire and by a thunder, Dionysos-Zagreus); along with him the Titans frenzied by a murderous mania for raw flesh. The animal was the sacred, the God, and the human beings were the Titans, the profane. The music following would be a mournful accompaniment occasionally bursting into a strident pandemonium returning again to a restrained lament. The chorus would step forward exuding an air of restraint as if rejecting the march to slaughter and at the same time desiring it with murderous passion. Logos, (the speech), would be a contradictive delirium of joy and sadness, composing altogether a spiritual and mental outburst and an emotional derangement from the everyday conventionality. Afterwards, everything seemed to be interpreted by the Exarchon (the narrator, the actor) but finally reverted again to dithyrambic self-refuting or ambiguous cibylline riddles. At the sacred moment the bull fell, Logos reverted again to an apparent delirium, where Chorus spoke contrite, heartrendingly about the lunatic, the horrible
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action and Exarchon interpreted. He spells oracles about relation of life and death, joy and sorrow, beginning from a formal process and occasionally burst into an ecstatic outpouring of improvised utterances. The participants in the slaughter, perhaps were performing the traditional marching on fire, maybe for a kind of ‘catharsis’ (purification). The return (comos) would be a joyful arduous march, during which Logos, (the dithyramb of speech), was transformed to a caustic social criticism; It was a moment when the false steps of the powerful were stigmatized through satire. My opinion is that this part of the tragic procedure survived as theatre, and there is possibly, upon where stepped in the beginning democracy. Under the protection of Bacchus sacred inebriation, they could speak about everything, because through their mouth the Bacchus’s wine was speaking. The dining table of the house, for these worshippers of life and Nature was a sacrificial altar. Tragedy, Tragodia is possibly Trogo-odia ―the ode (song) of eating, of the sacred food or the food that is sacred. The victim on the table was respected, whether it was plant, seed, egg, fish or venison. Beef, goat, lamb and pork were only eaten at sacrifices. According to Harrison and other searchers the higher purpose of sacrifice was to eat meet; that was a Dais, a sacred communal meet-eating by the sacrifice participants. Domestic animals, like the fields enjoyed respect; men and animals were held in more equal esteem than they are nowadays. In those days hanging up meet, as our butchers do, would have been terribly profane and a sign of barbarity. A beautiful animal, place or field, were sacred signs of Nature, so nothing should be wasted. Even eating too mach was ‘hubris’. All resources were sacred victims and had to be treated with respect. They sacrificed timber to build houses, ships or furniture. God guided the hand that performed the sacrifice; therefore the act of making anything, being a sacrifice, was art. Art is the practice that reflexes the respect for the material, which is a sacred victim. That’s why whatever comes to us from these ages, it is a work of art. When materials are used, lose a part of their natural beauty, so the maker must return the losed beauty in the constructed result. That was the respect to the material. So he used to build small temples in the most beautiful spots, since there was the sacred sign of Nature. He would sacrifice as little of the place as possible, because the place was beautiful anyway and he would make something that revealed his respect. The sacrifice of the place should take a transcendental form making the beauty more beautiful. «Τίκτω» means i give birth to: by the death of some material he had to give birth to something better, to have a ‘τέκνο’ (child); ‘τέχνη’ (techni) is an art of birth. That was the dithyrambic practice of fertilizing resources and not thoughtlessly wasting them. All activities and things, such as travel, friendship, offering, acceptance, plate, chair, house etc, must have the element of dithyramb, being beautiful. Greeks were generally poor, but they knew about the aesthetics of small and frugal. The accumulation of great wealth was ‘hubris’, so the behaviour of the rich should not be
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arrogant but useful offering to the community. The poor and the weak should not be debased; moderation should be preserved. Dithyramb is the process of sacrifice and its fertilization to New. The supreme sacrifice is self-sacrifice. It is likely that in prehistoric ages the victor of sacred road was sacrificed voluntarily. Thus later there was a custom the victor entering the city through the demolished wall ‘new gate’, to sing a dithyramb, dressed as a god, wearing the scarlet red toga. He was a hero passing through the Double Gate, the Gate of simultaneous life and death. On the contrary, Romans performed the Triumph, where the victorious General use to pass under the Triumphal Arch, builded in his honour. The ‘Θρίαµβος’ (Triumph), was the passing throug the third gate, of synthesis. Roman triumph was followed by a trophy, which was the triumphal arch and the triumph used to turn to a panegyric of joy victory at the end of which, instead of a sacrifice, they slaughter Caesars enemies. The Triumph was an affair of arrogance; the ‘victorious god–Caesar’, was full of happiness and nothing overshadowed his joy. It is said that Macedonians after a a victory against Thracians set up a trophy; afterwards they were beset by ill-luck and they came to the conclusion that this was an hubristic act. So after a victory over Thebans, they set a trophy in honor of the dead and the defeated. Dithyrambic victory being a sacrifice for the sake of the city, the city takes the responsibility to rase the sacrifice to a higher quality of life. The true dithyramb was that the people, for the sake of them the sacrifice was done, to take the responsibility, to create something higher and to be ready in any case to be themselves sacred victims. That’s the reason first christians claimed that Romans dressed Christ a King; they intended to sacrifice him and not to humiliate him. This hard marching of Christ to the place of the crusifixion, was supposed to be ‘Dromos’, the intention of the christians to assimilate the Christ’s Drama to the pagan Divine Drama, the Tragedy of Nature. If possibly Christ existed, was briefly killed by Romans, because he was not any distinguished enemy; and rather Christians placed his death in the limits of tragedy. They invented the crucifixion because the cross was an archaic dithyrambic symbol, (through death to life). We know that Romans used to hang the convicts to a «T» shape scaffold, tying them and not nailing them at a cross. Will Durant in his «World History», claimed, something Lekatsas accepts also, that according to Plutarch, Themistocles sacrificed two Persians before the naval battle of Salamis. The information of Plutarch who lived long later maybe wrong, since they did not sacrificed someone or something that has no value to them; Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter and Abraham his son. If the practice of human sacrifice returned at these gloomy days to the Athenian life, it should be at the battle of Marathon, and the sacred victim was Kynaigeros, whose death reminds a sacred dispersion. Kouroi were chosen from the ancient Fatrias (patrilineal blood extended family groops), for gaining the Grace to give their own First Blood, to which all the others
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will participate tasting it. The communicants took the responsibility to follow the sacrificed hero to the end and to fight till death. Athens of course informed nothing of this, in case there was a panic, because this practice had certainly not occurred for centuries, being primitive and barbaric, just as the Maenadic Orgies* were, being also sacred. ____________________________________________________ * Orgy, Ὅργιον, έργον : Transcendental activity
Possibly the ensuing battle was a bloodbath and not a eminent victory, which let many dead and therefore were not brought back for honorary burial at Cerameikos Cemetery. There were tomb burials, which was an ancient forgotten custom, whereby in communal graves were buried not only the relatives, but them who died in the same battle and participated in the same blood communion, this of the sacrificed hero. The self-sacrifice of an individual for community is manifoldly dithyrambic. The others must honour the one who gives his life, fertilizing his death to a better life and civilization. If not, they do not elevate him to the height of god; he sinks down and drags the others as being guilty of hubris. The course of the individual to the height of the sacred action for self-sacrifice is ecstatic and transcendental. When duty calls, he cannot escape, being impelled by an inner need; if he does not fulfil this, will collapse morally and become an egoist. Ἄνθρωπος (man) is the “Anth-oron-opan”, the one who can see oppositely, to see himself, to judge him-self. An egoist is like an animal that can see only from itself to the other and not oppositely. Self-sacrifice may take many forms in the social life; at the end it is the art of living and its general rule is to lean in front the weak and erect in-front the powerful. The supreme act of self sacrifice is battle. Battle is an action terrible and profane, so must only take place when it is unavoidable and even then should be a period of waiting, since it may become possible to be avoided. If not the combatant goes there singing the paean (the dithyrambic hymn of battle); he goes there where the Agon is, the sacrifice of the bull. The oplitis (the pedestrian fighter) performs the battle as an art, he is not a butcher, he has a virtuous ethos, using the sword like a sculptor the chisel or the musician his flute. Battle is the supreme art, because the soldier marches the sacred dromos of the human sacrifice, which could be the enemy or himself. In battle, the enemy should be faced with respect and dignity being a possible sacred victim; that is why archery was not respected; archers were hired Thracians or low-class individuals dressed as Thracians (as in vase pictures). A dead enemy soldier merited burial and the victor was obliged to transubstantiate the killing to life and civilization. Only this way could the victor be purified from the victim’s blood. (Pythia banished Themistocles when he offered booty plundered from the war against the Persians, considered to be profane). Cowardice by the defeated and arrogance by the winner was hubris. Victory had to be a Dionysian Dithyramb but not a Roman Triumph. The joy of victory should be overshadowed by questions and mental concentration or even sadness. Battle as every
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expression of life was a sacred theatre. The fighter wears the mask of the Titan or the Bull, being not himself when entering in the profane slaughter but Another one, a transcendental being, who shall play the role of the sacred Bull or the role of the profane Titan. We see Alexander presented wearing horns, as the Bull or the Ram, being the first in battle, as sacred victim. The life of Greeks was a series of dithyrambs, which beginning with the act of bull sacrifice and passing through all the manifestations of social life, went on to the self-sacrifice of battle and ended up as theatre. Theatre was the return to the starting point, except that it was now an imitation of the sacred act as life, becoming a social account giving. It was the criticism of the dithyrambic practice in social life and gaining a fully conscious ethos. The process of sacrifice in social life as theatre was generated as civilization.
Thus the Chorus enters again in a pandaemonium of mental confusion reinforced with music and movement. Gradually all were pulled together and put in order by the Exarchon who gives explanations, but his answers generated new questions. This way the meaning of given answers, were led to a chain of contradictions. The one who “knows” has been trapped, because a “dynamic ignorance” is created; the ignorance of the one who being in the problem, is himself the question, and the answer is a interrogative one. All answers generated questions; so the one who has the solution, being outside and supervising deterministic the situation has only one point of view, so he has nothing. Truth is a poly-dimentional dynamic process of interdependence in which human is also a factor.
The Genesis of Dialectico
The Greeks bearing the tragic spirit as a way of life, elevated it as a Dialectic spirit. In contrast to the oriental mystics, who had also the worship of Nature as a starting point, Greeks accepted equal value of the Part and the Whole, whereas for the oriental mystics the Whole was substantial and the Part was apparent. For the Greeks the Whole (the One) generates Many and Many generate simultaneously the One. Eternal and ephemeral were equal in value, since ephemeral things, through their collapsingcomposition (continuous alternation of birth and death, katagogia-epiphaneia) make the Eternal a self-overpassing reality. (Anaximander). People born and die, keeping humanity alive. The Present (Now) is a fading edge between Past and Future; The Past which doesn’t exist and the Future which doesn’t exist. World is the fading Present, being always Other (never being absolutely itself). It is a Zero-Crossing-Point-Eternally; It is dithyrambic. Greeks examined life and nature searching through this way. This contradictive approach, is the heart of Tragedy and the essence of Dialectic Logic. Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zeno clarified this spirit. Heracleitos in his sentences wanted to emphasize the meaning of the tragic spirit and the contradictiveness of the world, because the Greeks of his time
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begun to forget it, sometimes turning to superstition and sometimes to a vain rationalism. He aimed to whip their dull minds to awake them. That is why he turned against Xenophanes considering him as a vain rationalist and Pythagoras as a a rational-mystic. At the decline of the tragic some Greeks believed the eternal to be absolute and substantial, while the ephemeral to be apparent and untrue, since others contempt eternal to be imaginary and untrue, considering the eternal and the ephemeral as two different worlds. This was the time, civilization began to move away from tragic.
Although Euripides is considered to be rationalist, he oppositely showed in his tragedy “Bacches”, that rational formality in his times was not so typical as it is nowadays: Dionysos Gynaekias being neither a man nor a woman but both, being –a sacred transcendental unity– an Androgen (dressed in the garment of the weak), calls on his cousin, King of Thebes Pentheus, (the spirit of low and order, of common sense and barren formality), to participate in the sacred transcendental frenzy, which all women of Thebes had already partaken. Woman, being the sacred support of archaic society, a giant whose strength lies in her weakness, the symbol of Everyday Life, a sacrificial lamb, everyday sacrifices herself for her family. She is the web society is composed, being the bearer of the transcendental since she gives Birth to the New; Greeks knew very well, that the more you enter rationally in Birth Process, the more you face unanswered questions which only could be answered transcendently. She was bearer of the sacred Maenadic Mania since the beginning, when Mother was the leader of society and patriarchism stripped her of all, but to stand next to Gynaekias, being first in marching the tragedy as performance and life, remaining the chosen one of Dionysos Bacchus. Pentheus refused to participate in the transcendental ceremony, remaining on the path of modernization and rationalism, which as a formality leads to arrogance and hubris, being in antagonistic relationship against god (nature). At the time old Cadmos and Teiresias followed Dionysos out of fear and fatalism, Agaue, (Nature), Mother of Pentheus led the performance of Mania-dance-Orgy, (of the maternal pain and eternal birth), sweeping up all the “rubbish” together with her son. The act of synthesis and destruction compose a unity. Dionysos though victorious left thoughtfully, he did not speak triumphantly. The triumph over the defeated reveals the Roman spirit or generally the imperial and barbaric. Bacchic dithyramb generated new questions and reflections. It is the everyday renaissance and conscience that everyday could be a celebration of joy and birth; and the passing through the gate of death must at the same time be the passing through the gate of life. Dithyramb is the everyday life, raised to an overpassing transcendental process. Contemporary civilization, bears the ragged remains of the Dionysian spirit in his forgotten trunks. Jesus, the relic of Dionysus, is carried around osseous and dead, with no real meaning, reflecting ceremonial practices which have been dead in Jehovah’s tight embrace, who may once have been Iovacchus himself. Jesus was
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born and brought up in the body of declining Hellenism, changing the spirit of Dionysos into an ascetic mysticism, being a double hubris. He was not welcomed in Judea, because he was not recognised as one of them. And the Romans were never really won over by the spirit of Helenism but used it to dress up their barbarity not to be naked. They dismembered again the body of Dionysos-Zagreus and as new Titans enjoyed the profane meal. They kept eudaemonism and the slaves kept the rest: asceticism and fatalism.
The tragic spirit, being a way of life for Greeks, had as a symbol the maiader (maze). This was not a decorative motif, but the unity of the opposites symbol, of love, immortality, of the worldly participation; this was the symbol of the contradictive nature, of the universal tragic nature,. We now know that the word “Dionysos” is written in the Linear B grecian language plates and goes back much further than Harrison’s inspired hypotheses, that he was a barbarian god who came from Thrace in 600 b.C. Dionysos was neither born in Tmolos (mountain in Phrygia), nor in Thebes and he was not the Phoenician Bachas (the weeping one). He was Bacchus us Iovacchus, a sound-originated word, thus universal. “Io” is the Iacchos, clamour of happiness, and “ouach” is the Ouacchus crying of sadness; so Io-bacchus is the one in the state of joy-sadness. Dionysos-Iovacchus, was born in Naxos, where his symbols were discovered. We meet these symbols in the Cycladic civilization and Crete, durring the third milennioum b.C. These above mentioned symbols are prodecessors of the Attic maiarders, which reveal the opposing movement and internal-external binding, which compose the world and at the same time the individuals; the continuous change which is the contradictive nature of tae world. The world constantly changing and unable to emerge as substance, reveals itself with the symbol of eternal change and contradiction . . The ever-changing world is a mask within a mask and the ultimate mask is that of Dionysos. The ultimate mask, as P. Lekatsas reveals, is the one “gathers in one figure the multiform of Being. The empty mask; the presence within the absence”. So Dionysos is the dithyramb itself, the contradictiveness itself. He is the sacred victim since through his death, life is born, being at the same time the Tragedy, because himself is the Contradictive Sacred Logos (speech). The symbol of double maiander (page 29 and figure k) presented, the contradictive relation of the amphidromic emission-receiving power, who’s rotation and unfolding composes the whole. The ultimately Small and the ultimately Large are dithyrambic, because the small “Is-Being Not” (exists-not existing) and the large, exists Always instantaneously Being Other, (being the eternally other); It is an instantaneous differentiality (explosion of difference and returning back instantaneously). Whole being a result of its parts “living-dying” alternation, “Is Always Other”. Contradiction tightly encircles our World in the Infinite of Anaximander, which at the same time is Large and Small (Infinite and Zero). The Whole, is the contradictive Large and the Small is the contradictive element, being the ultimate contradictive
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interacting elementary unity of Materiality. Expressed by Anaximander as «ἀρχή καὶ στοιχεῖον τῶν ὄντων τὸ ἄπειρον» (leader and element of being is infinity). This preposition is the core of Dialectico. The world for the oriental mystic is closed, finished and predetermined teleologically by God, being phenomenal and illusion of the observer; God is the Mega, the Omniscient, the Creator, the Essential. On the contrary for the Greeks, the Small is just the same essential as Mega, because Small being in an eternal state of living-dying alternation, composes Mega, being simultaneously, potentially and essentially a unique face of the Whole. Mega is the quantitative infinite and Micro the qualitative infinite, being in eternal evolution process. Anything considered to be alone, with no reference to others, is dead and meaningless. So any practice and behaviour in society that aspires supermacy, ceases to be connected to another getting a character of arrogance and hubris. Life changes continuously and the wise tries to adapt or fashion situations to his favour. Anyone who believes he can make others bow to his demands, is arrogant and condemned to failure, as condemptuous are those who accept to bow. Thus in Greece absolutism and despotism did not catch on; tyranny was considered to be abnormal, while in orient it was normality. Social life of the Greeks was above all, a struggle between Democracy and Oligarchy. The general spirit though, was representative, Democratic or Oligarchic. The spirit of representation is dialectic and the Greeks of the archaic times, tensed to have the character of dialectic modesty. They kept away from the oriental arrogance of the mystic, who believed that he knows everything and whatever he did not know was unknowable. The Greeks inquired about everythig and never were sure; for one question the spirit was to be given as many answers and to be investigated. Absolute certainty was considered as hubris.
The world around Greece after a process of thousands years was in a very tired civilization level. The terror of the ruler dominated everywhere. The Greek young, happy, modest and nice, was accepted almost by all peoples peacefully. The spirit of dialogue upset the empires. The Persians and the Phoenicians were enraged. Greece was neither a world dominating leader nor a violent conqueror but small city-state foundations of ideas and commerce exchange, scattered around Mediterranea. The new spirit devoured the old one, and the news reached the ears of the Great King (the Persian King). He was not afraid of the Greeks but of that spirit penetrating everywhere. The Great King wondered how these barbarus «ungoverned» states lived without order and ruler. He was afraid of the dialectic spirit which was anti-dominating. The Greeks considered any dominating monologue arrogant. Moreover they believed that anything reaching in exaggerated levels, loses contact with the «moderate» dialogue; just like democracy itself, which as domination becomes a self-generating mechanism, that serves the formal functions of the system.
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When Law is ideal surpassing the human scale, the scale of everyday life, democracy ceases to serve the human and becomes dynastic; then in the ranks of democracy, is evolved the way to divert it from the norm through the formality. On the contrary everyday life which is humanized, is the only reality that can overpass the errors of the «perfect» rule. As long as typolatry dominates, democracy is arrogant and devours itself.
Nowadays, when empiricism is dominant in criticism, irrationality is often expressed through logic. Meditation through formality, should serve experience, and through experience, vision and imagination. Imagination, experience or formal logic by themselves (separately) are hubris. Hubris is folly from a weak person but a destructive danger from a powerful one. Science, practised today as arrogant process by scientists being not lords but servants of foolish powerful people, leads the world to destruction. Another example of hubris is «economy for the economy», where the desire for growth has the opposite results: destruction. Then again, the pursuit of pure aesthetics in Art, finally leads to anti-aesthetic inspirations. The tragic is a spirit of unity and never allows anything to be considered by itself. Science, art, meditation, commerce and all the other social functions comprise a whole, which in this case is the social evolution process, including all of them as a religious ethos: this is the art of living. This art is the advancing of all these elements together towards the birth of New and not towards the maintenance of the Old. The New is the result of the inconvenience created by the continuous change of factors comprising a situation. We tiptoe towards the danger involved the New and this danger is also the tragic spirit. Dionysos, as a humanised god, takes the flame of Prometheus and the palladium of Zeus and gives them to the following him Maenads. Fire is the symbol of freedom and mania (fury) of Nature. «Everything transforms to fire and fire to everything» said Heracleitos. This primordial meaning of Heracleitian fire, today could be understood as the Energy of modern physics.
Muslims regard Christians as idololaters, because they represent visually the divine; christians considered Greeks as idololaters also. These are two cases of arrogant barbarity. Whatever is of worth in christianity are these beautiful ikons; and if we could accept some way the existence of god, only works of Art, (everyone by its different way) could confirm it. Thus, the most appropriate gods, are these works of art themselves. Along with them, the writing of logic tractati and science are included, since mentality and intellect could be considered as the highest Art. The Relativity Theory, reveals divinity in a Greek way or more precisely the Creator of a Theory, at the very moment of the creation, wears the tragic garment of god. God for the Greeks was not Allah, neither Jehovah, nor Omnipotent; «The marble statue of a god in a small temple in the wood, is god himself». It is the Natures creative spirit that passes through the Human hands. Since stone is as well a sacred material, working on it, is a sacrificial process; it is a tragic road of the human
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who tiptoes in darkness, creating divine forms from nothing, being this way the lightcarrier (Eosforos-Lucifer). Greek intellects despised the arrogance of negation; they refuted the formless, so everything for them was revolted around form. Phanis (the Lucius, the bright one), being the white light of brilliant energy, comes out as a beam of light in the darkness, when the silver egg born by Nykta (Night) broke. This was the way of giving form and image to the darkness, as natural process by Phanis; (being the Pantheon, the lows of Nature). We know today, that natural proceeding course has always a visual and lingual form. The course of Phanis through darkness, is the process of Nature’s selfdetermination, ending up to Dionysos. Phanis, as Dionysos, returns back, following the reverse process from darkness to light. This is Phanis as New one, born from Earth (Gaia-Semeli) and comprises in him the relation of light and darkness. He is the God as Human folowing the tragic course of the human divination. Human livesdying, keeping Dionysos alive and Dionysos borns-dying, fertilizing Nature and keeps Human alive. Dionysos stirs the calm waters of divine order, leading Human to self-consciousness. The divine and certain way of Nature, is disordered by the uncertain Human intervention. Rationalism, the sacred geometry of Zeus, is controverted in the footsteps of tragedy. Everything takes on a true form, losing its ideal face. Dionysos, as the humanization of the eternal, encloses in self the human, being the eternity inside perishing. Rationalism, as formality, disordered in the limits of the multi-dimentional logic of life as language, gets the form of contradictive rationalism, which is dithyrambic. The dionysian spirit which expresses Nature’s dithyrambic pandaemonium, coincides with the Dialectic language and Logic. Moreover we shall see, that this spirit touches on the Quantic approach for Nature. Anaximander, Heracletos and Zeno, as founders of the dialectic logic, expressed this spirit. According to some contemporary theories, at the ultimate limits of our world, there is not «time thickness» between some mutual reactions; world there, is instantaneous, being only Now. For Greek dialectics and for Aristotle also, «time thickness» is an illusion; time as duration does not really exist. According to Aristotle, time is a pure Contradiction: «Neither Past nor Future exists, only Present exists; present is always the fading edge between Past and Future, being always of zero size». We do not find this preposition in the Heracleitian fragments, but Time appears indirectly through his opinion as rhythm of «sub-events repetition» (frequency of repeated events in location). Since Heracleitos believed that everything is a result of a flow frequency of other sub-elementary Units in a specific position with «Metro» (contradictive balance). According to Heracleitos, Time is incorporated within structure of things and events, as well as Space does. We have seen this, declaration in Anaximander’s prepositions and analytically in Zeno’s «Paradoxes». The supposed instantaneous mutual reactions in the «bottom» of our world (in microcosm), reveal that Whole exists as an Essence ―as a Being― and because of
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that, opposites «down there», remote the causality coherence as it is accepted by formal rationalism and it is «badly» needed by determinism. The cause, at this level of the world, is simultaneous with the causal result, so the reaction relationship is instantaneously multi-reversal. Moreover opposites at that level of world, penetrate each-other simultaneously without leaving unviolated any of their limits and elements, comprising a contradictive unit and relationship. This way, everything in the under-quantic world, is in a State of Potentiality as Heisenberg claims.
The contemporary scientist has two choices: A. To accept limits in human logic and as an eastern monk to practice consciously mysticism and silence; that is to separate the world to the area of the Whole which is mystic and incomprehensible and the area of the specific things, which are subjects to rational relationship. For the mystic, the world of specιfic things, which is intelligible, is phenomenal; the essence exists in the eternal, which is in the farthest depth, but this we cannot comprehend. Opposites have a complementary character, revealing the secret harmony of the whole in which everything is predetermined. B. In contrast to that, as a new Heracleitos, he should accept the contradicttve nature of the world, where the opposing forces reveal the asymmetric character of the world and its contradictive harmony, which leads to the continuous change. The whole is the result of the continuous declining-birth of the ephemeral things; so the continuous change of the ephemeral things make the whole to Exist as Itself, Being Always Other (to contradict itself). Forms are fluid masks continuously changing; only structural possibilities exist, but as an essence itself of any worth (to be accepted as such), only the «absolute vacuum» exists being at the same time the «absolute complete». This is the potentiality itself, the nude contradictuality; the empty face of Phanis, the Light Itself, which potentially comprises All Forms and simultaneously None. In this situation, instantaneous seems having no meaning, because its form is in a continuous change, giving the impression that Logos (ration) is abolished. But the only thing abolished is rationality as formal. For the Heracleitian spirit, rationality is not a formal relationship, but a multidimensional process, where the Part being a result of the genetic procedure of the Whole, responds instantaneously and reversal, keeping the whole alive. This way things have unlimited dimensions, so the Part (the small) not only comprises the Whole potentially, but in some dimensional aspect essentially also. Everything being in a dynamic form is contradictive (self-over-passing), having unlimited dimensions and comprising the whole in a different way each time; from this point of view, human could be at the same time result and cause of the universe.
Human as a result of world’s process, expresses this process in its very form and structure. His inner structure and his appearance, are this way because of its course in the world’s evolutionary process. His mind is a cognitive mechanism, whose structure is the codical record of experience and the continuous dialogue with the
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evolutionary process of the Whole. Because the Whole as a world process and as old and far away could be considered, communicates simultaneously with all Beings by a specific way and because the Whole is only Now, its every moment is immediate and contradictive; therefore the Whole is simultaneously zero and infinity, immobile and instantaneous. Every dialogue of a Being with the environment is recorded in human brain, as a complex code of the cerebral structure itself. The texture of this code, should be contradictive because of its a continuous and instantaneous inter-reaction with the whole; therefore human brain is continuously open and ready for every possible knowledge, since every moment of that dialogue has been registered in its structure. Due to the dialogue with environment, brain being itself a contradictive structure, is in a continuous self-reformation; because this reformation took place in the past, (the past which does not exist), being self-structured at the edge of the fading Present, which is only Now, (being zero and infinity simultaneously), it has a contradictive codical form. This code, of contradictive nature, has taken the form of abstract possibility; that has taken the form of structural-junctions of recorded frequency repetition of the experimental events, in specific brain locations. These brain locations (positions), are multi-dimensionally recorded, having unconstrained junction-extensions, which are derived from their contradictive character. These locations comprise the whole, just as the «Elementary Unit» of Zeno and the «Infinite-Element» of Anaximander does, (we will talk about this detail in the «presocratic thought chapter»). On the contrary to this preposition, if the brain structure consists of oppositive elements, which refuse contradiction and correspond by the demands of the classic rational logic, human logic must have predetermined limits and finite range; moreover for «intellect to be possible», a number of mystical opinions should be accepted, such as Platonic Ideas or Kantian and Hegelian Metaphysics. This kind of brain structure (the oppositive one), could be bonds for human logic and knowledge. On the contrary, the contradictive way of the human brain structure, would be its very freedom. The brain structure consisting of contradictive elements, would have a self-refuting prearranged codification, which embodies its own freedom. When experience enters to the brain structure, stimulates awaking this «hereditary a priori knowledge mechanism», reminding and decoding these «ancient roads of knowledge». The decoded part of the brain is the Conscious knowledge and Logic, since the bottomless and hidden part of the brain that remains coded, is the unconscious knowledge, imagination, vision, intuition, that is Aesthetics. Human, by the decoded part of brain, expresses himself logically through the critic process, while with the other part (the not decoded one) human espresses himself beyond experience; thus when the facts human disposes are inadequate for critic process, often chooses the way of the subconscious process, moving into the territory of intuition, imagination and emotion, stepping upon the aesthetics. The spiritual and practical process by which human functions as a social being,
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cannot fail to consist of all these factors. This way whatever we call critic and logic process has deeply rooted inside its opposite, which is aesthetics where from vision, imagination and intuition derives. There could not be any scientific activity without intuition vision and imagination, since the original conception of any scientific theory always starts without sufficient experimental data and after being perceived by imagination it undergoes in the critic trial based on experience. This trial in science though, is an unlimited course of life, because everything is in a continuous reforming and renegotiating process. Scientific conception has a transcendendal nature, because ventures into the unknown following the footsteps of Dionysos on his tragic journey from darkness to light. It is not a coincidence that Greek temples were also libraries and the greater library was the temple of Dionysos-Serapis in Alexandria. Greeks were well acquainted with the relationship between vision and criticism. For them any formal language of the pure empiric-criticism process is crushed by the everyday life, which is transcendental (not by the Kantian, but the evolutionary self-overpassing meaning). Formal language will always have a difficulty to decide if the «swift-footer» Achilles can overtake the moving tortoise. (one of Zeno’s paradoxes). Formal logic process is arrogant and hubristic: in economy they see growth in diagrams and in typical factors of growth, cut off from life itself. They sacrifice life in the altar of imaginary progress, sinking the world in the darkness of the ideal game and although that leads to disaster, they cannot refuse the truth of the electronic computer formality. Recently, the most arrogant announcement was made: that of the full decoding of human DNA. This decoding process though, could only go halfway, because computer being an instrument of formal logic, can «see» the world by one direction (of objectivity). It functions with the causality of one direction, which is inadequate in living nature. The causality of living nature is multi-dimensional and in marginal situations, self-refuting and contradictive. In typical analysis such as claims to have fully decoded human DNA, we can «see» one face of life or occasionally some more, making us to believe that we have achieve a lot, at least the half; in real life though, the objective cognitive ethos, cannot be accepted as «the half of the road», because the dimension we are able to handle, exists in a world of unlimited dimensions and of contradictive nature, composing the bottomless as essence. The only value of this operation is that we play a role in this tragedy not being just spectators. Moreover, in order to play correctly, we must realize that everything we believe as «the truth» and makes us «Experts and Masters of the world» is not the real inquiry. The matter is the dynamic inquiry which has not a final answer and forces us to be inside the problem, functioning with it. There is not a conclusive answer to any question because the correct answer is always interrogative. A perfect answer always consists by a question, because the world is evolutionary infinite. This is the tragic approach in research of world and events, because every event finally includes dynamically the whole. So Technology, to be a creative science, should start from Aesthetics and
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passing through the Critic process, to arrive to logic as an everyday practice. On the contrary, Art starting from a technical process, through logic ends to Aesthetics as an everyday process; however in both cases, the starting point and the result are both ideal and conventional, since pure Logic and pure Aesthetics do not exist. There is just the human intention to start from somewhere and this intention is the basic factor that leads human to fertilize this Logico-Esthetic process to Art or to Technology. When this Logico-Aesthetic flow, departs from Aesthetics (intuition and imagination) and marches into the logico-critic discipline, is Science; while Art is the departing of this logico-aesthetic flow, from logic and going through arbitrariness of imagination and feelings, ends to Aesthetics. Causality, upon which critics is built, in this area takes a different form, because the world of feeling and aesthetics as a subconscious process, looses its time consequence and is included into Now. So once again causality, takes on a contradictive form, being amphydromic, multi-dimensional and in extreme circumstances, self-refuting. It may also travel into the past and future without experimental data, making hypotheses based on imagination and remoulding reality through distortional focusses; so this way, alters reality as an obvious situation, smashing the veil of darkness, opening unlimited roads which critic through experience, knows very well to exploit. Experience alone, with criticism as a guide, cannot fail to go round and round those well-trodden paths, but when the matter concerns the New, it is a inadequate teacher. For this reason, Dionysos comes in a pandemonium of sacred frenzy to remind that world is recorded inside us in a contradictory way and we must often immerse ourselves in that «chaos» of the aesthetic «counter-intellect». This way logic and aesthetics, art and science, work in reverse being finally inseparable. For the Greeks, art and science nurture each-other, art with logic and science with aesthetics; the unity of these two is itself another dimension of the tragic spirit, which for Greeks was religion and a way of life. Greeks considered formalistic behaviour to be «hubris» and the formal-rationalist dangerous because at the height of his action becomes blind by arrogance, believing that he is subject of infallibility. Agnostics and mysticists, just the same, become negative-nihilists, showing arrogance and hubris, being therefore dangerous. The Tragic spirit is great-hearted and noble, it aspires to the Great without despising the Small. It cares for the small and through the small achieves the great. Great contains quantatitavely the small, as much small contains potentially-qualitatively the great.
Democracy, Rationalism and Objectivity cannot exist without tragic spirit. This spirit rejects the absolute as tyrannic, while at the same time, it does not accept logic to be formal. Bacchus will enter the stage in a deafening pandaemonium and trouble the conscience of the trapped people in sterile mechanistic logical procedures. He will demand everyone to commune the transcendent, which is imagination in the everyday life, crushing the formallization and conventionality as practice of life. Every moment may be substantial, if not it passes pointlessly, turning human into a piece of rubbish blown about the wind. The «substitute man», subjugated to the conventional logic,
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climbs the steps of rationalism and finally reaching the top, plunges into nothingness. In just such a way, our world is led through logic and science to Chaos. The experimental rationalism nowadays, speeding along the path of «true knowledge», leads the word to disaster, and as a new Achilles, having caught up with the tortoise, does not overtake it, because he is sure that he will make a logical error.
The inner and the outer world in human, is a tragic practice.
Human beings (the ephemerals), by their alternation of life and death, keep the world (eternal), alive. Humans commune to eternal through their actions; they participate offering to the whole, through the others. Everything, just being itself is wasted, while through the others is perpetuated. Human being feels that life, from one point of view, is all really possess; every passing moment vanishes his life and that fills human with panic. He wants to devote all his time and energy to himself. There are two ways to achieve that: A. To be isolated in self and cultivating his inner world to achieve unity with the whole as a highest prize. B. To open himself fully to the surrounding world and enjoy the ephemeral to the outmost. For him the world has nothing to do with the whole of the mystic, being a random accumulation of sorrows and joys, successes and failures, victories and defeats and of course he chooses the best and devotes himself to that. The eudaemonist, on the contrary to the mystic one, believes that the whole is an imaginary invention, while the efemeral is the true one. Both of these, eudemonism and misticism are considered by tragedy hybristic and arrogant. The tragic spirit creates a balance of the eternal within the practice of the ephemeral. This fertilizes logic through the daily transcendental pandemonium. This is the dithyrambic spirit of the opposites-unity and not the spirit of formalization clarity and absolute deterministic separation. This spirit distiguishes good from evil at a specific moment, but do not accepts it as eternally good or evil. According to the tragic spirit everything communes to its opposite and moreover to the whole, composing contradictive unities. The whole as such, exists always being continuously Other (being a pure contradiction); It is the empty face of Dionysos, appearing by changing masks. Our world, consists of unlimited contradictive masks, so every intention to approach a situation or a thing as absolute, is arrogant or nonsense. The absolute can only be felt only as not-existing. Therefore human nurturing his «inner» world, truly gets to know better his «outer» world. (The knowledge of internal is builded through knowledge of the external and oppositely). The world is a very serious matter, because it simultaneously is a frenzy panegyric celebration; A transcendental aesthetic celebration guided by logic, being continuously overpassed. Greek celebrations were the peak-point of this kind of life. Drama reminds symbolically and examines closely all dimensions of tragic way of life and the proper thinking within social process; tragedy reveals the dangers of arrogance cultivating Dialectic modesty.
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That modesty in brief was as follows: «I sacrifice in order to live and i respect my victim because it is sacred; I will also be a victim of life and my social community, whenever asked to be. I live-dying-keeping Dionysos alive. If human be lost Dionysos will be lost too, if Dionysos be lost, human would be also (which is on the verge of happening nowadays). I do not get panic having a faint-heart or being cynic and skeptic rejecter, because this is hubris; i am noble-minded. At the time of birth and joy on one hand i rejoice but on the other, i mediate reflecting in mind all the situations. This favor of luck, i take the responsibility to fertilize in something higher. My colleges and friends will find something teasing to tell me; to remind me that i am not perfect, not to be dragged dawn into arrogance. At times of misfortune, i sing and dance mournfully, my friends remind me of my value, so that i don’t collapse, and escape from the hubris of nihilism. On one hand tragedy on the other satire: these were the limits of behaviour. «I am the ephemeral face of Dionysos and i am characterized of self-sacrifice. As Dionysos, i walk on the steps of tragedy, enclosing eternity into the perishing». This is the orgy of natures panegyric process, which continuously changes faces being the same; it dies and born being this way eternal. Heracleitos by many symbolisms, which at the same time are literalnesses, reveals the core of the bacchic spirit; with his dialectic logic, puts dionysian worship in a contradictive logical order, where the beyond conscious pandaemonium (the communing of the whole), becomes speech, logic and way of life. There, intuition, imagination and logic, compose the internally bottomless and externally limitless structure of the human, being the recording of the world’s evolution in human hereditary cognitive mechanism. All this recorded process in human cognitive structure, cannot be an object of critic activity by the human himself; however human can feel all this bottomless «flow» of life to penetrate him and he returns his depth with his activity. This «flow» of feeling is intuition, perception, pride, bravery, virtue, fear, composing the colourful cloth of human spirit which is Aesthetics. Aesthetics is the inexhaustible codic record of world evolution in the human being, which has not been decodized yet by conscience. Esthetics is the foundation up on which logic, experience, criticism of experience and science could be built. Empiric-criticism (rational experimentalism), as a pure persuit (away from the factors of aesthetics), walks to the emptiness, the vanity of arrogance. This will never be able to answer to great inquiries, moreover as a practice will always bring disasters. Science already has put questions which trouble the certainty of the contemporary determinist. The ethos and ideology of the «loose and relaxed» conscience do not match to the priest-scientist of tragic; That kind of science has been reduced to an excrement room of the speculators and with his «ideological denial» as ideology becomes hubristic. The cognitive ethos and logic of the determinist in contemporary science as quantum-physics, has been cancelled or disputed seriously, since experiments lean to the side of the dispute. Time sequence of events in some specific
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inter-actions has been invalidated and the chain of ratio ceases to be of one dimension, but in boundary situations becomes multi-dimensional and mutuallyactive. Then determinism and logical positivism, looses its meaning and gallops violently to mysticism. Contemporary scientist faces the dilemma of the ancient mystic monk. Would he practice the conscious silence or follow the contradictive logic of the tragic spirit as a presocratic philosopher? The tragic spirit, is the spirit of civilization against the spirit of barbarism. Barbarism has two faces the old one which is mysticism and the modern one which is positivist experimental criticism. For the mysticist, logic is conventional and finally leads to antinomies. This matter, which is indicated by quantic physics, Plato had already developed in all its aspects in his dialogue «Parmenides». Plato who handled rationalism perfectly in all his dialogues, in «Parmenides» revealed the antinomies of rationalism. After Plato, Kant, who based all his philosophical system to rationalism, realized that at boundary situations of «The Critic of Pure Logic», four antinomies raised up. On the other hand Hegel insisted that rationalism in every step creates antinomies; something the presocratic dialectics had systematically revealed. Mysticism divides the world in two parts: The essence which is the God and it is incomprehensible and the phenomenal world, which is under the rational rule; but this world, being phenomenal, is a reflection of the real world, truly not existing. According to the mysticist, we are able to know this which to not exist, but the existing, we are not able to know. Mysticism is the antinomy itself: according to mysticism only the world of phenomena bow to rational rules, which we create in our minds, but they may not merit the value we place upon them. Thus the only solution for himself is the Inner Exercising of Self, being the way to God. The empirical-criticist does not care about tomorrow as a future perspective; his activity is determined in generating experience through rationalism. For him the whole does not exist as a Being but it is an accumulation of things so that random is atributed to a creative cause. It is so that positivist (empirical-criticist) can rely on senses, experience and ration; he also ends up by another way in exercising of Self, as the mysticist does. According to his knowledge-ethos, outside-world exists but we are not able to have objective knowledge, because we come only into direct contact with phenomena and not things-themselfs. If the empirical-criticists assurance for rationalism as a tool of verification is disturbed, (since quantic science doubts the value of causality at least the way determinism needs it to justify itself), he will gallop violently to mysticism or will turn to paralogism as a philosophy. These two barbarities despise the world and lay waste to every-where they pass. The mysticist disregard the environment considering that as illusory; the empiricalcriticist considers nature as a booty, a storage house of resources and a rubbish heap place. He rushes to consume everything as quickly as possible, to leave nothing behind him, considering this behaviour as an undogmatic and far from any ideology.
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On the contrary the tragic behaviour is transcendental, being the song of nature which dies-giving birth to the New every day, leading man up the steps of the bilateral way process from darkness to light. This entails the knowledge of constructive modesty and not the rapacious grabbing. Human climbs the ladder of knowledge in order to give birth to the New some day and not to die in the cocoon of earth exhausting its resources foolishly. Resources are sacred victims and should be approached with respect. This is the real drama (dromos), the tragic road, the transcendental course, the Tragedy, which guides to the Dialectic thinking or more precisely, to the dialectic logic and language of Heracleitos.
Nowadays with the triumph of mercantilism society and the victory of consumerism over morals, Pentheus in-prisoned Dionysus again. I wonder if people will be able to return singing and dancing in praise of Life? Will Dionysos return crowened with ivy and vine leaves?
ABOUT TOWERS PYRAMIDS AND SACRIFISES
Towers and pyramids in ancient Greece were fire communication media. The capture of Troy was known at this very day. The first fire was the destruction fire of the city. Athens was informed the news of Marathon by the speed of light. Thus the Athenian Fidipides and Eucles from Marathon and the Spartans Euritos and Aristodemos from Thermopylae, where not information messengers. They left before the battle begins to cary the «message» of the sacrificed heros blood to their city, which every fighter had taste to commune with, (because this ba ttle would be till to death and the sacred blood should not be vanished). We are informed that Fidipides and one of the Spartans died just arriving in their city. The Angel (messenger) of the sacred blood, was received as a hero by the patrogrammic fatrias and should be sacrificed. The participants of the sacrifice tested the blood (receiving sacred communion), and this way took the responsibility to follow till death the sacred victim at the battle or whenever their society called them. It was necessary to be sent two carriers, to insure that one will succeed his duty. They didn’t ride a horse, but should go running on foot practicing the process of the sacred road, (Dromos-Drama, Tragedy), because at the end of ths road they sould be sacrificed.
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PART TWO―DIALECTICS
Introduction This work has neither a historical nor concerned about the greatness of the ancient Greek civilization; such work would need an other approach. The purpose of this work is to search and propose, if this civilization could still stimulate and inspire the modern society to urge on and elevate its level. The first part was an imaginary approach to their ethics and life. This approach is not proud of its scientificallityty; it is a work that concerning about any possible historical data, does a personal approach to this civilization. I believe that such an unorthodox practice is legal because the interpretetion of a civilization is always a matter of personal mental urge. The interpretation of an ancient civilisation should not be an infertile recording of historical data ruined and covered under the dust of time and more under the mud of intolerance. I am urged and mentally fertilized by them hazarding an inventing interpretation. Thus i have chosen four presocratic thinkers: Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zeno because these three can still offer and to push forward the modern thought, while Parmenides, because his work is the landmark for modern thought. There have been many studies concerning the work of these intellectuals, but those i am aware about, miss the essential point which is “whether their dialectics can be of value today, to what extent and by what means”.
Because these intellectuals insinuate a dialectic logic which could enlighten the darkness of misunderstanding and theoretical stagnation in modern science, i will try to present briefly some epistemological matters, which to my opinion, need the dialectical approach these intellects propose.
A note about the uncertainty in quantic world
After the Max Planck’s discovery that energy is released in amounts that are always multiples of a constant h, which was named quantum of energy (ultimate amount of energy emission), the relationship E=hν was created, where E is energy and ν is frequency. That means, the rotation of a pulse has the dimension of the natural constant h amount, so the pulse rotations ν always gives a multiple of the amount E, which is energy. In this kind of natural process there must always be a frequency, a corresponding number of waves and a number of rotations in relation to energy. From this point and after a laborious process, the science of Quanto-mechanics was created, which seems to me that till the decade of 1950’s, had almost taken its final theoretic form. The basic concept of indeterminacy (uncertainty) is that during the measurement of quantic objects, the most precisely frequency is determinate the less the moment of signal is, and oppositely.
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Quantic events possess a number of attributes named conjugate: Energy and time, pulse and position, rotating pulse and angle direction of the quantic particle spin axis, are conjugate attributes; these compose a contradictive relationship. While the one cannot exist without the other, they refute each-other composing a dynamic balance, where the most precisely the one is terminated, the less its conjugate. Heizenberg says that we cannot measure accurately two conjugate attributes of a quantic object at the same time, furthermore he insists that conjugate attributes cannot exist as two concrete amounts simultaneously.
When a quantic particle enters in a “bubble chamber” it is lighted so that its course to be photographed through the bubbles. At the critical moment, when the event is recorded, the lighting changes the behaviour and for some scientists its substance. (Lighting itself is an energy supply to the quantic object and for this process to give more distinguished recording results, should be of high frequency). So beside the natural uncertainty of the conjugate attributes of quantic objects, there is an other kind of “indeterminacy”, due to our inability to have accurate measurements, and furthermore a different perception of what the experiment is in the quantic world. According to the School of Copenhagen, in this kind of experimentation, human been is not any more an objective observer, but the object of observation, the instrument of measurement, the observer and an unidentified under-quantic underground, compose an unseparated quantic unity. According to these scientists, human is not anymore just an observer, but he exists in the experiment, as he does in real nature, being one of its basic factors. This situation has many interpretations, which departing from the simple acceptance that “no one really knows what the quantic object and specifically what really an electron is before the measurement”, and after all the possible deterministic prepositions, with the support of some unidentified “hidden parameters” and many logical and mystical indeterministic acceptances, arrive to that ultimate and extreme thesis: “since a scientist decides the experimental action, Universe as a Being, receives immediately the message of his intention and henceforth is ready to respond appropriatly”. That reminds Salmoneus, who besides the necessary activities, by the dance communicates with the Whole, (the Universe), invoking a response. The dispute continues and the different views widen with the time instead of being bridged, getting a more complicated form. This shows that scientists do not have enough evidence to convince the rest. Heisenberg believes that DOWN THERE, there is a world of potentiality that responds to our activity. Nils Bohr proposes the view of Complementarity; according to that, the world is a function of both objectivity and potentiality, particles and waves, which according to De Brolly are the inseparable state of Being. Thus indeterminacy seems to me, not to be restrained only in the conjugate attributes of the quantic objects measurement, but appears to other cituations also; on one hand appears as a natural state of Being and on the other had, as inability of the
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human himself to approach such quantic situations. There are situations where indeterminacy touches the paradox, prohibiting any kind of measurement. This is the case of an electron removal from the one course orbit around the atom nucleons to another orbit, during the emission of an energy quantum; what is the electron inbetween the two orbits, since energy quantum is supposed not to be divided? No measurement can be accomplished there and the electron cannot be located. Formally in-between the two orbits there is vacant. At the E. Bitchakis essay “Dialectics and Modern Physics”, we are informed that according to Bohm “in Quanto-mechanics, the Theory of Fields describes the motion of elementary particles as a continuous destructive-creation. So when an electron is crashed and pushed changing position, this is described as a destruction of an electron in one position and creation of an other, moving to a different direction. According to this theory, there isn’t a particle which preserves its identity. Looking deeper the description of a motion field, even of a free particle, we realise that its course mathematically is described as a destruction in one position and recreation in another near-by position. So a motion course is analysed to position series of destructionrecreation which have as a result the continuous change of the particle in space” We see Bohm to realise, in advanced laboratories, this presocratic philosophers had proposed using only their dialectic thinking 2500 years ago. -Zeno :«τὸ κινούμενον οὔτ᾽ἐν ἐν ᾧ τόπῳ ἐστί κινεῖται, οὔτε ᾧ τόπῳ μὴ ἔστι». “The moving one, moves not at the position it is, nor in the position it is not”. -Heracleitos: «ποταμῷ γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν έμβῆναι δὶς τῷ αὐτῷ, οὐδὲ τῆς αυτῆς οὐσίας ἅψασθαι κατ᾽ἕξιν, ἀλλ᾽ὀξύτητι καὶ τάχει μεταβολῆς, σκίδνησι καὶ πάλιν συνάγει καὶ πρόσεισι καὶ ἄπεισι (μᾶλλον δὲ οὐδὲ πάλιν οὐδ᾽ὕστερον, ἀλλ᾽ἅμα συνίσταται καὶ ἀπολείπει). “we do neither enter in the same river twice, nor we touch the same material again because everything changes rapidly and violently, abolishes-recreated, dispersesgathering itself, (not before or after but simultaneously colapses-being composed). remark by Ploutarch-. The paradigm of the river is easily understood; but the materials? Popper interprets in his small essay “Back to the Presocratics” : “wood gets rotten, copper rusts. . . ect” but Heracleitos points out that everything abolish-recreating, collapses-composing, exists-not existing. -Heracletos: γναφείῳ ὁδὸς εὐθεῖα καὶ σκολιή μία ἐστὶ καὶ ἡ αὐτή. “At the screw ring, (the turning lathe), straight course being the result of rotation is at the same time curve”. Having in mind these aphorisms of Hracleitos and Zeno, let us imagine how they would describe the electron or any-other elementary particle: “The moving one, moves neither in the place it is, nor in the place it is not”. The scholastic urge to be trapped, declaring that Zeno refutes motion. But Zeno do not refute motion, he refutes the kind of space upon motion is going on. He doubts about what space and time, substance and motion are. If we think of this opinion,
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having in mind the collapsing-composition way of materials and elements Heracleitos proposed, motion is not accomplished on a space but really evolves moving inside the one self. That is because all evolving things differ to themselves so cannot move being elsewere because every-one of these is always other. So motion coincides with evolution itself. Let us see how: “we cannot touch the same material again because everything changes rapidly and violently, collapses-composing, disperses-gathering itself at the same time”; “straight course is a result of a curvature”. From these fragments we conclude that everything exists only because other elementary units pass inside of them so everything is an event that collapses-composing, changing continuously its identity (it is itself being at the same time another). Because according to the presocratics our world is an open system, its process is not absolutely repeated; therefore the passing-inside elements that compose-collapsing the object, travel to universe returning back to the object a little changed and a little farther from the place it was, (because the open system does not permit an exact and absolute return at the same position). That is an electron really moves inside itself, collapses-composing, being a pulsing wave, moving around the nucleus; so electron from position to position is always another-one, having in-between positions always a vacant space. When an electron emits a quantum of energy, passes as other and different to the next orbit; between two orbits the electron disappears, not existing, and reappears again as another, to another position. If any quantic object receives more or emits losing energy, should leap to the position its energy loading demands. Real motion, according to the presocratics, evolves inside the objects, coinciding with its changing position, being the evolution itself. It is possible the dead ends of the experimental interpretation of the quantic world to be illuminated by the dialectic logic they insinuate.
This essay aspires to bring buck in surface the lost game of the dialectic logic as a formal logical instrument in scientific research. Dialectico and formality seem to be two incompatible meanings, though as “Contradictive Rationalism”, the Dialectic formality could exist. This essay will try to justify, just exactly this.
PRESOCRATIC THINKING
PARMENIDES-ANAXIMANDER-HERAKLEITOS-ZENO
I believe that a research in the texts of these thinkers could be a conversation which will open new ways to our thinking and will give answers to many inquiries. This conversation could be based upon what these thinkers believe about the nature of the world and what kind of dialectics they proposed. Their dialectic process departs from the meanings of the world evolution and infinity Anaximander proposed, enders to the question “how motion is possible as essence”, after wards explains how Logos of Heracleitos could be spoken and finally gives answers to Zeno’s paradoxical inquiries. Logos of Heracleitos is a language with a contradictive syntax, thus it also
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is a process of dialectic logic itself. This logical process gives answers to the Zeno’s hidden inquiries, which concern “how space time and motion are possible” in an Heracleitian collapse-composing evolution process. These inquiries are a departing point, for a contemporary scientist to enter in their dialectic logic, since in quantic world, as in the world of Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zeno, motion is not an attribute of objects but objects are attributes of motion as essence. In this logic approach, identity of objects, space, time and speed should be reconsidered.
A. Anaximander proposes the meaning of Infinity and obviously and consciously the Evolution Theory. (Something, generally accepted by the presocratics) B. Heracleitos proposes the collapsing-composition nature of elements and world and its logico-lingual syntax, as the general contradictive mechanism o evolution. C. Zeno doubts rationalism as an infallible instrument of the critic process; he also doubts the way, time, space, motion, objectivity and the existence of ultimate elements, are accepted; he supports this way the meaning of Anaximander’s Infinity and Heracleito’s Dialectic of Nature.
The present work may be characterised as an arbitrary approach to their prepositions. Though if my arbitrariness is really creating and virtuous, i have the legitimate claim for a share of trouth.
As introduction to the works of Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zeno, i will present the essential parts of Parmenide’s work “About Nature”. This work opposes consciously their dialectic logic, proposing rationalism as conscious logical process and opens the way to the formal logic of Aristotle. Though we should not forget Xenophanes the Kolophonian, who was also conscious rationalist and not to forget that Parmenides is his ideological heiress.
PARMENIDES (515-440 B.C.)
Fragment 1, στ. 24-32 ὦ κοῦρ᾽ἀθανάτοισι συνάορος ἡνιόχοισιν, ἵπποις ταί σε φέρουσιν ἱκάνων ἡμέτερον δῶ, χαῖρ᾽, ἐπεὶ οὔτι σε μοῖρα κακὴ προὔπεμπε νέεσθαι τήνδ᾽ ὁδόν (ἧ γὰρ ἀπ᾽ἀνθρώπων ἐκτὸς πάτου ἐστίν), ἀλλὰ θέμις τε δίκη τε. χρεὼ δὲ σε πάντα πυθέσθαι ἠμὲν ἀληθείης εὐκυκλέος ἀτρεμὲς ἦτορ ἠδὲ βροτῶν δόξας, ταῖς ούκ ἔνι πίστις άληθής. ἀλλ᾽ ἔμπης καὶ ταῦτα μαθήσεαι, ώς δοκοῦντα χρῆν δοκίμως εἶναι διὰ παντὸς πάντα περῶντα·
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Young man, whom immortal charioteers brought to my dome, be pleased, because it was not an ill fate to bring you here; far from the footsteps of men, along with the path of Themis and Dike (Legality and Justice, logic and ratio). It is necessary for you to know both ways of thinking; not only the way of the solid spirit of Truth, but also the beliefs of the mortals, on which no one can depend on; because you should have experience of all the ways of thinking.
Fragment 2 εἰ δ᾽ ἄγ᾽ἐγὼν ἐρέω, κομίσαι δὲ σὺ μῦθον ἀκούσας, αἵπερ ὁδοὶ μοῦναι διζήσιος* εἱσι νοῆσαι, ἡ μὲν, ὅπως ἔστιν τε καὶ οὐκ ἔστι, μὴ εἶναι, πειθοῦς** ἐστι κέλευθος (ἀληθείῃ γὰρ ὀπηδεῖ),*** ἡ δ᾽ ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν, τε καὶ ὡς χρεῶν ἐστι, μὴ εἶναι, τὴν δή τοι φράζω παναπευθέα ἔμμεν ἀταρπόν· οὔτε γὰρ ἂν γνοίης τὸ γε μὴ ἐόν (οὐ γὰρ ἀνυστόν) οὔτε φράσαις. Now pay attention to what a will tell you: There are two contradictory ways of thinking and open to doubt. The first one is that nothing can Be-NotBeing; this is the way of persuasion out of where truth leaks away (it follows closely but it is not the truth itself). The other way is that -Not Being- as it is obliged, cannot exist. I strongly dissuade you from this path, because Not Being, cannot be sensed, cannot be known and cannot be spoken. LIDDELL AND SCOTT dictionary δίζω: i am in a state of doubt, δίζημαι: i search, i look for δίζησις: research, δίζως: the one having double nature διζήσιος (my conclusion): -the doubtful in research, -the contradictive one Πείθω: persuade, convince with deceptive wards, with supplication, corrupt with money ὀπηδεῖ, ὀπήδέω (my conclusion): i am obliged to act according the existence of a hole, to leak away through a hole, to follow splitting away by a hole
Comment: Up to Parmenides times, we know that only Xenophanes and by some mysterious way Pythagoras accepted Identity of things in rational formality, but even them did not considered it in a conscious logical discipline. Mainly Physiologists, the philosophers whose work was associated with Nature, accepted everything to be in a dynamic way, that is to be events of a universal essence, which was accepted as Motion itself, as Evolution of Nature and Identity in a continuous modification and change, being self-refuting, that is to say contradictive. Parmenides eradicates “Not-Being” from thinking; thus with one stroke of pen, he proposes the two principles of the rational critic thinking and formal logic. A. Nothing can Be-Not Being (The logical principle of not contradiction). B. Everything can only Be. (This preposition in relation to the first one gives the logical principle of identity). Everything not communicating with Not Being can only just Be itself.
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Fragment 3 τὸ γὰρ αὐτό νοεῖν ἐστίν τε καὶ εἶναι Intellect (Logic) and Being coincide.
Comment: Since Thinking and Being coincides, nothing can escape from logic, so we are able to have infallible logical conclusions. (That reminds “cogito ergo sum” of Descart and “logical is real and real is logical” of Hegel)
Fragment 4 λεῦσσε δ᾽ὁμῶς ἀπεόντα νόῳ παρεόντα βεβαίως· οὐ γὰρ ἀποτμήξει τὸ ἐὸν τοῦ ἐόντος ἔχεσθαι οὔτε σκιδνάμενον πάντῃ πάντως κατὰ κόσμον οὔτε συνιστάμενον. (Since Intellect and Being coincide), we are able to enlighten by logic, from the present situation, as well as an absent one; because the existing one cannot be separated by the Existence (Intellect from Being), whether regarding world as a Whole or as an accumulation of separated specific objects.
Comment: He stresses, that the logical principles he proposes for the rational process (going from the known situation by means of logic to the unknown), apply both to the whole and to the specific objects as well. So Logic is a reliable instrument for correct thinking.
Fragment 5 ξυνὸν δέ μοί ἐστι, ὁππόθεν ἄρξομαι τόθι γὰρ πάλιν ἵξομαι αὖθις. I believe that if we depart from a point, once we will return again there.
Comment: Because Parmenides accepts that only Being exists, considers the world accomplished, finished and therefore a closed system; so nothing can escape from Intellect. (therefore Intellect and Being coincide).
Fragment 6 verses 1-2 χρὴ τὸ λέγειν τε νοεῖν τ᾽ἐόν ἔμμαινε· ἔστι γὰρ εἶναι, μηδὲν οὐκ ἔστιν, τὰ σ᾽ἐγὼ φράζεσθαι ἄνωγα. It’s necessary for Speech, Thought and Being to coincide; for only Being exists, Not- Being do not exist; This is how i advice you to think.
Fragment 6 verses 3-9 πρώτης γὰρ σ᾽ἀφ᾽ὁδοῦ ταύτης διζήσιος <εἴργω> αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ᾽ἀπὸ τῆς, ἣν δὴ βροτοί εἰδότες οὐδὲν πλάττονται δίκρανοι, ἀμηχανίη γὰρ ἐν αὐτῶν στήθεσιν ἰθύνει πλαγκτόν νόον. οἱ δὲ φοροῦνται κωφοί ὁμῶς τυφλοί τε, τεθηπότες´ἄκριτα φῦλα οἷς τὸ πέλειν* τε καὶ οὐκ, εἶναι ταὐτὸν νενόμισται κοὐ ταὐτόν, πάντων δὲ παλίντροπός ἐστι κέλευθος.
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(Referring to the first of the two contradictive paths of thinking in fragment 2 verse 3): I disincline you from the first path of contradictive thinking because mortals learn nothing from this one; they become indecisive, double minded because perplexity in their chest deranges their mind. They behave as deaf, blind and lost, with no judgement; because the comparative verification certainty for them Has-NotHaving value, since they believe that everything simultaneously, has an opposite way to exist.
Comment: Parmenides after the principles of identity and non-contradiction, proposes also the certainty of the comparative verification process; for only this way we logic could go from present and actual to absent and hypothetic, having valuable analytic deduction and synthetic induction. Comparative process: If A is similar to B and B similar to C, then A is Similar to C. Synthesis. If A is similar to B and B is different to C, then A is different to C. Analysis.
Fragment 7 οὐ γὰρ μήποτε τοῦτο δαμῇ, εἶναι μὴ ἐόντα· ἀλλὰ σὺ τῆσδ᾽ἀφ᾽ ὁδοῦ διζήσιος εἶργε νόημα, μηδὲ σ᾽ἔθος πολύπειρον ὁδὸν κατά τήνδε βιάσθω νωμᾶν ἄσκοπον ὄμμα και ἠχήεσαν ἀκουήν καὶ γλῶσσαν, κρῖναι δὲ λόγῳ πολύδηριν ἔλεγχον ἐξ ἐμέθεν ρηθέντα (The word τοῦτο i translate as identity). Because never and never Identity will be forced to Be-Not Being; so you must be away from the contradictive path of thinking and not be lured away by the habitual and usual activity; but judge everything by the way i have taught you -the logically well tested-.
Fragment 8 verses 1-18 μόνος δ᾽ἔτι μῦθος ὁδοῖο λείπεται ὠς ἔστιν· ταύτῃ δ᾽ἐπὶ σήματα ἔασι πολλὰ μάλ᾽, ὠς ἀγένητον καὶ ἀνώλεθρόν ἐστιν, οὗλον, μουνογενές τε καὶ ἀτρεμές οὐδ᾽ἀτέλεστον, 5 οὐδέ ποτ᾽ἧν οὐδ᾽ἐσταί, ἐπεί νῦν ἐστιν ὁμοῦ πάν ἕν, συνεχές· τίνα γὰρ γένναν διζήσεαι αὑτοῦ; πῇ πόθεν αὐξηθέν; οὕτ᾽ ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ἐόντος ἐάσσω φάσθαι σ᾽οὐδέ νοεῖν· οὐ γὰρ φατόν ούδὲ νοητόν ἔστιν ὅπως οὐκ ἔστι. τί δ᾽ἄν μιν καὶ χρέος ὦρσεν 10 ὕστερον ἣ πρόσθεν τοῦ μηδενός ἀρξάμενον φῦν; οὕτως ἣ πάνπαν πελἐναι χρεών ἐστιν ἢ οὐχί οὔτε ποτ᾽ἐκ μὴ ἐόντος ἐφήσει πίστιος ἰσχὺς γίγνεσθαί τι πάρ᾽αὐτό. τοῦ εἴνεκεν οὔτε γίγνεσθαι οὔτ᾽ ὄλλυσθαι ἀνῆκε δίκη χαλάσασα πέδῃσιν
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15 ἀλλ᾽ ἔχει. ἡ δὲ κρίσις περὶ τούτων ἐν τῷδ᾽ἐστιν· ἔστιν ἢ οὐν ἔστιν. κέκριται δ᾽οὗν ὥσπερ ἀνάγκη τὴν μὲν ἐᾶν ἀνόητον ἀνώνυμον, οὐ γὰρ ἀληθής ἔστιν ὁδός. τὴν δ᾽ ὥστε πέλειν καὶ ἐτήτυμον* εἶναι. The only way of thinking we can speak about remains that of Being. There are many signposts to talk about Being: That does not die, so has not any birth, being immortal, unique, finished, motionless, never was or will be, because it is always Now; being One continuous. What kind of birth could we seek in it? from where to where could it move or expand? No one indeed could understand or speak about Not Being, because does not exist not being sensed. Nothing can force to exist something before or after Zero. So either everything must coincide with the existing Whole or with Nothing, (not existing). Therefore from Not Being we cannot expect nothing to be born; so there is not real evolution or absolute wast away (destruction), because logic demands it. So every judgement must lie within these bounteries, “Not Being” or “Being”. The first one is fault anonymous, meaningless, not a path of thinking, and the other, is the correct one, the path of comparative certainty because every similar belongs to a family group. LIDDEL & SCOTT * ἐτήτυμον εἶναι: To belong in the same family tomb πέλειν καὶ ἐτήτυμον εἶναι: the similar belongs in the same family group
Fragment 8 verses 35-40 35 οὐ γὰρ ἄνευ τοῦ ἐόντος, ἐν ᾧ πεφατισμένον ἐστίν, εὑρήσεις τὸ νοεῖν· οὐδὲν γὰρ ἦν ἔστιν ἢ ἔσται ἄλλο παρέξ τοῦ ἐόντος, ἐπεὶ τὸ γε μοῖρ᾽ἐπέδησεν οὖλον ἀκίνητον τ᾽ἔμεναι· τῷ πάντ᾽ὄνομα ἔσται ὅσσα βροτοί κατέθεντο πεποιθότες εἶναι ἀληθῆ, 40 γίγνεσθαι τε καὶ ὄλλυσθαι, εἶναι τε καὶ οὐχί, καὶ τόπον ἀλλάσσειν διὰ τε χρόα φανόν ἀμείβειν. αὐτάρ ἐπεὶ πεῖρας πύματον, τετελεσμένον ἐστὶ πάντοθεν εὐκύκλου σφαίρης ἐναλίγκιον ὄγκῳ μεσσόθεν ἰσοπαλὲς πάντῃ·….. You cannot find intellect elsewhere but in Being, because it is recorded there. Nothing else but Being can be existed, can exist or will exist, because being is an immobile whole. Everything else are names the mortals give to it, believing that evolving birth or destructive death process, “Being―NotBeing” and any kind of motion or modification really exists, since this is finished limited, absolutely spheric and fully balanced…
Fragment 8 verses 50-61 50 ἐν τῷ σοὶ παύω πιστόν λόγον ἠδὲ νόημα· ἀμφὶς ἀληθείης δόξας ἀπὸ τοῦδε βροτείας
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μάνθανε κόσμον, ἐμῶν ἐπέων, ἀπατηλόν, ἀκούων μορφάς γὰρ κατέθετο δύο γνώμας ὀνομάζειν, τῶν μίαν οὐ χρεών ἐστιν, ἐν ᾧ πεπλανημένοι εἰσίν. 55 τ᾽ἄντια ἐκρίνατο δέμας καὶ σήματ᾽ἔθεντο χωρὶς ἀπ᾽ ἀλλήλων· τῇ μὲν φλογός αἰθέριον πῦρ, ἤπιον ὄν, μέγ᾽ ἐλαφρόν, ἑαυτῷ πάντοσε τωὐτόν, τῷ δ᾽ἑτέρῳ μὴ τωὐτόν, ἀτὰρ κἀκεῖνο κατ᾽αυτό τἀντία, νύκτ᾽ἀδαῇ, πυκινὸν δέμας ἐμβριθές τε. 60 τὸν σοι ἐγώ διάκοσμον ἐοικότα πάντα φατίζω, ὡς οὐ μὴ ποτέ τίς σε βροτῶν γνώμη παρελάσῃ. At this point i will stop speaking about the real meaning, but about the ambiguous, the mortal and doubtful truth: They believe that everything has two ways to exist, one is not enough for them; exactly there they are wrong. They believe that opposites are united, while at the same time they set limits in-between them; the etherial flame of fire to be always the same to itself and at the same time different. They consider the same thing against itself, being in deep confusion and darkness. I speek to you about the phenomenal world, the surface of cosmos, the diacosmos (decorative), so you will never be deceived by the mortal thinking. . .
Comment: Parmenides turns consciously and clearly against the Heracleitian contradictive logic, setting other terms which reject the existence of “NotBeing”. This way every contradictive concept which, “Is―NotBeing”, containing the “NotBeing”, contains error.
Fragment 9 αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πάντα φαός καὶ νὺξ, ὀνόμασται καὶ τὰ κατὰ σφετέρας δυνάμεις ἐπὶ τοῖσί τε καὶ τοῖς, πᾶν πλέον ἐστὶν ὁμοῦ φάεος καὶ νυκτός ἀφάντου ἰσων ἀμφοτέρων ἐπεὶ οὐδετέρῳ μετά μηδέν. Since all things became of light and darkness and by their own forces took different forms, everything remaining beyond these, is equally balanced of light and darkness ultimate elements, because vacant cannot exist.
Comment: I point out that he presupposes a closed universe composed by light and darkness. Because of that, and because vacant, as Not-Being does not exist, there should be an absolute balance of equal light to equal darkness remaining. (if something of these could be more than the other, the door of zero (the vacant as nothing) opens to the existence and all this balanced system collapses).
Fragment 1 verses 9-14 ἡλιάδες κοῦραι προλιποῦσαι δώματα νυκτός εἰς φαός ὠσάμεναι κράτων ἄπο χερσὶ καλύπτρας. ἔνθα πύλαι νυκτός καὶ ἤματός εἰσι κελεύθων
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καὶ σφὰς ὑπέρθυρον ἀμφίς ἔχει λάινος οὐδός· αὐταὶ δ᾽αἰθέριαι πλῆνται μεγάλοισι θυρέτροις· τῶν δὲ δίκη πολύποινος ἔχει κληῖδας ἀμοιβούς. …I was brought there by the daughters of the Sun . . . . . .in-front of a double door, where Dike (Ratio) holds a mutually suitable key; where-from the road of light and darkness departs and the synthesis of the world begins.
Comment: Parmenides claimed he followed a new logical road: the one of rationality. As a beginning he accepted the self-evident, that “only Being exists”. So any acceptance of Not-Being as existing, is the contradiction itself. He proposed a way of thinking, that rejects Not-Being, (not existing), in all logical steps, considering contradiction, which is innate to evolution and daily life, as phenomenal; according to him, the world should be accepted as a closed system, thus rationalism can be an infallible organ of intellect and this way nothing can escape from rational logic; therefore Being, Intellect and Speech coincide. That’s why logic avoiding the error of Not-Being can give the reliable and accurate method of the comparative proceedings. On one hand we see rationalism and determinism to rise up, as a conscious practice and on the other hand we see a conscious opposition to dialectics of Heracleitos.
It was when the Greek world was coming out of tragic practice as a way of life, which Pythagoreans considered to be Barbarity. It is known that Pythagoras and his followers, never consumed flesh; so they considered tragedy as profane, since basic procedure of tragedy, was the slaughter of the bull the flesh-eating and in some cases raw flesh. I believe that in this spot, rises the first opposition of Heracleitos to Pythagorean spirit. Heracleitos was conservative, fallowing the tradition of the tragic, the Bachic, Dionysian spirit. These times the Dionysian spirit, started to decline becoming a gathering of typolatric proceedings and superstitions (like these the Comparative Anthropology realises in primitive societies). Heracleitos made an effort for a tragic spirit redefinition; on the one hand fought against the Pythagorean novelty and on the other hand, against the inner decay of the tragic thinking. He wanted to give a scientific face to tragic spirit, as a counterweight answer to the rationalism of Pythagoras and Xenophanes. It seems that his answer had an effect, so Parmenides takes the responsibility to counter-answer. To the possible opinion of Pythagoras about the existence of many ultimate elements we must seek about (πολυµάθεια), Heracleitos proposed Logos; this was the contradictive elementary unit, which always Changes-Being the Same; (it is approximately the same in surface, but it has an inner continuous change, which overpassing a modification grade, changes even the surface). This One is big and small, one and many, zero and infinite, self-overpassing. Parmenides cannot accept that. The One of Parmenides (the EON, the Existing), is finished, motionless, unchanged, indesructible, immortal, with no past or future, because it is always Now
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present. On one hand there is the immortal world, where vacancy and Not Being do not exist, thus it’s motionless and eternal, obeying to the demands of rationalism; on the other hand, there is the mortal world, the perishable, the phenomenic one. For this world there is the appositive dialectic logic, composed by the dynamic analytic and synthetic proceeding of Rationalism. This kind of dialectic rejects contradiction as untrue and the dialogue of its elements reach till the limits of the opposites, but never violate them. This dialectic accepts a complementary whole in relation to the opposites it contains. As we will see in Heracleitian contradictive dialectics, the dialogue of the opposites violates their limits, interacting each-other, without living any space inviolable (the opposites expand inside each-other, without leaving any margin of independence between them, and traveling away to the universe, return back verifying, their dynamic contrariety). Parmenides conclusion about a closed universe has some similarity with Einsteins opinion for “a moving straightly and normally object”, which “once will return to the spot it departed”. [ὁππόθεν ἄρξωμαι τόθι γὰρ πάλιν ἵξομαι αὖθις] To the place I depart I will return once. Logic and speech is recorded in human Being, that is Being, Intellect and Speech is coincided since human has inside recorded the whole and is able to understand and to know everything. His substance is a recorded knowledge. This way Parmenides opinions are related to Platos Ideas; According to Plato we know because we commune to the Whole by the Ideas. According to the idealists, Ideas are the real existing world, which is the Ἐόν the Being of Parmenides. He is also related to Aristotle in rationalism and the logic formality. We can also see his relationship to the determinism and the emblematic extract of Descart: “cogito ergo sum”, (I think so i exist). “Intellect and Being coincide”. We could talk about the influence of Parmenides to Hegel. They are connected with the meaning of “Being-Itself” and the phenomenal process of the Ideas dialectics and at last we could also point out the relation of Parmenides with Kant, in the “a priori knowledge potentiality” and the “a priori recording of being, logic and speech in human being” by Parmenides. So Plato follows the path of the “πεφατισµένον”, (the a priori inscripted, ―the recorded in the EON, the existing-one, the Being), by means of his Ideas, where from the solid truth is reflected to the mind. The Ideas of Plato are the terms and the ultimate limits of the accomplished game of the closed world, which Aristotle wants to revert. “The Ideas”, he said “do not exist before the world, but after, reflecting its process”; he also said that everything has inside its Εντελέχεια, (the terms of its final perfection), being recorded in relation to its Τέλος (end)”. To my opinion, Εντελέχεια brings again back from the end (the result) to the beginning of the game, (the cause), the Ideas of Plato. It is known that in a closed and finished system, its terms which have been put at the begining of the process, presuppose the limits of the end of this game. This is to say that since the terms of the closed system have been set, this system proceeding will reproduce a specific series of its prerecorded games and a related number of these final games, which
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could be named «ultimate prototypes of the end». In closed systems, the terms and the limits are a couple where the one presupposes the other. There is nothing to forbit though, this ultimate prototypes of the end to be named Ideas. If we accept the existence of Ideas we must also accept that Ideas don’t evolve being eternal, therefore they do not really obey to a time coherence. That’s why they can be simultaneously at the beginning and at the end. About this the reader could study the Platonic dialogue «Parmenides». There is an intellectual line departing from Pythagoras, goes to Xenophanes, to Parmenides, to Plato, to Aristotle, to Kant, to Hegel, to Heidegger.... whose theories are complementary to each-other.
The logical man of 21 century should see again the prepositions of Parmenides. There are many opinions we have accepted mechanically, not knowing their origin and their real meaning. Rationality as an instrument of verification and production of infallible meditations, presupposes closed systems and finite Universe. Determinism should once and for all, reject infinite. As a mathematician said: «Infinity is the ultimate shelter of insanity». We see many times thinkers to splash dabbling in between roads of thinking which do not compromise each-other; this has as a result impassable logical situations.
Finally in this work we will see a new concept for the world and logic, which asks for a new way of intellectual approach, being also the older one. This is the Dialectic Logic of Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zeno, which rises up from the heart of the dithyramb.
ANAXIMANDER (610-564)
Anaximander and Heracleitos have great ideological relationship. Either he is the teacher of Heracleitos or they have coincide following different roads. We also know the admiration of Heracleitos for Thales the Militian, who was teacher, cooperator and friend of Anaximander. However Heracleitos distinguishes from them with his preposition of Logos. That is the Contradictive logico-lingual Syntax of the dialectic speech, which as he claims the world only this way can be said and coincides with the contradictive essence of Being.
SIBLICIUS Physics 24.13 ἕν καὶ κινούμενον καὶ ἄπειρον ………… ἀρχή τε καὶ στοιχεῖον τῶν ὄντων το ἄπειρον… τὴν εἰς ἄλληλα μεταβολήν τῶν τεττάρων στοιχείων οὗτος οὐκ ἠξἰωσεν ἕν τι τούτων ὑποκείμενον ποιῆσαι, ἀλλά τι ἄλλο παρὰ ταῦτα. οὖτος δὲ οὐκ ἀλλοιωμένου τοῦ στοιχείου τὴν γένεσιν ποιεῖ, ἀλλ᾽ἀποκρινομένων τῶν ἐναντίων δια τῆς ἀϊδίου κινήσεως.
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Universe is One, moving and infinite…. Infinity is leading principal of origin and simultaneously ultimate element of beings…. Anaximander claimed that during the mutual reaction and changing of the four elements, is not anyone of them generative, but something else. He claimed that genesis cannot come from the change of these four existing elements but from the dialogue of the opposites by the eternal motion.
ARISTOTLE Physics A4 187a 20 οἱ δ᾽ ἐκ τοῦ ἑνὸς τὰς ἐναντιότητας ἐκκρίνεσθαι ὥσπερ Ἀναξίμανδρός φησι καὶ ὅσοι γ᾽ ἕν καὶ πολλά φασίν εἶναι. Anaximander and all those, who believe that One and Many compose a unity, claim that contrarieties are innate to the One and emanate from this one.
HIPPOLYTE αἱρ. ἔλεγ. 16 1-7 οὗτος άρχή τῶν ὄντων ἔφη φύσιν τινὰ τοῦ ἀπείρου, ἐξ᾽ἧς γίγνεσθαι τούς οὐρανούς καὶ τὸν ἐν αὐτοῖς κόσμον. ταύτην ἀΐδιον εἶναι καὶ ἀγήρω καὶ πάντας τοὺς κόσμους περιέχειν. λέγει δὲ χρόνον ὡς ὡρισμένης τῆς γενέσεως καὶ τῆς ούσίας καὶ τῆς φθορᾶς. . . οὗτος μὲν ἀρχήν καὶ στοιχεῖον εἴρηκε τῶν ὄντων τὸ ἄπειρον, πρῶτος τοὔνομα καλέσας τῆς ἀρχῆς. πρὸς δὲ τούτῳ κίνησιν ἀΐδιον εἶναι, ἐν ᾗ συμβαίνει γίγνεσθαι τοὺς οὐρανούς. Anaximander said that Beings are dominated from a kind of infinity, which is the cause of the birth and evolution of worlds. This is eternal and endless and comprises all the worlds. He also said that time is determined from the birth and decay of the essence, of beings…He claimed that Element and Ruler of everything is Infinity and also he was the first to use this word with this meaning…Moreover he claimed that infinity is the eternal motion, in which happens the evolution of the skies.
HERMEIAS. Φιλ. 10 …ἀρχὴν εἶναι τὴν ἀΐδιον κίνησιν καὶ ταύτῃ τὰ μέν γεννᾶσθαι τὰ δὲ φθείρεσθαι…. …world leading authority is the eternal motion, in which others born and others decay and die… AETIOS περὶ τ. ἀρεσκ. Ἀναξιμανδρός φησι τῶν ὄντων ἀρχὴν εἶναι τὸ ἄπειρον. ἐκ γὰρ τούτου πάντα γίγνεσθαι καὶ εἰς τοῦτο πάντα φθείρεσθαι…ἁμαρτάνει δὲ οὗτος μὴ λέγων τί ἐστι τὸ ἄπειρον, πότερον ἀήρ ἐστι ἢ ὕδωρ ἢ γῆ ἢ τι ἄλλον. ἁμαρτάνει οὖν τὴν μὲν ὕλην ἀποφαινόμενος, τὸ δὲ ποιοῦν αἴτιον ἀναιρῶν. τὸ γὰρ ἄπειρον οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ ὕλη ἐστίν. Οὐ δύναται δὲ ἡ ὕλη εἶναι ἐνέργεια, ἐὰν μὴ τὸ ποιοῦν ὑποκέηται.
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Anaximander said that origin of all beings is infinity, because everything is born from that and everything dies in that… He is mistaken though because he doesn’t define what infinity is; Air, water, earth or anything else. He faults speaking about matter omitting the cause of its existence; because infinity can be nothing else but matter and matter cannot be alive if it has not inside itself the cause which gives energy to that.
ARISTOTLE Physics γ. 7 207 b 35 Ὡς ὕλη τὸ ἄπειρον ἐστίν αἴτιον καὶ ὃτι τὸ μὲν εἶναι αὐτῷ στέρησις, τὸ δὲ καθ᾽αὐτό ὑποκείμενον τὸ συνεχές καὶ αισθητόν. φαίνονται δὲ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι πάντες ὡς ὕλην χρώμενοι τῷ ἀπείρῳ· διὸ καὶ ἄτοπον τὸ περιέχειν ποιεῖν αὐτὸ ἀλλά μὴ περιεχόμενον. Infinity as matter is the cause, but though it seems different, its absolutely the same with it. And all theme who claim that Infinity is necessary to be material, think that it is unreasonable infinity to give birth and to contain matter and not to be contained by matter at the same time.
ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΗΣ φυσ. Γ 4 203 b 6 Ὥς φησιν Ἀναξίμανδρος καὶ πλεῖστοι τῶν φυσιολόγων, τοῦ δὲ εἶναι τι ἄπειρον ἡ πίστις ἐν πέντε μάλιστ᾽ ἄν συμβαίνει σκοποῦσιν ἐκ τοῦ τε χρόνου (οὗτος γὰρ ἄπειρος) καὶ ἐκ τοῖς μεγέθεσι διαιρέσεως χρῶνται γὰρ οι μαθημακοί τῷ ἀπεἰρῳ, ἔτι τῷ οὕτως ἂν μόνως μὴ ὑπολείπειν γένεσιν καὶ φθοράν, εἰ ἄπειρον εἴη ὅθεν ἀφαιρεῖται τὸ γινόμενον. ἔτι τῷ τὸ πεπερασμένον ἀεὶ πρός τι περαίνειν ανάγκην ἕτερον πρὸς ἕτερον. μάλιστα δὲ καὶ κυριώτατον ὅ τὴν κοινήν ποιεῖ ἀπορίαν πᾶσιν, διὰ γὰρ τὸ ἐν τῇ νοήσει μὴ ὑπολείπειν καὶ ὁ ἀριθμός δοκεῖ ἄπειρος εἶναι καὶ τὰ μαθηματικά μεγέθη καὶ τὸ ἔξω τοῦ οὐρανοῦ· ἀπείρου δ᾽ ὄντος τοῦ ἔξω και σῶμα ἄπειρον εἶναι δοκεῖ καὶ οἱ κόσμοι. It is said, that Anaximander and the majority of physiologists, believe that infinity happens to exist by five ways: 1) by the time which is infinitesimal; 2) by the divisibility of mathematical sizes; 3) since it is the only way to have continuous birth and death, because only from a process like that infinity could happen; 4) moreover finite objects always ends to another finite one; 5) but the most important that causes perplexity, because anyone having common sense, understands the infinitesimal of the mathematic sizes, even the outside of the sky, is that since the outside environment of an object is infinite, every object itself is infinite and all the worlds also.
SIMPLICIOUS phys.1121,5 Οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἀπείρους τῷ πλήθει τοὺς κόσμους ὑποθέμενοι ὡς οἱ περὶ Ἀναξίμανδρο καὶ Λεύκιππον καὶ Δημόκριτον καὶ ὕστερον οἱ περὶ Ἐπίκουρον, γινομένους αυτούς καὶ φθειρομένους ὑπέθετον ἐπ᾽ἄπειρον, ἄλλων μὲν ἀεὶ γινομένων ἄλλων δὲ φθειρομένων καὶ τὴν κίνησιν ἀΐδιον ἔλεγον. Ἄνευ γὰρ κινήσεως οὐκ ἔστι γένεσις ἤ φθορά.
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The followers of Anaximander, Leykipos, Democritos and the later followers of Epicuros, believed that infinity is the eternal birth and destruction of worlds, (others becoming and others vanishing simultaneously), being this way the eternal motion; because without motion, there is not genesis and destruction.
AETIOS V 19,4 Ἀναξίμανδρος ἔφασκεν ἐν ὑγρῷ γεννηθῆναι τὰ πρῶτα ζῷα φλοιοῖς περιεχόμενα ἀκανθώδεσι, προβαινούσης δὲ τῆς ἡλικίας ἀποβαίνειν ἐπὶ τὸ ξηρότερον καὶ τοῦ φλοιοῦ περιρρηγνυμένου, ἐπ᾽ὀλίγον χρόνον μεταβιῶνται. Anaximander said that the first animals were born in the water having rind skin and thistles (fish scales), and when the enviroment became tryer they cast them away and adapted themselves to the new enviroment. PLUTARCH Συμπ.VIII 8,4 Ἀναξίμανδρος ἀποφαίνεται ἐν ἰχθύσι ἐγγενέσθαι πρώτον τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ τραφέντες ὥσπερ οἱ γαλαῖοι καὶ γενομένους ἱκανοὺς ἑαυτοὺς βοηθεῖν, ἐκβῆναι τίνικαῦτα καὶ γῆς λαβέσθαι. Anaximander claimed that human, at the beginning, were born in between fishes and evolving later came out to the land.
Comment: From the informations we have about Anaximanders prepositions, Matter is innate with Infinity. Motion itself is the continuous change and coherence of beings and of the worlds death and birth alternation, composing the eternal evolution as an infinite essence. Matter would not be alive, if infinity was not inside to activate it. According to Anaximander, though formally seems infinity to contain matter, matter and every ultimate material element contains simultaneously infinite. That is to say, infinite dominates containing everything quantitatively, but simultaneously, every ultimate elementary unit is qualitatively potentially infinite. (The majority of presocratics accept that ultimate elementary unit being in the state of evolution contains potentially a face of the whole). According to them, contrarily and rational objectivity, established by Aristotle, cannot accept the existence neither of Matter itself nor of Infinity itself as essence. According to objectivity Matter is not an essence itself but an acoummulation of specific objects and Infinity is the greater but abstract meaning of quantity.
As we will see, Heracleitos believes that every object exists, because other subelements passing by the position of the object, is installed and getting away to the universe, once return keeping the object continuously alive but different. This process according to Heracleitos, has not only as a result the existence of the object, but at the same time, the existence of the universe. So every collapsing-composing event and object exists and at the same time is the result of the collapsing-composition process of Universe. Since Universe, according to him, is an open system, the elements which depart to the universe, returning from universe to the object, do not complete a course of perfect cycle but an elliptic course. [For the cyclic course of a closed system to be
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perfect, an element returning from universe, should return exactly at the same position the object had departed, covering finally exactly all the size of the former position of the object. Since though the world system is open and the object has a size, the elements return at the limits the object existed, covering a part of the inside and a part of outside of the object position; this way it Exists-NotExisting in the object position, violating its limits and verifying the object in another position (moves)]. Since every object is composed by an unlimited number of such positions of depart-returning, elements, every object does not have concrete limits and because all the simultaneous departing elements exist as “compose-collapsing” events, every object is extends to the universe being infinite. Zeno believes that nothing contains any ultimate undivided part (an atom); According to him, any part tending to an ultimate size of a material, at this very moment is simultaneously of zero and infinite size. That could be the contradictive elementary unite, but the most accurate meaning of Infinity also. This meaning is a basic acceptance to approach the presocratic dialectics.
I think Aristotle did not inform us correctly about the way Anaximander accepted the meaning of infinity. All the ways he proposed do not feet with the opinion of Anaximander except of the one, which makes him ironically to wander. Even the explicative introduction he did about the meaning of infinite is far away from the one of Anaximander:
ARISTOTLE φυσ. Γ 4 203b 6. ἅπαντα γὰρ ἢ ἀρχή ἢ ἐξ᾽ ἀρχῆς, τοῦ δὲ ἀπείρου οὐκ ἔστιν ἀρχή· εἴη γὰρ ἂν αὐτοῦ πέρας. ἔτι δὲ ἀγένητον καὶ ἄφθαρτον ὡς ἀρχή οὖσα· τὸτε γὰρ γενόμενον ἀνάγκη τέλος λαβεῖν καὶ τελευτή πάσης ἐστὶ φθορᾶς. διὸ καθάπερ λέγομεν, οὐ ταύτης ἀρχή, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτή τῶν ἄλλων εἶναι δοκεῖ καὶ περιέχειν πάντα καὶ πάντα κυβερνᾶν, ὥς φασιν ὅσοι μὴ ποιοῦσι παρὰ τὸ ἄπειρον ἄλλας αἰτίας, οἶον νοῦν ἢ φιλίαν. καὶ τοῦτ᾽εἶναι τὸ θεῖον· ἀθάνατον γὰρ καὶ ἀνώλεθρον, ὥς φησιν Ἀναξίμανδρος καὶ οἱ πλεῖστοι τῶν φυσιολόγων. τοῦ δὲ εἶναι τι ἄπειρον ἡ πίστις ἐκ πέντε μάλιστ᾽ ἄν συμβαίνοι σκοποῦσιν… The thinkers, who do not accept νοῦς or ἕρως (universal mind or love) as a cause of the world, but Infinity, believe that: “Everything has a beginning or it is a beginning of something else; only infinity has not a beginning. Because everything being born is necessary to decay having an end. Infinite being the beginning of all, dominates and contains them. So infinity, having neither birth nor death, is immortal, indestructible, and divine. They also believe that infinity could be comprehensible by five ways: ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΗΣ φυσ. Γ 4 203 b 6 a. [ἐκ τοῦ τε χρόνου (οὗτος γὰρ ἄπειρος)] b. [καὶ ἐκ τοῖς μεγέθεσι διαιρέσεως χρῶνται γὰρ οι μαθημακοί τῷ ἀπεἰρῳ], c. [ἔτι τῷ, οὕτως ἂν μόνως μὴ ὑπολείπειν γένεσιν καὶ φθοράν, εἰ ἄπειρον εἴη ὅθεν ἀφαιρεῖται τὸ γινόμενον]. d. [ἔτι τῷ, τὸ πεπερασμένον ἀεὶ πρός τι περαίνειν, ανάγκην ἕτερον πρὸς
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ἕτερον]. μάλιστα δὲ καὶ κυριώτατον ὅ τὴν κοινήν ποιεῖ ἀπορίαν πᾶσιν, διὰ γὰρ τὸ ἐν τῇ νοήσει μὴ ὑπολείπειν καὶ ὁ ἀριθμός δοκεῖ ἄπειρος εἶναι καὶ τὰ μαθηματικά μεγέθη καὶ τὸ ἔξω τοῦ οὐρανοῦ· e. [ἀπείρου δ᾽ ὄντος τοῦ ἔξω και σῶμα ἄπειρον εἶναι δοκεῖ καὶ οἱ κόσμοι].
a. [By the meaning of time, which is infinite]. Comment: Aristotle often falls to the error of under-grading the presocratic ideas, simplifying their prepositions. Time according to Anaximander is infinite not because has no beginning and end, but because it has unconstrained number of beginings and endings due to its contradictive nature. It IsAways-NotBeing. The past do not exist, the future do not exist, the present only always exists. “Now” being the nihil edge of the continuous perishing Present between past and future. This edge is simultaneously infinite and zero, it is the contradiction pure; “Now” exists Always being Continuously Other. It is Evolution as Essence. b. [By the divisibility of the mathematical sizes (the infinity of mathematics)]. Comment: The divisibility of the sizes according to Zeno and concluded by the Anaximanders preposition: “ἀρχή τε καὶ στοιχεῖον τῶν ὄντων το ἄπειρον…”, “both ruler and element of the world is infinity”, reveals infinity and zero to compose a contradictive unit. The meaning of divisibility by presocratics, was not as Aristotle believed, it was much more complex. They believed that dividing something, the parts of the divided object were getting smaller, but at the same time the overall size of the object, having more empty spaces in it, is getting bigger. So when the parts of the division tended to zero, the whole object should tend to infinity. This indeed was an opinion of physologists, who were against the atomic theory of Leukippos and Democritos, concerning the existance of the atom (ἅτομον, -not to be divided), as a naive approach to nature.
C. [Only from infinity could derive the continuous genesis and destruction without anyother presumptions]. Comment: The continuous evolving nature could only be as a result of infinity, which would rather be more like to the one of Zeno and Anaximander. D. [Every finited being, always stops to an other finited being, continuously and eternally]. Comment:This is again a naive aproach in regard to the infinity of the presocratics. E. [. . .but the most important that causes perplexity, because everyone having common sense, understands the infinite of mathematical sizes, even the infinite size of skies, is that being the outside environment of an object infinite, makes the object itself infinite and all the existing worlds infinite]. Comment: Anaximander and the majority of the presocratics, claimed that One and Many, have not simply a relation of division and addition. According to them “One”
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is neither accumulation of Many Units, nor “Many” are the result of the division of the One to Many Elementary Units. For them the relation of One and Many is deeper. The One (unit) expands far away into Many (units) and Many dive into the One so the individuality and the Identity of an object is dependent from the Whole. In this case the opposit expand inside each other without leaving any space of unviolated limits between them. So the infinity Aristotle claimed that Anaximander accepted as a relationship and intereaction of One and Many, would somehow be different: Every material event, begins with a dialogue to itself, in continuance this dialogue expands to its nearest events, after to its far away events and finally to the universe which is the Other, the opposite-self, who makes the event to change. The limits of self depart deeply inside of the event, not leaving any unviolated space and traveling faraway to Universe, returns to itself disturbing its inner tranquility, changing always its overpassing limits. So the specific event not having any concrete limits and being in a continuous dialogue with the other specific events and finally to universe, is itself an other face of infinity.
According to Anaximander and many other dialectic phylosophers, the meaning of the infinitely small coincides to the infinitely big, being the meaning of the Ether. This Ether was not like the inactive one accepted from the 18nth century European philosophers, which was rejected by the “Michelson and Morley” experiment; the Ether of the Milesians was the pure contradiction (containing simultaneously all faces and none), being the meaning of the Potentiality as an ultimate level of the world. Modern physics accepting some instantaneous intereaction in this ultimate level of existence, brings back the Ether of the Milesians, as the active creating cause of matter. As «ἀρχή καὶ στοιχεῖον τῶν ὄντων τὸ ἄπειρον». The instantaneous which is motionless and at the same time Nihil and Infinite, containing dynamically al faces, being no one. This some how is accepted by Heizenberg.
Grand fathers, of the nowadays physicists, Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zeno, used to see the world differently than the modern scientists. For them, motion was not an attribute of the material specific objects, but the unconstrained specific objects, were the attributes of Motion as Essence. The Motion as Essence according to them was the contradiction itself, the materiality itself, the ultimate level of the world, the alive Ether, the instantaneous and motionless, the evolution as essence.
According to the Dionysian worship, everything is mask over a mask and the ultimate mask, is the empty one of Dionysos; behind that, there is Mystis, the feeder of Dionysos, the empty face, the presence into the absence, the dithyramb, the simoultaneus passing by two opposite doors; the contradiction itself; the potentiallity.
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HERACLETOS (535-475)
SEXTOS ΠΡΟΣ ΜΑΘΗΜΑΤΙΚΟΥΣ VII 132. 1. τοῦ δὲ λόγου τοῦδ᾽ἐόντος, ἀεὶ ἀξύνετοι γίνονται ἄνθρωποι, καὶ πρόσθεν ἢ ἀκοῦσαι καὶ ἀκούσαντες τὸ πρῶτον· γινομένων γὰρ πάντων κατὰ τὸν λόγον τόνδε, ἀπείροισιν ἐοίκασι πειρώμενοι καὶ ἐπέων καὶ ἔργων τοιούτων, ὁκοίων ἐγὼ διηγεῦμαι κατά φύσιν διαιρέων ἕκαστον καὶ φράζων ὅκως ἔχει. τοὺς δὲ ἄνθρώπους λανθάνει ὁκόσα ἐγερθέντες ποιοῦσιν, ὅκωσπερ ὁκόσα εὕδοντες ἐπιλανθάνονται. Though Logos always exists, peoples never feel it, even if they have been informed about it; and though everything is done according to Logos, they seem to participate-not participating, either to the way things are said or to the way these are done; which i analyse and say just the way they are. So humans seem to sleep being alerted or to alert being asleep.
Comment: Heracleitos, guides us in the first steps of his logical path. Logos is Logic, Language and Essence, therefore it is innate to Being. (Essence can be perceived and be said only by Logos, -the dialectic logic-). However Logos exists everywhere, peoples can not feel it and although they have been conscious about its existence, have not the sense of it; as fishes don’t feel water and young people don’t feel youth. We are conscious of the changing process inside as, but we do not feel it, being present-absent.
KLEMES. ΣΤΡΩΜΑΤΕΙΣ V 116 34. ἀξύνετοι ἀκούσαντες κωφοῖσιν ἐοίκασι· φάτις αὐτοῖσιν μαρτυρεῖ παρεόντας ἀπεῖναι. Peoples who though they listen something, do not feel it, look like deaf, being present-absent.
Comment: Though we are absolutely convinced that inside us exist cellules and atoms, we never feel them.
ΜΑRCUS ΑΝΤOΝΙΝUS, IV 46 72. ᾧ μάλιστα διηνεκῶς ὁμιλοῦσι, λόγῳ τούτῳ διαφέρονται, καὶ οἷς καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἐγκυροῦσι, ταῦτα αὐτοῖς ξένα φαίνεται. Humans commune immediately and continuously to Logos and because of that, evolve changing and though everyday confirm that, they do not feel it.
Comment: Though all beings commune to Logos, since Logos is contradictive, it is the cause of their modification. So everything agreeing to Logos, differs from itself; (it confirms-contradicting its identity) and differs from all the others, having its own particularity.
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PLOTIN ΕΝΝΕΑΔΕΣ IV 8, 1. 84. μεταβάλλον ἀναπαύεται καὶ κάματός ἐστι τοῖς αὐτοῖς μοχθεῖν καὶ ἄρχεσθαι. Change and modification really is inactivity and state of rest of things. So achieving immobility is the activity to dominate motion.
Comment: Change is the simultaneous negation and affirmation of a situation. The moving one either “Is-BeingNot” momentary in the same position or changing position, is different το itself. (Different but a similar one). So the eternal motion of the world is its normal state of rest, since stability needs action and labor to be accomplished. Change, being innate to the nature of the world, needs no “change” to be accomplished, but the achievement of stability demands a “change”.
HIPPOLYTE IX 9 51. Οὐ ξυνιᾶσιν ὅκως διαφερόμενον ἑαυτῷ ὁμολογέει· παλίντροπος ἁρμονίη, ὅκωσπερ τόξου καὶ λύρης. People do not understand, that the differing one agrees to itself; this is a contracting harmony like bow and lyre.
Comment: The changing one agrees-disagreeing to itself, verifies-falsifying itself. This is the contradictive harmony, as the string organ and the bow does. The strings of the music organ give a separated sound and different notes, but the bow produces a harmonic confluence of all these; therefore the contradictive harmony of particularity and unity is created. --However we need a language, this evolving world to be spoken. This language is Logos, the contradictive speech, (dialectico). Heracleitos speaks consciously this dialectic language, setting its terms and the first term is:...“διαφερόμενον ἑαυτῷ ὁμολογέει”. ....”The changing one (the differing one) agrees to it self”, (it verifies-falsifying itself). -This is the contradictive identity.
STOVAIOS, ΑΝΘΟΛΟΓΙΟΝ Ι 179. 114. ξύν νόῳ λέγοντας ἰσχυρίζεσθαι χρὴ τῷ ξυνῷ πάντων, ὅκωσπερ νόμῳ πόλις καὶ πολὺ ἰσχυροτέρως. τρέφονται γὰρ πάντες οἱ ἀνθρώπειοι νόμοι ὑπὸ ἑνὸς τοῦ θείου. κρατεῖ γὰρ τοσοῦτον ὁκόσον ἐθέλει καὶ ἐξαρκεῖ πᾶσι καὶ περιγίγνεται. The logical people need Logos, which is common to everything, much more than the city needs the lows, because all lows are based on this one which is divine. That is faraway from the human will having its own will; it dominates and leads, being inside everything but simultaneously encloses containing all them.
Comment: Heracletos and Parmenides, need first of all to present the legality of their logical terms, something we evade taking it as granted nowadays. So many intellects choose one or the other logical process unconsciously, since “they cary it in their
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luggages” of their intellectual belongings. Whoever this could create antinomies surprising the unconscious user. Scientists nowadays, believe that the world is in a continuous change and the evolving process of nature is not phenomennal but real; whoever because they cary in their small suitcase their formal logic, are opposite to Logos, the common low of the divine nature. Maybe they invested everything in formal logic, maybe they are more Aristotelian than Aristotle or they maybe are so poor and that’s all they possess. All these great scientists inside their very precious laboratories and their accelerators, have reached the turtle and as Achilles did, they cannot leave it behind, because they afraid that will make a “logical mistake”. On the contrary to them their presocratic grand fathers, only with their logic, hade reached to conclusions which stimulate and fertilize our mind. They have already for us the logic to approach the world and we only have to take it.
SEXTOS, VII 133. 2. Διὸ δεῖ ἕπεσθαι τῷ, τοῦ λόγου δ᾽ἐόντος ξυνοῦ, ζώουσιν οἱ πολλοί ὡς ἰδίαν ἔχοντες φρόνησιν. Because Logos is common and everything follows it, that is why everything has its own particularity.
Comment: The particularity of individuals is legal, because it derives from Logos which is the contradictive common element of everything and where from derives Differentiality.
KLIMIS, ΣΤΡΩΜΑΤΕΙΣ V 116. 32. Ἕν το σοφόν μοῦνον λέγεσθαι, οὐκ ἐθέλει καὶ ἐθέλει ζηνός ὄνομα. This One, which is wisdom, may and may not be named a god.
Comment: A. This one, Logos, which is wisdom, can be spoken only this way and do not care if it is called god or not. B. Logos, which is wisdom, is spoken contradictively and do not have the conscience of its divinity. C. Logos, God and Nature is a unity and coincides in the contradictive speech, the dialectic logic.
If there is a god, only this way could be and although everything is born from this one, being contained from, it also containes all these. This One (Logos) has no conscience of its divinity, just like human, who though participates to Logos, never has a feeling of that. Human knows but do not feel, Nature feels but do not know.
ΚLIMIS, ΣΤΡΩΜΑΤΕΙΣ V 60. 30. κόσμον τόνδε τὸν αὐτὸν ἀπάντων οὔτε τις θεῶν οὔτε ἀνθρώπων ἐποίησεν, ἀλλά ἦν καὶ ἔστιν καὶ ἔσται πῦρ ἀείζωον, ἁπτόμενον μέτρα καὶ ἀποσβεννύμενον μέτρα
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This world which is the same for everyone, was not created by god or human; it was, it is and it will be, eternal fire burning up and down in balance.
Comment: World being the result of itself and because everything communes with, it is the same for everyone; so anyone participates to Logos and that’s why human correlates to Logic. The problem of objectivity and potentiality, for a common sense and a common approach to the world, is not new. Always philosophical theories needed to legitimate the value of their logic principals. The base up on Heracleitos establishes his theory is Logos, while Parmenides up on Eon (the existing one). Eon and Logos look similar because both creators accepted that Existance (Essence), Logic and Language coincide up to that; they differ though to the meaning of their Logic and consequently to their lingual syntax. Heracleitos accepts Nature to be contradictive, thus he accepts a contradictive Logic and Language; on the contrary Parmenides do not accept Nature to be contadictive but contrasting, so he proposes an ortho-rational Logic and language. Plato, instead of Logos or Eon accepts the world of Ideas; he proposes that human being to have valuable correlations for reliable comparative logical procedures, should participate to the world of ideas. The world of Heracleitos was the eternal fire, lighting up and down in “Μέτρον” (meter, balance). The word “Metron” is a loaded meaning, as much as Logos is. The contradictive unity of the elements world or an event consists always presupposes a Meter (balance) of these elements; Metron is the specific character of a contradictive relation which composes occasionally a fainting Identity; while communing to the eternal evolution of the world this Identity is overpassed. This Metron (Meter) is the dynamic balance composing an Identity in a continuous change; the identity ExistsNotExisting, being dithyrambic (passing simultaneously through two opposite doors). PLUTARCH, ΠΕΡΙ ΤΟΥ ΕΙ ΤΟΥ ΕΝ ΔΕΛΦΟΙΣ 388 Ε 90. πυρός τε ἀνταμοιβή τὰ πάντα καὶ πῦρ ἀπάντων, ὅκωσπερ χρυσοῦ χρήματα καὶ χρημάτων χρυσός. Everything transforms to fire and fire to everything, just as gold to merchandises and merchandises to gold.
Comment: Logos, Metron, contradiction, are essentialised to Fire. Fire in its primordial form is the Energy of modern physics (this has been pointed also by Heizenberg). Nowadays it’s commonly accepted that all things transform to Energy and Energy to all. The Metron is E=mc². Dialectics accepts that greatly quantitative accumulation of one component of the Metron contradictive unity against the other, gives a new quality; we also know that all material objects emit-receiving energy in order to exist. Energy and mass, do not have absolute separation limits. Nothing can exist by itself, everything correlates to something else; if something overpasses the relating Metron, being by itself, disappears as Itself and reappears in another relation as Other, expressed by another Metron.
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HERACLEITOS ΑΛΛΗΓΟΡΙΑΙ 24. 49a ποταμοῖς τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐμβαίνομέν τε καὶ οὐκ ἐμβαίνομεν, εἶμεν τὲ καὶ οὐκ εἶμεν. In the same river we enter and not enter, as we are and we are not.
PLUTARCH, ΠΕΡΙ ΤΟΥ ΕΙ ΤΟΥ ΕΝ ΔΕΛΦΟΙΣ 392β. 91. ποταμῷ γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν έμβῆναι δὶς τῷ αὐτῷ, οὐδὲ τῆς αυτῆς οὐσίας ἅψασθαι κατ᾽ἕξιν, ἀλλ’ὀξύτητι καὶ τάχει μεταβολῆς, σκίδνησι καὶ πάλιν συνάγει καὶ πρόσεισι καὶ ἄπεισι (μᾶλλον δὲ οὐδὲ πάλιν οὐδ᾽ὕστερον, ἀλλ᾽ ἅμα συνίσταται καὶ ἀπολείπει). We neither enter in the same river twice, nor we touch the same material again, since everything changes rapidly and violently, collapses-composing, spreads-gathering (not again or after but at the same time).
Comment: A perfect description of the contradictive identity; this also could give as an idea about the wave-particle existence or the energy emit-receiving of the objects or the field-object relation. The example of the river easily could be understood: the water passing by, makes the river continuously other; for the solid materials though there is a question. Popper explained: “pots get rusted, woods get rotten, stones break to pieces, everything changes by the time passing; but Hercleitos said “collapses-composing” and Plutarch points out: “at the same time”. Popper and Aristotle, simplify the prepositions of presocratics. They were much more sophisticated and complicated than we believed. According to them: things exists because fire elements passing from their position compose them; these primary fire elements are accepted today as quanta of energy
ARISTOTLE, ΠΕΡΙ ΚΟΣΜΟΥ 396b 7 10. συνάψιες ὅλα καὶ οὐχ ὅλα ξυμφερόμενον διαφερόμενον συνᾷδον διᾷδον καὶ ἐκ πάντων ἕν καὶ ἐξ᾽ ἑνός πάντα. “Everything is Complex-NotBeing complex”, “composes-decomposing”, “agrees to itself disagreeing” simultaneously; plethora derives from the unique and unique from the plethora.
ARIOS DIDYMOS κατά ΕΥΣΕΒΙΟΝ Ε.Π. XV 20. 12. ποταμοῖσι τοῖσιν αὐτοῖσιν εμβαίνουσιν ἕτερα καὶ ἕτερα ὕδατα ἐπιρρεῖ· καὶ ψυχαὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ὑγρῶν ἀναθυμιῶνται. In the same river other waters enter and other come out; these are evaporated also.
Comment: Not only an event is modified by the passing through elements but the elements also are modified by the event also. (The inter-reaction principle of dialectic logic)
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PORPHYRIOS είς Ξ. 200 103. ξυνὸν γὰρ ἀρχὴ καὶ πέρας (ἐπὶ κύκλου περιφερίας). Beginning and end is common (in the cycle periphery).
Comment: This reminds Parmenides: ξυνὸν δὲ μοί ἐστιν ὁππόθεν ἄρξομαι τόθι γὰρ πάλιν ἵξομαι αὖθις (i believe that we return to the point we depart). Parmenides accepts world evolution to be finite and phenomenal, thus to be closed system; on the contrary Heracleitos accepts world to be open and infinite. So the part of the fragment “in the cycle periphery”, seems to be an explicative adaptation of Porphyrios. This adaptation though doesn’t match to the Heracleitian spirit. This should rather be: “every end is simultaneously a beginning”; because everything being contradictive-dithyrambic, passes two opposite doors at the same time.
HIPPOLYTE IV 10. 59. γναφείῳ ὁδὸς εὐθεῖα καὶ σκολιή μία ἐστὶ καὶ ἡ αὐτή. (ἡ τοῦ ὀργάνου τοῦ καλουμένου κοχλίου έν τῷ γναφείῳ περιστροφὴ εὐθεῖα καὶ σκολιή, ἄνω γὰρ ὁμοῦ καὶ κύκλῳ περιέχεται). In the turning lathe (spiral way) rectilinear course, is a result of helicoid rotation.
Comment: If we combine this fragment with fragments 12, 91 and 103, we find out the way Heracleitos accepts motion: Objects or events consist by the passage of elementary units of energy (fire elements, or pyridia as they use to call them) in a specific position. These elements departing from the objects position make a multidimensional journey to space returning back to the departure position. The course of the elements is considered to be multi-dimensional because they depart-returning continuously after a verification contact with every other object they meet in their journey. The composition of an object by this multi-dimensional process, consists of an unconstrained number of circular departure-returnings from the departure position, to the arriving position. Since the universe of Heracleitos is not closed but open and infinite, the course of the departing-returning elements do not accomplish a perfect cycle but a thick helicoid course; so every time the departing elements return, do not verify the object exactly in its former position but a little farther, composing this way the course of the object motion. The object and its motion are contradictive, because they are results of the depart-returning elements and the contradictive manner these elements verify-falsifing both object and position, during their composition. Motion this way coincides with the evolving process of beings. Hegel claimed that motion is contradictive because “not only the moving one is here now and later somewhere else”, but because “the moving one is at the same time here and not here”. Heracleitos would answer to him that motion is not really a removal of an identical object from place to place, but an evolving process, where the identity of the moving one collapses-composing therefore it is continuously different; so he would insist that the moving object being different in a different position, really neither deserves to move nor to have speed.
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HIPPOLYTE ΙΧ 9. 53. πόλεμος πατὴρ πάντων ἐστι. ORIGENES, ΚΑΤΑ ΚΕΛΣΟΥ VI 42. 80. εἰδέναι δὲ χρὴ τὸν πόλεμον εἶναι ξυνὸν καὶ δίκην ἔριν καὶ γινόμενα πάντα κατ᾽ ἔριν καὶ χρεώμενα. War is the father of everything. We must know that war is common to every-were and Dike is Eris, because everything is a result of quarrel and necessity.
Comment: war exists every-were, being the struggle of the opposites inside beings and overflows out of them when it is necessary.
KLEMES, ΣΤΡΩΜΑΤΕΙΣ IV 16. 24. ἀρηιφάτους θεοὶ τιμῶσι καὶ ἄνθρωποι. Those who obey to the orders of Ares, honour gods and humans KLEMES, ΣΤΡΩΜΑΤΕΙΣ 50. 25. μόροι γὰρ μέζονες μέζονας μοίρας λαγχάνουσι. The more dead they are the greater honours they enjoy PLUTARCH, ΣΥΜΠΟΣΙΑΚΩΝ ΠΡΟΒΛΗΜΑΤΩΝ Γ644F. 96. νέκυες γὰρ κοπρίων ἐκβλητότεροι. Dead are of less worth than excrements ΓΝΩΜΟΛΟΓΙΟΝ, VATIC. 743 132. τιμαί θεοὺς καὶ ἀνθρώπους καταδουλοῦνται. Honors enslave humans and gods.
Comment: The tradition to honour everyone who’s only characteristic is to be dead, has no meaning; on the contrary the dead heroes must be honoured by following their example. Formal and Typical process though, is suitable to those who “the more dead they are”, the more honorables should be.
HIPPOLYTE ΙΧ 10. 62. ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάνατοι, ζῶντες τῶν ἐκείνων θάνατον, τῶν δὲ ἐκείνων βίον τεθνεῶτες. We are mortal-immortals, we live our death and we die our life.
Comment: We are in a state of collapsing-composition. We live-dying in every our moment. And that is the contradiction of the existence.
PLUTARCH, ΠΕΡΙ ΔΕΙΣΙΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΑΣ 166C. 89. τοῖς ἐγρηγορόσιν, ἕνα καὶ κοινὸν κόσμον εἶναι, τῶν δὲ κοιμωμένων ἕκαστος εἰς ἴδιον ἀποστρέφεσθαι. The awaken partcipate to the common world of all people, the sleeping ones turn to their own world.
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Comment: Literally that happens so; but deeper, awaken people are the clever ones, who participate in the social and political proceedings. More clever though, are the people who perceive the world by means of the Logos.
HIPPOLYTE, ΕΛΕΓΧΟΣ ΙΧ 9. 50. οὐκ ἐμοῦ ἀλλὰ τοῦ λόγου ἀκούσαντας ὁμολογεῖν σοφόν ἐστιν ἓν πάντα εἶναι. According to Logos, we must agree that everything coincides to the world unity. This Unity is not an accumulation of objects but the whole as essence.
ΔΙΟΓΕΝΗΣ ΛΑΕΡΤΙΟΣ, ΙΧ 1. 41. ἕν τὸ σοφόν, ἐπίστασθαι γνώμην, ὁτέη ἐκυβέρνησε πάντα διὰ πάντων. Wisdom is to understand Logos. The one which rules everything through the others.
Comment: The One is accomplished by plethora and plethora by the one. One and plethora being in a continuous dialogue and interchange, compose unity (whole). This whole which is Logos, is the eternally evolving motion, (the contradictive mechanism of existence). It governs enery-thing through the others.
The Ἐόν (the Existing One) of Parmenides, oppositely to his claim, cannot be a whole. This is the sum of the immortal elements, “light and darkness”, whose limits being inviolable, are complementary to eachother. This is an antinomy: Thought Permenides vanishes “Not-Being” from correct thinking, the darkness which is the not existing of light (No-Light), pursues to be Something. He has climbed up on the platform of rationalism by a contradictive ladder and since he did not need it anymore he threw it away. At the Heracleitian way, darkness and light compose a contradictive unity, in which opposites extend eachother, not leaving any inviolable limits in-between them. On the contrary Parmenides believes that the dialogue of the opposites doesn’t violate their limits, this way the phenomenal evolution process as it was conceived by him, is opposing. This means that since the terms of the evolutional game have been set, all its combinations which represent its final limits, are there from the beginning, waiting to be played. For that reason the phenomenal process must always be finished and no one is able to say, witch one (terms or limits) are before or after. So the limits could be named “prototypes of the end”. This way another antinomy of rationalism rises again in the time consequence. This prototypes compose a closed system, being a Sum of Many ideal ultimate elements, reminding this way the Ideas of Plato. The Ideas being eternal, are away from a beginning or an end, being simultaneously departure and destination and because they have this nature, exist all together, without time and space consequence. Ideas as elements of logic, being the Things-Theirselfs of the rational logical process, are not objective the way determinism needs badly, acting antinomic. That
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has been reveald by Plato in his dialogue “Parmenides”. It seems that except of Parmenides, in his poem “About Nature” none of the archaic philosophers, accepted consciously rationalism as infallible logical instrument but as a conventional one.
DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN IX 1 40. πολυμαθίη νόον ἔχειν οὐ διδάσκει· ἡσίοδον γὰρ ἄν ἐδίδαξε καὶ πυθαγόρην αὖτίς τε καὶ ξενοφάνεά τε καὶ ἑκαταῖον. Polymathy, (erudition-scholastic learning), can teach no one. Because it would have taught Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Ecataeos.
DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN VIII 6 129. πυθαγόρης μνησιάρχου ἱστορίην ἤσκησεν ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα πάντων καὶ ἐκλεξάμενος ταύτας τὰς συγγραφάς ἐποιήσατο ἑαυτοῦ σοφίην πολυμαθίην κακοτεχνίην. Pythagoras studied hard, gathered and leaned almost everything other people wrote, succeeding “polymathia” and “kakotechnia”.
Comment: Polymathy is rejected by Heracleitos, because it is the knowledge ethos of accepting a world consisted by many eternal positive ideal or material elements. This presupposes a closed, finite and phenomenal world, which cannot give birth to the New and this is the reason of “kakotechnia” (gives bad birth, dead birth). It leads properly around the past but concerning the new it is a bat adviser. As we noticed before any game consists of absolute and unchangeable elements, is closed; that’s why functioning produces a specific number of predetermined games, which after a point will be repeated for ever.
PLUTARCH TO KOLOTES 1118C. 101. ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν. I look into myself. I analysed myself.
Comment: The word “Ἐδιζησάμην” (i search) derives from the word “Δίζως”. Δίζως is the god Πὰν, who had double and contradictive nature. So the most inside we ender to ourselves, the farther outside we travel to universe. Identity for Heracleitos consists of contradictive elementary units fighting theirselves. According to the contradictive (dialectic) logic, an elementary unit tending to zero, tends simultaneously to infinity; that is why the deeper we enter inside ourselves the more away we travel to universe.
DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN IX 7 45. ψυχῆς πείρατα ἰὼν οὐκ ἂν ἐξεύροιο πᾶσαν ἐπιπορευό μενος ὁδόν· οὕτω βαθὺν λόγον ἔχει. The limits of human soul are so deeply inside, that cannot be found. (It is impossible to reach the depth of something which expands to infinity). 63
Comment: Human soul, for Heracleitos, is the Logos of the great to the small, of zero to infinity, of immediate to the immobile. The big dives into the small and the small expands to the big. Human elements tending to zero size simultaneously tend to infinity. The element dialectically is dithyrambic, passing two opposite doors at the same time. Psyche (human soul), for the presocratic thinkers, is the ultimate contradictive structure of every specific being; that includes a face of the evolutionary whole, from the point of view of the related specific being. Soul tending to the ultimately small tends simultaneously to infinity. Human soul dialectically could be its DNA.
PLUTARCH, KORIOLAN 22 85.θυμῷ μάχεσθαι χαλεπόν· ὅ γάρ ἄν θέλῃ ψυχῆς ὠνεῖται. It is very hard to fight against your desires, becaouse it exchanges everything with your soul.
Comment: It is hard to improve ourselfs, because we must change our character, our soul, moreover «ψυχῆς πείρατα ἱὼν ούκ ἂν έξεύροιο», we cannot find the limits of our soul. To improve ourselves we must fight our hereditary mechanism, our DNA which is bottomless but at the same time this is our main ally.
STOVAIOS, ANTHOLOGY I 178 115. ψυχῆς ἐστι λόγος ἑαυτὸν αὔξων. Our soul is the dynamic meter of self evolution.
Comment: Our soul can be improved only by itself and this can be accomplished only by the dynamic balance of our inner and small to the faraway and big. This balance is the ultimate contradictive elementary mechanism, our DNA. To my opinion only this one could be named “soul”.
ORIGENIS AGAINST KELSOS VI 12. 78. ἦθος ἀνθρώπειον μὲν οὐκ ἔχει γνώμας, θεῖον δὲ ἔχει. Human behaviour is unexpected, while divine is expected.
Comment: Human, who created his gods can expect their behaviour, but the one of human beings, which is the result of the bottomless evolution world process cannot, because it is unpredictable.
HIPPOLYTE IX 9 52. αἰὼν παῖς ἐστι παίζων πεττεύων· παιδός ἡ βασιληίη. Time is a child playing the “pessoi” game; That is the kingdom of the child.
Comment: “Pessoi” was a both luck and skill game. Men played it using strategy and logic, being outside, observing the game. The child plays with passion, being inside
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the game. Child stops to be itself but travels into the other (the game). The worth of the game is that child overpasses itself being in another reality. The kingdom of the child is where time exists only Now. Time being only Now, overpasses itself being contradictive: Past does not exist, Future also, only Present exists, being the edge of the fading Now, between Past and Future. A nihil edge, being eternal in its nihility. This is the nude contradiction. Therefore world is always Only Now and continuously different, being a continuous explosion of difference.
The Heracleitian contradictive approach for all events of nature, did not leave any doubt that accepts a world in which the opposites are not independed each-other, but in a continuous inter-reaction, as time and space does. This is not an archaeolatric exaggeration. Anaximander claimed that time is related to the birth and death of beings; and Zeno with his paradoxes, reveals the relativity of Space, Time, Motion and Beings. He also proposes the relativity of small and great, immediate and immobile. Relativity was not a revolutionary approach these days, but a conservative one. Greeks of the archaic period, symbiolised the world birth by the unity of Rea and Cronos. Rea could mean the universal flow of the primordial life and Cronos could mean Chronos (time-ὡρό-νος , sky-Ουρανός); Cronos gives birth to the limits, the periods (the seasons), the Hours (ὧραι). Cronos rotating gives Rea the meaning of space and their relation, is the universal dance, which is the space-time existence, the contradictive relation of flow and rotation (rhythm); these fighting eatch-other, give simultaneously birth (identity) to eatch-other. This unity-relation is Life itself (Zeus), who transforms the Space as Flow and the Time as Rhythm, to time as duration and space as expance.
DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN ΙΧ 2 42. τόν τε ὅμηρον ἄξιον ἐκ τῶν ἀγώνων έκβάλλεσθαι καὶ ῥαπίζεσθαι καὶ αρχίλοχον ὁμοίως. Homer and Archilochos should be rejected from the triumphants of festivals.
Comment: Heracleitos loved poetry, because his aphorisms are at least poetic. His opposition to Homer and Archilichos, was not of aesthetical reasons but ideological: Heracleitos being Ionian and for this reason Pelasgian and Aristocrat, was animated by the tragic spirit. After the eruption of Thera island volcano, the volcanic wave drown all the located by the sea Pelasgic cities. Then Achaeans, the mountaineer shepherds, came as the conquerors of the devastation, imposed their semi-barbarity. Homeric poems narrated their “heroic” live. Heracleitos believed that homeric stories, being the Bible of the Greeks, divinized violence, infamy and nonsense. Homeric stories, according to Heracletos, where bad examples to follow.
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Archilochos according to Heracleitos was arrogant and hubristic; he was a hired soldier. The shield for him was not sacred; the battle was not a sacrifice; it was not a sacred theatre. He was a butcher, a slaughterer. The reason for the hired soldier to fight is money or loot. What impression would have made to Heracletos the Archilochos verses about “the shield he threw away during a battle and he would find another better”. The battle for Heracleitos was a horrible but sacred, like the sacrifice of the bull. The victim is sacred, the dead victim has been purified and deserve a decent burial. The winner is bloody, profane and to be purified must fertilize the blood to civilization. Moreover the Archilocho’s verses where “he can lead dithyramb, the sweet song of Dionysos, fulminated to his head by wine”. were hubristic to the Bachcic spirit; ―A drunk butcher, leading priest of tragedy―. For Heracleitos the drunkard is not ecstatic.
PLUTARCH, KORIOLANOS 38 86. 86. ἀπιστίῃ διαφυγγάνει μὴ γιγνώσκεσθαι. Infidelity disinclines from ignorance. (doubt leads to knowledge)
KLEMENS STROMATEIS III 24 18. ἐάν μὴ ἔλπηται ἀνέλπιστον οὐκ ἐξευρήσει, ἀνεξερεύνητον ἐὸν καὶ ἄπορον. With no hope, hopeless cannot be discovered
HIPPOLITE IX 38 55. ὅσων ὄψις ἀκοὴ μάθησις, ταῦτα ἐγώ προτιμέω. I prefer as elements of knowledge these i listen and i see (I believe to the worth of experience).
ARISTOTLE ABOUT SENSES 443a 23 7. εἰ πάντα τὰ ὄντα καπνὸς γένοιτο, ῥῖνες ἄν διαγνοῖεν. If everything was made of smoke, we would investigate it by our nose. (Experience is not enough).
POLYVIOS XII 27 101α. ὀφθαλμοί γὰρ τῶν ὤτων ἀκριβέστεροι μάρτυρες. Eyes are more accurate witness than ears.
I prefer these i see, than these others tell me
SEXTOS VII 126 107. κακοὶ μάρτυρες ἀνθρώποισιν ὀφθαλμοί καὶ ὦτα βαρβάρους ψυχὰς ἐχόντων. Eyes and ears of barbarous souls are not reliable (not good evidence).
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Comment: Barbarity is, “not to know how to see and how to listen”. Civilisation is the ability to approach and elaborate experience rationally. Hracletos believed, that experience must be evaluated by Logos. Barbarians know very well to accept things as identical to themselves, but they don’t know to approach the world by its differential and contradictive way. This kind of approach and analysis is far from barbarity.
KLEMENS TO STROMATEIS V 60. 29. αἰρεῦνται γὰρ ἓν ἀντί ἀπάντων οἱ ἄριστοι, κλέος ἀέναον θνητόν· οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ κεκόρηνται ὅκωσπερ κτήνεα. The best thinkers instead of searching for Many things, look for the One (Logos), which is the glamour of dying (fading) knowledge. Yet the majority of the people are satisfied as animals do (with these they come to immediate contact).
Comment:Logos is eternally dying because its content changes continuously. It exists Being-Always-Other. Therefore something being One, because of its continuous changing, seems at the same time to be Many.
THEOFRASTOS METAPHYSICS 7a. 124. ὥσπερ σάρμα εἰκῆ κεχυμένων ὁ κάλλιστος κόσμος. The beautiful world looks like rubbish thrown hear and there.
Comment: “Hazard and nesessity”: Hazardous deeply inside has a hidden multidimensional reason very difficully traced; so “the hidden harmony is better than the obvious one”; but with barbarous eyes, cannot be traced.
DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN IX 73 47. μὴ εἰκῆ περὶ τῶν μεγίστων συμβαλλώμεθα. We must not deal thoughtlessly with the very great and important things
Let’s deal with small and everyday things, because they contain dynamically the great.
MARCUS ANTONINUS IV 46. 74. οὐ δεῖ ὡς παῖδας τοκεώνων. We must not follow blindly the steps of our family ancestors. We must violate tradition, accomplishing the New, regardless how dangerous it is.
Comment: Heracleitos is presented as a conservative oligarchic aristocrat. In reality though, he was a revolutionary mind and true democrat; he was in a critical stand against “democrats”, who demolished democracy in order to “save” it. Oppositely to them, his friend Hermodoros, who was sent to exile by these “democrats” as oligarchic, wrote laws for the democratic Rome. Moreover, Heracleitos convinced tyrran Melegonas to resign. He also didn’t accept invitation to visit Great King Dario.
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DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN IX 2 44. μάχεσθαι χρὴ τὸν δῆμον ὑπὲρ τοῦ νόμου ὅκωσπερ τείχεος. Citizens must fight for their lows us much us they fight for the city fortress (for social justice and for liberty).
Comment: Lows are abolished by tyranny and oligarchy (aristocrats); the walls of the city by the Persians, who usually were allies of oligarchy.
CLEMENS TO STROMATEIS V 116 33. νόμος καὶ βουλῇ πείθεσθαι ἑνός. We must obay the law of the one (Logos) (Logos is the contradictive Meter of every specific event)
DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN IX 1 43. ὕβριν χρὴ σβεννύναι μᾶλλον ἣ πυρκαϊήν. It is more urgen to fight against hubris than conflagration of the city.
Comment: the arrogance of pseudo-democrats is more dangerous than conflagration. The result of fire can be overpassed by hard work, the result of political arrogance can be overpassed by blood, violence and unforgotten hate.
CLEMENS, STROMATEIS III 14 20. γενόμενοι ζώειν ἐθέλουσι μόρους τ᾽ἔχειν μᾶλλον δὲ ἀναπαύεσθαι καὶ παῖδας καταλείπουσι μόρους γενέσθαι. Being born, intend to live doing nothing, -receiving death-; and they give birth to children leaving them in their state of death.
STOVAIOS ANTHOLOGY IV 40 119. ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων. Every man’s god is its own ethos (character).
Comment: According to Heracleitos, god is neither the kind creator nor the zealot punisher; he is the contradictive elements, by which Metron composes the human character (human Logos). This is the contradictive multidimentional recording of the evolving universe in human biological hereditary mechanism; this mechanism, being contradictive, gives to any person the ability to have free will. The choice to have a character, is the god of any man.
ORIGENIS AGAINST CELSOS VI 12. 12. ἀνὴρ νήπιος ἤκουσε πρὸς δαίμονος ὅκωσπερ παῖς πρὸς ἀνδρός. The immature man obeys to his “Daemon” like the child obeys to man.
Comment: Heracleitian Daemon, is the force of living nature inside human; that is uninfluenced by the social process, being the vital impulsion of man; man cultivating this natural internal force integrats it to maturity and ethos.
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HIPPOLYTE IX 10 60. ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω μία καὶ ὡυτή. Uphill road and downhill road is one and the same. (the unity of the opposites).
ARISTOTLE METEOROLOGY 335 a 13 6. ἥλιος οὐ μόνον νέος εφ᾽ἡμέρῃ ἐστίν, ἀλλ᾽ἀεί νέος καθάπερ ἡράκλειτός φησι. The sun is not only everyday new, but it always is new, as Heracletos claims.
Comment: Xenophanes claimed that the sun is every day new: «τὸν δὲ ἥλιον, ἐκ μικρῶν πυριδίων ἀθροιζομένων γίνεσθαι, καθ᾽ἑκάστην ἡμέραν». (the sun is composed by small fire elements (photons), gathering every morning). On the contrary Heracleitos claimed that sun is always new. This difference reveals a deeper opposition between them: Xenophanes accepts evolution to be phenomenal; according to him the world, deeply inside, do not change. It consist of unchangeable, uncognitable and ineffable (άρρητα) elements. These are the terms of a closed predetermined, finished, phenomenal and deterministic system. This way the Sun rising from chaos, is composed from “πυρίδια”, (photons), being new but at the same time similar to the one before (because according to him world is repeated, being a closed system). On the contrary, Heracleitos accepts that the sun always composescollapsing, being a little different in a different position.
THEMISTIOS LOGOI 5 69 123. φύσης κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ. Nature likes to be hidden.
HIPPOLYTE IX 9 54. ἀρμονίη ἀφανής φανερῆς κρείττων. Hidden harmony is higher than the obvious one.
Comment: World being multi-dimensional, has many levels of reality covered by the obvious surface; at the hidden bottomless part of the world, there is the contradictive harmony. Experimental criticism conceives the world by barbarous eyes, as “rubbish scattered hear and there” hazardly; the “beautiful world” of Heracleitos can be revealed only by Logos.
PLUTARCH: ABOUT PYTHIA 397 . . . 404 D 92. σίβυλλα μαινομένῳ στόματι ἀγέλαστα καὶ ἀκαλλώπιστα καὶ ἀμύριστα φθεγγομένη χιλίων ἐτῶν ἐξικνεῖται τῇ φωνῇ διὰ τὸν θεόν. 93. ὁ ἄναξ, οὗ τὸ μαντεῖόν ἐστι τὸ ἐν δελφοῖς, οὔτε λέγει οὔτε κρύπτει ἀλλὰ σημαίνει. Sibylla inelegant, careless in furious and frenzy mouth, vocalizes the spells of the 69
Delfian God in a sacred madness; this speech being launched into the future for a thousand years, neither hides, nor reveals, but it means.
Comment: God is the Logos of nature, the Dionysian dithyramb; This is contradictive therefore it steps simultaneously on both sides of thinking: negation and affirmation. This speech “travels” for 2500 years; its destination is quanto-mechanics.
PLUTARCH, ΕΙ ΠΡΕΣΒΥΤΕΡῼ ΠΟΛΙΤΕΥΤΕΟΝ 787C. 97. κύνες γὰρ καταβαΰζουσιν ὧν ἂν μὴ γινώσκωσι. Dogs bark those, they do not know. (Lao-Tsu: the great truth causes laughter to the scholastic and sceptic; if not, maybe it is not a great truth).
KLEMENS, STROMATEIS II 29 17. οὐ γὰρ φρονέουσι τοιαῦτα πολλοί ὁκόσοι ἐγκυρεῦσιν, οὐδὲ μαθόντες γινώσκουσιν, ἑαυτοῖσι δὲ δοκέουσι. Real researchers are them who do not simply learn, but use their-one thinking.
―My work has the ambition to fill a gap on logic, which tractati about Heracleitos have left behind. The majority of them do not differ eatch-other. As Heracleitos said in fragment 17: “there are not many researchers to think the way i propose; no one really knows something learning from others; Someone to know must use his own mind”. “The studens of the studens reproduce the already known”.
CLEMENS, STROMATEIS II 24 19. ἀκοῦσαι οὐκ ἐπιστάμενοι οὐδ᾽εἰπεῖν. Scholars (learners), really know nothing and have nothing to say.
Knowledge and research is a dynamic process, a journey into the unknown. The unknown cannot be taught but discovered.
CLEMENS PROTREPTIKOS 34 15. εἰ μὴ γὰρ διονύσῳ πομπήν ἐποιοῦντο καὶ ὕμνεον ᾆσμα αἰδοίοισιν, ἀναιδέστατα εἴργαστ᾽ἄν· ὡυτὸς δὲ ἀίδης καὶ διόνυσος, ὅτεῳ μαίνονται καὶ ληναΐζουσιν. If this fallic ceremony was not for the sake of Dionysos, would be an impudent behaviour; Ades is Dionysos himself, for whom they are frenzy and proceed in their furious orgies.
Comment: Heracleitos points out the decay of the dionysian spirit at his days: the participants forgot that the worship of Dionysos-Bacchos, who is the spirit of life and fertilization of nature, is simultaneously the worship of Ades (death). Tragedy is the joyful-sorrow but they foolishly transformed it to a joyful-happiness.
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Dithyramb must point out the contradiction of the tragic event and to find the Metron (balance) of happiness and sorrow (Logos).
Could Heracleitos be alive nowadays? When Niels Bohr was named knight by the king of Denmark to be honoured for his achievements in science, the symbol he chose for his escutcheon was the Parmenidian and oriental one of the unity of the opposites.
contraria complementa sunt (opposits are complementary)
According to the scientists who accept that quanto-mecanics give a sufficient description of the quantic situation, the quantic objects do not have attributes before measurement, being in a state of potentiality; these objects are utilised during their measurement. Moreover these scientists claim that during measurement action, the instrument of measurment, the object to be measured and the observer, compose a quantic unity; they also claim, that all this process take place in an under-quantic world of potentiality relating to a superluminal speed and indeterminate behaviour to the experimental process. Moreover, some scientists suspect the existence of some instantaneous inter-reactions. For this reason, determinists consider quanto-mecanics, for the time being, to be inadequate for the quantic objects description, believing that some hidden parameters are missing. Though Bohr was aware of the Einstein’s indication that quanto-mechanic theory accepts silently the existence of instantaneous inter-reactions, proposes the complementarity as a kind of evasion to the previous indication. If there is some instantaneous process in quantic world, this world should be of a contradictive nature and not opposing as complementarity indicates. Complementary and opposing ap proach to the research presuppose that deeply inside existence, oppostites should be really independed and the identity of the observed object to itself to be absolute and not conventional; in this case interreactions could be superluminal but not instantaneous. On the contrary, the contradictive approach at this level of potentiality, accepts the existence of some instantaneous inter-reactions and therefore opposites to inter-extend each-other, without leaving any margin of independence in between them or the existence of absolute identity. We also see that in this field of scientific antagonism, the so called anti-determinists make a good effort, to leave an open door for determinism to pass in the future. On the other hand, determinists overpass Einsteins objections, accepting under-quantic superluminal inter-reactions along with the hidden parameters, which are invisible because only quantic proceedings we can to see. There are also scientists extremely anti-determinists moving violently to mysticism; they believe that the limits of human
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logic terminate there, and science must accept its weakness to explain completely the quantic events and consequently the world. As for the traditional determinism let us see what Einstein, who places himself by the side of determinism, has declared in the interview given to John S. Birek at 1930: “our course is predetermined by components we do not control. Especially by mysterious glands where nature distills its authentic essence of life, our inner secretions. . . I am determinist and I do not believe to free will...” The great scientist and humanist was Parmenidian, Aristotelian and Cartesian. That’s why his world should be closed, accomplished and predetermined. N. Bohr does not accept determinism; his choice though of the complementarity symbol, as the ultimate shelter of truth, indicates an unconscious Parmenidian conception; it is obvious that Bohr do not accept contradiction. Modern scientists have invest all their existence to rationalism and formal logic, being more aristotelian than Aristotle; they are not so revolutionary to reject their formal logic research structure and to accept another one. That’s why Heracleitos has something new to say: world is of a contradictive nature, motion is the essence and things are its attributes; Logos is the way world is and could be said, the principle of Identity is contradictive and self-overpassing, the principle of cause is amphi-coursial and the chain of ration infinitely dimensional. Time, space and motion, complete and vacant, great and small and evolution, get an other face which needs another logical approach: the Heracleitian Dialectics.
ZENO (490-430)
The limits of thinking are between Parmenidian rationalism and Heracleitian Dialectics. It is said that Zeno was friend, student and follower of Parmenides; that is the reason doxographers interpret his prepositions under the terms Parmenidian thought and logic; This way Zeno seems as a strange paradoxologist. Though if we see him as a dialectic thinker his paradoxical syndrome vanishes. Aristotle refers to him as father of dialectics, but it is possible this would be a negative characterisation, of assimilation to sophistry. In the present tractatus Zeno is considered as one of the great workers of dialectics, together with Anaximander and Heracleitos; particularly I consider him as the main representative of the Negative Dialectics. It is sure that all archaic physical philosophers were dialectic, but i distinguish those three, because they don’t make any burying to formal rationality logic against dialectics.
SIMPLICIOS PHYS, 140, 34 εἰ μὴ ἔχοι μέγεθος τὸ ὄν, οὐδ᾽ἃν εἴη, εἰ δ´ἔστιν ἀνάγκη ἕκαστον μέγεθός τι ἔχειν καὶ πάχος καὶ καὶ ἀπέχειν αὐτοῦ τὸ ἕτερον ἀπὸ τοῦ ἑτέρου· καὶ περὶ τοῦ προύχοντος ὁ αὐτὸς λόγος· καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνο ἕξει μέγεθος καὶ προέξει αὐτοῦ τι, ὅμοιον δὴ τοῦτο. ἄπαξ τε εἰπεῖν καὶ ἀεὶ λέγειν. οὐδὲν γὰρ αὐτοῦ τοιοῦτον ἔσχατον ἔσται. οὔτε ἕτερον προς ἕτερον οὐκ ἔσται. οὕτως εἰ πολλά ἐστιν, ἀνάγκη αὐτὰ μικρά τε εἶναι καὶ μεγάλα· μικρά μὲν ὥστε μὴ ἔχειν μέγεθος, μεγάλα δ’ὥστε ἄπειρα εἶναι.
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To exist something must have a size and a distance from an other; The same we could say for the space in between. I will say this once and for ever: it is impossible to exist an ultimate part of something or an ultimate part of the space between; moreover nothing can exist by itself and regardless to any other; so if there are many things, it is necessary these to be at the same time small and big; so small, not to have a size, so big to have infinite size.
Comment: Zeno, in this fragment, with the relativity of big and small, reveals a new unite which do not match with the Eon (Existing-One) of Parmenides. As we referred about it before, the Eon of Parmenides has opposing nature, accepting the inviolable ultimate elements, of Light and Darkness. These could be separated in ultimate parts, which cannot violate the limits in between them: «αὐτὰρ ἐπειδὴ πάντα φαὸς καὶ νὺξ ὀνόμασται καὶ κατὰ τὰς σφετέρας δυνάμεις ἐπὶ τοῖσι τε καὶ τοῖς, πᾶν πλέον ἐστίν ὁμοῦ φάεος καὶ νυκτός ἀφάντου ἴσων ἀμφοτέρων, ἐπεὶ οὐδετέρῳ μετά μηδἐν». (everything was composed from light and darkness and by their own forces and hard struggle took their form; whatever remains of them finally, is equal of light and darkness, because after them zero cannot exist). I accent: meaning of this fragment is that darkness and light to intermix, should be separated in inviolable, ultimate size elements(atoms). Xenophanes, Parmenide’s teacher, named these ultimate quantities of light “pyridia”, which today we call them photons; Parmenides over-more proposed the existence of ultimate elements of darkness (anti-photons). Along with them Empedocles, another Xenophane’s follower, according to Aristotle, also accepted that light travels from sun to earth as elementary luminal particles, but we don’t notice them because of their high speed: Ἐμπεδοκλῆς φησιν ἀφικνεῖσθαι πρότερον τὸ ἀπό τοῦ ἡλίου φῶς εἰς τὸ μεταξὺ πρὶν πρὸς τὴν ὄψιν ἢ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν». . . . . . .«Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἔλεγεν ἀπορρέον τὸ φῶς σῶμα ὃν ἐκ τοῦ φωτίζοντος σώματος, γίνεσθαι πρῶτον ἐν τῷ μεταξύ τόπῳ τῆς γῆς καὶ τοῦ ουρανοῦ, εἶτα ἀφικνεῖσθαι πρὸς ἠμᾶς, λανθάνει δὲ τὴν τοιαύτην αὐτοῦ κίνησιν διὰ τὴν ταχυτῆτα». On the contrary to them Zeno’s preposition clears out that he rejected any ultimate part for any material, (being this way against the atomic theory of Leukippos and Democritos). The unit of Zeno, being contradictive, coincides with the contradictive ultimate level of potentiality. That unit is simultaneously, nihil-infinite, motionless- instantaneous, being the ultimate level of our world, as the contradiction itself and potentiality, (all forms and no one simultaneously).
DIOGENES IV 72 τὸ κινούμενον οὔτ᾽ἐν ᾧ ἔστι τόπῳ κινεῖται οὔτ᾽ἐν ᾧ μὴ ἔστι. The moving one, neither moves at the position it is, nor at the position it is not.
Comment: Hegel claimed that the moving-one, does not move because one moment is to one position and another moment to another position, but moves because “it IsBeingNot” simultaneously in the same position. That is why motion, according to
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Hegel, is contradictive. It seems that the contradiction of motion occupied the mind of many thinkers since antiquinty; that’s why Zeno speaks about a moving one which doesn’t move! It seems that some “Hegel” of his days, approaching the meaning of motion as contradictive, accepted this as a contradiction of removal. Zeno puts the mater up on another base: motion for Zeno and Heracleitos, coincides to the evolving process and universal change, which is the genetic cause of beings. According to them, Motion is the Evolving Essence to whose all things and events are attributes. So the moving object, from position A, is an other object to position B, but a similar one. Motion according to them is not the result of the position change, but the change or the renovation of the moving element substance. An object, according to the Hercleitian Dialectics, being in a collapsing-composition process and destructing-construction, is similar to itself but always Other, so it does not deserve to move up to space, but to move inside itself.
SIMPLICIUS PHYS. 562, 3. εἰ ἔστιν τόπος, ἔν τινι ἔσται· πᾶν γὰρ ὄν ἔν τινι· τὸ δὲ ἔν τινι καὶ ἐν τόπῳ ἔσται ἄρα καὶ ὁ τόπος ἐν τόπῳ, καὶ τοῦτο ἐπ᾽ἄπειρον· οὐκ ἄρα ἔστιν ὁ τόπος. If space exists, it exists In somewhere; because everything exists somewhere; even this “somewhere” exists in a place, therefore the place is into place and all this infinitely. Therefore there is not an absolute Space.
Comment: In the previous chapters we presume, that Zeno accepts the Heracleitian opinion that time as duration cannot exist, because everything is in a state of a collapsing-composition being continuously Other. We also see that Zeno doubts our certainty for the space as expanse and as a supporting base, up on the removal process of objects occur. An object really moves only in the space contained inside itself, being also contradictive, because continuously changes. Ultimetly Space-Itself exists between two limits: the infinitely big and the infinitely small as it was presented to the fragment mentioned by Simplicios (physics 140, 34). There Time and Space as Itselves cannot exist but coincide to the contradiction nude, which compose a timespace continuity, where time and space can not be clearly separated. The values of time and space in that unity, are modified in relation of many factors and the point of view the specific situation is seen.
Interpreting the fragments of Simplicius (physics 140, 34) and Diogenes (IV 72) referring to Zeno, we realize that by dividing a specific size (of time or space), we have as a result a relativity of “One and Many”, “Small and Great”, “Continuity and Separation”, “Zero and Infinity”. This relativity we referred to, coincides with the contradictive ultimate level of the world, (the level of potentiality), proposed by Zeno. In the next fragment of Simplicius (physics 562, 3) referring to the Space, Zeno follows the opposite way: by adding more and more spaces to a place, he expands a specific and finite space to an infinite one. This way the specific and finite
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space ends to the relativity of infinity and zero simultaneous contradictive state. Heracleitos and Zeno consider, from a different point of view, that space and time is only Now. The meaning of «Now», being a contradictive, leads to the relation of a space-time continuous also: Yesterday doesn’t exist; Tomorrow doesn’t exist; only Now exists Always, but Always being Other. «Now» is the zero edge of the fading present. In this cituation, the smaller Time duration responds to a greater Space expanse and oppositely, composing a contadictive unity. Addition and deduction, multiplication and division, in the dialectics of these philosophers cannot be separated each-other, being always related: When something gets smaller, its contradictive component gets simultaneously bigger. Anything, by continuous division tending to zero, tends this way simultaneously to infinity. If we summerise all these we spoke about, having in mind the way these thinkers had conceived the evolution process of the world, we should conclude to that: world exists by two opposite ways, which do not refute, but integrate each-other: A. World always exists as specific objects in a genetic unity; everyone of these specific objects is inter-determined with all the other specific objects of the world, being its limits. This inter-determination is accomplished by a quantitive inter-action relating scale, beginning from the «interaction» of the specific object to itself, passing to the interaction with the near-by objects, gradually with objects of the farther invironment and at the end to with universe, which is the eternally Other-Self, that forces the specific one to be always other. So the specific object is itself an infinite event, since we cannot absolutely determine, were its limits really begin and were they end as a result of the world evolving process. This way presocratics believed that any specific-finite object is potentially infinite; that is “finite-infinite”. The specific one, characterized as small, has a continuous dialogue to its environment surrounding objects, by receiving something from all them and giving something to all the others; this way participates to the big, –the infinite. B. The world exists as the universality of all these inter-determinations, being simultaneously unique and different always. If we accept that everything changes continuously, the whole is always a immediate explosion of changing and simultaneous return. This infinite universality, exists always as Other, being the contradiction itself.
The world is terminated by two infinite ways: The first one is the great (mega), having all existing characters and simultaneously no character (being the potentiality and contradiction itself). The second one is the small (mikro), being the way Zeno has terminated: this is the contradictive unite, (the simultaneously instantaneous and immobile, zero and infinite); and as Anaximander claimed it is “the ruler and element of beings”. This way mega and micro compose a contradictive elementary unite in which mega dives into micro, being the cause of its existance, and micro expandes far away to mega (universe), being its cause also; so this unity composes-collapsing, expands-contracting.
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This universality, is an instant-infinite continuity of all these separate specific interdetermenations, being at the same time their integration to a new and higher specification of Motion as Essence (the Evolution as Essence). These thinkers consider motion to be the essence and objects to be its specific characteristics. Objects are a result of the motional contexture, that involves in the object and forcing this to be always different (another). So the event as an identity can not move because it composes-collapsing, being this way, always and continuously other. On the contrary Aristotle with one stroke of the pen reversed this concept about motion: Physics 200b31- 201α3. Τὸ γὰρ κινητικόν, κινητικόν τοῦ κινητοῦ καὶ το κινητόν, κινητόν ὑπὸ τοῦ κινητικοῦ. οὐκ ἔστι δὲ κίνησις παρὰ τὰ πράγματα· μεταβάλλει γὰρ ἀεὶ τὸ μεταβάλλον ἣ κατ᾽οὐσίαν ἣ κατὰ ποσὸν ἣ κατὰ ποιὸν ἣ κατὰ τόπον, κοινὸν δ᾽ἐπὶ οὐδὲν ἔστι λαβεῖν ὡς φαμέν, …ὥστ᾽ οὐδὲ μεταβολή οὐθενός ἔσται παρὰ τᾶ εἰρημένα, μηδενός γε παρὰ τα εἰρημένα. [The mobil one is moved by the moving and the moving moves the mobil, there is not any other kind of motion related to the objects. The modifier, modifies always the modified in essence, in form in quantity or in position; so no motion or modification can exist out of these we have spoken about]. Now let us see again motion the way Heracleitos did: All objects of the world are events like the river, but instead to be accomplished by the water flowing, they are by the “fire” elementary units passing inside the events; these elementary units departing from the event, travel to universe and returning from universe make the event to compose-collapshing, spread-gathering, depart-arriving, Being-notBeing at the same moment, (as Ploutarch informed us in –392 b–. That could become by the following way: According to Heracleitos the strait course is a result of rotation, like the turning lathe instrument does (as Hippolyte infomed us in–IV10–). “Pyridia”, as they named the photons or “quanta of energy”, passing by the position of an event, departreturning to and from universe accomplishing the event in the specific position. ”Pyridion” itself, being in a “state of rest”, exists because other smaller underelementary units passing by the position of the pyridion(photon), travel to universe, returning back to the position of the photon, accomplishing that. Photon looks like a dyne (whirlpool), which receives elements from universe launching simultaneously these elements to universe. These under-elements exist (composing-collapsing), the same way because other smaller elements do so and so on infinitely. Since the universe of Zeno, Anaximander and Heraclietos “Is–BeingNot”infinite, the departurereturning of the traveling elements, is neither a vanishing course to infinity, nor a perfect closed circular course, but an thick helicoid one. Thus every departure of these under-elementary units to universe and their arrival to their former position verify-falsifying the “pyridion” in a collapsing-composition form; this way the “pyridion”, cannot be accomplished exactly in the same position but a little farther, so it changes position moving also.. Therefore the removal of a “pyridion” (photonquantum of energy), is a result of an internal motional contexture, coinciding with its evolving process.
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The (quantic) fire-particles of Heracleitos, are followed by a wave of infinite complexity of flowing-antiflowing under-events, which also depart-arriving, compose-decomposing, by their own way of complexity, giving to us the idea of the dynamic field. Micro-particles, according to what we assume from the Heraclietian fragments are dynes (wirlpools) of emit-receiving quanta of energy (ἀεἰζωον πῦρ); they exist-moving or move-existing. A pyridion, in the state of rest, moves straightly and normally with the speed of light, (300.000 kilometres a second). The under-events, that compose-collapsing that pyridion (photon) at the same time, cover inconceivable greater distances to coincide with the course of the pyridion; consequently, the related continuation, of the under-events (under-level elements) which respond to the consequence of their collapsing-composition, expands to infinity. The quantum of energy “according to the opinion” of these thinkers, reacts with universe by unconstrained ways, so that it is not only universe that gives birth to “quantum”, but simultaneously, quantum returns its depth, playing a generative role, giving birth to the universe. Universe dives into the quantum, while quantum simultaneously expands to universe. The event sends messages verifying universe and universe also sends messages verifying the event in respond. These messages compose scales of departure-returning, beginning from the message of the event to itself, continuously there are messages responding to the environment near by, after to the farther one and finally to the universe itself, which is the opposite self. The message responding to event itself never departs because it is the one that responds at the same time to universe (to infinity) which never returns, being the “infinite and nihil”, the “instantaneous and immobile”, the potential ultimate level of the world, proposed by Zeno. (For further information about the proposed hear contradictive unit and the evolving process which could follow this preposition, the reader could be informed in my work “Logic, Action and Language” published by Dodoni at 1994 or in “Dialectic Materialist logic” in my site: thodoroskavasis.blogspot.com.
THE PARADOXES
Four Zeno’s paradoxes of motion arrived to us after a dangerous and long journey: A. An arrow to reach the target, must firstly reach the half distance from the bow to the target, but before it must reach the half of the half distance and in continue, this process infinitely; so the arrow should be stopped. B. An arrow to reach the target, must firstly reach the half distance from the bow to the target and after that, it must reach the half of the rest distance (the half of the half) infinitely. So the arrow never reaches the target. C. The arrow launches to hit a moving target. Whenever the arrow reaches the target, this has been always a little farther and this infinitely. So the arrow never hits the moving target. These three paradoxes seem to reveal the antinomies of the objective way motion,
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space and time are accepted by rationalism and mostly by formal logic. I believe, these have been proposed by as an argument against his friend Parmenides opinions. Moreover, he intended to point out time and space relativity, the identity principle uncertainty and the way motion should be accepted. To my opinion his paradoxical prepositions can only be explained by the Heracleitian logical approach: If beings exist in a collapsing-composition evolving process, the meaning of Time and Space, cannot be conceived the way Parmenidian objective rationality and common sense, as it has been formed till today by the Aristotelian and Newtonian objectivity. Zeno indicates that the meanings of Time and Space, Motion and Speed in the “field” of a contradictive world should be reconsidered. Time should neither be anymore the abstract meaning of duration (the duration as Idea) nor the duration of an object in space; Space should neither be the meaning of expanse itself (as Ideal) nor as the expanse of an object in space; the Zenonian and the Heracleitian preposition matches more to relativity and quantic view of existence. According to the collapsingcompositive process, time is the repetition frequency of the under-event elementary units, which pass from a position, accomplishing an event and space is the length of the under-events wave consist of. From this point of view this imaginary arrow, being in a state of collapsing-composition, is a quantic event consisting by a flowantiflow process of its sub-elementary events in a position, which always changes. Since this flow-antiflow relation is the frequency and the wave length relation of the arrow, which could be accepted as a time-space event, being in the state of a collaphing-composition, do not deserve to move as itself and to have a speed of its own because it is always Other (it has a different identity).
Now let’s see these paradoxes by an other paradoxical way, and the way really the arrow would imaginary accomplish the meeting of the target: a. According to the second paradox the arrow launches to a target in space. Due to the continuous division of the remaining course of the moving arrow infinitely in the middle, this accelerates-retarding and at the moment the distance of arrow from target tenses to zero, the length of the arrow tenses to infinity or oppositely. This exact moment the unity of space-time relation, becomes immobile and instantaneous; then the bow, the arrow and the target compose the unity where could occur the following situations: For the bow to touch the target with the arrow, either the arrow becomes of infinite size or the distance between arrow and target becomes of zero size, then the parts of the arrow become of infinite number and the length of every part of the arrow of zero size. In this case we either have infinite wave length and zero frequency or we have zero wave length and infinite frequency (the contradictive element of Zeno). During the arrow course, its collapsing-composition relation, is formed as more wave length and less frequency or oppositely, more frequency and less wave length. b. Suppose again that the arrow is launched tensing to a target in space. The “intention” of the arrow is to be in a straight and normal course to the target; the
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divisions of its course in the middle though, deviates imaginary the arrow from its course to the target due to space rotation. The arrow to catch up the deviations must accelerate, but though its course straightens up, always looses something, not being able to accomplish the absolute straightness. In order the arrow to accomplish straitness and hit the target, its speed should be instantaneous and at this very moment to be simultaneously immobile. (At the instantaneus motion, the moving one exists simultaneously at the position of the departure and the position of arrival. Overmore the moving one has been expanded to infinity being at the same time at the to zero point and has infinite and zero size). c. Now let’s see this matter differently: the arrow tends to the target, but due to the rotation of space, deviates from its course; this as a result of its course curvedness, will be forced the arrow to accomplish many cycles of departure-arrivals and after a along time, it will return at the position it departed. 1. If universe is a closed system, the arrow verifies it self from its opposite side, integrating its “cycle”. From this side of view, the target is its opposite self. 2. If universe is an open system, the arrow returns once at the position it departed but never exactly there, it verifies-falsifying the target, which is the opposite self of the arrow. So the arrow to verify exactly the target (itself), should make unconstrained departing-arrivals and in every arrival it touches the target differently, so the verification of the self-target, departing from the minimum one, passes by all the grades of verification-falsification, ending to the greatest one, which is the greatest verification and the smallest falsification. The arrow at the point of smallest verification has not departed yet, being just itself, while at the greatest verification the arrow verifies the target absolutely, but in an other position, (so it falsifies it absolutely). Both absolute verification and absolute falsification compose a unity tending to the infinity and zero relation. Finally, the arrow departs-returning, making a helicoid course of unconstrained “junctions” of verifying-falsifications and once it will meat the target; then the bow, the arrow and the target, will be a unity. The speed of the arrow will be instantaneous and immobile and the size of the arrow will be infinite and nihil at the same time. This is the motion of a specific object in evolution process, as Anaximander, Zeno and Heracleitos could imaginary inspire us; According to these thinkers, the changing position of objects is a result of wave and frequency of their collapsing-composition function. Their compactness is fluid, being in a continuous division of small parts which in the moment of the crash, are of zero and infinite size at the same time. This way, we come back to Zeno’s principal, about the ultimate unit which tensing to zero parts, becomes simultaneous of zero and infinite size. Only this way an object keeping its identity could really accomplish motion from an A to B point, otherelse the object moving from point A and arriving to point B having continuously an other identity, will never really accomplishes this course. D. It is said that the forth paradox of Zeno, has been brought to us in confusion. I will use the Aristotle’s evidence in Phys. Z 9 239 b 33:
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περί τῶν ἐν σταδίῳ κινουμένων ἐξ ἐναντίας ἴσων ὄγκων παρ᾽ἴσους, τῶν μὲν ἀπὸ τοῦ τέλους τοῦ σταδίου, τῶν δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ μέσου, ἴσῳ τάχει ἐν ᾧ συμβαίνειν, οἴεται, ἴσον εἶναι χρόνον τῷ διπλασίῳ τὸν ἥμισυν. “When objects of the same size move oppositely in a stadium, some departing from the end and directing to the starting point of the stadium and others departing from the middle of the stadium directing to the end, though they move with the same speed, (Zeno claims) that these moving oppositey objects cover double distance than the others” in the same time. ―The object directing from the finish to the starting point of the stadium, has to cover double distance than the object directing from the middle to the finish. If these two objects move the way of the “infinite in the middle division of their course”, they will reach to the end of their course, almost at the same time, having always a very small difference (tensing to zero). That will be fading as the bodies tend to reach in their destination. (The difference that continuously is fading but allways exists is a walking up on the the steps of the infinitesimal calculus). ―Now let’s change a little this mental experiment and put the one object to be directed from the start of the stadium to the finish and the other from the middle of the stadium to the finish, in the same line and having the same speed. Following again the cutting in the middle of the course process, the objects reach to their destination almost together (having a small fading difference tensing to zero, as the objects approach to their destination); though they have the same speed, the second has covered all the distance inbetween them, pushing the first one to the finish. ―Let’s see now the motion of one -A to B- object, measuring its course from the beginning A of its size and simultaneously measuring its course from its end B: Following the same ”cutting in the middle” process of motion and measuring the distance of the object from point A to the finish and at the same time from point B to the finish, the more the body reaches its destination, the smaller its length becomes. The –A to B– distance of the object, gets smaller because the points A and B tense to reach to the finish together (for the reason we have pointed previously). This paradox has been proposed by the contemporary science differently: Lorenz proofed mathematically that the moving object modifies its length toward its moving direction; something which relativity theory has stepped on to be constructed. ―Let’s summerize again all these proceedings together: The arrow according to the first paradox “intends” to depart for the target but cannot do so, returning back at the same time; so, it rotates around it-self. According to the second paradox the arrow departs, but due to the space rotation, its course deviates being cut in small pieces; so its straight course has been curve. And according to the last paradox, its length gets smaller to the direction and during its motion. So we have a moving straightly and normally object, whose course is curve, it has a spin and its length shortens toward its motion direction; it accelerates-retarding and at the very moment of crashing to its target, it is zero and infinite, instantaneous and immobile. [The “fiction” i proposeabout this last paradox, is not arbitrary due to the different
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evidences in which we see sizes of bodies, spaces and directions, to be pointed out with sometimes no evident purpose; I get a rationally tactful aptitude to play with the size and the space using the spirit of Zeno]
THE TRAIN OF EINSTEIN AND ZENO
The train of Einstein is an imaginary train that moves up on a rail-way of many million miles; its speed is very near to the speed of light. The clocks of the stations and the watches of the passenger and his friend, waiting for him at the station, have been adjusted at the same time. When the train arrives, the watch of the passenger will be behind from the watch of his friend. The length of the moving train according to the people in the station, will be shorter than the length of the train according to the passengers; the doors of the train arriving to the station, according to the passengers, open simultaneously but according to the people in the station open with a retarding consequence each-other. Zeno would claim that relativity paradoxes happen because motion is really something else, from this we understand: that is, motion occurs inside the evolving object which by the collapsing-composition process is always similar to itself but of another identity and do not deserve to move and to have speed. Zeno would say that the paradoxa of relativity, would never exist if we would realise that neither this we call Speed really exists, nor this we call Time. At the mental experiment of the Einstein’s train objects, events and beings taking place in this train, are collapsingcompositions of different evolving procedures, which we crowed together illegally in the same mental place, though they belong elsewhere. We place quantic collapsingcomposition events in the objectivity and the formal rationality game, though they belongs in a contradictive-dialectic logical discipline. These events of collapsingcomposition being continuously different (other), do not possess an identity to have time-duration or space-expanse; the duration and expanse of these events could operate in a phenomenal frame of determinism, but when the situation is boundary, as in the speed of light, paradoxal events appear. A photon cannot have speed, because although it is similar to itself, cannot really keep its identity, being continuously another event. A system of light could be rationalised differently: Everything that takes place in the train mental experiment of Einstein, is not an object anymore but a luminalmotion-contexture-event (a quantic one). This exists in an other level of nature, being under the world of objectivity. There time is frequency and space is length of a wave functions. Everything in this world, is frequency of quantic wave function relations. We put the meaning of time duration with the meaning of frequency in the same mental and lingual game, thought they belong in another one. (If the reader pays attention to the way Heracleitos and Zeno perceive motion, he will agree that my previous preposition is not excessive).
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PROCLOS PLATO: “Parmenides” 127d, 694, 23 εἰ πολλὰ τὰ ὄντα τὸ αὐτὸ ὄν ὅμοιὸν ἐστι καὶ ἀνόμοιον If there is plethora of beings any being is similar and not similar to itself.
The mental content of this claim could be seen in Plato’s dialogue “Parmenides”: There is presented young Socrates to argue with Zeno about the content of this claim. Zeno challenges Parmenides to develop the concept and the mental dimensions this claim could take. Plato in this dialogue presents Parmenides to reveal the antinomies of formal rationalism, arguing even against his own opinion about the Ideas. As a Greek, he presents the legality of the opposite, as an antipode to his opinions, for an integrated approach to the art of thinking. This Platonic fictional dialogue turns even against the opinions of Parmenides himself, expressed in his poem “About Nature”; so these look to be rather objections of Zeno, against the Parmenidian aspects and friendly to the Heracleitian dialectics. The Parmenidian “not oscillating soul of the solid truth” of formal rationality, which we referred in the chapters about Parmenides, is opposite to the Heracleitian contradictive truth. Plato in that dialogue presents Parmenides to revoke his own aspects about thinking, passing to the opposite side. It could be possible, this Platonic dialogue, to be the starting point of the Hegelian logic. It’s possible the relation of the Hegelian logic to the Heracletian dialectics, to be rather accidental. All this argument came to us in fragments and it would be buried, if the european scholars would not rise it up again from its grave. Maybe, the arguments of modern philosophers, seem to be different than these in antiquity, but only the phraseology changes; finally they return to the same inquires. Modern thinking, has been based on the “previous” Parmenidian rationalism and the Aristotelian formal logic, looking for positive supports to go forward, without “if and maybes”, “Being and Not-Being”. This was not bad at all; we were accustomed to have specific and concrete results from scientific activity, while determinism was considered to be the science itself. In the area of micro and macro though, rationalism and determinism undergo and suffer; these cannot describe the quantic reality. Formal logic, the so necessary one, for measurements and the comparative process in this area, where identity of the objects to themselves suffers or abolish, cannot operate, because everything “Is itself, Being simultaneously Other”, “objects are and not similar to them selves at the same time”. Heracleitos, as Sibylla, «χιλίων ἐτῶν ἐξικνεῖται τῇ φωνῇ», launches his voice to one thousand years future. There passed 2500 years, but his voice has not reached its destination. Nowadays “we neither know to listen nor to speak” and “everyone has been turned to his own world”, despising Logos of Heracleitos; the Heracleitian Dialectic Logic.
LOGOS
Thought we have referred adequately to the meaning of Logos, we should see thisagain because it is very loaded: Essence, according to Parmenides, being innate to
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thinking and logic is physically recorded in every being. Thus Parmenides and Heracleitos agree that universal unity coincides to Logos and therefore Logos is simultaneously essence, meaning and speech. though they typically agree to that, they differ in the way of accepting these three meanings. According to Parmenides, logic and speech is recorded to the human being, so that gives to the human the ability by Thinking and Logic, to know, to have intuition, imagination and make valid meditations. That is the reason everything could be perceived and be described by speech. This also is the reason, human could commune with the whole, the Ἐόν (the really and eternally existing one) which is finite and not evolving. So according to Parmenides, though we see the world changing, deeply inside is stable. He considers that the evolving and contradictive world we see, is phenomenal therefore to think correctly, and to be able by thinking to reach the truth, we must rinse away from logic any contractual element. We should use in thinking, only whatever Exists and every contradictive meaning, because as contradictive (Being-NotBeing) contains the not existing, should be rejected. Thus the Parmenidian rationalism is opposing, permits a dialogue of elements which do not violate their limits, accepting the objectivity and the existence of ultimate immortal and unchangeable elements. On the contrary Heracleitos accepts that evolution is the Essence itself and Logic should be the contradictive Dialectics, thus speech should coincide with Logos. Logos for Heracleitos firstly is the contradictive speech coinciding to the contradictive logic and to the contradictive evolving Nature. Thus Logos is itself simultaneously Essence, Speech and Logic. Xenophanes claimed that everything in its very depth is incomprehensible; that is to say, world consists by a plethora of inconceivable elements, which are ἄρρητα (invocable); these are the “things themselves”, the ultimate identities and finally the Ideas. Xenophanes and Parmenides, accept the world that is spherical and perfectly causal (out of hazard). On the contrary Heracleitos do not accept the existence of the ἄρρητα; whatever exists, according to him is Essence -Logos- Dialectics, expressed as an orderly contradictive speech. Everything real, should find a way to be and be said contradictively (as Logos). The acceptance of Many unchangeable and ultimate elements or Ideas, rise continuously unanswered inquires and antinomies. The eternal principles language cannot say the world as it is. That’s why Heracleitos pointed out that he said everything as they are. The problem of what language is the most suitable to say the world as it is, occupied intensely the philosophical and scientific cycles from antiquity till today, as ideologic and philosophic movements, from Kant to Hegel and to Marx, form Hume to Russell, to Wittgenstein, to Carnap etc. This discussion began from Heracleitos and Parmenides and it seems that will continue, as long as determinism will be demolished by quanto-mechanics, which looks out for a new logico-linguistic syntax to speak the quantic reality. My opinion is that mathematics have not been discovered for practical but for ontologico-philosophical reasons. Human beings felt the necessity to find divine
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languages and pronounce the divine speech; languages which are the world itself. The inquiry “which is the language of truth” and the value of logic and experience; modern philosophy presents this inquiry as new but it is the most primordial one. The conscious logico-mathematic rational language, was organiged up on the presupposition of the many principles existence (πολυµάθεια) and the conscious rational logic of Xenophanes and Parmenides. This language to be spoken should is based on a series of inviolable terms, which have not enough underground logical covering. The effort of positivists to create a language, which would rejects metaphysics from meditation, being based on determinism and experience, cannot avoid but to walk around the steps of Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Parmenides, so it cannot really reject the basic ontological principles of metaphysics up-on this logic steps. These will always have a small lack of reliability, when the shadow of very small, very big and infinity falls up on them. Their basic necessity is to occur in closed systems, thus in a finite universe, something all rationalists after centuries of use have forget about. They accept evolution but abolish it unconsciously, accepting determinism. The Heracleitian Logos do not need to answer to that kind of inquires, but only to say how this language possibly exists. Dialectics is the dithyrambic language and appears as the contradictive concernment of science. Pythagorian world, according to Heracleitos, is the one of «many eternal ultimate elements», while his own is the world of the one evolving process, as really nature exists; Parmenides is placed in between; he wants the world of unity, accepting the logic of pletitude; he confuses us. According to Parmenides –Ἐόν–, is the really Existing-One, the Absolutely Being, so “Not-Being” by definition cannot exist. According to him logic to be able to lead to truth, has the duty to step only upon the Being, the existing; so the contradictive logic of |Being-NotBeing|, deals with the world of the mortality, the phenomenal one. Zeno probably raised his objections to his teacher’s aspects, since Zeno’s “existing-one” was not at all “ἀτρεμές” (notoscillated), but not-finite and contradictive. The reference of Plato to the Parmenidian aspects in his homonymous dialogue, rather matches to the opinions of Zeno; Plato would be awarded of that, but maybe Zeno, “the student” had convinced his teacher Parmenides for the opposite; When Parmenides wrote his poem “About Nature”, he was young, since Muse “called” him “κοῦρος” (young man).
We will never certainly know, what happened in the magic journey of the presocratic thought, because whatever remained to us is dust and fragments from destroyed and burned libraries. Cristians “saved” the world from the “Grecian blasphemy” of infidelity: «ἀπιστίῃ διαφυγγάνει μὴ γιγνώσκεσθαι»― “Unbelief and doubt dissuades from ignorance”. Faith generates fanaticism, determinism generates inflexible thinking and logic. Mysticist steps on faith and rational formality, climbing skilfully the lather of formal
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rationalism, accepting a series of principles, as any formal system of thinking does; when he reaches at the hight of his arrogance, throws the lather away and forgets about it, not needing it any more. The triptych of rationalism, mysticism and fanaticism, that is “the knowledge of the absolute truth”, opens the road to absolute-despotism, which is barbarity. ―Doubt generates research, dialectic logic and the democratic ethos of the equal participation of all civilians. Doubt, dialectics and democracy is the Civilisation and all together is under the spirit of tragedy.
Auxilliary works: This work departs from the “Genesis of Tragedy” by F. Nietzsche, the “Ascetics” of N. Kazantzakis and travels with basic guid “The Dionysos” by P. Lekatsas; in this travel basic travelling coach was: “The genesis of Ancient Greek Religion” and “The Ceremonial Activities in Ancient Greece” by Harrison; also “The archaic Greek Society and the Prehistoric Aegean” by G. Thomson. “Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes”, “Parmenides, Zeno, Melissos”. Plato’s “Parmenides”, Philological, Team of Kactos Publ. “Xenophanes” by Anna Kelesidou. Kactos Pub. “Heracletos” by A. Kyriazopoulos. Kactos Pub. “Heracletos” by J. Brun. Translated by. S. Diamandi and P. Greka, Plethron Pub. “Heracletos” by Kirk Translated. by N Giannoudakis. Polytypo Pub. “Heracletos” by N. Spyropoulos. Greecian Publishing Company S.N. “Heracletos” and “Parmenides” by E. Roussos Stigmi Pub. “The Endless of Time” –A work on Aristotelian time by G, Javaras. “Prolegomena for every future metaphysic which could be appeared as science” by E,, Kant Trans. by G. Javaras, Dodoni Pub. “The Science of Logic” by Hegel, Trans. by G. Javaras Dodoni Pub.“Plato, Plotin, Origenes” by I. Theodorakopoulos. “The Dynamic of the Minimum” by E. Bitsakis Zacharopoulos Pub. “What Is The Relativity Theory” by L.Ladaou and Y.Poumer. Trans. by N.Kiaos and A.Margaritis. “The Science of Physics and Kosmotheory” by Rob. Haveman Trans. by S. Kabouridis Pella Pub. “Paradigms Lost” by John Casti Morrow Pub. The pictures are from: “Cycladic Civilization – Naxos at the third millenioum b.C.” Museum of the Cycladic Art of N. Goulandris Fountation. “Die Griechischien Vasen” by Erica Simon, Hirmer Verlag Mun. “Greek Painting” by Martin Roberson, Skira Rizzoni N.York. “Paestum”. Marco Napoli, Instituto Georafico De Agostini Novara. “Greek Sculpture” Andrew Stewart, Yale University Press, New Haven.
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THEODORE KAVASIS
DIALECTICS ―LOGIC, ACTION AND LANGUAGE― ―MONADOLOGY OF CONTRADICTIVE GEOMETRY AND UNIVERSAL BIOCARTOGRAPHY
[This work is an effort of an imaginary integration the presocratic dialectics, based on Onto-Logical prepositions of Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zenο, made two and a half thousand years ago; this arrived nowadays, asking for mathematic description, to be a contemporary formal Dialectic Logic instrument].
*In order to distinguish the meaning of contradiction, from the meanings of inconsistency and inconsequence that follows the word contradictory, i use the word contradictive. This way, i give to the word “contradiction” the evolutionary dimension i have mentioned).
PREFACE This work is an effort to answer to the following inquiries: 1. How the contradictive elementary unite, the contradictive identity and the contradictive rationalism, are possible. 2. How universe, as an open system, is possible. 3. How motion and change as real and not phenomenal, are possible. 4. How universal unity of great and small, (mega and micro), is possible. 5. How intellect, intuition, conscience and aesthetics are possible. 6. How universe, as an intercommunication “plot”, where every-thιng in it, would be and behave as a message, is possible. 7. How this communication plot could be an ontological language (the Contradictive Bio-geometry) is possible.
This work is based on the following fundamental fragments of Heracletian, Zenonian and Anaximadrian Dialectico. HERACLETOS ―in the same river, we enter and not enter; we are and we are not. ―the changing one, agrees to itself. ―we do not touch the same material twice, because everything is changing rapidly and violently, separates-getting united, composes-collapsing (at the same time). ―Straight course motion is a result of helicoid rotation. ZENO ― Something to exist, must have a size and a distance from another being; the same must happen to the margin in between them; this must always have an adequate size. I will say this once and forever. Neither an ultimate part of an elementary unite is possible to exist, nor an elementary unit being alone (by itself) is possible to exist. So if many elements exist, it is necessary, these to be small and big simultaneously,
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so small having no size, so big having infinite size, (or to be of infinite number). ―The moving one, moves neither in space it exists, nor in space doesn’t exist.
The majority of these great philosophers fragments, are fundamental for Dialectic Logic; I remind only these fragments though, just to show the intellectual departure of the following prepositions. I believe the following tractates is consequent to their spirit and i could claim that it is a final integration of their dialectic thinking. I propose a logical way, how their opinions about motion and essence of the world is possible. That is to say: A. That the moving one, moves neither in position it is, nor in position it is not, because it doesn’t move upon a space, but inside itself, being this way the evolution cause of itself (its own evolving essence). B. This means, the elementary units which compose an event, depart-returning to universe and from universe, passing this way again by the position they departed, trying to verify this event in its position. C. Because universe is infinite and open, the circulation of these elementary units (to and from universe) is a thick helicoid. This way, they do not verify absolutely the position, but they verify-denying it; so these elements by this composing-collapsing process, verify this event a little further from its formal position, forcing this to move rectilinearly. The same happens in to these elementary units and so on infinitely. The intellectual approach to this work is difficult, because it is based on the Heracleitian and Zenonian contradictive logic and not up on the classic Aristotelian one or the Newtonian rational objectivity, that we have been taught during our life and school. The Logic upon this work is based, would be named “contradictive rationality”, because the elements it consists, are self-overpassing.
FIRST PART LOGIC ACTION AND LANGUAGE
A. I observe the card-playing game· its basic terms are four players and fifty cards. Poker, however has ten rules, which distinguishes this game from the card-playing in general. Yet this game cannot be a specific event. Only poker we are playing now is a specific event. However the terms of four players, ten rules and fifty cards, have necessarily as a final result, a predetermined number of specific games, let’s say two hundred thousand. These games regardless of their number, since their terms have been set, are there waiting to be played. These games represent the prototypes, which will be repeated as the card-playing game proceeds. If the card-playing game in general could be an abstract idea, oppositely everyone of these as «specific» games, should be terminated as synthetic prototypes of the end. So this way, a specific event could respond to some kind of universallia, existing there from the beginning, before their accomplishment by the specific game, during the card-playing process. Only this way a world of Ideas could exist, waiting for its realisation before its beginning.
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B.«The aim of this book is to draw a limit to thought or rather not to thought but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of this limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). This limit can only be drown in language and what lies on the other side of this limit will be non-sense». (From the prologue of Tractatus Logico-Philosoficus by Wittgenstein).
Wittgenstein in “Tractatus”, accepts the logical game of the absolute terms, having inviolable limits of the end, which are the limits drown in language. These terms are the ontological outline of world, proposed in the beginning of “Tractatus”. These ontological terms, being absolute, permit the development of a lingual event, shaping a state of the accomplished synthetic prototypes of the end, which are the limits drown in language. These limits, regardless of their number, should be the predetermined lingual prototype games; since the moment the ontological outline of the world was set and projected in the language, waiting to be said and henceforth they will have being repeated forever. This way language as a general game, will be accomplished and pre-terminated and that’s why, its logic is comprised in language, «so whatever can be said at all, can be said clearly and for what we cannot talk about, we must be silent», and whatever can’t be thought, can’t be spoken. Wittgenstein in his later “Philosophical Researches”, proposes a lack of limit clearness for lingual games, being the cause of a general game «plot». This opinion about meanings with «clouded» ends, where one of them is the general game, rather turns against the lingual games of absolute terms, as understood in «Tractatus» and its idealistic οntological teleology, that follows logically the absolute terms for world existence. Game is not only the one whose terms are formed at the beginning of its operation, but also the one whose terms are forming during its operation. Nevertheless, since the terms of the game have been set, simultaneously the inviolate limits of its logic have been also set. The admission of game terms, is indeed the basis upon its logic has been founded, but the limits of its lingual system also. The game also could modifies according to demands of the participants psychological state. ― Children play with one or two balls, suddenly decide to put one more ball in the game, they quarrel, fight, get friends again, abandon the balls, playing with stones and do a cycle of activity whose lingual system seems inconsistent to us. They play until will be exhausted and detonated, determining their game according to their momentary variable psychological disposition. This way advancing more, there is a “clouded ending meaning” which goes out of this we have determined as a game and derives its logic from elsewhere. (A game whose terms modify according to the momentary disposition of the participants, conceptually is particular in relation to the game as general, but ontologically is more general, going out of the game as a meaning itself, because it contains the game as part of the psychological process of the players).
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C. Back again to the poker game: For the specific event to avoid the prototype syndrome and to be an unrepeatable event (unique), the terms of the game must be expanded. That is, to comprise in the poker game, gradually the terms of all the other card-playing games. Though the terms of this new game will have to collide each other, this could be played if the participants want to. It will depend on the particular player preference of the rules to be used and how to be used, if these counteract each other or, which of these contracting rules, will use for his own benefit. This game, thought seems to have clouded and of undetermined limits, and thought its limits have been broader, it is also predetermined. These limits will be ‘the synthetic prototypes of the end’ of the game. Although these prototypes may have been increased by adding more possibilities of choice in the players activities, the game will continue to be predetermined, as soon as the terms of the games are used as positive and the limits of fifty cards and four players exist. To overpass these limits, let’s add dices, balls and so on, abolishing the term of the four players, since players will come and go, (not being a specific number), in a game which never ends. This way we follow reversely the process of the game whose terms modify or set during its operation, abolishing its terms not absolutely, but adding to each one a series of terms, which depart-being modified from itself and gradually containing all the possible similar and modifying terms, arrive to its opposite one. This way, each term, containing all choices, even its opposite one, will be self-over-passing, depending on the players choice how to use every term for their benefit. The gathering of “points” in this game, will be undetermined and cloudy, so finally everyone who feels powerful enough, will exercise violence, against them he decides that they are his adversaries at the time, being the ruler of the games process· and that seems be like, the winner of this game. (Like the game of life, which is the game as general). The logic of this game goes out of its own meaning of limits and it has been included to an other lingual system. This game is the inner need of the child, the adult and the animal to act when it has not the opportunity to do so in life, while its hereditary mechanism demands so. This inner need must emanate by the dynamics of the hereditary mechanisms, human and animal consists. These might be a codified record of world evolution process, as it’s contained in every being. So a research could evade the limits of one and concrete lingual system, passing to other lingual systems, as from the logic of human speech to rational lingual researches of ontology and epistemology. D. The ontological basis of previous preposition. If human is a result of the world evolution process, all moments of this process are «recorded» in human structure, multi-dimensionally. Human form and structure, are faces of this recording, being a language. Human cerebrum is a codified record of experience and knowledge of world evolution process, in every person. These recordings are summarised in the code of life, -the DNA-, and they are an evolving language, which has not been read yet.
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The ontology of this preposition might be accepted by two logical ways: 1. The antithetic logic way: Where this language consists of ultimate elements being opposite and counteracting each other. These ultimate elements, acting as absolute terms, compose a logico-lingual system, that presupposes operating, henceforth a moment, the repetition series of synthetic prototypes of the end forever. Since the terms of the antithetic system are set (let’s say the birth moment of an event), all its evolution process, is teleological and predetermined. That’s why, the absolute terms presume a concrete number of these “synthetic prototypes of the end”, existing there since the beginning and waiting to be finally realized. This is a closed world of predetermined operation limits, which presupposes a world of Ideas, existing before, during and after this evolving process. The argument about Ideas existing before or after the objects is meaningless. A meaning matter might be, if world is an open or a closed system and what a thinker would be satisfied to choose for his gnostic ethos and logical system. [In Antithetic Logic, the dialogue of contracting elements, don’t violate their limits, “leaving space” for independence and absolute objectivity. (That is, anything could happen to an element without being necessary to occur something to others). On the contrary, in Contradictive Logic, the dialogue of contracting elements overpasses their limits violating their possible essential substance, not leaving any space for real independence].
2. The contradictive logic way: There the logic of the language is a whole in a continuous evolving process. This is possible, when language is not a result of an ultimate-unchangeable-elementary unite system. This way language logic system consists of contradictive elementary units. Any contradictive element contains the whole by its own unique way, which is the evolution recording (cod) of the world, until the formation of this contradictive element (containing even all evolutionary moments of the world by a daedalian and paracentral way). The ontological acceptance for this lingual gnostic ethos, presupposes the world to be one language and one recording code as a continuous evolving event. This way, human hereditary knowledge and action mechanism has contradictive nature presupposing an open world, whose contradictive elements contain the characteristic of singularity and the possibility of unrepeated. (This preposition will be justified in the second part of this work where the contradictive elementary unite will prescribed).
Experience entering the human hereditary knowledge mechanism, on one hand, stimulates (urges), waking up this mechanism and reminds «ancient roads» disappeared deeply in ancestors, animal and nature; on the other hand, it reforms that uncovered «ancient road» enriching it. This way the de-codification of the gnostic mechanism, by the entering of experience, follows a re-codification or a conscious codification, that reforms cerebrum itself. This de-codification and re-codification process is Conscience.
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According to this ontologic opinion, knowledge is possible because by the means of experience, human de-codifies the world process recorded in his own hereditary knowledge mechanism. All structures of human knowledge mechanism are recodified again and again in an endless process in human cerebrum. This process is a language and a logic. From this point of view, universe as a result of itself and not separated in parts which do not communicate each other, having their own language and logic. This way, universe might exist as a continuous unique self-codified recording (language), being more dynamic and more economic. Although the new codified recording differs from the old one, it could be expressed by the old one, antieconomically, paracentral and daedalic, so the new codified recording should be a continuation of the old one. This way an ontological recording of universal evolution process is possible to exist, not being nonsense and incoherent, but logical and unique in its every moment. This idiomatic, unique, evolution process language, is recorded in our hereditary knowledge mechanism (or better this is the mechanism itself), waiting to be read. In this ontological preposition, rises the inquiry: «how an event which happened to another solar system, would be recorded in human knowledge mechanism, so it could be once understood»? According to the ontological preposition of contradictive elementary unite, we have already describe: “each one of these units contains the whole by its different way; because world is a unique-self-reforming process and not a sum of absolutely independent parts, which parts don’t communicate each other. The micro (small), being always a contradictive elementary unit, is a potential contradictive face of the whole; So, any face of that contains, by a spermatic and dynamic way the whole. (This we shall discuss in second part of this work, but we should have an approximate idea about this discussion).
[The contradictive self-reformation of a Being, in order not to have teleological characteristics, cannot agree to a world separated in parts (objects, things), which do not communicate each other (being absolutely terminated); these should be separated in occasional and conventional contradictive parts. An event, in this occasion a part, in order not to have concrete limits, must expand away to the whole; That is, every elementary unit composing passing in an event (object, part), might depart-returning to the universe, terminating by its motion the event in the position of the element departure. This can’t be absolutely accomplished, due to the polymorphic complexity of the departure-returning process of the contradictive units and the contradictive presumption that universe is infinite; because it is considered to be infinite, the course of these elementary contradictive units is not a perfect cycle but an thick helicoid motion. That’s why the elementary unit can’t verify absolutely itself in the departure position but verifies-denying itself. This departing-returning process composes a scale of denying-verification positions, which beginning from more denial and less verification and passing all the possible positions of verification-denial, arrives to the
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position of more verification and less denial. In the positions of absolute denial and zero verification or the opposite the element does not exist any more being another identity. Also the moving element «trying» to verify absolutely itself, enters to a continuous helicoid departure-returning process, recording this way the evolving process of the whole, as it was formed during its course. This way a plot of departurereturning elements process is created, not having concrete separation limits. Every part has its own face (identity) only because it is visible by a different view. Only this way an event could have clouded limits, being a universal emitting-reception confluence message; this is the result of the unlimited departure-returning cycles, of a self denial-verification process. Due to its departure-returning message process, the element is a continuously changing reality that “subconsciously” carries all changes being contributed during its course by the environment of universe it is related to. This event could be the Contradictive Elementary Unite]. If mentality is a result of the world evolution process and not a divine creation, then our language and logic is the sequence of language and logic of nature. This evolution process should not be phenomenal but a real one, so every moment of this process is unique, containing the characteristic of unrepeatable. From this point of view, all languages of science could be unified to the one of nature. This way the research of the human speech (language), could be in continuity with the research of the nature languages, which is science. Science as one language of many faces communicating each other, rather would be philosophy as Dialectics. This kind of natural and philosophic language, to be alive and evolving (being evolution as essence), not having a beginning or an end and its every moment to be unique, should have of self-overpassing terms, (contradictive). That is to consist of contradictive elementary units.
Explicative note: If human knowledge ability, exists as a codified hereditary lingual plot, there should exist a bottomless part of this hereditary knowledge mechanism, still being coded and existing subconsciously and the one being de-coded by the experimental process. The “de-coded knowledge mechanism part” is Conscience and Logic and the “bottomless part remaining codified”, is Aesthetics. When this knowledge mechanism has received its «awaking» stimulation from experimental world and has already form its conscience, it is possible to declare opinion and decide activity, even if the experimental data are not enough, stepping upon the unconscious (aesthetic) part of knowledge mechanism. These decisions could be justified because this bottomless unconscious recording is the world process as continuously written in our hereditary knowledge mechanism. Only this way all these “inexplicable” human capacities, as intuition, imagination, perception e.c.t, could be rationally justified without metaphysic cope.
E. If the world is an evolving-One, language of nature is overpassed by its own use, reflecting the overpass of the mental perception by its actual realization.
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Product of the «Tractatus Logico-philosophicus» ontological preposition, could be opinions claiming that a logico-ingual syntax system, could reject automatically metaphysics from mental conception. Never the less, since the proposed terms of this lingual syntax are absolute (the principals of identity and not contradiction are accepted by the classic rational formality), “the synthetic prototypes of the end” are presupposed. These prototypes regardless of their number, are predetermined, being procrustean for reality and for alive world. It would be different, if the logics-lingual syntax was not absolute; then the lingual game would coincide with the “unique and general lingual game”, whose terms are self-overpassing. Then, syntax itself, would loose its value as an infallible verification instrument and it would be a general research «road-guide», ending to a self-overpassing terms contradictive language (the dialectics of nature). Although my preposition doubts language to be the limit of logic and regardless if logic cannot exist without language, everything i propose, find their way to be spoken and be recorded in language. Since we perceive a concept, by speaking and writing, this is stabilised there; at the same time, action gradually pushes concept away from the lingual form it has been stabilised. This way we must correct the name of an event and a practice or by the same words to mean different things. Every meaning, entering in action field, has its way to be said, but the continuous changes of circumstances, give the meaning variable dimensions. There are, some times, differences we feel but cannot tell them; this is not a paradox but an everyday practice. Thinking of something, we feel that the process or the event we have named this way, entering in action field and getting evolving face, must be “followed after”, because it will never be terminated absolutely, if this is alive and participates in living process, (though a great number of meanings, changing very slowly, cannot appear their evolving face). In this case language may be a slow evolving process, which gradually follows the dialectic relation of logic and action. For example: Scientists after a research process and the lingual preposition of their result, cause the operation of a related activity to that phenomenon; they nearly never achieve their purposes, but they insist in similar experiments and will possibly achieve similar results to their lingual preposition. Though they don’t reach exactly to the presupposed results and regardless they have not approached absolutely this phenomenon, interpret the recording results in language, do lingual termination of the event as a name, preposition and acting behaviour. Almost this way is done with all events of life, until a new approach to the phenomenon, thinking or practice, gives a more integrated interpretation and this is terminated again. That is to say, phenomena being logically and lingually terminated, during historic process of humanity, are searched again and re-terminated, when world is visible from another point of view and new scientific theories open new roads for the comprehension of the world. Then events and activities, related to the new aspects of world, life, social relations et.c, get a different face. –Let’s think about Newtonian view of the world, electricity, electromagnetic theory, relativity theory, etc. All these theories, discoveries and their following applications, form the social situation differently. 93
I sweep: This process, in the old times, was the broom rubbish gathering, possibly from an earthly-floor. Nowadays we connect the vacuum cleaner to electricity, on sparkling floors and multi-colored carpets. Why this is buzzing? I don’t care. It sucks invisible dust from a shining floor. What is the relation of the old way cleaning with the new one? Their relation is human intention to form the space according to his needs. (Cleaning in a blacksmith shop is different to the microchip factory one). These are two different lingual games, having the same name: “Clearness”. This name is common for both games, because their logic deriving outside of their limit activities, comes from an other general lingual game. Though these derive from human intention to form space according to its needs, the practical application of both games is different. (I compare poker game and basket. Though they have nothing in common, these games obey to the human need to put in operation his hereditary mechanism of action and knowledge, while life don’t give the opportunity to do so). Horse carriage changes to automobile, hand-moving wheel, becomes motor, smoke-signals, telephone and electromagnetic devises; slaves become workers; work, study, research, peace, war, change face, changing life and language. Events, activities and practices are «spoken» differently or we speak the same way different lingual games, which substituted in action, games we used to name so. Along with these changes, human intellect relating to action evolves, pulling continuously the carpet up on language steps on, obliging language to change content. So the moving and evolving language, is obliged to have «clouded» limits; On the contrary to Wittgenstein’s technique of «family similarities», where lingual games considered to be static mosaics, where similarities and differences of their pebbles are regarded and compared, classified in cloudy limit notion families; this may be a correct observation, but considered mono-dimensionally and anthropocentrically. These neither give an answer to the cause of cloudiness, nor concern about it. Human being, creator and creation of language, trying to make himself comfortable in the world evolution process and to communicate, expressed in language his continuous relation of logic, experience and action. Gradually, his intellect, experimental quality, lingual expressions and words, which were overpassed by action, created the necessity of language transformation. This is necessary not for a better thinking, (which is supposed to be true, if logic is accepted to exist only in between the limits of language), but to express precisely this we think and mean for better communication. That is, we don’t terminate logic in language limits, but language in logic and action relation dialectic limits. That’s why the “essence” of language exists to its own behaviour in any particular lingual game, so that language may continuously be overpassed by its own use. That we call behaviour in this occasion, is the trace of the continuous dialectic relation course of logic and action in metaphysics; because this way, the evolving process is stabilised in speech. From this point of view, lingual analysis is the research and recording of human thinking in metaphysics. Realises metaphysically “how metaphysic is language”, being incapable to guide human intellect and action to the unknown. This could lead human
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action to follow steps and traces of the past, but when this analysis concerns the New, becomes a bad adviser. The process of lingual analysis may be significant, but its characterisation as the main scientific representative of philosophy is an exaggeration. It is obvious, that logic and language relation, is not enough to express the contemporary scientific process (as it happens in quanto-mechanics). This language will not solve the lack of scientific mutual comprehension and the failing of commonly accepted description in quantum events. The relation of language, action and logic, must be reformed, so scientists to agree in logical interpretation of these events and form a related lingual game to express the New. It is possible that in quantum level, these difficulties will never be solved, if logic, as determinism, will not be overpassed by dialectics.
F. A futurological hypothesis
When the de-codification process of human knowledge mechanism is completely integrated, (that is human self-conscience or dialectic relation process of mentality and action in language, -in metaphysics), human will not need any more an outside communication; by his self-knowledge integration, will have complete all the knowledge about the world, recorded in his hereditary knowledge mechanism. Then he will neither research nature by examining any kind of “fossils”, nor will be in the shadow of present. He will be the present itself, being the very edge of evolution. Then language will coincide with the very general lingual game, being itself the evolution process. That is the reason when someone wants to be completely dialectic, having in mind the vast fluidity of the world and not being able to speak it, remains silent or says a few self-overpassing meanings as Heracletos did. There are very few to be said without metaphysic cop. The only language without metaphysics is action itself. World moving ahead, returns simultaneously back: Once lack of laws was barbarity, another time it will be civilisation, once lack of property was barbarity and oppression, another time it will be civilisation and social liberation. Once lack of language was low animalism existence, in future will be proof of high civilisation and human transcendence to higher quality.
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SECOND PART
MONADOLOGY OF CONTRADICTIVE GEOMETRY
AND UNIVERSAL BIOCHARTOGRAPHY
G.1. World to evolve really and its every moment not to be repeated, should be an open system, whose terms should be self-overpassing (being of contradictive nature). So a language to express reality, should consist of contradictive elements. To make comprehensible how an element would be a contradictive one, it is necessary to bring in mind the Euclidian Geometry elements. These are just opposite to the contradictive elements, not being only just elements of a geometry, but from a philosophical point of view, a cosmological logico-lingual system. In Euclidian Geometry straight line, point and space, are ideal meanings, being separated each other and motionless in their “state of rest”. Space is three-dimensional, whose all directions expand to infinity. This is considered to be separated from and containing all others, but its existence do not depend on these. This could exist and be conceivable without all the others it contains, being finally ideal. Straight line expands to infinity never meeting itself, and point is ideal having no dimensions. Regardless something happens to any one of them, nothing is necessary to happen to the others. On the contrary, if we accept the existence of a «Contradictive Geometry», this would have as basic characteristic the innate mobility and correlation of the elements it consists: Space, time, straight line and point, altogether compose a unique event in a continuous motion, inter-action and inter-formation, being everyone in a specific condition because the rest of all the others demand to.
2. Let’s see this preposition: A point in the state of rest, is considered, moving rectilinearly and normally in space; because of that, the accomplishment of straight line is not the ideal event, we imagine and sketch it on a flat paper. Straight line in this case, is a straight and normal course of moving point in space, and space to be real (not ideal), has as a state of rest, continuous rotation. Space, for any point moving rectilinearly and normally, is an unconstrained series of similar points, composing a unity. These points differ each-other in their direction and departure spot, the specific moment all these considered to depart simultaneously and composing the specific space. In other words, the moving rectilinearly and normally point, should do so in a space consisting by other similar points; that’s why “the state of rest” of the space in relation to the moving-One rectilinearly and normally point, is a rotation. So it is necessary for the moving-One, to accomplish gradually its course upon the crossing positions of the Other similar moving points, the space consists of. These crossing positions of the One’s course upon the ideatic courses of the Many Others, is the way the straight and normal course of the One is recorded upon the rotating space. The rotating space falsifies the straight course of the One because it is accomplished on the Many-Others course-«plot» in a curved form. (The moving-One «intends» to accomplish straight and normal motion, but the space rotation transforms its course to curved, during its accomplishing process).
3. To have a better perception of space, point and straight-motion relation process, let’s make a mental experiment: Suppose the rectilinearly and normally moving point, «intends» to accomplish an absolute straight course. This moving point to catch up space rotation, should accelerate so its course to be «straighten up»; so this to be accomplished, the moving-One should cover instantaneously the supposed distance A―B,. Every «rectilinear» course of a point moving instantaneously, looses its course sense, because being instantaneous, it expands to all universe and has return back to its former position simultaneously. After this remark we have this paradox: the instantaneous acceleration of this point, don’t permit acceleration and motion, because it expands to all universe, being simultaneously every-were; it is at the same time in the departure position and the arrival. This is a departure of explosive change to infinite and return instantaneously back to the zero point. (The point of zero and infinite size, is simultaneously instantaneous and motionless, One and Many, the Contradiction Itself, the potentiality level of the whole.
4. This paradox could reveal the relativity of space, point, straight-course and time, where the behaviour of all these, depend on each-other relation, forming this way a contradictive Unite. The size of point is every time so big, as its speed permits and due to its speed, the motion course recorded in space “straightens up”. The more speed increases, the greater space is limited in the “course curvedness straightness” and of smaller size the point becomes, demanding an appropriate rotation of the moving point around itself (spin). This way, point is a rotating anti-space that expands-unrolling into space, as space rolls-folding and rotates reversely, diving into the point. For this reason, the crossing positions of the course of the One, upon the courses of the Many-Others, which compose the corresponding space to the course of the One-point (moving normally and rectilinearly), forms a crossing position scale. This departs from the position of the One crossing one-Other, gradually unfolds to positions of crossing-together two-Others, three-Others…etc, arriving to a position of the scale, where the One crosses all Many-Other courses simultaneously, (that would be the centre of a rotating space, related and responding to the moving-One). The Point moves-expanding to Space and Space rotates-diving, acting reversely to the point and composing together a contradictive unit.
5. The previous process is similar to the following: The rectilinearly and normally moving-One, crossing gradually the Many-Others courses and everyone separately to different direction, once will reach the position to cross the course of the One (of itself) having reverse direction and being the centre of the hypothetic rotating space; Hence from this position, it will begin to «return», crossing this way its own course and finally it will coincide upon its own course. This process we described, is the space which corresponds to the moving-One, composing an open system, because the integration of this return is accomplished only to its direction, but has not return exactly to the hypothetic position of this point departure, since there is not an absolute one of this kind. (This preposition will be determined again, because it is very critical, space not be a closed system). Regarding carefully this process, we could realise that the course of the One, crossing the courses of Many-Other, is finally the same to the One crossing its own course; That is because the “curvedness” of the straight course”, presupposes the straight course once to begin crossing itself .
6. Space, following the straight and normal motion of the One reversely, moves-rotating, expands-constricting, departs-returning. So space in relation and together with the moving-One point, behaves as a unit. The only space not obliged to have a motion course but only palpitates, is the Whole. This palpitation being instantaneous is not a course, existing potentially and can not be terminated as any other essence but contradiction nude; at the state of the Instantaneous there are simultaneously all attributes and none. When space is not a whole, but a conventional one, the element of instantaneous disappears from surface and hides in the underground, being indefinite and forgotten. In extreme and boundary situations though, it shows its face astonishing us. Except of the «absolute» space, appearing as the contradiction nude, any other conventional space is curved, responding to its related point and its «straight» course. This way the point is real, having size, rotation and its straight course owes to have a curvedness, responding to the course of the point and its size. This space is constricted-rotating and limited by the curvedness of its straight course on one hand, and the rotation and size of the point on the other. So there is space and anti-space; the space is constrained by the course curvedness of the point and the anti-space by the rotation of the point around itself, which could be time. From a contradictive point of view though, both spaces together compose one event: “the contradictive space” which is inseparable from the events it is related with. Time in this time-space event, is the fluidity of point frequency in the specific position and space is the expanse area of the point rotation round it self, in relation to a specific system of reference. This contradictive space, even might be characterized as a space-time event, where time would be the frequency of the points fluidity in position and space would be their wave length.
7. The specific space departs-returning, not being able to verify absolutely itself, because, as we have notice, the moving-One point responding to this space, moving forward returns to the direction of its own course, verifying the direction, but never absolutely the hypothetic position of its departure. This way, it verifies positions of itself relatively near the hypothetic position, but not absolutely; the returning point meets its position, touching it more and more but never being exactly upon that. (The absolute departure is an ideal one and can only be conceived as the absolutely vacant and simultaneously the absolutely full). Thus the moving-One collapses-composing itself a little farther from the previous position, moving forward. From a contradictive point of view, straight motion is an helicoid course of the collapsing-compositive events process. This departing-returning course, responds to an unlimited series of denial-verifications; This departs from the One of absolute verification and at the same time absolute falsification, (where space departs-returning instantaneously as contradiction-nude), and passing by all the positions of possible verifying-falsifying relation, ends to the absolute falsification being absolute verification at the same time, which is again the instantaneous and the contradiction-nude. There, space is always different and potentially has simultaneously all forms and no one. All inter-mediate positions of departure-returning, verifying-falsifying, collapsing-composing, situation represent the specific and conventional space, which though is constrained, has undetermined limits, because the moving-One has not absolute departing position, thus its limits are continuously changing. These limits, are always related to some departure of the moving-One, presenting itself as a momentary ultimate unite. This way the specific and constrained space is open, containing potentially the infinity.
Explicative note:
8. Every rectilinearly and normally moving point has curvedness as syndrome; hence-forth a moment, it must create crossing positions by itself upon its own course. These positions are where the moving-One repeats itself more than one time; this way, a scale of positions gradualness is created, departing from the position of zero repetition, passes all the possible (one, two, three. . ) positions of repetition and ends to the infinite one. (The zero and infinite responds to the contradictive-instantaneous). Now let’s see again this process from a related view: The moving-One point performs an unconstrained number of departure-returning cycles, intending to verify itself. This way terminates the space to which moment of time responds. (So the great one, responds to the course curvature of the moving-One, and the small one responds to the perimeter of One’s rotation round itself, being its size). These cycles depart from the one which is never accomplished, because it has never departed, and ends to the one never accomplishes, because it will never return. (Both of these cycles compose the zero-infinity unit, responding to the instantaneous). Between these two positions, an unconstrained number of departure-returning relation positions exist, where the event is not verified absolutely but in relation to its falsification. At these positions the moving-One (the point) crosses its ideal course but not absolutely. (We call it ideal, because it is not there itself to be met again, but it has passed by this spot, creating positions of departing-returning repetition). This one never passes exactly by the position once passed, but touches more and more the ideal spot of departure and verifying it gradually, creates a scale of verification-falsification relating positions. These positions depart from the greater falsification and smaller verification of this One, and arrives to greater verification and smaller falsification.
9. The moving-One (point) departs-returning continuously to universe, terminating the size of the space in relation to the size of the position. (The smaller position responds to a greater course, containing the adequate space). This relation departs from zero size position and infinite size space, and passing by all position and space relations, (the bigger position, smaller the space becomes), arrives to a zero space and infinite position. (As we have noticed, at this extreme situation we have the immobile and instantaneous simultaneously, with all the consequents following this relation).
10. Accepting the existence of an unconstrained number of departing-returning points, which move rectilinearly and normally, it is necessary every-One of these to pass from the positions of all the Other points and all the Other points, gradually (one by one) to pass from the position of the One. This way we have the accomplishment of Many Others by the course of One passing through them, and at the same time, the accomplishment of the One, by the alternating Many Others courses, through the One. So on one hand, there is a series of positions, having a periodic repetition of different points through every position, and on the other hand, a position having a series of different frequency repetition courses of points through the same point. (These are the different crossing positions, of the course of the One by itself). They are two opposite quantity, fluidity-antifluidity position scales: One through ManyOthers and Many-Others through One. This has as a result the creation of a spherical order position system, with pole A, being departure of the One and arrival of ManyOthers and anti-Α, being the departure of many Others and arrival of the One. In this process (being the contradictive unit we have noticed before), the moving-One exists exactly where it consists by the anti-coursing of Many-Others. The anti-coursing one, consists by the courses of similar Many Others, having everyone a different direction, that is, a different angle of crossing, (something we accepted at the beginning of this concept as an element of difference between the similar Many-Others). So these points arriving differently to every position of this quantity scale, compose the One as rotating and different every moment and simultaneously Many-Others exist the way they are, because of the One counter-moves with a different repetition frequency (of its course-crossing by itself) through every One of Many-Others separately. We have noticed that the moving-One departing from the position A, arrives in position anti-A (being Many-Others), where the greatest crossing state of the One’s course by itself exists. At the same time, position anti-A, is the departure of Many-Others, where they exist as the anti-course and the anti-moving-One. Many-Others, as we shall see during unfolding this model, are every moment and in every position One else, a different Other, having a different direction, because it arrives there having some other spot as departure in a different quantity scale, from the unlimited number our world consist of. Between positions A and anti-A, exists a gradual scale of flowing-antiflowing relating positions, of the One’s course and Many-Others anti-course. Every position, though is an identity having its own character, being an inseparable part of the scale of the whole. A scale of positions is a specific identity, being a different relation of the One and Many-Others, flowing-antiflowing process; This scale of positions, is simultaneously a partaker of the whole as a unity. Whole is a contradictive unity, being an ideal “scale board” of positions and point activity, being the matter we try to terminate in all its contradictive dimensions in this work.
11. As we have noticed, this scale has unconstrained number of departure-returning positions. Every position is a result of different flowing-antiflowing relation of One and Many-Others moving-antimoving points. This way every position have a different character with a definite emission-receiving of a specific event departing for universe and returning to position. Every position is a vortex, where ManyOthers dive, entering from one side and spring out by from the other side, because the One contra-moves terminating by the frequency of its repetition the quantity and the wave-length of the Many-Others. Any removal from position to position, modifies all relations. Any character of modification in the position of an receiving-emissiοn point, changes its scale position, moving exactly to the justified position by its receiving-emission character. At the poles of the scale, there is the unrepeated and the instantaneous repetition, which reveals the infinite character of an open system, in all events of our world. Since the scale takes a specific character of emit-receiving-flowing-antiflowing position, its infinite character withdraws, carrying away zero element too. Then the infinite element of the scale, modifies to an infinite number of scales, changing face. Although every scale is characterised simultaneously by the attributes we have referred to, it has a departure reference to a different position in every other parallel scale; That is why, it has an unconstrained number of faces and dimensions, containing one face of the whole (from its evolutional point of view), until the moment of a specific research. Although it seems that there are two different situations, both are the same event from an other point of view; it is remarkable to notice this detail, to make clear that the departure-returning of the emission-receiving (messages) position, is not a closed system but an open one.
Explicative note:
12. The moving-One, we supposed that its course crossing by itself, is the cause of the –One and Many-Others– contradictive relation process (coursing-anticoursing), in complete integration is the instantaneous potentiality. This is the operation of the Whole, where its own course crossing positions being instantaneous is hidden, existing in depth potentially as the instantaneous palpitation (expansion-shrinking) of the Whole. (There is the situation of the infinite crossing-distances parts of no size, zero-infinite and motionless-instantaneous unity). When we intend for distinguished units, moving rectilinearly and normally, the instantaneous disappears from surface hiding in depth and the relation of the moving-One and Many-Others counter-motion comes in surface, where the existence of the moving-One depends on the countermotion of Many-Others and reversely. The hypothetic leaping removal of the One, from position to position, which we could imagine as the ultimate removal distance on hypothetic axis with poles AantiA, of the hypothetic fluidity-antifluidity, is a result of the anti-moving course of Many-Others. This anti-moving course of Many-Others, travelling to the faraway limits of the sphere (and forward to Universe) return to meet the moving One. The returning Many-Other elements, meet the moving-One in its direction from position «α» to position «β» on the axis A-antiA, moving reversely to position «β» passing from position «γ», («next» position of moving-One course on the hypothetic A-antiA poles axis). (I insist to notice this again, because of the importance, that Many-Others contra-moving, compose the leaping removal of the One from position «α» to position «β» on the axis A-antiA, moving reversely from the supposed next to «α» and «β» position «γ»). The speed of the moving-One on axis A-antiA, from position «α» to position «β» being considered as the smaller leaping distance, is astronomically smaller from the speed of Many-Others reversely moving to consist the moving-One. (If we imagine the moving-One as a photonic quantum and the Many-Others as sub-quantum elements of a deeper existing level, then the so called leaping removal, is the result of an almost instantaneous collapsing-composing process of the One, by the moving Many-Others. These Many-Others, though have astronomically different speed, moving reversely, and in different levels, coincide interterminating-intercomposing each-other). In this case, a paradoxologist would say that one system moves from past to future and the other from future to past. From a quantic point of view though, it is possible time not to exist this way; because world is only Now and real time is the frequency of the repetition of passing elementary points in position. (Since space is the length of the points wave spread).
13. Positions should alternately receive-emitting coursing-anticoursing units, having as a result a rotation. This rotation is terminated by the responding relation of receipt-emitting, coursing-anticoursing points in every position. This rotation departs as paracentral, since its emission should be singular (of one element) and its receiving is almost infinite at pole A, after passing by all possible relating positions of emission-receiving, receipt-emitting on axis A-antiA, where the paracentral character tends to be in balance until the centre of the hypothetic sphere, (having axis and poles A-antiA); after wards balance will gradually again be disordered reaching pole antiA, where it will be completely paracentral. All positions however, appear externally balanced, because the receipt-emitting of coursing elements disorder, will be balanced by the responding disorder of the anticoursing elements. These positions differ its other, to the coursing-anticoursing relation frequency, having a responding angle of rotation, in relation to their position in axe A-antiA of the hypothetic sphere.
14. Micro (very small), which we could name «point», expands far away to Mega (great, universe) and Mega dives into Micro, being together One (a unit). The deepest limits of the inside coincide to faraway limits of the outside, composing the contradictive elementary unit. Events consist by an unconstrained number of this kind of points· everyone of these points, departing to universe, returns verifying partially its moving self. This event referring to all universe scales at the same time, and a different way, expresses by a receipt-emitting process, its own view of all universe faces. Any position of these flowing-antiflowing scales, emits to universe, receiving from it messages, being a specific emit-receiving message cod. A scale consisting of this kind successive positions, begins from the position of higher receipt and lower emission, passes gradually by all possible positions of different relation emission-receiving messages and ends to position of lowest receipt and higher emission messages. Every position responding to all different scale point departures, even the instantaneous one, is able this way to change itself, emitting gradually to universe all possible messages, responding to all scales. These begin from the message which never departed because it is always there, passes by all gradual series of departure-returning messages with a different point of flowing-antiflowing relation to universe, ending to the message will never return. (We have noticed that both messages, the one being always there and the one which never returns, compose the contradictive unity of instantaneous-immobility and infinite-nihility, being the positions of AantiA poles). This way, the event we call point in universe, sends an unconstrained number of messages, changing continuously its emitting-receiving code, to maintain its own position, and simultaneously changes continuously position, to maintain its own receipt-emission code. This could be expressed differently: the One and Unique consists from the anti-course of Many-Others (flowing in position of One) and simultaneously, Many-Others consist from the course of the One anti-flowing in Many-Others positions. Many-Others are accomplished by the One, and One by Many-Others, composing together the Whole. This way the course of the moving-One to sequent positions, is a collapsing-compositive result of Many-Others anti-coursing (in the position of the One), realising-verifying it; and the One returns its dept to Many-Others, realising-verifying gradually all of them. [Because universe is infinite and open system, every message that departs from a position to the universe, returning back, do not verify absolutely its departing position (as we have noticed), but it verifies-falsifying it. This because the returning message «steps» upon the departure position, verifying it gradually from more to less, going finally farther from the departing spot. This way the moving-One exists as a collapsing-compositive even in a continuous changing position and identity]. That we call «point» in universe, on one hand, moves being continuously the same, (changes scale, being able to verify a similar One-Other in a different scale); on the other hand it collapses-composing, at the same scale and moves changing continuously its position by changing its emission-receipt code. This way a moving point (or an event), is a constant and distinguished spot, but simultaneously is a continuously expanding one. We could imagine both of these situations together, as a cloudy «one stroke of the pencil line» having a solid “nose”, but moving, leaves back an elliptic and gradually expanding to the universe, cloud. That «point-event» moving eternally, verifies-falsifying all the spots of its “tail”, being simultaneously, verified-falsified by them.
15. Therefore that we could name «opposite» from a contradictive point of view, is the unconstrained universal plurality, formed in relation to the unity the One event represents. The opposite to any specific-One, cannot be expressed as minus-One, but as an unconstrained series of similar and gradually differing from the One events; they depart very deeply inside the specific-One, without leaving any independence «space» and travelling faraway out of the One, perform an unconstrained number of depart-returning courses, which verify-falsifying them selves; they compose this way an unconstrained contradictive moving relation, with the opposite to One. Everyone of these unconstrained number of similar units, existing simultaneously in this relation, could be accepted as a distinguished scale of positions, which during this contradictive process of opposites as simultanea, must be considered to be a distinguished departure position. This way we have the plethora of elementary units: Two, Three, Four… etc, (distinguished events and arithmetic numbers).
16. As a consequence of the previous prepositions, we could imagine our world as a whole consisted of such an elementary «junction plot» positions. Everyone of these positions sends specific messages of (departing-returning, flowing-antiflowing, emission-receiving), so it would be considered as a distinguished event. The state and position of such events, consist by a distinguished «plot» of flowing-antiflowing emission-receiving of under-events, which could be characterised as energy for these specific positions-existences (events) of that plot. So if anyone of these events receive energy (flowing of under-events) of more than a necessary quantity, it should be to another specific position of that plot; this collapses entering to the under existing energy flowing-antiflowing level (the under-event level) and it is recomposed to another position, justified by the new flowing-antiflowing emisson-receipt, of the under-events state of the structure-plot. By this concept, the world should be a plot of an unconstrained number of message interchanging positions. This message plotting, could be the worlds evolution process as essence and its operation would be the Dialectic Logic.
17. By means of a dialectic logic formality, identity would be considered as an evolving self-over-passing event, like the contradictive unit i have presented. This way Identity Principal, the so much necessary for comparative process of logic, will turn to be Principal of the Contradictive Identity. This identity, which will be an evolving process (as we have described), to be functional in logic, its amplitude will be confined by the kind of research and the kind of involving units, demanding the responding departures to the responding scales. This could be abstractedly said, that every specific moment of this process would be a species of differential collapsing-compositive operation. This way the logical formality is overpassed, getting a living dimension. For such a contradictive logic process to be possible, some ideal index recording boards must be contacted. These would be such as i tried to propose terminating the idea of contradiction in this work. It’s necessary, these boards to be contacted with mathematic support, based on a Contradictive Geometry, i have sketched previously; this research process should also be related to the research limits of a specific event. These record-boards must define the possible flowingantiflowing receiving-emission messages of the contradictive crossing position plot, which will represent a current and specific reality. This way, the removal from a crossing plot position to another, will be the result of collapse-composing process as it will be revealed by the ideal operation of the supposed record-boards (the crossing plot, flowing-antiflowing, positions system). I speak about ideal function and hypothetic recording boards, because we will never have an immediate experimental approach, at least the way we used to, because this evolving process is taking place in the so called unter-quantic world, which can not absolutely be investigated. Thus we should use hypothetic models and notice if these could be verified in levels we have experimental approach.
18. The contradictive unite, i speak about, could take a specific meaning every time its hypothetic departing position in the scale of a specific reference is determined; This reference would serve the specific research. That departing position of a specific reference system, simultaneously could be related to all other unconstrained number of moving points, in other systems of reference (scales), by a different way everyone to a different scale. All these simultaneously departing points, travel-returning to universe, or positions emit-receiving messages, verifying-falsifying all the positions of the other scales, except of the simultaneously departing positions of the other relating scales. Then every unique departure point of a specific relation systems scale, which cannot be verified from all this process, could be One, Two, Three… etc, and generally the numeral departure counting of other contradictive units. (We should not forget that all these units appearing as autonomous and independent, when they «touch» the position of Many in a scale, bring to the surface the instantaneous and immobile element, which is the contradictive unity of the whole). 19. After this concept we have spoken about, a rational and organized process could be supposed. This should be related to departure positions, specific systems of scale references during a specific research and the way departure-returning messages, would behave.
EPILOGUE
20. This imaginary adventure of One point moving rectilinearly and normally, in all its development, could be the characterisation of a “Contradictive Elementary Unit”. The way i have proposed it, does not look as a perfect one. Though, we should have in mind that deals about contradictive meanings, stepping many times simultaneously in negation and affirmation of thinking. Never the less, if science and thinking does not take under consideration this preposition about the meaning of this dialectic unit or another work of that kind, -maybe better proposed-, will never be able to come out of the dialogic impasse, it has been trapped. By this meaning, language of science will coincide to the Contradictive Geometry logico-ligual system, where world should be a Biochartographic recording, as this language demands. This logics-lingual syntax will also take in consideration and have as basic term the Contradictive Elementary Unit as it has been proposed by Zeno and the dialectic mental structures of the Heracletian thinking, which i have reformed and integrate in this proposal. Mathematics, physics, biology, medicine and all sciences, should be reconsidered, having in mind the Contradictive Elementary Unit and the Contradictive Geometrical Biochartography of the world. This way, science will again be One, the «Philosophy» which, will coincide to the Contradictive Rational Language; the Dialectics as essence; ―The Heracletian «Logos».
21. We could re-determinate the principles of a Dialectic formality, stepping on the contradictive elementary unit. This way we could form three principles of the Dialectic Logic:
A. «The Principle of Dialectic Identity» where identity coincides with the Contradictive Unite, as it has been proposed during this work.
B. «The Contradictive Relativity Principle of the Opposites», which we have terminate in the contradictive opposition meaning.
C. «The Amphi-dromic Rationality Principle», being a both way Rational Activity Chain, presupposing Reason and Result to be intercollapsing-intercomposing eachother, having an unconstrained number of dimensions, ending to the instantaneousimmobility, nihil and infinite, (the contradiction nude and the potentiality). In this principle, rationality is considered to be a departure-returning evolving process, as it has been terminated previously during this work. These principles worth only as operative tools in specific situations and contain a meaning concentration of all the previous work, which should be considered in the development for every specific case, but not as a formal stereotypes.
23. As we have noticed, Logic and Aesthetics are recorded in the human hereditary mechanism, and Conscience is the de-codified part of this recording. This recording do not constrain the human notion and behaviour, because being contradictive is unconstraint and multi-dimensional.
24. This imaginary adventure of the normally and rectilinearly moving point, let’s be considered by the reader as a contradictive cognitive game. This preposition could claim a scientific face, as “The Anatomy of Contradiction”.
FROM THE DITHYRAMB TO DIALECTICS
PRESOCRATIC THOUGHT: PARMENIDES, ANAXIMANDER, HERACLETOS, ZENO CONTRADICTIVE MONADOLOGY AND UNIVERSAL CHARTOGRAPHY
INTRODUCING NOTE The purpose of this tractatus is to search about the birth of dialectic thinking in Ancient Greek world. How this kind of thinking rises up from the fragmentary texts of the presocratics and the tragic spirit, as a way of life, art and ethics. It’s unquestionable that Dialectico is not cleared and settled, because the efforts to be fully determined stopped, since the marxists, who where supposed to use Dialectico as an instrument of Logic, departing from the Hegelian Logic, had from the beginning enter in a road of logical eclecticism. Thought they rejected Aristotelian formal logic, they never stopped to use this one as a verification instrument in all their logic proceedings. It’s obvious that though marxists intended to use the Hegelian “dialectic logic principals”, these could not be used because they were not principals, but “general results” which cannot be used in the research. Moreover the dogmatic practice of the so called socialistic countries, converted Dialectico to a “curse” and avoiding example. Also the scientific successes of formal logic and determinism, would have buried Dialectico forever, but along with the comming up of “quantomechanics”, Dialectico rises again as the only logical way which could lead us to the New World. This dialectico has as a core the dithyramb, which is the tragic spirit, “the passing by two opposite doors simultaneously”, the spirit of the Contradictive Universality.
PART ONE: DITHYRAMB Greekness It is generally accepted that contemporary civilisation is founded upon Ancient Greek civilization. Most of the inquires that occupy us were addressed then and answers were given, which up on to a point are still accepted today. Our civilization is far ahead in many areas, being behind in others, but there is something very important which our civilization lacks today. I believe this to be the very core of civilization and without this we are heading to destruction. Therefore we should take another look at the dusty shelves of Greek civilization to see if something has been wrongly evaluated or historical circumstances have lead us to forget something significant; or perhaps our contemporary civilization has not shaken off the barbarity which inherited from the Ancient Roman civilization. Why everything that comes from Ancient Greek inheritance is of supreme quality and of invaluable aesthetics? There is a lot we don’t know about them, perhaps the most. Although our technological level is a supreme one, they continue to remain alive and smile condescendingly upon our achievements.
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To pinpoint where our civilization is inferior, it is necessary to make a research and once again answer the inquiry: how the Greeks created this civilization and where they based it on. There is a lot of argument from time to time about the landscape, the climate conditions, the sea, the trade, the wealth and the slaves. All these factors indeed played a role in the formation of this civilisation, but all regions around, being in similar conditions, with greater power and wealth, gave birth to darkness and barbarity. Persians, Phoenicians, Mesopotamians and Egyptians built civilizations, in some ways superior to that of Greeks: Phoenicians were advanced seafarers and traders; Persians were powerful world-leaders with advanced organization and discipline; Egyptians had high level of knowledge and taught Greeks many things. Greeks certainly borrowed elements from them but not these being considered as the basis for the future. Modern civilization, after a slow and difficult process, was built on the main characteristics of Greek civilization: these included rationalism as a practice and critique, representative government and dialectic thinking. (I don’t speak about democracy because that would forget the oligarchic governments of these times, which from a point of view, were more democratic in essence than nowadays democracies). These elements which are generally accepted as being the basis of modern civilisation, are a result of thousands years cultural process, standing on another foundation; a forgotten one that should be uncovered and become a renovating factor of our civilization, which nowadays looks for solutions to neomysticism and uncontrolled technological growth; that is to say, the ancient and modern barbarism. In my opinion, the cornerstone of Ancient Greek civilization is the tragic spirit. This spirit has been inherited by modern European civilization, but lies subconsciously forgotten, being violated by ignorance or folly. Nowadays that technology has the power to destroy the world, it’s obvious that civilization requires a moral support in order to avoid the problem of self-destruction. We must search deeply in the contemporary civilization to bring up to the surface the esthetic quality of tragic.
Hylozoism and Magic At a peak point in prehistoric civilization, some peoples believed that world is not an accumulation of things linked merely by some causal relationships, but it is a Whole, one Essence, one Being. They believed that the contrarieties, world is composed, are notisceaable as that because they are visible in reverse. More precisely, from the side of the Whole, these are not antagonistic but have a complementary character, expressing the supreme harmony of the Whole. It seems they believed that if they ceased to consider the world from “Self to the Other” but reversely, all problems would be solved. This process could have taken many forms and have been practiced differently by different peoples; in general though, these terms could be put under
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the heading of the worship of Nature. Thus some people believed that by communing directly with the Whole, which is Nature, they could cause phenomena favourable to them, such as rain or good harvest. It is reasonable for someone to aspire to this, if he believes that he communes directly to the Whole, and his every thought and action could influence the Whole, providing that he follows the correct procedure. This is probably the root of Magic, which is rather the practice of dealing with the Great One (mega-magnum), the Whole, the Nature. Nature is the God, therefore everything natural participates to divinity. All things are divine and among these some are exemptional: a refreshing spring, a beautiful landscape, a wonderful bull, an enchanting beach, a dark forest, a charismatic person, all of these were Sacred Signs of Nature, being divine messages. So human, should find the way, from signs such as these to commune directly with Nature by his own spiritual focusing, to obtain the a result of his participation. The practice of communing with Nature (God), must have been accompanied by a significant procedure, since mere contemplation cannot be enough when the object is social, such as harvest or rain. In the case of rain, for example, certain forces had to be evoked which were connected with natural phenomena and people should all together to commune causing the phenomenon. Harrison informs us: “witch-doctor’s method is simple and pleasant, using only two rattles. We know another rainmaker: king Salmoneus whose equipment was more complex. According to Apollodoros, Salmoneus claimed that himself was Zeus and depriving Zeus of his sacrificial offerings, ordered the people to sacrifice to him. Of course, says Harrison, he did nothing of this kind, this affair had nothing to do with the sacrifices or Zeus. He was trying as Apollodoros himself explained, to change the weather. Attaching bronze tanks to his chariot, he dragged them behind him and threw burning torches to the sky; the tanks crashed like thunder and the torches flashed like lightning”. According to Harrison, Virgil also told this story, looking the matter from the viewpoint of the orthodox theology. He consider Salmoneus to be a crazy blasphemous criminal, who forges the thunderbolt of Zeus and was thus condemned to Hades for eternity: “And i saw the cursed Salmoneus, desiring to be honoured by the Olympian lightning and thunder of Zeus; arrogantly, riding a fourhorses chariot across the land of Greeks and the sacred city of Elida, demanding divine honours. The miserable man believed that with sounds of bronzen tanks and sistrum, clouds and thunders to create but failed”. Farther on Harrison presents a vase on which Salmoneus is depicted wearing a olive garland woven with olive branches and sacred ribbons, holding a thunder in his right hand and brandishing a sword to the sky with his left hand, on the point of launching a thunderbolt. That he is olympian victor, is confirmed by the figure of Nike (Victory)behind him raising her hand as a disapproval sign. Salmoneus, even for an olympian victor, is going beyond limits. It is rumoured that Salmoneus and his people were destroyed by
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thundering. Harrison inform us that Salmoneus came from a primordial region of the eternal birth teretory of Magic, Pelasgian Thessaly.
Now let’s see this story by another way, with the help of Harrison but under a critical eye to her prepositions: In Elida (Ήλιδα), there was a temple dedicated to Hera (Ἥρα) in prehistoric times, before the founding the temple of Olympian Zeus. It is possible that the Sun-God, in a matrilinear society would be female, so the sun would be Hera or, as it’s written on ceramics Thera, which is possibly a corruption of the word “Therma” (warmth); Hera was the Universal Fire (Vesta-Εστία) long before become Estia, (hearth of House). We have seen temples of Hera to be founded at seashores, where, at the dawn, Sun rises below the earth, under the sea shining in sedgold. They where sure of that because they had seen volcanos having the same material and coming under the Earth, (godness-Γαία). It is said that after the Flood caused by volcanic wave of the Thira island volcano erruption, the “Idaean Dactylos”, Heracles (one of the mythic five bright fingers of the sacred cave-temple of cretan mountain “Idis”) arrived there, and established a temple dedicated to Zeus. (That is why it is said Olympic Gams begun there and founded by the Idaean Hercules). We know that before Zeus become the great god with Hera his wife, Hercules (Heracles) was reputed to be her lover; As Lecatsas mentions in his “Dionysos”: in mythology old love-affairs turn to hatred when events go wrong or differently. My opinion is that Hercules (Hera-cles) was the Cleos (brightness-glamour) of Hera, the light of the Sun (that’s why it was propriety for him to use bow and throw beam-arrows, as Apollo-Sun and Atremis-Moon could do). My opinion is that near by the temple of Hera, there was a temple of Hercules, which was not founded by Hercules. It was there, since the sacred contest was taking place, under protection and for the glory of Hera. Heracles, being the light of sun, was the life itself and that is why he was Zeus (full of life, blooming of life).
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That sacred contest was followed by the sacred wedding, and connected to the Divine Drama, where Hercules-Zeus (later Zagreus-Dionysos) was sacrificed by the Titans (white-ones), being ordered by Hera. Titans had cover their faces with titanus “white clay”, to perform their profane action of sacrifice, so they would not be theirselfs doing that). This had the meaning of winter and snow coming at a time when the northern Mediterranean was covered by ice, under the command of Hera (the Sun). Then Zeus was going down to the bowels of earth becoming lifeless, A-zeus, Adeus, Ades. In Heraion (templ of Hera), in Elida, where the centre of Magic was, crowds of people gathered from all parts of Greece, to participate or to be present in the sacred contest of the Olympic games), which then consist only of the 200 meters race. That was (dromos-drama, agon-struggle). At undefined prehistoric times, Salmoneus departed from Thessaly to participate in this contest. He was a Kouros and thus well enough initiated in the rule of being the chosen one as the representative of his town, (being in age of marriag, and so a priest of Zeus ―full of vitality and fertility). Alongside the race of Young Men, there was the race of Cores (young women) at the Heraion. The winners of these two games, would participate in the Sacred Marriage. The race of young men, was in honour of Heracles and the winner became a Zeus, (bursting of life, having a vital fury or “Mana” as Harrison suggests). Zeus, was the main attribute of Heracles and anyone who won the race, being in the state of grace took on this attribute. In general, Zeus represented life itself and for that reason, he was the dying-rebirthing one. He was to the bowels of earth (Catagogia) in the winter and in spring on the surface of earth blooming on (Epiphania). These days, the one who had to “possess” the attribute of god, being the best and primary being a human (because this was the highest sign of Nature), he had to be initiated as a priest to serve Zeus. This in short hed the meaning that the chosen Young Man, being in his high fertility and sexual activity should commit the Sacred Marriage with the chosen Young Woman. The final choice though would rest upon “who desired most”, among these eligible and he who could best attain to grace. There had to be divine assurance that the Olympic Victor who would be the sacred victim, would be revealed as Nature’s clearest sign. He would be the match for the Girl Victress who would assume the role of Hera that year. The Olympic winner, (Zeus, the full of vitallity one ― “ Zeon one”) as the picture of the jar shows, performed a Rain Dance. The interpritation of Harrison, for the case of Salmoneus presented on the jar in my oppinion, is wrong. Nike (Victory) does not follow but leads and the gesture she makes, does not show displeasure but the opposite; moreover the Kore (young woman), who follows, shows neither emparrassment nor displeasure, but accompanies the dance, which seems familiar to as. I believe this dance is a kind of Zeibekico (Zei-ue-kio, Zeibacchic), which is the lamentation of sacred fury, the sacred wailing of sacrifice and communing to the divine. In that case, with tambourines, rattles and a bronze thunderbold, he invokes or
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perhaps creates rain. (Something the Hero can do). We quote the phrase taken from the Hymn of the Kourites (young men): “and the Nyktipolos (acting at night) Zagreus roaring performe the ceremony”, which Harrison used so well, in her book “Themis: a Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion”, to show that Kourites were initiated males miming the thunderbolts and as she believes, they were performing the Rain Dance. “If someone is indeed a true Bacchus, miming virtuouslly the thunderbolts of Zeus, diserves a share”, as Plutarch sais. It is likely that the Olympian victor would live like a king: far from sorrows and cares, and he would fertilize the girl making her pregnant; their child would be Aristos (perfect), and this was to lead to the patrogrammic line of Aristocracy. The land given to him would be a Temenos (sacred piece of land); no one could take it from him. As George Thomson shows, in his “ Prehistoric Aegean Civilization”, land would never belong to a mortal, only heroes who were immortal, could have land forever. (Heroes were probably those who had devoted as sacrificial victims to Hera, and had been risen this way to the height of God). The mortals had the right to cultivate land, but every so often the land was redistributed by drawing lots under the clergy supervision (Thomson). The sacrifice used to take place at the end of the year, the winter solstice, which was the longest night and the shortest day, the day of Cronos. This day, the year was dying and at the same moment was born as a New. This day is dithyrambic, because Cronos (Time, Year) passes at the same moment two opposite doors: the door of death and the door of live. The sacred victim was Dithyramb itself. (According to the Christians, this happened to Christ. The name derives from “Christos”, meaning endowed with grace. So Jesus had the Grace to be a Sacred Victim). It is likely the victim cut the veins of his wrists and was led around supported by two priests among the participants who kissed his hands tasting at the same time the blood (from this comes the hand kissing of the Respected). The participants were in a frenzy and pledged to overpass themselves, in any deed their society called on them to perform. (This dithyrambic day passed to the christian world as Christmass but when the “sacred fathers of christianity” decided to separate the warship of Christ from the one of Bacchus, was during the forth century A.D., this day was transported two-three days later and devited to Christmas and New Year). Later, when Zeus became Father of Gods and his sacrificial place was taken by his horned son Zagreus, the patrogrammic and patriarchic society, used to sacrifice the White Bull, which represented Zeus or Dionysus-Zagreus. So if there was a human sacrifice during the Olympic Sacred Race, (dromos, drama) which was the only contest, it should have been occurred before 1700 b.C. before the eruption of Thera volcano. That’s the reason Pythagoras considered the Olympic games profane as they were bloody earlier.
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Now let us return to the story of Salmoneus: Suppose that he managed to cause rain by dancing. Then two possibilities could happen: A. Salmoneus overpassed human limits traveling around the Greek cities bringing the rain. This from one point of view was, Hubris (arrogance), since he was replacing God. Overpassing the Metro (human limit), he was cursed and burnt up by the same thunderbolt he had invoked. The Palladium, (divine fire, thunder) illuminates and burns according to how it is used. B. The other possibility is that Salmoneus imitated god so virtuously and created the phenomenon. The high standing of such a deed was Charis (grace), which happened to Semeli who was struck by Zeus thunderbolt and this way gave birth to the fireborn and thunderus Dionysos. Oppositely, according to the orthodox dogma, Semeli was fulminated, being foolish and interfering curious, as women were characterized during the time of male domination. But as exellently Harrison revealed, the true story was different. Semeli which was Gaia (Earth) had an intercourse with Uranos (sky) with the mediation of Keraunos (thunderbolt), burning her up. That was a state of Grace and the result was the birth of Vromius-Pyrigenes (thunder-fire-born) Dionysus. Something similar may be happened to Salmoneus. He imitated so virtuously Zeus thunders that he became one of them, being a God; that, as Harrison reveals, is a Grace. Empedocles at the end of his life fell into Aetna’s volcano considering this to be a supreme death. Let us consider Magus (megas-magnus-wichdoctor the person dealing with the great) from another viewpoint: Not long ago Pope John Paul and Archibishop Christodulos, both educated and logical persons, prayed for rain. We see scientists to accept the existence of God and doctors to say that “they have done their duty but the rest lies in God’s will”. God is ideal and distant; we address to something we cannot identify, essentially unknown. We address to the extreme abstraction: pure Mercy, pure Love and all pure ideals. This is the approach to pure abstract ‘Thing-itself’. If it rains, God has mercy on us; if not, we didn’t have enough faith, or God sets us to a suffering-trial or to punish us. The difference between Magians and Priests is that Magians don’t simply address to God mentally, but apply an imitation practice which is not abstract at all. Maybe the Magian practice today seems wrong, but it is in the correct way; he applies to Nature by imitation! Scientists today, do the same in extreme cases of drought; they bombard the atmosphere with “special bombs” hoping to cause rain; and because this practice is very doubtful, it is not a paradox the participants to wish for success. Wishing, is something like a prayer to the Unknown. In a general concept though, Magian and Scientist imitate the phenomena virtuously, communicating mentally with the Whole expecting a share. Magian is primitive but in a good way, while scientist knows more, their difference is quantitative. Let’s put Salmoneus next to Einstein. Their purpose is the same: a struggle for a 7
share from Nature; Einstein is more virtuous, imitates Nature better getting a bigger share. Even so, there is something making Salmoneus superior: he takes the first step. From a viewpoint primitive man being first to create a tool is superior to the one who discovered the wheel and superior to the one who discovers the airplane, because he discovers Science Itself. However they are all the same: they are Bacccoi tiptoeing in darkness holding a torch; they are Nyktelioi (Night-suns), Eosphoroi (Lucifers, light-bringers), they are the scientists. Salmoneus is not arrogant, on the contrary he performed his sacred duty, as the modern scientist. He invokes the forces of Nature virtuously, with modesty and logic. If scientist will be intoxicated from the share Nature offers, overpassing the Metro (human limit), will bring disaster to himself and his people. Palladia nature offers, are Doubl-Axes: These illuminate and burn. A scientist is Zeivekios, Iobacchus who, above all, sacrifices his life to the research; he is the only true priest of our times, because he serves the one true God, ―Nature; all the other priests are fake. It is him who handles the Palladia and Double Axes, because he has the Grace; he is the true Olympic victor and knows that Nature’s booties are sacred victims to be sacrificed and not wasted senselessly. These secrets must not be left to the whims of charlatans, barbarians and foolish profiteers. He is an Olympian victor, because he achieved that goal after life-long struggle and sacrifices, with only reward his passion for truth. Virtuous politicians should have next to them the priest, that nowadays is the scientist, who should have the last word. The legality of Salmoneus action has two dimensions: A. He attempts to act rationally, though his activity was wrong, because imitating the phenomena (being the basic experimental way even today), is a daidalian and complicated road, not having the expected results always; and in the case of Salmoneus many data for the “experiment” of rain creation were missing. B. If the Whole is a Being in which every one participates, human could gain the right to have a “share” transcendentally. He could invoke mentally Nature by imitaton, expecting his share; that primitively could be scientific. But what is science? where does it start and where it ends? Contemporary theories touching on quantomechanic paradoxes, claim that in quantic world experiments, scientist is not an objective observer any more; the object of measurement, the instrument of counting and human participant, compose an unseparated unity. It is said, that human in this kind of experiment, involves in the proceedings of world, being in a creative state. This is “legally” accepted, because of some instantaneous inter reaction activities, which are supposed to exist at the potentiality under-quantic level of the world: Since human decides the action of experiment Universe, as a Whole, receives the message before the process have been integrated, therefore Universe responts by its way to the decision of the human activity and will. So scientist, just like Salmoneus, commune subconsciously to the Whole invoking Universe to respond. We feel that ancient people considered human body to be a scientific instrument,
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which they used to enter in the secrets of Nature. As they stepped on fire, they invoked rain. Tomson maintains that they expressed their desire for the expected result and Harrison suggests that they submitted themselves to a kind of hysteria, under the influence of their Mana (menos, vital-fury). The rationalists present them to be primitives, who feel the urgent inner need to commune with the Whole (Nature), but they reject such a possibility. Science and determinism cannot accept something like that, but there where some ceremonial activities which rise our curiosity. It’s possible by using their body as scientific instrument, to achive results paradoxal to our logic but being in an other way scientific.
Minimal behaviour. The feeling of the opposite aspect of world, (the consideration from the Other towards Self), is an endless process, since Whole as Other cannot be tangible. So there is a bottomless meditation process and practical behaviour, as possible, everyday’s problems to be faced by an opposite view or both-ways. Whole, as a meaning itself, is Life and every individual Ego as extension of the Whole, communes naturally to it. Thus human path should be the respect for Life and practically takes the form of Minimal Behaviour. This was a complex way of life, which took different forms from people to people and in prehistoric Greece it peaked by taking on a tragic face, opening a new rout in civilization marching to the future. There has been an attempt through the method of Comparative Anthropology to interpret the phenomenon of Tragedy in Ancient Greece. I think we should gather conclusions through this method, but we must avoid exaggerations. The comparison itself between Ancient Greek civilization and Totem cults of today’s backward peoples is extreme. Totem spirit, as survives today, is a superstition netting and formal relics of an ancient way of thinking, which once flourished. It is a kind of social fossilization that may easily lead into a trap. This is because inspirational beliefs of that time, sink to popularism and naivety in periods of decline, giving completely different feeling of the original meaning. Yet research through ancient texts can be misleading. Many texts were written at a later time and probably perceived ideas through a different prism: some times influenced by religious fanaticism and other by a spirit of modernism of this particular period and finally by a spirit of scepticism, which is always caustic against everything transcendent. (Scepticism is the ingenuity of the average and typolatric clerks which always has the last word). So we have, on one hand, a decline in prehistoric values from essential to formal and on the other a sceptical critic approach in written information. On the contrary, in essential maters of ancient worship, having scientific dimension, we have a conscious silence, a religious homage with an ineffable procedure. “Arriton” was an univocal speech, which “the more it was spoken the less was understood”, because its essence was a transcendental practice, as the fire-walking is, which continues even today, not really being said by words, but by this transcendent activity. If this practice
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stops to occur for some years, when scholastics read about it will laugh. (As Lao-Tse said: if the sceptic doesn’t laugh may not be a great truth). We do not know what this survived practice used to signify. It could have been an expiation, or “catharsis”, after the sacred slaughter or perhaps the preparative purification before the slaughter. Anyway, we learn from this practice that human body is a scientific instrument, and the sages of prehistoric times knew how to use it. At the very least, they knew something we do not know and they could do things that seem inconceivable to a rationalist. The Comparative Anthropology method takes for granted that these people, if not barbarians, were primitive. Yet there is a question they should answer: Assuming that language discloses to a degree the civilisation and anthropologic development of society, how can be explained that some ancient languages are superior to the modern ones? Contemporary researchers do not understand what exactly is a transcendental practice and wishing to “embellish” or rationalize it, they bring it in their size “putting on it the narrow shoes of determinism” and contemporary rational empiro-criticism. Ancient thinkers accepted ration, but being wiser than us, used alternative and complementary logical methods also. Great researchers as Harrison, Thomson and Lekatsas accepted with certainty that Maenads and Bacchoi and all the participants in transcendental practices, used to take psychotropic essences, “getting high” and thought they were acting transcendentally but in fact they were deceiving themselves and the others. I believe this was not true, though we will never know the truth now. What really used to happen at the temple of Eleusinian Demeter? Is it not strange at a time Greeks were extreme rationalists and Romans out-and-out realists, the later to call priests from Eleusis to found a templ of Demeter and her Daughter in Rome? It hardly seems credible and yet it happened, despite the fact that Romans had many gods of their own, that were not inferior to the Greek gods. Indeed, though Romans may have admired Greek art and literature, at the same time they condemned and distrusted them.
In Harrison’s work: “The birth of Ancient Greek Religion”, published and translated from English by “Iamblichos”, i observe Harrison’s “reading” of the above picture: “The design of the Figure 1. comes from a “dipylon” amphora… in the center of the design a square table or altar is depicted. Up on this, there is a Mycenaean shield, probably made of some strow matting. In the right side of the figure 1. a seating man holds some object in each hand. From the object in his right hand projects a zigzag line”. Harrison goes on to confirm that “he is holding primitive musical instruments, gourd rattles, part of witch-doctor paraphernalia”. In another picture she presents similar rattles used for magic, by primitive tribes in Africa and America. Harrison continues: “The sound the gourd produces is infallible – it brings rain. Rain is accompanied by thunder and lightning. So the zigzag lines in figure 1 are lightning”.
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figure 1
I admire very much Harrison, but i cannot agree with her opinion. Indeed the certainty she is express is challenging. On the other side of the vase, there are chariots and soldiers; here we again see these zigzag lines on the horse-backs, which could not represent lightning, for why anyone to evoke rain at a time when he would wish the opposite? No one waged war in rain at these times. It’s no doubt that pictures in vases, narrate a story, but Harrison’s interpretation is forced and constrained. A visit to the Museum of Kerameikos Cemetery, will help us to ascertain that these ‘matting’ patterns, zigzags and a large group of other designs are symbols, whose role is that of a background upon the myth evolves. Let me attempt to ‘read’ the picture: someone went to battle and he was killed and buried. Black and white matting patterns are burial symbols meaning the continuous alternation of life and death . . The zigzags which is the most common motif in vases, represent the alternation between katagogia (going to the bowels of earth in winter) and epiphaneia (coming up to surface of earth at spring). These symbols pertain to the relationship of life and death, and by extension to the unity of the opposites generally.
The road of minimal behaviour might have been like this: 1. Because Nature is sacred, human should not consume more than the necessairy for living. Needs must be restricted to the minimum. 2. World is multi-dimensional, so at its ultimate depth it’s beyond rationality the way we understand it, because we “see” the world in reverse. The “chain of ratio” is unconsrainedly multy-diamensional because every element of Nature is sacred and never vanishes; whatever dies finds the way to return as different the time of its ripe. Everything lives-dying, changes-being the same, everything is contradictive. 3. No one can obtain something without a sacrifice. Life is a sacrifice process. Human in order to live, has to hunt, to fish, to eat seeds, roots or eggs. He has to cut trees for shelter, burn them for warmth and generally to consume. However frugal
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this life is, cannot avoid to be impure, because human even being virtuous must kill; therefor, every time human consumes must do it in the form of sacrifice. Victim being not a booty, cannot be dominated by no one, must be treated with respect because it is sacred, it is God himself. The act of sacrifice is contraditon because part of God’s body, is sacrificed for the sake of another part. Life is contradictory.
The barbarian song of joy at obtaining food and booty, should be transformed to a song of mourning which is “tragoudi”, or “tragedy”. This was the song of “trapeza” *(table), of food. Tragedy is the cheerful lament, mournful-merriment, of “tragos”, of the he-goat sacrifice. This is the point Greeks differentiated from the Archaic Mystic tradition. They combined the element of sacred communion with the daily celebration of joy, without allowing eudemonism or asceticism to predominate. Such deviations considered to be hubris (extreme arrogance). Greeks where conscious of that and they made this song (tragedy), an art of life. This approach to art, became a way of life and ethos of behaviour; so exactly this was their religion. The sacrificer must not be a butcher in a slaughtery, but in state of sacred inebriety, so not to be exactly himself, but a transcendent beings communing to god. This song should speak about the victim’s passion, (sacred passion), the pleasure of sacrificer for partaking of meat which was a sacred food; also about the dark fate of the sacrificer, who would also himself be a victim; and about Nature which is both sacrificer and victim of itself; and about all things which born-dying, descend to the bowels of earth and shoot up again; the endless cycle of life and death. ___________________________________________________ Liddell & Scott *τραγεῖν: infinitive of the verb τρώγω, (eat) τράγος: he-goat, bull, ram, –male animal– for sacrifice and eating
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Representative symbols
1. CYCLADIC. 3500-2800 b.C.
a. Dithyrambic spiral b. Dithyrambic interminable
Dithyramb: the simultaneous passing through two opposite gates; and finally the gate of life and the gate of death. Figure a. shows the unity of opposites. Figure b. shows small dithyrambs to develop an unlimited big one. This one reforming, becomes symbol of infinity, where the great is formed by the small and it is contained in to the small.
c. Dithyrambic limitless
Figure a. Spiral is related to the Eastern symbol of the opposites unity . Their difference is that the Asian one is closed since the Cycladic is open. The evolution in a closed system is predetermined and phenomenal. The whole is the beginning and the end; the small is contained in the big and the big, the Whole, is a sum of many small all. Opposites in this Sum are ultimate unchangeable elements and their dialogue reaches till their limits and never violates them, because they are not supposed to have any more structure. Their dialectical process is an oppositive one.
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The Cycladic open symbol, shows evolution to be real, change to be substantial, and nothing to be completely fixed or fulfilled, nothing to be predetermined. The big, (Whole), in this case is born from the continuous alternation of life and death of the small. The small at its ultimate point of existence or tending towards Zero, at the same time tends towards infinity. The dialogue of the opposites there, do not allow any unviolated limits eacth-other, being contradictive and real.
d. e. Figure d. I read: The Earth the Sun and the Sea are in continuous dialogue through Ether, who is infinite and in continuous change. Figure e. Dithyrambic spiral at the center could be the Sun and the symbols around, could show the alternation of Nature’s ascent and descent, of “epiphaneia” and “katagogia”.
CRETAN. 2500 bC.
f.
The geometric transformation of figure f.
Figure f. Cretan dithyramb, predecessor of the geometric meander, preserved till the end as the symbol of tragedy in Greek vases.
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ATTIC- GEOMETRIC 1000-700 b.C.
g. h.
i.
Figure g. Attic dithyramb: A cycle within a cycle, representing a mask within a mask, where the ultimate point is the cross, being a primitive dithyramb. Figures h.and i. Funereal dithyrambic symbols (epiphaneia-katagogia)
Epiphaneia-Katagogia
Greek Egyptian Hebrew
Hebrew-Dromos-Comos Hebrew reversible trends Hebrew synthesis (open) (going to the sacrifice and return) The Hebrew dithyramb was an open one, since Hebrews were nomadic-comercial; and paganist people; Jehovah was probably Jovacchos. After the acceptance of the Egyptian monotheism, along with their leader Moses as followers of the Pharaoh Akhenaton they escaped from Egypt. Old testimony mentions that while Moses was up to Sina mountain, they believed that Moses died and they returned to their old worship of the golden bull. (the symbol of nature’s fertility).
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the star of David (closed) Hebrew dithyramb
The monotheistic star of David shows opposites inter-reaction but each-one preserves its independence. This is precisely what deprives it of its dithyrambic nature. It changes from an open system to a closed one; the dark part in the middle is the dialogue, and the free corners are the ultimate unchangeable. In the Greek dithyramb we shall see below, (figure k), the opposites inter-expand each-other, entering eachother and not leaving any inviolated space between them, so that ultimate elements, containing both opposites simultaneously, compose a contradictive unity.
ATTIC 900 b.C. until HELLENISTIC and ROMAN period
Dithyramb thriambus (triumph) synthesis Figure k. is a Dithyramb completely developed: a double meander showing the flow and anti-flow of universe; one meander goes and the other returns (comos-dromos) and their crossing points are the dithyrambic positions; and the square between the crossing point positions, is thriabus (triumph), the passing by the third gate, of synthesis (composition), which analysed is again dithyrambic.
The Tragedy
Society, as time passed, took on a different everyday rhythm and daily tragic practice began to wear out. The table of the house was no longer a sacrificial altar. (Even nowadays there are people, who respect the table, do not through away the remaining food, because it is sacred, being sacrificial element and say grace prayer before the meal: these are vestiges of the ancient tragic practice). On exceptional sacred days, the winter solstice, which simultaneously was the first day of the year the last day also, (the greatest night and smallest day), when Chronos– Kronos–Year passed simultaneously two opposite gates, preplanned festivals of civilization took place. Their calendar was marked by this kind of dithyrambic days.
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Thus a myth was born wherein God, (Nature), sacrifices Itself every year and dying-revives simultaneously, being in a continuous state of collapsing-composition. Nature may have been represented by Zeus (bursting of life) or Ado-nes, (Ἀϊδο-νεύς, born in Ades, born in his death); But because in a later patriarchic society male great God could not die, in his place, Zagreus, his beloved son was sacrificed. He was born by Persephone who had the same fate; she spent half of her life with Zeus (the living one) and the other half to A-des (Azeus, having no breath). Since God himself could not sacrifice his own son, the Titans performed the profane deed. Humanity, which was created from the ashes of the fulgurate by Zeus Titans, contained within the eaten body of Zagreus by the Titans also; Thus humanity was both infamous and sacred. For that reason, man’s deeds are contradictive (dithyrambic), simultaneously both good and evil. When aspiring to goodness, he looks evil springing up deeply down within his deeds. That is why he had to avoid the extreme being modest; Metron, (human limit), was not to be overtaken because that was hubris (extreme arrogance). So they created myths where the heroes were perplexed in contradictory situations, because of their exaggerated aspirations. These myths revealed the contradictive nature of the world and society, that is its tragic nature. Thus we could say that Greek religion was related to the Magic of obtaining the Sacred “Mana”, as Harrison maintained, but this is not the root of the tragedy interpretation. Tragedy was the human behaviour to keep the Metron, being modest in relation with Nature and society.
Tragedy departs from the marching process (dromos-drama) of the victim sacrifice with respect, (agon-action) and ends to theatric acting which is imitation of the sacred action, (as it is terminated by Aristotle). Tragedy is synonymous to dithyramb which at the very beginning, was the “bull leading song” to the slaughter, as Pinter maintained. This song, dithyramb, tragedy, “fell” in a delirium of a contradictual speech about the ultimate point bull was led, (sacrificial death), which exactly this was the point life began, and that is why Zeus, Zagreus, –an other face of Dionysos– and at the end the white Bull, all together, were the dithyramb. All these together composed a contradictive dithyrambic process, which essentially was the exact moment of the slaughter. This was the, no space expanse and no time duration, zero spot; the nihil edge of the fading present, which only exists in the Sacred Now. (Past do not exist, Future do not exist, Present is Always Now, Being Always Other; this Is-Always-Itself-Nothing. This is Cronos, (time) eating itself.
Everything in Nature being conradictive is dithyrambic and social life of Greeks was an alive dithyrambic acting. This living acting, being alive in social life as ethos and unwritten law, became later an ideal reflexion, a mental creation, an imitation of the sacred action: theatre.
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The sacrifice
In very old times, as Harrison emphasizes the Bull was Zeus Cerameios (frenzy of vitality, furius bull, whose horn-stroke was the thunder); Zeus was ‘the bursting of life’, ‘raging in full frenzy’ and according to Harrison, this vital fury was the ‘Mana’. I believe that being a God, the Bull could not been led by a rope to slaughter, hurling itself around and putting up a fight, trying to escape and being cruelly pulled back; this would have been sacrilege. It is possible that in very early times, the bull was set free to stampede raving through the town, where the frenzied crowd, the participants, awaited him. Possibly in earlier times the killing took place there, while later the bull was delivered to a group (thiassos) of frenzied priests or Maenads, who committed the killing bare handed or with an ancient sacred stone tool. (For this reason it is said that sacrifice was performed without copper or iron). In later times when the bull was not a god anymore, but substituted for god who was anthropomorphic, was sacrificed ‘properly’ in dignity being prepared with soothing herbs; then it would have been led along the Sacrificial Way and through the sacrifice should be trans-substantiated to life and rise to the hight of god. The meaning of sacrifice is that the bull is turned to sacred food, (Communion Host) and those who take this ‘communion’ by eating, (participate), commit themselves to rise the bull’s death into life, through the fertility of their body, their sprit and their actions. (The same way, in Christian Holy Communion, the faithful in partaking of «body and blood» of Christ takes on responsibility to become sacred victim if his community asks to do so). The practice of sacrifice began with the sacred processional march of the bull «Dromos» (Drama), and ends at the Agona, which was the slaughter and finally followed Comos (the return). The whole event involved elevating the participants to a transcendental state. The bull entrance to Dromos, (sacrificial road), would be in a pandemonium of an incoherent accompaniment of music, dance and speech, revealing this way the Presence of Dionysos Bacchus, (the «Presence into the Absence» of Vromius, the one born in fire and by a thunder, Dionysos-Zagreus); along with him the Titans frenzied by a murderous mania for raw flesh. The animal was the sacred, the God, and the human beings were the Titans, the profane. The music following would be a mournful accompaniment occasionally bursting into a strident pandemonium returning again to a restrained lament. The chorus would step forward exuding an air of restraint as if rejecting the march to slaughter and at the same time desiring it with murderous passion. Logos, (the speech), would be a contradictive delirium of joy and sadness, composing altogether a spiritual and mental outburst and an emotional derangement from the everyday conventionality. Afterwards, everything seemed to be interpreted by the Exarchon (the narrator, the actor) but finally reverted again to dithyrambic self-refuting or ambiguous cibylline riddles. At the sacred moment the bull fell, Logos reverted again to an apparent delirium, where Chorus spoke contrite, heartrendingly about the lunatic, the horrible
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action and Exarchon interpreted. He spells oracles about relation of life and death, joy and sorrow, beginning from a formal process and occasionally burst into an ecstatic outpouring of improvised utterances. The participants in the slaughter, perhaps were performing the traditional marching on fire, maybe for a kind of ‘catharsis’ (purification). The return (comos) would be a joyful arduous march, during which Logos, (the dithyramb of speech), was transformed to a caustic social criticism; It was a moment when the false steps of the powerful were stigmatized through satire. My opinion is that this part of the tragic procedure survived as theatre, and there is possibly, upon where stepped in the beginning democracy. Under the protection of Bacchus sacred inebriation, they could speak about everything, because through their mouth the Bacchus’s wine was speaking. The dining table of the house, for these worshippers of life and Nature was a sacrificial altar. Tragedy, Tragodia is possibly Trogo-odia ―the ode (song) of eating, of the sacred food or the food that is sacred. The victim on the table was respected, whether it was plant, seed, egg, fish or venison. Beef, goat, lamb and pork were only eaten at sacrifices. According to Harrison and other searchers the higher purpose of sacrifice was to eat meet; that was a Dais, a sacred communal meet-eating by the sacrifice participants. Domestic animals, like the fields enjoyed respect; men and animals were held in more equal esteem than they are nowadays. In those days hanging up meet, as our butchers do, would have been terribly profane and a sign of barbarity. A beautiful animal, place or field, were sacred signs of Nature, so nothing should be wasted. Even eating too mach was ‘hubris’. All resources were sacred victims and had to be treated with respect. They sacrificed timber to build houses, ships or furniture. God guided the hand that performed the sacrifice; therefore the act of making anything, being a sacrifice, was art. Art is the practice that reflexes the respect for the material, which is a sacred victim. That’s why whatever comes to us from these ages, it is a work of art. When materials are used, lose a part of their natural beauty, so the maker must return the losed beauty in the constructed result. That was the respect to the material. So he used to build small temples in the most beautiful spots, since there was the sacred sign of Nature. He would sacrifice as little of the place as possible, because the place was beautiful anyway and he would make something that revealed his respect. The sacrifice of the place should take a transcendental form making the beauty more beautiful. «Τίκτω» means i give birth to: by the death of some material he had to give birth to something better, to have a ‘τέκνο’ (child); ‘τέχνη’ (techni) is an art of birth. That was the dithyrambic practice of fertilizing resources and not thoughtlessly wasting them. All activities and things, such as travel, friendship, offering, acceptance, plate, chair, house etc, must have the element of dithyramb, being beautiful. Greeks were generally poor, but they knew about the aesthetics of small and frugal. The accumulation of great wealth was ‘hubris’, so the behaviour of the rich should not be
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arrogant but useful offering to the community. The poor and the weak should not be debased; moderation should be preserved. Dithyramb is the process of sacrifice and its fertilization to New. The supreme sacrifice is self-sacrifice. It is likely that in prehistoric ages the victor of sacred road was sacrificed voluntarily. Thus later there was a custom the victor entering the city through the demolished wall ‘new gate’, to sing a dithyramb, dressed as a god, wearing the scarlet red toga. He was a hero passing through the Double Gate, the Gate of simultaneous life and death. On the contrary, Romans performed the Triumph, where the victorious General use to pass under the Triumphal Arch, builded in his honour. The ‘Θρίαµβος’ (Triumph), was the passing throug the third gate, of synthesis. Roman triumph was followed by a trophy, which was the triumphal arch and the triumph used to turn to a panegyric of joy victory at the end of which, instead of a sacrifice, they slaughter Caesars enemies. The Triumph was an affair of arrogance; the ‘victorious god–Caesar’, was full of happiness and nothing overshadowed his joy. It is said that Macedonians after a a victory against Thracians set up a trophy; afterwards they were beset by ill-luck and they came to the conclusion that this was an hubristic act. So after a victory over Thebans, they set a trophy in honor of the dead and the defeated. Dithyrambic victory being a sacrifice for the sake of the city, the city takes the responsibility to rase the sacrifice to a higher quality of life. The true dithyramb was that the people, for the sake of them the sacrifice was done, to take the responsibility, to create something higher and to be ready in any case to be themselves sacred victims. That’s the reason first christians claimed that Romans dressed Christ a King; they intended to sacrifice him and not to humiliate him. This hard marching of Christ to the place of the crusifixion, was supposed to be ‘Dromos’, the intention of the christians to assimilate the Christ’s Drama to the pagan Divine Drama, the Tragedy of Nature. If possibly Christ existed, was briefly killed by Romans, because he was not any distinguished enemy; and rather Christians placed his death in the limits of tragedy. They invented the crucifixion because the cross was an archaic dithyrambic symbol, (through death to life). We know that Romans used to hang the convicts to a «T» shape scaffold, tying them and not nailing them at a cross. Will Durant in his «World History», claimed, something Lekatsas accepts also, that according to Plutarch, Themistocles sacrificed two Persians before the naval battle of Salamis. The information of Plutarch who lived long later maybe wrong, since they did not sacrificed someone or something that has no value to them; Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter and Abraham his son. If the practice of human sacrifice returned at these gloomy days to the Athenian life, it should be at the battle of Marathon, and the sacred victim was Kynaigeros, whose death reminds a sacred dispersion. Kouroi were chosen from the ancient Fatrias (patrilineal blood extended family groops), for gaining the Grace to give their own First Blood, to which all the others
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will participate tasting it. The communicants took the responsibility to follow the sacrificed hero to the end and to fight till death. Athens of course informed nothing of this, in case there was a panic, because this practice had certainly not occurred for centuries, being primitive and barbaric, just as the Maenadic Orgies* were, being also sacred. ____________________________________________________ * Orgy, Ὅργιον, έργον : Transcendental activity
Possibly the ensuing battle was a bloodbath and not a eminent victory, which let many dead and therefore were not brought back for honorary burial at Cerameikos Cemetery. There were tomb burials, which was an ancient forgotten custom, whereby in communal graves were buried not only the relatives, but them who died in the same battle and participated in the same blood communion, this of the sacrificed hero. The self-sacrifice of an individual for community is manifoldly dithyrambic. The others must honour the one who gives his life, fertilizing his death to a better life and civilization. If not, they do not elevate him to the height of god; he sinks down and drags the others as being guilty of hubris. The course of the individual to the height of the sacred action for self-sacrifice is ecstatic and transcendental. When duty calls, he cannot escape, being impelled by an inner need; if he does not fulfil this, will collapse morally and become an egoist. Ἄνθρωπος (man) is the “Anth-oron-opan”, the one who can see oppositely, to see himself, to judge him-self. An egoist is like an animal that can see only from itself to the other and not oppositely. Self-sacrifice may take many forms in the social life; at the end it is the art of living and its general rule is to lean in front the weak and erect in-front the powerful. The supreme act of self sacrifice is battle. Battle is an action terrible and profane, so must only take place when it is unavoidable and even then should be a period of waiting, since it may become possible to be avoided. If not the combatant goes there singing the paean (the dithyrambic hymn of battle); he goes there where the Agon is, the sacrifice of the bull. The oplitis (the pedestrian fighter) performs the battle as an art, he is not a butcher, he has a virtuous ethos, using the sword like a sculptor the chisel or the musician his flute. Battle is the supreme art, because the soldier marches the sacred dromos of the human sacrifice, which could be the enemy or himself. In battle, the enemy should be faced with respect and dignity being a possible sacred victim; that is why archery was not respected; archers were hired Thracians or low-class individuals dressed as Thracians (as in vase pictures). A dead enemy soldier merited burial and the victor was obliged to transubstantiate the killing to life and civilization. Only this way could the victor be purified from the victim’s blood. (Pythia banished Themistocles when he offered booty plundered from the war against the Persians, considered to be profane). Cowardice by the defeated and arrogance by the winner was hubris. Victory had to be a Dionysian Dithyramb but not a Roman Triumph. The joy of victory should be overshadowed by questions and mental concentration or even sadness. Battle as every
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expression of life was a sacred theatre. The fighter wears the mask of the Titan or the Bull, being not himself when entering in the profane slaughter but Another one, a transcendental being, who shall play the role of the sacred Bull or the role of the profane Titan. We see Alexander presented wearing horns, as the Bull or the Ram, being the first in battle, as sacred victim. The life of Greeks was a series of dithyrambs, which beginning with the act of bull sacrifice and passing through all the manifestations of social life, went on to the self-sacrifice of battle and ended up as theatre. Theatre was the return to the starting point, except that it was now an imitation of the sacred act as life, becoming a social account giving. It was the criticism of the dithyrambic practice in social life and gaining a fully conscious ethos. The process of sacrifice in social life as theatre was generated as civilization.
Thus the Chorus enters again in a pandaemonium of mental confusion reinforced with music and movement. Gradually all were pulled together and put in order by the Exarchon who gives explanations, but his answers generated new questions. This way the meaning of given answers, were led to a chain of contradictions. The one who “knows” has been trapped, because a “dynamic ignorance” is created; the ignorance of the one who being in the problem, is himself the question, and the answer is a interrogative one. All answers generated questions; so the one who has the solution, being outside and supervising deterministic the situation has only one point of view, so he has nothing. Truth is a poly-dimentional dynamic process of interdependence in which human is also a factor.
The Genesis of Dialectico
The Greeks bearing the tragic spirit as a way of life, elevated it as a Dialectic spirit. In contrast to the oriental mystics, who had also the worship of Nature as a starting point, Greeks accepted equal value of the Part and the Whole, whereas for the oriental mystics the Whole was substantial and the Part was apparent. For the Greeks the Whole (the One) generates Many and Many generate simultaneously the One. Eternal and ephemeral were equal in value, since ephemeral things, through their collapsingcomposition (continuous alternation of birth and death, katagogia-epiphaneia) make the Eternal a self-overpassing reality. (Anaximander). People born and die, keeping humanity alive. The Present (Now) is a fading edge between Past and Future; The Past which doesn’t exist and the Future which doesn’t exist. World is the fading Present, being always Other (never being absolutely itself). It is a Zero-Crossing-Point-Eternally; It is dithyrambic. Greeks examined life and nature searching through this way. This contradictive approach, is the heart of Tragedy and the essence of Dialectic Logic. Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zeno clarified this spirit. Heracleitos in his sentences wanted to emphasize the meaning of the tragic spirit and the contradictiveness of the world, because the Greeks of his time
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begun to forget it, sometimes turning to superstition and sometimes to a vain rationalism. He aimed to whip their dull minds to awake them. That is why he turned against Xenophanes considering him as a vain rationalist and Pythagoras as a a rational-mystic. At the decline of the tragic some Greeks believed the eternal to be absolute and substantial, while the ephemeral to be apparent and untrue, since others contempt eternal to be imaginary and untrue, considering the eternal and the ephemeral as two different worlds. This was the time, civilization began to move away from tragic.
Although Euripides is considered to be rationalist, he oppositely showed in his tragedy “Bacches”, that rational formality in his times was not so typical as it is nowadays: Dionysos Gynaekias being neither a man nor a woman but both, being –a sacred transcendental unity– an Androgen (dressed in the garment of the weak), calls on his cousin, King of Thebes Pentheus, (the spirit of low and order, of common sense and barren formality), to participate in the sacred transcendental frenzy, which all women of Thebes had already partaken. Woman, being the sacred support of archaic society, a giant whose strength lies in her weakness, the symbol of Everyday Life, a sacrificial lamb, everyday sacrifices herself for her family. She is the web society is composed, being the bearer of the transcendental since she gives Birth to the New; Greeks knew very well, that the more you enter rationally in Birth Process, the more you face unanswered questions which only could be answered transcendently. She was bearer of the sacred Maenadic Mania since the beginning, when Mother was the leader of society and patriarchism stripped her of all, but to stand next to Gynaekias, being first in marching the tragedy as performance and life, remaining the chosen one of Dionysos Bacchus. Pentheus refused to participate in the transcendental ceremony, remaining on the path of modernization and rationalism, which as a formality leads to arrogance and hubris, being in antagonistic relationship against god (nature). At the time old Cadmos and Teiresias followed Dionysos out of fear and fatalism, Agaue, (Nature), Mother of Pentheus led the performance of Mania-dance-Orgy, (of the maternal pain and eternal birth), sweeping up all the “rubbish” together with her son. The act of synthesis and destruction compose a unity. Dionysos though victorious left thoughtfully, he did not speak triumphantly. The triumph over the defeated reveals the Roman spirit or generally the imperial and barbaric. Bacchic dithyramb generated new questions and reflections. It is the everyday renaissance and conscience that everyday could be a celebration of joy and birth; and the passing through the gate of death must at the same time be the passing through the gate of life. Dithyramb is the everyday life, raised to an overpassing transcendental process. Contemporary civilization, bears the ragged remains of the Dionysian spirit in his forgotten trunks. Jesus, the relic of Dionysus, is carried around osseous and dead, with no real meaning, reflecting ceremonial practices which have been dead in Jehovah’s tight embrace, who may once have been Iovacchus himself. Jesus was
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born and brought up in the body of declining Hellenism, changing the spirit of Dionysos into an ascetic mysticism, being a double hubris. He was not welcomed in Judea, because he was not recognised as one of them. And the Romans were never really won over by the spirit of Helenism but used it to dress up their barbarity not to be naked. They dismembered again the body of Dionysos-Zagreus and as new Titans enjoyed the profane meal. They kept eudaemonism and the slaves kept the rest: asceticism and fatalism.
The tragic spirit, being a way of life for Greeks, had as a symbol the maiader (maze). This was not a decorative motif, but the unity of the opposites symbol, of love, immortality, of the worldly participation; this was the symbol of the contradictive nature, of the universal tragic nature,. We now know that the word “Dionysos” is written in the Linear B grecian language plates and goes back much further than Harrison’s inspired hypotheses, that he was a barbarian god who came from Thrace in 600 b.C. Dionysos was neither born in Tmolos (mountain in Phrygia), nor in Thebes and he was not the Phoenician Bachas (the weeping one). He was Bacchus us Iovacchus, a sound-originated word, thus universal. “Io” is the Iacchos, clamour of happiness, and “ouach” is the Ouacchus crying of sadness; so Io-bacchus is the one in the state of joy-sadness. Dionysos-Iovacchus, was born in Naxos, where his symbols were discovered. We meet these symbols in the Cycladic civilization and Crete, durring the third milennioum b.C. These above mentioned symbols are prodecessors of the Attic maiarders, which reveal the opposing movement and internal-external binding, which compose the world and at the same time the individuals; the continuous change which is the contradictive nature of tae world. The world constantly changing and unable to emerge as substance, reveals itself with the symbol of eternal change and contradiction . . The ever-changing world is a mask within a mask and the ultimate mask is that of Dionysos. The ultimate mask, as P. Lekatsas reveals, is the one “gathers in one figure the multiform of Being. The empty mask; the presence within the absence”. So Dionysos is the dithyramb itself, the contradictiveness itself. He is the sacred victim since through his death, life is born, being at the same time the Tragedy, because himself is the Contradictive Sacred Logos (speech). The symbol of double maiander (page 29 and figure k) presented, the contradictive relation of the amphidromic emission-receiving power, who’s rotation and unfolding composes the whole. The ultimately Small and the ultimately Large are dithyrambic, because the small “Is-Being Not” (exists-not existing) and the large, exists Always instantaneously Being Other, (being the eternally other); It is an instantaneous differentiality (explosion of difference and returning back instantaneously). Whole being a result of its parts “living-dying” alternation, “Is Always Other”. Contradiction tightly encircles our World in the Infinite of Anaximander, which at the same time is Large and Small (Infinite and Zero). The Whole, is the contradictive Large and the Small is the contradictive element, being the ultimate contradictive
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interacting elementary unity of Materiality. Expressed by Anaximander as «ἀρχή καὶ στοιχεῖον τῶν ὄντων τὸ ἄπειρον» (leader and element of being is infinity). This preposition is the core of Dialectico. The world for the oriental mystic is closed, finished and predetermined teleologically by God, being phenomenal and illusion of the observer; God is the Mega, the Omniscient, the Creator, the Essential. On the contrary for the Greeks, the Small is just the same essential as Mega, because Small being in an eternal state of living-dying alternation, composes Mega, being simultaneously, potentially and essentially a unique face of the Whole. Mega is the quantitative infinite and Micro the qualitative infinite, being in eternal evolution process. Anything considered to be alone, with no reference to others, is dead and meaningless. So any practice and behaviour in society that aspires supermacy, ceases to be connected to another getting a character of arrogance and hubris. Life changes continuously and the wise tries to adapt or fashion situations to his favour. Anyone who believes he can make others bow to his demands, is arrogant and condemned to failure, as condemptuous are those who accept to bow. Thus in Greece absolutism and despotism did not catch on; tyranny was considered to be abnormal, while in orient it was normality. Social life of the Greeks was above all, a struggle between Democracy and Oligarchy. The general spirit though, was representative, Democratic or Oligarchic. The spirit of representation is dialectic and the Greeks of the archaic times, tensed to have the character of dialectic modesty. They kept away from the oriental arrogance of the mystic, who believed that he knows everything and whatever he did not know was unknowable. The Greeks inquired about everythig and never were sure; for one question the spirit was to be given as many answers and to be investigated. Absolute certainty was considered as hubris.
The world around Greece after a process of thousands years was in a very tired civilization level. The terror of the ruler dominated everywhere. The Greek young, happy, modest and nice, was accepted almost by all peoples peacefully. The spirit of dialogue upset the empires. The Persians and the Phoenicians were enraged. Greece was neither a world dominating leader nor a violent conqueror but small city-state foundations of ideas and commerce exchange, scattered around Mediterranea. The new spirit devoured the old one, and the news reached the ears of the Great King (the Persian King). He was not afraid of the Greeks but of that spirit penetrating everywhere. The Great King wondered how these barbarus «ungoverned» states lived without order and ruler. He was afraid of the dialectic spirit which was anti-dominating. The Greeks considered any dominating monologue arrogant. Moreover they believed that anything reaching in exaggerated levels, loses contact with the «moderate» dialogue; just like democracy itself, which as domination becomes a self-generating mechanism, that serves the formal functions of the system.
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When Law is ideal surpassing the human scale, the scale of everyday life, democracy ceases to serve the human and becomes dynastic; then in the ranks of democracy, is evolved the way to divert it from the norm through the formality. On the contrary everyday life which is humanized, is the only reality that can overpass the errors of the «perfect» rule. As long as typolatry dominates, democracy is arrogant and devours itself.
Nowadays, when empiricism is dominant in criticism, irrationality is often expressed through logic. Meditation through formality, should serve experience, and through experience, vision and imagination. Imagination, experience or formal logic by themselves (separately) are hubris. Hubris is folly from a weak person but a destructive danger from a powerful one. Science, practised today as arrogant process by scientists being not lords but servants of foolish powerful people, leads the world to destruction. Another example of hubris is «economy for the economy», where the desire for growth has the opposite results: destruction. Then again, the pursuit of pure aesthetics in Art, finally leads to anti-aesthetic inspirations. The tragic is a spirit of unity and never allows anything to be considered by itself. Science, art, meditation, commerce and all the other social functions comprise a whole, which in this case is the social evolution process, including all of them as a religious ethos: this is the art of living. This art is the advancing of all these elements together towards the birth of New and not towards the maintenance of the Old. The New is the result of the inconvenience created by the continuous change of factors comprising a situation. We tiptoe towards the danger involved the New and this danger is also the tragic spirit. Dionysos, as a humanised god, takes the flame of Prometheus and the palladium of Zeus and gives them to the following him Maenads. Fire is the symbol of freedom and mania (fury) of Nature. «Everything transforms to fire and fire to everything» said Heracleitos. This primordial meaning of Heracleitian fire, today could be understood as the Energy of modern physics.
Muslims regard Christians as idololaters, because they represent visually the divine; christians considered Greeks as idololaters also. These are two cases of arrogant barbarity. Whatever is of worth in christianity are these beautiful ikons; and if we could accept some way the existence of god, only works of Art, (everyone by its different way) could confirm it. Thus, the most appropriate gods, are these works of art themselves. Along with them, the writing of logic tractati and science are included, since mentality and intellect could be considered as the highest Art. The Relativity Theory, reveals divinity in a Greek way or more precisely the Creator of a Theory, at the very moment of the creation, wears the tragic garment of god. God for the Greeks was not Allah, neither Jehovah, nor Omnipotent; «The marble statue of a god in a small temple in the wood, is god himself». It is the Natures creative spirit that passes through the Human hands. Since stone is as well a sacred material, working on it, is a sacrificial process; it is a tragic road of the human
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who tiptoes in darkness, creating divine forms from nothing, being this way the lightcarrier (Eosforos-Lucifer). Greek intellects despised the arrogance of negation; they refuted the formless, so everything for them was revolted around form. Phanis (the Lucius, the bright one), being the white light of brilliant energy, comes out as a beam of light in the darkness, when the silver egg born by Nykta (Night) broke. This was the way of giving form and image to the darkness, as natural process by Phanis; (being the Pantheon, the lows of Nature). We know today, that natural proceeding course has always a visual and lingual form. The course of Phanis through darkness, is the process of Nature’s selfdetermination, ending up to Dionysos. Phanis, as Dionysos, returns back, following the reverse process from darkness to light. This is Phanis as New one, born from Earth (Gaia-Semeli) and comprises in him the relation of light and darkness. He is the God as Human folowing the tragic course of the human divination. Human livesdying, keeping Dionysos alive and Dionysos borns-dying, fertilizing Nature and keeps Human alive. Dionysos stirs the calm waters of divine order, leading Human to self-consciousness. The divine and certain way of Nature, is disordered by the uncertain Human intervention. Rationalism, the sacred geometry of Zeus, is controverted in the footsteps of tragedy. Everything takes on a true form, losing its ideal face. Dionysos, as the humanization of the eternal, encloses in self the human, being the eternity inside perishing. Rationalism, as formality, disordered in the limits of the multi-dimentional logic of life as language, gets the form of contradictive rationalism, which is dithyrambic. The dionysian spirit which expresses Nature’s dithyrambic pandaemonium, coincides with the Dialectic language and Logic. Moreover we shall see, that this spirit touches on the Quantic approach for Nature. Anaximander, Heracletos and Zeno, as founders of the dialectic logic, expressed this spirit. According to some contemporary theories, at the ultimate limits of our world, there is not «time thickness» between some mutual reactions; world there, is instantaneous, being only Now. For Greek dialectics and for Aristotle also, «time thickness» is an illusion; time as duration does not really exist. According to Aristotle, time is a pure Contradiction: «Neither Past nor Future exists, only Present exists; present is always the fading edge between Past and Future, being always of zero size». We do not find this preposition in the Heracleitian fragments, but Time appears indirectly through his opinion as rhythm of «sub-events repetition» (frequency of repeated events in location). Since Heracleitos believed that everything is a result of a flow frequency of other sub-elementary Units in a specific position with «Metro» (contradictive balance). According to Heracleitos, Time is incorporated within structure of things and events, as well as Space does. We have seen this, declaration in Anaximander’s prepositions and analytically in Zeno’s «Paradoxes». The supposed instantaneous mutual reactions in the «bottom» of our world (in microcosm), reveal that Whole exists as an Essence ―as a Being― and because of
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that, opposites «down there», remote the causality coherence as it is accepted by formal rationalism and it is «badly» needed by determinism. The cause, at this level of the world, is simultaneous with the causal result, so the reaction relationship is instantaneously multi-reversal. Moreover opposites at that level of world, penetrate each-other simultaneously without leaving unviolated any of their limits and elements, comprising a contradictive unit and relationship. This way, everything in the under-quantic world, is in a State of Potentiality as Heisenberg claims.
The contemporary scientist has two choices: A. To accept limits in human logic and as an eastern monk to practice consciously mysticism and silence; that is to separate the world to the area of the Whole which is mystic and incomprehensible and the area of the specific things, which are subjects to rational relationship. For the mystic, the world of specιfic things, which is intelligible, is phenomenal; the essence exists in the eternal, which is in the farthest depth, but this we cannot comprehend. Opposites have a complementary character, revealing the secret harmony of the whole in which everything is predetermined. B. In contrast to that, as a new Heracleitos, he should accept the contradicttve nature of the world, where the opposing forces reveal the asymmetric character of the world and its contradictive harmony, which leads to the continuous change. The whole is the result of the continuous declining-birth of the ephemeral things; so the continuous change of the ephemeral things make the whole to Exist as Itself, Being Always Other (to contradict itself). Forms are fluid masks continuously changing; only structural possibilities exist, but as an essence itself of any worth (to be accepted as such), only the «absolute vacuum» exists being at the same time the «absolute complete». This is the potentiality itself, the nude contradictuality; the empty face of Phanis, the Light Itself, which potentially comprises All Forms and simultaneously None. In this situation, instantaneous seems having no meaning, because its form is in a continuous change, giving the impression that Logos (ration) is abolished. But the only thing abolished is rationality as formal. For the Heracleitian spirit, rationality is not a formal relationship, but a multidimensional process, where the Part being a result of the genetic procedure of the Whole, responds instantaneously and reversal, keeping the whole alive. This way things have unlimited dimensions, so the Part (the small) not only comprises the Whole potentially, but in some dimensional aspect essentially also. Everything being in a dynamic form is contradictive (self-over-passing), having unlimited dimensions and comprising the whole in a different way each time; from this point of view, human could be at the same time result and cause of the universe.
Human as a result of world’s process, expresses this process in its very form and structure. His inner structure and his appearance, are this way because of its course in the world’s evolutionary process. His mind is a cognitive mechanism, whose structure is the codical record of experience and the continuous dialogue with the
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evolutionary process of the Whole. Because the Whole as a world process and as old and far away could be considered, communicates simultaneously with all Beings by a specific way and because the Whole is only Now, its every moment is immediate and contradictive; therefore the Whole is simultaneously zero and infinity, immobile and instantaneous. Every dialogue of a Being with the environment is recorded in human brain, as a complex code of the cerebral structure itself. The texture of this code, should be contradictive because of its a continuous and instantaneous inter-reaction with the whole; therefore human brain is continuously open and ready for every possible knowledge, since every moment of that dialogue has been registered in its structure. Due to the dialogue with environment, brain being itself a contradictive structure, is in a continuous self-reformation; because this reformation took place in the past, (the past which does not exist), being self-structured at the edge of the fading Present, which is only Now, (being zero and infinity simultaneously), it has a contradictive codical form. This code, of contradictive nature, has taken the form of abstract possibility; that has taken the form of structural-junctions of recorded frequency repetition of the experimental events, in specific brain locations. These brain locations (positions), are multi-dimensionally recorded, having unconstrained junction-extensions, which are derived from their contradictive character. These locations comprise the whole, just as the «Elementary Unit» of Zeno and the «Infinite-Element» of Anaximander does, (we will talk about this detail in the «presocratic thought chapter»). On the contrary to this preposition, if the brain structure consists of oppositive elements, which refuse contradiction and correspond by the demands of the classic rational logic, human logic must have predetermined limits and finite range; moreover for «intellect to be possible», a number of mystical opinions should be accepted, such as Platonic Ideas or Kantian and Hegelian Metaphysics. This kind of brain structure (the oppositive one), could be bonds for human logic and knowledge. On the contrary, the contradictive way of the human brain structure, would be its very freedom. The brain structure consisting of contradictive elements, would have a self-refuting prearranged codification, which embodies its own freedom. When experience enters to the brain structure, stimulates awaking this «hereditary a priori knowledge mechanism», reminding and decoding these «ancient roads of knowledge». The decoded part of the brain is the Conscious knowledge and Logic, since the bottomless and hidden part of the brain that remains coded, is the unconscious knowledge, imagination, vision, intuition, that is Aesthetics. Human, by the decoded part of brain, expresses himself logically through the critic process, while with the other part (the not decoded one) human espresses himself beyond experience; thus when the facts human disposes are inadequate for critic process, often chooses the way of the subconscious process, moving into the territory of intuition, imagination and emotion, stepping upon the aesthetics. The spiritual and practical process by which human functions as a social being,
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cannot fail to consist of all these factors. This way whatever we call critic and logic process has deeply rooted inside its opposite, which is aesthetics where from vision, imagination and intuition derives. There could not be any scientific activity without intuition vision and imagination, since the original conception of any scientific theory always starts without sufficient experimental data and after being perceived by imagination it undergoes in the critic trial based on experience. This trial in science though, is an unlimited course of life, because everything is in a continuous reforming and renegotiating process. Scientific conception has a transcendendal nature, because ventures into the unknown following the footsteps of Dionysos on his tragic journey from darkness to light. It is not a coincidence that Greek temples were also libraries and the greater library was the temple of Dionysos-Serapis in Alexandria. Greeks were well acquainted with the relationship between vision and criticism. For them any formal language of the pure empiric-criticism process is crushed by the everyday life, which is transcendental (not by the Kantian, but the evolutionary self-overpassing meaning). Formal language will always have a difficulty to decide if the «swift-footer» Achilles can overtake the moving tortoise. (one of Zeno’s paradoxes). Formal logic process is arrogant and hubristic: in economy they see growth in diagrams and in typical factors of growth, cut off from life itself. They sacrifice life in the altar of imaginary progress, sinking the world in the darkness of the ideal game and although that leads to disaster, they cannot refuse the truth of the electronic computer formality. Recently, the most arrogant announcement was made: that of the full decoding of human DNA. This decoding process though, could only go halfway, because computer being an instrument of formal logic, can «see» the world by one direction (of objectivity). It functions with the causality of one direction, which is inadequate in living nature. The causality of living nature is multi-dimensional and in marginal situations, self-refuting and contradictive. In typical analysis such as claims to have fully decoded human DNA, we can «see» one face of life or occasionally some more, making us to believe that we have achieve a lot, at least the half; in real life though, the objective cognitive ethos, cannot be accepted as «the half of the road», because the dimension we are able to handle, exists in a world of unlimited dimensions and of contradictive nature, composing the bottomless as essence. The only value of this operation is that we play a role in this tragedy not being just spectators. Moreover, in order to play correctly, we must realize that everything we believe as «the truth» and makes us «Experts and Masters of the world» is not the real inquiry. The matter is the dynamic inquiry which has not a final answer and forces us to be inside the problem, functioning with it. There is not a conclusive answer to any question because the correct answer is always interrogative. A perfect answer always consists by a question, because the world is evolutionary infinite. This is the tragic approach in research of world and events, because every event finally includes dynamically the whole. So Technology, to be a creative science, should start from Aesthetics and
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passing through the Critic process, to arrive to logic as an everyday practice. On the contrary, Art starting from a technical process, through logic ends to Aesthetics as an everyday process; however in both cases, the starting point and the result are both ideal and conventional, since pure Logic and pure Aesthetics do not exist. There is just the human intention to start from somewhere and this intention is the basic factor that leads human to fertilize this Logico-Esthetic process to Art or to Technology. When this Logico-Aesthetic flow, departs from Aesthetics (intuition and imagination) and marches into the logico-critic discipline, is Science; while Art is the departing of this logico-aesthetic flow, from logic and going through arbitrariness of imagination and feelings, ends to Aesthetics. Causality, upon which critics is built, in this area takes a different form, because the world of feeling and aesthetics as a subconscious process, looses its time consequence and is included into Now. So once again causality, takes on a contradictive form, being amphydromic, multi-dimensional and in extreme circumstances, self-refuting. It may also travel into the past and future without experimental data, making hypotheses based on imagination and remoulding reality through distortional focusses; so this way, alters reality as an obvious situation, smashing the veil of darkness, opening unlimited roads which critic through experience, knows very well to exploit. Experience alone, with criticism as a guide, cannot fail to go round and round those well-trodden paths, but when the matter concerns the New, it is a inadequate teacher. For this reason, Dionysos comes in a pandemonium of sacred frenzy to remind that world is recorded inside us in a contradictory way and we must often immerse ourselves in that «chaos» of the aesthetic «counter-intellect». This way logic and aesthetics, art and science, work in reverse being finally inseparable. For the Greeks, art and science nurture each-other, art with logic and science with aesthetics; the unity of these two is itself another dimension of the tragic spirit, which for Greeks was religion and a way of life. Greeks considered formalistic behaviour to be «hubris» and the formal-rationalist dangerous because at the height of his action becomes blind by arrogance, believing that he is subject of infallibility. Agnostics and mysticists, just the same, become negative-nihilists, showing arrogance and hubris, being therefore dangerous. The Tragic spirit is great-hearted and noble, it aspires to the Great without despising the Small. It cares for the small and through the small achieves the great. Great contains quantatitavely the small, as much small contains potentially-qualitatively the great.
Democracy, Rationalism and Objectivity cannot exist without tragic spirit. This spirit rejects the absolute as tyrannic, while at the same time, it does not accept logic to be formal. Bacchus will enter the stage in a deafening pandaemonium and trouble the conscience of the trapped people in sterile mechanistic logical procedures. He will demand everyone to commune the transcendent, which is imagination in the everyday life, crushing the formallization and conventionality as practice of life. Every moment may be substantial, if not it passes pointlessly, turning human into a piece of rubbish blown about the wind. The «substitute man», subjugated to the conventional logic,
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climbs the steps of rationalism and finally reaching the top, plunges into nothingness. In just such a way, our world is led through logic and science to Chaos. The experimental rationalism nowadays, speeding along the path of «true knowledge», leads the word to disaster, and as a new Achilles, having caught up with the tortoise, does not overtake it, because he is sure that he will make a logical error.
The inner and the outer world in human, is a tragic practice.
Human beings (the ephemerals), by their alternation of life and death, keep the world (eternal), alive. Humans commune to eternal through their actions; they participate offering to the whole, through the others. Everything, just being itself is wasted, while through the others is perpetuated. Human being feels that life, from one point of view, is all really possess; every passing moment vanishes his life and that fills human with panic. He wants to devote all his time and energy to himself. There are two ways to achieve that: A. To be isolated in self and cultivating his inner world to achieve unity with the whole as a highest prize. B. To open himself fully to the surrounding world and enjoy the ephemeral to the outmost. For him the world has nothing to do with the whole of the mystic, being a random accumulation of sorrows and joys, successes and failures, victories and defeats and of course he chooses the best and devotes himself to that. The eudaemonist, on the contrary to the mystic one, believes that the whole is an imaginary invention, while the efemeral is the true one. Both of these, eudemonism and misticism are considered by tragedy hybristic and arrogant. The tragic spirit creates a balance of the eternal within the practice of the ephemeral. This fertilizes logic through the daily transcendental pandemonium. This is the dithyrambic spirit of the opposites-unity and not the spirit of formalization clarity and absolute deterministic separation. This spirit distiguishes good from evil at a specific moment, but do not accepts it as eternally good or evil. According to the tragic spirit everything communes to its opposite and moreover to the whole, composing contradictive unities. The whole as such, exists always being continuously Other (being a pure contradiction); It is the empty face of Dionysos, appearing by changing masks. Our world, consists of unlimited contradictive masks, so every intention to approach a situation or a thing as absolute, is arrogant or nonsense. The absolute can only be felt only as not-existing. Therefore human nurturing his «inner» world, truly gets to know better his «outer» world. (The knowledge of internal is builded through knowledge of the external and oppositely). The world is a very serious matter, because it simultaneously is a frenzy panegyric celebration; A transcendental aesthetic celebration guided by logic, being continuously overpassed. Greek celebrations were the peak-point of this kind of life. Drama reminds symbolically and examines closely all dimensions of tragic way of life and the proper thinking within social process; tragedy reveals the dangers of arrogance cultivating Dialectic modesty.
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That modesty in brief was as follows: «I sacrifice in order to live and i respect my victim because it is sacred; I will also be a victim of life and my social community, whenever asked to be. I live-dying-keeping Dionysos alive. If human be lost Dionysos will be lost too, if Dionysos be lost, human would be also (which is on the verge of happening nowadays). I do not get panic having a faint-heart or being cynic and skeptic rejecter, because this is hubris; i am noble-minded. At the time of birth and joy on one hand i rejoice but on the other, i mediate reflecting in mind all the situations. This favor of luck, i take the responsibility to fertilize in something higher. My colleges and friends will find something teasing to tell me; to remind me that i am not perfect, not to be dragged dawn into arrogance. At times of misfortune, i sing and dance mournfully, my friends remind me of my value, so that i don’t collapse, and escape from the hubris of nihilism. On one hand tragedy on the other satire: these were the limits of behaviour. «I am the ephemeral face of Dionysos and i am characterized of self-sacrifice. As Dionysos, i walk on the steps of tragedy, enclosing eternity into the perishing». This is the orgy of natures panegyric process, which continuously changes faces being the same; it dies and born being this way eternal. Heracleitos by many symbolisms, which at the same time are literalnesses, reveals the core of the bacchic spirit; with his dialectic logic, puts dionysian worship in a contradictive logical order, where the beyond conscious pandaemonium (the communing of the whole), becomes speech, logic and way of life. There, intuition, imagination and logic, compose the internally bottomless and externally limitless structure of the human, being the recording of the world’s evolution in human hereditary cognitive mechanism. All this recorded process in human cognitive structure, cannot be an object of critic activity by the human himself; however human can feel all this bottomless «flow» of life to penetrate him and he returns his depth with his activity. This «flow» of feeling is intuition, perception, pride, bravery, virtue, fear, composing the colourful cloth of human spirit which is Aesthetics. Aesthetics is the inexhaustible codic record of world evolution in the human being, which has not been decodized yet by conscience. Esthetics is the foundation up on which logic, experience, criticism of experience and science could be built. Empiric-criticism (rational experimentalism), as a pure persuit (away from the factors of aesthetics), walks to the emptiness, the vanity of arrogance. This will never be able to answer to great inquiries, moreover as a practice will always bring disasters. Science already has put questions which trouble the certainty of the contemporary determinist. The ethos and ideology of the «loose and relaxed» conscience do not match to the priest-scientist of tragic; That kind of science has been reduced to an excrement room of the speculators and with his «ideological denial» as ideology becomes hubristic. The cognitive ethos and logic of the determinist in contemporary science as quantum-physics, has been cancelled or disputed seriously, since experiments lean to the side of the dispute. Time sequence of events in some specific
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inter-actions has been invalidated and the chain of ratio ceases to be of one dimension, but in boundary situations becomes multi-dimensional and mutuallyactive. Then determinism and logical positivism, looses its meaning and gallops violently to mysticism. Contemporary scientist faces the dilemma of the ancient mystic monk. Would he practice the conscious silence or follow the contradictive logic of the tragic spirit as a presocratic philosopher? The tragic spirit, is the spirit of civilization against the spirit of barbarism. Barbarism has two faces the old one which is mysticism and the modern one which is positivist experimental criticism. For the mysticist, logic is conventional and finally leads to antinomies. This matter, which is indicated by quantic physics, Plato had already developed in all its aspects in his dialogue «Parmenides». Plato who handled rationalism perfectly in all his dialogues, in «Parmenides» revealed the antinomies of rationalism. After Plato, Kant, who based all his philosophical system to rationalism, realized that at boundary situations of «The Critic of Pure Logic», four antinomies raised up. On the other hand Hegel insisted that rationalism in every step creates antinomies; something the presocratic dialectics had systematically revealed. Mysticism divides the world in two parts: The essence which is the God and it is incomprehensible and the phenomenal world, which is under the rational rule; but this world, being phenomenal, is a reflection of the real world, truly not existing. According to the mysticist, we are able to know this which to not exist, but the existing, we are not able to know. Mysticism is the antinomy itself: according to mysticism only the world of phenomena bow to rational rules, which we create in our minds, but they may not merit the value we place upon them. Thus the only solution for himself is the Inner Exercising of Self, being the way to God. The empirical-criticist does not care about tomorrow as a future perspective; his activity is determined in generating experience through rationalism. For him the whole does not exist as a Being but it is an accumulation of things so that random is atributed to a creative cause. It is so that positivist (empirical-criticist) can rely on senses, experience and ration; he also ends up by another way in exercising of Self, as the mysticist does. According to his knowledge-ethos, outside-world exists but we are not able to have objective knowledge, because we come only into direct contact with phenomena and not things-themselfs. If the empirical-criticists assurance for rationalism as a tool of verification is disturbed, (since quantic science doubts the value of causality at least the way determinism needs it to justify itself), he will gallop violently to mysticism or will turn to paralogism as a philosophy. These two barbarities despise the world and lay waste to every-where they pass. The mysticist disregard the environment considering that as illusory; the empiricalcriticist considers nature as a booty, a storage house of resources and a rubbish heap place. He rushes to consume everything as quickly as possible, to leave nothing behind him, considering this behaviour as an undogmatic and far from any ideology.
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On the contrary the tragic behaviour is transcendental, being the song of nature which dies-giving birth to the New every day, leading man up the steps of the bilateral way process from darkness to light. This entails the knowledge of constructive modesty and not the rapacious grabbing. Human climbs the ladder of knowledge in order to give birth to the New some day and not to die in the cocoon of earth exhausting its resources foolishly. Resources are sacred victims and should be approached with respect. This is the real drama (dromos), the tragic road, the transcendental course, the Tragedy, which guides to the Dialectic thinking or more precisely, to the dialectic logic and language of Heracleitos.
Nowadays with the triumph of mercantilism society and the victory of consumerism over morals, Pentheus in-prisoned Dionysus again. I wonder if people will be able to return singing and dancing in praise of Life? Will Dionysos return crowened with ivy and vine leaves?
ABOUT TOWERS PYRAMIDS AND SACRIFISES
Towers and pyramids in ancient Greece were fire communication media. The capture of Troy was known at this very day. The first fire was the destruction fire of the city. Athens was informed the news of Marathon by the speed of light. Thus the Athenian Fidipides and Eucles from Marathon and the Spartans Euritos and Aristodemos from Thermopylae, where not information messengers. They left before the battle begins to cary the «message» of the sacrificed heros blood to their city, which every fighter had taste to commune with, (because this ba ttle would be till to death and the sacred blood should not be vanished). We are informed that Fidipides and one of the Spartans died just arriving in their city. The Angel (messenger) of the sacred blood, was received as a hero by the patrogrammic fatrias and should be sacrificed. The participants of the sacrifice tested the blood (receiving sacred communion), and this way took the responsibility to follow till death the sacred victim at the battle or whenever their society called them. It was necessary to be sent two carriers, to insure that one will succeed his duty. They didn’t ride a horse, but should go running on foot practicing the process of the sacred road, (Dromos-Drama, Tragedy), because at the end of ths road they sould be sacrificed.
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PART TWO―DIALECTICS
Introduction This work has neither a historical nor concerned about the greatness of the ancient Greek civilization; such work would need an other approach. The purpose of this work is to search and propose, if this civilization could still stimulate and inspire the modern society to urge on and elevate its level. The first part was an imaginary approach to their ethics and life. This approach is not proud of its scientificallityty; it is a work that concerning about any possible historical data, does a personal approach to this civilization. I believe that such an unorthodox practice is legal because the interpretetion of a civilization is always a matter of personal mental urge. The interpretation of an ancient civilisation should not be an infertile recording of historical data ruined and covered under the dust of time and more under the mud of intolerance. I am urged and mentally fertilized by them hazarding an inventing interpretation. Thus i have chosen four presocratic thinkers: Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zeno because these three can still offer and to push forward the modern thought, while Parmenides, because his work is the landmark for modern thought. There have been many studies concerning the work of these intellectuals, but those i am aware about, miss the essential point which is “whether their dialectics can be of value today, to what extent and by what means”.
Because these intellectuals insinuate a dialectic logic which could enlighten the darkness of misunderstanding and theoretical stagnation in modern science, i will try to present briefly some epistemological matters, which to my opinion, need the dialectical approach these intellects propose.
A note about the uncertainty in quantic world
After the Max Planck’s discovery that energy is released in amounts that are always multiples of a constant h, which was named quantum of energy (ultimate amount of energy emission), the relationship E=hν was created, where E is energy and ν is frequency. That means, the rotation of a pulse has the dimension of the natural constant h amount, so the pulse rotations ν always gives a multiple of the amount E, which is energy. In this kind of natural process there must always be a frequency, a corresponding number of waves and a number of rotations in relation to energy. From this point and after a laborious process, the science of Quanto-mechanics was created, which seems to me that till the decade of 1950’s, had almost taken its final theoretic form. The basic concept of indeterminacy (uncertainty) is that during the measurement of quantic objects, the most precisely frequency is determinate the less the moment of signal is, and oppositely.
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Quantic events possess a number of attributes named conjugate: Energy and time, pulse and position, rotating pulse and angle direction of the quantic particle spin axis, are conjugate attributes; these compose a contradictive relationship. While the one cannot exist without the other, they refute each-other composing a dynamic balance, where the most precisely the one is terminated, the less its conjugate. Heizenberg says that we cannot measure accurately two conjugate attributes of a quantic object at the same time, furthermore he insists that conjugate attributes cannot exist as two concrete amounts simultaneously.
When a quantic particle enters in a “bubble chamber” it is lighted so that its course to be photographed through the bubbles. At the critical moment, when the event is recorded, the lighting changes the behaviour and for some scientists its substance. (Lighting itself is an energy supply to the quantic object and for this process to give more distinguished recording results, should be of high frequency). So beside the natural uncertainty of the conjugate attributes of quantic objects, there is an other kind of “indeterminacy”, due to our inability to have accurate measurements, and furthermore a different perception of what the experiment is in the quantic world. According to the School of Copenhagen, in this kind of experimentation, human been is not any more an objective observer, but the object of observation, the instrument of measurement, the observer and an unidentified under-quantic underground, compose an unseparated quantic unity. According to these scientists, human is not anymore just an observer, but he exists in the experiment, as he does in real nature, being one of its basic factors. This situation has many interpretations, which departing from the simple acceptance that “no one really knows what the quantic object and specifically what really an electron is before the measurement”, and after all the possible deterministic prepositions, with the support of some unidentified “hidden parameters” and many logical and mystical indeterministic acceptances, arrive to that ultimate and extreme thesis: “since a scientist decides the experimental action, Universe as a Being, receives immediately the message of his intention and henceforth is ready to respond appropriatly”. That reminds Salmoneus, who besides the necessary activities, by the dance communicates with the Whole, (the Universe), invoking a response. The dispute continues and the different views widen with the time instead of being bridged, getting a more complicated form. This shows that scientists do not have enough evidence to convince the rest. Heisenberg believes that DOWN THERE, there is a world of potentiality that responds to our activity. Nils Bohr proposes the view of Complementarity; according to that, the world is a function of both objectivity and potentiality, particles and waves, which according to De Brolly are the inseparable state of Being. Thus indeterminacy seems to me, not to be restrained only in the conjugate attributes of the quantic objects measurement, but appears to other cituations also; on one hand appears as a natural state of Being and on the other had, as inability of the
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human himself to approach such quantic situations. There are situations where indeterminacy touches the paradox, prohibiting any kind of measurement. This is the case of an electron removal from the one course orbit around the atom nucleons to another orbit, during the emission of an energy quantum; what is the electron inbetween the two orbits, since energy quantum is supposed not to be divided? No measurement can be accomplished there and the electron cannot be located. Formally in-between the two orbits there is vacant. At the E. Bitchakis essay “Dialectics and Modern Physics”, we are informed that according to Bohm “in Quanto-mechanics, the Theory of Fields describes the motion of elementary particles as a continuous destructive-creation. So when an electron is crashed and pushed changing position, this is described as a destruction of an electron in one position and creation of an other, moving to a different direction. According to this theory, there isn’t a particle which preserves its identity. Looking deeper the description of a motion field, even of a free particle, we realise that its course mathematically is described as a destruction in one position and recreation in another near-by position. So a motion course is analysed to position series of destructionrecreation which have as a result the continuous change of the particle in space” We see Bohm to realise, in advanced laboratories, this presocratic philosophers had proposed using only their dialectic thinking 2500 years ago. -Zeno :«τὸ κινούμενον οὔτ᾽ἐν ἐν ᾧ τόπῳ ἐστί κινεῖται, οὔτε ᾧ τόπῳ μὴ ἔστι». “The moving one, moves not at the position it is, nor in the position it is not”. -Heracleitos: «ποταμῷ γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν έμβῆναι δὶς τῷ αὐτῷ, οὐδὲ τῆς αυτῆς οὐσίας ἅψασθαι κατ᾽ἕξιν, ἀλλ᾽ὀξύτητι καὶ τάχει μεταβολῆς, σκίδνησι καὶ πάλιν συνάγει καὶ πρόσεισι καὶ ἄπεισι (μᾶλλον δὲ οὐδὲ πάλιν οὐδ᾽ὕστερον, ἀλλ᾽ἅμα συνίσταται καὶ ἀπολείπει). “we do neither enter in the same river twice, nor we touch the same material again because everything changes rapidly and violently, abolishes-recreated, dispersesgathering itself, (not before or after but simultaneously colapses-being composed). remark by Ploutarch-. The paradigm of the river is easily understood; but the materials? Popper interprets in his small essay “Back to the Presocratics” : “wood gets rotten, copper rusts. . . ect” but Heracleitos points out that everything abolish-recreating, collapses-composing, exists-not existing. -Heracletos: γναφείῳ ὁδὸς εὐθεῖα καὶ σκολιή μία ἐστὶ καὶ ἡ αὐτή. “At the screw ring, (the turning lathe), straight course being the result of rotation is at the same time curve”. Having in mind these aphorisms of Hracleitos and Zeno, let us imagine how they would describe the electron or any-other elementary particle: “The moving one, moves neither in the place it is, nor in the place it is not”. The scholastic urge to be trapped, declaring that Zeno refutes motion. But Zeno do not refute motion, he refutes the kind of space upon motion is going on. He doubts about what space and time, substance and motion are. If we think of this opinion,
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having in mind the collapsing-composition way of materials and elements Heracleitos proposed, motion is not accomplished on a space but really evolves moving inside the one self. That is because all evolving things differ to themselves so cannot move being elsewere because every-one of these is always other. So motion coincides with evolution itself. Let us see how: “we cannot touch the same material again because everything changes rapidly and violently, collapses-composing, disperses-gathering itself at the same time”; “straight course is a result of a curvature”. From these fragments we conclude that everything exists only because other elementary units pass inside of them so everything is an event that collapses-composing, changing continuously its identity (it is itself being at the same time another). Because according to the presocratics our world is an open system, its process is not absolutely repeated; therefore the passing-inside elements that compose-collapsing the object, travel to universe returning back to the object a little changed and a little farther from the place it was, (because the open system does not permit an exact and absolute return at the same position). That is an electron really moves inside itself, collapses-composing, being a pulsing wave, moving around the nucleus; so electron from position to position is always another-one, having in-between positions always a vacant space. When an electron emits a quantum of energy, passes as other and different to the next orbit; between two orbits the electron disappears, not existing, and reappears again as another, to another position. If any quantic object receives more or emits losing energy, should leap to the position its energy loading demands. Real motion, according to the presocratics, evolves inside the objects, coinciding with its changing position, being the evolution itself. It is possible the dead ends of the experimental interpretation of the quantic world to be illuminated by the dialectic logic they insinuate.
This essay aspires to bring buck in surface the lost game of the dialectic logic as a formal logical instrument in scientific research. Dialectico and formality seem to be two incompatible meanings, though as “Contradictive Rationalism”, the Dialectic formality could exist. This essay will try to justify, just exactly this.
PRESOCRATIC THINKING
PARMENIDES-ANAXIMANDER-HERAKLEITOS-ZENO
I believe that a research in the texts of these thinkers could be a conversation which will open new ways to our thinking and will give answers to many inquiries. This conversation could be based upon what these thinkers believe about the nature of the world and what kind of dialectics they proposed. Their dialectic process departs from the meanings of the world evolution and infinity Anaximander proposed, enders to the question “how motion is possible as essence”, after wards explains how Logos of Heracleitos could be spoken and finally gives answers to Zeno’s paradoxical inquiries. Logos of Heracleitos is a language with a contradictive syntax, thus it also
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is a process of dialectic logic itself. This logical process gives answers to the Zeno’s hidden inquiries, which concern “how space time and motion are possible” in an Heracleitian collapse-composing evolution process. These inquiries are a departing point, for a contemporary scientist to enter in their dialectic logic, since in quantic world, as in the world of Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zeno, motion is not an attribute of objects but objects are attributes of motion as essence. In this logic approach, identity of objects, space, time and speed should be reconsidered.
A. Anaximander proposes the meaning of Infinity and obviously and consciously the Evolution Theory. (Something, generally accepted by the presocratics) B. Heracleitos proposes the collapsing-composition nature of elements and world and its logico-lingual syntax, as the general contradictive mechanism o evolution. C. Zeno doubts rationalism as an infallible instrument of the critic process; he also doubts the way, time, space, motion, objectivity and the existence of ultimate elements, are accepted; he supports this way the meaning of Anaximander’s Infinity and Heracleito’s Dialectic of Nature.
The present work may be characterised as an arbitrary approach to their prepositions. Though if my arbitrariness is really creating and virtuous, i have the legitimate claim for a share of trouth.
As introduction to the works of Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zeno, i will present the essential parts of Parmenide’s work “About Nature”. This work opposes consciously their dialectic logic, proposing rationalism as conscious logical process and opens the way to the formal logic of Aristotle. Though we should not forget Xenophanes the Kolophonian, who was also conscious rationalist and not to forget that Parmenides is his ideological heiress.
PARMENIDES (515-440 B.C.)
Fragment 1, στ. 24-32 ὦ κοῦρ᾽ἀθανάτοισι συνάορος ἡνιόχοισιν, ἵπποις ταί σε φέρουσιν ἱκάνων ἡμέτερον δῶ, χαῖρ᾽, ἐπεὶ οὔτι σε μοῖρα κακὴ προὔπεμπε νέεσθαι τήνδ᾽ ὁδόν (ἧ γὰρ ἀπ᾽ἀνθρώπων ἐκτὸς πάτου ἐστίν), ἀλλὰ θέμις τε δίκη τε. χρεὼ δὲ σε πάντα πυθέσθαι ἠμὲν ἀληθείης εὐκυκλέος ἀτρεμὲς ἦτορ ἠδὲ βροτῶν δόξας, ταῖς ούκ ἔνι πίστις άληθής. ἀλλ᾽ ἔμπης καὶ ταῦτα μαθήσεαι, ώς δοκοῦντα χρῆν δοκίμως εἶναι διὰ παντὸς πάντα περῶντα·
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Young man, whom immortal charioteers brought to my dome, be pleased, because it was not an ill fate to bring you here; far from the footsteps of men, along with the path of Themis and Dike (Legality and Justice, logic and ratio). It is necessary for you to know both ways of thinking; not only the way of the solid spirit of Truth, but also the beliefs of the mortals, on which no one can depend on; because you should have experience of all the ways of thinking.
Fragment 2 εἰ δ᾽ ἄγ᾽ἐγὼν ἐρέω, κομίσαι δὲ σὺ μῦθον ἀκούσας, αἵπερ ὁδοὶ μοῦναι διζήσιος* εἱσι νοῆσαι, ἡ μὲν, ὅπως ἔστιν τε καὶ οὐκ ἔστι, μὴ εἶναι, πειθοῦς** ἐστι κέλευθος (ἀληθείῃ γὰρ ὀπηδεῖ),*** ἡ δ᾽ ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν, τε καὶ ὡς χρεῶν ἐστι, μὴ εἶναι, τὴν δή τοι φράζω παναπευθέα ἔμμεν ἀταρπόν· οὔτε γὰρ ἂν γνοίης τὸ γε μὴ ἐόν (οὐ γὰρ ἀνυστόν) οὔτε φράσαις. Now pay attention to what a will tell you: There are two contradictory ways of thinking and open to doubt. The first one is that nothing can Be-NotBeing; this is the way of persuasion out of where truth leaks away (it follows closely but it is not the truth itself). The other way is that -Not Being- as it is obliged, cannot exist. I strongly dissuade you from this path, because Not Being, cannot be sensed, cannot be known and cannot be spoken. LIDDELL AND SCOTT dictionary δίζω: i am in a state of doubt, δίζημαι: i search, i look for δίζησις: research, δίζως: the one having double nature διζήσιος (my conclusion): -the doubtful in research, -the contradictive one Πείθω: persuade, convince with deceptive wards, with supplication, corrupt with money ὀπηδεῖ, ὀπήδέω (my conclusion): i am obliged to act according the existence of a hole, to leak away through a hole, to follow splitting away by a hole
Comment: Up to Parmenides times, we know that only Xenophanes and by some mysterious way Pythagoras accepted Identity of things in rational formality, but even them did not considered it in a conscious logical discipline. Mainly Physiologists, the philosophers whose work was associated with Nature, accepted everything to be in a dynamic way, that is to be events of a universal essence, which was accepted as Motion itself, as Evolution of Nature and Identity in a continuous modification and change, being self-refuting, that is to say contradictive. Parmenides eradicates “Not-Being” from thinking; thus with one stroke of pen, he proposes the two principles of the rational critic thinking and formal logic. A. Nothing can Be-Not Being (The logical principle of not contradiction). B. Everything can only Be. (This preposition in relation to the first one gives the logical principle of identity). Everything not communicating with Not Being can only just Be itself.
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Fragment 3 τὸ γὰρ αὐτό νοεῖν ἐστίν τε καὶ εἶναι Intellect (Logic) and Being coincide.
Comment: Since Thinking and Being coincides, nothing can escape from logic, so we are able to have infallible logical conclusions. (That reminds “cogito ergo sum” of Descart and “logical is real and real is logical” of Hegel)
Fragment 4 λεῦσσε δ᾽ὁμῶς ἀπεόντα νόῳ παρεόντα βεβαίως· οὐ γὰρ ἀποτμήξει τὸ ἐὸν τοῦ ἐόντος ἔχεσθαι οὔτε σκιδνάμενον πάντῃ πάντως κατὰ κόσμον οὔτε συνιστάμενον. (Since Intellect and Being coincide), we are able to enlighten by logic, from the present situation, as well as an absent one; because the existing one cannot be separated by the Existence (Intellect from Being), whether regarding world as a Whole or as an accumulation of separated specific objects.
Comment: He stresses, that the logical principles he proposes for the rational process (going from the known situation by means of logic to the unknown), apply both to the whole and to the specific objects as well. So Logic is a reliable instrument for correct thinking.
Fragment 5 ξυνὸν δέ μοί ἐστι, ὁππόθεν ἄρξομαι τόθι γὰρ πάλιν ἵξομαι αὖθις. I believe that if we depart from a point, once we will return again there.
Comment: Because Parmenides accepts that only Being exists, considers the world accomplished, finished and therefore a closed system; so nothing can escape from Intellect. (therefore Intellect and Being coincide).
Fragment 6 verses 1-2 χρὴ τὸ λέγειν τε νοεῖν τ᾽ἐόν ἔμμαινε· ἔστι γὰρ εἶναι, μηδὲν οὐκ ἔστιν, τὰ σ᾽ἐγὼ φράζεσθαι ἄνωγα. It’s necessary for Speech, Thought and Being to coincide; for only Being exists, Not- Being do not exist; This is how i advice you to think.
Fragment 6 verses 3-9 πρώτης γὰρ σ᾽ἀφ᾽ὁδοῦ ταύτης διζήσιος <εἴργω> αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ᾽ἀπὸ τῆς, ἣν δὴ βροτοί εἰδότες οὐδὲν πλάττονται δίκρανοι, ἀμηχανίη γὰρ ἐν αὐτῶν στήθεσιν ἰθύνει πλαγκτόν νόον. οἱ δὲ φοροῦνται κωφοί ὁμῶς τυφλοί τε, τεθηπότες´ἄκριτα φῦλα οἷς τὸ πέλειν* τε καὶ οὐκ, εἶναι ταὐτὸν νενόμισται κοὐ ταὐτόν, πάντων δὲ παλίντροπός ἐστι κέλευθος.
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(Referring to the first of the two contradictive paths of thinking in fragment 2 verse 3): I disincline you from the first path of contradictive thinking because mortals learn nothing from this one; they become indecisive, double minded because perplexity in their chest deranges their mind. They behave as deaf, blind and lost, with no judgement; because the comparative verification certainty for them Has-NotHaving value, since they believe that everything simultaneously, has an opposite way to exist.
Comment: Parmenides after the principles of identity and non-contradiction, proposes also the certainty of the comparative verification process; for only this way we logic could go from present and actual to absent and hypothetic, having valuable analytic deduction and synthetic induction. Comparative process: If A is similar to B and B similar to C, then A is Similar to C. Synthesis. If A is similar to B and B is different to C, then A is different to C. Analysis.
Fragment 7 οὐ γὰρ μήποτε τοῦτο δαμῇ, εἶναι μὴ ἐόντα· ἀλλὰ σὺ τῆσδ᾽ἀφ᾽ ὁδοῦ διζήσιος εἶργε νόημα, μηδὲ σ᾽ἔθος πολύπειρον ὁδὸν κατά τήνδε βιάσθω νωμᾶν ἄσκοπον ὄμμα και ἠχήεσαν ἀκουήν καὶ γλῶσσαν, κρῖναι δὲ λόγῳ πολύδηριν ἔλεγχον ἐξ ἐμέθεν ρηθέντα (The word τοῦτο i translate as identity). Because never and never Identity will be forced to Be-Not Being; so you must be away from the contradictive path of thinking and not be lured away by the habitual and usual activity; but judge everything by the way i have taught you -the logically well tested-.
Fragment 8 verses 1-18 μόνος δ᾽ἔτι μῦθος ὁδοῖο λείπεται ὠς ἔστιν· ταύτῃ δ᾽ἐπὶ σήματα ἔασι πολλὰ μάλ᾽, ὠς ἀγένητον καὶ ἀνώλεθρόν ἐστιν, οὗλον, μουνογενές τε καὶ ἀτρεμές οὐδ᾽ἀτέλεστον, 5 οὐδέ ποτ᾽ἧν οὐδ᾽ἐσταί, ἐπεί νῦν ἐστιν ὁμοῦ πάν ἕν, συνεχές· τίνα γὰρ γένναν διζήσεαι αὑτοῦ; πῇ πόθεν αὐξηθέν; οὕτ᾽ ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ἐόντος ἐάσσω φάσθαι σ᾽οὐδέ νοεῖν· οὐ γὰρ φατόν ούδὲ νοητόν ἔστιν ὅπως οὐκ ἔστι. τί δ᾽ἄν μιν καὶ χρέος ὦρσεν 10 ὕστερον ἣ πρόσθεν τοῦ μηδενός ἀρξάμενον φῦν; οὕτως ἣ πάνπαν πελἐναι χρεών ἐστιν ἢ οὐχί οὔτε ποτ᾽ἐκ μὴ ἐόντος ἐφήσει πίστιος ἰσχὺς γίγνεσθαί τι πάρ᾽αὐτό. τοῦ εἴνεκεν οὔτε γίγνεσθαι οὔτ᾽ ὄλλυσθαι ἀνῆκε δίκη χαλάσασα πέδῃσιν
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15 ἀλλ᾽ ἔχει. ἡ δὲ κρίσις περὶ τούτων ἐν τῷδ᾽ἐστιν· ἔστιν ἢ οὐν ἔστιν. κέκριται δ᾽οὗν ὥσπερ ἀνάγκη τὴν μὲν ἐᾶν ἀνόητον ἀνώνυμον, οὐ γὰρ ἀληθής ἔστιν ὁδός. τὴν δ᾽ ὥστε πέλειν καὶ ἐτήτυμον* εἶναι. The only way of thinking we can speak about remains that of Being. There are many signposts to talk about Being: That does not die, so has not any birth, being immortal, unique, finished, motionless, never was or will be, because it is always Now; being One continuous. What kind of birth could we seek in it? from where to where could it move or expand? No one indeed could understand or speak about Not Being, because does not exist not being sensed. Nothing can force to exist something before or after Zero. So either everything must coincide with the existing Whole or with Nothing, (not existing). Therefore from Not Being we cannot expect nothing to be born; so there is not real evolution or absolute wast away (destruction), because logic demands it. So every judgement must lie within these bounteries, “Not Being” or “Being”. The first one is fault anonymous, meaningless, not a path of thinking, and the other, is the correct one, the path of comparative certainty because every similar belongs to a family group. LIDDEL & SCOTT * ἐτήτυμον εἶναι: To belong in the same family tomb πέλειν καὶ ἐτήτυμον εἶναι: the similar belongs in the same family group
Fragment 8 verses 35-40 35 οὐ γὰρ ἄνευ τοῦ ἐόντος, ἐν ᾧ πεφατισμένον ἐστίν, εὑρήσεις τὸ νοεῖν· οὐδὲν γὰρ ἦν ἔστιν ἢ ἔσται ἄλλο παρέξ τοῦ ἐόντος, ἐπεὶ τὸ γε μοῖρ᾽ἐπέδησεν οὖλον ἀκίνητον τ᾽ἔμεναι· τῷ πάντ᾽ὄνομα ἔσται ὅσσα βροτοί κατέθεντο πεποιθότες εἶναι ἀληθῆ, 40 γίγνεσθαι τε καὶ ὄλλυσθαι, εἶναι τε καὶ οὐχί, καὶ τόπον ἀλλάσσειν διὰ τε χρόα φανόν ἀμείβειν. αὐτάρ ἐπεὶ πεῖρας πύματον, τετελεσμένον ἐστὶ πάντοθεν εὐκύκλου σφαίρης ἐναλίγκιον ὄγκῳ μεσσόθεν ἰσοπαλὲς πάντῃ·….. You cannot find intellect elsewhere but in Being, because it is recorded there. Nothing else but Being can be existed, can exist or will exist, because being is an immobile whole. Everything else are names the mortals give to it, believing that evolving birth or destructive death process, “Being―NotBeing” and any kind of motion or modification really exists, since this is finished limited, absolutely spheric and fully balanced…
Fragment 8 verses 50-61 50 ἐν τῷ σοὶ παύω πιστόν λόγον ἠδὲ νόημα· ἀμφὶς ἀληθείης δόξας ἀπὸ τοῦδε βροτείας
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μάνθανε κόσμον, ἐμῶν ἐπέων, ἀπατηλόν, ἀκούων μορφάς γὰρ κατέθετο δύο γνώμας ὀνομάζειν, τῶν μίαν οὐ χρεών ἐστιν, ἐν ᾧ πεπλανημένοι εἰσίν. 55 τ᾽ἄντια ἐκρίνατο δέμας καὶ σήματ᾽ἔθεντο χωρὶς ἀπ᾽ ἀλλήλων· τῇ μὲν φλογός αἰθέριον πῦρ, ἤπιον ὄν, μέγ᾽ ἐλαφρόν, ἑαυτῷ πάντοσε τωὐτόν, τῷ δ᾽ἑτέρῳ μὴ τωὐτόν, ἀτὰρ κἀκεῖνο κατ᾽αυτό τἀντία, νύκτ᾽ἀδαῇ, πυκινὸν δέμας ἐμβριθές τε. 60 τὸν σοι ἐγώ διάκοσμον ἐοικότα πάντα φατίζω, ὡς οὐ μὴ ποτέ τίς σε βροτῶν γνώμη παρελάσῃ. At this point i will stop speaking about the real meaning, but about the ambiguous, the mortal and doubtful truth: They believe that everything has two ways to exist, one is not enough for them; exactly there they are wrong. They believe that opposites are united, while at the same time they set limits in-between them; the etherial flame of fire to be always the same to itself and at the same time different. They consider the same thing against itself, being in deep confusion and darkness. I speek to you about the phenomenal world, the surface of cosmos, the diacosmos (decorative), so you will never be deceived by the mortal thinking. . .
Comment: Parmenides turns consciously and clearly against the Heracleitian contradictive logic, setting other terms which reject the existence of “NotBeing”. This way every contradictive concept which, “Is―NotBeing”, containing the “NotBeing”, contains error.
Fragment 9 αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πάντα φαός καὶ νὺξ, ὀνόμασται καὶ τὰ κατὰ σφετέρας δυνάμεις ἐπὶ τοῖσί τε καὶ τοῖς, πᾶν πλέον ἐστὶν ὁμοῦ φάεος καὶ νυκτός ἀφάντου ἰσων ἀμφοτέρων ἐπεὶ οὐδετέρῳ μετά μηδέν. Since all things became of light and darkness and by their own forces took different forms, everything remaining beyond these, is equally balanced of light and darkness ultimate elements, because vacant cannot exist.
Comment: I point out that he presupposes a closed universe composed by light and darkness. Because of that, and because vacant, as Not-Being does not exist, there should be an absolute balance of equal light to equal darkness remaining. (if something of these could be more than the other, the door of zero (the vacant as nothing) opens to the existence and all this balanced system collapses).
Fragment 1 verses 9-14 ἡλιάδες κοῦραι προλιποῦσαι δώματα νυκτός εἰς φαός ὠσάμεναι κράτων ἄπο χερσὶ καλύπτρας. ἔνθα πύλαι νυκτός καὶ ἤματός εἰσι κελεύθων
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καὶ σφὰς ὑπέρθυρον ἀμφίς ἔχει λάινος οὐδός· αὐταὶ δ᾽αἰθέριαι πλῆνται μεγάλοισι θυρέτροις· τῶν δὲ δίκη πολύποινος ἔχει κληῖδας ἀμοιβούς. …I was brought there by the daughters of the Sun . . . . . .in-front of a double door, where Dike (Ratio) holds a mutually suitable key; where-from the road of light and darkness departs and the synthesis of the world begins.
Comment: Parmenides claimed he followed a new logical road: the one of rationality. As a beginning he accepted the self-evident, that “only Being exists”. So any acceptance of Not-Being as existing, is the contradiction itself. He proposed a way of thinking, that rejects Not-Being, (not existing), in all logical steps, considering contradiction, which is innate to evolution and daily life, as phenomenal; according to him, the world should be accepted as a closed system, thus rationalism can be an infallible organ of intellect and this way nothing can escape from rational logic; therefore Being, Intellect and Speech coincide. That’s why logic avoiding the error of Not-Being can give the reliable and accurate method of the comparative proceedings. On one hand we see rationalism and determinism to rise up, as a conscious practice and on the other hand we see a conscious opposition to dialectics of Heracleitos.
It was when the Greek world was coming out of tragic practice as a way of life, which Pythagoreans considered to be Barbarity. It is known that Pythagoras and his followers, never consumed flesh; so they considered tragedy as profane, since basic procedure of tragedy, was the slaughter of the bull the flesh-eating and in some cases raw flesh. I believe that in this spot, rises the first opposition of Heracleitos to Pythagorean spirit. Heracleitos was conservative, fallowing the tradition of the tragic, the Bachic, Dionysian spirit. These times the Dionysian spirit, started to decline becoming a gathering of typolatric proceedings and superstitions (like these the Comparative Anthropology realises in primitive societies). Heracleitos made an effort for a tragic spirit redefinition; on the one hand fought against the Pythagorean novelty and on the other hand, against the inner decay of the tragic thinking. He wanted to give a scientific face to tragic spirit, as a counterweight answer to the rationalism of Pythagoras and Xenophanes. It seems that his answer had an effect, so Parmenides takes the responsibility to counter-answer. To the possible opinion of Pythagoras about the existence of many ultimate elements we must seek about (πολυµάθεια), Heracleitos proposed Logos; this was the contradictive elementary unit, which always Changes-Being the Same; (it is approximately the same in surface, but it has an inner continuous change, which overpassing a modification grade, changes even the surface). This One is big and small, one and many, zero and infinite, self-overpassing. Parmenides cannot accept that. The One of Parmenides (the EON, the Existing), is finished, motionless, unchanged, indesructible, immortal, with no past or future, because it is always Now
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present. On one hand there is the immortal world, where vacancy and Not Being do not exist, thus it’s motionless and eternal, obeying to the demands of rationalism; on the other hand, there is the mortal world, the perishable, the phenomenic one. For this world there is the appositive dialectic logic, composed by the dynamic analytic and synthetic proceeding of Rationalism. This kind of dialectic rejects contradiction as untrue and the dialogue of its elements reach till the limits of the opposites, but never violate them. This dialectic accepts a complementary whole in relation to the opposites it contains. As we will see in Heracleitian contradictive dialectics, the dialogue of the opposites violates their limits, interacting each-other, without living any space inviolable (the opposites expand inside each-other, without leaving any margin of independence between them, and traveling away to the universe, return back verifying, their dynamic contrariety). Parmenides conclusion about a closed universe has some similarity with Einsteins opinion for “a moving straightly and normally object”, which “once will return to the spot it departed”. [ὁππόθεν ἄρξωμαι τόθι γὰρ πάλιν ἵξομαι αὖθις] To the place I depart I will return once. Logic and speech is recorded in human Being, that is Being, Intellect and Speech is coincided since human has inside recorded the whole and is able to understand and to know everything. His substance is a recorded knowledge. This way Parmenides opinions are related to Platos Ideas; According to Plato we know because we commune to the Whole by the Ideas. According to the idealists, Ideas are the real existing world, which is the Ἐόν the Being of Parmenides. He is also related to Aristotle in rationalism and the logic formality. We can also see his relationship to the determinism and the emblematic extract of Descart: “cogito ergo sum”, (I think so i exist). “Intellect and Being coincide”. We could talk about the influence of Parmenides to Hegel. They are connected with the meaning of “Being-Itself” and the phenomenal process of the Ideas dialectics and at last we could also point out the relation of Parmenides with Kant, in the “a priori knowledge potentiality” and the “a priori recording of being, logic and speech in human being” by Parmenides. So Plato follows the path of the “πεφατισµένον”, (the a priori inscripted, ―the recorded in the EON, the existing-one, the Being), by means of his Ideas, where from the solid truth is reflected to the mind. The Ideas of Plato are the terms and the ultimate limits of the accomplished game of the closed world, which Aristotle wants to revert. “The Ideas”, he said “do not exist before the world, but after, reflecting its process”; he also said that everything has inside its Εντελέχεια, (the terms of its final perfection), being recorded in relation to its Τέλος (end)”. To my opinion, Εντελέχεια brings again back from the end (the result) to the beginning of the game, (the cause), the Ideas of Plato. It is known that in a closed and finished system, its terms which have been put at the begining of the process, presuppose the limits of the end of this game. This is to say that since the terms of the closed system have been set, this system proceeding will reproduce a specific series of its prerecorded games and a related number of these final games, which
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could be named «ultimate prototypes of the end». In closed systems, the terms and the limits are a couple where the one presupposes the other. There is nothing to forbit though, this ultimate prototypes of the end to be named Ideas. If we accept the existence of Ideas we must also accept that Ideas don’t evolve being eternal, therefore they do not really obey to a time coherence. That’s why they can be simultaneously at the beginning and at the end. About this the reader could study the Platonic dialogue «Parmenides». There is an intellectual line departing from Pythagoras, goes to Xenophanes, to Parmenides, to Plato, to Aristotle, to Kant, to Hegel, to Heidegger.... whose theories are complementary to each-other.
The logical man of 21 century should see again the prepositions of Parmenides. There are many opinions we have accepted mechanically, not knowing their origin and their real meaning. Rationality as an instrument of verification and production of infallible meditations, presupposes closed systems and finite Universe. Determinism should once and for all, reject infinite. As a mathematician said: «Infinity is the ultimate shelter of insanity». We see many times thinkers to splash dabbling in between roads of thinking which do not compromise each-other; this has as a result impassable logical situations.
Finally in this work we will see a new concept for the world and logic, which asks for a new way of intellectual approach, being also the older one. This is the Dialectic Logic of Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zeno, which rises up from the heart of the dithyramb.
ANAXIMANDER (610-564)
Anaximander and Heracleitos have great ideological relationship. Either he is the teacher of Heracleitos or they have coincide following different roads. We also know the admiration of Heracleitos for Thales the Militian, who was teacher, cooperator and friend of Anaximander. However Heracleitos distinguishes from them with his preposition of Logos. That is the Contradictive logico-lingual Syntax of the dialectic speech, which as he claims the world only this way can be said and coincides with the contradictive essence of Being.
SIBLICIUS Physics 24.13 ἕν καὶ κινούμενον καὶ ἄπειρον ………… ἀρχή τε καὶ στοιχεῖον τῶν ὄντων το ἄπειρον… τὴν εἰς ἄλληλα μεταβολήν τῶν τεττάρων στοιχείων οὗτος οὐκ ἠξἰωσεν ἕν τι τούτων ὑποκείμενον ποιῆσαι, ἀλλά τι ἄλλο παρὰ ταῦτα. οὖτος δὲ οὐκ ἀλλοιωμένου τοῦ στοιχείου τὴν γένεσιν ποιεῖ, ἀλλ᾽ἀποκρινομένων τῶν ἐναντίων δια τῆς ἀϊδίου κινήσεως.
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Universe is One, moving and infinite…. Infinity is leading principal of origin and simultaneously ultimate element of beings…. Anaximander claimed that during the mutual reaction and changing of the four elements, is not anyone of them generative, but something else. He claimed that genesis cannot come from the change of these four existing elements but from the dialogue of the opposites by the eternal motion.
ARISTOTLE Physics A4 187a 20 οἱ δ᾽ ἐκ τοῦ ἑνὸς τὰς ἐναντιότητας ἐκκρίνεσθαι ὥσπερ Ἀναξίμανδρός φησι καὶ ὅσοι γ᾽ ἕν καὶ πολλά φασίν εἶναι. Anaximander and all those, who believe that One and Many compose a unity, claim that contrarieties are innate to the One and emanate from this one.
HIPPOLYTE αἱρ. ἔλεγ. 16 1-7 οὗτος άρχή τῶν ὄντων ἔφη φύσιν τινὰ τοῦ ἀπείρου, ἐξ᾽ἧς γίγνεσθαι τούς οὐρανούς καὶ τὸν ἐν αὐτοῖς κόσμον. ταύτην ἀΐδιον εἶναι καὶ ἀγήρω καὶ πάντας τοὺς κόσμους περιέχειν. λέγει δὲ χρόνον ὡς ὡρισμένης τῆς γενέσεως καὶ τῆς ούσίας καὶ τῆς φθορᾶς. . . οὗτος μὲν ἀρχήν καὶ στοιχεῖον εἴρηκε τῶν ὄντων τὸ ἄπειρον, πρῶτος τοὔνομα καλέσας τῆς ἀρχῆς. πρὸς δὲ τούτῳ κίνησιν ἀΐδιον εἶναι, ἐν ᾗ συμβαίνει γίγνεσθαι τοὺς οὐρανούς. Anaximander said that Beings are dominated from a kind of infinity, which is the cause of the birth and evolution of worlds. This is eternal and endless and comprises all the worlds. He also said that time is determined from the birth and decay of the essence, of beings…He claimed that Element and Ruler of everything is Infinity and also he was the first to use this word with this meaning…Moreover he claimed that infinity is the eternal motion, in which happens the evolution of the skies.
HERMEIAS. Φιλ. 10 …ἀρχὴν εἶναι τὴν ἀΐδιον κίνησιν καὶ ταύτῃ τὰ μέν γεννᾶσθαι τὰ δὲ φθείρεσθαι…. …world leading authority is the eternal motion, in which others born and others decay and die… AETIOS περὶ τ. ἀρεσκ. Ἀναξιμανδρός φησι τῶν ὄντων ἀρχὴν εἶναι τὸ ἄπειρον. ἐκ γὰρ τούτου πάντα γίγνεσθαι καὶ εἰς τοῦτο πάντα φθείρεσθαι…ἁμαρτάνει δὲ οὗτος μὴ λέγων τί ἐστι τὸ ἄπειρον, πότερον ἀήρ ἐστι ἢ ὕδωρ ἢ γῆ ἢ τι ἄλλον. ἁμαρτάνει οὖν τὴν μὲν ὕλην ἀποφαινόμενος, τὸ δὲ ποιοῦν αἴτιον ἀναιρῶν. τὸ γὰρ ἄπειρον οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ ὕλη ἐστίν. Οὐ δύναται δὲ ἡ ὕλη εἶναι ἐνέργεια, ἐὰν μὴ τὸ ποιοῦν ὑποκέηται.
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Anaximander said that origin of all beings is infinity, because everything is born from that and everything dies in that… He is mistaken though because he doesn’t define what infinity is; Air, water, earth or anything else. He faults speaking about matter omitting the cause of its existence; because infinity can be nothing else but matter and matter cannot be alive if it has not inside itself the cause which gives energy to that.
ARISTOTLE Physics γ. 7 207 b 35 Ὡς ὕλη τὸ ἄπειρον ἐστίν αἴτιον καὶ ὃτι τὸ μὲν εἶναι αὐτῷ στέρησις, τὸ δὲ καθ᾽αὐτό ὑποκείμενον τὸ συνεχές καὶ αισθητόν. φαίνονται δὲ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι πάντες ὡς ὕλην χρώμενοι τῷ ἀπείρῳ· διὸ καὶ ἄτοπον τὸ περιέχειν ποιεῖν αὐτὸ ἀλλά μὴ περιεχόμενον. Infinity as matter is the cause, but though it seems different, its absolutely the same with it. And all theme who claim that Infinity is necessary to be material, think that it is unreasonable infinity to give birth and to contain matter and not to be contained by matter at the same time.
ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΗΣ φυσ. Γ 4 203 b 6 Ὥς φησιν Ἀναξίμανδρος καὶ πλεῖστοι τῶν φυσιολόγων, τοῦ δὲ εἶναι τι ἄπειρον ἡ πίστις ἐν πέντε μάλιστ᾽ ἄν συμβαίνει σκοποῦσιν ἐκ τοῦ τε χρόνου (οὗτος γὰρ ἄπειρος) καὶ ἐκ τοῖς μεγέθεσι διαιρέσεως χρῶνται γὰρ οι μαθημακοί τῷ ἀπεἰρῳ, ἔτι τῷ οὕτως ἂν μόνως μὴ ὑπολείπειν γένεσιν καὶ φθοράν, εἰ ἄπειρον εἴη ὅθεν ἀφαιρεῖται τὸ γινόμενον. ἔτι τῷ τὸ πεπερασμένον ἀεὶ πρός τι περαίνειν ανάγκην ἕτερον πρὸς ἕτερον. μάλιστα δὲ καὶ κυριώτατον ὅ τὴν κοινήν ποιεῖ ἀπορίαν πᾶσιν, διὰ γὰρ τὸ ἐν τῇ νοήσει μὴ ὑπολείπειν καὶ ὁ ἀριθμός δοκεῖ ἄπειρος εἶναι καὶ τὰ μαθηματικά μεγέθη καὶ τὸ ἔξω τοῦ οὐρανοῦ· ἀπείρου δ᾽ ὄντος τοῦ ἔξω και σῶμα ἄπειρον εἶναι δοκεῖ καὶ οἱ κόσμοι. It is said, that Anaximander and the majority of physiologists, believe that infinity happens to exist by five ways: 1) by the time which is infinitesimal; 2) by the divisibility of mathematical sizes; 3) since it is the only way to have continuous birth and death, because only from a process like that infinity could happen; 4) moreover finite objects always ends to another finite one; 5) but the most important that causes perplexity, because anyone having common sense, understands the infinitesimal of the mathematic sizes, even the outside of the sky, is that since the outside environment of an object is infinite, every object itself is infinite and all the worlds also.
SIMPLICIOUS phys.1121,5 Οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἀπείρους τῷ πλήθει τοὺς κόσμους ὑποθέμενοι ὡς οἱ περὶ Ἀναξίμανδρο καὶ Λεύκιππον καὶ Δημόκριτον καὶ ὕστερον οἱ περὶ Ἐπίκουρον, γινομένους αυτούς καὶ φθειρομένους ὑπέθετον ἐπ᾽ἄπειρον, ἄλλων μὲν ἀεὶ γινομένων ἄλλων δὲ φθειρομένων καὶ τὴν κίνησιν ἀΐδιον ἔλεγον. Ἄνευ γὰρ κινήσεως οὐκ ἔστι γένεσις ἤ φθορά.
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The followers of Anaximander, Leykipos, Democritos and the later followers of Epicuros, believed that infinity is the eternal birth and destruction of worlds, (others becoming and others vanishing simultaneously), being this way the eternal motion; because without motion, there is not genesis and destruction.
AETIOS V 19,4 Ἀναξίμανδρος ἔφασκεν ἐν ὑγρῷ γεννηθῆναι τὰ πρῶτα ζῷα φλοιοῖς περιεχόμενα ἀκανθώδεσι, προβαινούσης δὲ τῆς ἡλικίας ἀποβαίνειν ἐπὶ τὸ ξηρότερον καὶ τοῦ φλοιοῦ περιρρηγνυμένου, ἐπ᾽ὀλίγον χρόνον μεταβιῶνται. Anaximander said that the first animals were born in the water having rind skin and thistles (fish scales), and when the enviroment became tryer they cast them away and adapted themselves to the new enviroment. PLUTARCH Συμπ.VIII 8,4 Ἀναξίμανδρος ἀποφαίνεται ἐν ἰχθύσι ἐγγενέσθαι πρώτον τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ τραφέντες ὥσπερ οἱ γαλαῖοι καὶ γενομένους ἱκανοὺς ἑαυτοὺς βοηθεῖν, ἐκβῆναι τίνικαῦτα καὶ γῆς λαβέσθαι. Anaximander claimed that human, at the beginning, were born in between fishes and evolving later came out to the land.
Comment: From the informations we have about Anaximanders prepositions, Matter is innate with Infinity. Motion itself is the continuous change and coherence of beings and of the worlds death and birth alternation, composing the eternal evolution as an infinite essence. Matter would not be alive, if infinity was not inside to activate it. According to Anaximander, though formally seems infinity to contain matter, matter and every ultimate material element contains simultaneously infinite. That is to say, infinite dominates containing everything quantitatively, but simultaneously, every ultimate elementary unit is qualitatively potentially infinite. (The majority of presocratics accept that ultimate elementary unit being in the state of evolution contains potentially a face of the whole). According to them, contrarily and rational objectivity, established by Aristotle, cannot accept the existence neither of Matter itself nor of Infinity itself as essence. According to objectivity Matter is not an essence itself but an acoummulation of specific objects and Infinity is the greater but abstract meaning of quantity.
As we will see, Heracleitos believes that every object exists, because other subelements passing by the position of the object, is installed and getting away to the universe, once return keeping the object continuously alive but different. This process according to Heracleitos, has not only as a result the existence of the object, but at the same time, the existence of the universe. So every collapsing-composing event and object exists and at the same time is the result of the collapsing-composition process of Universe. Since Universe, according to him, is an open system, the elements which depart to the universe, returning from universe to the object, do not complete a course of perfect cycle but an elliptic course. [For the cyclic course of a closed system to be
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perfect, an element returning from universe, should return exactly at the same position the object had departed, covering finally exactly all the size of the former position of the object. Since though the world system is open and the object has a size, the elements return at the limits the object existed, covering a part of the inside and a part of outside of the object position; this way it Exists-NotExisting in the object position, violating its limits and verifying the object in another position (moves)]. Since every object is composed by an unlimited number of such positions of depart-returning, elements, every object does not have concrete limits and because all the simultaneous departing elements exist as “compose-collapsing” events, every object is extends to the universe being infinite. Zeno believes that nothing contains any ultimate undivided part (an atom); According to him, any part tending to an ultimate size of a material, at this very moment is simultaneously of zero and infinite size. That could be the contradictive elementary unite, but the most accurate meaning of Infinity also. This meaning is a basic acceptance to approach the presocratic dialectics.
I think Aristotle did not inform us correctly about the way Anaximander accepted the meaning of infinity. All the ways he proposed do not feet with the opinion of Anaximander except of the one, which makes him ironically to wander. Even the explicative introduction he did about the meaning of infinite is far away from the one of Anaximander:
ARISTOTLE φυσ. Γ 4 203b 6. ἅπαντα γὰρ ἢ ἀρχή ἢ ἐξ᾽ ἀρχῆς, τοῦ δὲ ἀπείρου οὐκ ἔστιν ἀρχή· εἴη γὰρ ἂν αὐτοῦ πέρας. ἔτι δὲ ἀγένητον καὶ ἄφθαρτον ὡς ἀρχή οὖσα· τὸτε γὰρ γενόμενον ἀνάγκη τέλος λαβεῖν καὶ τελευτή πάσης ἐστὶ φθορᾶς. διὸ καθάπερ λέγομεν, οὐ ταύτης ἀρχή, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτή τῶν ἄλλων εἶναι δοκεῖ καὶ περιέχειν πάντα καὶ πάντα κυβερνᾶν, ὥς φασιν ὅσοι μὴ ποιοῦσι παρὰ τὸ ἄπειρον ἄλλας αἰτίας, οἶον νοῦν ἢ φιλίαν. καὶ τοῦτ᾽εἶναι τὸ θεῖον· ἀθάνατον γὰρ καὶ ἀνώλεθρον, ὥς φησιν Ἀναξίμανδρος καὶ οἱ πλεῖστοι τῶν φυσιολόγων. τοῦ δὲ εἶναι τι ἄπειρον ἡ πίστις ἐκ πέντε μάλιστ᾽ ἄν συμβαίνοι σκοποῦσιν… The thinkers, who do not accept νοῦς or ἕρως (universal mind or love) as a cause of the world, but Infinity, believe that: “Everything has a beginning or it is a beginning of something else; only infinity has not a beginning. Because everything being born is necessary to decay having an end. Infinite being the beginning of all, dominates and contains them. So infinity, having neither birth nor death, is immortal, indestructible, and divine. They also believe that infinity could be comprehensible by five ways: ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΗΣ φυσ. Γ 4 203 b 6 a. [ἐκ τοῦ τε χρόνου (οὗτος γὰρ ἄπειρος)] b. [καὶ ἐκ τοῖς μεγέθεσι διαιρέσεως χρῶνται γὰρ οι μαθημακοί τῷ ἀπεἰρῳ], c. [ἔτι τῷ, οὕτως ἂν μόνως μὴ ὑπολείπειν γένεσιν καὶ φθοράν, εἰ ἄπειρον εἴη ὅθεν ἀφαιρεῖται τὸ γινόμενον]. d. [ἔτι τῷ, τὸ πεπερασμένον ἀεὶ πρός τι περαίνειν, ανάγκην ἕτερον πρὸς
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ἕτερον]. μάλιστα δὲ καὶ κυριώτατον ὅ τὴν κοινήν ποιεῖ ἀπορίαν πᾶσιν, διὰ γὰρ τὸ ἐν τῇ νοήσει μὴ ὑπολείπειν καὶ ὁ ἀριθμός δοκεῖ ἄπειρος εἶναι καὶ τὰ μαθηματικά μεγέθη καὶ τὸ ἔξω τοῦ οὐρανοῦ· e. [ἀπείρου δ᾽ ὄντος τοῦ ἔξω και σῶμα ἄπειρον εἶναι δοκεῖ καὶ οἱ κόσμοι].
a. [By the meaning of time, which is infinite]. Comment: Aristotle often falls to the error of under-grading the presocratic ideas, simplifying their prepositions. Time according to Anaximander is infinite not because has no beginning and end, but because it has unconstrained number of beginings and endings due to its contradictive nature. It IsAways-NotBeing. The past do not exist, the future do not exist, the present only always exists. “Now” being the nihil edge of the continuous perishing Present between past and future. This edge is simultaneously infinite and zero, it is the contradiction pure; “Now” exists Always being Continuously Other. It is Evolution as Essence. b. [By the divisibility of the mathematical sizes (the infinity of mathematics)]. Comment: The divisibility of the sizes according to Zeno and concluded by the Anaximanders preposition: “ἀρχή τε καὶ στοιχεῖον τῶν ὄντων το ἄπειρον…”, “both ruler and element of the world is infinity”, reveals infinity and zero to compose a contradictive unit. The meaning of divisibility by presocratics, was not as Aristotle believed, it was much more complex. They believed that dividing something, the parts of the divided object were getting smaller, but at the same time the overall size of the object, having more empty spaces in it, is getting bigger. So when the parts of the division tended to zero, the whole object should tend to infinity. This indeed was an opinion of physologists, who were against the atomic theory of Leukippos and Democritos, concerning the existance of the atom (ἅτομον, -not to be divided), as a naive approach to nature.
C. [Only from infinity could derive the continuous genesis and destruction without anyother presumptions]. Comment: The continuous evolving nature could only be as a result of infinity, which would rather be more like to the one of Zeno and Anaximander. D. [Every finited being, always stops to an other finited being, continuously and eternally]. Comment:This is again a naive aproach in regard to the infinity of the presocratics. E. [. . .but the most important that causes perplexity, because everyone having common sense, understands the infinite of mathematical sizes, even the infinite size of skies, is that being the outside environment of an object infinite, makes the object itself infinite and all the existing worlds infinite]. Comment: Anaximander and the majority of the presocratics, claimed that One and Many, have not simply a relation of division and addition. According to them “One”
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is neither accumulation of Many Units, nor “Many” are the result of the division of the One to Many Elementary Units. For them the relation of One and Many is deeper. The One (unit) expands far away into Many (units) and Many dive into the One so the individuality and the Identity of an object is dependent from the Whole. In this case the opposit expand inside each other without leaving any space of unviolated limits between them. So the infinity Aristotle claimed that Anaximander accepted as a relationship and intereaction of One and Many, would somehow be different: Every material event, begins with a dialogue to itself, in continuance this dialogue expands to its nearest events, after to its far away events and finally to the universe which is the Other, the opposite-self, who makes the event to change. The limits of self depart deeply inside of the event, not leaving any unviolated space and traveling faraway to Universe, returns to itself disturbing its inner tranquility, changing always its overpassing limits. So the specific event not having any concrete limits and being in a continuous dialogue with the other specific events and finally to universe, is itself an other face of infinity.
According to Anaximander and many other dialectic phylosophers, the meaning of the infinitely small coincides to the infinitely big, being the meaning of the Ether. This Ether was not like the inactive one accepted from the 18nth century European philosophers, which was rejected by the “Michelson and Morley” experiment; the Ether of the Milesians was the pure contradiction (containing simultaneously all faces and none), being the meaning of the Potentiality as an ultimate level of the world. Modern physics accepting some instantaneous intereaction in this ultimate level of existence, brings back the Ether of the Milesians, as the active creating cause of matter. As «ἀρχή καὶ στοιχεῖον τῶν ὄντων τὸ ἄπειρον». The instantaneous which is motionless and at the same time Nihil and Infinite, containing dynamically al faces, being no one. This some how is accepted by Heizenberg.
Grand fathers, of the nowadays physicists, Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zeno, used to see the world differently than the modern scientists. For them, motion was not an attribute of the material specific objects, but the unconstrained specific objects, were the attributes of Motion as Essence. The Motion as Essence according to them was the contradiction itself, the materiality itself, the ultimate level of the world, the alive Ether, the instantaneous and motionless, the evolution as essence.
According to the Dionysian worship, everything is mask over a mask and the ultimate mask, is the empty one of Dionysos; behind that, there is Mystis, the feeder of Dionysos, the empty face, the presence into the absence, the dithyramb, the simoultaneus passing by two opposite doors; the contradiction itself; the potentiallity.
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HERACLETOS (535-475)
SEXTOS ΠΡΟΣ ΜΑΘΗΜΑΤΙΚΟΥΣ VII 132. 1. τοῦ δὲ λόγου τοῦδ᾽ἐόντος, ἀεὶ ἀξύνετοι γίνονται ἄνθρωποι, καὶ πρόσθεν ἢ ἀκοῦσαι καὶ ἀκούσαντες τὸ πρῶτον· γινομένων γὰρ πάντων κατὰ τὸν λόγον τόνδε, ἀπείροισιν ἐοίκασι πειρώμενοι καὶ ἐπέων καὶ ἔργων τοιούτων, ὁκοίων ἐγὼ διηγεῦμαι κατά φύσιν διαιρέων ἕκαστον καὶ φράζων ὅκως ἔχει. τοὺς δὲ ἄνθρώπους λανθάνει ὁκόσα ἐγερθέντες ποιοῦσιν, ὅκωσπερ ὁκόσα εὕδοντες ἐπιλανθάνονται. Though Logos always exists, peoples never feel it, even if they have been informed about it; and though everything is done according to Logos, they seem to participate-not participating, either to the way things are said or to the way these are done; which i analyse and say just the way they are. So humans seem to sleep being alerted or to alert being asleep.
Comment: Heracleitos, guides us in the first steps of his logical path. Logos is Logic, Language and Essence, therefore it is innate to Being. (Essence can be perceived and be said only by Logos, -the dialectic logic-). However Logos exists everywhere, peoples can not feel it and although they have been conscious about its existence, have not the sense of it; as fishes don’t feel water and young people don’t feel youth. We are conscious of the changing process inside as, but we do not feel it, being present-absent.
KLEMES. ΣΤΡΩΜΑΤΕΙΣ V 116 34. ἀξύνετοι ἀκούσαντες κωφοῖσιν ἐοίκασι· φάτις αὐτοῖσιν μαρτυρεῖ παρεόντας ἀπεῖναι. Peoples who though they listen something, do not feel it, look like deaf, being present-absent.
Comment: Though we are absolutely convinced that inside us exist cellules and atoms, we never feel them.
ΜΑRCUS ΑΝΤOΝΙΝUS, IV 46 72. ᾧ μάλιστα διηνεκῶς ὁμιλοῦσι, λόγῳ τούτῳ διαφέρονται, καὶ οἷς καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἐγκυροῦσι, ταῦτα αὐτοῖς ξένα φαίνεται. Humans commune immediately and continuously to Logos and because of that, evolve changing and though everyday confirm that, they do not feel it.
Comment: Though all beings commune to Logos, since Logos is contradictive, it is the cause of their modification. So everything agreeing to Logos, differs from itself; (it confirms-contradicting its identity) and differs from all the others, having its own particularity.
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PLOTIN ΕΝΝΕΑΔΕΣ IV 8, 1. 84. μεταβάλλον ἀναπαύεται καὶ κάματός ἐστι τοῖς αὐτοῖς μοχθεῖν καὶ ἄρχεσθαι. Change and modification really is inactivity and state of rest of things. So achieving immobility is the activity to dominate motion.
Comment: Change is the simultaneous negation and affirmation of a situation. The moving one either “Is-BeingNot” momentary in the same position or changing position, is different το itself. (Different but a similar one). So the eternal motion of the world is its normal state of rest, since stability needs action and labor to be accomplished. Change, being innate to the nature of the world, needs no “change” to be accomplished, but the achievement of stability demands a “change”.
HIPPOLYTE IX 9 51. Οὐ ξυνιᾶσιν ὅκως διαφερόμενον ἑαυτῷ ὁμολογέει· παλίντροπος ἁρμονίη, ὅκωσπερ τόξου καὶ λύρης. People do not understand, that the differing one agrees to itself; this is a contracting harmony like bow and lyre.
Comment: The changing one agrees-disagreeing to itself, verifies-falsifying itself. This is the contradictive harmony, as the string organ and the bow does. The strings of the music organ give a separated sound and different notes, but the bow produces a harmonic confluence of all these; therefore the contradictive harmony of particularity and unity is created. --However we need a language, this evolving world to be spoken. This language is Logos, the contradictive speech, (dialectico). Heracleitos speaks consciously this dialectic language, setting its terms and the first term is:...“διαφερόμενον ἑαυτῷ ὁμολογέει”. ....”The changing one (the differing one) agrees to it self”, (it verifies-falsifying itself). -This is the contradictive identity.
STOVAIOS, ΑΝΘΟΛΟΓΙΟΝ Ι 179. 114. ξύν νόῳ λέγοντας ἰσχυρίζεσθαι χρὴ τῷ ξυνῷ πάντων, ὅκωσπερ νόμῳ πόλις καὶ πολὺ ἰσχυροτέρως. τρέφονται γὰρ πάντες οἱ ἀνθρώπειοι νόμοι ὑπὸ ἑνὸς τοῦ θείου. κρατεῖ γὰρ τοσοῦτον ὁκόσον ἐθέλει καὶ ἐξαρκεῖ πᾶσι καὶ περιγίγνεται. The logical people need Logos, which is common to everything, much more than the city needs the lows, because all lows are based on this one which is divine. That is faraway from the human will having its own will; it dominates and leads, being inside everything but simultaneously encloses containing all them.
Comment: Heracletos and Parmenides, need first of all to present the legality of their logical terms, something we evade taking it as granted nowadays. So many intellects choose one or the other logical process unconsciously, since “they cary it in their
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luggages” of their intellectual belongings. Whoever this could create antinomies surprising the unconscious user. Scientists nowadays, believe that the world is in a continuous change and the evolving process of nature is not phenomennal but real; whoever because they cary in their small suitcase their formal logic, are opposite to Logos, the common low of the divine nature. Maybe they invested everything in formal logic, maybe they are more Aristotelian than Aristotle or they maybe are so poor and that’s all they possess. All these great scientists inside their very precious laboratories and their accelerators, have reached the turtle and as Achilles did, they cannot leave it behind, because they afraid that will make a “logical mistake”. On the contrary to them their presocratic grand fathers, only with their logic, hade reached to conclusions which stimulate and fertilize our mind. They have already for us the logic to approach the world and we only have to take it.
SEXTOS, VII 133. 2. Διὸ δεῖ ἕπεσθαι τῷ, τοῦ λόγου δ᾽ἐόντος ξυνοῦ, ζώουσιν οἱ πολλοί ὡς ἰδίαν ἔχοντες φρόνησιν. Because Logos is common and everything follows it, that is why everything has its own particularity.
Comment: The particularity of individuals is legal, because it derives from Logos which is the contradictive common element of everything and where from derives Differentiality.
KLIMIS, ΣΤΡΩΜΑΤΕΙΣ V 116. 32. Ἕν το σοφόν μοῦνον λέγεσθαι, οὐκ ἐθέλει καὶ ἐθέλει ζηνός ὄνομα. This One, which is wisdom, may and may not be named a god.
Comment: A. This one, Logos, which is wisdom, can be spoken only this way and do not care if it is called god or not. B. Logos, which is wisdom, is spoken contradictively and do not have the conscience of its divinity. C. Logos, God and Nature is a unity and coincides in the contradictive speech, the dialectic logic.
If there is a god, only this way could be and although everything is born from this one, being contained from, it also containes all these. This One (Logos) has no conscience of its divinity, just like human, who though participates to Logos, never has a feeling of that. Human knows but do not feel, Nature feels but do not know.
ΚLIMIS, ΣΤΡΩΜΑΤΕΙΣ V 60. 30. κόσμον τόνδε τὸν αὐτὸν ἀπάντων οὔτε τις θεῶν οὔτε ἀνθρώπων ἐποίησεν, ἀλλά ἦν καὶ ἔστιν καὶ ἔσται πῦρ ἀείζωον, ἁπτόμενον μέτρα καὶ ἀποσβεννύμενον μέτρα
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This world which is the same for everyone, was not created by god or human; it was, it is and it will be, eternal fire burning up and down in balance.
Comment: World being the result of itself and because everything communes with, it is the same for everyone; so anyone participates to Logos and that’s why human correlates to Logic. The problem of objectivity and potentiality, for a common sense and a common approach to the world, is not new. Always philosophical theories needed to legitimate the value of their logic principals. The base up on Heracleitos establishes his theory is Logos, while Parmenides up on Eon (the existing one). Eon and Logos look similar because both creators accepted that Existance (Essence), Logic and Language coincide up to that; they differ though to the meaning of their Logic and consequently to their lingual syntax. Heracleitos accepts Nature to be contradictive, thus he accepts a contradictive Logic and Language; on the contrary Parmenides do not accept Nature to be contadictive but contrasting, so he proposes an ortho-rational Logic and language. Plato, instead of Logos or Eon accepts the world of Ideas; he proposes that human being to have valuable correlations for reliable comparative logical procedures, should participate to the world of ideas. The world of Heracleitos was the eternal fire, lighting up and down in “Μέτρον” (meter, balance). The word “Metron” is a loaded meaning, as much as Logos is. The contradictive unity of the elements world or an event consists always presupposes a Meter (balance) of these elements; Metron is the specific character of a contradictive relation which composes occasionally a fainting Identity; while communing to the eternal evolution of the world this Identity is overpassed. This Metron (Meter) is the dynamic balance composing an Identity in a continuous change; the identity ExistsNotExisting, being dithyrambic (passing simultaneously through two opposite doors). PLUTARCH, ΠΕΡΙ ΤΟΥ ΕΙ ΤΟΥ ΕΝ ΔΕΛΦΟΙΣ 388 Ε 90. πυρός τε ἀνταμοιβή τὰ πάντα καὶ πῦρ ἀπάντων, ὅκωσπερ χρυσοῦ χρήματα καὶ χρημάτων χρυσός. Everything transforms to fire and fire to everything, just as gold to merchandises and merchandises to gold.
Comment: Logos, Metron, contradiction, are essentialised to Fire. Fire in its primordial form is the Energy of modern physics (this has been pointed also by Heizenberg). Nowadays it’s commonly accepted that all things transform to Energy and Energy to all. The Metron is E=mc². Dialectics accepts that greatly quantitative accumulation of one component of the Metron contradictive unity against the other, gives a new quality; we also know that all material objects emit-receiving energy in order to exist. Energy and mass, do not have absolute separation limits. Nothing can exist by itself, everything correlates to something else; if something overpasses the relating Metron, being by itself, disappears as Itself and reappears in another relation as Other, expressed by another Metron.
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HERACLEITOS ΑΛΛΗΓΟΡΙΑΙ 24. 49a ποταμοῖς τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐμβαίνομέν τε καὶ οὐκ ἐμβαίνομεν, εἶμεν τὲ καὶ οὐκ εἶμεν. In the same river we enter and not enter, as we are and we are not.
PLUTARCH, ΠΕΡΙ ΤΟΥ ΕΙ ΤΟΥ ΕΝ ΔΕΛΦΟΙΣ 392β. 91. ποταμῷ γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν έμβῆναι δὶς τῷ αὐτῷ, οὐδὲ τῆς αυτῆς οὐσίας ἅψασθαι κατ᾽ἕξιν, ἀλλ’ὀξύτητι καὶ τάχει μεταβολῆς, σκίδνησι καὶ πάλιν συνάγει καὶ πρόσεισι καὶ ἄπεισι (μᾶλλον δὲ οὐδὲ πάλιν οὐδ᾽ὕστερον, ἀλλ᾽ ἅμα συνίσταται καὶ ἀπολείπει). We neither enter in the same river twice, nor we touch the same material again, since everything changes rapidly and violently, collapses-composing, spreads-gathering (not again or after but at the same time).
Comment: A perfect description of the contradictive identity; this also could give as an idea about the wave-particle existence or the energy emit-receiving of the objects or the field-object relation. The example of the river easily could be understood: the water passing by, makes the river continuously other; for the solid materials though there is a question. Popper explained: “pots get rusted, woods get rotten, stones break to pieces, everything changes by the time passing; but Hercleitos said “collapses-composing” and Plutarch points out: “at the same time”. Popper and Aristotle, simplify the prepositions of presocratics. They were much more sophisticated and complicated than we believed. According to them: things exists because fire elements passing from their position compose them; these primary fire elements are accepted today as quanta of energy
ARISTOTLE, ΠΕΡΙ ΚΟΣΜΟΥ 396b 7 10. συνάψιες ὅλα καὶ οὐχ ὅλα ξυμφερόμενον διαφερόμενον συνᾷδον διᾷδον καὶ ἐκ πάντων ἕν καὶ ἐξ᾽ ἑνός πάντα. “Everything is Complex-NotBeing complex”, “composes-decomposing”, “agrees to itself disagreeing” simultaneously; plethora derives from the unique and unique from the plethora.
ARIOS DIDYMOS κατά ΕΥΣΕΒΙΟΝ Ε.Π. XV 20. 12. ποταμοῖσι τοῖσιν αὐτοῖσιν εμβαίνουσιν ἕτερα καὶ ἕτερα ὕδατα ἐπιρρεῖ· καὶ ψυχαὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ὑγρῶν ἀναθυμιῶνται. In the same river other waters enter and other come out; these are evaporated also.
Comment: Not only an event is modified by the passing through elements but the elements also are modified by the event also. (The inter-reaction principle of dialectic logic)
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PORPHYRIOS είς Ξ. 200 103. ξυνὸν γὰρ ἀρχὴ καὶ πέρας (ἐπὶ κύκλου περιφερίας). Beginning and end is common (in the cycle periphery).
Comment: This reminds Parmenides: ξυνὸν δὲ μοί ἐστιν ὁππόθεν ἄρξομαι τόθι γὰρ πάλιν ἵξομαι αὖθις (i believe that we return to the point we depart). Parmenides accepts world evolution to be finite and phenomenal, thus to be closed system; on the contrary Heracleitos accepts world to be open and infinite. So the part of the fragment “in the cycle periphery”, seems to be an explicative adaptation of Porphyrios. This adaptation though doesn’t match to the Heracleitian spirit. This should rather be: “every end is simultaneously a beginning”; because everything being contradictive-dithyrambic, passes two opposite doors at the same time.
HIPPOLYTE IV 10. 59. γναφείῳ ὁδὸς εὐθεῖα καὶ σκολιή μία ἐστὶ καὶ ἡ αὐτή. (ἡ τοῦ ὀργάνου τοῦ καλουμένου κοχλίου έν τῷ γναφείῳ περιστροφὴ εὐθεῖα καὶ σκολιή, ἄνω γὰρ ὁμοῦ καὶ κύκλῳ περιέχεται). In the turning lathe (spiral way) rectilinear course, is a result of helicoid rotation.
Comment: If we combine this fragment with fragments 12, 91 and 103, we find out the way Heracleitos accepts motion: Objects or events consist by the passage of elementary units of energy (fire elements, or pyridia as they use to call them) in a specific position. These elements departing from the objects position make a multidimensional journey to space returning back to the departure position. The course of the elements is considered to be multi-dimensional because they depart-returning continuously after a verification contact with every other object they meet in their journey. The composition of an object by this multi-dimensional process, consists of an unconstrained number of circular departure-returnings from the departure position, to the arriving position. Since the universe of Heracleitos is not closed but open and infinite, the course of the departing-returning elements do not accomplish a perfect cycle but a thick helicoid course; so every time the departing elements return, do not verify the object exactly in its former position but a little farther, composing this way the course of the object motion. The object and its motion are contradictive, because they are results of the depart-returning elements and the contradictive manner these elements verify-falsifing both object and position, during their composition. Motion this way coincides with the evolving process of beings. Hegel claimed that motion is contradictive because “not only the moving one is here now and later somewhere else”, but because “the moving one is at the same time here and not here”. Heracleitos would answer to him that motion is not really a removal of an identical object from place to place, but an evolving process, where the identity of the moving one collapses-composing therefore it is continuously different; so he would insist that the moving object being different in a different position, really neither deserves to move nor to have speed.
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HIPPOLYTE ΙΧ 9. 53. πόλεμος πατὴρ πάντων ἐστι. ORIGENES, ΚΑΤΑ ΚΕΛΣΟΥ VI 42. 80. εἰδέναι δὲ χρὴ τὸν πόλεμον εἶναι ξυνὸν καὶ δίκην ἔριν καὶ γινόμενα πάντα κατ᾽ ἔριν καὶ χρεώμενα. War is the father of everything. We must know that war is common to every-were and Dike is Eris, because everything is a result of quarrel and necessity.
Comment: war exists every-were, being the struggle of the opposites inside beings and overflows out of them when it is necessary.
KLEMES, ΣΤΡΩΜΑΤΕΙΣ IV 16. 24. ἀρηιφάτους θεοὶ τιμῶσι καὶ ἄνθρωποι. Those who obey to the orders of Ares, honour gods and humans KLEMES, ΣΤΡΩΜΑΤΕΙΣ 50. 25. μόροι γὰρ μέζονες μέζονας μοίρας λαγχάνουσι. The more dead they are the greater honours they enjoy PLUTARCH, ΣΥΜΠΟΣΙΑΚΩΝ ΠΡΟΒΛΗΜΑΤΩΝ Γ644F. 96. νέκυες γὰρ κοπρίων ἐκβλητότεροι. Dead are of less worth than excrements ΓΝΩΜΟΛΟΓΙΟΝ, VATIC. 743 132. τιμαί θεοὺς καὶ ἀνθρώπους καταδουλοῦνται. Honors enslave humans and gods.
Comment: The tradition to honour everyone who’s only characteristic is to be dead, has no meaning; on the contrary the dead heroes must be honoured by following their example. Formal and Typical process though, is suitable to those who “the more dead they are”, the more honorables should be.
HIPPOLYTE ΙΧ 10. 62. ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάνατοι, ζῶντες τῶν ἐκείνων θάνατον, τῶν δὲ ἐκείνων βίον τεθνεῶτες. We are mortal-immortals, we live our death and we die our life.
Comment: We are in a state of collapsing-composition. We live-dying in every our moment. And that is the contradiction of the existence.
PLUTARCH, ΠΕΡΙ ΔΕΙΣΙΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΑΣ 166C. 89. τοῖς ἐγρηγορόσιν, ἕνα καὶ κοινὸν κόσμον εἶναι, τῶν δὲ κοιμωμένων ἕκαστος εἰς ἴδιον ἀποστρέφεσθαι. The awaken partcipate to the common world of all people, the sleeping ones turn to their own world.
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Comment: Literally that happens so; but deeper, awaken people are the clever ones, who participate in the social and political proceedings. More clever though, are the people who perceive the world by means of the Logos.
HIPPOLYTE, ΕΛΕΓΧΟΣ ΙΧ 9. 50. οὐκ ἐμοῦ ἀλλὰ τοῦ λόγου ἀκούσαντας ὁμολογεῖν σοφόν ἐστιν ἓν πάντα εἶναι. According to Logos, we must agree that everything coincides to the world unity. This Unity is not an accumulation of objects but the whole as essence.
ΔΙΟΓΕΝΗΣ ΛΑΕΡΤΙΟΣ, ΙΧ 1. 41. ἕν τὸ σοφόν, ἐπίστασθαι γνώμην, ὁτέη ἐκυβέρνησε πάντα διὰ πάντων. Wisdom is to understand Logos. The one which rules everything through the others.
Comment: The One is accomplished by plethora and plethora by the one. One and plethora being in a continuous dialogue and interchange, compose unity (whole). This whole which is Logos, is the eternally evolving motion, (the contradictive mechanism of existence). It governs enery-thing through the others.
The Ἐόν (the Existing One) of Parmenides, oppositely to his claim, cannot be a whole. This is the sum of the immortal elements, “light and darkness”, whose limits being inviolable, are complementary to eachother. This is an antinomy: Thought Permenides vanishes “Not-Being” from correct thinking, the darkness which is the not existing of light (No-Light), pursues to be Something. He has climbed up on the platform of rationalism by a contradictive ladder and since he did not need it anymore he threw it away. At the Heracleitian way, darkness and light compose a contradictive unity, in which opposites extend eachother, not leaving any inviolable limits in-between them. On the contrary Parmenides believes that the dialogue of the opposites doesn’t violate their limits, this way the phenomenal evolution process as it was conceived by him, is opposing. This means that since the terms of the evolutional game have been set, all its combinations which represent its final limits, are there from the beginning, waiting to be played. For that reason the phenomenal process must always be finished and no one is able to say, witch one (terms or limits) are before or after. So the limits could be named “prototypes of the end”. This way another antinomy of rationalism rises again in the time consequence. This prototypes compose a closed system, being a Sum of Many ideal ultimate elements, reminding this way the Ideas of Plato. The Ideas being eternal, are away from a beginning or an end, being simultaneously departure and destination and because they have this nature, exist all together, without time and space consequence. Ideas as elements of logic, being the Things-Theirselfs of the rational logical process, are not objective the way determinism needs badly, acting antinomic. That
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has been reveald by Plato in his dialogue “Parmenides”. It seems that except of Parmenides, in his poem “About Nature” none of the archaic philosophers, accepted consciously rationalism as infallible logical instrument but as a conventional one.
DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN IX 1 40. πολυμαθίη νόον ἔχειν οὐ διδάσκει· ἡσίοδον γὰρ ἄν ἐδίδαξε καὶ πυθαγόρην αὖτίς τε καὶ ξενοφάνεά τε καὶ ἑκαταῖον. Polymathy, (erudition-scholastic learning), can teach no one. Because it would have taught Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Ecataeos.
DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN VIII 6 129. πυθαγόρης μνησιάρχου ἱστορίην ἤσκησεν ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα πάντων καὶ ἐκλεξάμενος ταύτας τὰς συγγραφάς ἐποιήσατο ἑαυτοῦ σοφίην πολυμαθίην κακοτεχνίην. Pythagoras studied hard, gathered and leaned almost everything other people wrote, succeeding “polymathia” and “kakotechnia”.
Comment: Polymathy is rejected by Heracleitos, because it is the knowledge ethos of accepting a world consisted by many eternal positive ideal or material elements. This presupposes a closed, finite and phenomenal world, which cannot give birth to the New and this is the reason of “kakotechnia” (gives bad birth, dead birth). It leads properly around the past but concerning the new it is a bat adviser. As we noticed before any game consists of absolute and unchangeable elements, is closed; that’s why functioning produces a specific number of predetermined games, which after a point will be repeated for ever.
PLUTARCH TO KOLOTES 1118C. 101. ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν. I look into myself. I analysed myself.
Comment: The word “Ἐδιζησάμην” (i search) derives from the word “Δίζως”. Δίζως is the god Πὰν, who had double and contradictive nature. So the most inside we ender to ourselves, the farther outside we travel to universe. Identity for Heracleitos consists of contradictive elementary units fighting theirselves. According to the contradictive (dialectic) logic, an elementary unit tending to zero, tends simultaneously to infinity; that is why the deeper we enter inside ourselves the more away we travel to universe.
DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN IX 7 45. ψυχῆς πείρατα ἰὼν οὐκ ἂν ἐξεύροιο πᾶσαν ἐπιπορευό μενος ὁδόν· οὕτω βαθὺν λόγον ἔχει. The limits of human soul are so deeply inside, that cannot be found. (It is impossible to reach the depth of something which expands to infinity). 63
Comment: Human soul, for Heracleitos, is the Logos of the great to the small, of zero to infinity, of immediate to the immobile. The big dives into the small and the small expands to the big. Human elements tending to zero size simultaneously tend to infinity. The element dialectically is dithyrambic, passing two opposite doors at the same time. Psyche (human soul), for the presocratic thinkers, is the ultimate contradictive structure of every specific being; that includes a face of the evolutionary whole, from the point of view of the related specific being. Soul tending to the ultimately small tends simultaneously to infinity. Human soul dialectically could be its DNA.
PLUTARCH, KORIOLAN 22 85.θυμῷ μάχεσθαι χαλεπόν· ὅ γάρ ἄν θέλῃ ψυχῆς ὠνεῖται. It is very hard to fight against your desires, becaouse it exchanges everything with your soul.
Comment: It is hard to improve ourselfs, because we must change our character, our soul, moreover «ψυχῆς πείρατα ἱὼν ούκ ἂν έξεύροιο», we cannot find the limits of our soul. To improve ourselves we must fight our hereditary mechanism, our DNA which is bottomless but at the same time this is our main ally.
STOVAIOS, ANTHOLOGY I 178 115. ψυχῆς ἐστι λόγος ἑαυτὸν αὔξων. Our soul is the dynamic meter of self evolution.
Comment: Our soul can be improved only by itself and this can be accomplished only by the dynamic balance of our inner and small to the faraway and big. This balance is the ultimate contradictive elementary mechanism, our DNA. To my opinion only this one could be named “soul”.
ORIGENIS AGAINST KELSOS VI 12. 78. ἦθος ἀνθρώπειον μὲν οὐκ ἔχει γνώμας, θεῖον δὲ ἔχει. Human behaviour is unexpected, while divine is expected.
Comment: Human, who created his gods can expect their behaviour, but the one of human beings, which is the result of the bottomless evolution world process cannot, because it is unpredictable.
HIPPOLYTE IX 9 52. αἰὼν παῖς ἐστι παίζων πεττεύων· παιδός ἡ βασιληίη. Time is a child playing the “pessoi” game; That is the kingdom of the child.
Comment: “Pessoi” was a both luck and skill game. Men played it using strategy and logic, being outside, observing the game. The child plays with passion, being inside
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the game. Child stops to be itself but travels into the other (the game). The worth of the game is that child overpasses itself being in another reality. The kingdom of the child is where time exists only Now. Time being only Now, overpasses itself being contradictive: Past does not exist, Future also, only Present exists, being the edge of the fading Now, between Past and Future. A nihil edge, being eternal in its nihility. This is the nude contradiction. Therefore world is always Only Now and continuously different, being a continuous explosion of difference.
The Heracleitian contradictive approach for all events of nature, did not leave any doubt that accepts a world in which the opposites are not independed each-other, but in a continuous inter-reaction, as time and space does. This is not an archaeolatric exaggeration. Anaximander claimed that time is related to the birth and death of beings; and Zeno with his paradoxes, reveals the relativity of Space, Time, Motion and Beings. He also proposes the relativity of small and great, immediate and immobile. Relativity was not a revolutionary approach these days, but a conservative one. Greeks of the archaic period, symbiolised the world birth by the unity of Rea and Cronos. Rea could mean the universal flow of the primordial life and Cronos could mean Chronos (time-ὡρό-νος , sky-Ουρανός); Cronos gives birth to the limits, the periods (the seasons), the Hours (ὧραι). Cronos rotating gives Rea the meaning of space and their relation, is the universal dance, which is the space-time existence, the contradictive relation of flow and rotation (rhythm); these fighting eatch-other, give simultaneously birth (identity) to eatch-other. This unity-relation is Life itself (Zeus), who transforms the Space as Flow and the Time as Rhythm, to time as duration and space as expance.
DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN ΙΧ 2 42. τόν τε ὅμηρον ἄξιον ἐκ τῶν ἀγώνων έκβάλλεσθαι καὶ ῥαπίζεσθαι καὶ αρχίλοχον ὁμοίως. Homer and Archilochos should be rejected from the triumphants of festivals.
Comment: Heracleitos loved poetry, because his aphorisms are at least poetic. His opposition to Homer and Archilichos, was not of aesthetical reasons but ideological: Heracleitos being Ionian and for this reason Pelasgian and Aristocrat, was animated by the tragic spirit. After the eruption of Thera island volcano, the volcanic wave drown all the located by the sea Pelasgic cities. Then Achaeans, the mountaineer shepherds, came as the conquerors of the devastation, imposed their semi-barbarity. Homeric poems narrated their “heroic” live. Heracleitos believed that homeric stories, being the Bible of the Greeks, divinized violence, infamy and nonsense. Homeric stories, according to Heracletos, where bad examples to follow.
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Archilochos according to Heracleitos was arrogant and hubristic; he was a hired soldier. The shield for him was not sacred; the battle was not a sacrifice; it was not a sacred theatre. He was a butcher, a slaughterer. The reason for the hired soldier to fight is money or loot. What impression would have made to Heracletos the Archilochos verses about “the shield he threw away during a battle and he would find another better”. The battle for Heracleitos was a horrible but sacred, like the sacrifice of the bull. The victim is sacred, the dead victim has been purified and deserve a decent burial. The winner is bloody, profane and to be purified must fertilize the blood to civilization. Moreover the Archilocho’s verses where “he can lead dithyramb, the sweet song of Dionysos, fulminated to his head by wine”. were hubristic to the Bachcic spirit; ―A drunk butcher, leading priest of tragedy―. For Heracleitos the drunkard is not ecstatic.
PLUTARCH, KORIOLANOS 38 86. 86. ἀπιστίῃ διαφυγγάνει μὴ γιγνώσκεσθαι. Infidelity disinclines from ignorance. (doubt leads to knowledge)
KLEMENS STROMATEIS III 24 18. ἐάν μὴ ἔλπηται ἀνέλπιστον οὐκ ἐξευρήσει, ἀνεξερεύνητον ἐὸν καὶ ἄπορον. With no hope, hopeless cannot be discovered
HIPPOLITE IX 38 55. ὅσων ὄψις ἀκοὴ μάθησις, ταῦτα ἐγώ προτιμέω. I prefer as elements of knowledge these i listen and i see (I believe to the worth of experience).
ARISTOTLE ABOUT SENSES 443a 23 7. εἰ πάντα τὰ ὄντα καπνὸς γένοιτο, ῥῖνες ἄν διαγνοῖεν. If everything was made of smoke, we would investigate it by our nose. (Experience is not enough).
POLYVIOS XII 27 101α. ὀφθαλμοί γὰρ τῶν ὤτων ἀκριβέστεροι μάρτυρες. Eyes are more accurate witness than ears.
I prefer these i see, than these others tell me
SEXTOS VII 126 107. κακοὶ μάρτυρες ἀνθρώποισιν ὀφθαλμοί καὶ ὦτα βαρβάρους ψυχὰς ἐχόντων. Eyes and ears of barbarous souls are not reliable (not good evidence).
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Comment: Barbarity is, “not to know how to see and how to listen”. Civilisation is the ability to approach and elaborate experience rationally. Hracletos believed, that experience must be evaluated by Logos. Barbarians know very well to accept things as identical to themselves, but they don’t know to approach the world by its differential and contradictive way. This kind of approach and analysis is far from barbarity.
KLEMENS TO STROMATEIS V 60. 29. αἰρεῦνται γὰρ ἓν ἀντί ἀπάντων οἱ ἄριστοι, κλέος ἀέναον θνητόν· οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ κεκόρηνται ὅκωσπερ κτήνεα. The best thinkers instead of searching for Many things, look for the One (Logos), which is the glamour of dying (fading) knowledge. Yet the majority of the people are satisfied as animals do (with these they come to immediate contact).
Comment:Logos is eternally dying because its content changes continuously. It exists Being-Always-Other. Therefore something being One, because of its continuous changing, seems at the same time to be Many.
THEOFRASTOS METAPHYSICS 7a. 124. ὥσπερ σάρμα εἰκῆ κεχυμένων ὁ κάλλιστος κόσμος. The beautiful world looks like rubbish thrown hear and there.
Comment: “Hazard and nesessity”: Hazardous deeply inside has a hidden multidimensional reason very difficully traced; so “the hidden harmony is better than the obvious one”; but with barbarous eyes, cannot be traced.
DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN IX 73 47. μὴ εἰκῆ περὶ τῶν μεγίστων συμβαλλώμεθα. We must not deal thoughtlessly with the very great and important things
Let’s deal with small and everyday things, because they contain dynamically the great.
MARCUS ANTONINUS IV 46. 74. οὐ δεῖ ὡς παῖδας τοκεώνων. We must not follow blindly the steps of our family ancestors. We must violate tradition, accomplishing the New, regardless how dangerous it is.
Comment: Heracleitos is presented as a conservative oligarchic aristocrat. In reality though, he was a revolutionary mind and true democrat; he was in a critical stand against “democrats”, who demolished democracy in order to “save” it. Oppositely to them, his friend Hermodoros, who was sent to exile by these “democrats” as oligarchic, wrote laws for the democratic Rome. Moreover, Heracleitos convinced tyrran Melegonas to resign. He also didn’t accept invitation to visit Great King Dario.
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DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN IX 2 44. μάχεσθαι χρὴ τὸν δῆμον ὑπὲρ τοῦ νόμου ὅκωσπερ τείχεος. Citizens must fight for their lows us much us they fight for the city fortress (for social justice and for liberty).
Comment: Lows are abolished by tyranny and oligarchy (aristocrats); the walls of the city by the Persians, who usually were allies of oligarchy.
CLEMENS TO STROMATEIS V 116 33. νόμος καὶ βουλῇ πείθεσθαι ἑνός. We must obay the law of the one (Logos) (Logos is the contradictive Meter of every specific event)
DIOGENES THE LAERTIAN IX 1 43. ὕβριν χρὴ σβεννύναι μᾶλλον ἣ πυρκαϊήν. It is more urgen to fight against hubris than conflagration of the city.
Comment: the arrogance of pseudo-democrats is more dangerous than conflagration. The result of fire can be overpassed by hard work, the result of political arrogance can be overpassed by blood, violence and unforgotten hate.
CLEMENS, STROMATEIS III 14 20. γενόμενοι ζώειν ἐθέλουσι μόρους τ᾽ἔχειν μᾶλλον δὲ ἀναπαύεσθαι καὶ παῖδας καταλείπουσι μόρους γενέσθαι. Being born, intend to live doing nothing, -receiving death-; and they give birth to children leaving them in their state of death.
STOVAIOS ANTHOLOGY IV 40 119. ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων. Every man’s god is its own ethos (character).
Comment: According to Heracleitos, god is neither the kind creator nor the zealot punisher; he is the contradictive elements, by which Metron composes the human character (human Logos). This is the contradictive multidimentional recording of the evolving universe in human biological hereditary mechanism; this mechanism, being contradictive, gives to any person the ability to have free will. The choice to have a character, is the god of any man.
ORIGENIS AGAINST CELSOS VI 12. 12. ἀνὴρ νήπιος ἤκουσε πρὸς δαίμονος ὅκωσπερ παῖς πρὸς ἀνδρός. The immature man obeys to his “Daemon” like the child obeys to man.
Comment: Heracleitian Daemon, is the force of living nature inside human; that is uninfluenced by the social process, being the vital impulsion of man; man cultivating this natural internal force integrats it to maturity and ethos.
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HIPPOLYTE IX 10 60. ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω μία καὶ ὡυτή. Uphill road and downhill road is one and the same. (the unity of the opposites).
ARISTOTLE METEOROLOGY 335 a 13 6. ἥλιος οὐ μόνον νέος εφ᾽ἡμέρῃ ἐστίν, ἀλλ᾽ἀεί νέος καθάπερ ἡράκλειτός φησι. The sun is not only everyday new, but it always is new, as Heracletos claims.
Comment: Xenophanes claimed that the sun is every day new: «τὸν δὲ ἥλιον, ἐκ μικρῶν πυριδίων ἀθροιζομένων γίνεσθαι, καθ᾽ἑκάστην ἡμέραν». (the sun is composed by small fire elements (photons), gathering every morning). On the contrary Heracleitos claimed that sun is always new. This difference reveals a deeper opposition between them: Xenophanes accepts evolution to be phenomenal; according to him the world, deeply inside, do not change. It consist of unchangeable, uncognitable and ineffable (άρρητα) elements. These are the terms of a closed predetermined, finished, phenomenal and deterministic system. This way the Sun rising from chaos, is composed from “πυρίδια”, (photons), being new but at the same time similar to the one before (because according to him world is repeated, being a closed system). On the contrary, Heracleitos accepts that the sun always composescollapsing, being a little different in a different position.
THEMISTIOS LOGOI 5 69 123. φύσης κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ. Nature likes to be hidden.
HIPPOLYTE IX 9 54. ἀρμονίη ἀφανής φανερῆς κρείττων. Hidden harmony is higher than the obvious one.
Comment: World being multi-dimensional, has many levels of reality covered by the obvious surface; at the hidden bottomless part of the world, there is the contradictive harmony. Experimental criticism conceives the world by barbarous eyes, as “rubbish scattered hear and there” hazardly; the “beautiful world” of Heracleitos can be revealed only by Logos.
PLUTARCH: ABOUT PYTHIA 397 . . . 404 D 92. σίβυλλα μαινομένῳ στόματι ἀγέλαστα καὶ ἀκαλλώπιστα καὶ ἀμύριστα φθεγγομένη χιλίων ἐτῶν ἐξικνεῖται τῇ φωνῇ διὰ τὸν θεόν. 93. ὁ ἄναξ, οὗ τὸ μαντεῖόν ἐστι τὸ ἐν δελφοῖς, οὔτε λέγει οὔτε κρύπτει ἀλλὰ σημαίνει. Sibylla inelegant, careless in furious and frenzy mouth, vocalizes the spells of the 69
Delfian God in a sacred madness; this speech being launched into the future for a thousand years, neither hides, nor reveals, but it means.
Comment: God is the Logos of nature, the Dionysian dithyramb; This is contradictive therefore it steps simultaneously on both sides of thinking: negation and affirmation. This speech “travels” for 2500 years; its destination is quanto-mechanics.
PLUTARCH, ΕΙ ΠΡΕΣΒΥΤΕΡῼ ΠΟΛΙΤΕΥΤΕΟΝ 787C. 97. κύνες γὰρ καταβαΰζουσιν ὧν ἂν μὴ γινώσκωσι. Dogs bark those, they do not know. (Lao-Tsu: the great truth causes laughter to the scholastic and sceptic; if not, maybe it is not a great truth).
KLEMENS, STROMATEIS II 29 17. οὐ γὰρ φρονέουσι τοιαῦτα πολλοί ὁκόσοι ἐγκυρεῦσιν, οὐδὲ μαθόντες γινώσκουσιν, ἑαυτοῖσι δὲ δοκέουσι. Real researchers are them who do not simply learn, but use their-one thinking.
―My work has the ambition to fill a gap on logic, which tractati about Heracleitos have left behind. The majority of them do not differ eatch-other. As Heracleitos said in fragment 17: “there are not many researchers to think the way i propose; no one really knows something learning from others; Someone to know must use his own mind”. “The studens of the studens reproduce the already known”.
CLEMENS, STROMATEIS II 24 19. ἀκοῦσαι οὐκ ἐπιστάμενοι οὐδ᾽εἰπεῖν. Scholars (learners), really know nothing and have nothing to say.
Knowledge and research is a dynamic process, a journey into the unknown. The unknown cannot be taught but discovered.
CLEMENS PROTREPTIKOS 34 15. εἰ μὴ γὰρ διονύσῳ πομπήν ἐποιοῦντο καὶ ὕμνεον ᾆσμα αἰδοίοισιν, ἀναιδέστατα εἴργαστ᾽ἄν· ὡυτὸς δὲ ἀίδης καὶ διόνυσος, ὅτεῳ μαίνονται καὶ ληναΐζουσιν. If this fallic ceremony was not for the sake of Dionysos, would be an impudent behaviour; Ades is Dionysos himself, for whom they are frenzy and proceed in their furious orgies.
Comment: Heracleitos points out the decay of the dionysian spirit at his days: the participants forgot that the worship of Dionysos-Bacchos, who is the spirit of life and fertilization of nature, is simultaneously the worship of Ades (death). Tragedy is the joyful-sorrow but they foolishly transformed it to a joyful-happiness.
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Dithyramb must point out the contradiction of the tragic event and to find the Metron (balance) of happiness and sorrow (Logos).
Could Heracleitos be alive nowadays? When Niels Bohr was named knight by the king of Denmark to be honoured for his achievements in science, the symbol he chose for his escutcheon was the Parmenidian and oriental one of the unity of the opposites.
contraria complementa sunt (opposits are complementary)
According to the scientists who accept that quanto-mecanics give a sufficient description of the quantic situation, the quantic objects do not have attributes before measurement, being in a state of potentiality; these objects are utilised during their measurement. Moreover these scientists claim that during measurement action, the instrument of measurment, the object to be measured and the observer, compose a quantic unity; they also claim, that all this process take place in an under-quantic world of potentiality relating to a superluminal speed and indeterminate behaviour to the experimental process. Moreover, some scientists suspect the existence of some instantaneous inter-reactions. For this reason, determinists consider quanto-mecanics, for the time being, to be inadequate for the quantic objects description, believing that some hidden parameters are missing. Though Bohr was aware of the Einstein’s indication that quanto-mechanic theory accepts silently the existence of instantaneous inter-reactions, proposes the complementarity as a kind of evasion to the previous indication. If there is some instantaneous process in quantic world, this world should be of a contradictive nature and not opposing as complementarity indicates. Complementary and opposing ap proach to the research presuppose that deeply inside existence, oppostites should be really independed and the identity of the observed object to itself to be absolute and not conventional; in this case interreactions could be superluminal but not instantaneous. On the contrary, the contradictive approach at this level of potentiality, accepts the existence of some instantaneous inter-reactions and therefore opposites to inter-extend each-other, without leaving any margin of independence in between them or the existence of absolute identity. We also see that in this field of scientific antagonism, the so called anti-determinists make a good effort, to leave an open door for determinism to pass in the future. On the other hand, determinists overpass Einsteins objections, accepting under-quantic superluminal inter-reactions along with the hidden parameters, which are invisible because only quantic proceedings we can to see. There are also scientists extremely anti-determinists moving violently to mysticism; they believe that the limits of human
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logic terminate there, and science must accept its weakness to explain completely the quantic events and consequently the world. As for the traditional determinism let us see what Einstein, who places himself by the side of determinism, has declared in the interview given to John S. Birek at 1930: “our course is predetermined by components we do not control. Especially by mysterious glands where nature distills its authentic essence of life, our inner secretions. . . I am determinist and I do not believe to free will...” The great scientist and humanist was Parmenidian, Aristotelian and Cartesian. That’s why his world should be closed, accomplished and predetermined. N. Bohr does not accept determinism; his choice though of the complementarity symbol, as the ultimate shelter of truth, indicates an unconscious Parmenidian conception; it is obvious that Bohr do not accept contradiction. Modern scientists have invest all their existence to rationalism and formal logic, being more aristotelian than Aristotle; they are not so revolutionary to reject their formal logic research structure and to accept another one. That’s why Heracleitos has something new to say: world is of a contradictive nature, motion is the essence and things are its attributes; Logos is the way world is and could be said, the principle of Identity is contradictive and self-overpassing, the principle of cause is amphi-coursial and the chain of ration infinitely dimensional. Time, space and motion, complete and vacant, great and small and evolution, get an other face which needs another logical approach: the Heracleitian Dialectics.
ZENO (490-430)
The limits of thinking are between Parmenidian rationalism and Heracleitian Dialectics. It is said that Zeno was friend, student and follower of Parmenides; that is the reason doxographers interpret his prepositions under the terms Parmenidian thought and logic; This way Zeno seems as a strange paradoxologist. Though if we see him as a dialectic thinker his paradoxical syndrome vanishes. Aristotle refers to him as father of dialectics, but it is possible this would be a negative characterisation, of assimilation to sophistry. In the present tractatus Zeno is considered as one of the great workers of dialectics, together with Anaximander and Heracleitos; particularly I consider him as the main representative of the Negative Dialectics. It is sure that all archaic physical philosophers were dialectic, but i distinguish those three, because they don’t make any burying to formal rationality logic against dialectics.
SIMPLICIOS PHYS, 140, 34 εἰ μὴ ἔχοι μέγεθος τὸ ὄν, οὐδ᾽ἃν εἴη, εἰ δ´ἔστιν ἀνάγκη ἕκαστον μέγεθός τι ἔχειν καὶ πάχος καὶ καὶ ἀπέχειν αὐτοῦ τὸ ἕτερον ἀπὸ τοῦ ἑτέρου· καὶ περὶ τοῦ προύχοντος ὁ αὐτὸς λόγος· καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνο ἕξει μέγεθος καὶ προέξει αὐτοῦ τι, ὅμοιον δὴ τοῦτο. ἄπαξ τε εἰπεῖν καὶ ἀεὶ λέγειν. οὐδὲν γὰρ αὐτοῦ τοιοῦτον ἔσχατον ἔσται. οὔτε ἕτερον προς ἕτερον οὐκ ἔσται. οὕτως εἰ πολλά ἐστιν, ἀνάγκη αὐτὰ μικρά τε εἶναι καὶ μεγάλα· μικρά μὲν ὥστε μὴ ἔχειν μέγεθος, μεγάλα δ’ὥστε ἄπειρα εἶναι.
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To exist something must have a size and a distance from an other; The same we could say for the space in between. I will say this once and for ever: it is impossible to exist an ultimate part of something or an ultimate part of the space between; moreover nothing can exist by itself and regardless to any other; so if there are many things, it is necessary these to be at the same time small and big; so small, not to have a size, so big to have infinite size.
Comment: Zeno, in this fragment, with the relativity of big and small, reveals a new unite which do not match with the Eon (Existing-One) of Parmenides. As we referred about it before, the Eon of Parmenides has opposing nature, accepting the inviolable ultimate elements, of Light and Darkness. These could be separated in ultimate parts, which cannot violate the limits in between them: «αὐτὰρ ἐπειδὴ πάντα φαὸς καὶ νὺξ ὀνόμασται καὶ κατὰ τὰς σφετέρας δυνάμεις ἐπὶ τοῖσι τε καὶ τοῖς, πᾶν πλέον ἐστίν ὁμοῦ φάεος καὶ νυκτός ἀφάντου ἴσων ἀμφοτέρων, ἐπεὶ οὐδετέρῳ μετά μηδἐν». (everything was composed from light and darkness and by their own forces and hard struggle took their form; whatever remains of them finally, is equal of light and darkness, because after them zero cannot exist). I accent: meaning of this fragment is that darkness and light to intermix, should be separated in inviolable, ultimate size elements(atoms). Xenophanes, Parmenide’s teacher, named these ultimate quantities of light “pyridia”, which today we call them photons; Parmenides over-more proposed the existence of ultimate elements of darkness (anti-photons). Along with them Empedocles, another Xenophane’s follower, according to Aristotle, also accepted that light travels from sun to earth as elementary luminal particles, but we don’t notice them because of their high speed: Ἐμπεδοκλῆς φησιν ἀφικνεῖσθαι πρότερον τὸ ἀπό τοῦ ἡλίου φῶς εἰς τὸ μεταξὺ πρὶν πρὸς τὴν ὄψιν ἢ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν». . . . . . .«Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἔλεγεν ἀπορρέον τὸ φῶς σῶμα ὃν ἐκ τοῦ φωτίζοντος σώματος, γίνεσθαι πρῶτον ἐν τῷ μεταξύ τόπῳ τῆς γῆς καὶ τοῦ ουρανοῦ, εἶτα ἀφικνεῖσθαι πρὸς ἠμᾶς, λανθάνει δὲ τὴν τοιαύτην αὐτοῦ κίνησιν διὰ τὴν ταχυτῆτα». On the contrary to them Zeno’s preposition clears out that he rejected any ultimate part for any material, (being this way against the atomic theory of Leukippos and Democritos). The unit of Zeno, being contradictive, coincides with the contradictive ultimate level of potentiality. That unit is simultaneously, nihil-infinite, motionless- instantaneous, being the ultimate level of our world, as the contradiction itself and potentiality, (all forms and no one simultaneously).
DIOGENES IV 72 τὸ κινούμενον οὔτ᾽ἐν ᾧ ἔστι τόπῳ κινεῖται οὔτ᾽ἐν ᾧ μὴ ἔστι. The moving one, neither moves at the position it is, nor at the position it is not.
Comment: Hegel claimed that the moving-one, does not move because one moment is to one position and another moment to another position, but moves because “it IsBeingNot” simultaneously in the same position. That is why motion, according to
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Hegel, is contradictive. It seems that the contradiction of motion occupied the mind of many thinkers since antiquinty; that’s why Zeno speaks about a moving one which doesn’t move! It seems that some “Hegel” of his days, approaching the meaning of motion as contradictive, accepted this as a contradiction of removal. Zeno puts the mater up on another base: motion for Zeno and Heracleitos, coincides to the evolving process and universal change, which is the genetic cause of beings. According to them, Motion is the Evolving Essence to whose all things and events are attributes. So the moving object, from position A, is an other object to position B, but a similar one. Motion according to them is not the result of the position change, but the change or the renovation of the moving element substance. An object, according to the Hercleitian Dialectics, being in a collapsing-composition process and destructing-construction, is similar to itself but always Other, so it does not deserve to move up to space, but to move inside itself.
SIMPLICIUS PHYS. 562, 3. εἰ ἔστιν τόπος, ἔν τινι ἔσται· πᾶν γὰρ ὄν ἔν τινι· τὸ δὲ ἔν τινι καὶ ἐν τόπῳ ἔσται ἄρα καὶ ὁ τόπος ἐν τόπῳ, καὶ τοῦτο ἐπ᾽ἄπειρον· οὐκ ἄρα ἔστιν ὁ τόπος. If space exists, it exists In somewhere; because everything exists somewhere; even this “somewhere” exists in a place, therefore the place is into place and all this infinitely. Therefore there is not an absolute Space.
Comment: In the previous chapters we presume, that Zeno accepts the Heracleitian opinion that time as duration cannot exist, because everything is in a state of a collapsing-composition being continuously Other. We also see that Zeno doubts our certainty for the space as expanse and as a supporting base, up on the removal process of objects occur. An object really moves only in the space contained inside itself, being also contradictive, because continuously changes. Ultimetly Space-Itself exists between two limits: the infinitely big and the infinitely small as it was presented to the fragment mentioned by Simplicios (physics 140, 34). There Time and Space as Itselves cannot exist but coincide to the contradiction nude, which compose a timespace continuity, where time and space can not be clearly separated. The values of time and space in that unity, are modified in relation of many factors and the point of view the specific situation is seen.
Interpreting the fragments of Simplicius (physics 140, 34) and Diogenes (IV 72) referring to Zeno, we realize that by dividing a specific size (of time or space), we have as a result a relativity of “One and Many”, “Small and Great”, “Continuity and Separation”, “Zero and Infinity”. This relativity we referred to, coincides with the contradictive ultimate level of the world, (the level of potentiality), proposed by Zeno. In the next fragment of Simplicius (physics 562, 3) referring to the Space, Zeno follows the opposite way: by adding more and more spaces to a place, he expands a specific and finite space to an infinite one. This way the specific and finite
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space ends to the relativity of infinity and zero simultaneous contradictive state. Heracleitos and Zeno consider, from a different point of view, that space and time is only Now. The meaning of «Now», being a contradictive, leads to the relation of a space-time continuous also: Yesterday doesn’t exist; Tomorrow doesn’t exist; only Now exists Always, but Always being Other. «Now» is the zero edge of the fading present. In this cituation, the smaller Time duration responds to a greater Space expanse and oppositely, composing a contadictive unity. Addition and deduction, multiplication and division, in the dialectics of these philosophers cannot be separated each-other, being always related: When something gets smaller, its contradictive component gets simultaneously bigger. Anything, by continuous division tending to zero, tends this way simultaneously to infinity. If we summerise all these we spoke about, having in mind the way these thinkers had conceived the evolution process of the world, we should conclude to that: world exists by two opposite ways, which do not refute, but integrate each-other: A. World always exists as specific objects in a genetic unity; everyone of these specific objects is inter-determined with all the other specific objects of the world, being its limits. This inter-determination is accomplished by a quantitive inter-action relating scale, beginning from the «interaction» of the specific object to itself, passing to the interaction with the near-by objects, gradually with objects of the farther invironment and at the end to with universe, which is the eternally Other-Self, that forces the specific one to be always other. So the specific object is itself an infinite event, since we cannot absolutely determine, were its limits really begin and were they end as a result of the world evolving process. This way presocratics believed that any specific-finite object is potentially infinite; that is “finite-infinite”. The specific one, characterized as small, has a continuous dialogue to its environment surrounding objects, by receiving something from all them and giving something to all the others; this way participates to the big, –the infinite. B. The world exists as the universality of all these inter-determinations, being simultaneously unique and different always. If we accept that everything changes continuously, the whole is always a immediate explosion of changing and simultaneous return. This infinite universality, exists always as Other, being the contradiction itself.
The world is terminated by two infinite ways: The first one is the great (mega), having all existing characters and simultaneously no character (being the potentiality and contradiction itself). The second one is the small (mikro), being the way Zeno has terminated: this is the contradictive unite, (the simultaneously instantaneous and immobile, zero and infinite); and as Anaximander claimed it is “the ruler and element of beings”. This way mega and micro compose a contradictive elementary unite in which mega dives into micro, being the cause of its existance, and micro expandes far away to mega (universe), being its cause also; so this unity composes-collapsing, expands-contracting.
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This universality, is an instant-infinite continuity of all these separate specific interdetermenations, being at the same time their integration to a new and higher specification of Motion as Essence (the Evolution as Essence). These thinkers consider motion to be the essence and objects to be its specific characteristics. Objects are a result of the motional contexture, that involves in the object and forcing this to be always different (another). So the event as an identity can not move because it composes-collapsing, being this way, always and continuously other. On the contrary Aristotle with one stroke of the pen reversed this concept about motion: Physics 200b31- 201α3. Τὸ γὰρ κινητικόν, κινητικόν τοῦ κινητοῦ καὶ το κινητόν, κινητόν ὑπὸ τοῦ κινητικοῦ. οὐκ ἔστι δὲ κίνησις παρὰ τὰ πράγματα· μεταβάλλει γὰρ ἀεὶ τὸ μεταβάλλον ἣ κατ᾽οὐσίαν ἣ κατὰ ποσὸν ἣ κατὰ ποιὸν ἣ κατὰ τόπον, κοινὸν δ᾽ἐπὶ οὐδὲν ἔστι λαβεῖν ὡς φαμέν, …ὥστ᾽ οὐδὲ μεταβολή οὐθενός ἔσται παρὰ τᾶ εἰρημένα, μηδενός γε παρὰ τα εἰρημένα. [The mobil one is moved by the moving and the moving moves the mobil, there is not any other kind of motion related to the objects. The modifier, modifies always the modified in essence, in form in quantity or in position; so no motion or modification can exist out of these we have spoken about]. Now let us see again motion the way Heracleitos did: All objects of the world are events like the river, but instead to be accomplished by the water flowing, they are by the “fire” elementary units passing inside the events; these elementary units departing from the event, travel to universe and returning from universe make the event to compose-collapshing, spread-gathering, depart-arriving, Being-notBeing at the same moment, (as Ploutarch informed us in –392 b–. That could become by the following way: According to Heracleitos the strait course is a result of rotation, like the turning lathe instrument does (as Hippolyte infomed us in–IV10–). “Pyridia”, as they named the photons or “quanta of energy”, passing by the position of an event, departreturning to and from universe accomplishing the event in the specific position. ”Pyridion” itself, being in a “state of rest”, exists because other smaller underelementary units passing by the position of the pyridion(photon), travel to universe, returning back to the position of the photon, accomplishing that. Photon looks like a dyne (whirlpool), which receives elements from universe launching simultaneously these elements to universe. These under-elements exist (composing-collapsing), the same way because other smaller elements do so and so on infinitely. Since the universe of Zeno, Anaximander and Heraclietos “Is–BeingNot”infinite, the departurereturning of the traveling elements, is neither a vanishing course to infinity, nor a perfect closed circular course, but an thick helicoid one. Thus every departure of these under-elementary units to universe and their arrival to their former position verify-falsifying the “pyridion” in a collapsing-composition form; this way the “pyridion”, cannot be accomplished exactly in the same position but a little farther, so it changes position moving also.. Therefore the removal of a “pyridion” (photonquantum of energy), is a result of an internal motional contexture, coinciding with its evolving process.
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The (quantic) fire-particles of Heracleitos, are followed by a wave of infinite complexity of flowing-antiflowing under-events, which also depart-arriving, compose-decomposing, by their own way of complexity, giving to us the idea of the dynamic field. Micro-particles, according to what we assume from the Heraclietian fragments are dynes (wirlpools) of emit-receiving quanta of energy (ἀεἰζωον πῦρ); they exist-moving or move-existing. A pyridion, in the state of rest, moves straightly and normally with the speed of light, (300.000 kilometres a second). The under-events, that compose-collapsing that pyridion (photon) at the same time, cover inconceivable greater distances to coincide with the course of the pyridion; consequently, the related continuation, of the under-events (under-level elements) which respond to the consequence of their collapsing-composition, expands to infinity. The quantum of energy “according to the opinion” of these thinkers, reacts with universe by unconstrained ways, so that it is not only universe that gives birth to “quantum”, but simultaneously, quantum returns its depth, playing a generative role, giving birth to the universe. Universe dives into the quantum, while quantum simultaneously expands to universe. The event sends messages verifying universe and universe also sends messages verifying the event in respond. These messages compose scales of departure-returning, beginning from the message of the event to itself, continuously there are messages responding to the environment near by, after to the farther one and finally to the universe itself, which is the opposite self. The message responding to event itself never departs because it is the one that responds at the same time to universe (to infinity) which never returns, being the “infinite and nihil”, the “instantaneous and immobile”, the potential ultimate level of the world, proposed by Zeno. (For further information about the proposed hear contradictive unit and the evolving process which could follow this preposition, the reader could be informed in my work “Logic, Action and Language” published by Dodoni at 1994 or in “Dialectic Materialist logic” in my site: thodoroskavasis.blogspot.com.
THE PARADOXES
Four Zeno’s paradoxes of motion arrived to us after a dangerous and long journey: A. An arrow to reach the target, must firstly reach the half distance from the bow to the target, but before it must reach the half of the half distance and in continue, this process infinitely; so the arrow should be stopped. B. An arrow to reach the target, must firstly reach the half distance from the bow to the target and after that, it must reach the half of the rest distance (the half of the half) infinitely. So the arrow never reaches the target. C. The arrow launches to hit a moving target. Whenever the arrow reaches the target, this has been always a little farther and this infinitely. So the arrow never hits the moving target. These three paradoxes seem to reveal the antinomies of the objective way motion,
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space and time are accepted by rationalism and mostly by formal logic. I believe, these have been proposed by as an argument against his friend Parmenides opinions. Moreover, he intended to point out time and space relativity, the identity principle uncertainty and the way motion should be accepted. To my opinion his paradoxical prepositions can only be explained by the Heracleitian logical approach: If beings exist in a collapsing-composition evolving process, the meaning of Time and Space, cannot be conceived the way Parmenidian objective rationality and common sense, as it has been formed till today by the Aristotelian and Newtonian objectivity. Zeno indicates that the meanings of Time and Space, Motion and Speed in the “field” of a contradictive world should be reconsidered. Time should neither be anymore the abstract meaning of duration (the duration as Idea) nor the duration of an object in space; Space should neither be the meaning of expanse itself (as Ideal) nor as the expanse of an object in space; the Zenonian and the Heracleitian preposition matches more to relativity and quantic view of existence. According to the collapsingcompositive process, time is the repetition frequency of the under-event elementary units, which pass from a position, accomplishing an event and space is the length of the under-events wave consist of. From this point of view this imaginary arrow, being in a state of collapsing-composition, is a quantic event consisting by a flowantiflow process of its sub-elementary events in a position, which always changes. Since this flow-antiflow relation is the frequency and the wave length relation of the arrow, which could be accepted as a time-space event, being in the state of a collaphing-composition, do not deserve to move as itself and to have a speed of its own because it is always Other (it has a different identity).
Now let’s see these paradoxes by an other paradoxical way, and the way really the arrow would imaginary accomplish the meeting of the target: a. According to the second paradox the arrow launches to a target in space. Due to the continuous division of the remaining course of the moving arrow infinitely in the middle, this accelerates-retarding and at the moment the distance of arrow from target tenses to zero, the length of the arrow tenses to infinity or oppositely. This exact moment the unity of space-time relation, becomes immobile and instantaneous; then the bow, the arrow and the target compose the unity where could occur the following situations: For the bow to touch the target with the arrow, either the arrow becomes of infinite size or the distance between arrow and target becomes of zero size, then the parts of the arrow become of infinite number and the length of every part of the arrow of zero size. In this case we either have infinite wave length and zero frequency or we have zero wave length and infinite frequency (the contradictive element of Zeno). During the arrow course, its collapsing-composition relation, is formed as more wave length and less frequency or oppositely, more frequency and less wave length. b. Suppose again that the arrow is launched tensing to a target in space. The “intention” of the arrow is to be in a straight and normal course to the target; the
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divisions of its course in the middle though, deviates imaginary the arrow from its course to the target due to space rotation. The arrow to catch up the deviations must accelerate, but though its course straightens up, always looses something, not being able to accomplish the absolute straightness. In order the arrow to accomplish straitness and hit the target, its speed should be instantaneous and at this very moment to be simultaneously immobile. (At the instantaneus motion, the moving one exists simultaneously at the position of the departure and the position of arrival. Overmore the moving one has been expanded to infinity being at the same time at the to zero point and has infinite and zero size). c. Now let’s see this matter differently: the arrow tends to the target, but due to the rotation of space, deviates from its course; this as a result of its course curvedness, will be forced the arrow to accomplish many cycles of departure-arrivals and after a along time, it will return at the position it departed. 1. If universe is a closed system, the arrow verifies it self from its opposite side, integrating its “cycle”. From this side of view, the target is its opposite self. 2. If universe is an open system, the arrow returns once at the position it departed but never exactly there, it verifies-falsifying the target, which is the opposite self of the arrow. So the arrow to verify exactly the target (itself), should make unconstrained departing-arrivals and in every arrival it touches the target differently, so the verification of the self-target, departing from the minimum one, passes by all the grades of verification-falsification, ending to the greatest one, which is the greatest verification and the smallest falsification. The arrow at the point of smallest verification has not departed yet, being just itself, while at the greatest verification the arrow verifies the target absolutely, but in an other position, (so it falsifies it absolutely). Both absolute verification and absolute falsification compose a unity tending to the infinity and zero relation. Finally, the arrow departs-returning, making a helicoid course of unconstrained “junctions” of verifying-falsifications and once it will meat the target; then the bow, the arrow and the target, will be a unity. The speed of the arrow will be instantaneous and immobile and the size of the arrow will be infinite and nihil at the same time. This is the motion of a specific object in evolution process, as Anaximander, Zeno and Heracleitos could imaginary inspire us; According to these thinkers, the changing position of objects is a result of wave and frequency of their collapsing-composition function. Their compactness is fluid, being in a continuous division of small parts which in the moment of the crash, are of zero and infinite size at the same time. This way, we come back to Zeno’s principal, about the ultimate unit which tensing to zero parts, becomes simultaneous of zero and infinite size. Only this way an object keeping its identity could really accomplish motion from an A to B point, otherelse the object moving from point A and arriving to point B having continuously an other identity, will never really accomplishes this course. D. It is said that the forth paradox of Zeno, has been brought to us in confusion. I will use the Aristotle’s evidence in Phys. Z 9 239 b 33:
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περί τῶν ἐν σταδίῳ κινουμένων ἐξ ἐναντίας ἴσων ὄγκων παρ᾽ἴσους, τῶν μὲν ἀπὸ τοῦ τέλους τοῦ σταδίου, τῶν δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ μέσου, ἴσῳ τάχει ἐν ᾧ συμβαίνειν, οἴεται, ἴσον εἶναι χρόνον τῷ διπλασίῳ τὸν ἥμισυν. “When objects of the same size move oppositely in a stadium, some departing from the end and directing to the starting point of the stadium and others departing from the middle of the stadium directing to the end, though they move with the same speed, (Zeno claims) that these moving oppositey objects cover double distance than the others” in the same time. ―The object directing from the finish to the starting point of the stadium, has to cover double distance than the object directing from the middle to the finish. If these two objects move the way of the “infinite in the middle division of their course”, they will reach to the end of their course, almost at the same time, having always a very small difference (tensing to zero). That will be fading as the bodies tend to reach in their destination. (The difference that continuously is fading but allways exists is a walking up on the the steps of the infinitesimal calculus). ―Now let’s change a little this mental experiment and put the one object to be directed from the start of the stadium to the finish and the other from the middle of the stadium to the finish, in the same line and having the same speed. Following again the cutting in the middle of the course process, the objects reach to their destination almost together (having a small fading difference tensing to zero, as the objects approach to their destination); though they have the same speed, the second has covered all the distance inbetween them, pushing the first one to the finish. ―Let’s see now the motion of one -A to B- object, measuring its course from the beginning A of its size and simultaneously measuring its course from its end B: Following the same ”cutting in the middle” process of motion and measuring the distance of the object from point A to the finish and at the same time from point B to the finish, the more the body reaches its destination, the smaller its length becomes. The –A to B– distance of the object, gets smaller because the points A and B tense to reach to the finish together (for the reason we have pointed previously). This paradox has been proposed by the contemporary science differently: Lorenz proofed mathematically that the moving object modifies its length toward its moving direction; something which relativity theory has stepped on to be constructed. ―Let’s summerize again all these proceedings together: The arrow according to the first paradox “intends” to depart for the target but cannot do so, returning back at the same time; so, it rotates around it-self. According to the second paradox the arrow departs, but due to the space rotation, its course deviates being cut in small pieces; so its straight course has been curve. And according to the last paradox, its length gets smaller to the direction and during its motion. So we have a moving straightly and normally object, whose course is curve, it has a spin and its length shortens toward its motion direction; it accelerates-retarding and at the very moment of crashing to its target, it is zero and infinite, instantaneous and immobile. [The “fiction” i proposeabout this last paradox, is not arbitrary due to the different
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evidences in which we see sizes of bodies, spaces and directions, to be pointed out with sometimes no evident purpose; I get a rationally tactful aptitude to play with the size and the space using the spirit of Zeno]
THE TRAIN OF EINSTEIN AND ZENO
The train of Einstein is an imaginary train that moves up on a rail-way of many million miles; its speed is very near to the speed of light. The clocks of the stations and the watches of the passenger and his friend, waiting for him at the station, have been adjusted at the same time. When the train arrives, the watch of the passenger will be behind from the watch of his friend. The length of the moving train according to the people in the station, will be shorter than the length of the train according to the passengers; the doors of the train arriving to the station, according to the passengers, open simultaneously but according to the people in the station open with a retarding consequence each-other. Zeno would claim that relativity paradoxes happen because motion is really something else, from this we understand: that is, motion occurs inside the evolving object which by the collapsing-composition process is always similar to itself but of another identity and do not deserve to move and to have speed. Zeno would say that the paradoxa of relativity, would never exist if we would realise that neither this we call Speed really exists, nor this we call Time. At the mental experiment of the Einstein’s train objects, events and beings taking place in this train, are collapsingcompositions of different evolving procedures, which we crowed together illegally in the same mental place, though they belong elsewhere. We place quantic collapsingcomposition events in the objectivity and the formal rationality game, though they belongs in a contradictive-dialectic logical discipline. These events of collapsingcomposition being continuously different (other), do not possess an identity to have time-duration or space-expanse; the duration and expanse of these events could operate in a phenomenal frame of determinism, but when the situation is boundary, as in the speed of light, paradoxal events appear. A photon cannot have speed, because although it is similar to itself, cannot really keep its identity, being continuously another event. A system of light could be rationalised differently: Everything that takes place in the train mental experiment of Einstein, is not an object anymore but a luminalmotion-contexture-event (a quantic one). This exists in an other level of nature, being under the world of objectivity. There time is frequency and space is length of a wave functions. Everything in this world, is frequency of quantic wave function relations. We put the meaning of time duration with the meaning of frequency in the same mental and lingual game, thought they belong in another one. (If the reader pays attention to the way Heracleitos and Zeno perceive motion, he will agree that my previous preposition is not excessive).
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PROCLOS PLATO: “Parmenides” 127d, 694, 23 εἰ πολλὰ τὰ ὄντα τὸ αὐτὸ ὄν ὅμοιὸν ἐστι καὶ ἀνόμοιον If there is plethora of beings any being is similar and not similar to itself.
The mental content of this claim could be seen in Plato’s dialogue “Parmenides”: There is presented young Socrates to argue with Zeno about the content of this claim. Zeno challenges Parmenides to develop the concept and the mental dimensions this claim could take. Plato in this dialogue presents Parmenides to reveal the antinomies of formal rationalism, arguing even against his own opinion about the Ideas. As a Greek, he presents the legality of the opposite, as an antipode to his opinions, for an integrated approach to the art of thinking. This Platonic fictional dialogue turns even against the opinions of Parmenides himself, expressed in his poem “About Nature”; so these look to be rather objections of Zeno, against the Parmenidian aspects and friendly to the Heracleitian dialectics. The Parmenidian “not oscillating soul of the solid truth” of formal rationality, which we referred in the chapters about Parmenides, is opposite to the Heracleitian contradictive truth. Plato in that dialogue presents Parmenides to revoke his own aspects about thinking, passing to the opposite side. It could be possible, this Platonic dialogue, to be the starting point of the Hegelian logic. It’s possible the relation of the Hegelian logic to the Heracletian dialectics, to be rather accidental. All this argument came to us in fragments and it would be buried, if the european scholars would not rise it up again from its grave. Maybe, the arguments of modern philosophers, seem to be different than these in antiquity, but only the phraseology changes; finally they return to the same inquires. Modern thinking, has been based on the “previous” Parmenidian rationalism and the Aristotelian formal logic, looking for positive supports to go forward, without “if and maybes”, “Being and Not-Being”. This was not bad at all; we were accustomed to have specific and concrete results from scientific activity, while determinism was considered to be the science itself. In the area of micro and macro though, rationalism and determinism undergo and suffer; these cannot describe the quantic reality. Formal logic, the so necessary one, for measurements and the comparative process in this area, where identity of the objects to themselves suffers or abolish, cannot operate, because everything “Is itself, Being simultaneously Other”, “objects are and not similar to them selves at the same time”. Heracleitos, as Sibylla, «χιλίων ἐτῶν ἐξικνεῖται τῇ φωνῇ», launches his voice to one thousand years future. There passed 2500 years, but his voice has not reached its destination. Nowadays “we neither know to listen nor to speak” and “everyone has been turned to his own world”, despising Logos of Heracleitos; the Heracleitian Dialectic Logic.
LOGOS
Thought we have referred adequately to the meaning of Logos, we should see thisagain because it is very loaded: Essence, according to Parmenides, being innate to
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thinking and logic is physically recorded in every being. Thus Parmenides and Heracleitos agree that universal unity coincides to Logos and therefore Logos is simultaneously essence, meaning and speech. though they typically agree to that, they differ in the way of accepting these three meanings. According to Parmenides, logic and speech is recorded to the human being, so that gives to the human the ability by Thinking and Logic, to know, to have intuition, imagination and make valid meditations. That is the reason everything could be perceived and be described by speech. This also is the reason, human could commune with the whole, the Ἐόν (the really and eternally existing one) which is finite and not evolving. So according to Parmenides, though we see the world changing, deeply inside is stable. He considers that the evolving and contradictive world we see, is phenomenal therefore to think correctly, and to be able by thinking to reach the truth, we must rinse away from logic any contractual element. We should use in thinking, only whatever Exists and every contradictive meaning, because as contradictive (Being-NotBeing) contains the not existing, should be rejected. Thus the Parmenidian rationalism is opposing, permits a dialogue of elements which do not violate their limits, accepting the objectivity and the existence of ultimate immortal and unchangeable elements. On the contrary Heracleitos accepts that evolution is the Essence itself and Logic should be the contradictive Dialectics, thus speech should coincide with Logos. Logos for Heracleitos firstly is the contradictive speech coinciding to the contradictive logic and to the contradictive evolving Nature. Thus Logos is itself simultaneously Essence, Speech and Logic. Xenophanes claimed that everything in its very depth is incomprehensible; that is to say, world consists by a plethora of inconceivable elements, which are ἄρρητα (invocable); these are the “things themselves”, the ultimate identities and finally the Ideas. Xenophanes and Parmenides, accept the world that is spherical and perfectly causal (out of hazard). On the contrary Heracleitos do not accept the existence of the ἄρρητα; whatever exists, according to him is Essence -Logos- Dialectics, expressed as an orderly contradictive speech. Everything real, should find a way to be and be said contradictively (as Logos). The acceptance of Many unchangeable and ultimate elements or Ideas, rise continuously unanswered inquires and antinomies. The eternal principles language cannot say the world as it is. That’s why Heracleitos pointed out that he said everything as they are. The problem of what language is the most suitable to say the world as it is, occupied intensely the philosophical and scientific cycles from antiquity till today, as ideologic and philosophic movements, from Kant to Hegel and to Marx, form Hume to Russell, to Wittgenstein, to Carnap etc. This discussion began from Heracleitos and Parmenides and it seems that will continue, as long as determinism will be demolished by quanto-mechanics, which looks out for a new logico-linguistic syntax to speak the quantic reality. My opinion is that mathematics have not been discovered for practical but for ontologico-philosophical reasons. Human beings felt the necessity to find divine
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languages and pronounce the divine speech; languages which are the world itself. The inquiry “which is the language of truth” and the value of logic and experience; modern philosophy presents this inquiry as new but it is the most primordial one. The conscious logico-mathematic rational language, was organiged up on the presupposition of the many principles existence (πολυµάθεια) and the conscious rational logic of Xenophanes and Parmenides. This language to be spoken should is based on a series of inviolable terms, which have not enough underground logical covering. The effort of positivists to create a language, which would rejects metaphysics from meditation, being based on determinism and experience, cannot avoid but to walk around the steps of Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Parmenides, so it cannot really reject the basic ontological principles of metaphysics up-on this logic steps. These will always have a small lack of reliability, when the shadow of very small, very big and infinity falls up on them. Their basic necessity is to occur in closed systems, thus in a finite universe, something all rationalists after centuries of use have forget about. They accept evolution but abolish it unconsciously, accepting determinism. The Heracleitian Logos do not need to answer to that kind of inquires, but only to say how this language possibly exists. Dialectics is the dithyrambic language and appears as the contradictive concernment of science. Pythagorian world, according to Heracleitos, is the one of «many eternal ultimate elements», while his own is the world of the one evolving process, as really nature exists; Parmenides is placed in between; he wants the world of unity, accepting the logic of pletitude; he confuses us. According to Parmenides –Ἐόν–, is the really Existing-One, the Absolutely Being, so “Not-Being” by definition cannot exist. According to him logic to be able to lead to truth, has the duty to step only upon the Being, the existing; so the contradictive logic of |Being-NotBeing|, deals with the world of the mortality, the phenomenal one. Zeno probably raised his objections to his teacher’s aspects, since Zeno’s “existing-one” was not at all “ἀτρεμές” (notoscillated), but not-finite and contradictive. The reference of Plato to the Parmenidian aspects in his homonymous dialogue, rather matches to the opinions of Zeno; Plato would be awarded of that, but maybe Zeno, “the student” had convinced his teacher Parmenides for the opposite; When Parmenides wrote his poem “About Nature”, he was young, since Muse “called” him “κοῦρος” (young man).
We will never certainly know, what happened in the magic journey of the presocratic thought, because whatever remained to us is dust and fragments from destroyed and burned libraries. Cristians “saved” the world from the “Grecian blasphemy” of infidelity: «ἀπιστίῃ διαφυγγάνει μὴ γιγνώσκεσθαι»― “Unbelief and doubt dissuades from ignorance”. Faith generates fanaticism, determinism generates inflexible thinking and logic. Mysticist steps on faith and rational formality, climbing skilfully the lather of formal
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rationalism, accepting a series of principles, as any formal system of thinking does; when he reaches at the hight of his arrogance, throws the lather away and forgets about it, not needing it any more. The triptych of rationalism, mysticism and fanaticism, that is “the knowledge of the absolute truth”, opens the road to absolute-despotism, which is barbarity. ―Doubt generates research, dialectic logic and the democratic ethos of the equal participation of all civilians. Doubt, dialectics and democracy is the Civilisation and all together is under the spirit of tragedy.
Auxilliary works: This work departs from the “Genesis of Tragedy” by F. Nietzsche, the “Ascetics” of N. Kazantzakis and travels with basic guid “The Dionysos” by P. Lekatsas; in this travel basic travelling coach was: “The genesis of Ancient Greek Religion” and “The Ceremonial Activities in Ancient Greece” by Harrison; also “The archaic Greek Society and the Prehistoric Aegean” by G. Thomson. “Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes”, “Parmenides, Zeno, Melissos”. Plato’s “Parmenides”, Philological, Team of Kactos Publ. “Xenophanes” by Anna Kelesidou. Kactos Pub. “Heracletos” by A. Kyriazopoulos. Kactos Pub. “Heracletos” by J. Brun. Translated by. S. Diamandi and P. Greka, Plethron Pub. “Heracletos” by Kirk Translated. by N Giannoudakis. Polytypo Pub. “Heracletos” by N. Spyropoulos. Greecian Publishing Company S.N. “Heracletos” and “Parmenides” by E. Roussos Stigmi Pub. “The Endless of Time” –A work on Aristotelian time by G, Javaras. “Prolegomena for every future metaphysic which could be appeared as science” by E,, Kant Trans. by G. Javaras, Dodoni Pub. “The Science of Logic” by Hegel, Trans. by G. Javaras Dodoni Pub.“Plato, Plotin, Origenes” by I. Theodorakopoulos. “The Dynamic of the Minimum” by E. Bitsakis Zacharopoulos Pub. “What Is The Relativity Theory” by L.Ladaou and Y.Poumer. Trans. by N.Kiaos and A.Margaritis. “The Science of Physics and Kosmotheory” by Rob. Haveman Trans. by S. Kabouridis Pella Pub. “Paradigms Lost” by John Casti Morrow Pub. The pictures are from: “Cycladic Civilization – Naxos at the third millenioum b.C.” Museum of the Cycladic Art of N. Goulandris Fountation. “Die Griechischien Vasen” by Erica Simon, Hirmer Verlag Mun. “Greek Painting” by Martin Roberson, Skira Rizzoni N.York. “Paestum”. Marco Napoli, Instituto Georafico De Agostini Novara. “Greek Sculpture” Andrew Stewart, Yale University Press, New Haven.
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THEODORE KAVASIS
DIALECTICS ―LOGIC, ACTION AND LANGUAGE― ―MONADOLOGY OF CONTRADICTIVE GEOMETRY AND UNIVERSAL BIOCARTOGRAPHY
[This work is an effort of an imaginary integration the presocratic dialectics, based on Onto-Logical prepositions of Anaximander, Heracleitos and Zenο, made two and a half thousand years ago; this arrived nowadays, asking for mathematic description, to be a contemporary formal Dialectic Logic instrument].
*In order to distinguish the meaning of contradiction, from the meanings of inconsistency and inconsequence that follows the word contradictory, i use the word contradictive. This way, i give to the word “contradiction” the evolutionary dimension i have mentioned).
PREFACE This work is an effort to answer to the following inquiries: 1. How the contradictive elementary unite, the contradictive identity and the contradictive rationalism, are possible. 2. How universe, as an open system, is possible. 3. How motion and change as real and not phenomenal, are possible. 4. How universal unity of great and small, (mega and micro), is possible. 5. How intellect, intuition, conscience and aesthetics are possible. 6. How universe, as an intercommunication “plot”, where every-thιng in it, would be and behave as a message, is possible. 7. How this communication plot could be an ontological language (the Contradictive Bio-geometry) is possible.
This work is based on the following fundamental fragments of Heracletian, Zenonian and Anaximadrian Dialectico. HERACLETOS ―in the same river, we enter and not enter; we are and we are not. ―the changing one, agrees to itself. ―we do not touch the same material twice, because everything is changing rapidly and violently, separates-getting united, composes-collapsing (at the same time). ―Straight course motion is a result of helicoid rotation. ZENO ― Something to exist, must have a size and a distance from another being; the same must happen to the margin in between them; this must always have an adequate size. I will say this once and forever. Neither an ultimate part of an elementary unite is possible to exist, nor an elementary unit being alone (by itself) is possible to exist. So if many elements exist, it is necessary, these to be small and big simultaneously,
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so small having no size, so big having infinite size, (or to be of infinite number). ―The moving one, moves neither in space it exists, nor in space doesn’t exist.
The majority of these great philosophers fragments, are fundamental for Dialectic Logic; I remind only these fragments though, just to show the intellectual departure of the following prepositions. I believe the following tractates is consequent to their spirit and i could claim that it is a final integration of their dialectic thinking. I propose a logical way, how their opinions about motion and essence of the world is possible. That is to say: A. That the moving one, moves neither in position it is, nor in position it is not, because it doesn’t move upon a space, but inside itself, being this way the evolution cause of itself (its own evolving essence). B. This means, the elementary units which compose an event, depart-returning to universe and from universe, passing this way again by the position they departed, trying to verify this event in its position. C. Because universe is infinite and open, the circulation of these elementary units (to and from universe) is a thick helicoid. This way, they do not verify absolutely the position, but they verify-denying it; so these elements by this composing-collapsing process, verify this event a little further from its formal position, forcing this to move rectilinearly. The same happens in to these elementary units and so on infinitely. The intellectual approach to this work is difficult, because it is based on the Heracleitian and Zenonian contradictive logic and not up on the classic Aristotelian one or the Newtonian rational objectivity, that we have been taught during our life and school. The Logic upon this work is based, would be named “contradictive rationality”, because the elements it consists, are self-overpassing.
FIRST PART LOGIC ACTION AND LANGUAGE
A. I observe the card-playing game· its basic terms are four players and fifty cards. Poker, however has ten rules, which distinguishes this game from the card-playing in general. Yet this game cannot be a specific event. Only poker we are playing now is a specific event. However the terms of four players, ten rules and fifty cards, have necessarily as a final result, a predetermined number of specific games, let’s say two hundred thousand. These games regardless of their number, since their terms have been set, are there waiting to be played. These games represent the prototypes, which will be repeated as the card-playing game proceeds. If the card-playing game in general could be an abstract idea, oppositely everyone of these as «specific» games, should be terminated as synthetic prototypes of the end. So this way, a specific event could respond to some kind of universallia, existing there from the beginning, before their accomplishment by the specific game, during the card-playing process. Only this way a world of Ideas could exist, waiting for its realisation before its beginning.
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B.«The aim of this book is to draw a limit to thought or rather not to thought but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of this limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). This limit can only be drown in language and what lies on the other side of this limit will be non-sense». (From the prologue of Tractatus Logico-Philosoficus by Wittgenstein).
Wittgenstein in “Tractatus”, accepts the logical game of the absolute terms, having inviolable limits of the end, which are the limits drown in language. These terms are the ontological outline of world, proposed in the beginning of “Tractatus”. These ontological terms, being absolute, permit the development of a lingual event, shaping a state of the accomplished synthetic prototypes of the end, which are the limits drown in language. These limits, regardless of their number, should be the predetermined lingual prototype games; since the moment the ontological outline of the world was set and projected in the language, waiting to be said and henceforth they will have being repeated forever. This way language as a general game, will be accomplished and pre-terminated and that’s why, its logic is comprised in language, «so whatever can be said at all, can be said clearly and for what we cannot talk about, we must be silent», and whatever can’t be thought, can’t be spoken. Wittgenstein in his later “Philosophical Researches”, proposes a lack of limit clearness for lingual games, being the cause of a general game «plot». This opinion about meanings with «clouded» ends, where one of them is the general game, rather turns against the lingual games of absolute terms, as understood in «Tractatus» and its idealistic οntological teleology, that follows logically the absolute terms for world existence. Game is not only the one whose terms are formed at the beginning of its operation, but also the one whose terms are forming during its operation. Nevertheless, since the terms of the game have been set, simultaneously the inviolate limits of its logic have been also set. The admission of game terms, is indeed the basis upon its logic has been founded, but the limits of its lingual system also. The game also could modifies according to demands of the participants psychological state. ― Children play with one or two balls, suddenly decide to put one more ball in the game, they quarrel, fight, get friends again, abandon the balls, playing with stones and do a cycle of activity whose lingual system seems inconsistent to us. They play until will be exhausted and detonated, determining their game according to their momentary variable psychological disposition. This way advancing more, there is a “clouded ending meaning” which goes out of this we have determined as a game and derives its logic from elsewhere. (A game whose terms modify according to the momentary disposition of the participants, conceptually is particular in relation to the game as general, but ontologically is more general, going out of the game as a meaning itself, because it contains the game as part of the psychological process of the players).
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C. Back again to the poker game: For the specific event to avoid the prototype syndrome and to be an unrepeatable event (unique), the terms of the game must be expanded. That is, to comprise in the poker game, gradually the terms of all the other card-playing games. Though the terms of this new game will have to collide each other, this could be played if the participants want to. It will depend on the particular player preference of the rules to be used and how to be used, if these counteract each other or, which of these contracting rules, will use for his own benefit. This game, thought seems to have clouded and of undetermined limits, and thought its limits have been broader, it is also predetermined. These limits will be ‘the synthetic prototypes of the end’ of the game. Although these prototypes may have been increased by adding more possibilities of choice in the players activities, the game will continue to be predetermined, as soon as the terms of the games are used as positive and the limits of fifty cards and four players exist. To overpass these limits, let’s add dices, balls and so on, abolishing the term of the four players, since players will come and go, (not being a specific number), in a game which never ends. This way we follow reversely the process of the game whose terms modify or set during its operation, abolishing its terms not absolutely, but adding to each one a series of terms, which depart-being modified from itself and gradually containing all the possible similar and modifying terms, arrive to its opposite one. This way, each term, containing all choices, even its opposite one, will be self-over-passing, depending on the players choice how to use every term for their benefit. The gathering of “points” in this game, will be undetermined and cloudy, so finally everyone who feels powerful enough, will exercise violence, against them he decides that they are his adversaries at the time, being the ruler of the games process· and that seems be like, the winner of this game. (Like the game of life, which is the game as general). The logic of this game goes out of its own meaning of limits and it has been included to an other lingual system. This game is the inner need of the child, the adult and the animal to act when it has not the opportunity to do so in life, while its hereditary mechanism demands so. This inner need must emanate by the dynamics of the hereditary mechanisms, human and animal consists. These might be a codified record of world evolution process, as it’s contained in every being. So a research could evade the limits of one and concrete lingual system, passing to other lingual systems, as from the logic of human speech to rational lingual researches of ontology and epistemology. D. The ontological basis of previous preposition. If human is a result of the world evolution process, all moments of this process are «recorded» in human structure, multi-dimensionally. Human form and structure, are faces of this recording, being a language. Human cerebrum is a codified record of experience and knowledge of world evolution process, in every person. These recordings are summarised in the code of life, -the DNA-, and they are an evolving language, which has not been read yet.
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The ontology of this preposition might be accepted by two logical ways: 1. The antithetic logic way: Where this language consists of ultimate elements being opposite and counteracting each other. These ultimate elements, acting as absolute terms, compose a logico-lingual system, that presupposes operating, henceforth a moment, the repetition series of synthetic prototypes of the end forever. Since the terms of the antithetic system are set (let’s say the birth moment of an event), all its evolution process, is teleological and predetermined. That’s why, the absolute terms presume a concrete number of these “synthetic prototypes of the end”, existing there since the beginning and waiting to be finally realized. This is a closed world of predetermined operation limits, which presupposes a world of Ideas, existing before, during and after this evolving process. The argument about Ideas existing before or after the objects is meaningless. A meaning matter might be, if world is an open or a closed system and what a thinker would be satisfied to choose for his gnostic ethos and logical system. [In Antithetic Logic, the dialogue of contracting elements, don’t violate their limits, “leaving space” for independence and absolute objectivity. (That is, anything could happen to an element without being necessary to occur something to others). On the contrary, in Contradictive Logic, the dialogue of contracting elements overpasses their limits violating their possible essential substance, not leaving any space for real independence].
2. The contradictive logic way: There the logic of the language is a whole in a continuous evolving process. This is possible, when language is not a result of an ultimate-unchangeable-elementary unite system. This way language logic system consists of contradictive elementary units. Any contradictive element contains the whole by its own unique way, which is the evolution recording (cod) of the world, until the formation of this contradictive element (containing even all evolutionary moments of the world by a daedalian and paracentral way). The ontological acceptance for this lingual gnostic ethos, presupposes the world to be one language and one recording code as a continuous evolving event. This way, human hereditary knowledge and action mechanism has contradictive nature presupposing an open world, whose contradictive elements contain the characteristic of singularity and the possibility of unrepeated. (This preposition will be justified in the second part of this work where the contradictive elementary unite will prescribed).
Experience entering the human hereditary knowledge mechanism, on one hand, stimulates (urges), waking up this mechanism and reminds «ancient roads» disappeared deeply in ancestors, animal and nature; on the other hand, it reforms that uncovered «ancient road» enriching it. This way the de-codification of the gnostic mechanism, by the entering of experience, follows a re-codification or a conscious codification, that reforms cerebrum itself. This de-codification and re-codification process is Conscience.
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According to this ontologic opinion, knowledge is possible because by the means of experience, human de-codifies the world process recorded in his own hereditary knowledge mechanism. All structures of human knowledge mechanism are recodified again and again in an endless process in human cerebrum. This process is a language and a logic. From this point of view, universe as a result of itself and not separated in parts which do not communicate each other, having their own language and logic. This way, universe might exist as a continuous unique self-codified recording (language), being more dynamic and more economic. Although the new codified recording differs from the old one, it could be expressed by the old one, antieconomically, paracentral and daedalic, so the new codified recording should be a continuation of the old one. This way an ontological recording of universal evolution process is possible to exist, not being nonsense and incoherent, but logical and unique in its every moment. This idiomatic, unique, evolution process language, is recorded in our hereditary knowledge mechanism (or better this is the mechanism itself), waiting to be read. In this ontological preposition, rises the inquiry: «how an event which happened to another solar system, would be recorded in human knowledge mechanism, so it could be once understood»? According to the ontological preposition of contradictive elementary unite, we have already describe: “each one of these units contains the whole by its different way; because world is a unique-self-reforming process and not a sum of absolutely independent parts, which parts don’t communicate each other. The micro (small), being always a contradictive elementary unit, is a potential contradictive face of the whole; So, any face of that contains, by a spermatic and dynamic way the whole. (This we shall discuss in second part of this work, but we should have an approximate idea about this discussion).
[The contradictive self-reformation of a Being, in order not to have teleological characteristics, cannot agree to a world separated in parts (objects, things), which do not communicate each other (being absolutely terminated); these should be separated in occasional and conventional contradictive parts. An event, in this occasion a part, in order not to have concrete limits, must expand away to the whole; That is, every elementary unit composing passing in an event (object, part), might depart-returning to the universe, terminating by its motion the event in the position of the element departure. This can’t be absolutely accomplished, due to the polymorphic complexity of the departure-returning process of the contradictive units and the contradictive presumption that universe is infinite; because it is considered to be infinite, the course of these elementary contradictive units is not a perfect cycle but an thick helicoid motion. That’s why the elementary unit can’t verify absolutely itself in the departure position but verifies-denying itself. This departing-returning process composes a scale of denying-verification positions, which beginning from more denial and less verification and passing all the possible positions of verification-denial, arrives to the
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position of more verification and less denial. In the positions of absolute denial and zero verification or the opposite the element does not exist any more being another identity. Also the moving element «trying» to verify absolutely itself, enters to a continuous helicoid departure-returning process, recording this way the evolving process of the whole, as it was formed during its course. This way a plot of departurereturning elements process is created, not having concrete separation limits. Every part has its own face (identity) only because it is visible by a different view. Only this way an event could have clouded limits, being a universal emitting-reception confluence message; this is the result of the unlimited departure-returning cycles, of a self denial-verification process. Due to its departure-returning message process, the element is a continuously changing reality that “subconsciously” carries all changes being contributed during its course by the environment of universe it is related to. This event could be the Contradictive Elementary Unite]. If mentality is a result of the world evolution process and not a divine creation, then our language and logic is the sequence of language and logic of nature. This evolution process should not be phenomenal but a real one, so every moment of this process is unique, containing the characteristic of unrepeatable. From this point of view, all languages of science could be unified to the one of nature. This way the research of the human speech (language), could be in continuity with the research of the nature languages, which is science. Science as one language of many faces communicating each other, rather would be philosophy as Dialectics. This kind of natural and philosophic language, to be alive and evolving (being evolution as essence), not having a beginning or an end and its every moment to be unique, should have of self-overpassing terms, (contradictive). That is to consist of contradictive elementary units.
Explicative note: If human knowledge ability, exists as a codified hereditary lingual plot, there should exist a bottomless part of this hereditary knowledge mechanism, still being coded and existing subconsciously and the one being de-coded by the experimental process. The “de-coded knowledge mechanism part” is Conscience and Logic and the “bottomless part remaining codified”, is Aesthetics. When this knowledge mechanism has received its «awaking» stimulation from experimental world and has already form its conscience, it is possible to declare opinion and decide activity, even if the experimental data are not enough, stepping upon the unconscious (aesthetic) part of knowledge mechanism. These decisions could be justified because this bottomless unconscious recording is the world process as continuously written in our hereditary knowledge mechanism. Only this way all these “inexplicable” human capacities, as intuition, imagination, perception e.c.t, could be rationally justified without metaphysic cope.
E. If the world is an evolving-One, language of nature is overpassed by its own use, reflecting the overpass of the mental perception by its actual realization.
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Product of the «Tractatus Logico-philosophicus» ontological preposition, could be opinions claiming that a logico-ingual syntax system, could reject automatically metaphysics from mental conception. Never the less, since the proposed terms of this lingual syntax are absolute (the principals of identity and not contradiction are accepted by the classic rational formality), “the synthetic prototypes of the end” are presupposed. These prototypes regardless of their number, are predetermined, being procrustean for reality and for alive world. It would be different, if the logics-lingual syntax was not absolute; then the lingual game would coincide with the “unique and general lingual game”, whose terms are self-overpassing. Then, syntax itself, would loose its value as an infallible verification instrument and it would be a general research «road-guide», ending to a self-overpassing terms contradictive language (the dialectics of nature). Although my preposition doubts language to be the limit of logic and regardless if logic cannot exist without language, everything i propose, find their way to be spoken and be recorded in language. Since we perceive a concept, by speaking and writing, this is stabilised there; at the same time, action gradually pushes concept away from the lingual form it has been stabilised. This way we must correct the name of an event and a practice or by the same words to mean different things. Every meaning, entering in action field, has its way to be said, but the continuous changes of circumstances, give the meaning variable dimensions. There are, some times, differences we feel but cannot tell them; this is not a paradox but an everyday practice. Thinking of something, we feel that the process or the event we have named this way, entering in action field and getting evolving face, must be “followed after”, because it will never be terminated absolutely, if this is alive and participates in living process, (though a great number of meanings, changing very slowly, cannot appear their evolving face). In this case language may be a slow evolving process, which gradually follows the dialectic relation of logic and action. For example: Scientists after a research process and the lingual preposition of their result, cause the operation of a related activity to that phenomenon; they nearly never achieve their purposes, but they insist in similar experiments and will possibly achieve similar results to their lingual preposition. Though they don’t reach exactly to the presupposed results and regardless they have not approached absolutely this phenomenon, interpret the recording results in language, do lingual termination of the event as a name, preposition and acting behaviour. Almost this way is done with all events of life, until a new approach to the phenomenon, thinking or practice, gives a more integrated interpretation and this is terminated again. That is to say, phenomena being logically and lingually terminated, during historic process of humanity, are searched again and re-terminated, when world is visible from another point of view and new scientific theories open new roads for the comprehension of the world. Then events and activities, related to the new aspects of world, life, social relations et.c, get a different face. –Let’s think about Newtonian view of the world, electricity, electromagnetic theory, relativity theory, etc. All these theories, discoveries and their following applications, form the social situation differently. 93
I sweep: This process, in the old times, was the broom rubbish gathering, possibly from an earthly-floor. Nowadays we connect the vacuum cleaner to electricity, on sparkling floors and multi-colored carpets. Why this is buzzing? I don’t care. It sucks invisible dust from a shining floor. What is the relation of the old way cleaning with the new one? Their relation is human intention to form the space according to his needs. (Cleaning in a blacksmith shop is different to the microchip factory one). These are two different lingual games, having the same name: “Clearness”. This name is common for both games, because their logic deriving outside of their limit activities, comes from an other general lingual game. Though these derive from human intention to form space according to its needs, the practical application of both games is different. (I compare poker game and basket. Though they have nothing in common, these games obey to the human need to put in operation his hereditary mechanism of action and knowledge, while life don’t give the opportunity to do so). Horse carriage changes to automobile, hand-moving wheel, becomes motor, smoke-signals, telephone and electromagnetic devises; slaves become workers; work, study, research, peace, war, change face, changing life and language. Events, activities and practices are «spoken» differently or we speak the same way different lingual games, which substituted in action, games we used to name so. Along with these changes, human intellect relating to action evolves, pulling continuously the carpet up on language steps on, obliging language to change content. So the moving and evolving language, is obliged to have «clouded» limits; On the contrary to Wittgenstein’s technique of «family similarities», where lingual games considered to be static mosaics, where similarities and differences of their pebbles are regarded and compared, classified in cloudy limit notion families; this may be a correct observation, but considered mono-dimensionally and anthropocentrically. These neither give an answer to the cause of cloudiness, nor concern about it. Human being, creator and creation of language, trying to make himself comfortable in the world evolution process and to communicate, expressed in language his continuous relation of logic, experience and action. Gradually, his intellect, experimental quality, lingual expressions and words, which were overpassed by action, created the necessity of language transformation. This is necessary not for a better thinking, (which is supposed to be true, if logic is accepted to exist only in between the limits of language), but to express precisely this we think and mean for better communication. That is, we don’t terminate logic in language limits, but language in logic and action relation dialectic limits. That’s why the “essence” of language exists to its own behaviour in any particular lingual game, so that language may continuously be overpassed by its own use. That we call behaviour in this occasion, is the trace of the continuous dialectic relation course of logic and action in metaphysics; because this way, the evolving process is stabilised in speech. From this point of view, lingual analysis is the research and recording of human thinking in metaphysics. Realises metaphysically “how metaphysic is language”, being incapable to guide human intellect and action to the unknown. This could lead human
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action to follow steps and traces of the past, but when this analysis concerns the New, becomes a bad adviser. The process of lingual analysis may be significant, but its characterisation as the main scientific representative of philosophy is an exaggeration. It is obvious, that logic and language relation, is not enough to express the contemporary scientific process (as it happens in quanto-mechanics). This language will not solve the lack of scientific mutual comprehension and the failing of commonly accepted description in quantum events. The relation of language, action and logic, must be reformed, so scientists to agree in logical interpretation of these events and form a related lingual game to express the New. It is possible that in quantum level, these difficulties will never be solved, if logic, as determinism, will not be overpassed by dialectics.
F. A futurological hypothesis
When the de-codification process of human knowledge mechanism is completely integrated, (that is human self-conscience or dialectic relation process of mentality and action in language, -in metaphysics), human will not need any more an outside communication; by his self-knowledge integration, will have complete all the knowledge about the world, recorded in his hereditary knowledge mechanism. Then he will neither research nature by examining any kind of “fossils”, nor will be in the shadow of present. He will be the present itself, being the very edge of evolution. Then language will coincide with the very general lingual game, being itself the evolution process. That is the reason when someone wants to be completely dialectic, having in mind the vast fluidity of the world and not being able to speak it, remains silent or says a few self-overpassing meanings as Heracletos did. There are very few to be said without metaphysic cop. The only language without metaphysics is action itself. World moving ahead, returns simultaneously back: Once lack of laws was barbarity, another time it will be civilisation, once lack of property was barbarity and oppression, another time it will be civilisation and social liberation. Once lack of language was low animalism existence, in future will be proof of high civilisation and human transcendence to higher quality.
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SECOND PART
MONADOLOGY OF CONTRADICTIVE GEOMETRY
AND UNIVERSAL BIOCHARTOGRAPHY
G.1. World to evolve really and its every moment not to be repeated, should be an open system, whose terms should be self-overpassing (being of contradictive nature). So a language to express reality, should consist of contradictive elements. To make comprehensible how an element would be a contradictive one, it is necessary to bring in mind the Euclidian Geometry elements. These are just opposite to the contradictive elements, not being only just elements of a geometry, but from a philosophical point of view, a cosmological logico-lingual system. In Euclidian Geometry straight line, point and space, are ideal meanings, being separated each other and motionless in their “state of rest”. Space is three-dimensional, whose all directions expand to infinity. This is considered to be separated from and containing all others, but its existence do not depend on these. This could exist and be conceivable without all the others it contains, being finally ideal. Straight line expands to infinity never meeting itself, and point is ideal having no dimensions. Regardless something happens to any one of them, nothing is necessary to happen to the others. On the contrary, if we accept the existence of a «Contradictive Geometry», this would have as basic characteristic the innate mobility and correlation of the elements it consists: Space, time, straight line and point, altogether compose a unique event in a continuous motion, inter-action and inter-formation, being everyone in a specific condition because the rest of all the others demand to.
2. Let’s see this preposition: A point in the state of rest, is considered, moving rectilinearly and normally in space; because of that, the accomplishment of straight line is not the ideal event, we imagine and sketch it on a flat paper. Straight line in this case, is a straight and normal course of moving point in space, and space to be real (not ideal), has as a state of rest, continuous rotation. Space, for any point moving rectilinearly and normally, is an unconstrained series of similar points, composing a unity. These points differ each-other in their direction and departure spot, the specific moment all these considered to depart simultaneously and composing the specific space. In other words, the moving rectilinearly and normally point, should do so in a space consisting by other similar points; that’s why “the state of rest” of the space in relation to the moving-One rectilinearly and normally point, is a rotation. So it is necessary for the moving-One, to accomplish gradually its course upon the crossing positions of the Other similar moving points, the space consists of. These crossing positions of the One’s course upon the ideatic courses of the Many Others, is the way the straight and normal course of the One is recorded upon the rotating space. The rotating space falsifies the straight course of the One because it is accomplished on the Many-Others course-«plot» in a curved form. (The moving-One «intends» to accomplish straight and normal motion, but the space rotation transforms its course to curved, during its accomplishing process).
3. To have a better perception of space, point and straight-motion relation process, let’s make a mental experiment: Suppose the rectilinearly and normally moving point, «intends» to accomplish an absolute straight course. This moving point to catch up space rotation, should accelerate so its course to be «straighten up»; so this to be accomplished, the moving-One should cover instantaneously the supposed distance A―B,. Every «rectilinear» course of a point moving instantaneously, looses its course sense, because being instantaneous, it expands to all universe and has return back to its former position simultaneously. After this remark we have this paradox: the instantaneous acceleration of this point, don’t permit acceleration and motion, because it expands to all universe, being simultaneously every-were; it is at the same time in the departure position and the arrival. This is a departure of explosive change to infinite and return instantaneously back to the zero point. (The point of zero and infinite size, is simultaneously instantaneous and motionless, One and Many, the Contradiction Itself, the potentiality level of the whole.
4. This paradox could reveal the relativity of space, point, straight-course and time, where the behaviour of all these, depend on each-other relation, forming this way a contradictive Unite. The size of point is every time so big, as its speed permits and due to its speed, the motion course recorded in space “straightens up”. The more speed increases, the greater space is limited in the “course curvedness straightness” and of smaller size the point becomes, demanding an appropriate rotation of the moving point around itself (spin). This way, point is a rotating anti-space that expands-unrolling into space, as space rolls-folding and rotates reversely, diving into the point. For this reason, the crossing positions of the course of the One, upon the courses of the Many-Others, which compose the corresponding space to the course of the One-point (moving normally and rectilinearly), forms a crossing position scale. This departs from the position of the One crossing one-Other, gradually unfolds to positions of crossing-together two-Others, three-Others…etc, arriving to a position of the scale, where the One crosses all Many-Other courses simultaneously, (that would be the centre of a rotating space, related and responding to the moving-One). The Point moves-expanding to Space and Space rotates-diving, acting reversely to the point and composing together a contradictive unit.
5. The previous process is similar to the following: The rectilinearly and normally moving-One, crossing gradually the Many-Others courses and everyone separately to different direction, once will reach the position to cross the course of the One (of itself) having reverse direction and being the centre of the hypothetic rotating space; Hence from this position, it will begin to «return», crossing this way its own course and finally it will coincide upon its own course. This process we described, is the space which corresponds to the moving-One, composing an open system, because the integration of this return is accomplished only to its direction, but has not return exactly to the hypothetic position of this point departure, since there is not an absolute one of this kind. (This preposition will be determined again, because it is very critical, space not be a closed system). Regarding carefully this process, we could realise that the course of the One, crossing the courses of Many-Other, is finally the same to the One crossing its own course; That is because the “curvedness” of the straight course”, presupposes the straight course once to begin crossing itself .
6. Space, following the straight and normal motion of the One reversely, moves-rotating, expands-constricting, departs-returning. So space in relation and together with the moving-One point, behaves as a unit. The only space not obliged to have a motion course but only palpitates, is the Whole. This palpitation being instantaneous is not a course, existing potentially and can not be terminated as any other essence but contradiction nude; at the state of the Instantaneous there are simultaneously all attributes and none. When space is not a whole, but a conventional one, the element of instantaneous disappears from surface and hides in the underground, being indefinite and forgotten. In extreme and boundary situations though, it shows its face astonishing us. Except of the «absolute» space, appearing as the contradiction nude, any other conventional space is curved, responding to its related point and its «straight» course. This way the point is real, having size, rotation and its straight course owes to have a curvedness, responding to the course of the point and its size. This space is constricted-rotating and limited by the curvedness of its straight course on one hand, and the rotation and size of the point on the other. So there is space and anti-space; the space is constrained by the course curvedness of the point and the anti-space by the rotation of the point around itself, which could be time. From a contradictive point of view though, both spaces together compose one event: “the contradictive space” which is inseparable from the events it is related with. Time in this time-space event, is the fluidity of point frequency in the specific position and space is the expanse area of the point rotation round it self, in relation to a specific system of reference. This contradictive space, even might be characterized as a space-time event, where time would be the frequency of the points fluidity in position and space would be their wave length.
7. The specific space departs-returning, not being able to verify absolutely itself, because, as we have notice, the moving-One point responding to this space, moving forward returns to the direction of its own course, verifying the direction, but never absolutely the hypothetic position of its departure. This way, it verifies positions of itself relatively near the hypothetic position, but not absolutely; the returning point meets its position, touching it more and more but never being exactly upon that. (The absolute departure is an ideal one and can only be conceived as the absolutely vacant and simultaneously the absolutely full). Thus the moving-One collapses-composing itself a little farther from the previous position, moving forward. From a contradictive point of view, straight motion is an helicoid course of the collapsing-compositive events process. This departing-returning course, responds to an unlimited series of denial-verifications; This departs from the One of absolute verification and at the same time absolute falsification, (where space departs-returning instantaneously as contradiction-nude), and passing by all the positions of possible verifying-falsifying relation, ends to the absolute falsification being absolute verification at the same time, which is again the instantaneous and the contradiction-nude. There, space is always different and potentially has simultaneously all forms and no one. All inter-mediate positions of departure-returning, verifying-falsifying, collapsing-composing, situation represent the specific and conventional space, which though is constrained, has undetermined limits, because the moving-One has not absolute departing position, thus its limits are continuously changing. These limits, are always related to some departure of the moving-One, presenting itself as a momentary ultimate unite. This way the specific and constrained space is open, containing potentially the infinity.
Explicative note:
8. Every rectilinearly and normally moving point has curvedness as syndrome; hence-forth a moment, it must create crossing positions by itself upon its own course. These positions are where the moving-One repeats itself more than one time; this way, a scale of positions gradualness is created, departing from the position of zero repetition, passes all the possible (one, two, three. . ) positions of repetition and ends to the infinite one. (The zero and infinite responds to the contradictive-instantaneous). Now let’s see again this process from a related view: The moving-One point performs an unconstrained number of departure-returning cycles, intending to verify itself. This way terminates the space to which moment of time responds. (So the great one, responds to the course curvature of the moving-One, and the small one responds to the perimeter of One’s rotation round itself, being its size). These cycles depart from the one which is never accomplished, because it has never departed, and ends to the one never accomplishes, because it will never return. (Both of these cycles compose the zero-infinity unit, responding to the instantaneous). Between these two positions, an unconstrained number of departure-returning relation positions exist, where the event is not verified absolutely but in relation to its falsification. At these positions the moving-One (the point) crosses its ideal course but not absolutely. (We call it ideal, because it is not there itself to be met again, but it has passed by this spot, creating positions of departing-returning repetition). This one never passes exactly by the position once passed, but touches more and more the ideal spot of departure and verifying it gradually, creates a scale of verification-falsification relating positions. These positions depart from the greater falsification and smaller verification of this One, and arrives to greater verification and smaller falsification.
9. The moving-One (point) departs-returning continuously to universe, terminating the size of the space in relation to the size of the position. (The smaller position responds to a greater course, containing the adequate space). This relation departs from zero size position and infinite size space, and passing by all position and space relations, (the bigger position, smaller the space becomes), arrives to a zero space and infinite position. (As we have noticed, at this extreme situation we have the immobile and instantaneous simultaneously, with all the consequents following this relation).
10. Accepting the existence of an unconstrained number of departing-returning points, which move rectilinearly and normally, it is necessary every-One of these to pass from the positions of all the Other points and all the Other points, gradually (one by one) to pass from the position of the One. This way we have the accomplishment of Many Others by the course of One passing through them, and at the same time, the accomplishment of the One, by the alternating Many Others courses, through the One. So on one hand, there is a series of positions, having a periodic repetition of different points through every position, and on the other hand, a position having a series of different frequency repetition courses of points through the same point. (These are the different crossing positions, of the course of the One by itself). They are two opposite quantity, fluidity-antifluidity position scales: One through ManyOthers and Many-Others through One. This has as a result the creation of a spherical order position system, with pole A, being departure of the One and arrival of ManyOthers and anti-Α, being the departure of many Others and arrival of the One. In this process (being the contradictive unit we have noticed before), the moving-One exists exactly where it consists by the anti-coursing of Many-Others. The anti-coursing one, consists by the courses of similar Many Others, having everyone a different direction, that is, a different angle of crossing, (something we accepted at the beginning of this concept as an element of difference between the similar Many-Others). So these points arriving differently to every position of this quantity scale, compose the One as rotating and different every moment and simultaneously Many-Others exist the way they are, because of the One counter-moves with a different repetition frequency (of its course-crossing by itself) through every One of Many-Others separately. We have noticed that the moving-One departing from the position A, arrives in position anti-A (being Many-Others), where the greatest crossing state of the One’s course by itself exists. At the same time, position anti-A, is the departure of Many-Others, where they exist as the anti-course and the anti-moving-One. Many-Others, as we shall see during unfolding this model, are every moment and in every position One else, a different Other, having a different direction, because it arrives there having some other spot as departure in a different quantity scale, from the unlimited number our world consist of. Between positions A and anti-A, exists a gradual scale of flowing-antiflowing relating positions, of the One’s course and Many-Others anti-course. Every position, though is an identity having its own character, being an inseparable part of the scale of the whole. A scale of positions is a specific identity, being a different relation of the One and Many-Others, flowing-antiflowing process; This scale of positions, is simultaneously a partaker of the whole as a unity. Whole is a contradictive unity, being an ideal “scale board” of positions and point activity, being the matter we try to terminate in all its contradictive dimensions in this work.
11. As we have noticed, this scale has unconstrained number of departure-returning positions. Every position is a result of different flowing-antiflowing relation of One and Many-Others moving-antimoving points. This way every position have a different character with a definite emission-receiving of a specific event departing for universe and returning to position. Every position is a vortex, where ManyOthers dive, entering from one side and spring out by from the other side, because the One contra-moves terminating by the frequency of its repetition the quantity and the wave-length of the Many-Others. Any removal from position to position, modifies all relations. Any character of modification in the position of an receiving-emissiοn point, changes its scale position, moving exactly to the justified position by its receiving-emission character. At the poles of the scale, there is the unrepeated and the instantaneous repetition, which reveals the infinite character of an open system, in all events of our world. Since the scale takes a specific character of emit-receiving-flowing-antiflowing position, its infinite character withdraws, carrying away zero element too. Then the infinite element of the scale, modifies to an infinite number of scales, changing face. Although every scale is characterised simultaneously by the attributes we have referred to, it has a departure reference to a different position in every other parallel scale; That is why, it has an unconstrained number of faces and dimensions, containing one face of the whole (from its evolutional point of view), until the moment of a specific research. Although it seems that there are two different situations, both are the same event from an other point of view; it is remarkable to notice this detail, to make clear that the departure-returning of the emission-receiving (messages) position, is not a closed system but an open one.
Explicative note:
12. The moving-One, we supposed that its course crossing by itself, is the cause of the –One and Many-Others– contradictive relation process (coursing-anticoursing), in complete integration is the instantaneous potentiality. This is the operation of the Whole, where its own course crossing positions being instantaneous is hidden, existing in depth potentially as the instantaneous palpitation (expansion-shrinking) of the Whole. (There is the situation of the infinite crossing-distances parts of no size, zero-infinite and motionless-instantaneous unity). When we intend for distinguished units, moving rectilinearly and normally, the instantaneous disappears from surface hiding in depth and the relation of the moving-One and Many-Others counter-motion comes in surface, where the existence of the moving-One depends on the countermotion of Many-Others and reversely. The hypothetic leaping removal of the One, from position to position, which we could imagine as the ultimate removal distance on hypothetic axis with poles AantiA, of the hypothetic fluidity-antifluidity, is a result of the anti-moving course of Many-Others. This anti-moving course of Many-Others, travelling to the faraway limits of the sphere (and forward to Universe) return to meet the moving One. The returning Many-Other elements, meet the moving-One in its direction from position «α» to position «β» on the axis A-antiA, moving reversely to position «β» passing from position «γ», («next» position of moving-One course on the hypothetic A-antiA poles axis). (I insist to notice this again, because of the importance, that Many-Others contra-moving, compose the leaping removal of the One from position «α» to position «β» on the axis A-antiA, moving reversely from the supposed next to «α» and «β» position «γ»). The speed of the moving-One on axis A-antiA, from position «α» to position «β» being considered as the smaller leaping distance, is astronomically smaller from the speed of Many-Others reversely moving to consist the moving-One. (If we imagine the moving-One as a photonic quantum and the Many-Others as sub-quantum elements of a deeper existing level, then the so called leaping removal, is the result of an almost instantaneous collapsing-composing process of the One, by the moving Many-Others. These Many-Others, though have astronomically different speed, moving reversely, and in different levels, coincide interterminating-intercomposing each-other). In this case, a paradoxologist would say that one system moves from past to future and the other from future to past. From a quantic point of view though, it is possible time not to exist this way; because world is only Now and real time is the frequency of the repetition of passing elementary points in position. (Since space is the length of the points wave spread).
13. Positions should alternately receive-emitting coursing-anticoursing units, having as a result a rotation. This rotation is terminated by the responding relation of receipt-emitting, coursing-anticoursing points in every position. This rotation departs as paracentral, since its emission should be singular (of one element) and its receiving is almost infinite at pole A, after passing by all possible relating positions of emission-receiving, receipt-emitting on axis A-antiA, where the paracentral character tends to be in balance until the centre of the hypothetic sphere, (having axis and poles A-antiA); after wards balance will gradually again be disordered reaching pole antiA, where it will be completely paracentral. All positions however, appear externally balanced, because the receipt-emitting of coursing elements disorder, will be balanced by the responding disorder of the anticoursing elements. These positions differ its other, to the coursing-anticoursing relation frequency, having a responding angle of rotation, in relation to their position in axe A-antiA of the hypothetic sphere.
14. Micro (very small), which we could name «point», expands far away to Mega (great, universe) and Mega dives into Micro, being together One (a unit). The deepest limits of the inside coincide to faraway limits of the outside, composing the contradictive elementary unit. Events consist by an unconstrained number of this kind of points· everyone of these points, departing to universe, returns verifying partially its moving self. This event referring to all universe scales at the same time, and a different way, expresses by a receipt-emitting process, its own view of all universe faces. Any position of these flowing-antiflowing scales, emits to universe, receiving from it messages, being a specific emit-receiving message cod. A scale consisting of this kind successive positions, begins from the position of higher receipt and lower emission, passes gradually by all possible positions of different relation emission-receiving messages and ends to position of lowest receipt and higher emission messages. Every position responding to all different scale point departures, even the instantaneous one, is able this way to change itself, emitting gradually to universe all possible messages, responding to all scales. These begin from the message which never departed because it is always there, passes by all gradual series of departure-returning messages with a different point of flowing-antiflowing relation to universe, ending to the message will never return. (We have noticed that both messages, the one being always there and the one which never returns, compose the contradictive unity of instantaneous-immobility and infinite-nihility, being the positions of AantiA poles). This way, the event we call point in universe, sends an unconstrained number of messages, changing continuously its emitting-receiving code, to maintain its own position, and simultaneously changes continuously position, to maintain its own receipt-emission code. This could be expressed differently: the One and Unique consists from the anti-course of Many-Others (flowing in position of One) and simultaneously, Many-Others consist from the course of the One anti-flowing in Many-Others positions. Many-Others are accomplished by the One, and One by Many-Others, composing together the Whole. This way the course of the moving-One to sequent positions, is a collapsing-compositive result of Many-Others anti-coursing (in the position of the One), realising-verifying it; and the One returns its dept to Many-Others, realising-verifying gradually all of them. [Because universe is infinite and open system, every message that departs from a position to the universe, returning back, do not verify absolutely its departing position (as we have noticed), but it verifies-falsifying it. This because the returning message «steps» upon the departure position, verifying it gradually from more to less, going finally farther from the departing spot. This way the moving-One exists as a collapsing-compositive even in a continuous changing position and identity]. That we call «point» in universe, on one hand, moves being continuously the same, (changes scale, being able to verify a similar One-Other in a different scale); on the other hand it collapses-composing, at the same scale and moves changing continuously its position by changing its emission-receipt code. This way a moving point (or an event), is a constant and distinguished spot, but simultaneously is a continuously expanding one. We could imagine both of these situations together, as a cloudy «one stroke of the pencil line» having a solid “nose”, but moving, leaves back an elliptic and gradually expanding to the universe, cloud. That «point-event» moving eternally, verifies-falsifying all the spots of its “tail”, being simultaneously, verified-falsified by them.
15. Therefore that we could name «opposite» from a contradictive point of view, is the unconstrained universal plurality, formed in relation to the unity the One event represents. The opposite to any specific-One, cannot be expressed as minus-One, but as an unconstrained series of similar and gradually differing from the One events; they depart very deeply inside the specific-One, without leaving any independence «space» and travelling faraway out of the One, perform an unconstrained number of depart-returning courses, which verify-falsifying them selves; they compose this way an unconstrained contradictive moving relation, with the opposite to One. Everyone of these unconstrained number of similar units, existing simultaneously in this relation, could be accepted as a distinguished scale of positions, which during this contradictive process of opposites as simultanea, must be considered to be a distinguished departure position. This way we have the plethora of elementary units: Two, Three, Four… etc, (distinguished events and arithmetic numbers).
16. As a consequence of the previous prepositions, we could imagine our world as a whole consisted of such an elementary «junction plot» positions. Everyone of these positions sends specific messages of (departing-returning, flowing-antiflowing, emission-receiving), so it would be considered as a distinguished event. The state and position of such events, consist by a distinguished «plot» of flowing-antiflowing emission-receiving of under-events, which could be characterised as energy for these specific positions-existences (events) of that plot. So if anyone of these events receive energy (flowing of under-events) of more than a necessary quantity, it should be to another specific position of that plot; this collapses entering to the under existing energy flowing-antiflowing level (the under-event level) and it is recomposed to another position, justified by the new flowing-antiflowing emisson-receipt, of the under-events state of the structure-plot. By this concept, the world should be a plot of an unconstrained number of message interchanging positions. This message plotting, could be the worlds evolution process as essence and its operation would be the Dialectic Logic.
17. By means of a dialectic logic formality, identity would be considered as an evolving self-over-passing event, like the contradictive unit i have presented. This way Identity Principal, the so much necessary for comparative process of logic, will turn to be Principal of the Contradictive Identity. This identity, which will be an evolving process (as we have described), to be functional in logic, its amplitude will be confined by the kind of research and the kind of involving units, demanding the responding departures to the responding scales. This could be abstractedly said, that every specific moment of this process would be a species of differential collapsing-compositive operation. This way the logical formality is overpassed, getting a living dimension. For such a contradictive logic process to be possible, some ideal index recording boards must be contacted. These would be such as i tried to propose terminating the idea of contradiction in this work. It’s necessary, these boards to be contacted with mathematic support, based on a Contradictive Geometry, i have sketched previously; this research process should also be related to the research limits of a specific event. These record-boards must define the possible flowingantiflowing receiving-emission messages of the contradictive crossing position plot, which will represent a current and specific reality. This way, the removal from a crossing plot position to another, will be the result of collapse-composing process as it will be revealed by the ideal operation of the supposed record-boards (the crossing plot, flowing-antiflowing, positions system). I speak about ideal function and hypothetic recording boards, because we will never have an immediate experimental approach, at least the way we used to, because this evolving process is taking place in the so called unter-quantic world, which can not absolutely be investigated. Thus we should use hypothetic models and notice if these could be verified in levels we have experimental approach.
18. The contradictive unite, i speak about, could take a specific meaning every time its hypothetic departing position in the scale of a specific reference is determined; This reference would serve the specific research. That departing position of a specific reference system, simultaneously could be related to all other unconstrained number of moving points, in other systems of reference (scales), by a different way everyone to a different scale. All these simultaneously departing points, travel-returning to universe, or positions emit-receiving messages, verifying-falsifying all the positions of the other scales, except of the simultaneously departing positions of the other relating scales. Then every unique departure point of a specific relation systems scale, which cannot be verified from all this process, could be One, Two, Three… etc, and generally the numeral departure counting of other contradictive units. (We should not forget that all these units appearing as autonomous and independent, when they «touch» the position of Many in a scale, bring to the surface the instantaneous and immobile element, which is the contradictive unity of the whole). 19. After this concept we have spoken about, a rational and organized process could be supposed. This should be related to departure positions, specific systems of scale references during a specific research and the way departure-returning messages, would behave.
EPILOGUE
20. This imaginary adventure of One point moving rectilinearly and normally, in all its development, could be the characterisation of a “Contradictive Elementary Unit”. The way i have proposed it, does not look as a perfect one. Though, we should have in mind that deals about contradictive meanings, stepping many times simultaneously in negation and affirmation of thinking. Never the less, if science and thinking does not take under consideration this preposition about the meaning of this dialectic unit or another work of that kind, -maybe better proposed-, will never be able to come out of the dialogic impasse, it has been trapped. By this meaning, language of science will coincide to the Contradictive Geometry logico-ligual system, where world should be a Biochartographic recording, as this language demands. This logics-lingual syntax will also take in consideration and have as basic term the Contradictive Elementary Unit as it has been proposed by Zeno and the dialectic mental structures of the Heracletian thinking, which i have reformed and integrate in this proposal. Mathematics, physics, biology, medicine and all sciences, should be reconsidered, having in mind the Contradictive Elementary Unit and the Contradictive Geometrical Biochartography of the world. This way, science will again be One, the «Philosophy» which, will coincide to the Contradictive Rational Language; the Dialectics as essence; ―The Heracletian «Logos».
21. We could re-determinate the principles of a Dialectic formality, stepping on the contradictive elementary unit. This way we could form three principles of the Dialectic Logic:
A. «The Principle of Dialectic Identity» where identity coincides with the Contradictive Unite, as it has been proposed during this work.
B. «The Contradictive Relativity Principle of the Opposites», which we have terminate in the contradictive opposition meaning.
C. «The Amphi-dromic Rationality Principle», being a both way Rational Activity Chain, presupposing Reason and Result to be intercollapsing-intercomposing eachother, having an unconstrained number of dimensions, ending to the instantaneousimmobility, nihil and infinite, (the contradiction nude and the potentiality). In this principle, rationality is considered to be a departure-returning evolving process, as it has been terminated previously during this work. These principles worth only as operative tools in specific situations and contain a meaning concentration of all the previous work, which should be considered in the development for every specific case, but not as a formal stereotypes.
23. As we have noticed, Logic and Aesthetics are recorded in the human hereditary mechanism, and Conscience is the de-codified part of this recording. This recording do not constrain the human notion and behaviour, because being contradictive is unconstraint and multi-dimensional.
24. This imaginary adventure of the normally and rectilinearly moving point, let’s be considered by the reader as a contradictive cognitive game. This preposition could claim a scientific face, as “The Anatomy of Contradiction”.
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