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ARCH8(6) pic



Parmenides and/or Heraclitus?

Which of their theories do you find more valid and why? Or do you think they complement?


Heraclitus and Parmenides both agreed that the world could be reduced to one thing, but they came into a fundamental disagreement about what that one thing was. 

Heraclitus thought that everything was made out of fire, because a fundamental property of the universe was that it was always changing and the only other thing that he could think about that was always changing was fire. Fire, then, became the uncaused source of change in the universe, and the incarnation of the will. Essentially, fire was god.

Parmenides couldn't disagree more, in fact, he thought that the entire idea of change was impossible and the world was basically a huge unmoving solid chunk of stuff. Parmenides then went ahead and used logic to disprove the possibility that anything can ever move. 

From: http://www.threeminutephilosophy.com/vid_heraclitus.html

Would really appreciate your point of view and please, no offense comments.

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2 points

Heraclitus had a more valid point that ultimately landed closer to the truth. The idea that everything is made of fire would be made more accurate by saying that everything is made of the stuff of fire. That is to say energy. Fire expresses the change in energy from potential to kinetic that is an essential aspect of the universe.

Parmenides denied the self evident. Even if he claims that change is an illusion, the nature of that illusion is always changing. With such a fundamental contradiction, one must check the basic premises on which the conclusion is derived.

1 point

Parmenides was an idiot.

ARCH8(6) Disputed
1 point

Personally, I agree with him; because how can the things be always changing? That would be against every reasonable point: if you change your essence then you are not you anymore....But I think both Parmenides and Heraclitus complement each other, without Heraclitus, we wouldn´t have Parmenides contribution.

Amarel(5669) Clarified
1 point

I agree with him; because how can the things be always changing?

Rather than saying that it is not true that things always change, what he determined was that it is true that nothing ever changes. This is different than the concept you found agreement with.

JustIgnoreMe(4290) Clarified
1 point

Again - crazy spell-check...

Herculites- Everything IS in constant change, though different things change at different rates. The Universe is constantly spreading, the continents are in perpetual motion, and adult body has few of the cells in it it had at birth, the personality continually adds new information and experience to it. The universe IS change, and how anyone in the modern era can deny that fact is beyond me.

I'd have to go slightly more with Parmenides since that seems to comport with determinism. With everything in relative motion, even if it is destined to happen, Heraclitus would not be wrong - Parmenides would just have the more profound realization.

Amarel(5669) Clarified
1 point

Isn't determinism based on the principle of cause and effect? Isn't cause and effect a description of change itself?

JustIgnoreMe(4290) Clarified
1 point

It depends. Everything after the big bang would be its effect, but the logic is less clear before that. Can we definitively say there are causes before time exists? If the effects are set in stone from the beginning, are they changeable?

1 point

Heraclitus and Parmenides each had part of it right. The part Heraclitus had right was that everything in the universe has relative motion. The part Parmenides had right was the cause and effect rules that govern motion and cause the universe to gain entropy.

Heraclitus was wrong in perceiving the motion of flames as random and Parmenides was wrong in concluding that a block universe exists containing infinite snapshots of the state of everything as it ever was, is now, or ever will be.

Based completely on our ability to perceive reality, this is what is observable.

Cause and effect relationships drive the universe into change. As more changes occur entropy increases, this is similar to the appearance of fire. As the flames in a campfire seem to move randomly (Heraclitus), they are in fact dancing to the cause and effect nature of what happens when heat energy causes a material to burst into rapid oxidation, within an atmosphere containing oxygen (Parmenides).

The illusion of randomness tricked Heraclitus into believing there was no cause and effect in operation. The illusion of time tricked Parmenides into believing that anything other than the present exists.