Zeno of Elea's Philosophy

Agent Smith

Zeno of Elea is a well know Parmenidean follower; he's the guy who caused much bewilderment among lay people and philosophers alike with his eponymous paradoxes. He was the Zen master before Zen even existed, merrily blowing people's minds gratis, giving 'em much-prized Zen moments.

One paradox that's going to matter is this one: I'm at the start of a racetrack 1 m long, I must reach the finish line. Before I get to 1 m, I must get to 0.5 m(half of 1), but before I get to 0.5 m, I must get to 0.25 m (half of half of 1), and so on :vomit: (ad nauseum).

Conclusion: I can't even begin my run, let alone finish it. I'm at the starting line and I'm stuck, I can make not an inch of progress.

Has philosophy made progress? Are all philosophers frozen at their respective starting positions?

Bertrand Russell is said to have remarked that philosophy is (only) about understanding the questions well, answering them comes later, much, much later, assuming it's even possible to do so.

EugeneW

merrily blowing people's minds — Agent Smith

He did some good blow jobs indeed. Indeed, philosophy seems stuck. Never able to bridge that last gap. On every arrival a new distance to cross appears. That's why all that's left to do is forget the question and just take a last non-philosophical leap of faith and the final answer will be uncontradictably self-evidently true.

lll

He was the Zen master before Zen even existed, merrily blowing people's minds gratis, giving 'em much-prized Zen moments. — Agent Smith

He did some good blow jobs indeed. — EugeneW

That made me laugh. Thank you.

lll

.

answering them comes later, much, much later, assuming it's even possible to do so. — Agent Smith

Unless we understand the movements of our limbs as answers. Life throws us hungry into a mess. We enact beliefs all the time. Philosophy can change the beliefs we enact, the way we live.

Perhaps you think of obtaining consensus when suggesting the answers are far away or impossible? But why should consensus be authoritative? Or perhaps you invoke an ineradicable logical possibility of being wrong. Fair enough. But we have to act, and we move more in faith than in an exceptional and troubling state like doubt.

Agent Smith

He did some good blow jobs indeed. — EugeneW

:rofl: Good one!

Unless we understand the movements of our limbs as answers. — lll

Solvitur ambulando.

Life throws us hungry into a mess — lll

Dust!

My question is, has philosophy made progress? It's a simple question. Dare I think it has a simple answer?

lll

My question is, has philosophy made progress? It's a simple question. Dare I think it has a simple answer? — Agent Smith

Thou ought knot door such impiety, sewer ! For the gods are jealous of end-sores in the gobs of their sorry apes.

Yet progress, yes, I do incest on it.

Are infinite jest is poof!

lll

↪Agent Smith

Could Zeno have intended to throw late on the smoke machine noun as lung-wrench? Maybe not the motion of legs but rather that of jaws was his target ? Alung whiff the senescent theophagy of grammar mistaken for the Obsolute ?

Agent Smith

↪lll

No clear-cut answer. I'll take that as a no, philosophy hasn't made even an iota of progress.

I like your style sir/madam, I hope there's substance too in there somewhere! :smile:

lll

↪Agent Smith

Thanks for the kind words. My monikor is Whit Farder, and my pieces is mail.

I do try to encode actual substance within the playfulness. Above I suggested that our infinite jest is proof of the progress of philosophy. I can't speak for you (though your sense of humor suggests it), but I live (in my own eyes anyway) a much better life than I did when I was younger. Some individuals learn from philosophy, I say.

Of course the same old muddy ponds remain as stepping stones for new generations.
If you stare at a particular mud-aphysical pond and ignore the frogs, it looks like no progress. But take Wittgenstein, for instance. I think his later stuff is a break-through and even a kind of implicit apocalypse (one keeps going in 'his' direction beyond what he in his mortality could get around to, relaying 'his' brightening torch that he also got from others.) (So the torch is really a community possession, associated conveniently with prominently swift relay racers.)

Agent Smith

our infinite jest is proof of the progress of philosophy — lll

You're on a roll, that's for sure. Does Democritus resonate with you at any level?

Wittgenstein: I like where he intends to take us, but I'm skeptical of his ability to do so! Bear with me: me, tenderfoot!

Good luck, good person!

lll

No clear-cut answer. — Agent Smith

That 'is' the answer perhaps, if it's understood as an insight into the limitations of the smoke machine of language. The 'and of history' is something like a state of infinite jest that no longer needs a Foundation and is satisfied with a plurality of models. There's a book clawed Crownless Clowns that tickles this aria. It is merrily run among others. James Joyce tries the same thing in literature, to sanctify or appreciate the so-called 'ordinary.' He thought the exceptional was muck for journalists.

Agent Smith

↪lll

:up: I hope I'll be able to read that book, if luck doesn't dump me like the last time she did!

lll

Does Democritus resonate with you at any level? — Agent Smith

Yeah, the laughing philosopher. Great dude.

Wittgenstein: I like where he intends to take us, but I'm skeptical of his ability to do so! Bear with me: me, tenderfoot! — Agent Smith

I do think W is great, but I also try to avoid the too-common off-putting my-big-hero-daddy thing that sometimes happens on forums. He is 'run among others' but ends up functioning as an abbreviation or avatar for the dissolution of metaphysics. I also like Derrida (who is tough to read and sometimes annoying) for similar reasons. Derrida will make grand statements, which can be charming or annoying depending on your mood. Wittgenstein is (perhaps you'll agree) sometimes even boring in his plodding understatedness. But then he'll pop a buddy in the month for forty none scents and 'give some good blow job' as @EugeneW might say.

Good luck, good person! — Agent Smith

Thank you, friend!

lll

I hope I'll be able to read that book, if luck doesn't dump me like the last time she did! — Agent Smith

It's a good one. I'm sure there are others that are just as good, but I can vouch for that one. I like that two philosophers with very different styles are placed side-by-side so that they illuminate one another. (Hume is also brought in for a little playdate with the boys).

180 Proof

↪Agent Smith

Zeno wouldn't have made such a vexing, idiotic speculation had he read and groked Democritus. Anyway, Max Planck dispelled Zeno's "infinite divisibility" assumption once and for all. Science has provided physical grist for the metaphysical mill in many many instances.

Cuthbert

Alung whiff the senescent theophagy of grammar mistaken for the Obsolute ? — lll

Are you James Joyce?

And Gemellus then said to Camellus: Yes, your brother. Obsolutely. — J J FW

EugeneW

Zeno wouldn't have made such a vexing, idiotic speculation had he read and groked Democritus. — 180 Proof

The paradox is applicable to atoms. The front hook of the hooked sphere has to cross half way first, than 1/4, then 1/8, etc. The conclusion it can never reach its goal is not true.

Planck dispelled Zeno's "infinite divisibility" assumption once and for all. — 180 Proof

Planck didn't do that.

Science has provided physical grist for the metaphysical mill in many many instances — 180 Proof

But not for the mill, i.e. us.

180 Proof

↪EugeneW

You're convincing me your vapidity is deliberate. :chin:

Kuro

Conclusion: I can't even begin my run, let alone finish it. I'm at the starting line and I'm stuck, I can make not an inch of progress. — Agent Smith

Convergence in calculus is thought to have long solved this. But before that, the classical solution was the Aristotelian solution in the form of potential and actual infinity. Some would say that it's inadequate.

Also, you can alternatively reject mereological descent which is a prerequisite for the argument, in the form of space and time, but some would say that spawns worse problems (i.e. Ibn Sina's distance function argument) with regards to discrete geometry and the success of physics.

Agent Smith

Zeno wouldn't have made such a vexing, idiotic speculation had he read and groked Democritus. Anyway, Max Planck dispelled Zeno's "infinite divisibility" assumption once and for all. Science has provided physical grist for the metaphysical mill in many many instances. — 180 Proof

Not everyone is sold on the calculus solutions to Zeno's paradoxes or so they tell me.

I like Zeno of Elea. I like paradoxes. I recommend them to you too You look like a guy who'd enjoy transcendence every now and then, paradoxes (contradictions) provide one of the best ways for the mind to catch a glimpse of the next level of reality (beyond-mind).

180 Proof

↪Agent Smith

Paradoxes are semantic or conceptual illusions generated by inadequate, or faulty, premises. Zeno's faulty premise is that the physical world is 'infinitely divisible', which atomists (of his day) conceptually and quantum physicists (over twenty-two centuries after him) experimentally have demonstrated is not the case. Poof, no paradox – we know how Zeno's magic "arrow" trick is done. :sparkle:

lll

Are you James Joyce? — Cuthbert

I'm reading him, and I took 'obsolute' from the buttockbefriending bard, as the brick fit perfectly wall in the whole I was building, abbreviating an up-so-late we-solute.

Agent Smith

Paradoxes are semantic or conceptual illusions generated by inadequate, or faulty, premises. Zeno's faulty premise is that the physical world is 'infinitely divisible', which atomists (of his day) conceptually and quantum physicists (over twenty-two centuries after him) experimentally have demonstrated is not the case. Poof, no paradox – we know how Zeno's magic "arrow" trick is done. :sparkle: — 180 Proof

I'm a bit unsettled by your confidence on the matter! Is it wise to be so cocksure? I thought skepticism was good for the soul (Orcale of Delphi: Surety, then ruin).

Anyway, your proposed solution to Zeno's paradox (infinitely divisibility of space has to be rejected) is fine by me.

180 Proof

↪Agent Smith

Doubt, like belief or disbelief, requires grounds.

Cuthbert

Planck dispelled Zeno's "infinite divisibility" assumption once and for all. — 180 Proof

Zeno proposed four different paradoxes, permuting the possibilities: Time / Space vs Continuous / Discrete. He showed that he can create a paradox for each of the four cases.

https://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/2011-12/20229/handouts/3%20Zeno.pdf

Cuthbert

up-so-late we-solute — lll

A worthy tribloom to shame's choice which must even diddle us.

Agent Smith

Doubt, like belief or disbelief, requires grounds. — 180 Proof

There are good reasons to doubt, metaphysical reasons (necessity and possibility): appearance vs. reality. Buddha (maya), Plato (the allegory of the cave), Descartes (deus deceptor), basically some strain of skepticism.

Nevertheless you make an excellent point! Like certainty, doubt too needs justification.

EugeneW

Zeno made one big mistake. He thought the spacetime continuum could be broken up in parts. Just try break up time in pieces. Or space. It's hard.

Cuthbert

Zeno made one big mistake. He thought the spacetime continuum could be broken up in parts. Just try break up time in pieces. Or space. It's hard — EugeneW

He assumed time and space were discrete and have minimal 'parts' which cannot be broken up any smaller. He also assumed they are continuous and are infinitely divisible. Further, he assumed that time might be discrete and space might be continuous - and vice-versa. That is why he needed four different paradoxes, not just one.

lll

A worthy tribloom to shame's choice which must even diddle us. — Cuthbert

Whale sud, front ! Drink you for not asking me to spore you my hypnopontificatory solemnitease ! I was afraid I'd be asked to stop spanking my nine scents.

ssu

If there's one book in history I'd want to be discovered, it would be Zeno's book. If I recall correctly from Parmenides, the book had been stolen.

A book by a genuine supporter of the Eleatic school, not those who were against it (even if respectable, as Platon was in Parmenides). And the interesting bit would be the paradoxes, that Zeno had described, but have now been lost to history.

Zeno of Elea's Philosophy

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