The subject of my first book is the solution of Zeno’s paradoxes
20-7-2012
Zeno was a Greek philosopher. He was born about 488 BCE in Elea. (Elea was an ancient city in Ionia. It had colonized by Phocaea’s.) Zeno was Parmenides’ most important student.
Parmenides was an eminent philosopher and greatly respected. He taught that the perceived world was deceptive and actually virtual. According to his theory there is a unique static and unchanged entity. The theory of general inability to move therefore, concerned the existence itself since without this, a world like ours is impossible. (The main issue in Zeno’s paradoxes is the possibility of the existence of motion in our world).
Zeno had completely embraced Parmenides teaching. One occasionally reads that Zeno did not contribute anything of his own to philosophy. This is the uncontrolled reproduction of incorrect or malicious allegations of thinkers of all times who did not understand the enormous depth of his Paradoxes. In fact, nobody perceived (neither did the other philosophers, apart from the Eleatic ones), that Parmenides’ philosophy had not only reached but had gone beyond physical boundaries. He achieved this only by means of crystal-clear logical associations. (By this, I mean the boundaries – through their legends- with which they tried and are still trying (in vain) to go beyond (exceed) all the arbitrary religious structures.) Consequently, what more could Zeno contribute to philosophy in order to exceed Parmenides’ theory? Weren’t his Paradoxes a unique contribution? Zeno managed with these Paradoxes to convert Parmenides incomprehensible ideas into a relatively easily understood comprehensive and brilliant mental construct. In his paradoxes lie the keys, without which the clear-headed rational access to the transcendental would be impossible.
The path which was opened by Xenophanes and Parmenides’ thoughts led the Eleatic thinkers to the end of philosophical questioning: To the root cause of everything. Let the reader contemplate that the only professional tool the pioneers of philosophy had at their disposal in that distant era, was the thought. How could they ever imagine what inconceivable tools the science of cosmology would have at its disposal, two thousand five hundred years later? Which of them could ever imagine, that with the assistance of these tools future cosmologists would discover the cause of the appearance of our world and that this was nothing more than a “Bang”? I suspect, though that ancient Greek Philosophers could have never believed that today’s cosmologists-who have the equations of the Theory of relativity at their fingertips, would be incapable of answering the simple question: “What caused this bang?” ‘For them there was only the non-negotiable way of logic. Consequently, this logic required that a bang wasn’t the cause itself-but the result of some kind of cause. I am confident that ancient Greek philosophers would wonder about the contemporary scientists’ way of thinking. Actually, if one wished to penetrate the above mentioned issue, he would therefore encounter questions and strange correlations as the following:
a—-Don’t billions of children at Elementary schools worldwide ( in religious lessons) learn that our perceived world was created – according to Abraham by the God of Israelites – in six days?
b—-However, aren’t some of these children later taught-as students of Physics-that the same world gradually emerged after an enormous boom exactly 13.7 billion years ago?
c—-Isn’t the common denominator of the above numbers quantity?
d—-Are these two temporal quantities in accordance with the above situations?
e—-Are Physics and Christianity, interested in teaching the truth?
f—-Is it therefore, possible for both of them to be teaching the truth?
g—-Shouldn’t there be only one truth concerning this subject?
h—-Consequently, couldn’t this truth be completely different from the two above mentioned views?
i—-Don’t the two above mentioned mental constructs simply rely on some indications?
j—-However, are these indications which each of the above Institutions hold (as well as their way of acquisition) sufficient so that one of the Institution’s views can prevail beyond doubt?
* Xenophanes of Colophon – 570 to 480 BCE – born in Colophon was considered to be the founder of the Eleatic school of Philosophy. However, Parmenides is referred to as its founder as well but all this is trivial details.
