Much ado about nothing

Parmenides believed that nothing changes and that he was also one of the first of those who used deductive argument in his philosophical work.

That it is and it is not possible for it not to be.

That it is not and it is necessary for it not to be.

He came up with a really cool concept of nothingness: that nothingness does not exist because if nothingness exists, it is something. So something like a pen cannot cease to exist as well. If the pen ceases to exist, the pen has become nothing and nothingness has come to existence which is not possible as nothingness cannot exist. His idea revolves around the fundamental argument that nothing cannot exist.

He also believed in no change, no difference and no motion based on his argument of the inexistence of nothingness. If I were to change, from being dumb to smart, I would have lost the quality of dumbness which results again in nothing coming to existence and this can’t happen! If we were to have differences, you being smarter than I am, you would bear a quality smarter which I don’t and nothingness again has come to existence as I lack the quality of being smarter. Oh wait, doesn’t that make you and me the same? Which we all know is quite fallacious, if you think about it. Motion is then also not possible, because in order to move there must be nothing there to obstruct me, but there’s no such thing as nothing. What am I talking about? We can therefore only think of things that exist.

When I talk about Mario, do you know who’s Mario? You do, don’t you? But Mario doesn’t exist, does he? I never knew he existed. Then what are you thinking about? I thought I just said that we can only think of things that exist. Parmenides believed that that was IT and everything was just IT. That’s IT for now.

Moved?

Zeno of Elea, a Greek philosopher, lived some 2500 years ago. Zeno’s Paradoxes dealt with a type of argument called reductio ad absurdum which is also known as proof by contradiction. He argued against plurality due to the fact that he believed that for an object there must be a point that protrudes out more than the rest and another point on that point would then further protrude out more than the rest this would go on ad infinitum. Therefore, this would lead to an infinite mass.

Zeno’s arguments against motion included the race course, Achilles and the tortoise, the flying arrow and the stadium. Many were baffled by his ideas, although they were never convinced that it was true, they had to accept the conclusion due to the fact that it was a proof by contradiction and some have yet to find a reasonable fault or premises to refute the deductive argument.

The idea of the race course paradox was that Zeno believed it was not possible to traverse a race course. He believed that in order to run a race course, one has to first run to the midpoint, half the distance, before eventually getting to the end of the race course. However, in order to reach the midpoint, one has to travel half the midpoint. This will eventually lead to an infinite number of half distances. Zeno believed that it was impossible to complete an infinite task in a finite time; hence he concluded it that movement was not possible in light of that.

Zeno’s second argument was the Achilles and the tortoise. He believed that the slower runner would never be overtaken by the faster in a race if the slower runner has a head start. He reasoned that in order for the faster to overtake the slower, he has to first catch up to the slower before being able take a lead. However, when he catches up to the point the slower runner was at, the slower runner has already moved a short distance forward in the time taken to catch up. This continues and the faster runner will never be able to catch up with the slower runner, because the former will always be behind the latter, albeit by a small distance each time.

Zeno’s arrow argument states that an arrow that is flying is actually stationary. He believed that it is at rest as it is not shifted by any degree out of place equal to its own dimension. At any particular instant, the arrow is in the place it occupies at that particular instant. He then drew the conclusion the arrow is not moving at any time during the flight, since the so called movement of the arrow consists of an infinity number of instants.

Through modern science and mathematics, we have been able to prove that movement is indeed possible. Common sense tells us that motion is possible. After all, Zeno himself probably walked home everyday. What he left for us is probably the idea that reasonable assumptions can lead to absurd conclusions, as his paradoxes did. He contributed much to logic and philosophical research today, but personally, I don’t find his stories very moving.