(September 24, 2014 at 12:13 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: ]Parmenides’ argument about being changing can only apply to reality in its fullness, which is the All or One. There cannot be another All because then there would be two alls which is a contradiction. Is this the Christian god? Yes. In the Revelation to John it says that God is All in all.
Of course the umoved mover has to be only one 'All'.
Because if it wasn't, then it wouldn't coincide with your god.
Got it.
Why couldn't it be multiple unchanging things, that in total, equals the 'All'?
Quote:Again referring back to the tradition of which the argument is a part, the original question concerns how something can persist in its being while still being capable of change. For example, an oak goes from acorn to sapling to full grown tree, yet remains the same tree throughout all the changes. Thus there must be some aspects of the tree that change, because we do indeed observe the changes, and there must be something that does not change, otherwise you could not call it the same tree from moment to moment.
Not impressed with Parmenides.
Adrian Bardon Ph.D., philosophy professor at Wake Forest, states Parmenides argument like this:
P1. Suppose change is real.
P2. If change is real, then it involves either (a) an object''s coming into existence or beginning to have some property or (b) an objects' becoming non-existent or ceasing to have some property.
P3. If P2 is true then there are different times, which is to say there is a past, present and future.
P4. There are not different times; there is only the present.
Conclusion: P1 leads to a contradiction (P3 and P4 are contradictory).
Therefore change is not real.
P2 seems pretty specious to me.
Why is it necessary for there to be something that is unchanging for something to change, yet retain its identity as the same object? Even if an unchanging thing is necessary, why couldn't it just be existence? Why does it have to be a being?
He seemed to have an idea that change requires absolute change. As if when something changes, it is changing completely, instead of just changing incrementally.
It's almost as if he wasn't aware of differential calculus. Oh yeah, he wasn't. Newton and Leibniz were over a 1000 years in the future.
If I go from being 50 lbs overweight, to normal weight, I did not constantly become a different being.
If I did not already know that Zeno was one of his followers, I would almost believe he was making fun of Parmenides when he postulated his paradox of motion. Almost like an agument reductio ad absurdum.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
