 Well, we're kind of in the thick of it We're still trying to I mean the project still at this point is trying to figure out what is being At the same time try to be a count be able to account for change And we look out into this forest area here or park area Things are changing all the time But at the same time we want to say that this fun something fundamental to existence and up to this point We kind of have this fight this debate between Heraclitus on the one hand and Parmitides on the other What's attractive about Heraclitus is that he at least has as identified? The problem of change and it's the problem of what is the unity and what is the diversity? That there's something that has to remain the same Despite all of the differences the thing that doesn't remain the same On the other hand you have Parmitides Who is adamant about the fundamental nature of reality that it is indivisible that it is Impervious that it's permanent Eternal is even a word What we don't really like about Parmitides view is that we don't exist under this idea and so far what Heraclitus has offered us is that Everything is fire and that we are all Part of the same thing. Well, it's not much better. Is it because the question is well, where am I right if I'm Not me if I'm just everything together then where is me? How do I exist? So they both have their issues, but there's still something about the intuitions that remain the same that things do change And we've got to be able to count for that change and the intuition that what is real? Is is you know impervious that it's permanent right and The idea there is is that well, you know despite all the changes we really do think that there's something underneath it all That's the really real Now what is that? So big project at this point is it's trying to reconcile the two right they get what's changing with the permanent Well, that's hard Because what is permanent doesn't change So how can we get the best of both worlds? Empedocles is gonna give us an answer. He's gonna try to reconcile change and permanence Dangerous drop-off You're not careful You lose your step you fall right over the edge This is kind of the position that Empedocles is in Now he wants to get the best of both Heraclitus and Parminides. He wants to be able to account for change You don't have to look around long for very long to realize that things are in fact changing Right sky this breeze is coming through these trees are growing. They'll fall down This cliff probably wasn't nearly as dangerous right if you fall off that cliff you'll change real fast So you don't look around very long to make events that there's change on the other hand Parminides reasons are really forceful this idea that what is fundamentally real is Indivisible it's permanent as impervious So how are we gonna get the best of both? And like I said, Empedocles walks a very fine line On the one hand, he wants to keep the permanence of Reality on the other he wants to keep the change in reality And what he thinks is is that he tries to provide this solution when he thinks is is that he's going to be able to get the best of both Now you might ask yourself Does he just wind up falling off that cliff? Well, he starts walking this fine line about change He says well, there are things that change and that's objects. Okay. Now objects are Complex meaning they have parts, okay So the trees around us have leaves and bark Samp water minerals fiber. I've got bone flesh meat I've got various chemicals in me Now these are the things that are changing. There's the the parts coming in and out the parts being replaced Basically objects coming together being composed and Then falling apart or decay Okay So that that's that's what changes is the objects objects change because they the you know, whatever is real comes together to Make it and then falls apart Objects are what Empedocles things can account for change The change is one narrow edge The other narrow edge is permanence is being Now permanent ease Was really I'm sorry. Empedocles was really persuaded by permanent ease arguments That what is fundamentally real is indivisible. It's always existed Has a it's indivisible. All right. It doesn't change. What's fundamentally real But instead of saying that there's only one thing That is fundamentally real Empedocles thinks there's an infinite number of these Right, so yes, there's the one There's just lots of them. There's lots of ones probably you know the book uses the phrase an infinite amount of ones Now he's also Trying to account for different kinds of things So to account for different kinds of things not only do you have the thing that's fundamental to the real But you have four different kinds earth when fire and water These fundamental kinds Depending on your combination of these fundamental kinds you get different kinds of objects Remember objects are the things that are changing object and composed of these particles of these you know Infinite number of ones. So this tree here is Composed of different combinations of earth when fire and water The ground obviously is composed of ground particles, you know, we are probably I don't I haven't really read in pedicly's reason Writings here, but we might even think of ourselves as combinations of a lot of them because we got bones. So that's earth We got you know, you cut us open. We got you know, you got a blood will come out That's water, you know, we have to breathe that's air We're pretty warm and that's fire So this is what's fundamentally real is our these these ones There's just many of these ones and there's four kinds earth wind fire and water and depending upon how They combine you get different kinds of objects So pedicly's has started to give us this account of being and this account of change What's you know, what's being with this fundamental reality are the four kinds of particles earth wind fire and water and what changes are? objects objects are collections compositions of the four fundamental particles and Decompositions of the four fundamental particles So in pedicly's story is really not over yet He he wants to do more than just simply say this is what's changing and this is what's the same He wants to try to you know, bring it all into a cohesive account Now to do that he identifies two kinds of changes to really important kinds of changes Right, and he thinks that all other changes can be accounted for In terms of these two kinds of changes. So the first change is Composition is things coming together Okay, it's objects. You know, it's the it's the objects becoming what they are and The second kind of changes is the opposite direction. It's the things falling apart, but you know not becoming what they are So, you know looking at these trees around here You know dealing with the four fundamental particles. We got some water, right? Trees require water for life You might even Describe the rigidity of a tree as something earth like so it has some earth particles in there You know we talk about trees processing carbon monoxide into oxygen So you even have some air involved in there as well and This this process of a tree starting with an acorn and becoming a full-fledged tree Well, that's composition. That's the tree coming together. So from an acorn it starts drawing in these Particles right to become this full-fledged tree You know at some point this tree starts to die All right, and you know falls over and it falls apart Of course not all at once, but it you know falls apart it decomposes into its constituent elements So these are the two fundamental changes in objects is composition and destruction So if you have these changes, right then you have something doing the changes matter Particles don't change themselves. They don't come together to make themselves Right, so you have to have a force That's causing the changes. Okay We have to have a force that's causing the changes. You have to have a force that's acting on the particles So we have two changes therefore we've got two forces. All right So we have one force. That's bringing things together. It's the composition. Now and pedicles calls this love Another word for it is harmony. All right now today. We would probably use the word order Right or even life Right the thing coming together to exist to live to be ordered So that's one force the other force is You know the thing falling apart so that's destruction That's hate is what is the word emphatically uses or discord might be another word Today we probably use words like chaos and death These would be these would be words to describe that force Okay, now, you know, yeah, and pedicles uses the word like love and hate don't think of these as emotions That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about Coming together and falling apart. He's talking about composition and decomposition All right, so we got these two forces and pedicles describes the movement, right of these changes in four stages So first, you know just to pick a place we have the thing where it's the most of what it is Right, it's it's, you know highest composition. It's the most most thing of what it is is, you know The trees as they are now right this highest form of composition Then you have the movement towards destruction, right? And that's when you add a little discord of that'll hate into the scenario So the tree starts to die right starts losing its leaves that starts decaying And the sap flows less through the tree Then you have that stage where there's mostly hate mostly discord and just a little bit of harmony yet So, you know, it's the tree when it's in its final final stages of life Right, it's not living very much anymore. It's still just kind of hanging on but it's definitely on its way out And then you then you have death All right, that's all discord All right, no life anymore no love anymore and that's when the tree is falling apart to its You know basic constituents then there's movement from death To are from hate to love from death to life from decomposition to composition So we start with maybe something like the acorn Um, we're actually you know, we start with Right if we're dealing with just with death, we're starting with just the constituent elements You know, the next step is you add a little more life into the scenario So you got something like the seed and you know, there's not All life at this point because the tree isn't completely what it is But it's moving in that direction So you start with a seed and it starts bringing together the the the elements, right the the particles to form Uh, this tree behind me, and you know, it's it's always on its way It goes from that process of mostly death to mostly life to completely life to complete composition So you have the four stages and the movement from one end to the other And for a pedigrees this accounts for the changes in the universe You've got the four fundamental particles. That's what really exists. That's the permanent existence You have how they're composed and decomposed and that is the change well You don't have to read annex scores for very long To figure out that he disagrees with empedocles Now the major point of attention that he has with empedocles Is this this business with love and hate, right? He doesn't have a problem thinking that there are forces at work on being It doesn't really seem to have a major problem with the idea that there are four fundamental kinds of particles You know, they're following a tradition here again by observation, right? They look out in the world and and what we recognize as four states of matter They recognize as like the four beings of matter, right? So that's that's not really what his problem is. The problem is is is empedocles description of these forces He you know the book describes it as that Annex igoras thought love and hate were too metaphorical and you know, I think that's that's true as far as it goes Now I haven't read Annex igoras's work, but you know, we can actually think of reasons besides, you know, you know our immediate uh You know our immediate stirring away from love and hate as active forces on nature Uh, we got some other reasons to reject this idea of love and hate. Now first of all Here we're dealing with two kinds of forces here, right? Now there's there's lots of questions when When you're dealing with more than one kind of force. I mean for starters Right, you know, Annex igoras, uh, sorry empedocles thinks that there's love and there's this hate And that that moves from complete love to complete hate and back and forth again Why would it do that? Right, why why would there be a movement back and forth between the two? Right and you might think that they that the forces are completely at odds against each other like, oh, okay But then that would mean that there's nothing changing, right? They're just you know, completely stalemate one against the other Uh, then there wouldn't be any change at all Well, you might think that, um You know one is stronger at a time than another and say, okay, but You know, first of all, if one's stronger than another We don't typically think that the stronger force backs off, right of the stronger force defeats the other Uh, so if there's this movement the stronger force In opposition to another and they they go back and forth when it really looks like there's some kind of order On top of these two forces. Well, if there's an order on top of these two forces Well, then you're dealing with one force that's controlling the two And in fact, we do this today right We try to account for Forces acting in opposition to each other. You know one never completely taking over the other. We say, well, there's something on top of that So harrick Clyde is I mean, sir enix agor is I think does does the same thing. I said, yeah, he he rejects Love and hate as too metaphorical and I think for his money. It doesn't explain Why there's still this balance between the two this movement back and forth between the two So he wants to replace emphatically's two forces with his one now to understand Enix agoras a little bit and again, you know, the book doesn't say this and I haven't read enix agoras's writings But something's kind of curious enix agoras does that emphatically says, you know, it appears to be silent about and that's uh, what enix agoras does is he says that There are the four fundamental particles, but every object Has at least some of all these different kinds of particles Now you might wonder why he's going into that. I mean, he this is an kind of an extreme conclusion, right because that means that Um water has at least some fire and earth and air in it A fire has at least some water and earth and air in it So why is it that um, why is it that all these objects around us have at least some Of every kind of particle Well, you know, think about it. You know, the idea is that these four fundamental particles Give us what's real give us existence So if we say that uh, you know, this tree here Has earth and water in it and some air but no fire Then there's something of reality that this tree is missing That there's some fundamental part of reality that's not in this tree and Well, if that's gone, then how is this tree real if it doesn't have what's real in it? So enix agoras says that everything Has all these different has all kinds of particles in it just in different combinations well What determines what combinations each kind has Right, why do they start having combinations to begin with? Enix agoras has a story Yeah, according to him You know, if there are these combinations in these different kinds of matter in different proportions And there's some kind of change happening Then it's reasonable to infer that there was a time when uh There wasn't a differentiation in objects, right? There was just one thing and it was uh, it had equal proportions Of all the different kinds of particles. There was something that was equal air and fire And water and earth, right? It was just kind of sitting there So That's the source of the change From this equal parts to Compositions of different proportions Well, what does that what what did that? Enix agoras says that uh is separation Separation of you know different clumps Of this stuff in different proportions, and that's why we have different kinds of objects So I have some earth and some water in me and have some air and some fire Right as we as we talked about earlier and this tree has you know, since it's more rigid probably has more air than it than I do Right has less water in it than I do it still needs water But it's less water than I do and this this tree is cooler to the touch than I am so it's a lot less fire So and you know, of course a lot less air for enix agoras so These objects Are combinations of the particles in different proportions Well, how did that happen? Enix agoras suggests it was he said the separation And he suggests the separation started happening started occurring by movement Specifically a vortex So it's spinning All this stuff is spinning together in equal proportions. Well, have you ever seen a centrifuge? The more you spin say like blood Uh, the more you have separation From you know from dense to less dense, right? So something like this is happening with enix agoras is that all of this Stuff in equal proportions just starts spinning and it kind of hurls away or spins off Through separation Different objects and different proportions Of of the different kinds of matter All right. Well question that we very quickly have is Well What did the spinning? Now remember enix agoras probably probably one of his motivations here is to provide one force All right, because we got one kind of change. That's the spinning All right, that's the spinning Uh, there's no slowing down Right for enix agoras. There's nothing slowing down. There's just the spinning and this accounts for things coming what they are So what what started the spinning? He doesn't like love and hate too metaphorical But he still sees a fundamental order To everything right Everything works together in a really particular way It's not as if these trees can start living without water, right? There's a causal order to everything around us. So enix agoras says well the reason the what accounts for that order is mind is reason is uh Uh intelligence All right intelligence This mind is what started This uh vortex spinning and controls and controls the different kinds of things with the spinning Okay with the separation now To kind of hold off any misconceptions Enix agoras's mind is not the same thing as heraclitus's logos All right heraclitus's logos Uh was made of the same stuff Uh you know his his logos his uh, uh, you know his his universal reason is made of the same stuff Uh as everything else in fact everything is one in in in this fire Not so with enix agoras and per anix agoras the mind is not a combination of the particles. So remember The thing that has this force upon the particles can't be the particles themselves particles don't start themselves in motion So it has to be something else. Well if it's something else, it's not composed of earth when fire and water, right? In fact her uh enix agoras says that this mind Is just one thing one kind of thing. It's utterly simple. It doesn't have any parts. It's not composed of anything else So It's really different from heraclitus's logos So just to kind of summarize Uh enix agoras says that what's uh, what's still fundamentally real is like is the one Along with empedigles is the one Uh, it's just four kinds of the ones and it's infinite numbers of them And pedigles says that there's two forces love and hate and this accounts for composition and decomposition Uh enix agoras says oh no that you know, there's still an order there So there's got to be one mind or one force and the force can't be of the things That you know that's acting upon or that's being forced So there's this mind this noose is the greek word in o u s noose That's acting upon the four fundamental four fundamental particles Causing the spinning for causing the different kinds of stuff in different proportions to split off empedigles and enix agoras Got to start it on this idea of particles Being the fundamental basis for all of reality Lusipus the democratus commonly called the atomists Carry it one step further try to prove upon it even more Now the book says something like uh the theory bears a strong resemblance to our current scientific theories It's actually kind of the other way around that our current scientific theories bear a strong resemblance to the atomists But the atomists lusipus the democratus they had Somewhat of a change To this idea one of the first things they tried to do Uh is account for space Now remember the problem that parminides brought up regarding space regarding nothing as though we typically think of space as Uh what contains matter or you know matter takes up space But if space is nothing then parminides arguments seem to cause a real huge problem for this Well the solution that the atomists offer is is a little bit different. They say look Uh we you know we agree with you parminides. We can't talk about nothing But space isn't nothing space is something Now what space is is something non-material They suggest it's non-material that it's uh a receptacle for matter So again, you know, we see this idea That matters what occupies space. Well, here's kind of the first formulation of that that Space is a receptacle for matter. It itself is non-material non-material. Now that's important to remember. It's non-material They also had a little bit something different to say about the particles themselves Uh the particles Are not of four kinds Remember in pedigrees and annex agores Uh thought particles were the four kinds earth wind fire and water the atomists think they're only one kind of particles the atoms These atoms are just like the permitting one. They are uh indivisible hard They're also really tiny. They also thought there's an infinite number of them And that they've always existed so they're eternal Now what accounts for the difference in objects There still seem to be going along with this idea that objects are what are Are composed of atoms And they seem to go along with this idea that objects come, you know are composed and decomposed and this is this is movement and change Um, but what counts for the difference in objects is the arrangement Of the atom specifically something like a Pythagorean arrangement. So length width depth We could probably even go so far as to talk about density Um these real typical ways that Matter is measured So what's going to count for the difference In objects is the is the Pythagorean arrangement of them. So we're you know, they're kind of borrowing From a lot of different ideas. They've got Pythagoras They've got you know, they're trying to respond to permittities All right, there's still in a sense borrowing from Empedocles and Anxagoras So we talked about their arrangement Now a question is Um, what accounts for the change in the objects? So remember what Empedocles and Anxagoras are doing they said look we we notice that there's change in objects And if there's a change Then there's a force well for The atomists What explains change is that it's random That it's random movement of the atoms Now you might ask yourself Whether this is actually an explanation You might ask yourself what the definition of random is um If you know under some common notions of random The idea is that if if something is random there is no explanation There's not one called for So if you roll a dice And it comes up three and you say why did it come up three and the reply is it's random Meaning there is no reason why it comes up three as opposed to one two four five or six So this is an interesting move Uh On the part of the atomists saying what it counts for change Is randomness And this looks this really looks like what they're saying is You know somebody asks why are there changes in objects and by saying random really looks like there's no reason There is no explanation. It just is So we have uh the atomists and they're pretty different I mean they've they've done some differences than Empedocles and Anxagoras, but we still see this progression of Uh one theory building upon another or adapting Um and kind of in reaction to another