Thales (ca. 580 BCE)
QUESTIONS
1. What
is the problem of “the one and the many?”
2. What
is Thales’ solution to this problem?
3. What
is a contemporary example of the One and the Many? (quantum theory in physics)
4. Which
ancient Greek philosopher anticipated quantum theory?
What
is the problem of the one and the many?
Pre-Socratic philosophers stressed the rational unity of
things.
As Thales looked around he saw “change” everywhere.
Thales assumed that if there
is change, then there is something behind change that does not itself
change.
E.g. – you are changing… but
there is a “you” behind all this change.
There must be a “you” that
is the same “you” today as it was a second ago. Or 15 years ago.
E.g. – MCCC is different
today… this moment, actually… then it was yesterday or a few moments ago.
Thales’ question assumes
that if there are “many,” then somehow there must be a “one” behind the “many.”
Thales believes the
concept of difference is logically dependent on the concept of sameness, which
is more basic, and that difference must somehow be reducible to sameness.”
THERE IS AN UNCHANGING “ONE”
BEHIND THE CHANGING “MANY.”
Thales’ question assumes that the human mind is capable
of grasping this; viz., the unchanging one behind the many and, having
understood it, the mind could understand the sense in which things hang
together.
What
is Thales’ solution to this problem?
The problem is: “What must
be the hidden truth behind natural objects for them to exhibit the forms they
do exhibit and to undergo the changes they undergo?” (Palmer)
Thales: Everything, ultimately, is water.
Thales’
philosophical theory traces things to their ontological (not chronological)
origin; that is, their origin in being.
This
is about the relation of observable objects in the world to ultimate reality
itself.
The Greeks were aware of the four elements: earth, water,
air, and fire. Thales concluded that one of these elements must be more basic
than the other three.
The question was: Which
element was able to take on the greatest number of forms?
“Water” seemed the most
likely candidate. – Liquid, solid, gas.
“Thales was perhaps the
first philosopher to ask questions about the structure and nature of the cosmos
as a whole.
He maintained that the earth
rests on water, like a log floating in a stream. But earth and its inhabitants
did not just rest on water: in some sense, so Thales believed, they were all
made of water… [W]as it because all animals and plants need water, or because
the seeds of everything are moist?” (Kenny, IWP, 2)
Everything is water. Obviously, this is false.
Yet Thales’ claim that
everything is water is an attempt to explain natural phenomena in terms of
other natural phenomena.
Thales was wrong. But his
question was very cool; viz., “What is everything composed of?”
What
is a contemporary example of the One and the Many?
Quantum reality.
‘Quanta’. The word itself means ‘packets’ or
‘discrete’.
From Brian Cox (physicist at U. of Manchester, England) -
Quanta are
the smallest building blocks of our universe.
Everything
(!!!) is, ultimately, foundationally, quanta.
Cox - the behavior of the
smallest building blocks of the Universe underpins our understanding of
everything else. This claim borders on the hubristic, because the world is
filled with diverse and complex phenomena. Notwithstanding this complexity, we
have discovered that everything is constructed out of a handful of tiny
particles that move around according to the rules of quantum theory.
All phenomena really are
underpinned by the quantum physics of tiny particles.
“… your brain, the most
complex structure we know of in the Universe. We have discovered that all these
things are nothing more than assemblies of atoms, and that the wide variety of
atoms are constructed using only three particles: electrons, protons and
neutrons. We have also discovered that the protons and neutrons are themselves
made up of smaller entities called quarks, and that is where things stop, as
far as we can tell today. Underpinning all of this is quantum theory. The
picture of the Universe we inhabit, as revealed by modern physics, is therefore
one of underlying simplicity; elegant phenomena dance away out of sight and the
diversity of the macroscopic world emerges. This is perhaps the crowning
achievement of modern science; the reduction of the tremendous complexity in the
world, human beings included, to a description of the behavior of just
a handful of tiny subatomic particles and the four forces that act between
them.
Which
ancient Greek philosopher anticipated quantum theory?
Democritus anticipated this. 460-370 BC.
See Kenny, 18, para. 4 ff.
Note: The leap from
“everything is water” to “everything is atoms” is smaller than it might seem to
be.
Democritus made this leap
(460-370 BCE) – Democritus developed the first atomic theory.
Democritus – “matter is not infinitely divisible.”
“Atom” –
the Greek word for “indivisible.”
Kenny – “According to
atomism, if we take any chunk of any kind of stuff and divide it up as far as
we can, we will have to come to a halt at some point at which we will reach
tiny bodies which are indivisible.”
Democritus’ argument was philosophical, rather than
scientific/experimental. See p. 18.
If matter was infinitely
divisible, then suppose this has been carried out.
How large are the fragments
resulting from this division?
If the fragments have any
size/magnitude at all, we could further divide them.
Therefore, they must be
fragments with no extension, like geometrical points.
But whatever can be divided
into part can be put back together again. E.g., if we saw a log into many
pieces we can put the pieces back together again.
But if our indivisible
fragments have no magnitude/extension and are like geometrical points, we can
not put geometrical points together and come up with a material object, even if
we have an infinite number of geometrical points.
Therefore matter is not
infinitely divisible, “and the smallest fragments must be bodies with sizes and
shapes.”
