Philosophy 4 PARMENIDES

okay welcome to the next lesson about Parmenides we spoke about Heraclitus now we've already contrasted the two you should if you watch that video you will see that Parmenides Parmenides is the opposite of Hema glitters he doesn't believe that change is possible the world of change and becoming is illogical irrational and an illusion for Parmenides therefore our senses our eyes our is our taste our sense perception is unreliable now that's very important because the previous three philosophers Bailey's anaximander and Hema cleitus were all empiricists in some discs in some way they used the inductive method which means they looked at the world they tested they tested their ideas about the world and if the world acted how they thought it would act then it was some kind of proof not 100% proof but it was it was a good reason to believe that maybe their model was correct this is known as a scientific method or the inductive method or the empirical method but Parmenides claims that that's not the method we should be using we should be using a deductive method he was an extreme rationalist which means that he doesn't believe the external world is necessary a perception of the external world is not necessary to understand it we can actually understand the entire world through deduction not through induction but through deduction now Pythagoras is another example of someone who is very much fan of the deductive method and mathematics is a subject which uses the deductive method the inductive method is favored by science and they are different because mathematical proves when when somebody creates a mathematical proof they don't use anything in the external world to to prove something from mathematics you don't do an experiment where there's in science an experiment is necessary and there is no such thing as proof in science using this method you just say that one model is perhaps more likely to be correct than another one which has been shown to be definitely incorrect so he just used his mind and logic to come up with the following arguments now here are some examples of his arguments empty space is nothing nothing is non being non being can't exist yeah and so therefore empty space cannot exist he didn't believe there was any empty faith between the objects it's simply impossible and therefore movement which requires empty space is also impossible ok another argument of his something cannot come from nothing he believes it's impossible for something to come from nothing this is still a very common idea and I think we all agree with Parmenides here even though we may disagree with his conclusions it's certainly a scientific principle perhaps it's true perhaps it's not but that something cannot come from nothing I think nowadays with quantum mechanics a lot of quantum theorist theoretical scientists theoretical physicist so I should say they they would say that something can come from nothing that you have virtual particles that appear out of the void and go back into the void and this reminds me of very much of Anaximander that definite qualities come from this indefinite place and so they may claim that something can come from nothing what do you think is it possible for something to come from nothing or is it impossible he also states that something cannot go to nothing it can't just disappear out of existence so this means that birth is impossible death is impossible and the whole coming to being passing away is just an illusion this is the world of becoming is just an illusion all this world of change is simply an illusion so his conclusions are there were no separate things there's no empty space can be no separate things there's no many there's only the one that Heraclitus said that even the one splits into the two and they fight against each other so he was not very much a fan of the many he believed that he believed that everything had multiple forms and that they were constantly changing Parmenides says no there's only one form thought for eternity so for him yet that everything is connected there's no differentiation of substance because everything is connected and so the universe just appears as a one body universe a big chunk that's the same forever now perhaps that sounds a bit funny but as I pointed out in the last video this is it has many similarities to relativity theory and a very famous philosopher Karl Popper spoke to Einstein and he made fun of him and he called him Parmenides because he claimed because of Einstein's claim that time is similar to space and that time and space he believed the universe was like a big block and that nothing can change this block this is like determinism the fact that once you feel the whole universe has already been predetermined and it's a certain shape and a certain size and certain things happen and that's the universe you can't change it think about how Einstein how or how relativity deals with space empty space it claims that empty space can be curved now that seems very strange to me because I can't possibly imagine empty space being curved I'm sure that I just miss understanding this theory but I cannot understand empty space having a property like curvature I can understand a table being curved or piece of metal being curved but I can't understand something empty now this curvature means that in Einstein's universe maybe the really motion things just follow the curvature of space and time and so there's not really motion in the classical sense and in this way he's quite close to Parmenides but the reason popper calling him Parmenides is because Parmenides believes in the bee theory of time which is where past and future are already there they already exist and they're unchangeable maybe there's no real change in the universe he's what called pop on the other hand was someone who believed in the a theory of time he believed that the present moment was the only moment which existed and the future therefore is indefinite it's not certain how it will what what will happen in the future so he was critical of Einstein for this reason so a few more words about Parmenides you maybe have heard the story about Achilles and the tortoise and this was one of Parmenides students Zeno and Xena wanted to show that his his teacher Parmenides was correct and that movement was illogical so I'm sure you all know the story that Achilles starts first and the tortoise will only go isolate the tortoise starts first and Achilles will only get half the distance and then half the distance and in half the distance an infinite number of times so he will never pass tortoise this is a novel argument as I say in favor of Parmenides but I really want to show how I want to really emphasize that this is all from the work of logic it's not from the world of the senses from from the scientific because it's scientific method and I believe that Einstein is another example of this his theory is based on the deductive method it's based on thought experiments which are not empirical experiments thought experiments for experiments in the mind you don't need an empirical world to do a thought experiment so I would I would say that what popper when Papa called him Parmenides he was also thinking about this that Einstein favors a deductive method not the inductive method so I'm sure maybe you disagree with me here please right under the under the and if you think that there is some merit to Einstein's theories I'm sure that lots of you do please please put your ideas under the video something which is very interesting for me so I hope that's clear about Parmenides but if you want to speak about whether you believe there that empty space is an illusion or whether movement is impossible if you want to speak about the B theory of time or the a theory of time do you believe that the present moment is the only real moment or do you believe that past and future are there and they have always you know they they're always true they're always real in some description so the universe is like a block and it doesn't change okay yeah thanks for watching and please come to the next class which will be about in pedicle YZ I think and we'll come back to Heraclitus okay thanks very much for watching

Channel: MrSkypelessons

Views: 26,441

Keywords: Parmenides (Philosopher), Philosophy (Professional Field), pre socratic, Ancient Philosophy (Field Of Study), B theory of time, unreality of time, block universe, presentism, eternalism, Parmenides (Author)

Id: EbtAw6Srp20

Length: 9min 53sec (593 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 26 2013