Heraclitus' Fragments: Kahn

This ends Kahn's commentaries on Heraclitus.

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"Heraclitus was proud; and if it comes to pride with a philosopher then it is a great pride. His work never refers him to a "public", the applause of the masses, and the hailing chorus of contemporaries. To wander lonely along his path belongs to the nature of the philosopher. His talents are the most rare, in a certain sense the most unnatural and at the same time exclusive and hostile even toward kindred talents. The wall of his self-sufficiency must be of diamond, if it is not to be demolished and broken, for everything is in motion against him. His journey to immortality is more cumbersome and impeded than any other and yet nobody can believe more firmly than the philosopher that he will attain the goal by that journey-because he does not know where he is to stand if not on the widely spread wings of all time; for the disregard of everything present and momentary lies in the essence of the great philosophical nature. He has truth; the wheel of time may roll whither it pleases, never can it escape from truth. It is important to hear that such men have lived." (Nietzsche)

Where did this hidden rhythm of nature, which moves and regulates things, "the logos", and the only material source of natural substances H accepted, was fire, manifest from.   Where and how was the spark ignited, so to speak.  I accept fire changes or transforms to water and earth.

As H has said, Let's not make random guesses about the greatest matters.

Are the Fragments just that, random guesses.  Given some parts were not finished, and  a small section remains, which has been transported from person to person and which we know distorts by this very process and perhaps the obscure manner in which it was written was purely for reasons of personal safety for H. 

I embrace the beauty and wisdom of these Fragments, but its incompletion leaves many questions, I should state, for me anyway.

"From where? , when did it begin?" are human questions which already implies what it asks for.
It is really a question about self:
"How, where, when, did this mind come from which now can wonder, and wish for meaning, for a purpose to justify itself?"

Obscurity is the only way an art-form can direct itself.
An artist indirectly gazes at what is fleeting.
He approximates what he sees as a blur, and fills in the indistinctness with bold fine lines representing the clarity of borders.
How else would a tool, the brain, interpret as static, as things, what is forever dynamic process?
How would it try to clarify, to bring into focus, the diversity other than making it more bold, more certain, more defined and refined?

The observer is still troubled by the unsatisfactory outcome of the depiction.
In the representation, no matter how artfully delivered, and what message underlies its aesthetic impressions, (s)he feels the absence.
It may be called incomplete, imperfect, unsatisfying, in need of a some-thing, a some-where, a some-how, and in its multiple linguistic expressions the same absence is renamed and re-baptized and reaffirmed in the other, as an image of our selves.

The terror, the anxiety, the dissatisfaction with this in-completion, asking the observer to add his own ingredients, his own things, to complete it, is the very experience of living.

I am overcome in mind and feeling.

Heraclitus had said he "knew nothing" but later claimed to "know everything." The implication is that man contains all knowledge within himself to be elicited by self-questioning, and yet he says:

"The things that can be seen, heard and learned are what I prize the most.

The self-examination then may only be a program of objective inquiry?

If man is a particle of existence, then he represents the entirety at the time and place.

He feels the absence of an absolute, as need/suffering; he senses the temporal; flux as pain, agon.
He seeks in the other completion and is never satisfied, for the other is in almost the same state as he is. The hunger, desire, never subsides.

Satyr, you have often said that the dynamic, changing universe is resistant to static models that attempt to define it absolutely. But there are mathematical processes that model dynamic systems. What if these were adapted at some future point to describe a new conceptual framework of cosmic forces resulting in a General Unified Theory? What argument would you have against such a claim if we assume that no matter from what perspective we look at the universe it remains countable, even at the quantum level it's behavior statistically predictable to a certain extent?

Recidivist wrote:

Satyr, you have often said that the dynamic, changing universe is resistant to static models that attempt to define it absolutely. But there are mathematical processes that model dynamic systems. What if these were adapted at some future point to describe a new conceptual framework of cosmic forces resulting in a General Unified Theory? What argument would you have against such a claim if we assume that no matter from what perspective we look at the universe it remains countable, even at the quantum level it's behavior statistically predictable to a certain extent?

 Easy...what is mathematics in its essence?
A language...the most abstract form of language.
A language, is made up of words.
Words are the basic element, the code, of the linguistic form.

What is the code for math?
1/0, no?

What does it refer to?
Something outside the mind or back to the mind?
If it refers back to the mind, then it is a symbol, a simplification/generalization, of a mental model, an abstraction.
Math is the best symbol for the mental abstraction.

If it refers to something outside the mind, then where is it, this thing, this static singularity, this one, and this logical opposite to it, the nil?
If you claim that it underlies reality, like a fabric, or is something beyond the perceived, then you are using the same argument mystics, and priests do.
More thna htis, you are turning math into a mystical form, a form of magic. 

Is math useful?
Definitely, as are all languages and forms of expression - beginning with animal vocalizations.

We'll have to wait for the General Unified theory, but if we take the up-to-date, cosmological  models, then a SuperString vibrating is but vibration with no string.
We are back to the absence of an absolute, which the numerical symbols of 1/0 represent.
If you cannot offer the absolutes they imply, an absolute singularity or an absolute void, nor justify it, escaping infinite regress, then you offer nothing but another abstracted point in space/time which only has relevance and utility for the organism that bases its (inter)activity upon it.

The chaos theory (the butterfly causes a tornado theory) is about predicting systems.
Let's stay in a classic mechanical universe, no quantum theory.

If someone were to know all the properties and condition of all matter in the universe at a particular point in time then it would be possible to predict the future. But only a slight error in measurement would result in complete unpredictability down the timeline. At first it would be only a small deviation but over time it would become completely chaotic (unpredictable).

To measure anything, an interaction has to occur. To predict the far future, it would be necessary to measure with absolute precision. Yet interaction changes the state of the observed object. That's why no theory can predict the future in a perfect way. The more time passes, the more interactions took place, the more uncertain becomes a prediction.

Perfect knowledge of the past would grant perfect knowledge of the future but to know anything about anything is to interact and the induced change of this interaction would have to be measured again, causing yet again induced change, and so on.

There is no outside observer, whose interaction doesn't change the state of the system - well, at least so far, that non-interaction hasn't been witnessed ; )

And that's all without quantum mechanics.

Maybe science is about prediction.
The general field theory, I think that's the unified field theory? - would just unify all the used field theories in one. So, people would apply the same theory to predict a gravitational phenomenon as well as an electro-magnetic phenomenon and so on.

A theory has nothing to do with what is - that's open for interpretation and so on. A theory is just used to predict a phenomenon. If two theories predict the same phenomenons and both are equally accurate then the one which is the simplest, the most elegant, is used.

To start to believe that a theory is the phenomenon makes any thinking outside the 'box' impossible - very tempting. Though, using theories does save a lot of time. (like in modern working environments)

The wave-particle dualism is often cited when it comes to theories. It's not that light can only be 'explained'* by wave AND particle theory. But, some phenomenons are more easily understood (imagined in the human mind), and calculated, using the wave theory, and others are, by using the particle theory.

*described, not really explained

A theory, form the Greek ορο<>theoro [θεωρο, to see from a distance, the entirety, from the vantage point of a god --- θεος/θεα - god/goddess --- ωρο - to see, to observe].

Theory, rooted in the Greek to see from an above, distant, godly position, the entirety, the visa, the panorama. Panorama --- πανοραμα - παν<>ωραμα - all<>vision.

A theory is a vision of a totality, from a distant, above, position of a godly vantage point.
The method used to shared these theories is language.
Language deals in absolutes.

It cannot escape its own a priori conceptualizations, which are binary, dualistic.
It can only deal with particles, or point in space/time, even when dealing with waves.
  

Science is about finding patterns, and institutionalizing them, by placing them under the scrutiny of a peer review, at which point it becomes the most current, dominant, perspective.

Therefore it deals in approximations, not absolutes.
When pushed to its limits it is forced to concede to artistic form to describe what cannot be linguistically represented in code.
This is where science returns to its roots, in philosophy.
The arrogance of Alexandrian thinking, rationalism, begins to hint at mysticism, artistic ambiguity.

Could Heraclitus to some degree then, seem to be in the mystic's position of urging men to follow a plan, without much of an idea what that may be?

Satyr wrote:

It cannot escape its own a priori conceptualizations, which are binary, dualistic.
It can only deal with particles, or point in space/time, even when dealing with waves.

The descriptive process, the language, mathematics, the exchange of ideas is happening in this dualistic or particle-esque way. I'm not sure though if the mind cannot experience more than something dualistic. It's a fleeting experience which, when described would fall apart and be divided in a dualistic manner.

Quote :

Science is about finding patterns, and institutionalizing them, by placing them under the scrutiny of a peer review, at which point it becomes the most current, dominant, perspective.

A very effeminate institution, especially today.

reasonvemotion wrote:

Could Heraclitus to some degree then, seem to be in the mystic's position of urging men to follow a plan, without much of an idea what that may be?

A plan?
But he is in a mystics position.
His contradictory statements are meant to to indicate that between the absolutes is where life happens.

An interesting and hard to get article on 'Translating Justice': situating Heraclitus between Nietzsche and Heidegger.


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How many Abrahamics have taken Heraclitus's sayings of logos and said "He really means that most/all things are logos, not that logos is represented by all/what's common." And who'd twist the latter to mean it is some sort of high Platonic form.