Heraclitus is my home boy
As some of you may know I am taking philosophy this semester which I can already see is unfolding to be an awesome experience. We are learning about pre-Socratic philosophers. One in particular sticks out for me and his name is Heraclitus. He answered the age old question "What is real?" by using little epigram like phrases such as the following:
Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow.
Ok so here he’s saying that you can step into the same river like for example the Delaware but the flow of water makes it not the same river that you had stepped in before.
[It is not possible to step twice into the same river]….It scatters and again comes together, and approaches and recedes.
Here is saying that there is no way to step into the same rivers because the water moves and then changes the ground below it.
We step into and we do not step into the same rivers. We are and we are not.
He’s saying that we do and do not step into the same rivers.
Obviously his statements are contradictory; however, he is proving a point about reality and the different ways to perceive it. Heraclitus’s Principle does not just apply to rivers but applies to all things. He believed that reality is constant motion, flux, change, movement and strife and that nothing remains the same! I whole heartedly agree with this thinking. I think a couple of entries back I used the example of myself or someone else being different now then we were when we were 5. Who I was when I was 5 no longer exists. There is record of it in a photograph or video but the physical matter of which I was made up of then is completely gone. My mind has changed and is a new mind and it will continue to do so as I get older. The only concrete evidence that I will always have that gives me my individuality is my DNA and this can bring up a whole spectrum of awesome questions! It’s very exciting stuff.
Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow.
Ok so here he’s saying that you can step into the same river like for example the Delaware but the flow of water makes it not the same river that you had stepped in before.
[It is not possible to step twice into the same river]….It scatters and again comes together, and approaches and recedes.
Here is saying that there is no way to step into the same rivers because the water moves and then changes the ground below it.
We step into and we do not step into the same rivers. We are and we are not.
He’s saying that we do and do not step into the same rivers.
Obviously his statements are contradictory; however, he is proving a point about reality and the different ways to perceive it. Heraclitus’s Principle does not just apply to rivers but applies to all things. He believed that reality is constant motion, flux, change, movement and strife and that nothing remains the same! I whole heartedly agree with this thinking. I think a couple of entries back I used the example of myself or someone else being different now then we were when we were 5. Who I was when I was 5 no longer exists. There is record of it in a photograph or video but the physical matter of which I was made up of then is completely gone. My mind has changed and is a new mind and it will continue to do so as I get older. The only concrete evidence that I will always have that gives me my individuality is my DNA and this can bring up a whole spectrum of awesome questions! It’s very exciting stuff.