It concerns the philosopher Zeno, a pre-Socratic guy who was born around 490 BC. His paradoxes are one of the only things that survive of his work, and are cunning devices.
Zeno's paradox states that:
An arrow can never reach its target, and thus motion is an illusion. He arrives at his conclusion thus:
An arrow goes toward its target, and it has to get halfway there. So you divide the space by half. And then it has to get half of the rest of the way there, so you divide it by two again. And then again. And then again, into infinity.
So an arrow is going 10 feet. It reaches the halfway mark at 5 feet. Then it reaches the halfway mark of the rest of its motion at 2.5 feet. Then 1.25, and so on and so forth, getting infinitely smaller, which takes an infinite amout of time.
My argument is that you can do the math better by saying the arrow goes 10 feet, and that it goes 2 feet every 1 second ( a slow fucking arrow ). So by 1 second it's at 8 feet, 2 at 6 feet, and so on until it reaches 0. Of course, dividing is a more precise mathematical tool than subtraction, so technically Zeno is right. But, if anyone remembers chemistry, a quanta is an indivisible amount of energy/matter/time/whatever. But perhaps you will say that there is no such thing as an indivisible amount.
This is where my second argument comes in. It is helpful to look at it like this:
A bear is charging Zeno from 40 feet away. According to Zeno's argument, it will take an infinity of time for the bear to reach him, and thus he has no problem. If he truly believes in his paradox, he will stand stock still, and the bear will never be close enough to maul him.
A bear ------------(40 feet)----------> Zeno
A commonsense realist will say, "Oh shit! A bear!" and start running. Of course, you can't really run from a bear, they can outrun, outclimb, and outswim you. Basically, you're fucked.
But a rationalist who accepts Zeno's paradox will stand there, to this result of the above logic equation:
A bear (mauling) -> Zeno
In beling mauled to death though, Zeno could rationalize that too. He could say, "Oh look! I'm only half-mauled. It will take an infinity of mauling for me to die. Thank god I'm immortal now."
Or maybe by then all he could do is moan lowly in sickly horror.
A true measure of a philosophical theory is whether or not the philosopher can survive the "bear example."
Bear Example: You take whatever the idea the philosopher comes up with about how matter isn't real, and then you put the philosopher into a room with a bear. If the philosopher refuses to go in the room, he obviously doesn't believe what he's saying and knows he's just spewing bullshit.
The bear example is a highly developed and potent philosophical tool for Socratic dialogue; it has even been called the "philosopher's Swiss Army knife."
So if you truly buy Zeno's paradox of motion, please, drive in the other lane, jump from tall buildings, and play basketball in the streets.
Fuck You Zeno,
Erik.
5 comments:
This made my 6am wake up seem not too depressing today.
-kp
my prof was saying that all of our relationships - with people, objects, events - are fake and to give up now. and i thought exactly what you said: well why the hell did you get up this morning and why the hell am i here if you can only give me fake credit for this course? rediculous...
hahaha i liked that......why didnt someone stop him and tell him that the arrow gets halfway there, and then it goes the other half......it clearly didn't have a hard time making it the first half of the way there, so im sure it will be able to make it the second half just as easily.......
-mat
your crazy erik lol
bucket
Hello Erik, I believe that you have mixed up two of Zeno’s paradoxes.
“In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead”.
“If everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless.”
Zeno is using hyper-rationalism (and a method called Dichotomy) to prove that motion is an illusion. You have tackled this problem in the wrong way, what he is saying is that “a rational person cannot refute that between two points, in space or time, there is another point” and that “one cannot complete an infinite amount of tasks in a finite amount of time”. Using Dichotomy he splits the travel from A to B into many stages for there is always a point between any two points. Using this method he argues that because there is a point between any two points there must be an infinite amount of points, thus a person, or in your hypothesis an arrow, cannot move from A to B without completing an infinite amount of tasks in a finite amount of time. Therefore motion is an illusion.
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