On Parmenides

Eleatic School Process Philosophy (Being)

Parmenides

Problem of fairness

Platform Sutra

Diamond Sutra (part of a whole tradition of Platform Sutra 100BCE - 600CE):

In the Buddhist Wisdom Books, “in them, however, no perception of the self will take place. Or will a being, a soul, or a person, that is indeed no perception. That is because the Buddha has left all perception behind - where the Buddha is no perception is, Buddha operates beyond the realm of perception.” Self, mind, and soul are beyond all perception, therefore in one sense we can ignore them. 

“With my superhuman knowledge I recall that in the past I’ve had five hundred births or reincarnations. Led the life of a sage devoted to a life of patience, then also I have had no perception of a self, or a soul, or a being, of a person. There is nothing there to perceive.” We can say that the truth of the nature of the self, the soul, the mind, the being, the person, is empty. Empty however is not nothing, not a state of nothingness, but a state of emptiness. It’s empty of self/soul/mind/ego. Therefore if you get a clear perception of the highest level, the idea of a self/soul is a metaphor. Something that we use to collect a bunch of ideas together but in essence there’s nothing there specifically to experience. To be able to experience emptiness is the experience of Enlightenment (satori, Mahayana). 

Nothing and Something:

On what basis do you say something or nothing? If there is nothing, it’s likely that you won’t have a perception of it. If there is something, and there is a claim that there is something - then you should have some perception or experience of it. Perception versus experience, perception defines all of the cognitive facilities and all the ways we apprehend anything. There are a set of things for which there is no specific perception, therefore there’s no perceptual experience of it. You should be able to make some sort of statement about the thing you perceived, so you have to distinguish it from this or that. Can you have a perception of it (self, soul, mind)?

Negation to the First Cause:

What is Negation? What is a no? I know something that exists in some way that never moves: motion. Motion never moves but is a reference point for things in motion to move. Things in motion move, motion does not move. There’s no motion in motion. If we take this further - anything in motion derives its source from motion. This is to describe Negation: a certain set of negations that you deny something having, it can also be said to be the source of what it is that is denied. Trivial example: throwing chalk in the air is not reincarnation, it’s the same piece of chalk - you wouldn’t say that this is the source of reincarnation. 

“Motion itself does not move, but rather the motion thing moves; yet the negation is applied to Motion, for it does not move. Each physical attribute is itself free from the referent characteristic, for itself being simple: either exists or does not exist. Whereas what what experience is the experience through it is the composite body.” That is to say a thing moves, it experiences movement, and we experience the experience. 

“So these negatives (negations) are the causes of the corresponding assertions.” Plato’s Dialectic: for anything that you explore rationally, you can make 24 assertions (12 positive, 12 negative). Of the twelve, you have four categories that are plus, and four that are negative. For each category you can assert three things: that it is true, that its is false, that it is both true and false. You can use this to create a systematic model, for a subject you are speaking about. You can talk about the thing itself, that is to say we’ll talk about motion/you/likeness. (Twelve positive things about you, twelve negative things). Three categories applied to each thing: what is true about you, what is false about you, what is both true and false about you. You can also assert  the way you are, in respect to other people, in reference towards the influence you have of others, in the three categories.   

Parmenides Poem

Whatever is, is. It must be. It cannot not-be.

Likewise the opposite is true, "What is not, is not. It cannot be. It must not-be."

Nothing can come into existence, for where would it come from?

Time is unspeakable because it depends on change. 

Movement is and change is an illusion. 

They are only opinions, different perspectives. 

The only reason you think change is real is because that is how you were trained

Motion and change can not be so we can not derive epistemology from it for it is not grounded in a reality.

There are mere opinions.

Parmenides studies the nature of reality using a rigid logic.

Parmenides uses Nature of reality not form,

logic, not observation

knowledge, not speculation.

Much of what we believe about reality is not, true:

change is not true, 

motion impossible, 

variation can not exist

and time cannot work.

"Whatever is, is"

Sources:

Dr. Pierre Grimes lecture “Parminedes”