Reality. Wynand De Beer

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СКАЧАТЬ will be displayed manifestly in this book. And if this departs, they die and their intelligence fails” (Fragment 4); “And in my opinion, that which possesses intelligence is what people call air, and all humans are governed by it and it rules all things. For in my opinion this very thing is god, and it reaches everything and arranges all things and is in everything. And there is no single thing which does not share in this. But no single thing shares in it in the same way as anything else, but there are many forms both of air itself and of intelligence. For it is multiform. And the soul of all animals is the same thing. Now since the differentiation is multiform, also the animals are multiform and many and are like one another in neither shape nor way of life nor intelligence, on account of the large number of their differentiations. Nevertheless, all things live, see, and hear by means of the same thing, and all get the rest of their intelligence from the same thing” (Fragment 5).

      It appears that for Diogenes all things in the cosmos arise as differentiations of Mind/Intellect and eventually return to it. And since everything arise through differentiation, the cosmos is multiform and not uniform in nature. Therefore, although humans and animals obtain their intelligence through breathing air (thus sharing in Mind), there is no question of a monistic reality for Diogenes. Instead, Diogenes continues the traditional metaphysics according to which cosmic reality comprises a differentiated unity—that is to say, a many-in-One.

Furthermore, for Diogenes the order in the universe is conceived as the result of intelligence, since if everything is arranged in the best possible way, it follows that the cause of that arrangement is intelligent.97 In this way, as is the case with Anaxagoras, the world-view of Diogenes is teleological and not mechanistic in nature. This understanding of reality as entailing design (although not entirely so, as we will discuss) and purpose would be continued by Plato and Aristotle in the century after Anaxagoras and Diogenes.

      Motion

The phenomenon of motion (Greek, kinēsis) has been investigated especially by Aristotle. Motion is defined by him as the fulfilment of what exists potentially, in so far as it exists potentially (Phys, III.201a). Motion is thus conceived by Aristotle as linked with entelecheia, which means fulfilment or completion. Motion is therefore purposeful, representing a transition from potentiality to actuality.98 Aristotle enumerates six kinds of motion: generation and destruction (or coming to be and passing away), increase and diminution, alteration, and change of place or locomotion. The opposite of motion, broadly speaking, is rest (Cat, 14 & 15a–b). Moreover, and contrary to the modernist view of Aristotle as an anti-Platonist, it is affirmed in the Metaphysics that the good and the beautiful are the beginning (or cause) of the knowledge and of the motion of many things (V.1013a). Indeed, Plato could not have stated it better himself.

The factors involved in motion are listed by Aristotle as (a) that which directly causes motion, (b) that which is in motion, and (c) that in which motion takes place, namely time. Moreover, every motion proceeds from something and to something. For instance, ‘perishing’ entails change from being to non-being, whereas ‘becoming’ entails change from non-being to being (Phys, V.224a–b). In summary, it could be stated that three types of being are distinguished by Aristotle in terms of motion: that which is moved but does not move (primary matter); that which is moved and moves (all natural things); and that which causes motion without moving, namely God.99 A kind of kinetic hierarchy is thus established with God at the summit, primary matter at the bottom, and the world of natural things in between.

      Aristotle’s discussion of motion culminates in his celebrated notion of the Prime Mover. Since motion is continuous, Aristotle reasons, there must be an ultimate first cause of all motion in the cosmos. As stated in the Physics, “Since there must always be motion without intermission, there must necessarily be something, one thing or it may be a plurality, that first imparts motion, and this first movent must be unmoved” (VIII.258b). The Prime Mover is then described as the unmoved mover which is one and eternal (VIII.259a).

      In Book 12 of the Metaphysics, the Prime Mover is associated with God, with Aristotle writing as follows: “We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God”; and also, “The first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle. On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the whole of nature” (XII.1072b). Thus, Aristotle recognizes the dependence of the cosmos on an extraneous first principle, the Prime Mover. And since the latter is the ultimate cause of all motion in the cosmos, we contend that the Prime Mover is the equivalent of the divine Intellect, or Mind, of Anaxagoras and Diogenes.

By combining the Aristotelian theory of motion with Neoplatonic metaphysical principles in his work Elements of Physics, Proclus arrives at the following hierarchy of motion, arranged from higher to lower levels of reality: (i) The unmoved movers (the Forms); (ii) the primary self-movers (souls) and the secondary self-movers (en-souled bodies); (iii) things moved by another and moving others (en-mattered forms); and (iv) things moved by another but not moving others (physical bodies). The third category, en-mattered forms, is sometimes equated by Proclus with Nature.100 This category is therefore the realm in which the Forms act upon matter to produce physical objects, in turn representing the fourth and lowest category of motion.

The colossal importance of motion is illustrated by its role as cosmic link between space and time. In the traditional Indo-European understanding, time is the complement of space, just as energy is the complement of matter.101 However, time can only be measured indirectly by means of relating it to space through the intermediary of movement. In other words, motion provides the link between space and time as far as measurement is concerned. In its turn, space constitutes the ‘field’ (Sanskrit, kshetra) within which bodily manifestation occurs. This ‘space-time’ interaction is depicted in physical and mathematical theories that treat of ‘space-time’ as a single and indivisible whole. As a matter of fact, time is only comparable to a fourth dimension in equations of movement, where time acts as a fourth co-ordinate added to the three dimensions of space.102 The physical model of ‘space-time’ as a four-dimensional continuum, as postulated in the Theory of Special Relativity, is therefore also metaphysically valid, at least in terms of motion.

Furthermore, since time is the measurement of the changing positions of objects in space, it implies that before the beginning of the cosmos there was no time, just as in the beginning there were no objects in space. Therefore, Jonathan Black reasons, in the absence of matter, space, and time, the original cosmic event must have been a mental event. In theistic terms, this primal mental event was God reflecting on Himself, and in that reflection, He saw beings like Himself, possessing freedom, creativity, love, and intelligence. Therefore, matter emerged from the mind of God—it was created to provide the conditions in which the human mind (housed as it is in a physical body) would be possible. And since the human mind ultimately derives from the universal Mind, it is feasible that matter is moved by the human mind in a similar way, albeit certainly not to the same extent, in which it is moved by the mind of God.103

      Scientific Relevance

The famous paradox of Schrödinger’s cat, formulated by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935, is noteworthy in this regard. In terms of this ‘thought experiment’ (as he called it), a cat in a sealed box containing a radio-active source could be either alive or dead, which can only be confirmed by an observer opening the box. This ‘observer effect’ was already implicit in the equally celebrated Uncertainty Principle, as formulated by the German physicist Werner Heisenberg in 1927. It states that the more precisely the position of a sub-atomic СКАЧАТЬ