[Phys-L] Re: Empedocles

[Paolo Cavallo <ton0621@IPERBOLE.BOLOGNA.IT>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Green" <JMGreen@SISNA.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2005 6:17 AM
Subject: Empedocles


> I have read much of what I have found on the web re the beginnings of
> physics.  It looks as if it boils down to Empedocles as the instigator --
> with his earth, water, fire, and air scheme.   But reading these philosophy
> authors gives me indigestion -- it is like reading fog -- just too many
> words without any substance.
>
> Maybe someone here can translate:
>
> What is "earth"?  The stuff out in my garden?
>
> What is "water"?  The stuff in the creek?
>
> What is "air"?  It is hard to fathom this, but it would appear that he
> didn't even know there was the stuff of wind.
>
> And of course "fire" -- What was in his mind?  Certainly not a Boy Scout
> camp ground.
>
> Maybe if we were to analyze the Greek words.  Anyone speak ancient Greek?

"Speak"? That'a asking too much! OK, excuse me...

Empedocles' style is very different from Feynman's, I agree,
but I don't find his line of thought so remore from ours.
He was asking himself, How many different elementary
constituents do we need to construct reality as we know it?
Parmenides said that Supreme Reality is One and Identical
with itself, and motion and change are illusions. Well, maybe
at some "metaphysical" level that's true, but we cannot know
for sure. We *see* motion and change, birth, decay and death,
so we must construct a theory which can explain that in the
simplest possible way.
Let's say, then, that we need four "principles": the common
roots of everything. Let's try to construct the material
world as we see it from "wetness", "solidity", "subtility"
and "vitality". (I am not telling these are accurate
translations of the greek words; "pyr" - fire - is much else
than "vitality"; it is also the substance which spontaneously
raise towards the sky, it's hot, it shines, and so on.) Maybe
the set is not complete - Gellmannes from Athens may want to
add a "strange" substance, or even a "charmed" one, we will
see. What is apparent is, that the principles are not sufficent,
we need also "interactions" to mix and un-mix them. Let's name
those Love and Hate.
Here the distance from Empedocles to us, or even to Lucrece, is
greater. He does not look at interactions as properties of the
constituents, but thinks they are operations *on* them - divine
operations, for the matter. Love sets the world at the beginning
in a state of maximal symmetry, which is more or less spontaneously
broken by Hate. Hate drives the world towards perfect disorder,
while Love tries to restore the initial symmetrical condition of
minimal entropy. Life as we know it is impossible at perfect order
*and* at chaos - maybe we must look for some kind of critical
state...

I'm not really serious - just a bit.

Forgive my poor English,

Paolo Cavallo
Bologna - Italy
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