Parmenides

[Anonymous No.22766430]

Why does Parmenides say that "non-being is not" in the fragments? You can easily imagine non-being. Think about the totality of the universe. Then think about what lies outside the boundaries of the universe. That is non-being. There, I solved it.

Hell, you couldn't even say "non-being is not" without being able to conceptually "manipulate" non-being as a concept. So it has to "be" in some sense.

[Anonymous No.22766434]

>>22766430
I think you're confusing the term used to signify something for the thing that is actually being signified.

[Anonymous No.22766436]

>>22766430
>Why does Parmenides say that "non-being is not" in the fragments?
because he was a retard
>hink about the totality of the universe. Then think about what lies outside the boundaries of the universe. That is non-being. There, I solved it.
and you're an even bigger retard

[Anonymous No.22766451]

>>22766434
>I think you're confusing the term used to signify something for the thing that is actually being signified.
If it even has the thinnest semblance of a concept, then it is more than just a term. It has conceptual significance. You can’t run away from the pure nothing, anon.

[Anonymous No.22766469]

>>22766430
Are you the other anon from yesterday?

This anon seems to get it:
>>22766434

Basically, if we interpret the "is" as being truly omnipresent, encompassing and threading through all meaning or significance, then whatever you mention "is". If you put something beyond the boundaries of the universe, it still is something and therefore Being.

I think you are being cleverer though with your second paragraph. Your point that we cannot talk of a "non-being" without acknowledging that there is a "non-being" is why the Goddess says that the second path (that it is not) is no true path at all, and describes people who try to employ it as confused. Because, there only "is", and when we say "non-being" as though it were an alternative/separate thing from "being", we are just confused and our words are incoherent strings.

So yes, we could not conceptually manipulate "non-being" as a concept without admitting it is there to be manipulated. But the Goddess does not try to manipulate or use it in any way; it is just incoherent gibberish and fails to transmit any meaning. Hence, all thinkers (Plato, etc) who try to use it as a device to shoehorn in change are just confused and spitting out a jumble of meaningless words.

Because absolutely everything "is", without exception, and there is no other thing set against Being where we can gain something new or hide what we would destroy.

Here is a timestamp to a text where I tried to express this omnipresent sense of "is":

https://youtu.be/fdZHRL2ru5A?si=8da9dUHJyxswJ91I&t=975

[Anonymous No.22766495]

>>22766430
>Think about the totality of the universe. Then think about what lies outside the boundaries of the universe. That is non-being.
No that is pure incomprehensibility.

[Anonymous No.22766540]

>>22766451
Specific example aside, I was really getting at the fact that there seems to be a general conflation between the symbol and the symbolised in modern philosophical discourse. For example
>Hell, you couldn't even say "non-being is not" without being able to conceptually "manipulate" non-being as a concept. So it has to "be" in some sense.
is an argument that is also used by Edward Feser in one of his books (can't recall which at the moment), who is quite a popular philosopher.

Anyway, my point is that a valid refutation to this form of argument is proving that it is begging the question, that is, assuming the premises which it seeks to establish. *For any analogy to work as an argument, there must exist an analogous relationship between the set of things used in the analogy and the set of things used in the argument.* So I think it is fair to point out that, all other refutations aside, the OP can also be accused of asserting the existence of an analogous relationship between concepts in one's mind (that is, the terms "being" and "non-being") and the existence of being and non-being, which, if the original argument is seeking to prove that non-being has some form of existence, then this would be begging the question by assuming an analogous relationship between two things with regards to essential characteristics, that is, between the term "non-being" which has existence in at least some sense of the word, and non-being itself, whose existence is what we are actually debating at the moment.

In fact, whenever I refer to >non-being, it is a meaningless statement because it assumes that non-being can be referred to as a term. Every time we say non-being, we reduce non-being down to "non-being" the term. Do you get my point? "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

[Anonymous No.22766574]

>>22766540
Feser's handling of Parmenides in his "Five Proofs" book is an absolute, cringe-inducing embarrassment. As a result, the entire book falls flat right at the beginning. Why he gets held up as some insightful and great philosopher is beyond me.

[Anonymous No.22766647]

There is no such thing as nothing. It's right there in the name.

>nothing
>no thing

[Anonymous No.22767097]

>>22766469
>>22766540
I don’t think it’s fair to reduce our alleged understanding of non-being to a conflation between symbol and concept. Both you and I are operating under an intuitive understanding of non-being as pure nothing. We both conceive of this pure nothing as something like an ortherworldly emptiness. The difference is that you believe it is philosophically impossible due to an argument about identity, while I believe it’s possible because it seems like something we CAN approach, at least asymptotically, by negating each and every property of reality. It’s like an argument by analogy, but inverted.

Now, if this series of analogy were not possible, then we couldn’t speak of non-being at all, and it would be truly gibberish. Both of us would be utterly confused about what was meant by non-being, with no semantic alignment. And yet this is not the case. We’re both in agreement with the meaning of the word non-being, diverging only in the belief in the ontological status of the concept it is supposed to refer to.

See that? In order for us to disagree about the referent of “non-being”, the referent (and not merely the signifier) would have to exist in some sense. Otherwise, if somebody asked us to point to the concept we disagreed about, you would literally be pointing to nothing (because you say non-being is not), and thus you’d be in agreement with me. If you disagree with me about nothing, you agree with me on everything.

[Anonymous No.22767399]

>>22766647
Words can only refer to things. Otherwise it doesn’t make sense. But you’re using the word nothing and making sense of it. Explain.

[Anonymous No.22767515]

To speak of "being" is alresdy to imply a specification and differentiation from something that is not "being." The universal concept of being is only ever embodied in particular things which exist, and speaking of an all-encompassing "being" which subsumes all else is essentially to speak of nothing at all as its definition is so vague and undifferentiated as to be meaningless.

[Anonymous No.22767530]

>>22767515
It seems as if I, being, an physically unable to truly conceive of non-being. Anything that can be experienced or uttered is of being, so whatever non-being is, is totally incomprehensible. My mind recoils from any attempt to ground it in physical fact, something like the fear when stepping too close to a precipice but inexpressibly greater.

[Anonymous No.22767949]

>>22767530
Take your meds. I’m capable of thinking of nothing. Actually that’s probably my default state of mind.

[Anonymous No.22768183]

>>22767949
There's not enough meds in the world or the right kind to make me stupid as you.

[Anonymous No.22768536]

>>22768183
*as stupid as you

[Anonymous No.22768540]

>>22766430
Not being is by its definition not imaginable to us because of the limitations of our material works. Speculating on its existence or non-existence is futile.

[Anonymous No.22768795]

>>22768540
Then why can I imagine it?

[Anonymous No.22768845]

>>22767097
Perhaps when you say "thinking of nothing", what you mean is just "thought" as a process or experience that does not involve a subject. Which doesn't challenge anything Parmenides has written; what we have "is" something: thought. You are simply limiting it or taking it in its own right, and not modeling it as grasping a subject. But thought itself "is" significant in your model.

The problem arises if you interpret "thought of nothing" literally: that there is this process of thought, and it is grasping a subject, and that subject is literally nothing. The obvious and undeniable contradiction is at the end there: the speaker says there is an is not.

At any rate, I am maintaining that the talk of the latter is absolute gibberish. I can readily point this out, because I am in fact pointing at a bunch of words and saying that they don't cohere. I am indicating how the string of words breaks apart, the very limit of their meaning. And those opposed to me are simply confused and are left grasping incongruent thoughts and strings of words. There is something in their hands, for everything necessarily has genuine existence, but the debate is about what they hold, and the answer is very little, and the result is that all their models of reality and conclusions are worthless.

[Anonymous No.22769470]

>>22768795
What you call non-being is already and always something.

[Anonymous No.22771208]

How do you factor in something that was (something that you used to exist) that presently no longer is (does not currently exist)?

[Anonymous No.22771506]

>>22767399
>Words can only refer to things.
What happens if I make up a new word? Also, what does "what" refer to?

[Anonymous No.22771511]

>>22771208
Parmenides believed movement is illusory. Not being isn’t something which was alive but died. Not being is literally just the cessation of being.

[Anonymous No.22771518]

>>22766430
>"non-being is not"
Non-being is-not but is a potential. Non-being is not actualized. When you are free you retain your non-being/potentiality, when you are not-free your non-being is denied to you. You are defined, finalized, & you are over.

[Anonymous No.22771897]

>>22766430
Same way you can say "a billion ton testicle the size of the known universe" without properly imagining it being a billion tons
Realize you've been applying double standards by positing this question this way.

[Anonymous No.22771983]

>>22766430
>Think about the totality of the universe. Then think about what lies outside the boundaries of the universe. That is non-being.
Then it’s not the Universe, because it doesn’t include everything. Brainlet thread.

[Anonymous No.22772189]

>>22766430
I reckon he'd be talking about the non-being you can't imagine there.

[Anonymous No.22773027]

>>22766574
> Feser's handling of Parmenides in his "Five Proofs" book is an absolute, cringe-inducing embarrassment.
If you email him or post a comment on his blog you may be able to get him to respond to your thoughts on it, he seems like a pretty online guy.

[Anonymous No.22773103]

>>22771208
The question is not legitimate. You are using a different definition of "existence" and putting things into it and taking things out of it via some unspoken process.


>>22773027
Yeah, I posted the objections openly on Twitter a while back, but the thomists who were pushing his book scattered and the man himself either didn't see it or didn't have anything to say. No big deal, I mean the book speaks for itself: it's a laughable and dismissive handling of parmenides, and as a result his whole project is dead on arrival.

>>22771511
Where in the fragments do you find that