The Four Elements — the Source of All That Is — Update 2
This is a further development for those interested in this somewhat esoteric subject, who’ve read the first update .
I recently read an article on Medium by John Driggs, entitled ‘as a Matter of fact: a Brief History of Matter — Materialism Transcended’, which was discussing similar material. It contained the following passage: “Most of the Presocratics believed the world is composed of one or another element — earth, water, wind, or fire. They didn’t, however, try to explain what the elements actually are. They didn’t ask ‘What is water?’ or ‘What is fire?’ The elements, they believed, weren’t capable of further explanation. They were simply the starting point from which everything else had to be explained”.
I responded: “Not sure I agree with you there. I believe that when they talked about water or fire, they weren’t necessarily using the words in the same way as when others talked about the four elements as the building blocks of the material universe. I discussed this here”, referring to my article Four Elements Update .
He replied: “I mostly agree with you. I think, to understand each of them, it’s best to take these words and apply them to a fuller context (the problems they were trying to solve) and also to remember that their vocabulary was much more limited. And when you do this, it’s almost certain that most of them did not mean to use these words literally (especially Heraclitus) — that is, all but Thales, who I believe was being quite literal when he said all things are made from water; seems apparent from his theory of earthquakes and also from the fact that the island of Lade seemed to grow out of the water since water levels were dropping during the period he lived in Miletus. I could be wrong of course; the sources on Thales are scanty at best)”.
He referred me to an article of his, click here.
I made the following response before reading his article: “You make interesting points about Thales although, as you say, the sources are scanty. The first point in response is that, if he really believed that, then he must have been mad, because no sane person could believe that everything we perceive as physical is literally made of water. I assume he wasn’t mad, and therefore wonder whether, even though he seemed to be expressing himself in literal terms, his real meaning was allegorical. (Ancient writers often did this.) In the example you give, in the language of symbolism an island emerging from waters refers to the emergence of the material world out of what we would now call the quantum world, but in spiritual traditions is called the astral level. It also refers, by extension to consciousness emerging from the unconscious. For example, this is a theme in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, in which the evolution of human consciousness is portrayed, taking place on an island following a violent shipwreck (on the waters)”.
I then read his article where I found the following quote from Thales: “the earth is supported by water on which it rides like a ship”. I then made the following response:
“Hi again. In support of my allegorical interpretation, I quote your article. Thales: ‘the earth is supported by water on which it rides like a ship’.
First point: from this we can assume that Thales does not believe that the earth is literally made of water, as you originally said. He is clearly saying that earth and water are different levels.
Second point: by ‘earth’ he presumably does not mean planet Earth, nor the earth beneath our feet. Neither of these would make sense in the context of what he says.
This statement of his is exactly how I understand the nature of physical reality in the language of symbolism and quantum physics. I did a quick search on the internet, and found this, which is probably as good a description as any of the sea on which the earth floats:
‘Quantum gravity models predict that space-time is a seething foam of tiny regions where miniscule new dimensions unfurl and then furl back in on themselves, spontaneously appearing and disappearing with inconceivable quickness. These regions blink in and out of existence like the bubbles in the foam of a freshly poured beer. There is no such thing as empty space; there is only ‘quantum foam,’ everywhere. Such is space-time for a quantum physicist’. [https://phys.org/news/2016-01-quantum-foam.html]
So I’m sticking by my article, at least for the time being, and Thales’ understanding of water, which in modern times we call quantum foam.
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I hope you have enjoyed this article. I have written in the past about other topics, including spirituality, metaphysics, psychology, science, Christianity, politics, and astrology. All these articles are on Medium, but the simplest way to see a guide to them is to visit my website (click here and here).
