fb16v03.html

Heraclitus and Parmenides are regarded as opposites. This is, of course, a way of dismissing them without thinking deeply about what they had to say. As long as the archaic Greek thinkers and physicists are regarded as having so many diverse and crude opinions, there is no reason to take them seriously even though Nietzsche says they represent the archetypes of all thought. They are considered the quaint prelude to real philosophy and physics that began with Plato and Aristotle. They are regarded as earlier sophists with whom Socrates was unable to converse because of the limits of time. However, when we consider the advent of the meta/physical as an emergence; when we consider that they were closest to the event; then their evidence becomes more significant. The trance of the mythopoetic was being broken, and the new metaphysical realm was taking shape. These archaic Greek thinkers saw the world changing before their very eyes and were attempting to understand what was happening. Heraclitus and Parmenides gave fundamental formulations of the new meta/physical world as they saw it. By seeing them as opposites for and against change, we lose sight of their real contributions which are as witnesses to the new era in which we find ourselves. We are now at the end of that era which they viewed when it was still new. We should, instead, imagine that they had a better view than we since the emergent meta/physical era had not yet reified into what it is for us today.

1. At the beginning of the writings on nature the aforementioned man, in some way indicating atmosphere, says <Of the Logos which is as I describe it men always prove to be uncomprehending, both before they have heard it and when once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this Logos, they [men] are like people of no experience such words and deeds as I explain, when I distinguish each thing according to its constitution and declare how it is; but the rest of men fail to notice what they do after they wake up just as they forget what they do when asleep.> -- Hereby he expressly propounds that we do and and think everything by partaking in the divine Logos; and a little further on he adds:

2. <Therefore, it is necessary to follow the common (that is the universal: for "common" means universal): but although the Logos is common, the many live as though they had a private understanding.> This is nothing other than an explanation of the way in which the universe is ruled. Therefore, insofar as we share awareness of this, we speak the truth, but is so far as we remain independent of it we lie.¹

In Heraclitus we see the uni-verse being forged out of the materials of the pluriverse. The uni-verse is what is common to all men. The old pluriverse was founded on the uncommon. The interactions with other worlds, such as that of the jinn, were rare anomalous events. Possessions, trances, visions, were essentially uncommon experiences by which all men attempted to chart their course together within the pluriverse. Heraclitus calls for a single uni-verse based on what is common between men instead of the extraordinary. Logos has many senses, but let us call it the discourse that founds the uni-verse of discourse. It is the common speech containing descriptions that everyone can agree upon of the world. Around this common speech are built up many individual understandings which are all different. The conflict of interpretations within the uni-verse of discourse is a crucial tension -- one description with many interpretations. This is the beginnings of the critical tradition in which a single uni-verse of discourse is forged to hold the conflict of interpretations. The description that withstands all criticism stands as the intersubjectively validated truth -- the socially constructed reality.

When the entranced person hears the common Logos, they do not understand it. The entranced person does not realize that all things happen according to the intersubjectively agreed upon description. They are caught up in the individuated realities of their trances. The intersubjectively designated as real world is invisible to them. They have no experience of that world because all their experiences relate to the extraordinary world of the mythopoetic. Even if Heraclitus distinguished things very carefully declaring how it <is>, ie. using Conceptual Being, it is to no avail. Men in one world cannot see things in the other world. This is sure proof that an emergent event has occurred. Some people are still seeing things the way they used to be seen, while others see the new gestalt patterning. Heraclitus is beginning to rewrite history to make the links between the mythopoetic and the metaphysical clear. In his time one could still see either gestalt. Now we have no choice because we are locked out of the mythopoetic gestalt. We can only imagine what those that Heraclitus ridiculed were seeing, and we cannot imagine how they could not see things the way everyone sees them today. Heraclitus claims that those immersed in the mythopoetic enchantment are like ones still asleep. Curiously Heraclitus says:

... but the rest of men fail to notice what they do after they wake up, just as they forget what they do when asleep. [#1 p24]

We expect here an analogy between men asleep who do not recognize the Logos and men awake who do. Instead, Heraclitus says men who do not see the common Logos are indifferent to their actions, both in sleep and wakefulness. This is indeed a description of trance. Trance is being absented from the intersubjective world; looking inward or outward toward the boundaries of that world.

Not understanding, although they have heard, they are like the deaf. The proverb bears witness to them: "Present yet absent."[#34 p27]

The entranced are absent in their fascination for the extraordinary or sacred dimension of life which has become an obsession to such a degree that the common experience to which Heraclitus is calling them back cannot be understood.

What is of interest is the bleak contrast Heraclitus makes between himself and those entranced by the mythopoetic. They are living in truly different worlds. In Heraclitus' remarks can be glimpsed a sense of wonder at the entrancement of his fellows. Heraclitus has snapped out of the trance and sees his fellow men still walking around like "zombies." This is a shocking experience for both of them. They cannot understand each other any more. They are in different worlds.

The Logos: though men associate with it most closely, yet they are separated from it, and those things which they encounter daily seem to them strange.²

Heraclitus wishes his contemporaries immersed in the mythopoetic to begin using language differently. He wishes them to describe their common reality and hammer out what they see intersubjectively through mutual speeches. What they can all agree upon needs to become the focus rather than the extraordinary events in the pluriverse to which they have access only as individuals separately. This commonly described reality is everyday life as experienced by all. Everyone is close to this everyday common reality, yet they are separated from it by their enchantment with the sacred. When Heraclitus speaks about these common things, they seem strange because their sacred dimension has been suppressed. Instead, the new distinction is between nomos and physos. The law of the descriptions as they relate to the underlying growth and decay has become the focus of attention rather than the sacred/profane dichotomy in which everything has a sacred dimension.

The sacred dimension can be suppressed by merely ceasing to believe in it. It is, therefore, a very fragile superstructure on experience mostly based on reported extraordinary events by single "gifted" individuals. By suppressing the sacred through suspending belief, the common world of verified descriptions appears. It appears strange to the recently enchanted who have snapped out of their trance even though it is to us the most mundane of all realities.

The Sibyl with raving mouth, uttering her unlaughing, unadorned, unceasing words, reaches out over a thousand years with her voice through the (inspiration of the) god. [#92 p?]

This is the individual who is open to the extraordinary that becomes the window for the whole community. Yet, many people who do not experience the extraordinary become entranced as well, so that the sacred dimension of all things becomes the designated reality. This designated reality lays the groundwork for the slavery of the men to Jinn (the "invisible men" called "gods"). Through the channels open to other parts of the pluriverse, men hear what the gods ordain and also hear of extraordinary experiences of the few to whom the gods appear.

What intelligence or understanding have they? They believe the people's bards, and use as their teacher the populace, not knowing that "the majority are bad and the good are few." [#104 p31]

The message of the channels are recorded by the bards and learned by the general populace so that they become the generally agreed upon worldview of the people. Interestingly, those who have access to the extraordinary and those advocating a turn to everyday common experience are both few. Heraclitus, in the way of all true revolutionaries, brands his own elite good and treats the elite of the mythopoetic worldview as if they were the worst of all mankind.

Much learning does not teach one to have intelligence; for it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and again Xenophanes and Hecataeus. [#40 p27]

The cultural heros are to be overthrown, and the new view of the world substituted. The mere reformers of myth, like Xenophanes, cannot be continenced for they preserve the focus on the sacred as opposed to the common reality. Heraclitus is the central figure in bringing about this revolution of consciousness -- this demystification of the everyday world. Heraclitus wishes to construct a city based on laws. The new laws are the intersubjectively validated description of a common world -- a uni-verse.

If we speak with intelligence, we must have our strength in that which is common to all, as the city on the Law (Nomos), and even more strongly. For all human laws are nourished by one, which is divine. For it governs as far as it will, and is sufficient for all, and more than enough. [#42]

Heraclitus likens the intersubjectively validated descriptions of common reality to the law of the city. He says men should fight for that law like they fight for their own city. That law will be common to all men -- the law of the uni-verse. Today we have a clear idea of what those look like as they are given by modern physics. The brilliance of Heraclitus' insight has been borne out by the dazzling advances of modern science in discovering the so called "laws of nature" which are patterned after the "laws of men." But that would never have been possible unless the single uni-verse of discourse, within which critical dialectical thinking could be expressed, were not constituted first. Heraclitus saw that the one, divinely inspired law might take shape in the form of intersubjectively validated descriptions within the universe of discourse. Law is, after all, agreed upon descriptions of correct behavior by ascribing limits. The divine law or logos seen intersubjectively is independent of human beings, yet is sufficient for human beings because it supports the entire uni-verse.

...it means that the recognition of the Logos, a recognition which leads to a sensible outlook, is available to all in that the Logos is present, though not obviously so, in all things. "Common," as applied to the Logos, means, primarily, "operative in all things," just as in ...{fragment 80}... war is said to be "common" in the sense of universal. By inference, since men have the faculties to perceive all things, the logos is `common' to them in the subsidiary sense that it is possible for them all to apprehend it; through but few of them do apprehend it.³

Through the construction of intersubjectively validated descriptions of the world common to men, their wisdom becomes universally available. Speech is what men share, and it becomes the means by which men may construct a common world which is like a walled city founded on laws. Plato believed this, and that is why he produced his LAWS. Laws are the means by which the exterior law is made visible. Laws govern speech and action within the city.

For although all things happen according to this Logos they [men] are like people of no experience, even when they experience such words and deeds as i explain, when I distinguish each thing according to its constitution and declare how it is; [#1]

Heraclitus complains that even when they live by this law, they are still like people without experience of the Logos, even though the logos is ever present and obvious. Thus, the laws themselves are not enough to experience the inner law of the universe. It is this inner law made possible by the outer laws which must be triggered. The inner law may be likened to the waters of life. In fact, in general there is an analogy between the flow of speech and the flow of waters. Derrida claims that Western thought has suppressed writing in favor of this powerful analogy. In fact, the narrative flow of speech is what causes the trance to occur. The monotonous speech of the mesmerist makes one lose one's grip on the common reality and drift into the enchantment of the individual reality. This same speech is the narrative discourse that serves as the basis for ideation. In ideation the flow of words connects the separate images into a continuous stream. Speech is the prototype for the creation of illusory continuities of more sophisticated types like the motion picture, television, and computer-controlled animation. Speech flows within the city. Its laws control this flow of speech and behavior to which it relates. Speech wells up within the community of men like the water in the sacred well. The wall of the city is like the stone wall around the well that keeps out the earth which would stop up the well spring. The conflict speeches of men are like the turbulence of the well (see fragment #43). Yet within the conflicting speeches analogous to the ORLOG is the mutually agreed upon descriptions of the common world. This true speech, which mirrors the structure of the universe that has been purified by the fire of criticism, contains a wisdom that all may share -- unlike the wisdom of the mythopoetic which is only accessible to the few with special access to other worlds. In the city where the laws hold sway, the true law becomes manifest. True speech analogous to the URLOG is distinguished from false speech. Via true speech the reality of the uni-verse is made visible.

For many men -- those who encounter such things -- do not understand them, and do not grasp them after they have learnt; but to themselves seem (to understand). [#17]

Access to the true speech that reveals reality is different (cf #123 Nature likes to hide). Many only understand the outward aspect of the laws or the verified descriptions. Understanding the essential relation between oneness, truth, and reality that gives those laws and descriptions life is difficult to get access to. We have called this the holoid. At the center of the city is the holoid where truth, oneness, and reality coincide. Outside the city is the realm of the ephemeron that is the union between the false, different and unreal.

The holoidal is the source of true speech in harmony with the Kosmos which is self-identical and thus turns the cosmos into a uni-verse. The laws, as agreed upon description of what should be, protect the various speeches with the universe of discourse, allowing us to see the internal order of what IS through the dialectic of opposing speechs. The wall protects the law from disruption by the chaos beyond the city wall. Thus, the Greeks turn the symbel into a lens by which the upwelling of physis transformed into the upwelling of the logos. The manifestation of true speech within the diverse speeches of men controlled by law allows the laws of the universe to be discovered. The well of the primal image becomes the city of enlightened men, as the water of life becomes the flowing of speech that wells up in the breasts of men.

These men become the central problem for the city. Men need to be taught how to hear the true speech from amongst the clatter of empty talk in the turbulence of the water of speech.

Men within the city need to become different from their parents and wake up learning to distinguish the true speech from the excrescence.

Those who still are not awake still participate in the universe shared by men and described by the true speech.

To those who are awake there is one ordered universe common (to all), whereas in sleep each man tuns away (from this world) to one of his own. [#89]

Those who do not hear or recognize the true speech are still enchanted. The true speech, when heard, shocks them awake into "the one ordered universe common to all." What is it that shocks the sleeping awake?

In the night, a man kindles a light because his sight is quenched; while living he approximates to a dead man during sleep; while awake he approximates to one who sleeps. [#26]

The most wise seeing man knows, (that is), preserves, only what seems; furthermore, retribution will seize the fabricators of lies and the (false) witness. [#28]

The true logos is authentic in Heidegger's sense; in fact, it is oriented toward death (see fragment # 48). Death is the central fate of man -- the exemplar of fate par excellence. The true speech makes clear the Dionysian fate which encompasses even the gods. Fragment 27 is an example of such a speech. It highlights the fact that death is an experience of unexpected depth. Death is the mirror in which all life must be viewed. All talk and actions of men take on their true proportions in that mirror. The entranced are like men asleep. Those who hear the true speech wake up in this world just like those who die wake up. The true speech is like a light kindled in the darkness. That light is a but a candle compared to the light shed on our actions in the life after death. The limits of fate -- the finitude of human life -- are luminous because of the light of the Good from the sun of the single source. That light manifests as the making whole of everything before it returns to the single source in the realm of endlesstime. In life injustice is the all pervasive threat of those who have attained "completion now." The law ameliorates injustice within the in-time realm. By damping the force of injustice within the confines of the city, the law makes it possible for the light of true speech to shine through from the next world. The next world is the world of making whole. There the holoidal character of everything interpenetrating takes over. Each thing becomes whole, and those who do injustice experience this as a fire. Those who have avoided injustices experience this as a garden. When true speech manifests in the city, it has the character of a fire also. Speech is like water, but true speech is its opposite. It is like a fire because the holoidal nature of things is expressed in the in-time realm. The message of true speech brings the reality of paying recompense in the next world into the in-time realm.

You could not in your going find the ends of the soul, though you traveled the whole way: so deep is its law (logos). [#45]

The old Celts had a male god called Dommu, or "Depth of the Waters," and it is possible this god has been living in the spring to which the Wild Man has just introduced the boy. Because the Wild Man and the Wild Woman both guard the bond in some Celtic stories, it is more appropriate to say the water is soul water, and as such, both masculine and feminine.

Water in such symbolic systems does not stand for spiritual or metaphysical impulses (which are better suggested by air and fire) but earthy and natural life. Water belongs to lowly circumstances, ground life, girth from the womb, descent from the eternal realm to the watery earth, where we take on a body composed mostly of water. When our mythology opens again to welcome women into sky-heaven and men into earth-water, then the genders will not seem so far apart. White men will feel it more natural, then for them to protect the earth, as native American men have always felt it right to do.⁴

Thus, from this perspective we could paraphrase Heraclitus to say you could never find the source of the waters of life -- the source of speech which may be transformed into true speech -- a light in the darkness expressing the underlying holoidal character of existence. Instead of reaching the source of the waters, speech turns into a celestial fire; the hearth at the center of the community.

To souls it is death to become water, to water it is death to become earth. From earth comes water, and from water soul. [#36]

The soul is a celestial cause which animates the body. As such, it can be represented by each pure element: Air, Fire, Water, & Earth. It is none of these as it derives directly from the single source. The elements are the qualities of things which are generally mixed together and contained by number. The pure elements are the four doors to existence through which the celestial soul shines. Thus, relating the soul to Air, or Water, or Fire, or even Earth, the transformation from water to fire brings the relation between endlesstime to in-time within this world.

When you have listened, not to me but to the Law (logos), it is wise to agree that all things are one. [#50]

Listening to the true speech one discovers that all things are one -- the holoidal nature of existence shines forth where mutually tested and proven assertions mirror the true nature of the Kosmos. In that holoidal unity of identity, truth, and reality, the nature of the single source shines through.

The single source is the sun of the Good which is always shining and which gives luminousness to the limitations of fate.

If one does not hope, one will not find the unhoped-for since there is no trail leading to it and no path. [#18]

There is no path to the single source, yet all things arise from it and return to it. It is our hope to display it which allows us to approach it. If we do not hope for it, we will never find it.

The Sun of the Good shines anew each day. Every day there are new signs that point toward the single source. The holoidal nature of reality is such that the indications are new each day.

True speech is like the speech of the oracle at Delphi. It indicates the single source continually re-pointing and adapting to renew its emphatic indication of the One True Reality. Normal speech presents some things while hiding others. True speech cannot conceal since it is impossible to hide what is ever present and shining. True speech cannot speak in the same way as ordinary speech with limited meaning. True speech must resonate on multiple levels of meaning at the same time.

This ordered universe (cosmos), which is the same for all, was not created by any one of the gods or of mankind, but it was ever and is and shall be ever living Fire, kindled in measure and quenched in measure. [#30]

There is an exchange: all things for Fire and Fire for all things, like goods for gold and gold for goods. [#90]

The holoidal nature of the universe on the endlesstime plane is experienced as fire of retribution -- the making whole of everything by the single source before the return to origin. When we consider that the realm of endlesstime is just another aspect of the in-time, it is clear that this Fire is the interpentration of everything with everything else. That interpenetrating holoid is constantly changing to re-indicate the single source anew. The fire manifests as change within the in-time realm.

Anhalation (vaporization) of those who step into the same river have different waters flowing ever upon them (Souls also are vaporized from what is wet). [#12]

It is not possible to step twice into the same river ( it is impossible to touch the same mortal substance twice, but through the rapidity of change) they scatter and again recombine (or rather, not even "again" or "later," but the combination and separation are simultaneous) and approach and separate. [#91]

The outpouring of existence is endless change in the in-time realm. This is the vaporization of the in-time by the fire of endlesstime. The river of time -- the waters of life welling up within the well -- the waters of speech upwelling within the city. Not only is the outward river of time constantly changing, but we who step are constantly changing also. "We are, and we are not." It is the same river from one perspective, but different from another. We are the same person from one perspective, yet very different from another. The scattering and combination of the change is simultaneous. That is to say incomprehensible -- a supra rational oneness of opposites.

This supra rational oneness of opposites is the holon. It is the Janus face of opposites which reveals the integrity within the holoid. The holoid is the interpenetration of everything with everything else. The holon is the structural oneness of opposites that allows things to be the same yet different, and thus allows differentiation within the interpenetrating whole. The integra is the uniqueness of the individual entities which make up the whole. It is precisely their uniqueness that allows the whole to interpenetrate. Within this structural differentiation the dynamic of opposites occurs.

Immortals are mortal, mortals are immortal; (each) lives the death of the other, and dies their life. [#62]

And what is in us is the same thing: living and dead, awake and sleeping, as well as young and old; for the latter (of each pair of opposites) having changed becomes the form and this again having changed becomes the latter. [#88]

Fire lives the death of earth, and air lives the death of fire; water lives the death of air; earth that of water." [#76]

The dynamic of opposites as it alternates on man allows each opposite to be recognized by its difference with the other. The dynamic of the opposites upholds their Janus-faced holon character which is a supra rational oneness. That oneness points toward the Arche which is separate from the physis of the upwelling opposites in contest.

War is both king of all and father of all, and it has revealed some as gods others as men; some it has made slaves, others free. [#53]

One should know that war is general (universal) and jurisdiction is strife and everything comes about by way of strife and necessity. [#80]

The contest of opposites occur as part of the dynamic of the opposites which has grown out of the singing contests and the Olympic contests of the mythopoetic era. Outside the city the strife is between cities. Within the city strife of speeches controlled by law makes visible true speech about common reality. Outside the city strife makes visible glory.

The best men choose one thing rather than all else: everlasting fame among mortal men. The majority are satisfied like well-fed cattle. [#29]

What the warrior and the philosopher have in common is the pursuit of excellence: arte (rta,asa).

One fights inside the city to reveal the one true reality, while the other fights outside the city to make visible the hand of fate.

Both the warrior and the philosopher reveal the inner workings of destiny; one among speeches and the other through his actions. Out of this conflagration (see fragment # 43) of strife between opposites where injustice is done in this world, appears the Arche which is divine.

Of all those whose discourse I have heard, none arrives at the realization that that which is wise is set apart from all things. [#108]

God is day=night, winter=summer, war=peace, satiety=famine. But he changes like (fire) which when it mingles with the smoke of incense, is named according to each mans pleasure. [#67]

The divine -- the Aperion -- is the face of the single source within the holoid of the universe. The Arche is set apart from everything else. It is the opposite to everything else. It is the unlimited against which every limited thing is contrast. It is known though its opposition to everything finite. We learn what opposition is by observing the holon opposites in existence. We learn of the Apieron by applying this same principle of opposition to everything. The Arche of everything is the single source -- the one true reality running through everything, making it a holoid. This Arche is like a thunderbolt that guides and steers the universe determining fate. The unlimited is wise, and it is one. It uses all things to determine the fate of all things. It cannot be captured by any definition of name because it is truly unlimited. Yet it encompasses all opposites. It is supra rational -- that is beyond man's understanding.

To God all things are beautiful, good and just; but men have assumed somethings to be unjust, others just. [#102]

This brings us to a key point. The Arche manifests itself within the holoid uni-verse as a hidden harmony. It is hidden because all things are made whole in the eternal dimension despite the injustice and strife in the finite dimension. This harmony is the key to understanding existence.

They would not know the name RIGHT (dike, justice) if these things (i.e. the opposite) did not exist. [#23]

Justice also manifests at times within the in-time realm. True speech calls for justice. When accounts are balanced in this world, they do not have to be balanced in the next world. Pursuing justice manifests the harmony inherent in the universe.

That which is in opposition is the concert, and from things that differ comes the most beautiful harmony. [#8]

They do not understand how that which differs with itself is in agreement: harmony consists of opposing tension like that of the bow and the lyre. [#51]

By being just in all things, men can know this hidden harmony of the Arche manifesting in all things.

Moderation is the greatest virtue, and wisdom is to speak the truth and to act according to nature, paying heed (thereto). [#112]

Thus, Heraclitus does not just tell us that there is a true speech, but he speaks it himself. The true speech indicates death and beyond that indicates justice. Heraclitus was able to speak this true speech because:

Heraclitus turned away from the mythopoetic world toward what men have in common. Things which they see and hear and can have direct knowledge, like the quality of opposites in creation. He searches within himself and constructed a city. As a man of wisdom he is much like the tree from the primal scene. He encompasses the many speeches competing to express the truth within himself. He unifies these and raises them by saying the true speech that points to the Arche and explains the relations between separated off opposites. Thus, the sage encompasses within himself all the diverse speeches of lesser men like the tree encompasses all the worlds. The true speech can only be spoken by the wise man. It does not float free unembodied. The sage is like the proto-gestalt which by encompassing the whole within himself can take other men out of their trances to speak their own true speech. Like Socrates, it is his ignorance that is true wisdom and makes visible the fallacies in the speeches of others who only have part of the overall picture. The sage, such as Democritus, is within the city, yet encompasses the whole of the city. The city in which true speech is uttered can only exist because of him. Without him the talk turns into mere chatter. The city becomes hollow instead of whole.

The Primal Image is transformed by Heraclitus into the image of the sage and the city. It is taken out of the ream of endlesstime and placed wholly in time. Yet, at the same time, the structure is preserved because the Arche is contrast to the holoid whole, embracing the holon of opposites expressing integral harmony.