Hi Craig, Joe -- This is a classic paradox in logic, but I thought it worth reviving in connection with Joe's preoccupation with the concept of motion. I'll use "instant" in all interval references to avoid the ambiguity of terms:
[Ham, previously]: > Zeno reasoned that an arrow is only in one place during > any given instant of its flight. But if it is in only one place, > it must be at rest. The arrow must then be at rest at every > instant of its flight. Logically, motion is impossible. [Craig replies]: > A rather obvious fallacy. Each thing, whether moving or at rest, > "is only in one place at any given instance." If it is in only one place > at consecutive instances, it is at rest during that interval. Otherwise > it is moving. Since everything is in some kind of transition (call it "motion"), then what you define as "that interval" during which the object is "at rest" is only relative to a larger interval during which it moves. We observe the noonday sun at a 90-degree azimuth to the horizon during an "interval" at which it appears to be stationary. Yet, it is in motion relative to the earth. We see a beam of light as a straight line, yet the photons that project this line are moving at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. The truth of Zeno's logic isn't that motion doesn't appear, but that its appearance is relative to human sensibility which, as I suggested to Joe, is a very narrow "instant" -- the time it takes for the human brain to register the image and its apparent motion or change. If the change is not apparent during this instant, we experience the object as static or stationary. If its motion exceeds our ability to register the image of the object, we observe only its trajectory. (This applies to most objects, since the molecules which constitute them travel at much higher velocities than we can sense.) The fallacy, Craig, is the notion that anything in existence is "at rest". I maintain that existence is dynamic, but that its source is static. Because Essence does not change, motion cannot logically be characteristic of it. Which is why we can never catch the "source" of reality in the physical world. Like Evolution (another kind of change), the phenomenon of motion is secondary to the subject/object split. Time and space are the mode of sensory experience, not attributes of the primary source. --Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
