QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

The antique Atomists Leukippos and Democritus 62 , who influenced the Ionian colony in
Southern Thrace in the second half of the 4th century B.C., searched for the primary substance
common to all material things in the same way as other Ionian philosophers. At the same time,
they also attempted to respond to Parmenides’ argument which rejected change and multiplicity.
The Atomists’ basic solution was the same as that of Empedocles and Anaksagoras. The infinite
multiplicity of things and phenomena was reduced to tiny building blocks, atoms, which could
mingle with each other, either combine or divide, in various proportions. 63 The eternal atoms
were too small to be detected by the senses, they were infinite in number, and they came in
infinitely-many different kinds. The atoms moved in infinite empty space which was called ‘the
void’. 64
According to the Atomists, the eternal and indestructible atoms moving in empty space were
what truly existed, but their movement was made possible by the empty space between them. In
addition to being, non-being continued to exist as a possibility for both movement and form, or,
in other words, as empty space. The antithesis of being and non-being in the philosophy of
Parmenides is here made coarser into that of full and void. The Atomists broke up Parmenides’
sphere of being into small fragments and scattered these fragments in what the Eleatics had
called non-being, i.e. the void. While, according to Parmenides, the whole of reality was like a
single eternal and indivisible atom, the Atomists placed an infinite number of these in the void.
Democritus did not see any reason why this non-being, empty space in which atoms could move,
could not actually be being. It merely divided something that was single and indivisible into
many parts. 66
From the contemporary viewpoint, the atomic hypothesis seems to go a long way in the right
direction when it reduces the whole multiplicity of diverse phenomena, the many observed
properties of matter, to the position and motion of atoms. On the other hand, the atom thus
becomes a mere building block of matter, and considering the properties, positions, and
61 Thesleff ja Sihvola 1994, 54-55.
62 Only a few fragments written by the Atomists are available, but their ideas are often referred to in secondary
literature without a clear distinction between these two thinkers being drawn. Theskeff and Sihvola 1994, 63.
63
The multifarious phenomena detectable in nature were born out of different arrangements and movements of
atoms just like comedy and tragedy which could both written with same letters.
64
Kenny 1998, 16-17. Stenius 1953, 159-163. The atomists also developed the thoughts of Melissos. In his search
to establish the ideal of Parmenides’ teachings, Melissos identified the invariant and that which is, and filled the
whole of infinite space with being.
65
Heisenberg 1985, 46, 57.
66
Stenius 1953, 156. Thesleff ja Sihvola 1994, 64-66. Dijksterhuis 1986, 9.
36