[lit-ideas] A History of Eternity
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 23:36:04 EDT
We were considering Plato's argument for the immortality of the soul. It
rests on the idea of 'reversibility'. Things increase and decrease in size,
therefore the soul is sometimes alive, then it dies, and then it is alive
again,
and so ad infinitum (Chase suggests wisely that the source of this nonsense
must be oriental and Orphic).
I proposed that the Greeks lack the idea of 'irreversibility'. M. Chase
comments:
>There is no entry s.v. "irreversible" in Wodehouse's
>English-Greek Dictionary. But I would suggest
>*anallaktos*.
As an illustration, Chase quotes from Orpheus (of flute fame):
Ruler of Ether, Hades, Sea, and Land,
Thine is the order amongst the stars, which run
As Thine unchangeable [anallaktoisin] behests direct.
--- Mmm. Interesting. Still Greek to me (even if in translation).
M. Chase adds:
>Are some processes irreversible? As usual, the answer depends =
>on whom
>you ask.
--- Exactly. For the late Prof. Crick (the discoverer of DNA), he would
possibly have said that DNA is 'reversible', and _eternal_ (immortal) -- which
is
what Plato thought too. DNA reduplicates indifinitely, and so, if DNA is the
bearer of the soul, the soul, too, is immortal.
Chase brings in the Greeks' "doctrine of eternal return", so favoured by
Nietzsche, as a caveat:
>But if the old saw is correct that the Greeks *generally
>speaking* had a cyclical concept of time, as opposed the linear one
>preferred by Judaeo-Christian thought and Roman pagan thought after
>Virgil, we can understand why the Greeks would be less interested in
>such an idea.
Right. It would be as if for the Greeks the model would be the Moebius strip
-- everything _reversible_.
Interestingly, some who adhere to a _linear_ doctrine of time _do_ believe
in re-incarnation and such. There is an alpha and an omega of history and time,
but once the omega is reached, there will be again a new alpha.
For, if the Judeo-Christian thought were _really_ about _linear_ time, how
would they explain (at least the Christians), the idea of the immortality of
the soul (cf. Borges, "A History of Eternity").
Cheers,
JL
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