"Turn on your brain," advises the philosopher Parmenides. The opinion is not true. How to tell the difference?
Is there a solid foundation under all the chaos?
It's time to consider whether everything around us is really just evolving and changing rapidly. Because we can look at reality in the opposite way: the world has an unchanging foundation, there is only one being. We just wrap it in a tangle of emotions, nonsensical trends in an attempt to process, sell, control, photograph and post it all. Perhaps if we pause for a moment and quiet the delusions of sense and opinion, we can see the true essence covered by it all.
At least that's how Parmenides of Elea would see it. This ancient Greek philosopher came from the Greek colony of Elea in southern Italy, where he lived and worked in the 6th to 5th centuries BC. Not many details of his life have survived, but he was a major influence on later Greek thinkers. Parmenides' worldview, however, differed fundamentally from that of his followers. While Plato or Aristotle distinguished between the sensible world and the world of ideas/substance, their predecessor Parmenides insisted that true existence was one, unchanging and indivisibly whole. We can only know it through deep reason. The impression that everything around us is changing and evolving was, in his view, only the result of the deceptive action of our senses.
Let us not mistake opinion for truth
On the one hand, such thinking is hard to accept today. If we take it to its conclusion, even our birth and death is a delusion according to Parmenides' reasoning, because in reality we are always here. Hm. On the other hand, let's not get hung up on the details and be tolerant of our great-great-grandfather, who tried to describe existence at a time when the entire library of scholarly writings published up to that time occupied a single shelf. We can certainly take inspiration from his ideas today.
When he argued that all the changes and multiplicity we see around us are illusions, he could not have imagined at all, in the calm of his 5th century BC, what human life would be like in the era of the internet and globalisation. Nevertheless, he is right that, especially in an age of information chaos and rapid change, we should seek a stable, unchanging foundation - whether in personal life, scientific knowledge, or moral values. Today, more than ever, we see that truth is not a matter of opinion, but of deep reason.
Opinions instead of knowledge tear society apart
The right to an opinion is nowadays very popular, especially among those who have studied at the university of life and have political and business aims which they want to achieve by manipulative techniques. In a world saturated with superficial impressions and subjective interpretations, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish true knowledge from mere opinion (masquerading as fact).
What happens when everyone starts to follow their own opinion without seeking the truth? Confusion arises. This is what Parmenides said two and a half thousand years ago, and we can only agree with him today. There ceases to be any authority of knowledge because every statement is considered equal. Falsehood and truth are on an equal footing, society becomes divided, people close themselves off in their own opinion bubbles and reject the truth that might challenge their beliefs. Did Parmenides really not have Facebook?
Are people dumber than they used to be?
A quick explanation for the current state of affairs is offered: people today are poorly educated and therefore skim the surface. Parmenides, however, would immediately throw this argument off the table, because change is a delusion. Human reason remains the same, in his time and today. The ability to think logically is still present in man. The problem would be more in how man uses (or doesn't use) reason.
Delving into deep thought is exhausting and time consuming. While in ancient times philosophy was considered the pinnacle of knowledge, today people prefer quick, simple answers to the search for truth. They just have to be appealing, they don't have to be true. Much of society forms opinions based on emotions, social networks or personal prejudices, rather than critically examining the facts. So our problem is laziness to think, not stupidity per se.
But not to be too hard on ourselves: the fact is that the amount of information in ancient times simply does not compare to the amount that is thrown at us today. Since we have to choose only a portion of that flood, we naturally tend to gravitate towards information that confirms our own views. Parmenides would conclude that more information does not automatically mean more truth. Rather, it means an even greater amount of deceptive ballast.
Zdroj: Giphy
Enduring values are a beacon in the stream of events
Today, Parmenides would have his own podcast and in it he would give his subscribers advice on how to find their happiness. His basic advice would be, "Seek that which is immutable." Fashion trends in lifestyle, politics, and entertainment are constantly changing. What was true yesterday is now history. But the real truth is unchanging and stands outside the current of events. A guiding question will help us discover it: will what I believe still be true a hundred years from now?
In today's language, let us apply critical thinking. What exactly does that mean? Not to accept unthinkingly the claims of others. Not to be swayed by the impression of the majority. Just because a "truth" is circulating on the internet or is publicly repeated by a public figure does not mean it is real. It must be subjected to the test of reason. And an important rule is also not to give in to despair. The immutability of truth means that even though we may be in a dark time when evil is gaining the upper hand, we will return to the truth again. There's no other way. Truth, according to Parmenides, cannot disappear.
