Zeno came to that conclusion--that motion was an illusion. In that,
I would say he is correct. But Zeno did not, to my knowledge, come
to that conclusion concerning the state of rest. Perhaps motion is
not fluid but discrete--like frames of a film running in
chronological and rapid sequence which produce the illusion of
motion. So all objects can only exactly occupy the space they
occupy (i.e. they are at rest) at any given instant and therefore
have no space in which to move. Likewise, the "instant" we refer to
can be infinitely refined but there comes a point in which the
object has no time which to move, in which to act. The object is
then annhilated in the next instant only to be replaced by a very
similar but not exactly identical replica. Each succeeding instant
gives rise to an extremely rapid succession of these
spatial/temporal replicas that we then intrepret as a single object
in motion.
But this interpretation has a major flaw, if events occur in slices
of space and time in which there is no time to act or space to act
in, how does one then discern motion which is, in fact, an act--the
act of discerning? How does discernment occur where there is no
space or time in which to act? It cannot and yet it undeniably
does.
So what is motion? To have motion, we must have a body to be placed
in motion, space for the body to traverse, and the motion of the
body. If you take away one, the others cease to be intelligible or
to have value. But are mover and motion separate entities? The
mover the object and the motion the transitive attribute? The
motion is nothing more than the object itself. Motion is
unintelligible without a mover. But are motion and the mover the
same? How then do we distinguish them? How can we NOT distinguish
between an object in motion and an object at rest? Motion is
neither identical to the mover nor separate from it.
A body in motion is nevertheless at rest at any given point-instant
of its motion. It divides space into that which has already been
traversed and that which has yet to be traversed. There are no
other categories. There is no space being traversed to place in
between the other two because that is merely where the object sits
at a state of rest where it does not have the space to move. What
gives space any distinction at all between that which has been
traversed and that which is yet to be traversed is the arising of
motion itself.
Yet, how does motion rise? When does a body begin to move? When it
is moving? No, it is already moving. When does it START to move?
Before it is in motion? No, because it is not yet in motion. When
does a body BEGIN to move? When does the motion arise? It doesn't.
But that is not to say that motion doesn't arise because then we
could not distinguish space and matter which are intelligible only
when motion completes the trinity. Motion arises and yet it
doesn't.
Just as there is no category of "space being traversed" there is no
point at which motion arises--a body is either in motion or it is
not.
So, as Zeno postulates, there is no motion only rest? No. The same
critique applies to rest as applies to motion. When a body in
motion ceases its motion and comes to rest, at what point does the
body BEGIN to rest? When it stops? No, it is then already at rest.
When does it BEGIN to rest? Just before it stops? No, it is still
in motion then. When does it begin to rest? It doesn't. And yet we
distinguish a body at rest from one in motion and so there must be
moment at which rest arises.
Moreover, if there is no motion, there is no rest and vice versa.
One exists only by being differentiated from the other. One without
the other is unintelligible. Without an independent existence,
neither state can be said to be intrinsically real.
Therefore, motion AND rest are illusions.
sounds like it
