Why I Chose Democritus

                My reading

                   Back in high school I came up with the base principles of what I now call my Dimension Theory. When I read up on the pre-Sorcratic philosopher, Democritus, the similarities I found where enlightening. I was able to, in a sense, improve upon my theory with the ideas he had centuries earlier. I’ll start this little essay by quickly explaining my prior Dimension Theory.

                Think of an atom: the way it moves, the way it interacts with other atoms, the way it is able to either build up or break apart. An individual atom is made of 3 principle components: protons, neutrons, and electrons. It is safe to say that each atom is respectively its own solar system. You are made of trillions of atoms. Every living thing is its own ‘little’ galaxy. This is the First Dimension.

                The Second Dimension is life as we see it now. The chair I’m currently sitting on is really composed off a bunch of tightly packed little solar systems, yet I see it as just another chair- it even feels like a chair.  Frogs are rather complex organisms made of cells which come together to form organs which come together to form organ systems. Each organ system is in charge of a certain operation in the body and they all work together to maintain life in the frog. This all has to begin with the atom.

                The Third Dimension is the cosmos as we home-sapiens know it today. This is where we see the distant stars and galaxies that make up the unknown. Here is where Earth revolves around the sun along with all the other planets in our solar system. Soaring asteroids become potential seeds harboring life to distant planets. Blackholes consume all. Nebulas light up the darkness.

                With my pre-existing theory of dimensions, I was able to clear up and better visualize some of the ideas I had with the thoughts and ideas of a philosopher who lived centuries ago. I’ll use three examples I found to help explain what I mean: how we see, how we move, and the nature of life.

                Democritus has an interesting idea about the phenomena of sight. He believed that in order for us to see an object, that object must shed its outside layer of atoms and transmit this form by way of the atoms in the air to the atoms that make up your eyeballs. He called this phenomena eidôla. The decay of objects is evidence of this phenomena, the continuous shedding of layers of atoms. The perception of these forms depends on how they either expand or contract before reaching the eye. Only the forms that shrink sufficiently enough can be seen by humans. It makes me wonder all the things we don’t perceive throughout everyday life.

                With the idea of the existence of atoms comes the idea of an area of empty space, or void, through which the atoms can move. Atoms themselves are tightly packed together in different forms to make compounds. The compounds are infinitely different in size and shape. For motion to exist, there has to be space for these compounds to move freely. Democritus argues in favor of the existence of such a void.

                Democritus’s view on living things proposes that all living things are made of heat, or the atoms that make up living things are structured the same as atoms that make fire. It has long been disputed where the heat of living things comes from. Democritus claims that living things, in a sense, are heat. This wouldn’t be hard to believe. One need only to recall that whenever something dies, the body of that organism usually tends to be cold a while after death.

                All in all, I chose to do my blog post on Democritus because our personal philosophies are similar in ways that enable further thought and contemplation. H2