Elements-Which Ones Do You Think Count?

[27x]

whynaut

AbrAbraxas

you have to consider these things within the context of their origins.
the five elements are from taoism which are wood, air, fire, water, metal
now as for the four elemental systems i am not sure of the origin but many schools use earth, fire, water and air. this four elemental system can be applied to many other concepts, such as the chakra system and many yogic systems, earth being the lowest represents the body, fire the base emotions, water the nurturing emotions/soul and air the mind. other people have thier own interpretations also.

The four elements: earth, fire, water and air, are the classical or Greek elements.

On an interesting side note, Taoism does not include Air into their 5 basics elements, however its closest equivalent would be called Chi. And Chi is supposed the foundation for the other 5 elements.

Well chi isn't really considered a physical element. It is usually described as lifeforce; anything alive is supposed to have it.

It's interesting because when your talking about elements in the syle of, "Water, earth, fire, etc."-the oldschool elements-I would have never thought to put in something that isn't tangable, like chi. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just wondering where chi would fit in in the scheme of taoism.

Also, are you talking about the I-ching, or something else?  

[whynaut]

27x

Well chi isn't really considered a physical element. It is usually described as lifeforce; anything alive is supposed to have it.

It's interesting because when your talking about elements in the style of, "Water, earth, fire, etc."-the oldschool elements-I would have never thought to put in something that isn't tangible, like chi. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just wondering where chi would fit in in the scheme of taoism.

Also, are you talking about the I-ching, or something else?

Exactly. The point I was trying to make is that Air is not a part of the 5 elements of Taoism (or going back further to I-ching where both Taoism and Confucianism have precursors in). Back then, there was no word for Air; it was not even a concept. Wind was something, clouds were something; but air in itself was not considered as anything. However, the ancient Chinese felt what we breathed in was Chi, or lifeforce itself. All things were supposed to been able to be divided into the 5 elements, and the 5 elements in turn were supposed to have been composed of Chi.

This is why they did not include Air into their elements, because they had no word for it, but their closest equivalent was Chi.  

[Tautological Tautology]

Niniva

Pifflestick

There are six elements, fire, water, earth, air, light, and dark. Metal is part of earth and life is part of light. There are no more, no less. Unless you get scientific, but this is a philosophy forum.

I can't tell you how offensive this statement is to me.


Are you suggesting that philosophy can't be scientific? Or vice versa? Come now surely you jest.






By the way....where is "heart" on this list? Gogo captain planet!

Empedocles was the first to have a system consisting of the traditional four elements, but his ontology was not limited to that, however. Alongside fire, earth, air, and water he included philetos and neikos, or love and strife. Love would bring certain elements together while Strife tore them asunder; it was through this that Empedocles developed an ontology that accounted for both change and consistency within the world. Pifflestick's notion of what consists of the elements is markedly similar to that of Empedocles and the "Heart" your refering to can easily be extrapolated to be the philetos of Empedocles and the "light" of this Pifflestick guy.

Furthermore, in response to the OP, this topic is incredibly misleading as anybody with any sense understands that there are conceptual levels of Being underneath what we abstract as fire, earth, air, water, wood, etc.

Also, the Presocratics were by far not the last people to take this seriously as it was manifest in Aristotle and mediately through many people after him.  

[Niniva]

Tautological Tautology

Niniva

Pifflestick

There are six elements, fire, water, earth, air, light, and dark. Metal is part of earth and life is part of light. There are no more, no less. Unless you get scientific, but this is a philosophy forum.

I can't tell you how offensive this statement is to me.


Are you suggesting that philosophy can't be scientific? Or vice versa? Come now surely you jest.






By the way....where is "heart" on this list? Gogo captain planet!

Empedocles was the first to have a system consisting of the traditional four elements, but his ontology was not limited to that, however. Alongside fire, earth, air, and water he included philetos and neikos, or love and strife. Love would bring certain elements together while Strife tore them asunder; it was through this that Empedocles developed an ontology that accounted for both change and consistency within the world. Pifflestick's notion of what consists of the elements is markedly similar to that of Empedocles and the "Heart" your refering to can easily be extrapolated to be the philetos of Empedocles and the "light" of this Pifflestick guy.

Furthermore, in response to the OP, this topic is incredibly misleading as anybody with any sense understands that there are conceptual levels of Being underneath what we abstract as fire, earth, air, water, wood, etc.

Also, the Presocratics were by far not the last people to take this seriously as it was manifest in Aristotle and mediately through many people after him.

I see that you seem to have thought this through a bit too much for its purpose.

It was designed to state the offensive nature of "Unless you want to get scientific, but this is a philosophy forum." which implies that science and philosophy are opposites or that they are mutually exclusive.

And the heart thing was what I like to call "lightening the mood" in the form of media references to cartoon from my childhood....which I suspect was quite a bit before your childhood, and thus Captain Planet may not have been a reference you found humorus.

Now this:

Quote:

Furthermore, in response to the OP, this topic is incredibly misleading as anybody with any sense understands that there are conceptual levels of Being underneath what we abstract as fire, earth, air, water, wood, etc.

Is a falacy. Appeal to the people or Argumentum ad populum (sp?) to be precise. Not to mention hints of ad homonym in there as well. I'd appreciate you not back handedly calling people stupid. If you are going to do it, simply say it.

Secondly, anyone with any sense (to commit the same falacy, hey, what's good for one is good for another right?) would realize there are no "elements" of being, that this theory is nothing but ancient nonsense which people discussed and thought was real before we had empiracle science to show us how the world "actually" is.

So whatever "Conceptual levels of being" you are speaking about, if they are a referance to any theory that first involves these sorts of elements which then leads to this concept of being then we have something that is not conceptual at all. It is more like.....patently false.  

[Tautological Tautology]

Niniva

Tautological Tautology

Niniva

Pifflestick

There are six elements, fire, water, earth, air, light, and dark. Metal is part of earth and life is part of light. There are no more, no less. Unless you get scientific, but this is a philosophy forum.

I can't tell you how offensive this statement is to me.


Are you suggesting that philosophy can't be scientific? Or vice versa? Come now surely you jest.






By the way....where is "heart" on this list? Gogo captain planet!

Empedocles was the first to have a system consisting of the traditional four elements, but his ontology was not limited to that, however. Alongside fire, earth, air, and water he included philetos and neikos, or love and strife. Love would bring certain elements together while Strife tore them asunder; it was through this that Empedocles developed an ontology that accounted for both change and consistency within the world. Pifflestick's notion of what consists of the elements is markedly similar to that of Empedocles and the "Heart" your refering to can easily be extrapolated to be the philetos of Empedocles and the "light" of this Pifflestick guy.

Furthermore, in response to the OP, this topic is incredibly misleading as anybody with any sense understands that there are conceptual levels of Being underneath what we abstract as fire, earth, air, water, wood, etc.

Also, the Presocratics were by far not the last people to take this seriously as it was manifest in Aristotle and mediately through many people after him.

I see that you seem to have thought this through a bit too much for its purpose.

It was designed to state the offensive nature of "Unless you want to get scientific, but this is a philosophy forum." which implies that science and philosophy are opposites or that they are mutually exclusive.

And the heart thing was what I like to call "lightening the mood" in the form of media references to cartoon from my childhood....which I suspect was quite a bit before your childhood, and thus Captain Planet may not have been a reference you found humorus.

Now this:

Quote:

Furthermore, in response to the OP, this topic is incredibly misleading as anybody with any sense understands that there are conceptual levels of Being underneath what we abstract as fire, earth, air, water, wood, etc.

Is a falacy. Appeal to the people or Argumentum ad populum (sp?) to be precise. Not to mention hints of ad homonym in there as well. I'd appreciate you not back handedly calling people stupid. If you are going to do it, simply say it.

Secondly, anyone with any sense (to commit the same falacy, hey, what's good for one is good for another right?) would realize there are no "elements" of being, that this theory is nothing but ancient nonsense which people discussed and thought was real before we had empiracle science to show us how the world "actually" is.

So whatever "Conceptual levels of being" you are speaking about, if they are a referance to any theory that first involves these sorts of elements which then leads to this concept of being then we have something that is not conceptual at all. It is more like.....patently false.

What I was reacting against was related to the notion that philosophy and science are divorced from each other. Philosophy and science are not mutually exclusive, there is overlap, arguably less so now than in the past, but it is nevertheless there.

Though we know through improvements to science that this model of the elements is not the case that does not mean that it should be seen as nonsense, only that it should not be taken literally today. You suggest I assert "elements of being" but this is a misquotation. I did not say elements and was intending to convey that the nature of reality does not stop at these elements and that they are not actually elemental, meaning that things such as water and air may be broken down into molecules, atoms, protons, and quarks. Each item here more conceptual than the last and possibly going to strings or whatever alternative theories there are. Perhaps "conceptual levels of being" was poor diction, but I was trying to assert that these when one attempts to scientifically (and this can be extrapolated as natural philosophy) explain the nature of reality it gets more and more conceptual the more one deals with small particles, with mathematics being relied upon more and more.

What the Presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle asserted may today be seen as "ancient nonsense" but their ideas are important to the development of philosophy, and through philosophy, science and mathematics. Their ideas mark the beginning of a movement away from explaining things wholly in terms of myth and anthropomorphizing nature.

Furthermore, the Presocratics were not without empirical science, only without tools for observation and rigorous scientific method. Many of them were observers of nature and were more scientific than any of their contemporaries. Many of their conclusions that seem half baked today are counterbalanced by insights that have, within the last few centuries, come to be accepted as true. For example, Anaximander posited a crude version of evolution and Pythagoras believed in heliocentrism.

All of this is of course reliant on my assertion that science and philosophy are not mutually exclusive. With the coining of the term philosophy around the time of Socrates a tradition that lasted for almost two millennia of science being under philosophy as natural philosophy was founded. Today, the nature of science and what determines what science is is philosophy. Though oftentimes seen as separate there is still, and I think always will be, overlap and one cannot speak of the Greek's notion of elements, at least with seriousness and respect (for they are important in their own way), without discussing both philosophy and it's daughter, science.

Edit: I did get the captain planet reference, and no, it's not before my time. I was merely enjoying connecting childhood memories for my newfound love of the Presocratics.
Also, given that I wasn't entirely clear in what I said, I think you may have gotten the impression I was saying that wholly in response to you, which I was not. I only meant to discuss these things in relation to Empedocles
In regards to the 'insults', I was only saying that anyone who was taking these Greek and Daoist elements literally was lacking in sense, this was not intended to be directed at anyone specific.  

[Niniva]

A respectable response.

My only arguement here though, is to say that perhaps in the past thirty years or so...maybe fifty...Science and Philosophy divorced from each other, but today there is a very concerted effort to quit that mentality. The emergence of Neurophilosophy, and experimental philosophy has brought very promising results and it has become quite popular these days.

In fact most sections of your classical "Armchair" style disciplines within philosophy have looked at their theories in certain areas and realized that they may be very good theories, but are simply not practical or applicable when tested. They essentially commit the same sort of errors as communism. Good on paper, impossible in practice.

That's truthfully all I have to say. Very well worded response, you have my respect.