a river. Both fire and water are in perpetual motion. Heraclitus said, "even the posset separates if it is not stirred." Things are always in motion though they may stay the same. Parmenides view on change is just the opposite of Heraclitus in that nothing changes and everything is at rest. Everything is and there is not nothing. If a person can think something then it is something. A person can't think of nothing. "For you could not know what is not - that is impossible - nor could you express it." (6.5 Robinson) But to think about something and it really existing are two different things. Parmenides sums that thought up by saying, " that which is there to be spoken and thought of must be. For it is possible for it to be, but not possible for nothing to be." (Simplicus 86.27-28) Change is impossible because for change to happen it has to stop being what it is and become something else. That goes against his whole theory. First for something to stop being would mean it would become nothing and that is impossible and second to become something else would mean something would have to come from nothing. An example of this would be the different colors of the leaves on a tree in the fall. The leaf would have to stop being green and become the other color. Parmenides thinks souls are eternal. As far as he is concerned we don't just come into existence or pass away. That would mean that we come from nothing. Parmenides said "But since there is a furthest limit, it is complete, on all sides like the bulk of a well-rounded ball, evenly balanced in way from the middle; for it must be not all greater or smaller here than there."(Curd pg.48 42) Every thing is contained within the limit. Nothing can move or change because it is contained within the boundary. Of the two arguments I agree more with Heraclitus than Parmenides. I think that everything is always changing. If nothing changed this world would stay the same. To say that fire and water are ...
