Three unknown arguments of Zeno of Elea
against life
Newly discovered writings of the creator of dialectics

The gaps on which the knowledge of Greek philosophy is based have recently been filled in thanks to the discovery of unknown fragments of the work “About Nature” by Zeno of Elea. This time they were found in Plutarch, who writing about Zeno’s work, relied on the speeches of the so far unknown ancient thinker Akierkegaardenes. This way a bit of more light has been put on our ignorance concerning the oldest philosophy of Europe.

Greek thought, starting from asking the most basic, cosmological questions: where does the world and gods come from and what are taxes spent on, claimed that not everyone must immediately know what the point is. On the other hand, asking about the nature of things it often revealed its contradiction showing itself the difference between the thesis and the antelope (Ahegeles).

Not everyone, however, fell into utter nihilism, claiming for example, that there is nothing but a hole. Efreudenides immediately showed that it is false saying that if there is a hole it means there must be something it is in. He gave his own tooth as an example. And that’s how we get to Zeno of Elea, from the school of Parmenides, whose knowledge came from pure deduction, although he sometimes confused it with grape wine. He was the first “pedigree” polemist. He practiced the art of having arguments and perfected it to such an extent that his friends often asked him if he could have a word with their wives and he gladly did it. And this way dialectics came into being.

And these are new, unknown arguments of Zeno of Elea against life:

Dichotomy

A creature which is alive and is supposed to live for some time must first live half of its life, and then half of the remaining part, and then half of the rest and so on endlessly. However short this life is then, there must always be an infinite number of parts to live, which can’t be done in a limited period of time, which means that life is impossible.

Man

Man alive at the moment rests in peace and gives no signs of life; and it is the same in any other moment. But life consists of moments, so man cannot live but is dead.

Methuselah

Someone living the longest will never live longer than someone living the shortest, Methuselah will not live longer than the dead in the birth day if the dead gets born a little bit earlier. The one living long must live till the moment which was lived through shortly by the one living short, who on the other hand lived through something again and it will always be like that.

The last example seems not to be an argument against life but against the mortality of babies.