WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.879 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. I want to start 00:00:02.879 --> 00:00:05.740 today with a feeling that I think we all know 00:00:05.740 --> 00:00:08.640 very intimately. Oh, yeah. It's that specific 00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:10.699 kind of vertigo you get when you look at the, 00:00:10.759 --> 00:00:14.839 you know, politics, technology, the economy, 00:00:15.099 --> 00:00:17.859 even just your own face in the mirror, and you 00:00:17.859 --> 00:00:20.730 realize that absolutely nothing. is standing 00:00:20.730 --> 00:00:23.850 still right that stability is i don't know it's 00:00:23.850 --> 00:00:25.410 a lie we tell ourselves so we can get through 00:00:25.410 --> 00:00:27.910 the day it's the feeling that the ground under 00:00:27.910 --> 00:00:30.769 your feet isn't actually solid ground at all 00:00:30.769 --> 00:00:33.189 it's more like a like a conveyor belt exactly 00:00:33.189 --> 00:00:35.250 a conveyor belt and it feels like it's moving 00:00:35.250 --> 00:00:37.609 faster than you can walk and you can't get off 00:00:37.609 --> 00:00:40.979 i can't get off and today We are tackling the 00:00:40.979 --> 00:00:44.280 first man in history who looked at that chaos, 00:00:44.380 --> 00:00:46.619 that terrifying feeling, and he didn't try to 00:00:46.619 --> 00:00:48.619 fix it. He didn't try to stop the conveyor belt. 00:00:48.679 --> 00:00:50.740 No, he did the opposite. He said, no, the movement 00:00:50.740 --> 00:00:53.759 is the point. We are talking about the dark philosopher, 00:00:54.020 --> 00:00:57.299 the Riddler, the man who arguably invented the 00:00:57.299 --> 00:01:00.520 very concept of change itself, Heraclitus of 00:01:00.520 --> 00:01:03.200 Ephesus. He's a massive figure and honestly a 00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:05.209 really difficult one. Oh, for sure. When you 00:01:05.209 --> 00:01:08.010 start digging into the sources on Heraclitus 00:01:08.010 --> 00:01:10.670 and what we have is, you know, a bunch of fragments, 00:01:10.829 --> 00:01:13.790 some later biographies and a lot of critiques 00:01:13.790 --> 00:01:17.030 from people like Plato and Aristotle, you realize 00:01:17.030 --> 00:01:20.069 pretty quickly that he was not writing to be 00:01:20.069 --> 00:01:23.379 liked. No. This is not a self -help book to make 00:01:23.379 --> 00:01:25.480 you feel better about your day. No, he actively 00:01:25.480 --> 00:01:28.879 despised his audience, which I have to say is 00:01:28.879 --> 00:01:31.180 a pretty bold marketing strategy for a philosopher. 00:01:31.439 --> 00:01:34.040 It is. Here is my masterpiece. I hate all of 00:01:34.040 --> 00:01:36.200 you. Please read it. It is certainly a unique 00:01:36.200 --> 00:01:39.120 approach. He's the ultimate anti -populist. He's 00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:42.140 living around 500 B .C. in this incredibly vibrant 00:01:42.140 --> 00:01:45.640 commercial city, Ephesus. But he looks at his 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:48.409 fellow citizens and he just sees. Sleepwalkers. 00:01:48.430 --> 00:01:51.010 He thinks they're zombies. Yeah. And so our mission 00:01:51.010 --> 00:01:53.609 for this deep dive is to figure out why this 00:01:53.609 --> 00:01:56.909 grumpy aristocratic misanthrope, a guy who wrote 00:01:56.909 --> 00:01:59.090 in riddles and supposedly died covered in cow 00:01:59.090 --> 00:02:00.849 dung. You have to get to that story. We will. 00:02:00.909 --> 00:02:03.209 Why he holds the key to understanding everything 00:02:03.209 --> 00:02:07.030 from like modern physics to the human soul. There's 00:02:07.030 --> 00:02:08.169 a lot to get through. We're going to get into 00:02:08.169 --> 00:02:10.330 that famous river quote, which I know we're going 00:02:10.330 --> 00:02:13.469 to maybe not debunk, but definitely complicate. 00:02:13.469 --> 00:02:15.699 Oh, for sure. We're going to talk about why he 00:02:15.699 --> 00:02:18.360 thought war was the father of everything good. 00:02:18.500 --> 00:02:21.599 Which sounds terrifying. It does. And we really 00:02:21.599 --> 00:02:24.020 need to wrap our heads around this concept of 00:02:24.020 --> 00:02:26.419 the logos. But before we get into all the heavy 00:02:26.419 --> 00:02:29.699 metaphysics, we have to situate them. Because 00:02:29.699 --> 00:02:33.580 Ephesus isn't Athens. No, and that's such a crucial 00:02:33.580 --> 00:02:35.819 distinction. When we think of Greek philosophy, 00:02:36.259 --> 00:02:39.289 we usually picture Socrates, right? Walking around 00:02:39.289 --> 00:02:41.550 Athens, the Parthenon in the background, all 00:02:41.550 --> 00:02:43.810 these guys in white robes debating democracy. 00:02:44.169 --> 00:02:46.770 Right, the classics. But Heraclitus is Ionian. 00:02:47.469 --> 00:02:50.090 Ephesus is on the coast of what is now Turkey. 00:02:50.169 --> 00:02:52.530 It's Asia Minor. So he's on the edge. He's on 00:02:52.530 --> 00:02:54.650 the frontier. Geographically and culturally, 00:02:54.849 --> 00:02:57.490 yeah. Ephesus was a total melting pot. It was 00:02:57.490 --> 00:02:59.569 actually under the thumb of the Persian Empire 00:02:59.569 --> 00:03:02.409 during Heraclitus' life. I didn't realize that. 00:03:02.610 --> 00:03:05.270 So you have Greek rationalism just colliding 00:03:05.270 --> 00:03:08.780 with... Persian mysticism with Eastern religion. 00:03:09.360 --> 00:03:12.900 It's a massive trading hub. The Temple of Artemis 00:03:12.900 --> 00:03:15.219 is there, one of the seven wonders of the ancient 00:03:15.219 --> 00:03:18.520 world. So it's a place of wealth, commerce, a 00:03:18.520 --> 00:03:20.780 lot of noise. A lot of noise. And Heraclitus 00:03:20.780 --> 00:03:23.569 hates it. He just hates all of it. He loathes 00:03:23.569 --> 00:03:26.250 it. He sees the commercialism, the obsession 00:03:26.250 --> 00:03:28.930 with material goods as just a total distraction 00:03:28.930 --> 00:03:31.189 from the truth. Okay, let's talk about his social 00:03:31.189 --> 00:03:33.729 status because this explains a lot of the attitude. 00:03:33.810 --> 00:03:35.729 He wasn't just some random guy shouting on a 00:03:35.729 --> 00:03:38.789 street corner. He was, uh... He was basically 00:03:38.789 --> 00:03:41.150 royalty, wasn't he? Essentially, yeah. The sources 00:03:41.150 --> 00:03:43.229 tell us he was from the ruling aristocracy. In 00:03:43.229 --> 00:03:46.169 fact, he was in line to be the Basilius. The 00:03:46.169 --> 00:03:49.530 Basilius. Now, by 500 BC, this didn't mean king 00:03:49.530 --> 00:03:52.310 with absolute power like a pharaoh. It was more 00:03:52.310 --> 00:03:55.370 of a hereditary title. It carried really high 00:03:55.370 --> 00:03:58.449 -level religious and ceremonial duties. So a 00:03:58.449 --> 00:04:01.110 position of immense prestige. Huge prestige. 00:04:01.229 --> 00:04:03.030 You'd sit in the front row at the games. You 00:04:03.030 --> 00:04:05.449 would oversee the sacrifices. You were the face 00:04:05.449 --> 00:04:07.810 of the city's tradition. It's the kind of job 00:04:07.810 --> 00:04:10.949 people would kill for. It's status. It's VIP 00:04:10.949 --> 00:04:14.610 access to everything. And Heraclitus just gave 00:04:14.610 --> 00:04:16.930 it away. He abdicated. He handed it over to his 00:04:16.930 --> 00:04:19.310 younger brother. That is a very specific kind 00:04:19.310 --> 00:04:21.689 of flex. To have the crown and just say, you 00:04:21.689 --> 00:04:25.269 know what? Keep it. I'm busy thinking. It signals 00:04:25.269 --> 00:04:27.230 his priorities right out of the gate, doesn't 00:04:27.230 --> 00:04:29.769 it? He viewed the political games of Ephesus, 00:04:30.089 --> 00:04:32.910 all the striving for status, the debates in the 00:04:32.910 --> 00:04:35.790 assembly as just utterly beneath him. He had 00:04:35.790 --> 00:04:38.360 better things to do. He did. There's a wonderful 00:04:38.360 --> 00:04:40.540 anecdote. And you know, like all ancient anecdotes, 00:04:40.579 --> 00:04:42.500 you have to take it with a grain of salt. But 00:04:42.500 --> 00:04:45.339 it captures his vibe perfectly. Good. He's found 00:04:45.339 --> 00:04:48.639 playing a game of dice well, knuckle bones, with 00:04:48.639 --> 00:04:51.759 some children. And he's doing it inside the sanctuary 00:04:51.759 --> 00:04:54.199 of the Temple of Artemis. So he's hanging out 00:04:54.199 --> 00:04:56.120 in the holiest place in the city, sitting on 00:04:56.120 --> 00:04:57.980 the floor, playing games with kids. Exactly. 00:04:58.079 --> 00:05:00.420 And the city elders, you know, the politicians, 00:05:00.620 --> 00:05:02.420 they come around. They're probably looking for 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:04.899 him to weigh in on some crisis or a legal dispute. 00:05:05.339 --> 00:05:08.100 They find him. tossing dice and they just stare 00:05:08.100 --> 00:05:10.600 at him. I can just picture their faces. And Heracli 00:05:10.600 --> 00:05:12.819 just looks up at them and snaps. Why are you 00:05:12.819 --> 00:05:15.579 surprised you good for nothing? Good for nothings. 00:05:15.579 --> 00:05:20.139 Wow. He does not mince words. Not at all. He 00:05:20.139 --> 00:05:22.259 continues. Isn't it better to do this than to 00:05:22.259 --> 00:05:25.139 engage in politics with the likes of you? Ouch. 00:05:25.420 --> 00:05:28.079 That gets deep. But I feel like there's more 00:05:28.079 --> 00:05:30.279 to that image than just an insult. I mean, why 00:05:30.279 --> 00:05:34.040 dice? Why with children feels very specific. 00:05:34.339 --> 00:05:37.259 That's a great question. Because, you know, later 00:05:37.259 --> 00:05:39.920 in his fragments, Heraclitus actually says time 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:42.519 is a child playing a game of drafts. The kingship 00:05:42.519 --> 00:05:44.639 is in the hands of a child. So he was acting 00:05:44.639 --> 00:05:46.899 out his philosophy. He might have been engaging 00:05:46.899 --> 00:05:49.519 in a bit of performance art. Yeah. The game of 00:05:49.519 --> 00:05:52.399 dice. It represents chance, fate, the kind of 00:05:52.399 --> 00:05:54.560 randomness of the universe. He's saying that. 00:05:54.779 --> 00:05:57.240 The cosmic order is more like a child playing 00:05:57.240 --> 00:05:59.399 a game. It's innocent. Maybe it's arbitrary, 00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:01.639 but it's flowing. Whereas the politics of the 00:06:01.639 --> 00:06:03.459 city is just. It's just corruption and noise. 00:06:03.560 --> 00:06:06.160 Yeah. So the child is actually closer to reality, 00:06:06.360 --> 00:06:09.160 closer to the logos. Yeah. Than the politician 00:06:09.160 --> 00:06:12.699 in his fancy toga. Exactly. The child is playing. 00:06:13.019 --> 00:06:16.639 The politician is posturing. Heraclitus valued 00:06:16.639 --> 00:06:19.839 that authenticity above everything. He claimed 00:06:19.839 --> 00:06:22.500 to be self -taught, which in Greek culture was 00:06:22.500 --> 00:06:24.480 like almost a sin. You were supposed to have 00:06:24.480 --> 00:06:26.639 a lineage. You had to have a lineage. I studied 00:06:26.639 --> 00:06:29.160 under Thales, who studied under... Heraclitus 00:06:29.160 --> 00:06:31.540 just says, I searched for myself. He's the original 00:06:31.540 --> 00:06:34.779 do -your -own -research guy. He is. And he went 00:06:34.779 --> 00:06:37.160 after the big names. He didn't just criticize 00:06:37.160 --> 00:06:39.680 the local politicians. He went after the culture 00:06:39.680 --> 00:06:43.910 here. He called Homer a fool. Wow. He called 00:06:43.910 --> 00:06:47.529 Pythagoras, the math genius, a fraud and a collector 00:06:47.529 --> 00:06:50.810 of bad ideas. Calling Pythagoras a fraud is wild. 00:06:51.050 --> 00:06:53.529 That's like someone today saying Einstein didn't 00:06:53.529 --> 00:06:55.829 know math. What was his beef with them? Was it 00:06:55.829 --> 00:06:57.329 just jealousy or something? I don't think it 00:06:57.329 --> 00:06:59.449 was jealousy. I think it was a fundamental disagreement 00:06:59.449 --> 00:07:02.829 about what knowledge actually is. He felt they 00:07:02.829 --> 00:07:05.670 were what he called polymaths, people who knew 00:07:05.670 --> 00:07:07.959 many things but didn't have understanding. Just 00:07:07.959 --> 00:07:10.720 learning a bunch of facts or the genealogies 00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:13.600 of the gods like Homer or geometric proofs like 00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:15.079 Pythagoras, that doesn't mean you understand 00:07:15.079 --> 00:07:17.560 the nature of reality. Heraclitus thought they 00:07:17.560 --> 00:07:19.480 were just looking at the surface, collecting 00:07:19.480 --> 00:07:23.060 data points, but completely missing the underlying 00:07:23.060 --> 00:07:26.139 unity, the logos that connects everything. It's 00:07:26.139 --> 00:07:27.759 the difference between memorizing the dictionary 00:07:27.759 --> 00:07:30.360 and knowing how to write a poem. That's a great 00:07:30.360 --> 00:07:33.579 way to put it. Or maybe like knowing all the 00:07:33.579 --> 00:07:36.089 parts of a car versus knowing how to drive. Or 00:07:36.089 --> 00:07:38.069 the difference between knowing the position of 00:07:38.069 --> 00:07:40.730 every star in the sky and understanding gravity? 00:07:41.930 --> 00:07:43.949 Heraclitus was interested in the gravity, the 00:07:43.949 --> 00:07:46.769 hidden force. He thought Hesiod and Pythagoras 00:07:46.769 --> 00:07:49.209 were just, I don't know, cataloging the furniture 00:07:49.209 --> 00:07:51.569 while the house was burning down. And this attitude 00:07:51.569 --> 00:07:54.410 earned him some pretty dark nicknames. We mentioned 00:07:54.410 --> 00:07:58.189 the dark, but also the weeping philosopher. I've 00:07:58.189 --> 00:08:00.290 seen those paintings, usually Rubens or Bramante, 00:08:00.370 --> 00:08:02.350 where you've got one guy laughing and one guy 00:08:02.350 --> 00:08:05.639 crying. That's the classic duality, yeah. Heraclitus 00:08:05.639 --> 00:08:08.839 is the weeper. Democritus is the laugher. They're 00:08:08.839 --> 00:08:11.160 often paired together as these two archetypal 00:08:11.160 --> 00:08:13.779 responses to the human condition. And they both 00:08:13.779 --> 00:08:16.699 see the same thing, the same world. They both 00:08:16.699 --> 00:08:19.519 see the absurdity of life. They see that human 00:08:19.519 --> 00:08:21.720 endeavors are largely pointless, that everything 00:08:21.720 --> 00:08:25.040 changes, that we all die. But they react differently. 00:08:26.120 --> 00:08:28.180 Democritus, who comes a bit later and gives us 00:08:28.180 --> 00:08:31.240 atomic theory, he reacts with laughter. He thinks 00:08:31.240 --> 00:08:33.879 it's a cosmic joke. Look at these idiots worrying 00:08:33.879 --> 00:08:35.879 about money when they're just atoms in the void. 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:39.399 Pretty much. A kind of nihilistic chuckle. Right. 00:08:39.500 --> 00:08:43.340 But Heraclitus, he feels the tragedy of it all. 00:08:43.419 --> 00:08:45.940 He weeps because people could wake up. The truth 00:08:45.940 --> 00:08:48.419 is right there. He calls it common to all. But 00:08:48.419 --> 00:08:50.539 they refuse to see it. It's not just that they 00:08:50.539 --> 00:08:52.700 were stupid. It's that they are willfully blind. 00:08:53.080 --> 00:08:57.629 So his weeping is a form of... It's a very cold, 00:08:57.769 --> 00:09:00.129 distant kind of compassion. It's the frustration 00:09:00.129 --> 00:09:03.110 of a teacher who writes the answer on the board, 00:09:03.190 --> 00:09:05.210 but the entire class is just looking at their 00:09:05.210 --> 00:09:07.210 phones. And eventually that frustration just 00:09:07.210 --> 00:09:09.889 drove him out of the city entirely. The stories 00:09:09.889 --> 00:09:12.250 say he retreated to the mountains. The ultimate 00:09:12.250 --> 00:09:14.929 hermit mode. He lived on a diet of grass and 00:09:14.929 --> 00:09:18.590 herbs. He completely rejected civilization. And 00:09:18.590 --> 00:09:22.820 this leads us to the, well... the rather gruesome 00:09:22.820 --> 00:09:25.500 legend of his death. I have to warn you and our 00:09:25.500 --> 00:09:27.519 listeners, this is one of those stories that 00:09:27.519 --> 00:09:29.980 is almost certainly too symbolic to be true, 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:32.779 but it's unforgettable. This is the cow dung 00:09:32.779 --> 00:09:34.700 story. I've been waiting for this. It is. So 00:09:34.700 --> 00:09:38.080 the story goes, Heraclitus develops dropsy. In 00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:41.500 modern medical terms, this is edema severe water 00:09:41.500 --> 00:09:44.179 retention. His body is swelling up with fluid. 00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:46.500 He comes down from the mountains and goes to 00:09:46.500 --> 00:09:49.250 the doctors in Ephesus. But true to form, he 00:09:49.250 --> 00:09:51.769 doesn't just say, hey, I have edema. He asks 00:09:51.769 --> 00:09:54.590 them a riddle. Of course he does. Why be direct 00:09:54.590 --> 00:09:57.049 when you can be obscure? He asks if they can 00:09:57.049 --> 00:09:59.289 turn a rainstorm into a drought. And the doctors 00:09:59.289 --> 00:10:01.210 are probably like, sir, we have leeches and herbs. 00:10:01.269 --> 00:10:02.990 We don't do weather control. They are completely 00:10:02.990 --> 00:10:05.789 baffled. So Heraclitus gets disgusted with their 00:10:05.789 --> 00:10:07.850 lack of insight, and he decides to cure himself 00:10:07.850 --> 00:10:10.309 using his own philosophy. How does that work? 00:10:10.529 --> 00:10:12.870 Well, he believes that heat dries up moisture. 00:10:13.519 --> 00:10:16.379 Fire conquers water. So he goes to a cow stall 00:10:16.379 --> 00:10:19.419 and buries himself in manure. Wait, he what? 00:10:19.700 --> 00:10:22.559 He buries himself in a pile of fresh cow dung. 00:10:22.600 --> 00:10:25.080 And the logic here is that the fermentation of 00:10:25.080 --> 00:10:28.639 the manure generates heat. Yes. He thought the 00:10:28.639 --> 00:10:31.639 heat of the dung would essentially evaporate 00:10:31.639 --> 00:10:33.840 the dropsy out of his body. He was trying to 00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:36.500 bake the water out of his system. That is a desperate 00:10:36.500 --> 00:10:39.200 move. It did not work. I'm shocked. One account 00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:41.480 says he died right there, and when they pulled 00:10:41.480 --> 00:10:44.279 him out, he was unrecognizable. Another account, 00:10:44.519 --> 00:10:47.460 the much gnarlier one, says that because he was 00:10:47.460 --> 00:10:50.740 covered in dung, the local dogs didn't recognize 00:10:50.740 --> 00:10:53.559 him as a human. Oh, no. And they devoured him. 00:10:53.700 --> 00:10:56.639 Good Lord. That is a horrific way to go. Yeah. 00:10:56.700 --> 00:10:59.559 But you hinted before that this might be a constructed 00:10:59.559 --> 00:11:02.299 story. Why? Well, think about his philosophy 00:11:02.299 --> 00:11:05.389 for a second. Heraclitus taught that... It is 00:11:05.389 --> 00:11:08.029 death to souls to become water. Right. The dry 00:11:08.029 --> 00:11:10.970 soul is best. He associated moisture with stupidity, 00:11:10.970 --> 00:11:13.789 sleep, and death. He associated fire and dryness 00:11:13.789 --> 00:11:16.850 with wisdom and life. So for the dry soul philosopher 00:11:16.850 --> 00:11:19.350 to die of dropsy, a disease of too much water, 00:11:19.509 --> 00:11:22.289 and then to bury himself in dung, which is wet 00:11:22.289 --> 00:11:25.399 earth, it feels a little too perfect. It's an 00:11:25.399 --> 00:11:27.399 ironic punishment. It's like a comic strip written 00:11:27.399 --> 00:11:30.799 by his enemies. Oh, you like dry souls. Here's 00:11:30.799 --> 00:11:34.179 a death by water. Exactly. It was likely invented 00:11:34.179 --> 00:11:36.840 by the very people he called good -for -nothings 00:11:36.840 --> 00:11:39.000 as a way to make him look foolish in the end. 00:11:39.139 --> 00:11:42.399 It's character assassination via biography. But 00:11:42.399 --> 00:11:44.759 even if the story is fake, it reinforces how 00:11:44.759 --> 00:11:46.779 polarizing he was. He was the kind of guy who 00:11:46.779 --> 00:11:49.919 generated legends. So we have a man who is royal 00:11:49.919 --> 00:11:53.720 but rejects power, wise but speaks in riddles, 00:11:54.990 --> 00:11:56.750 potentially died trying to bake himself in a 00:11:56.750 --> 00:11:58.850 barn. That's the character. But he left something 00:11:58.850 --> 00:12:01.330 behind. One book. One scroll. Usually called 00:12:01.330 --> 00:12:03.730 On Nature. And he didn't put it in a library. 00:12:03.990 --> 00:12:06.730 He deposited it in the Temple of Artemis. That 00:12:06.730 --> 00:12:09.289 wasn't just for safe storage, was it? Most scholars 00:12:09.289 --> 00:12:11.549 don't think so. Placing the scroll in the temple 00:12:11.549 --> 00:12:14.190 was an act of dedication. It was a signal that 00:12:14.190 --> 00:12:16.529 this work wasn't for the marketplace. It wasn't 00:12:16.529 --> 00:12:18.190 for the common reader. So it was for the god. 00:12:18.429 --> 00:12:20.529 It was for the god and for those who were, let's 00:12:20.529 --> 00:12:23.429 say, initiated enough to enter the inner sanctum. 00:12:23.470 --> 00:12:26.299 It's extreme gatekeeping. It is intentional gatekeeping, 00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:29.600 for sure. Heraclitus didn't want his words to 00:12:29.600 --> 00:12:32.460 be consumed easily. He wanted them to be struggled 00:12:32.460 --> 00:12:34.779 with. There's a distinction in how he wrote. 00:12:34.860 --> 00:12:37.639 He wrote in these short, punchy, dense sentences. 00:12:38.559 --> 00:12:40.919 Aphorisms. Like nature loves to hide. Or dogs 00:12:40.919 --> 00:12:43.740 bark at what they do not know. He isn't building 00:12:43.740 --> 00:12:46.460 a linear argument like premise A leads to premise 00:12:46.460 --> 00:12:49.820 B. He's more like... He's flashing a light in 00:12:49.820 --> 00:12:52.019 a dark room. You get a glimpse of the truth and 00:12:52.019 --> 00:12:53.639 then it's gone and you have to figure out what 00:12:53.639 --> 00:12:56.100 you just saw. It reminds me more of poetry than 00:12:56.100 --> 00:12:59.559 philosophy. Or maybe like Zen koans. That's a 00:12:59.559 --> 00:13:02.679 very, very apt comparison. A koan is designed 00:13:02.679 --> 00:13:05.200 to break your logical mind so you can see reality 00:13:05.200 --> 00:13:07.960 directly. Heraclitus is doing something similar. 00:13:08.279 --> 00:13:11.039 And he got this from the oracle at Delphi. He 00:13:11.039 --> 00:13:13.379 was heavily influenced by it. He even says, the 00:13:13.379 --> 00:13:15.480 lord whose oracle is in Delphi neither speaks 00:13:15.480 --> 00:13:19.240 nor conceals but gives a sign. And that was Heraclitus' 00:13:19.340 --> 00:13:21.600 model. He didn't want to explain the universe 00:13:21.600 --> 00:13:23.700 to you. He wanted to give you a sign so you could 00:13:23.700 --> 00:13:25.860 figure it out yourself. Which brings us to that 00:13:25.860 --> 00:13:28.440 great story about Socrates reading Heraclitus. 00:13:28.759 --> 00:13:32.259 The playwright Euripides lends Socrates the scroll. 00:13:33.019 --> 00:13:34.980 And Socrates is supposed to be the smartest guy 00:13:34.980 --> 00:13:37.820 in Athens, right? Supposedly. And Socrates hands 00:13:37.820 --> 00:13:40.139 it back and says, the part I understood was excellent. 00:13:40.299 --> 00:13:42.960 I dare say the part I didn't understand was excellent 00:13:42.960 --> 00:13:45.919 too. That's a great line. But... He says, it 00:13:45.919 --> 00:13:48.480 requires a Delian diver to get to the bottom 00:13:48.480 --> 00:13:51.139 of it. A Delian diver? What's that? They were 00:13:51.139 --> 00:13:53.279 sponge divers from the island of Delos who were 00:13:53.279 --> 00:13:55.139 famous for being able to hold their breath and 00:13:55.139 --> 00:13:58.240 go incredibly deep. So Socrates is saying, this 00:13:58.240 --> 00:14:01.399 isn't shallow water. If you want this wisdom, 00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:04.000 you have to risk drowning. I love that. It's 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:05.980 like a warning label. Risk of drowning in thought. 00:14:06.200 --> 00:14:08.220 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, let's take the plunge. 00:14:08.220 --> 00:14:10.720 Let's talk about the water. The river. Doctrine 00:14:10.720 --> 00:14:12.980 of flux. Right. So if people know one quote from 00:14:12.980 --> 00:14:14.860 Heraclitus, it's you cannot step into the same 00:14:14.860 --> 00:14:18.179 river twice. It's on coffee mugs. It's in inspirational 00:14:18.179 --> 00:14:21.480 calendars. And usually it's interpreted as life 00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:24.360 is short. Things change. So cherish the moment. 00:14:24.860 --> 00:14:27.559 Which is a lovely sentiment, but it is completely 00:14:27.559 --> 00:14:30.080 missing the philosophical depth of what Heraclitus 00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:32.200 was actually doing. Okay, so let's break it down. 00:14:32.440 --> 00:14:34.460 You mentioned before we started that there are 00:14:34.460 --> 00:14:36.620 actually different versions of this quote. We 00:14:36.620 --> 00:14:38.779 don't have the original. Yeah, that's key. We 00:14:38.779 --> 00:14:41.580 don't have Heraclitus' book. We only have quotes 00:14:41.580 --> 00:14:44.500 of him by other people. So Plato quotes him one 00:14:44.500 --> 00:14:47.639 way, Plutarch another. But the version that most 00:14:47.639 --> 00:14:49.940 scholars, guys like G .S. Kirk, think is the 00:14:49.940 --> 00:14:53.220 most authentic comes from a guy named Arius Didymus. 00:14:53.299 --> 00:14:56.429 Okay. And it goes like this. this on those who 00:14:56.429 --> 00:14:59.389 step into the same rivers different and different 00:14:59.389 --> 00:15:02.789 waters flow on those who step into the same rivers 00:15:02.789 --> 00:15:04.929 different and different waters flow okay the 00:15:04.929 --> 00:15:07.470 grammar there is really interesting he's specifically 00:15:07.470 --> 00:15:10.509 asserting that the river is the same ingo yeah 00:15:10.509 --> 00:15:12.769 that is the crucial point that almost everyone 00:15:12.769 --> 00:15:15.450 misses He isn't just saying everything changes 00:15:15.450 --> 00:15:17.370 and nothing is stable. Yeah. He's saying that 00:15:17.370 --> 00:15:20.129 the stability of the river depends entirely on 00:15:20.129 --> 00:15:22.269 the change of the water. Unpack that for me a 00:15:22.269 --> 00:15:24.110 little bit. Okay. Imagine a river where the water 00:15:24.110 --> 00:15:26.289 just stopped flowing. It just froze in place. 00:15:26.590 --> 00:15:29.090 It would become a lake. Yeah. Or a swamp. Well. 00:15:29.250 --> 00:15:31.529 Or a block of ice. Exactly. It would cease to 00:15:31.529 --> 00:15:33.509 be a river. The river is a structure. It's a 00:15:33.509 --> 00:15:35.690 form. But the stuff that makes up the river, 00:15:35.789 --> 00:15:38.509 the H2O molecules, is constantly rushing away. 00:15:39.069 --> 00:15:42.049 So the identity of the river is maintained by 00:15:42.049 --> 00:15:44.789 the flux of the water. If the change stops, the 00:15:44.789 --> 00:15:47.889 river dies. That is actually profound. Because 00:15:47.889 --> 00:15:50.470 we usually think of identity as a thing. Like 00:15:50.470 --> 00:15:54.509 I am a rock. A rock just stays a rock. But Heraclitus 00:15:54.509 --> 00:15:56.929 is saying true identity is a process. Yes. And 00:15:56.929 --> 00:15:59.289 think about your own body. This is the best modern 00:15:59.289 --> 00:16:01.370 application of this idea. You think of yourself 00:16:01.370 --> 00:16:03.490 as a stable object. You look in the mirror. You 00:16:03.490 --> 00:16:06.669 see me. But biologically, you are a river. Right. 00:16:06.710 --> 00:16:08.629 Your skin cells are shedding constantly. Your 00:16:08.629 --> 00:16:11.230 red blood cells turn over every few months. Your 00:16:11.230 --> 00:16:13.509 skeleton completely replaces itself every 10 00:16:13.509 --> 00:16:16.070 years or so. You are a pattern of energy through 00:16:16.070 --> 00:16:18.970 which matter flows. You are not the stuff. You 00:16:18.970 --> 00:16:21.429 are the burning of the stuff. So stepping into 00:16:21.429 --> 00:16:24.129 the same river is a metaphor for existing as 00:16:24.129 --> 00:16:26.230 a living being. I am the same person I was 10 00:16:26.230 --> 00:16:27.750 years ago, even though I'm pretty sure I have 00:16:27.750 --> 00:16:30.350 none of the same atoms. Precisely. It's identity 00:16:30.350 --> 00:16:33.149 through change. But Heracles goes even further. 00:16:33.659 --> 00:16:36.659 In another fragment, he says, we both step and 00:16:36.659 --> 00:16:39.720 do not step into the same river. We both are 00:16:39.720 --> 00:16:43.019 and are not. We are and are not. That sounds 00:16:43.019 --> 00:16:45.080 like a straight -up contradiction. It is, and 00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:47.460 Heraclitus loves contradictions. He's pointing 00:16:47.460 --> 00:16:50.120 out that the observer is also changing. The you 00:16:50.120 --> 00:16:52.220 that steps into the river the first time is gone 00:16:52.220 --> 00:16:54.399 by the time you step in the second time. You 00:16:54.399 --> 00:16:57.259 have new memories, new thoughts, new cells. So 00:16:57.259 --> 00:16:59.399 the encounter between you and the river is a 00:16:59.399 --> 00:17:02.360 unique event that can never be repeated. That's 00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:04.880 the vertigo coming back again. If I'm changing 00:17:04.880 --> 00:17:07.039 and the world is changing, how do we grab onto 00:17:07.039 --> 00:17:09.369 anything? Well, some people couldn't handle that 00:17:09.369 --> 00:17:11.430 vertigo, and this is where we have to talk about 00:17:11.430 --> 00:17:14.809 Cratylus. Ah, Cratylus, the fanboy who went too 00:17:14.809 --> 00:17:17.390 far. He absolutely did. Cratylus was a follower 00:17:17.390 --> 00:17:20.170 of Heraclitus in Athens, and he essentially took 00:17:20.170 --> 00:17:22.329 the philosophy and turned it up to 11. He said, 00:17:22.430 --> 00:17:25.509 Heraclitus is wrong. You can't step into the 00:17:25.509 --> 00:17:28.690 same river twice. I say you can't step into the 00:17:28.690 --> 00:17:31.509 same river even once. Because the water is moving 00:17:31.509 --> 00:17:34.150 so fast that before your foot even hits the bottom, 00:17:34.269 --> 00:17:37.680 it's a different river. Exactly. Cratylus took 00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:40.720 the flux to the absolute extreme. He believed 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:42.940 that things change so fast that you can't even 00:17:42.940 --> 00:17:45.940 name them. What do you mean? If I point to a 00:17:45.940 --> 00:17:49.180 chair and I say the word chair, by the time the 00:17:49.180 --> 00:17:51.700 sound leaves my lips, the chair has aged, the 00:17:51.700 --> 00:17:54.990 atoms have shifted. The word chair... no longer 00:17:54.990 --> 00:17:57.630 accurately applies to that object that seems 00:17:57.630 --> 00:18:00.549 deeply impractical it's incredibly impractical 00:18:00.549 --> 00:18:03.230 aristotle tells us that cradles eventually decided 00:18:03.230 --> 00:18:06.029 that speaking itself is a lie so he stopped talking 00:18:06.029 --> 00:18:08.130 he stopped talking completely completely he would 00:18:08.130 --> 00:18:10.009 just sit there and wiggle his finger just wiggle 00:18:10.009 --> 00:18:12.769 his finger yes to indicate that everything is 00:18:12.769 --> 00:18:16.069 moving don't ask me just look at the motion that 00:18:16.069 --> 00:18:19.029 is hilarious but it also feels like he told miss 00:18:19.029 --> 00:18:22.210 the point Heraclitus wasn't a nihilist who thought 00:18:22.210 --> 00:18:24.410 words were meaningless. No, Kratos missed the 00:18:24.410 --> 00:18:27.069 structure. He missed the riverbed. Heraclitus 00:18:27.069 --> 00:18:29.950 believed in the river and the flow. Kratos only 00:18:29.950 --> 00:18:32.769 saw the flow. Heraclitus believed there was a 00:18:32.769 --> 00:18:35.569 logic holding all that change together. And that 00:18:35.569 --> 00:18:38.069 logic is what brings us to the next big idea, 00:18:38.190 --> 00:18:40.690 the unity of opposites. Yeah. This feels like 00:18:40.690 --> 00:18:42.970 the engine room of Heraclitus' whole universe. 00:18:43.490 --> 00:18:46.230 If everything is changing... How is it changing? 00:18:46.470 --> 00:18:49.190 It changes through the conflict, the tension 00:18:49.190 --> 00:18:52.670 of opposites. This is the core doctrine. Heraclitus 00:18:52.670 --> 00:18:54.650 believed that we make a fundamental mistake when 00:18:54.650 --> 00:18:57.710 we separate things into hot and cold, good and 00:18:57.710 --> 00:19:01.049 bad, day and night, as if they are separate realities. 00:19:01.490 --> 00:19:03.250 He says they're the same thing? He says they 00:19:03.250 --> 00:19:05.069 are one and the same. They're two sides of the 00:19:05.069 --> 00:19:08.029 same coin. And he uses some very physical, very 00:19:08.029 --> 00:19:11.509 simple examples to prove this. Let's talk about 00:19:11.509 --> 00:19:13.789 the road. The way up and the way down are one 00:19:13.789 --> 00:19:16.460 and the same. Right. It's so simple, but it really 00:19:16.460 --> 00:19:19.099 does break your brain if you dwell on it. If 00:19:19.099 --> 00:19:21.079 I'm at the bottom of a hill, I see a road going 00:19:21.079 --> 00:19:23.339 up. If you are at the top of that same hill, 00:19:23.460 --> 00:19:25.579 you see a road going down. And we could argue 00:19:25.579 --> 00:19:27.640 all day, it's an up road. No, it's a down road. 00:19:27.759 --> 00:19:30.240 But it's the same road. The identity of the road 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:32.559 contains both upness and downness simultaneously. 00:19:33.779 --> 00:19:35.900 The apparent contradiction just depends on your 00:19:35.900 --> 00:19:38.480 relationship to it. He does the exact same thing 00:19:38.480 --> 00:19:40.700 with seawater. All right, seawater is the most 00:19:40.700 --> 00:19:43.299 pure and the most polluted water. For a fish, 00:19:43.460 --> 00:19:46.059 it's drinkable and life -sustaining. For a human, 00:19:46.220 --> 00:19:49.440 it's undrinkable and deadly. So is seawater good 00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:53.000 or bad? It's neither. Or it's both. It's both, 00:19:53.019 --> 00:19:54.819 depending on the context. But here is where it 00:19:54.819 --> 00:19:57.039 gets really interesting. Heraclitus suggests 00:19:57.039 --> 00:19:59.000 that these opposites aren't just subjective. 00:19:59.299 --> 00:20:02.460 They are necessary for existence itself. And 00:20:02.460 --> 00:20:05.259 this is where he uses the image of the bow and 00:20:05.259 --> 00:20:08.319 the lyre. This is my favorite image of his. There 00:20:08.319 --> 00:20:11.099 is a harmony in the bending back, as in the case 00:20:11.099 --> 00:20:13.500 of the bow and the lyre. Think about the physics 00:20:13.500 --> 00:20:16.900 of an archery bow. You have the piece of wood, 00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:19.220 which naturally wants to be straight, and then 00:20:19.220 --> 00:20:21.019 you have the bowstring, which is pulling the 00:20:21.019 --> 00:20:23.200 ends of the wood together, bending it. So they're 00:20:23.200 --> 00:20:25.259 fighting each other, the wood pushes out, the 00:20:25.259 --> 00:20:27.319 string pulls in. Exactly. They are in a state 00:20:27.319 --> 00:20:30.839 of constant tension, constant conflict. But it 00:20:30.839 --> 00:20:33.579 is precisely that conflict that makes it a bow. 00:20:33.720 --> 00:20:36.359 Right. If the wood wins and snaps the string, 00:20:36.519 --> 00:20:39.119 it's just a straight stick. It's useless. If 00:20:39.119 --> 00:20:41.339 the string wins and snaps the wood, it's just 00:20:41.339 --> 00:20:43.700 a pile of rubble. So the weapon, the structure, 00:20:43.799 --> 00:20:46.180 the function only exists because of the fight 00:20:46.180 --> 00:20:48.460 between the parts. And a lyre, the musical instrument, 00:20:48.539 --> 00:20:50.339 is the same thing. You have to tighten the strings, 00:20:50.480 --> 00:20:52.759 pull them against the frame to get a note. If 00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:54.700 you relax the tension, you just get silence. 00:20:54.880 --> 00:20:57.740 The music comes from the tension. Okay, this 00:20:57.740 --> 00:20:59.880 leads directly to his most controversial statement. 00:21:00.730 --> 00:21:04.730 War is the father of all and king of all. When 00:21:04.730 --> 00:21:06.869 I first read that, my first thought was, okay, 00:21:06.910 --> 00:21:09.109 this guy's a fascist. He sounds like he's glorifying 00:21:09.109 --> 00:21:12.109 violence. It's so easy to read it that way, especially 00:21:12.109 --> 00:21:15.549 with modern ears. But he's using war polemos 00:21:15.549 --> 00:21:18.190 in Greek in a much more metaphysical sense. He 00:21:18.190 --> 00:21:21.970 means strife, conflict, tension. The tension 00:21:21.970 --> 00:21:24.970 in the bow. Exactly. He is saying that reality 00:21:24.970 --> 00:21:27.349 itself is the result of these competing forces. 00:21:27.589 --> 00:21:29.750 So without the war between the string and the 00:21:29.750 --> 00:21:32.829 wood, there is no bow. Without the war between 00:21:32.829 --> 00:21:35.410 gravity pulling in and fusion pushing out, there 00:21:35.410 --> 00:21:38.109 is no sun. You've got it. He actually criticized 00:21:38.109 --> 00:21:40.650 Homer for this. There's a line in the Iliad where 00:21:40.650 --> 00:21:43.089 Achilles prays, let strife vanish from among 00:21:43.089 --> 00:21:46.130 gods and men. It sounds like a really nice prayer 00:21:46.130 --> 00:21:48.250 for peace. It does. Can't we all just get along? 00:21:48.759 --> 00:21:51.839 But Heraclitus calls Homer a fool for it. He 00:21:51.839 --> 00:21:54.039 says if that prayer were ever answered, the universe 00:21:54.039 --> 00:21:56.220 would be destroyed. Because if the tension snaps, 00:21:56.519 --> 00:21:59.339 everything just collapses into, what, a puddle. 00:21:59.380 --> 00:22:02.779 Into a static, undifferentiated mush. Into death. 00:22:03.619 --> 00:22:06.140 Heraclitus gives this really great earthy example 00:22:06.140 --> 00:22:08.799 of the kikion. The kikion. This was a popular 00:22:08.799 --> 00:22:12.240 drink in ancient Greece. A mixture of wine, grated 00:22:12.240 --> 00:22:15.759 cheese, and barley meal. Sounds... Kind of chunky. 00:22:15.900 --> 00:22:18.460 It was very chunky. And Heraclitus notes, even 00:22:18.460 --> 00:22:20.900 the kikion separates if it is not stirred. Ah. 00:22:21.799 --> 00:22:24.220 If you let it sit, the cheese sinks to the bottom, 00:22:24.319 --> 00:22:26.740 the barley settles. It separates into its parts. 00:22:26.920 --> 00:22:29.619 You have to keep stirring it, agitating it, to 00:22:29.619 --> 00:22:32.220 keep it a drink. That agitation is strife. The 00:22:32.220 --> 00:22:34.500 universe requires constant stirring to maintain 00:22:34.500 --> 00:22:37.099 its structure. If you stop the stirring, if you 00:22:37.099 --> 00:22:39.460 achieve total peace, You achieve total death. 00:22:39.700 --> 00:22:42.339 There's such a radical idea. We spend our whole 00:22:42.339 --> 00:22:44.240 lives trying to get rid of stress, trying to 00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:45.779 solve problems, trying to reach a state of peace. 00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:47.359 And Heraclitus is standing there saying, no, 00:22:47.420 --> 00:22:49.599 no, the stress is what is holding you together. 00:22:49.819 --> 00:22:52.380 It reframes your entire life, doesn't it? That 00:22:52.380 --> 00:22:54.759 tension you feel between who you are and who 00:22:54.759 --> 00:22:57.019 you want to be. He'd say that's not a bug. That's 00:22:57.019 --> 00:22:59.980 the feature. That's the bowstring. OK, so let's 00:22:59.980 --> 00:23:02.380 move from the how to the what. If the universe 00:23:02.380 --> 00:23:05.119 is a stirred drink, what is the drink made of? 00:23:05.859 --> 00:23:08.160 The philosophers before him had some pretty simple 00:23:08.160 --> 00:23:11.480 answers. Thales said everything is water, and 00:23:11.480 --> 00:23:13.940 Aximenes said air. And Heraclitus comes along 00:23:13.940 --> 00:23:16.680 and picks fire. Why fire? Is it just because 00:23:16.680 --> 00:23:19.200 he was a grumpy guy who liked destruction? It's 00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:21.039 tempting to think that, but no, it fits perfectly 00:23:21.039 --> 00:23:23.359 with everything we've just discussed. Think about 00:23:23.359 --> 00:23:26.180 the other elements. A rock, which is earth, can 00:23:26.180 --> 00:23:28.339 just sit there for a thousand years. Right. Water 00:23:28.339 --> 00:23:31.460 can sit in a cup, air can be still, but fire... 00:23:31.630 --> 00:23:34.309 Fire is never still. A flame is a process. It's 00:23:34.309 --> 00:23:36.750 not a thing. Exactly. You cannot hold a flame 00:23:36.750 --> 00:23:39.670 in your hand. A flame is the consumption of fuel. 00:23:39.809 --> 00:23:42.369 It is the transformation of wood into smoke and 00:23:42.369 --> 00:23:45.349 heat. Fire is pure change. It's pure activity. 00:23:46.109 --> 00:23:48.390 So for a philosopher who believes that everything 00:23:48.390 --> 00:23:51.630 flows, fire is the perfect physical manifestation 00:23:51.630 --> 00:23:54.329 of reality. So he's saying the universe isn't 00:23:54.329 --> 00:23:56.869 made of little Lego bricks of matter. It's made 00:23:56.869 --> 00:24:00.410 of burning. Yes. He has this amazing line. This 00:24:00.410 --> 00:24:04.259 world order. No god nor man did create, but it 00:24:04.259 --> 00:24:07.960 ever was and is and will be, ever living fire, 00:24:08.299 --> 00:24:10.640 kindling in measures and being quenched in measures. 00:24:10.940 --> 00:24:12.859 Kindling in measures and being quenched in measures, 00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:15.539 that part is important. It implies there are 00:24:15.539 --> 00:24:17.880 rules. It's not just a wildfire destroying a 00:24:17.880 --> 00:24:19.759 forest randomly. It's more like a controlled 00:24:19.759 --> 00:24:22.640 burn. Right. It follows a law. He talks about 00:24:22.640 --> 00:24:25.920 the turnings of fire. Fire turns into sea, which 00:24:25.920 --> 00:24:28.619 is water, and sea turns into earth. and then 00:24:28.619 --> 00:24:30.960 Earth turns back into sea and sea back into fire. 00:24:31.099 --> 00:24:33.559 It's a cycle. It sounds almost like an economy. 00:24:33.900 --> 00:24:36.279 He actually uses that analogy. He says all things 00:24:36.279 --> 00:24:38.779 are in exchange for fire and fire for all things, 00:24:38.900 --> 00:24:42.380 even as wares for gold and gold for wares. That's 00:24:42.380 --> 00:24:45.140 brilliant. Fire is the cosmic currency. Just 00:24:45.140 --> 00:24:47.000 like I can trade gold to get a pair of shoes, 00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:50.049 the universe trades fire to create a rock. And 00:24:50.049 --> 00:24:51.990 eventually that rocket's created back into fire. 00:24:52.109 --> 00:24:54.410 It suggests a conservation of energy thousands 00:24:54.410 --> 00:24:56.769 of years before physics proved it. Nothing is 00:24:56.769 --> 00:24:59.430 lost, only transformed. But did he believe the 00:24:59.430 --> 00:25:02.769 world would actually, you know, burn up? I've 00:25:02.769 --> 00:25:05.089 heard about this idea of the ekpirosis. The great 00:25:05.089 --> 00:25:07.529 conflagration. Yeah, this is an idea that the 00:25:07.529 --> 00:25:10.549 Stoics, who came much later, really loved and 00:25:10.549 --> 00:25:13.430 ran with. They interpreted Heraclitus as saying 00:25:13.430 --> 00:25:15.910 that eventually the whole universe will turn 00:25:15.910 --> 00:25:19.049 back into fire, a massive cosmic bonfire. And 00:25:19.049 --> 00:25:21.789 then from the ashes, it will start over. Like 00:25:21.789 --> 00:25:24.170 a phoenix or like the Big Bang and the big crunch 00:25:24.170 --> 00:25:27.670 cycle. Exactly. A cyclical universe. Now, whether 00:25:27.670 --> 00:25:30.089 Heraclitus himself meant this literally or if 00:25:30.089 --> 00:25:32.319 he just meant the constant local. exchange of 00:25:32.319 --> 00:25:35.160 fire is debated by scholars, but the image of 00:25:35.160 --> 00:25:37.539 the world as this fire that never dies is one 00:25:37.539 --> 00:25:40.440 of the most powerful images in all of philosophy. 00:25:40.799 --> 00:25:42.319 Okay, let's talk about the rulebook for this 00:25:42.319 --> 00:25:44.859 fire. We mentioned that it burns in measures. 00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:47.680 It's not chaotic. And this brings us to what 00:25:47.680 --> 00:25:50.500 might be his biggest idea, the logos and the 00:25:50.500 --> 00:25:53.240 soul. The logos. This is perhaps the most important 00:25:53.240 --> 00:25:55.839 word in Heraclitus' entire vocabulary. It's a 00:25:55.839 --> 00:25:58.420 word with a million meanings. In Greek, logos 00:25:58.420 --> 00:26:02.809 can mean word, speech, story, Reason, account, 00:26:03.130 --> 00:26:07.049 math. What does Heraclitus mean by it? He plays 00:26:07.049 --> 00:26:10.589 on all of those meanings. But primarily for him, 00:26:10.670 --> 00:26:13.309 the logos is the rational structure of the universe. 00:26:13.390 --> 00:26:16.130 It is the formula by which the fire burns. It 00:26:16.130 --> 00:26:18.390 is the logic of the change. So if the river is 00:26:18.390 --> 00:26:21.690 the flux, the logos is the riverbed, the thing 00:26:21.690 --> 00:26:24.109 that directs the flow. That's a really good way 00:26:24.109 --> 00:26:25.609 to put it. Or you could think of it like the 00:26:25.609 --> 00:26:28.269 source code of the matrix. You look around and 00:26:28.269 --> 00:26:32.750 you see a chaotic... World rain, people, traffic. 00:26:33.289 --> 00:26:35.690 But behind it all, there is a source code running 00:26:35.690 --> 00:26:39.170 the simulation. That code is the Logos. And Heraclitus 00:26:39.170 --> 00:26:41.869 thinks we are completely ignoring the code. He 00:26:41.869 --> 00:26:44.650 thinks we are totally deaf to it. He says, though 00:26:44.650 --> 00:26:47.670 this Logos holds always, humans prove unable 00:26:47.670 --> 00:26:50.269 to understand it. He complains constantly that 00:26:50.269 --> 00:26:53.430 people live in their own private worlds. Edios 00:26:53.430 --> 00:26:56.710 Cosmos. Yes. The idiot, which in Greek just meant 00:26:56.710 --> 00:26:58.789 a private person, someone disconnected from public 00:26:58.789 --> 00:27:01.029 affairs, lives in a fantasy. They think their 00:27:01.029 --> 00:27:03.950 own opinions matter. Heraclitus says, listening 00:27:03.950 --> 00:27:06.390 not to me, but to the logos, it is wise to agree 00:27:06.390 --> 00:27:08.609 that all things are one. He's saying, don't take 00:27:08.609 --> 00:27:11.130 my word for it. Look at the data. Tune into the 00:27:11.130 --> 00:27:14.450 cosmic frequency. He wants us to wake up. He 00:27:14.450 --> 00:27:17.660 compares the average person to a sleeper. When 00:27:17.660 --> 00:27:20.160 you're dreaming, you're in a private world. When 00:27:20.160 --> 00:27:22.900 you wake up, you enter the common world. The 00:27:22.900 --> 00:27:25.440 Logos is that common world. Connects directly 00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:29.599 to his view of the soul or psyche. He had some 00:27:29.599 --> 00:27:33.279 very weird, very specific ideas about what the 00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:35.440 soul is made of. He thought the soul was a physical 00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:38.259 thing. It was a part of the cosmic fire. And 00:27:38.259 --> 00:27:41.160 because it's related to fire, he says a dry soul 00:27:41.160 --> 00:27:44.099 is best and wisest. Dryness equals intelligence. 00:27:44.180 --> 00:27:47.490 Yes. Fire is active. It's ascending. It's bright. 00:27:48.009 --> 00:27:51.150 Water is heavy, descending, dark. So a dry soul 00:27:51.150 --> 00:27:53.190 is one that is intellectually active and close 00:27:53.190 --> 00:27:55.849 to the logos. And a wet soul. A wet soul is damaged. 00:27:56.049 --> 00:27:58.410 It's sluggish, he says. It is death to souls 00:27:58.410 --> 00:28:00.730 to become water. This gives us maybe the best 00:28:00.730 --> 00:28:03.490 anti -drinking ad in history. Heraclitus has 00:28:03.490 --> 00:28:05.809 a fragment about drunk people. He does. He says, 00:28:05.930 --> 00:28:08.710 A man, when he is drunk, is led by a beardless 00:28:08.710 --> 00:28:11.369 boy, stumbling, not perceiving where he is going, 00:28:11.529 --> 00:28:13.589 having his soul moist. Having his soul moist. 00:28:13.670 --> 00:28:16.390 It's such a gross, visceral description, but 00:28:16.390 --> 00:28:18.750 it makes perfect sense in his system. Alcohol 00:28:18.750 --> 00:28:21.029 is literally putting out the fire of your mind. 00:28:21.230 --> 00:28:24.269 It dampens your cognitive spark. You become heavy, 00:28:24.430 --> 00:28:27.430 watery, irrational. You lose touch with the logos. 00:28:27.789 --> 00:28:30.059 But even though he talks about the soul, In these 00:28:30.059 --> 00:28:33.259 physical terms, he also recognized its depth. 00:28:33.420 --> 00:28:36.079 He has that quote, you will not find the boundaries 00:28:36.079 --> 00:28:38.640 of the soul by traveling in any direction, so 00:28:38.640 --> 00:28:41.960 deep is its measure. I love that fragment. It 00:28:41.960 --> 00:28:44.420 balances out the physics of it. He's acknowledging 00:28:44.420 --> 00:28:46.960 that the inner world consciousness is just... 00:28:47.559 --> 00:28:49.980 Vast. It's a universe of its own. You can map 00:28:49.980 --> 00:28:51.720 the whole earth, but you can't map the human 00:28:51.720 --> 00:28:54.839 mind. He's anticipating psychology by 2 ,500 00:28:54.839 --> 00:28:57.359 years. He really does seem to anticipate everything, 00:28:57.599 --> 00:29:00.220 which brings us perfectly to his massive legacy. 00:29:00.619 --> 00:29:02.460 This guy didn't just fade away into the history 00:29:02.460 --> 00:29:05.240 books. He haunts philosophy. He is a ghost that 00:29:05.240 --> 00:29:07.420 will not leave. The Stoics were the first to 00:29:07.420 --> 00:29:09.480 really pick him up and run with him. Marcus Aurelius 00:29:09.480 --> 00:29:11.720 quotes him, right? the roman emperor repeatedly 00:29:11.720 --> 00:29:14.819 yeah the stoics absolutely loved the idea of 00:29:14.819 --> 00:29:17.160 the logos that there is a divine plan or reason 00:29:17.160 --> 00:29:19.779 governing the universe they used heraclitus to 00:29:19.779 --> 00:29:22.539 argue that we should accept our fate if the universe 00:29:22.539 --> 00:29:25.099 is a burning fire governed by reason then whatever 00:29:25.099 --> 00:29:27.640 happens to you is part of the plan a more fatty 00:29:27.640 --> 00:29:30.240 love of fate exactly and then really weirdly 00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:33.400 the christians picked him up which makes zero 00:29:33.400 --> 00:29:36.170 sense to me He was a pagan who thought the world 00:29:36.170 --> 00:29:39.230 was eternal fire, not created by God. It was 00:29:39.230 --> 00:29:42.630 all about one word, logos. The Gospel of John 00:29:42.630 --> 00:29:45.690 begins with that unbelievably famous line, In 00:29:45.690 --> 00:29:48.049 the beginning was the Word, and arcen o logos, 00:29:48.289 --> 00:29:51.609 and the Word was God. Ah. So early Christians 00:29:51.609 --> 00:29:54.109 read Heraclitus and thought, wait a minute, he's 00:29:54.109 --> 00:29:57.019 talking about Jesus. Basically. Justin Martyr, 00:29:57.079 --> 00:29:59.599 an early church father, actually called Heraclitus 00:29:59.599 --> 00:30:02.119 a Christian before Christ. He argued that because 00:30:02.119 --> 00:30:04.359 Heraclitus lived by the Logos and because Christ 00:30:04.359 --> 00:30:07.380 is the Logos, Heraclitus was unknowingly a Christian. 00:30:07.559 --> 00:30:10.819 That is the ultimate posthumous rebrand from 00:30:10.819 --> 00:30:13.299 arrogant misanthrope to honorary saint. And it 00:30:13.299 --> 00:30:15.460 doesn't stop there. Jump forward to the 19th 00:30:15.460 --> 00:30:18.720 century German philosophy. Hegel. Hegel is famous 00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:20.700 for being impossible to read, so maybe they were 00:30:20.700 --> 00:30:23.759 kindred spirits. I think so. Hegel famously said, 00:30:23.900 --> 00:30:25.920 there is no proposition of Heraclitus which I 00:30:25.920 --> 00:30:29.099 have not adopted in my logic. Hegel's whole system, 00:30:29.220 --> 00:30:31.640 the dialectic, where a thesis meets an antithesis 00:30:31.640 --> 00:30:34.660 to create a new synthesis, that's pure Heraclitus. 00:30:34.759 --> 00:30:37.079 It's the bow and the lyre. Yeah. Progress through 00:30:37.079 --> 00:30:40.440 conflict. Exactly. And Nietzsche. He had to have 00:30:40.440 --> 00:30:43.200 loved this guy. Nietzsche adored him. Nietzsche 00:30:43.200 --> 00:30:46.160 saw Heraclitus as a brother. He loved the aristocratic 00:30:46.160 --> 00:30:49.099 arrogance, the affirmation of war and strife, 00:30:49.160 --> 00:30:52.460 the idea of the world as innocent play. Nietzsche 00:30:52.460 --> 00:30:55.720 called him a proud, lonely truth finder. And 00:30:55.720 --> 00:30:58.339 even in modern logic, he's still causing trouble. 00:30:58.440 --> 00:31:01.460 Oh, absolutely. Aristotle hated Heraclitus' logic 00:31:01.460 --> 00:31:03.599 because it violated his law of non -contradiction. 00:31:03.819 --> 00:31:05.819 You can't say the road is up and the road is 00:31:05.819 --> 00:31:08.299 not up. Right. A thing can't be A and not A at 00:31:08.299 --> 00:31:11.130 the same time. But modern dialetheism, which 00:31:11.130 --> 00:31:14.089 is a niche but fascinating field in logic, argues 00:31:14.089 --> 00:31:16.509 that for things in motion, contradictions can 00:31:16.509 --> 00:31:19.470 be true. Heraclitus is the patron saint of anyone 00:31:19.470 --> 00:31:21.630 who thinks the world is too complex for simple, 00:31:21.730 --> 00:31:24.069 true -false boxes. It's incredible. He's been 00:31:24.069 --> 00:31:26.950 dead for 2 ,500 years, presumably dissolved back 00:31:26.950 --> 00:31:29.529 into the elements. But his fire is still burning. 00:31:29.730 --> 00:31:32.569 He is still agitating the kykeon, still stirring 00:31:32.569 --> 00:31:34.710 the pot. So let's wrap this all up. We've covered 00:31:34.710 --> 00:31:37.480 a lot. The river, the fire, the war. the logos, 00:31:37.740 --> 00:31:41.660 if the listener takes away one thing from all 00:31:41.660 --> 00:31:46.019 this, one tool for their modern life, what should 00:31:46.019 --> 00:31:49.650 it be? I think the synthesis is this. We need 00:31:49.650 --> 00:31:52.269 to stop viewing change and conflict as errors. 00:31:52.589 --> 00:31:54.609 We tend to think that if things are changing 00:31:54.609 --> 00:31:56.569 or if there is tension in our lives, something 00:31:56.569 --> 00:31:59.430 has gone wrong. We want the flat lake. We want 00:31:59.430 --> 00:32:01.670 the slack string. But Heraclitus says the slack 00:32:01.670 --> 00:32:04.630 string makes no music. Exactly. He teaches us 00:32:04.630 --> 00:32:07.509 that stability is an illusion. Or rather, stability 00:32:07.509 --> 00:32:10.009 is a dynamic feat. It's like riding a bike. You 00:32:10.009 --> 00:32:12.049 are stable only because you are moving forward. 00:32:12.190 --> 00:32:14.390 The moment you stop moving, you fall over. And 00:32:14.390 --> 00:32:16.450 he tells us to keep our eyes open for that movement. 00:32:16.890 --> 00:32:19.150 If you do not expect the unexpected, you will 00:32:19.150 --> 00:32:21.430 not find it. Which is the ultimate advice for 00:32:21.430 --> 00:32:23.569 a researcher, a scientist, or just a human being 00:32:23.569 --> 00:32:26.049 trying to navigate the world. Don't impose your 00:32:26.049 --> 00:32:28.690 neat categories on reality. Let reality reveal 00:32:28.690 --> 00:32:31.910 its strange, contradictory nature to you. So 00:32:31.910 --> 00:32:33.730 here's a final provocative thought to leave you 00:32:33.730 --> 00:32:35.210 with. We talked a lot about the river and the 00:32:35.210 --> 00:32:37.630 self. We spend so much time in our culture trying 00:32:37.630 --> 00:32:40.269 to find ourselves. Right. We take personality 00:32:40.269 --> 00:32:43.069 tests. We go on retreats. We try to define who 00:32:43.069 --> 00:32:46.130 we are. I am an introvert. I am a creative. I 00:32:46.130 --> 00:32:48.970 am an ENFP. We try to freeze the river into a 00:32:48.970 --> 00:32:51.750 solid block of ice so we can label it. Exactly. 00:32:52.130 --> 00:32:54.369 But what if Heraclitus is right? What if the 00:32:54.369 --> 00:32:56.809 self isn't a thing you find? It's not a treasure 00:32:56.809 --> 00:32:59.470 chest buried in the sand. Maybe it's a pattern 00:32:59.470 --> 00:33:02.710 of fire. A candle flame looks like a stable object, 00:33:02.829 --> 00:33:05.900 doesn't it? It has a shape. It has a color. But 00:33:05.900 --> 00:33:08.119 it isn't an object. It's a process. It's a burning. 00:33:08.500 --> 00:33:10.960 It's just gas turning into heat and light. So 00:33:10.960 --> 00:33:13.259 maybe we aren't the wax. We are the fire itself. 00:33:13.640 --> 00:33:15.960 And maybe that tension you feel in your own life, 00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:18.799 that pull between safety and risk, between who 00:33:18.799 --> 00:33:21.500 you were and who you are becoming, maybe that 00:33:21.500 --> 00:33:23.680 isn't a problem that needs to be solved. Maybe 00:33:23.680 --> 00:33:26.220 that tension is the very energy that is keeping 00:33:26.220 --> 00:33:28.720 your flame alive. Strife is not the end of the 00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:31.160 world. It is the birth of the world. That is 00:33:31.160 --> 00:33:33.359 a beautiful way to put it. That is where we will 00:33:33.359 --> 00:33:36.269 leave it. Thank you for listening to this deep 00:33:36.269 --> 00:33:38.930 dive into the dark philosopher. Go step in a 00:33:38.930 --> 00:33:41.410 river, realize it's not the same river, and we'll 00:33:41.410 --> 00:33:42.089 see you next time.