Observations placeholder
Plato - Parmenides - Are functions implemented or multi-tasked
Identifier
013841
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Idea = Function = attribute
Spirit = software, therefore one function = program can be implemented on many machines = things/people
The key aspect of this, however, is the introduction of the concept of the Intelligence hierarchy and the inheritance at each level of a shared function
At the lowest level it is implemented on things. The next question tackled is does a function need to be implemented or could it - as in computing - be multi-threaded or generate lots of tasks instead.
Parmenides was of the opinion that functions are implemented, not multi-tasked or generated as tasks, because the belonging to the thing - the allocation was key to defining what that thing was. For 3000 years ago this was an amazing conversation to be having.
A description of the experience
Plato – Parmenides
Well, said Parmenides, and what do you say of another question?
What question?
I imagine that the way in which you are led to assume one idea of each kind is as follows:—You see a number of great objects, and when you look at them there seems to you to be one and the same idea (or nature) in them all; hence you conceive of greatness as one.
Very true, said Socrates.
And if you go on and allow your mind in like manner to embrace in one view the idea of greatness and of great things which are not the idea, and to compare them, will not another greatness arise, which will appear to be the source of all these?
It would seem so.
Then another idea of greatness now comes into view over and above absolute greatness, and the individuals which partake of it; and then another, over and above all these, by virtue of which they will all be great, and so each idea instead of being one will be infinitely multiplied.
But may not the ideas, asked Socrates, be thoughts only, and have no proper existence except in our minds, Parmenides? For in that case each idea may still be one, and not experience this infinite multiplication.
And can there be individual thoughts which are thoughts of nothing?
Impossible, he said.
The thought must be of something?
Yes.
Of something which is or which is not?
Of something which is.
Must it not be of a single something, which the thought recognizes as attaching to all, being a single form or nature?
Yes.
And will not the something which is apprehended as one and the same in all, be an idea?
From that, again, there is no escape.