#source: heraclitus

[incorrectlooneytunesquotes]

Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

Bugs Bunny to Concord Condor

[onewomancitadel]

I think what people really mean by Twitter being 2015!Tumblr is that the age demographic of Tumblr has changed (based on polls, I think the age group with the biggest user size is early-mid twenties), a lot of shitstirrers left for Twitter in the Purge of 2018, a lot of guys who used Tumblr for p*rn also left in 2018 (seriously, when I interacted with a guy at uni once who wanted in my pants I mentioned Tumblr because I am socially inept and he was like, oh the website for p*rn? *smirk* and I was like no I use it for my Reylos... he was wearing a Star Wars t-shirt, it's a long story) and obviously in general anybody else who used it for that reason also left, but you know exactly what sort of demographic I'm talking about - far be it from me to unturn that stone, I understand it's a mixed issue - and then overall you've got the fact that Tumblr is slightly better than it was, but it's not perfect.

I do think platform culture influences the way people interact with each other, and there are definitely ways you can fit somebody's interaction patterns into a typology - but the style of detraction you might see in Reddit comments is exactly the stuff you see on Twitter and it is the thing you encounter on Tumblr. Because Tumblr allows you to run your own personal blog, though, you have much more control over your interaction style. If Reddit is a free debate space, Tumblr is curated by comparison.

But it's also just a human nature thing lol. There are plenty of teenagers who have growing up to do on here (I was one of them) and you see a lot more on platforms popular with teenagers (Tik Tok, Twitter, Instagram) which changes the site culture. But I also think that teenagers need their own space to be edgy and get the angst out of the way. It's just much harder to do that when the platforms they're on also encourage putting your face, name, where you live etc. on it.

I find it a fascinating question because I don't think the Internet is wholly iredeemable and clearly we get some joy out of it - the things which concern me about the Internet have parts to do with social media and some not. I want to know what it is that makes Tumblr a pleasant site to use for hobbyist purposes. I can write longform posts, and consider topics which interest me, and curate my experience - by in large the the site has a slightly more mature userbase...

I also had on my mind recently how hard it is to write posts where you have people coming to you with the worst interpretation of what you've said. I think I am starting to accept again that I can't control that and people will read into what I'm saying because that's what they're looking for. That's something which still happens on Tumblr. It's a product of the Internet medium where it's very hard to clarify something you've said the way you could mid-conversation, and the fact that generally people are quite defensive. It feels like a combative space at times.

The real point I'm sort of trying to make is that like, part of what makes Tumblr a good platform is a consequence of its medium - it's a microblogging website - and part of it is a consequence of the userbase evolving. But I also think that loyal userbase is a consequence of what it offers in contrast to what others don't. Equally, issues with Tumblr aren't necessarily specific to platform, and I'd go so far as to venture that to be true of other social media websites. It's just very apparent that there are very bad decisions being made with them killing all user goodwill and reason to use them, but the myopic eye of short-term gains does not care for long-term growth and stability. It's a pretty sobering realisation to know that most of those guys up there think you're as dumb as a rock and will just take what you get. It's not some big conspiracy. They just think their site users are dumb. It's a pretty haunting and narrow view of humanity lol. There is no honour in it and yeah, it is actually nonsensical even from the view of a capitalist philosophy, because why would you willingly kill something with great brand and cultural foothold? Why would you abandon something that makes the platform what it is? This goes for Tumblr with its changes to the dashboard from Following (seeing things your followers post) to For You (algorithm).

[incarnelia]

while i was finding the other series i ran into this nice one, riiiiiight in the middle of the period of my most intense metaphysical speculations in june 2022 lmao. once again, perhaps not my best work due to the relative age of the piece. nonetheless, i thought it was worth sharing

“the world-essence”

gelatinous smoke ripe and pliant with sweet pinks and bitter grays — savory golds and sable spices on tongue swirling; sticky dreams unsure as pungent gasoline, hid beneath the thin shell of Zoroaster’s egg.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Hi, sorry but I was wondering if you have any romantic or philosophical "ancient Greek" quotes/phrases/poems?

Thank you :)) I love your account btw its so helpful

Ancient Greek Proverbs & Phrases

“A gift consists not of what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.” (Seneca)

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” (Aristotle)

“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.” (Plato)

“Eyes that don’t see each other frequently are soon forgotten.” - Μάτια που δεν βλέπονται γρήγορα λησμονιούνται (Proverb)

“For all great men, the entire earth is a tomb.” - Ανδρών επιφανών πάσα γη τάφος (Thucydides)

“Love consists of one soul that is living within two bodies.” - Η αγάπη αποτελείται από μία ψυχή που κατοικεί σε δύο σώματα (Aristotle)

“Love is a serious mental disease.” (Plato)

“Love without a bit of stubborness isn’t tasteful.” - Αγάπη χωρίς πείσματα δεν έχει νοστιμάδα (Proverb)

“Man—a being in search of meaning.” (Plato)

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” (Heraclitus)

“One word sets us free from all the weight and the pain in life. And that word is: love.” - Μία λέξη μας απελευθερώνει από όλο το βάρος και τον πόνο στη ζωή. Και αυτή η λέξη είναι: αγάπη (Sophocles)

“People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.” (Plato)

“The tongue has no bones but it crushes bones.” - Η γλώσσα κόκαλα δεν έχει και κόκαλα τσακίζει (Proverb)

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” - Ο ανεξεταστος βιος ου βιωτος ανθρωπω (Socrates)

“Τhe world only exists when you can share it.” - Ο κόσμος μόνο όταν τον μοιράζεσαι υπάρχει (Tasos Leivaditis, Greek poet)

“There are two things a person should never be angry at: What they can help, and what they cannot.” (Plato)

“We can’t live with each other, neither can we live without one another.” - Εμείς μαζί δεν κάνουμε και χώρια δεν μπορούμε (Proverb)

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” (Pericles)

“When the mind is thinking, it is talking to itself.” (Plato)

“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.” (Plato)

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References

Thanks so much for your lovely words! Hope this helps with your writing :)

[whencyclopedia]

Diogenes of Sinope

Diogenes of Sinope (l. c. 404-323 BCE) was a Greek Cynic philosopher best known for holding a lantern (or candle) to the faces of the citizens of Athens claiming he was searching for an honest man. He rejected the concept of "manners" as a lie and advocated complete truthfulness at all times and under any circumstance.

He was most likely a student of the philosopher Antisthenes (l. 445-365 BCE, who studied with Socrates) and, in the words of Plato (allegedly), was “A Socrates gone mad.” He was driven into exile from his native city of Sinope for defacing currency (though some sources say it was his father who committed the crime and Diogenes simply followed him into exile). He made a home for himself in Athens in the agora, living in a rain barrel and surviving off gifts from admirers, foraging, and begging.

Diogenes famous "search for an honest man" was his way of exposing the hypocrisy and sham of polite societal conventions. By holding a literal light up to people's faces in broad daylight, he forced them to recognize their participation in practices that prevented them from living truthfully. He inspired others to follow his example, most notably Crates of Thebes (l. c. 360 - 280 BCE) who studied with him. Diogenes is still highly regarded in the present day for his commitment to truth and living according to his beliefs.

Diogenes' Beliefs

Diogenes came to Athens where he met Antisthenes (one of many of Socrates' students who established his own school) who at first refused him as a student but, eventually, was worn down by his persistence and accepted him. Like Antisthenes, Diogenes believed in self-control, the importance of personal excellence in one's behavior (in Greek, arete, usually translated as `virtue'), and the rejection of all which was considered unnecessary in life such as personal possessions and social status.

He was so ardent in his beliefs that he lived them very publicly in the market place of Athens. He took up residence in a large wine cask (some sources claim it was an abandoned bathtub), owned nothing, and seems to have lived off the charity of others. He owned a cup which served also has a bowl for food but threw it away when he saw a boy drinking water from his hands and realized one did not even need a cup to sustain oneself.

This much can be said with more or less assurance but any other details become increasingly uncertain owing to the many fables which grew up around Diogenes and his time in Athens. Even the claim that he was Antisthenes' student has been challenged as a fable. It seems clear, however, that Diogenes believed what people called `manners' were simply lies used to hide the true nature of the individual.

He was known for brutal honesty in conversation, paid no attention to any kind of etiquette regarding social class, and seems to have had no problem urinating or even masturbating in public and, when criticized, pointed out that such activities were normal and that everyone engaged in them but hid in private what he did openly.

According to Diogenes, society was an artificial contrivance set up by human beings which did not accord well with truth or virtue and could not in any way make someone a good and decent human being; and so follows the famous story of Diogenes holding the light up to the faces of passers-by in the market place looking for an honest man or a true human being. Everyone, he claimed, was trapped in this make-believe world which they insisted was reality and, because of this, people were living in a kind of dream state.

He was not the first philosopher to make this claim; Heraclitus, Xenophanes, and, most famously, Socrates all pointed out the need for human beings to wake from their dream state to full awareness of themselves and the world. Plato's famous Allegory of the Cave is devoted to this very theme. Diogenes, however, confronted the citizens of Athens daily with their lifelessness and shallow values, emulating his hero Socrates whom he never met but would have learned of from Antisthenes. Although it seems many people thought he was simply mentally ill, Diogenes would have claimed he was living a completely honest life and others should have the courage to do the same.

Continue reading...

[undinesea]

I was made of delicate substance, mysterious time. Perhaps the source is within me. Perhaps the days emerge, fatal and illusory, from my shadow.

Jorge Luis Borges, from “Heraclitus“ translated by Thomas Frick

[marejadilla]

"Sleeping is useless. Through the dream, through the desert, through the cellar, the river carries me, and I am the river. I was made of delicate substance, mysterious time. Perhaps the source is within me. Perhaps the days emerge, fatal and illusory, from my shadow." ― Jorge Luis Borges, "Heraclitus", extract.

[danskjavlarna]

You've heard that "A man cannot step into the same river twice, because it is not the same river, and he is not same man" (Heraclitus), and yet "rivers are stationary."

Source details and larger version.

Newsworthy: a collection of weird headlines and book titles.

[aliciavance4228]

Currently trying to find any source possible in order to prove that the relationship between Hera and Tethys has a lot of potential yet it's more unexplored than the ocean:

Homer, Iliad 14. 200 ff (trans. Lattimore) (Greek epic C8th B.C.) : "[Hera addresses Aphrodite :] ‘Since I go now to the ends of the generous earth on a visit to Okeanos (Oceanus), whence the gods have risen, and Tethys our mother who brought me up kindly in their own house, and cared for me and took me from Rheia, at that time when Zeus of the wide brows drove Kronos (Cronus) underneath the earth and the barren water. I shall go to visit these, and resolve their division of discord, since now for a long time they have stayed apart from each other and from the bed of love, since rancour has entered their feelings. Could I win over with persuasion the dear heart within them and bring them back to their bed to be merged in love with each other I shall be forever called honoured by them, and beloved.’"

Diodorus Siculus, Library 1-7:

"But since we have made mention of the Atlantians, we believe that it will not be inappropriate in this place to recount what their myths relate about the genesis of the gods, in view of the fact that it does not differ greatly from the myths of the Greeks. 2 Now the Atlantians, dwelling as they do in the regions on the edge of the ocean and inhabiting a fertile territory, are reputed far to excel their neighbours in reverence towards the gods and the humanity they showed in their dealings with strangers, and the gods, they say, were born among them. And their account, they maintain, is in agreement with that of the most renowned of the Greek poets when he represents Hera as saying: For I go to see the ends of the bountiful earth, Oceanus source of the gods and Tethys divine. Their mother."

Hyginus, Fabulae:

"CALLISTO: Callisto, daughter of Lycaon, is said to have been changed into a bear by the wrath of Juno, because she had lain with Jove. Afterwards Jove put her among the number of the stars as a constellation called Septentrio, which does not move from its place, nor does it set. For Tethys, wife of Ocean, and foster mother of Juno, forbids its setting in the Ocean. This, then, is the greater Septentrio, about whom it is written in Cretan verses: "Thou, too, born of the transformed Lycaonian Nympha, who, stolen from the chill Arcadian height, was forbidden by Tethys ever to dip herself in the Oceanus because once she dared to be concubine to her foster child . . . ' This bear, then is called Helice by the Greeks. She has seven rather dim stars on her head, two on either ear, one on her shoulder, a bright one on her breast, one on her forefoot, a bright one at the tip of her tail; at the back on her thigh, two; at the bottom of her foot, two; on her tail, three — twenty in all."

Hyginus, Astronomica:

"This constellation, as many have stated, does not set, and those who desire some reason for this fact say that Tethys, wife of Ocean, refuses to receive her when the other stars come there to their setting, because Tethys was the nurse of Juno, in whose bed Callisto was a concubine."

Plato, Theaetetus 152e (trans. Fowler) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.) : "And on this subject [i.e. that all things are derived from flow and motion] all the philosophers . . . may be marshalled in one line--Protagoras and Herakleitos (Heraclitus) and Empedokles (Empedocles)--and the chief poets in the two kinds of poetry, Epikharmos (Epicharmus), in comedy, and in tragedy, Homer, who, in the line ‘Okeanos (Oceanus) the origin of the gods, and Tethys their mother,’ has said that all things are the offspring of flow and motion."

Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica:

"From Ocean then uprose Dawn golden-reined: Like a soft wind upfloated Sleep to heaven, And there met Hera, even then returned To Olympus back from Tethys, unto whom But yester-morn she went. She clasped him round, And kissed him, who had been her marriage-kin Since at her prayer on Ida's erest he had lulled To sleep Cronion, when his anger burned Against the Argives. Straightway Hera passed To Zeus's mansion, and Sleep swiftly flew"

Nonnus, Dionysiaca 23. 280 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) : "Tethys! Agemate and bedmate of Okeanos (Oceanus), ancient as the world, nurse of commingled waters, selfborn, loving mother of children."

[deathlessathanasia]

I remember reading about a rationalization where Medusa was a courtesan who killed herself and/or turned into a horse over Perseus yet I can’t find the original source.

Heraclitus, On Unbelievable Stories:

"They say that Medousa turned to stone those who gazed at her, and that when Perseus cut off her head a horse with wings came out. But it actually happened like this. She was a beautiful courtesan and any man who caught sight of her was transfixed as if he had been turned to stone. It’s just like we say, upon catching sight of her, he was turned to stone. When Perseus encountered her, she fell in love with him. She squandered her own wealth and utterly wasted the prime years of her life. When she had lost her youth and her wealth, she was left a lecherous old woman, the kind we call a horse. For the head is the bloom of youth, and that is what Perseus took from her."

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

ok wait so i study ancient greek philosophy and a lot of their takes are wild in exactly a fae way this is great, anaximenes is probably like pretty close to how fae would actually think (everything is made of air and air is the source of all creation, pretty in line with the light and air/dark and air thing), heraclitus is my favourite (<333) though hes probably more witch (everything is made of fire and everything is ever changing) (he also was the guy who said you cant step in the same river twice, which i was gonna mention would be like an interesting 'how do the fae feel about this/can they even say this?' thing before realising fae cant cross flowing water so theyd probably be a bit spiteful anyway) (he also also said a thing about how everything can be perceived differently, like how sea water is bad for humans but beneficial for fish, which i thought was funny regarding the. virgil not believing in saltwater fish conversation)

amazing no note we should put virgil in a room with all of them itll be great

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Deep diving into Pythagoreanism and unfortunately am finding next to nothing in the way of contemporary sources on Pythagoras. The earliest substantive discussions I can find are in Plato, in the Timaeus and in Phaedo, which were of course written more than a century after Pythagoras’ lifetime. However, it seems that he does get mentioned by at least two contemporary sources that were themselves fragmentary. Thus we see that Xenophanes and Heraclitus were critical of him. Xenophanes fr. B 7 makes fun of his belief in transmigration of the soul. And Heraclitus fr. B 40 mocks Pythagoras, and Xenophanes too.

Heraclitus fr. B 129 and lon of Chios fr. B 2 give pretty positive evidence that Pythagoras composed written works. And Ion goes further to say that he attributed them to Orpheus. There is also evidence of some Orphic religious involvement associated with Abaris of Scythia and Zalmoxis of Thrace, who were connected to Pythagoras and probably members of his sect. Herodotus 4.95-6 mentions Zalmoxis/ Salmoxis as a freed slave of Pythagoras who went off to Thrace to start a cult of his own there. Abaris is known as a prominent figure in Orphism, a priest of Apollo, and an author of oracles and poems; he concluded from Pythagoras’ “golden thigh” that Pythagoras was an incarnation of the Hyperborean Apollo (Porphyry, Life of Pyth. 28; Iamblichus, Life of Pyth. 92). But Heraclitus and Xenophanes are the only other contemporaries who mention him. Starting in ~ 420 BC we get references to him in lon, Herodotus, and Empedokles, and they are a bit more positive about him; there are a few isolated fragments from Philolaus, from around the same time, who was said to have a member of the Pythagorean sect.

Basically, the long and short of it is, on my understanding, that 1. Pythagoras emigrated to Croton in S. Italy c. 530 BC; 2. there was a religious cult that enjoyed a certain social and political prominence both there and back in Greece; 3. it is likely that the Pythagoreans of the 5th century BC were in some sense a variant on the cult of Orpheus. Albeit, I know that is vague, but at this point is about as close I can get on the current evidence…

Exactly! Few things can be said with some certainty about Pythagoras: he was a Samian, he migrated in the second half of the 6th century to Croton, he founded there some kind of religious or philosophical-religious society whose members held everything in common and which became for some time very influential politically in the Greek cities of S. Italy, he believed in the transmigration of the souls like the Orphics, and he gave teachings and instructions about purifications. The tradition of Late Antiquity about Pythagoras is largely of legendary nature and claims of ancient writers living in the CE that Pythagoras was essentially the founder of what has been known as Platonic philosophy and the possessor of a perfect knowledge in mathematics and other sciences are rejected by modern scholarship as anachronistic or legendary.

But there is an important current debate among scholars on whether Pythagoras was not only a religious figure, but also a major proto-scientist and philosopher, with a very innovative view on the relationship between mathematics, music, and the structure of the cosmos. For the "minimalists" like Walter Burkert, Pythagoras was just the founder of a religious sect and Pythagoreanism as a philosophical and scientific tradition was the creation of a subgroup among later Pythagoreans, whose intellectual achievements were attributed anachronistically to the founder of their sect. It is true that, as it seems, there was somewhere in the first half of the 5th entury a split in the Pythagorean communities between akousmatikoi (essentially those who claimed that they were faithful to the oral teachings of Pythagoras about practices of purification) and mathematikoi (those who were interested in sciences, especially mathematics, but also in philosophy and cosmology) and that the akousmatikoi accused the mathematikoi of deviating from the original teachings of Pythagoras.

On the other hand, as Charles Kahn stresses in his book about Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, if Heraclitus, a younger contemporary, condemns Pythagoras for kakotechnie (fraudulent art), he acknowledges, although not without irony, the polymathie (wide learning) of Pythagoras, but also that Pythagoras pursued inquiry (historie) further than anyone else. Herodotus, too, writing two generations later does not say only that the Bacchica and Orphica are essentially Pythagoreia and Egyptiaca, a thing which suggests that Pythagoras brought from Egypt to the Greeks the doctrine of the transmigration of the souls and some important rites of purification, but he presents also Pythagoras (by understatement) as "not the feeblest sophistes among the Greeks". Those testimonies show that Pythagoras was known from an early period not just as a religious teacher, but also as a polymath and inquirer. And the impressive speculations of a Pythagorean like Philolaus in the second half of the 5th century, which included a mathematical production of the universe and an astronomical model with the earth moving in circle around a central hearth of the cosmos and revolving around its own axis, suggest that behind him there was a philosophical, cosmological and scientific tradition, which may very well go back to Pythagoras himself. This is also essentially what the mathematikoi among the Pythagoreans claimed.

So, I would agree with the "maximalist" school (of Leonid Zhmud and to some degree Charles Kahn) on Pythagoras that it is very plausible that Pythagoras was not just the founder of a cult, but also a polymath and inquirer with a keen interest in and some ingenious insights on the relationship between mathematics, music, and the cosmos, although of course later Pythagoreans like Philolaus and Archytas built a lot further on the basis of Pythagoras' insights.

Btw I have ordered from the US the book of C. Huffman (editor) on the history of Pythagoreanism, which is I believe currently the most complete work on this subject, and it will arrive in the next weeks.

[senecalui]

“The Sibyl, with frenzied mouth uttering things not to be laughed at, unadorned and unperfumed, yet reaches to a thousand years with her voice by aid of the god.” — Heraclitus

Sibyls were female prophets and oracles in ancient Greece. They gave prophecies at holy sites across the Mediterranean region delivering divinely inspired prophecies, often in a frenzied state. Sibyls were not identified by a personal name, but by names that refer to the location of their temenos, or shrine. By the first century BC, there were at least ten sibyls, located in Greece, Italy, the Levant, and Asia Minor. It was believed that the sibyls' prophecies foretold the coming of Christ.

Michelangelo, Delphic Sibyl, Sistine Chapel Ceiling, 1508–12, detail of fresco (Vatican City, Rome). Photo courtesy Smarthistory.

The Delphic Sibyl, venerated before the Trojan Wars (11th century BC), was believed to be an oracle with the ability to foresee the future through the god Apollo. Her prophecies were sought by lawmakers, colonists, and cult founders to predict the outcome of wars and political actions, making her counsel highly valued for major decisions like military campaigns and new settlements.

The youthful Delphic Sibyl by Michelangelo is holding the scroll on which her prophecy has been written and she has turned her head in what seems to be anticipation or expectation. Sibyls may seem inappropriate among biblical images but their inclusion on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel reflects the teaching that God works through many sources.

Excerpt attributed to Hear what the Spirit is saying.

[godsandpomegranatesblog]

Notes on Chaos

The mythological void state preceding the creation of the universe. It can also refer to any early state of the cosmos constituted of nothing but undifferentiated and indistinguishable matter.

Greek Chaos means 'emptiness, vast void, chasm, abyss', 'gape, be wide open', whence English 'yawn'. It may also mean space, the expanse of air, the nether abyss or infinite darkness. Pherecydes of Syros interprets Chaos as water, like something 'formless' that can be differentiated.

Hesiod's Chaos has been interpreted as either "the gaping space below the Earth on which Earth rests." Passages in Hesiod's Theogony suggest that Chaos was located below Earth but above Tartarus. Primal Chaos was sometimes said to be the true foundation of reality, particularly by philosophers such as Heraclitus.

In Hesiod's Theogony, Chaos was the first thing to exist "at first Chaos came to be", but next (possibly out of Chaos) came Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros. Unambiguously "born" from Chaos, were Erebus and Nyx. For Hesiod, Chaos, like Tartarus, though personified enough to have borne children was also a place, far away, underground, and "gloomy", beyond which lived the Titans; and, like the earth, the ocean, and the upper air, it was also capable of being affected by Zeus's thunderbolts.

Anaximander claims that the origin is apeiron (the unlimited) a divine and perpetual substance less definite than the common elements (water, air, fire and earth). Everything is generated from apeiron, and must return there according to necessity. A conception of the nature of the world was that the earth below its surface stretches down indefinitely and has its roots on or above Tartarus, the lower part of the underworld. In a phrase of Xenophanes, "The upper limit of the earth borders on air, near our feet. The lower limit reaches down to the "apeiron"." The sources and limits of the earth, the sea, the sky, Tartarus, and all things are located in a great windy-gap, which seems to be infinite, and is a later specification of "chaos".

In Aristophanes's Birds, first there was Chaos, Night, Erebus, and Tartarus, from Night came Eros, and from Eros and Chaos came the race of birds.

In Plato's Timaeus, the main work of Platonic cosmology, the concept of chaos finds its equivalent in the Greek expression chora is a "receptacle of all becoming - its wetnurse, as it were".

Aristotle understands chaos as something that exists independently of bodies and without which no perceptible bodies can exist.

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Chaos was an unformed mass, where all the elements were jumbled up together in a "shapeless heap".

According to Hyginus: "From Mist (Achlys) came Night, Day, Erebus, and Aether." An Orphic tradition apparently had Chaos as the son of Chronus (time) and Ananke.

The nothingness at the beginning of the world created by its father, the unknown God. Chaos means "disorder" or random and not normal. It is the opposite of order.

A primordial deity. A "much more elusive figure".

In Theogony, First there was Chaos, then Gaea and Eros. Chaos, however, did not generate Gaea; the offspring of Chaos were Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx. Nyx begat Aether, the bright upper air, and Day. Nyx later begat the dark and dreadful aspects of the universe. This concept tied in with the other early notion that saw Chaos in the darkness of the underworld.

Chaos (Khaos) was the first of the primordial gods to emerge at the dawn of creation. She was followed in quick succession by Gaia (Earth), Tartaros (the pit below) and Eros (Procreation).

Was the lower atmosphere which surrounds the earth -- both the invisible air and the gloom of fog and mist. Chaos means "gap" or "chasm" being the space between heaven and earth.

The mother and grandmother of the other misty essences -- Erebos (the mists of netherworld darkness), Aither (the etheral mists of heaven), Nyx (the night), and Hemera (the day) as well as the numerous emotion-driving Daimones (Spirits) which haunted it. She was also a goddess of fate, like her daughter Nyx and granddaughters the Moirai (Moirae)

As the goddess of the air, Khaos was also the mother of birds, just as Gaia was the mother of land animals, and Thalassa (the Sea) was the mother of fish.

The chaotic mix of elements which existed in the primordial universe, conflating it with the primal "mud" of the Orphic cosmogony.

According to Hesiod's Theogony, Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros came into being after Khaos; this passage is sometimes misread, making them her offspring.

The vacant and infinite space. Sometimes thought as the offspring of Khronos (Chronos, Unaging Time) and the sibling of Aither (Aether, light, upper air) as Chaos represents the lower air. Orphic states "vast this way and that, no limit below it, no base, no place to settle. The great Khronos fashioned from (or in) divine Aither (Aether) a bright white egg [from which Phanes was born]." "United with it [Khronos (Chronos), Time] was Ananke (Inevitability), being of the same nature, or Adrastea, incorporeal...this is the great Khronos (Unaging Time) that we found in it [the Rhapsodies], the father of Aither (Aether) [upper air] and Khaos (Chaos, the Chasm) [the lower air]. Indeed, in this theology too [the Hieronyman Rhapsodies], this Khronos (Time), the serpent has offspring, three in number: moist Aither (Light) -- I quote --, unbounded Khaos (Chaos) [Air], and as a third, misty Erebos (Darkness)...Among these, he says, Khronos (Time) generated an egg [containing the mix of solid matter -- earth, sea and sky]." "Thou [primordial Eros] art the eldest - born among the blessed gods and from unsmiling Khaeos (Chaos) didn't arise with fierce and flaming torch and didst first establish the ordinances of wedded love and order the rites of the marriage-bed."

A "deathless god", without form or gender, and often referred to as an element instead of a being; impossible to measure; "chasm" or "void"

Ovid's Metamorphoses describes Chaos as "a rude and undigested mass and nothing more than an inert weight, and the discordant atoms of things not harmonizing, heaped together in the same spot."

Chaos was all that there was, the dark majesty and mystery of creation incarnate.

[tagitables]

If I were to come clean with myself, I don't think that I can keep up with practices in the field of healthcare any longer. My thought still gravitates back to the ever-fascinating field of philosophy. Figures such as Heraclitus, Parmenides, Wittgenstein, Schlick, Reichenbach, Heidegger and Rousseau continue to be a constant source of support/ inspiration for me. May this life-long interest parallel with my current/ functional dealings with AI and Machine Learning soon. Note to self: keep reading, keep writing.

[blurrymerzsblog]

I was made of delicate substance, mysterious time.

Perhaps the source is within me.

Perhaps the days emerge,

fatal and illusory,

from my shadow.

Jorge Luis Borges, from “Heraclitus“ translated by Thomas Frick