Because if it makes sense, you haven't thought about it...

Zeno's paradoxes are interesting brain benders with even more interesting implications. Originally created to defend Parmenides' idea that the universe is unitary and unchanging, Zeno's paradoxes tap into much broader questions regarding reason, epistemology and the nature of our sense experience. For instance, the Millet Seed paradox demonstrates that what we can logically expect about the world is not always reflected in our experiences. Combine this with the lesson of the Arrow in Flight, a paradox demonstrating that time is made up of indivisible "moments" or "instants," and you are presented with sufficient premises to make the argument that what we experience as the passing of time, motion or change is an illusion that does not reflect what is actually happening in the world. This generalizes from a metaphysical argument to an argument about all of human life, casting doubt on those things that are viewed as true, and even on our capability to determine if something is true or not.

So often, complex philosophical arguments come in the form of lengthy treatises or allegorical works of prose or poetry. It is refreshing to have an argument presented like a puzzle, demanding the audience engage the model in order to reap the understanding that the author wishes to communicate. I find this style of presentation to be more engaging and more helpful for the audience than other forms that rely on lengthy digressions to present every facet of one's point more thoroughly than is ever practically necessary. Something about the mental images created by these paradoxes makes their investigation fun. They neither hold the audience's hand, coddling and patronizing them with diluted versions of a complex thought, nor pretentiously assume that the audience has dedicated their entire adult lives to reading every scrap of literature in existence regarding a certain idea. They expect the audience to be smart, but they present their argument in such a way that expertise level in a field is irrelevant to understanding the point being made.

Even though his metaphysical teachings leave something to be desired, the pedagogical methods by which he communicates them are impressive. I am a large fan of Zeno, and I look forward to witnessing how both his thoughts and his methods impacted those thinkers that came after him.