Earth, Wind and Fire Reunion Tour, featuring guest artist Empedocles

    In his attempt to explain and describe the way the world works, Empedocles constructs a concept with 4 "roots", earth, air, fire, and water, and 2 "forces," Love and Strife. According to Empedocles, the universe exists in a cycle of coalescing to one entity from many disparate pieces, through the force of Love, and breaking into pieces from a single substance, through the force of Strife. At no point in this cycle is either force consumed or generated, or any of the 4 roots destroyed or created. It is this last bit that I find the most interesting.

   Central to a scientific understanding of the world are the laws of conservation of energy and of matter. These laws state that no chemical reaction, no physical force, no event of any kind ever has, ever will, or ever could result in the destruction or creation of energy or matter. All that exists today will exist tomorrow, though it will not appear in the same form. Isn't it interesting that these foundational principles of chemistry and physics were first recognized by a preSocratic thinker?

   I am constantly amazed at the frequency with which our modern worldview is actually a validation of and not a revision of the thoughts of the ancients. Sure, the electron microscope affords us a certain advantage denied to someone who lived and died in the 5th century BCE, and yes, this advantage allows us to understand that Empedocles' 4 "roots" and 2 "forces" are oversimplifications of the mechanisms underlying the material world. That said, Empedocles was clearly on the right track. All matter does consist of the same basic building blocks, and breaking apart or fusing matter does require a great exertion of force. The implications of this observation have informed everything from medicine to mechanics.

    It's easy to forget that being smart is a capacity common not to an era of history, but to humanity. I find myself assuming that because they lacked the advantages of modern technology and the "facts" that it affords us, people throughout history must have lacked the sophistication of thought and intelligence that I and other modern thinkers so obviously possess. Empedocles tried to teach quite a few things in his day, but what he's teaching me today is a little lesson in humility.