The pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides (c.500 BCE) had a disciple named Zeno who worked at proving Parmenides’ theories to be true. He offered four paradoxes with which to prove that the idea of change and sense perception are logical fictions. His main contention was that the idea of motion is illogical. See what you think of his reasoning.
1. Motion is illogical – because for it to exist there would have to be an infinite amount of time for a runner, for instance, to traverse a given amount of space. But no matter how long one has the given distance to be covered would have to be subdivided an infinite number of times, thus taking an infinite amount of time to do so. Thus motion itself is an illogical notion.
2. Similarly, if we give a very slow tortoise a tiny head start his opponent, a rabbit, no matter how long the race course and how fast the rabbit is, the rabbit would never be able to catch the tortoise because it would first have to cover half the distance between himself and the tortoise while the tortoise would have time to inch ahead a tiny amount, ad infinitum! So, the idea of motion is illogical.
3. Again, if an archer shoots an arrow into the air no matter how fast the arrow goes it will never be able to reach the target because it would first have to traverse half of the distance to the target, and each inch of this distance is subdividable into logically dividable parts, thus requiring an infinite amount of time for the arrow to cover those parts. Thus, the idea of motion is itself contradictory.
4. Finally, the idea of motion is self-contradictory because it requires an infinite amount of both time and distance for any movement to take place. So, motion itself is impossible because would require an infinite amount of space and time in order to be real.
Clearly, these puzzles posed by Zeno somehow miss the
point since we all know that time and space are in fact divisible and motion is neither impossible or self-contradictory. So wherein lies the solution to Zeno’s paradoxes? Both time and space are real yet these paradoxes seem to call them into question.
Surely our senses do sometimes deceive us concerning how far away something is, or how fast something is moving. How, then, are these puzzles to be explained? One way to explain them is to point out that these puzzles trade on the idea that the concepts of space and time are always relative to some system or other, and thus do not exist in and of themselves as abstractions.
Zeno’s paradoxes trade back and forth on the difference between the abstract concepts of space and time, on the one hand, and their actual use in everyday life. One might turn the tables on him by suggesting that his own spoken words must be meaningless because they are divisible since they are spoken one at a time and not all at once.

It began when I married my wife, Mari Sorri, back in 1982. A couple of years later we visited her family farm. Since then I have visited Finland 29 times!! The home is located in the tiny village of Topeno, of about 100 people and two yield signs and about 100 miles north of Helsinki. One of the first things to learn about the Finnish language is that the accent is always on the first syllable. Unfortunately foreigners continue to pronounce Helsinki wrongly.
The first thing that endeared me to Finland, in addition to Mari’s family, was the food. The down-to-earth, wholesome character of various covered dishes and pork sausage, for example. I have also grown very fond of such Finnish delicacies as “hotdogit (hot dogs) and “munkki” (donuts), along with “lohi” (salmon) and “olut”(beer). Mealtime is always a big thing around the Sorri farm.
The toughness and simplicity of Finish character I came to know mostly in Mari’s mother, Ulla. She ran the family farm all her adult life and had three caesarian births while still managing the farm and driving the tractor on the fields. I was fortunate to get to know her and love her very much during the roughly three decades we visited Finland.
It took some practice to get used to the Finnish winters. Summers are usually lovely and light for twenty hours a day, while in winter its dark for just as many hours. During our first winter visit Mari took me to Rovaniemi in Lapland and I was overcome by the beauty of the frozen crystals everywhere, even in the air itself. But when we visited Helsinki in the winter the cold wind was so bitter that one could barely walk from one store to the next.
During our summer visits we went swimming in the many nearby lakes. I tried to be of help around the farm, but about all I knew how to do was mow the rather large lawn. I also very much enjoyed our times in saunas, but I must admit that I usually bailed out before everyone else.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Finnish culture is the quiet politeness of the people. Unlike Americans, the Finish folk are largely content to sit during the whole train or bus ride without speaking. Being an American, and being a naturally talkative person, I stood out whenever we traveled by public transportation. Fortunately for me, many if not most, Finnish people know English, along with several other foreign languages, even though they are very shy about speaking in front of an American.
My biggest embarrassments, and those of the Sorri family, have come when we find ourselves standing in line at the bank or at a formal smorgasbord. It has taken me a long time to learn that when the host announces that we should eat it is polite continue to stand around and let someone else be first. Many times I have taken the host at his or her word and blundered ahead only to find myself all alone at the serving table. Fortunately Finnish people are always quick to forgive.
Some of my deepest experience grew out of being able to offer a three-week summer basketball camp for ten summers. It started out small, with about 10 kids, but grew rapidly to include over 30, including 10 highschoolers. Basketball was then new in Finland, but has caught on big-time with both boys and girls. Their biggest star is Lauri Markkanen, who now plays for the Utah Jazz. My best player, Henna Salomaa, ended up playing professionally in Europe. It was a great pleasure and a lot of fun to coach those kids. I learned a lot of Finnish, too.
This brings me to the quality that I admire and appreciate the most in Finnish people, namely their humble, non-assuming character. Even though they as a people have been through extremely difficult war-times, with both the Russians and the Germans, they have quietly gone ahead and built their country in a very progressive and thoughtful way. In 1917, at the conclusion of the First World War, they decided to be a democratic-socialist country and have done an extremely fine job of living up to this commitment. Health, education, and basic needs, such as lengthy paid maternity and paternity leaves are all provided. Of course, the taxes are very high, but they are off-set by the fact that one does not have to pay endless medical fees and school tuitions.
I should also mention that in Finland 50% of the professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, and dentists, are female. In addition, their political leaders are often women. One recent woman President governed for 12 years and half of the current Parliament is female. By the way, a clue to these numbers is reflected in the fact that the Finnish language has no gender. There is just one third person singular pronoun, “han”, for “he” and “she”.
As a parting note, I must point out that Finland, along with Denmark and Norway, shut the Corona virus down very quickly and is now operating normally again. They are smart and well educated people who listen to scientific facts and act on them. If things continue to get worse here in the States, both medically and politically, we might just try moving to Finland – if they would let us in!! ANY QUESTIONS ?