The classical element usually refers to the ancient Greek concept of earth, water, air, fire, and ether, proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Babylon, Japan, Tibet, and India have a similar list, sometimes referring in the local language to "air" as "wind" and the fifth element as "void". The Chinese Wu Xing system lists Wood (? mÃÆ'¹ ), Fire (? hu? ), Earth (? t? ), Metal (? i> j? n ), and Water (? shu? ), though this is described more as energy or transition than as a material type.
These different cultures and even individual philosophers have many explanations about their attributes and how they relate to observable phenomena and cosmology. Sometimes these theories overlap with mythology and are personified in the gods. Some of these interpretations include atomism (the idea of ​​a very small and indivisible part of matter) but other interpretations assume that these elements can be divided into small parts without changing their nature.
While the classification of the material world in ancient India, Hellenistic Egypt, and ancient Greece into Water, Earth, Fire and Water was more philosophical, during the medieval Middle Eastern Middle Ages of the golden age, Eastern scientists used practical, experimental observations to classify material. In Europe, the Ancient Greek system of Aristotle evolved slightly into the medieval system, which for the first time in Europe was subjected to experimental verification in the 1600s, during the Scientific Revolution.
Centuries of empirical investigation have proved that all ancient systems are the wrong explanations of the physical world. It is now known that atomic theory is the correct explanation, and that atoms can be classified into more than one hundred chemical elements such as oxygen, iron, and mercury. These elements form chemical compounds and mixtures, and under different temperatures and pressures, these substances can adopt different material states. The most frequently observed solid, liquid, gas, and plasma conditions have many attributes with the classical elements of earth, water, air, and fire, respectively, but it is now known that this condition is caused by the same behavior of different types. atom at the same energy level, and not because it contains certain types of atoms or certain types of substance or infinite energy.
Video Classical element
Ancient times
In classical thinking, the four earth elements, water, air, and fire as proposed by Empedocles often occur; Aristotle added the fifth element, ether; has been called akasha in India and the essence in Europe.
The five-element concept forms the basis of analysis in both Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, especially in an esoteric context, four states describe matter, and the fifth element explains what lies beyond the material world. A similar list exists in ancient China, Korea and Japan. In Buddhism, the four great elements, which are sometimes added by two persons, are not seen as substances, but as categories of sensory experience.
Cosmic element in Babylonia
In Babylonian mythology, the cosmogony called EnÃÆ'Â »ma Eli? , a text written between the 18th and 16th century BC, involves four gods that we may see as cosmic elements personified: sea, earth, sky, wind. In other Babylonian texts this phenomenon is considered independent of their relationship with the gods, though they are not treated as elements of the universe's components, as it was later in the Empedocles.
India
Hinduism
The five-element system found in Vedas, especially Ayurveda, pancha mahabhuta, or "the five great elements", of Hinduism is bh? Mi (earth), ap or nets (water), tejas or agni (fire) , marut , vayu or pavan (air or wind) and vyom or shunya (space or zero) or akash (aether or void). They further state that all creation, including the human body, consists of these five essential elements and that after death, the human body dissolves into these five elements of nature, thereby balancing the natural cycle.
The five elements are associated with the five senses, and act as a rough medium for the sensation experience. The most basic element, the earth, created using all the other elements, can be felt by the five senses - (i) hearing, (ii) touch, (iii) sight, (iv) taste, and (v) smell. The next higher element, water, has no odor but can be heard, felt, seen and tasted. Next comes fire, which can be heard, felt and seen. Air can be heard and felt. "Akasha" (ether) is outside the sense of smell, taste, sight, and touch; it is accessible by the sense of hearing only.
Buddhism
In the Pali literature, the mahabhuta ("great element") or catudhatu ("the four elements") are earth, water, fire and air. In early Buddhism, the four elements are the basis for understanding suffering and to break free from suffering. The earliest Buddhist scriptures make it clear that the four major material elements are sensory qualities, flexibility, temperature, and sensory mobility; their characterization as earth, water, fire, and air, respectively, are expressed as abstractions - instead of concentrating on the fact of material existence, one observes how things are perceived, felt, felt.
The Buddha's teaching of the four elements should be understood as the basis of all observations of real sensations rather than as philosophy. The four properties are cohesion (water), solidity or inertia (earth), expansion or vibration (air) and heat or energy content (fire). He announces the categorization of mind and matter as consisting of eight types of "kalapas" whose four primary elements and the secondary group of four are the colors, smells, tastes, and nutrients that are derived from the four introductions.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1997) makes an extract from Shakyamuni Buddha from Pali into English thus:
Just as a skilled butcher or his disciple, after killing a cow, will sit at a crossroads cutting him into pieces, the monk contemplating this body - however he stands, but he is discarded - in terms of the qualities: 'In this body there earth property, liquid property, fire property, & amp; belongs to the wind. '
Tibetan Buddhist medical literature talks about Panch Mah? Bh? Ta (five elements).
China
The Chinese have a rather different set of elements, namely Fire, Earth, Metals (literally gold), Water and Wood, which are understood as different types of energy in a state of constant interaction and flux with each other, rather than Western notions of different types of material.
Although usually translated as "element", the Chinese word xing literally means something like "turn things into", "permutations" or "metamorphoses into". In fact, theologians can not agree on any single translation. Chinese elements are always changing and moving - a translation wu xing is only "five changes".
Wu Xing is primarily an ancient mnemonic device for a five-stage system; then the preferred translation of "movement", "phase" or "step" above "element."
In bagua, metal is associated with prediction number? DuÃÆ'¬ (?, lake or swamp:?/? zÃÆ' Â © ) and with? QiÃÆ'¡n (?, sky or sky:? ti? n ). Wood linked to? XÃÆ'¹n (?, wind:?/? f? ng ) and with? ZhÃÆ'¨n (?, raise/thunder:? lÃÆ' Â © i ). Considering meteoric iron resistance, metals come to be associated with ether, which is sometimes coupled with Stoic pneuma, since both terms initially refer to air (the first higher, brighter, more fiery or sky and the latter only warmer , and thus vital or biogenetic). In Taoism, qi functions similarly to pneuma in the main problem (the basic principle of energetic transformation) which takes into account biological and inanimate phenomena.
In Chinese philosophy the universe consists of heaven and earth. The five major planets are associated with and even named according to the element: Jupiter ?? it's Wood (?), Mars ?? it's Fire (?), Saturn ?? what is Earth (?), Venus ?? are Metals (?), and Mercury ?? is Water (?). Also, Moon represents Yin (?), And Sun ?? represents Yang (?). Yin, Yang, and the five elements are associated with themes in I Ching, the oldest Chinese classical text that describes the ancient system of cosmology and philosophy. The five elements also play an important role in Chinese astrology and the Chinese geomancy form known as Feng shui.
The five-phase doctrine describes two cycles of balance, generating cycle or creation (?, Sh? Ng) and the cycle of overcoming or destruction (?/?, KÃÆ'¨) of inter-phase interactions.
Generate
- Wood gives fire;
- The fire creates the earth (ashes);
- The Earth contains metal;
- Metals collect water;
- Water feeds wood.
Overcome
- Part of earth from wood;
- The earth absorbs water;
- Water extinguishes fire;
- The fire melted the metal;
- Metal cutting.
There are also two cycles of imbalance, overacting cycle (cheng) and abusive cycle (wu).
Greek
The ancient Greek belief in the five basic elements, this is earth, water, hudor, air (aer ), fire and aether, from pre-Socratic and enduring throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, greatly influences European thinking and culture. These five elements are sometimes associated with five platoon solids.
The Sicilian Philosopher Empedocles (around 450 BC) proves (at least to his satisfaction) that air is a separate substance by observing that the inverted bucket in water does not become filled with water, the remaining air bag is trapped inside. Before the Empedocles, the Greek philosophers debated which substance was the primordial element from which everything was made; Heraclitus fought for fire, Thales supported the water, and Anaximenes fluffed the air. Anaximander argues that primordial substances are not any known substance, but can be transformed into them, and they become one another. Empedocles are the first to propose four elements, fire, earth, air, and water. He calls them four "roots" (????????, rhiz? Mata).
Plato seems to have been the first to use the term "element (????????, stoicheion )" which refers to air, fire, earth, and water. The ancient Greek word for element, stoicheion (from stoicheo , "to line up") means "the smallest division (from the solar dial), syllable", as composing the alphabet unit shows the letter and the smallest unit from which the word is formed. A similar alphabetical metaphor may be derived from the equivalent Latin word elementum (from which the English word comes), perhaps based on the names of l ',' m 'and' n ', although the validity of this idea is disputed.
In his book In Generation and Corruption , Aristotle connects each of the four elements into two of four reasonable qualities:
- Fire hot and dry.
- Air is hot and wet (for air like steam, ?????).
- Water is cool and wet.
- The earth is cool and dry.
The classical diagram has one square on the other, with corners one of which is a classical element, and the other angles are its properties. The opposite angle is the opposite of these properties, "hot - cold" and "dry - wet".
Aristotle adds the fifth element, ether, as the essence, which argues that when fire, earth, air, and water are soil and can perish, since no change is felt in the heavenly regions, stars can not be made of any of the four elements but must be made of a different and irreversible heavenly substance.
A text written in Egyptian in the Hellenistic or Roman era called Kore Kosmou ("World Virgin") deemed to be from Hermes Trismegistus (linked to Egypt god Thoth), the names of four elements of fire, water, air, and earth. As described in this book:
And Isis replied: From living things, my son, some friends with fire, and some with water, some with air, and some with > earth , and some with two or three of these, and some with everything. And, on the contrary, once again some enemies made fire, and some water, some of the earth, and some air, and some of them, and some of three, and some of them. For example, children, grasshoppers and all flies ran from the fire; eagles and eagles and all the high flying birds fled from the water; fish, air and earth; the snake avoided the open air. While the snake and all the creeping creatures love the earth; all swimming objects like water; winged things, air, where they are citizens; while those who fly still prefer high fire and have a habitat nearby. Not that some animals do not like fire either; eg salamander, because they even have their house in it. That's because one of the other elements forms an outer envelope of their body. Every soul, therefore, in the meantime in his body is weighted and limited by the fourth.
According to Galen, these elements were used by Hippocrates in describing the human body with a relationship with four humors: bile yellow (fire), black bile (earth), blood (air), and sputum (water). Medical care is mainly about helping the patient stay inside or return to his own private state of equilibrium.
The Neoplatonist philosopher Proclus rejects Aristotle's theory of connecting elements with sensible qualities, heat, cold, wet, and dry. He states that each element has three properties. The fire is sharp, smooth, and moving while its opponent, earth, dull, solid, and immobile; they join the intermediate elements, air and water, in the following way:
Tibetan
In the BÃÆ'¶n or ancient Tibetan philosophy, the five processes of earth elements, water, fire, air and space are essential ingredients of all existing phenomena or aggregates. The elemental process forms the basis of the calendar, astrology, medicine, psychology and is the basis of the spiritual traditions of shamanism, tantra and Dzogchen.
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche states it
the physical property is assigned to the element: the earth is solidity; water is cohesion; fire is temperature; air is motion; and space is the dimension of space that accommodates the other four active elements. In addition, the elements correlate with emotion, temperament, direction, color, taste, body type, disease, thinking style, and different characters. Of the five elements came the five senses and five areas of sensory experience; five negative emotions and five wisdom; and five extensions of the body. They are the five main prana or vital energy. They are the constituents of every physical, sensual, mental, and spiritual phenomenon.
The names of analog elements with the experience sensation are categorized by the natural world. These names are symbolic and key to their inherent quality and/or mode of action by analogy. In BÃÆ'¶n elemental processes is a fundamental metaphor for working with external, internal and secret energy forces. All five elemental processes in their essential purity are embedded in the mindstream and connect the trikaya and are aspects of the primordial energy. As Herbert V. GÃÆ'¼nther states:
Thus, given that thought strives endlessly against the betrayal of languages ​​and that what we observe and describe is the observer himself, we may continue to investigate successive phases in ourselves as human beings. Throughout these phases, the experience of ourselves as an intensity (imaged and perceived as a "god", lha) that regulates its own scope (imaged and perceived as "home" > khang ) comes in the various intensity of illumination that takes place within us as a "temple." A reasonable consequence of Erlebnis is that his light characters manifest themselves in various "frequencies" or colors. This can be said, because we are creatures of light, we display this light in many nuances.
In the above quotation, the trikaya is encoded as: dharmakaya "god"; sambhogakaya "temple" and nirmanakaya "home".
Maps Classical element
Medieval
Alchemy
The elemental system used in medieval alchemy was developed primarily by the J-Persian Arabian Alchemist? Beer ibn Hayy? N (Geber). The system consists of four classical elements of air, earth, fire, and water, in addition to two philosophical elements: sulfur, the principle of combustion, "burning stones"; and mercury, characteristic of the principle of metallic properties. They were seen by early alchemists as the ideal expression of the irreducibile component of the universe and of greater consideration in philosophical alchemy.
Three metallic principles - sulfur becomes combustible or combustion, mercury against volatility and stability, and salt becomes solid - becomes prime tria of the Swiss alchemist Paracelsus. He reasoned that the four elements of Aristotle's theory appear in the body as three principles. Paracelsus sees these principles as fundamental and justifies them in another way to the description of how wood burns in fire. Mercury incorporates a cohesive principle, so that when left in the smoke, the wood becomes messy. Smoke describes instability (frisky principle), a hot flame illustrating the ability to burn (sulfur), and the remaining ash represents solidity (salt).
Islam
The philosophers of Islam al-Kindi, Avicenna and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi connect four elements with four properties of heat and cold (active force), and drought and moisture (recipients).
Japanese
Japanese tradition uses a set of elements called ?? ( godai , literally "top five"). These five are land, water, fire, wind/air, and emptiness. It comes from the Indian Vastu shastra philosophy and Buddhist belief; In addition, the classical Chinese elements ( ?? , wu xing ) are also prominent in Japanese culture, especially in Neo Confucianism was influential during the medieval Edo period.
- Earth represents dense things.
- Water represents the things that are liquid.
- Fire represents damaging things.
- Air represents moving things.
- Void or Heaven/Heaven represents things that are not from our daily lives.
Western Astrology
Western astrology uses four classic elements with respect to astrological charts and horoscopes. Twelve zodiac signs are divided into four elements: Fire signs are Aries, Leo and Sagittarius, Earth Signs are Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn, Air Signs are Gemini, Libra and Aquarius, and Water signs are Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces.
Modern
The medieval tradition of Aristotle and Alchemy gave birth to modern scientific theories and a new taxonomy. At the time of Antoine Lavoisier, for example, the list of elements no longer refers to the classical elements. Some modern scientists see a parallel between classical elements and four material states: solid, liquid, gas and weakly ionized plasmas.
Modern science recognizes a class of elementary particles that have no substructure (or rather, particles not made of other particles) and composite particles have substructures (particles made of other particles).
See also
- Alchemy
- Classic elements in popular culture
- Elemental (Renaissance alchemy)
- Five elements (Chinese w? xÃÆ'ng )
- Five elements (Hindu mah? bh? ta ) and Four elements (Buddha mah? bh? ti ni )
- Five elements (Japanese godai )
- First principle (Pre-Socrates arche and Aristotelian substrate)
- The first principle (Chinese qÃÆ'¬ and Japanese ki )
- Basic interaction overview
- The first principle (Prima material in Alchemy)
- Periodic table of elements (modern science)
- Stone philosophers (Medieval and Renaissance alchemy)
- Phlogiston Theory (History of science)
- Fundamental interactions (Quantum Mechanics)
- Table of correspondence (Magic and occult)
Note
References
- Russell, Bertrand (1995) History of Western Philosophy , Routledge, ISBN 0-415-07854-7.
- Strathern, Paul (2000). Mendeleyev's Dreamà ¢ - Quest for the Elements . New York: Berkley Books.
External links
- The section on the 4 elements in Buddhism
- The Kore Kosmou or Virgin of the World. www.sacred-texts.com for Ancient Egyptian Elements
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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