Entropy and Time. And our alchemical First Matter. The charming thought of Pherekydes, Pythagoras reported teacher, about Time not as a mere destroyer.
Since Aristotle, the concept of the Arrow of Time has always been present among scientists and philosophers. Only recently has the idea of a time’s flowing direction reverse been considered in the Multiverse theory. But for an alchemist is not enough since, at least for the most visionary of us, Time might be our First matter.
A greek thinker whose legendary life is lost in great antiquity, Pherekydes of Syros, has left some interesting and inspirational fragments on the subject.
Reports on the life of Pherekydes of Syros, not to be confused with homonymous Pherekydes of Athens and Leros ( though many ancient authors did not distinguish) make him be born in Syros, an island of the Cyclades, close to Delos, and have reached the “acme” of his life (apparently 40 years old) during the 45th Olympic games (600-597 b.C.). He is considered the link between mythological tales and pre-Socratic thought. In my article on Anaximander (1), I mentioned the uttermost contribution of pre-socratic thinkers to hermetic symbolism formation. As I hold Pherekydes fragments to contain interesting clues on more than one symbolic meaning, I will dedicate more than a single post to him. This is the first.
Although Pherekydes is considered one of the seven Greek wises remembered by Diogenes Laertius, he is inexplicably unknown today. In his Parallel Lives, Plutarchus wrote of Pherekydes being a Theologus (theologian), but his fragments concern heroic myths and genealogies. In the sixth century b.C., he composed “Heptamychia”, considered to be one of the first Greek literature in prose. We know him primarily for two reasons: for having had the greatest significance in teaching on the subject of metempsychosis ( in fact, he was the first Mediterranean thinker to do. Cicero and Augustine assert that he was the first to teach the immortality of the soul).
The second reason was that one of his disciples was reportedly Pythagoras. This tradition was handed down from other ancient, but not contemporary, authors. Ex: DIODOR. X 3, 4 [Aristosseno: see chap. 14, 8] “Pythagoras, having learned that Pherekydes, his teacher, was sick at Delos and was dying, sailed from Italy to Delos. He took care of the old man for some time and lavished every care to save him from the disease. But Pherekydes was won by his old age and severity of the disease, and Pythagoras buried him with all diligence, and after having honored the rule that a son gives to his father, he returned to Italy”.
Over and above Pythagoras, Pherekydes had many disciples. At the same time, he said he was a self-taught researcher and had found some hidden Phoenician books. He was also the founder of an Orphic community.
“Heptamychia” (but we will see in coming posts that it also took other names and why) is now a lost work. Anyway, some fragments were retaken by other writers. Some of these fragments ( but mainly one) of this lost writing tell us of Time-Chronos as we have never read. Years after Pherekydes’s death, his idea of time was questioned and rejected by other Greek philosophers who relegated the time to “things caused”. But what if Time is causing and is not being caused? Today we recognize Pherecyde’s conception of the first time as an entity with its peculiarities and different from the eternal time typical of the mythological period. But this is restrictive, as we will see. Before reading Pherekydes’s fragments with new eyes, we will skip all philosophers’ thoughts of the last two thousand years to get to a summary of the current Time conception since Pherekydes of Syros’ words seem much more comprehensible through the modern scientific theories.
Anyone who carefully analyzes objects and living beings can realize that everything that exists tends, over time, to change its shape and structure, albeit slowly, and therefore appearance. And in most cases, more or less slowly, it dissolves in its simplest components. The leading cause is that all the particles that make up all things try to break free from the subatomic bonds which hold each other in a peculiar form at a given moment, not only to form things and living beings but also to keep as long as possible the same state and appearance.
So the particles that make us and things try, with some force, to break these invisible cords that hold them together. Why materials do tend to break down, you have not yet understood. This is called entropy and is unstoppable and inherent in all things in the universe; therefore, the whole cosmos is subject to the action of entropy. So, the universe will tend toward maximum disorder and thermic death. But when this happens, will the time end up flowing? What is the correlation between entropy and the flowing of time? is it time to cause our aging or entropy? Because, in reality, entropy destroys us.
In 1974, the British researcher Brandon Carter drew a clear distinction between weak and entropic solid principles. Years later, the two principles were better delineated in all their postulates, respectively, by John Barrow and Frank Tipler. Reports on the second law of thermodynamics further emphasized the apparent dichotomy linked to natural phenomena: they appear reversible over time at the level of the elementary particles, while on the macroscopic scale do show striking irreversibility. This aspect attracted the attention of many physicists and mathematicians, who tried to find the precise boundary between the micro and macrocosm where the temporal irreversibility of physical phenomena begins.
Because of the evanescent aspect, in many civilizations, Time rose to divinity. In some cultures was often imagined as a powerful deity able to change everything that exists slowly. And in the meanwhile, it also became a “scientific” entity to be studied since its flow was able to modify the habitat and living beings.
In almost all ancient mythologies, Time is usually equated to a flow of life often represented by the water’s flow. Ancient Greeks imagined that Earth was disc-shaped and surrounded by a river, Ocean, which had neither beginning nor end. Its waters flowed perpetually. Homer described the river Ocean as the source and origin of all the gods, therefore generating Time. Kronos is called the time of profane experiences, while the aspect of the time referred to religious experiences and abstractions and was called Kairos. Since antiquity, the creation of the universe has always been considered the work of a god. Two different creation descriptions diversified the religions: in some, it is believed that an eternal God created man in an eternal universe; in others, an eternal god placed outside the cosmos has inevitably created ex nihil first universe and finally man.
Finally, Einstein showed the peculiarity of time to be relative to the reference system, as well as what no scientist or philosopher would ever imagine, that time can be “dilated”. A clock placed in any system in motion, as compared to other static systems, marks time more slowly. The clock in motion “retards”. Thus, space and time are not absolute and cannot be considered separate entities but components of a single entity: the chronotype.
The cosmological model designed by Russian A. Linde, taking into account the theory of the Big Bang and that of inflation, theorized the existence of an eternal universe called a Multiverse. The Multiverse, according to Linde, contains infinite universes, among them also ours, There is no reason, therefore, to describe the cosmos as the container of itself and of all that exists, but it can be theorized as a component of infinite families of universes that are generated, evolved and eventually become extinct in the eternal Multiverse.
Now let’s scrutinize Pherekydes fragments retaken by other authors in which the concept of Time is present:
Damasc. de princ. 124 b [I 321, by Eudemus fr. 117 Spengler]: “Pherekydes of Syros argues that Zas, Chronos, and Chtonia are eternally the three first principles … Chronos produces from his seed, fire, air, and water … and that from them, divided into five recesses, result from the whole race of the gods call pente/ muxoj or, which is the same thing, five worlds.”
Prob. in Vergil. Buc. 6, 31 [App Serv p. 343, 18 Hagen]: “Also Pherekydes agrees, but introduces different elements: he speaks indeed of Zas, Chtonia, and Chronos, meaning Fire, Earth, and Air, and argues that Ether is what rules, Earth is what is ruled, and Time is that in which all things are ruled”.
Herm. irris. 12 [Dox. 654]: “Pherekydes says that the principles are Zas, Chtonia, and Chronos: Zas is the ether, Chtonia Earth and Chronos (Kro/noj) Time (xro/noj), and the Ether is what acts, the Earth that suffers and the Time that in which everything happens”.
(Kern 10). Cicer. Tusc. disp. I 16, 38. Apon. in Canticum Canticorum (ed. Bottino e Martini, Rome 1843) V 95 sg. :”… Of Pherekydes then it is said that first taught to all his listeners that the soul of man is immortal, that it is the life of the body and a spirit that comes to us from heaven, while another consists of terrestrial seeds”.
The concept of cave/withdrawal is very important in Pherekydes, so it is contained in the title of his main work, but it will be the subject of another article on the greek scholar. As for now, we have to focus on the Time term. The primordial couple Zas, apparently another wording for Zeus, and Chtonia ( in another fragment, it is said that she turns her name in Gea after Zas/Zeus gave her the Earth as a present.
ACHILL. isag. I 3 p. 31, 28: “Thales of Miletus and Pherekydes of Syros put water as the principle of all things, and to it, Pherekydes also gives the name of Chaos, probably in imitation of Hesiod, who says so (Theog. 116): “Of course was first Chaos”.
“Chronos produces from his seed fire, air, and water”. So Chronos/Time is the element before the fire, air, and water. Earth is not mentioned here. On this site, we have seen that the four elements can be roughly defined as states of matter. So Time/God Chronos is the element before the fire. Elements do proceed according to their density: air is denser than fire, and water is denser than air, and so on, till earth contains all ( since in Alchemy, the last element does contain all).
Consequently, when an element produces another, it is contained in its offspring. The idea that Time is the first and hidden of elements is a strange way to say that Time is our Mother, not in the sense that we live alongside its flowing, but in the very sense that we are born from it. Time, according to Pherekydes, is the hidden element, the state of matter.
In my article “Two Stars in a Venetian Geocentric Sky“, I produced a picture of a geocentric universe. That’s to say, a diagram of the alchemical density stairs. Above Fire ( or before Fire, or less dense than Fire), we have the Moon, denser than Sun. Beyond Earth, which is not called in Pherekydes, in Alchemy, we have Quinta Essentia, or the fifth essence, the Philosophers Stone, the final product of our condensation works. Indeed an Earth element of exceptional weight. Super earth. Time is undoubtedly contained in Quinta Essentia. It is also contained in Fire, which is not our Secret Fire, but rather our element Water (2); we often refer to Secret Fire, our First Matter, as Water. Pherekydes says that Water, or Chaos, is the origin of all. Water/Mercurial Water/Secret Fire is the origin of Alchemy as well.
Before, or better above and beyond, Alchemy, there are Fire and Air, our father and mother, according to Tabula Smaragdina. Who are our royal couple of parents, very distant from our nurses’ water and earth? In the sense that they are forbidden, to us, levels. We are born by them but fed and nursed by more coarse elements.
Zeus/Zas, the greek God of Lightning; Chtonia/Gea, the Greek Goddess of Earth (watery earth indeed); and a third character: Time. Might Zeus be a representation of our Sulfur and Gea of our Mercurius? But not prepared in our vessels since Sulfur is a product of Mercurius. And we have learned, from Pherekydes’s words, that Sulphur is the agent, Mercurius the passive, to be made active. And Time is the environment in which all is performed. So Time does contain the active and passive. Therefore is it correct to say that Time contains our father and mother? So Time/Chronos is denser than our father and mother? But less dense than fire, etc? Don’t be scared by all alchemical symbolic fathers and mothers. They are many, indeed. Since, for the “rule of three”, every symbol stands for at least three different meanings (3).
Does time/Chronos belong to our terrestrial or celestial seeds? Be aware of dreamland, where time differs from our awake day life. Is dreamland celestial or terrestrial? Why are so many medieval literary works, wherein Souls and Spirits of Life act and move, set in dreamland?
In Alchemy, the third one does contain the first two (Zeus and Gea), so Pherekydes tells us that Time is our actual seed, First Matter. Not just an entropic destroyer. Time is our fountain of Life, our river Ocean. And apparently, we are forbidden to leave the water. Or, better, our body is.
The most visionary of alchemists, as I mentioned, do believe in operating on Time as First Matter as the less insightful are instead being told to operate on four elements.
You may also be interested in Merèlle, Ouspensky & Time out of Matter and Louis de Broglie and the Memory of an Immortal Particle ;