'No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.' - Heraclitus
He is not the 2012 PG anymore, he is the 2021 PG. :P Now that I think of it, what will the 2030 PG be like?
He is not the 2012 PG anymore, he is the 2021 PG. :P Now that I think of it, what will the 2030 PG be like?
There are three alleged “river fragments”:
On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow. (Cleanthes from Arius Didymus from Eusebius) (B12)
Into the same rivers we step and do not step, we are and are not. (Heraclitus Homericus) (B49)
It is not possible to step twice into the same river according to Heraclitus, or to come into contact twice with a mortal being in the same state. (Plutarch) (B91)
It seems most scholars think only the first is a genuine Heraclitus quote. A few paragraphs later:
"If this interpretation is right, the message of the one river fragment, B12, is not that all things are changing so that we cannot encounter them twice, but something much more subtle and profound. It is that some things stay the same only by changing. One kind of long-lasting material reality exists by virtue of constant turnover in its constituent matter. Here constancy and change are not opposed but inextricably connected. A human body could be understood in precisely the same way, as living and continuing by virtue of constant metabolism–as Aristotle for instance later understood it. On this reading, Heraclitus believes in flux, but not as destructive of constancy; rather it is, paradoxically, a necessary condition of constancy, at least in some cases..."