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Democritus: Motions
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For Democritus, the Universe was an act of perpetual gathering and diffusing of atoms kept in everlasting motion. His views, ignored during the Middle Ages, prevail again in contemporary times to influence scientists.
Leucippus and Democritus did not care to refute the Parmenidean paradox about the void, instead they simply ignored it, which proved to be useful, because it let them constructively explain motion and change. Change, they explained, is an observation that does not deceive the senses; change is real, it happens on account of the recombination of more rudimentary substances.
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Democritus believed that atoms were eternal and that, fundamentally, nothing was created or destroyed. He ... thought that movement of atoms was eternal, as were the mechanical laws that determined the motion. This left no room for God as an intelligent cause and sustainer of the world.
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Apparent changes in the nature of substances consisted merely of the re-arrangement of patterns of atoms, according to Democritus. He taught that the motions and behaviours of atoms were created by definite and unbreakable laws of nature, and had nothing to do with the superstitious whims of gods or demons.
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