Some Arguments from Parmenides

[Yazata]

These are among the very first logical arguments in Greek philosophy, attributed to the very influential Presocratic philosopher Parmenides. (He actually lived in Italy, but he was an ethnic Greek living in the Greek colony of Elea.) The Zeno of  'Zeno's paradoxes' fame was one of his younger associates there, one of the so-called 'Eleatic philosophers. But despite their being pioneers in logical argument, Parmenides and his associates used their logic to argue for some very peculiar conclusions. (Zeno tried very to argue that motion is impossible.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes

The way I'm presenting these arguments here is in paraphrase, attributable to Bertrand Russell in his 1945 History of Western Philosophy

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1.  To think of nothing is to think of nothing as being something. (i.e. to think of what is not, that it is.) - (Premise.)

2. To think of nothing as being something is contradictory, and so is to think something that is not in fact thinkable. - (Premise.)

3. So it is not possible to think of nothing. (from 1 and 2.)

4. To think that things come into or go out of existence is to think that they arise from nothing, or that they pass away into nothing. - (Premise.)

5. So to think that things come into or go out of existence requires that one think of nothing. - (from 4)

6. So to think that things come into or go out of existence is to try to think of something that is not in fact thinkable. (from 3 and 5).

7. So it is not possible to think that things come into or go out of existence. (from 6.)

8. Whatever is, is thinkable. (Premise.)

9. Nothing ever comes into or goes out of existence. (from 7 and 8)

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Here's another one:

1. The future is supposed to be where things that do not exist issue from, and the past is where things that cease to be go. - (Premise.)

2. The future and the past are also supposed not to exist. (Premise.)

3. So the future and the past are supposed both to be, and not to be, which is contradictory. (from 1 and 2)

4. What is contradictory is unthinkable. - (Premise.)

5. It is not possible to think of the future or the past. (from 3 and 4)

6. What is, is thinkable. (Premise)

7. There is no future or past. (from 5 and 6)

[C C]

Here's another one:

1. The future is supposed to be where things that do not exist issue from, and the past is where things that cease to be go. - (Premise.)

2. The future and the past are also supposed not to exist. (Premise.)

3. So the future and the past are supposed both to be, and not to be, which is contradictory. (from 1 and 2)

4. What is contradictory is unthinkable. - (Premise.)

5. It is not possible to think of the future or the past. (from 3 and 4)

6. What is, is thinkable. (Premise)

7. There is no future or past. (from 5 and 6)

When activated, a movie acquires regions that could be classified as its past, present, and future. Rather than the conflict of existing / not-existing for past and future, they are "asleep" or unshown -- have a different brand of "existence" than the movie's changing "present" which receives the special attention. [Though they are gradually modified as well as a particular event leaves or is recruited by the "now" category to take its turn.] When the movie is not activated, the distinctions of past, present, and future dissolve away into a more boring being, though its static structure or pattern might figuratively be called the "framework of time", without any particular part receiving special status anymore.

Movies are just recorded stories, and there were recorded stories even in that era [a sequence of writing converted into images and sound by the brain]. So whether such arguments were literally intended to stifle creative thought by setting up such contradictions or instead presented challenges for creative thought to overcome / solve, remains a question.