Long ago, at the beginning of time, Parmenides returned from the Goddess to tell us the nature of being. Parmenides told the truth but did not tell all. Besides Parmenides, two other thinkers initiated philosophy. Anaximander told of being arising from the indefinite; Heraclitus spoke of becoming. After them there was a falling away, when Socrates and the sophists took philosophy down to the street, to make it a thing of discussion or of pay. But now, in these texts, the truth and power of thought returns, for herein is synthesized, into a new whole, the fundamental insights of Anaximander, Parmenides and Heraclitus.
There is darkness, unknown and the void, three homes for the indefinite. For without the indefinite being cannot become becoming. We as conscious beings thereby separated from the all, or vice-versa, must use the indefinite for our freedom and creative living. The two forms, darkness and the void, are different approaches. In the context of the all, we might , and have, described void as the emptiness and freedom beyond the bounds of being, whereinto being becomes becoming. We might also call darkness the inner side of being, where connection is thicker than awareness, where we reside into oneness, the flow back into union.
In the earliest dawn of thought Anaximander named the prior essence and origin of things as the indefinite, or apeiron. Being was brought about by the separations of opposites in the indefinite. This indefinite priority to being was later contradicted perfectly completed and self sufficient being of Parmenides. Nevertheless, apeiron describes part of the all which we separate beings experience.
Void, unknown and darkness are three forms of the indefinite. Void, darkness and unknown are names which we give to aspects of our thought and, in the case of darkness, also of our perception. In any case they, as names, occur in language and in our awareness and, in doing so, they point forth ways to extend our thought and awareness
In the union of all there is neither darkness, nor unknown, nor void. All is connected directly so there can be no unknown, nor can darkness be readily defined, nor does void exist. But in our world of separation, awareness and becoming we encounter the indefinite and its forms. And we find each of these forms with many faces, some mysterious and others quite familiar. Void, darkness and the unknown can be as close to us as our reflection in a mirror or so distant as to be unnoticed, even in their absence. Although darkness, void and the unknown may be one, or none, in the deep union of the all, they also appear to us as distinct concepts and so we will look at each of them intrinsic to their own merits.
Because the void has an inner logic based upon its nonexistence, reason can progress further with the void than with the other forms of the indefinite. Therefore the void is written about in its own chapters, while here we examine the indefinite in general and its special forms of darkness and unknown.