Ok, you have the basic Classical four elements of most cultures which are usually: Earth Wind Fire Water Now I can understand why cultures would say these are the most basic elements of life since WAter, you drink, fire to warm you, Earth, the soil to grow crops and Air, in which you breath. But then I hear of a Fifth element, a type of, Non-existent element, like an attempt too explain what 'Heaven' is made of, of what that emptiness is that we fill in each other. This element is something I can't quite get my head round. The question I ask is THe fifth element, was it the first way to explain what Space was? The areas in the Sky in which we didn't know centuries agp? Or was it a way too explain a state of Enlightenment? Of Pureness? Or are all the Classical elements wrong? This is more of a direct question than an actual discussion.
I think I heard that "ether" was considered the fifth element, the substance that space was supposed to be filled with. I may be wrong though.
I thought that the fifth element was perhaps void or heaven. In other words, sky. However, it would be somehow related to wind, no? Dunno. There are many cultures with any different types of elements, so I get void / heaven would be the fifth element. Considering it has some reference to wind, but not all.
I've looked at this many times and lack understanding. Even the cycle of creation/destruction with fire, earth, metal, water, and wood makes more sense than this arrangement. You see, limiting "the elements" to these four leaves out so much of nature. Electricity and wood are the most notable of the left out elements. In and of themselves they cannot fall under the categories set out by the four elements arrangement. Maybe wood could be explained as a earth water hybrid but electricity is movement of electrons and shares no traits with the others. Anyways, if I had to follow this fundamentally broken system I'd call the fifth element "life". Kinda cheesy I know, but it makes sense, those things support life, life itself drives the forces and interacts with them, it makes some sort of sense.
its me!! j/k but seriously I think that the fifth element would most likely be.......the absence of things aka nothingness I'm probably wrong though
it has to be nothingness because if we know the four is earth wind water and fire the last one has to be nothingness.................or unless there is not fifth element
There are no elements to put it bluntly. The closest thing to what you are thinking of in the physical world is the elemental particles. These are the fundamental particles of matter that make up everything else, and cannot be reduced. There are quarks, gluon's, gravitons etc most of them being theoretical in nature. The idea of there being four or five elements is extremely outdated and obsolete.
I have been pondering this meaning too. In reality, the elements are just 'classifications' of things as humans perceive them. Fire wouldn't even be an element because it is caused by combustion of something else. Lightning wouldn't either. And the whole concept of Elements was something used in older times and is rather outdated and pointless. You can literally name tons of elements if you wanted to spend the time such as fire, magma, ice, wind, water, earth, plant, space, nothingness, life, death, heart, soul, etc. Classifying any as elements simply means the person views them as important to his/her work or project at the time. Applying any more meaning to it is kind of pointless. They make for great stories such as Kingdom Hearts.
To put it simply, definitions of the elements of nature using things like fire, earth, water, and air is the philosophical method. This being much removed from the scientific method.
Fire. Wind. Earth. Water. Space/Time. All of these are the basic elements that the world is made up of.
I'm sure if there is a fifth element. There are technically more elemental resources on earth which are considered "metal" "light", and "sky" etc. But the 4 main elements are water,earth,fire, and air/wind. So it is not a proven fact yet if there is a fifth element that is in existence, people are just stating their opinions about this fifth element.
Although we do have a periodic table of elements today, I would consider time to have been the 5th element. Time is unique to Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, etc...yet it is natural. You still have to consider that this is an old way of looking at elements though, so its probably going to be incorrect. Everyone could be incorrect now...I also have heard that Aether is a unique element too though.
Taken diectly from wikipedia: "The Greek Classical Elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Aether) date from pre-Socratic times and persisted throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, deeply influencing European thought and culture." Nuff said.
Void/Aether/Space/Sky/Heaven/WhateverTheHellYouWantToCallIt is the fifth element. IMO the Chinese elements make more sense than the classic ones.
I can understnad that in this day and age if you believe in spirit magic, the classical elements, etc, that it doesn't work with the norm, and it is not true. (though some south american and african tribes still believe in spirits and use shamans to communicate with them) Basically the reason I asked this question is that I wanted to know if it meant that the first people who thought of this were philosophers who believed that their was more to the basic building blocks of fire, water, air and earth. Most of the time I just want to know how our ancestors from whatever culture used to think like and what they percieved the world as. What is even stranger than the fifth element, is that most cultures that didn't know aobut other cultures existence around the world, how most of theml came up with 4 or 5 elements and that alll most all of them had fire, water, earth and air. Almost like humans are connected by the same thought.
This occurs with many things in cultures. Many across the world have similarities that developed long before they encountered each other. It's likely to be the same if we met an alien race. There are certain things (like mathematics and chemistry) which are universal and come naturally to any sufficiently enough race. For these philosophical elements, they chose what they saw around them. Water, air (trickier, as it can't be seen, but the effects of it were plain enough), earth and fire. They differed in priority to different peoples depending on location and circumstance (coastal and inland, desert and rain forest), but they were still all there. It is also believed that because the condition for sentient life (or for what we would considered sufficiently sentient to give this title) are so narrow, that any alien life out there will be pretty similar to us. Variations in diet, climate and gravity etc will cause minor differences but the overall "template" will be the same. Of course, this can't be proved until we meet other races lol And it is definitely possible that there are other circumstances so outlandish that they haven't even been considered viable for sentient life.
