Earth, Air, Fire and Water: what are various creatures formed of?

Question

First of all: Yes, I know it's been thoroughly debunked that Earth, Air, Fire and Water are anything resembling the building blocks of existance. Nonetheless it is still a highly popular theme in myth and fantasy and thus worth discussing. Any answer trying to bring me out of the Dark Ages will be reported.

I have seen a variety of concepts regarding the place of living creatures in the Four Elements model. Some sources identify plant life as representative of the Element of Earth; some go further and also claim fish are formed of Water and birds of Air. Other sources say all living things, including fish, birds, and even plants, are formed of all four elements in balance; thus the Element of Earth would be composed solely of rock, soil and minerals.

Can the history of these divergent theories be traced? What was the opinion of Empedocles, who first posited the four-elements theory in Ancient Greece in the 5th century BC, and that of Plato, who was influenced by him?

Answer 1

Not much on the history I'm a concept hunter, so the details of history always alude me, fimlar, but not even decent at it, that aside I understand processes and ideas. One thing I want'd to share with you is how elusive our understanding of life is. When we try to define it we come up with an entity thats able to consume, breed, be born and die, which actually makes fire life, think about that. Also your right were all born of these things, air and fire begets water and earth. Think clouds of gas as air, collapsing into fire, to eventual explode which in its destrution creates earth and water. That aside as I understand it, the trend to use these four-elements is easly found by different cultures that have no connection, so it seems to be a mater of technoical/science maturity to find these lines and following it down the path we took it. Which is still the same system only differences is that we've broken down earth into elements. Which turned water and air into a form of earth, although water is the only chemical compound that holds the type of properites it does. Leaving fire all by itself for a time tell we realized it was a state of earth, so eventually the 4 "elements" actually got condensed by good old Einstien into energy, and its many forms. Which is why he was the genius he got us to the finally step, its all connected, now if we can just get to that grand unfing theory..... but just alittle fyi don't know if its much help since your just trying to figure out the evolution of it....

Answer 2

Debunked or not, the four element theory was still an important step toward our current understanding of the world around us. The theory of the atom, originally that you can take anything around us and reduce it until you have the smallest possible amount of whatever you started with that still has all the properties of the original, was a direct result of both alchemical experimentation, and Empedocle's ideas that all matter was composed of four basic building blocks. The alchemical concept of reducing something to its "essence", also owes to the four element model, although more elements were added when we noticed that, for example, mercury behaved in a fundamentally different way than phosphor. Finally, the four elements enjoy a parallel to the four states of matter (solid, liquid, gas, energy) that we acknowledge today.

In mythological terms, a creature's blood comes from water, its body from earth, its energy and motivation from fire, and its breath, from wind. Which, in some sense, have some literal basis in reality; your blood really is mostly water (along with most of your tissue and fat, which is most of you), you do have a basically mineral skeleton, your mitochondria produce ATP, which is a kind of chemical energy, to keep you going, and we all breath air.

Empedocles also suggested that there were two forces (he called them "love" and "strife") which worked on the elements; that information has proven invaluable, too, to our understanding of forces like gravity and electromagnetism today.

Answer 3

that's long so I area it. Dragon Centaur Pixie Leprechaun Fairy Manticore Griffin Thunderbird Shinx Orge Fawn Mermaid Merfolk Sea Serpent Serpent Gargoyle huge Hydra Drawf Elves Goblins Kraken Angels Tetramorph Cherubim Behemoth Leviathan Amphiptere Cockatrice Basilisk Gorgon Chimera Pegasus Amphisbaena Wyvern Salamamder Harpie Ipotane Mantygre Lamia Satyr Axex