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Full Idea
If you accept atomism, you must show how bodies without quality have given rise to qualities of every kind by the mere fact of coming together. For example, how has the quality called 'hot' been imposed on the atoms?
Gist of Idea
If only atoms exist, how do qualities arise when the atoms come together?
Source
Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1111)
Book Ref
Plutarch: 'Moralia - vol 14', ed/tr. Einarson,B. /De Lacy P.H. [Harvard Loeb 1967], p.215
A Reaction
This argument is still significant in current philosophy of mind. If temperature is 'mean kinetic energy', you are left wondering where the energy came from, and why minds experience the heat. This is the 'Hard Question'.