Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Lucretius, De rerum natura
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Lucretius, Book 2
Lucretius explains that atoms in the void will not move unless acted upon by another atom a la an object at rest stays at rest. Does he ever attempt to explain the "first" motion?Even though the conclusions of several of his arguments are correct the reasoning that the uses to arrive there, to me, is not valid. For example, he reasons that atoms are different shapes because animals and humans produce uniquely identifiable offspring.
In addition he argues that the shapes of the atoms are what determine their flavor and smell. Supposedly "smooth" atoms taste good and "rough" or "sharp" atoms taste bitter.
John wrote: "In addition he argues that the shapes of the atoms are what determine their flavor and smell."Interesting the particles have those properties, but they do not have the property of color because we can't sense their color in the dark.
In fact, when we ourselves touch objects in blinding darkness, we do not feel that they are imbued with any color. Now that I have proved this point, I will proceed to teach you [that the atoms are colorless].
Lucretius; Ferguson Smith, Martin
As Lucretius starts to wade deeper into the details of atomism, and we see that his answer to everything is indeed "particles."Lucretius has a lot of interesting phenomenal theories, but pursuing my earlier line of inquiry, I see many places so far where an ancient reader could object or find his explanations unsatisfying. The most obvious, perhaps, is that Lucretius does not give any innate properties to matter that would cause us to expect it to form into orderly bodies. Yet it does indeed form these bodies, somehow. This wouldn't be a problem for early modern atomists who believed in a "watchmaker" God, an omnipotent being who could set and balance the machine, but for someone who does not believe in either a rational logos or a demiurge, it seems a major problem. Around 2:570, Lucretius admits a kind of "vital power" in balanced opposition to a destructive force; he doesn't really explain this beyond suggesting it's due to the sympathetic interaction of peculiar particles, invoking the (now discredited) belief in spontaneous generation as evidence (2:870).
Nor does Lucretius explain the replication of forms, the fact, e.g., that a horse produces more horses, and what an Aristotelian would term final causation: that a particular cause consistently produces a particular effect on a particular object. If Lucretius's "swerve" theory is true, we would expect randomness rather than the consistent sequences we witness in nature. It also raises numerous difficulties with philosophy of mind that today's more sophisticated materialism is still grappling with, such as intentionality and qualia and the like.
But after this chapter we move from natural physics to the physics of mind and spirit, so that will be interesting.
This sentence (liine 251-260) is a bit confusing for me. Is he concluding that our free will is derived from the swerve of atoms? Also, if we are torn from fate, but follow wherever pleasure leads, wouldn't we still be 'bound' to something like our basic instincts or the pleasure principle? if all movement is connected, (new movement coming from old in strict descent, and atoms never, by swerving, make a start on movement that would break the bonds of fate and the endless chain of cause succeeding cause, whece comes the freedom for us who live on earth?
Whence rises, I say, that will torn free from fate, through which we follow wherever pleasure leads, and likewise swerve aside at times and places not foreordained, but as our mind suggests?
I'm also wondering about the relationship of Lucretius to Indian forms of atomism, which got a lot further than Lucretius did in their societies. Interestingly, relative to our discussion, Indian atomism was developed by the theistic schools Nyaya and Vaisheshika and was rejected by Samkhya, the school normally regarded as the most atheistic. Vaisheshika is the most empirical of the schools, but Nyaya, which may have had empiricist origins, is deeply logic-based and approached the matter philosophically. They were also strong realists (as opposed to skeptics or idealists), believing that the cosmos is both real and can in theory be grasped in its totality by human reason.According to the SEP, these are the major arguments of Nyaya-Vaisheshika atomism:
- Everything visible is composed of parts, therefore the smallest visible thing is also composed of parts. Nevertheless, as we cannot divide infinitely without a reductio ad absurdum to nothingness, there must be an imperceptibly small, uncomposite, indivisible reality which we call atoms.
- Atoms belong to one of the four material elements, or to the corporeal but non-sensible atoms that comprise Mind.
- Two atoms of the same element only (e.g., water and water) combine to form a dyad, and three dyads form a triad, the smallest perceptible object. Numbers (in a sense a bit reminiscent of Pythagoras) thus exert an effect on the composition of the physical world.
There were also Buddhist and Jain atomists who may have predated the Hindu atomists, about the time Democritus was writing in the west. I can't find anything online explicitly comparing Lucretius's atomism and Indian forms. Atomism never gained much traction in China.
Philosopher Valentine Dusek claims that atomistic materialism has historically arisen in the West in commercial centers with a competitive market, which has also been a breeding-ground for individualism, democracy, and relativism.
Just some further food for thought as we read Lucretius....
Rex wrote: "I'm also wondering about the relationship of Lucretius to Indian forms of atomism, which got a lot further than Lucretius did in their societies. Interestingly, relative to our discussion, Indian a..."Wow. I am again impressed by the depth AND the variety of our scope of discussion. I never have heard of this Indian or Buddhist atomism.
It's interesting because the Epicurean theory of happiness seems to have a very strong resemblance to the Buddhist attitude. Could he have had some eastern influence?
Aha! The more you know~~I just read from the foreword of The Art of Happiness (never should've skipped the foreword!) that two of Epicurus's early incluences, Democritus and Pyrrho had traveled to India and encountered Buddhism in the gymnosophist schools. Interesting..
Regarding classical Greek and Indian philosophy, including atomism, there are a lot of similarities, but who influenced who and the degree of influence is a contentious issue. Epicureanism is usually compared with Carvaka Hindu philosophy. I see from a Google search that your association of Epicurus and Buddha has occurred to others, but I couldn't comment on whether there might be a direct influence.
Like everyone else, I keep looking for an explanation of the first motion. As others have already pointed out, he cannot quite seem to do it. The gods make appearances again:
Around Line 180 he says, "the gods most certainly never made the world for you and me: it stands too full of flaws." So no higher power could have made the world simply because it is currently full of flaws.
But he also says(645)," For of itself all godhead must possess immortal life and perfect peace and joy, cut off from human affairs and sundered far."
At first, I thought maybe he was proposing they created atoms and then left, but no. They exist, but did not create. So they cannot be the "first movers".
Also, while he may have intuitively come to the conclusion that atoms exist, he was never able to prove it, as Everyman says, without instrumentation. But he makes a lot of claims about these atoms that he cannot see, but believes exist.
Line 85-"They're very hard, heavy and solid, with nothing behind to block them."
Line965-"atoms cannot be attacked by any pain, nor, of themselves, gain pleasure..."
It is one thing to propose a theory as he does with atomism, and quite another to claim to know things about those properties.
Around Line 15 he says, "Oh, not to see that nature demands no favor but that pain be sundered from the flesh, that in the mind be a sense of joy, unmixed with care and fear!"
That sounds lovely, but if nature is the random swerving of atoms, then it cannot make a demand either way?? Why should pleasure be the default pursuit??
John wrote: "Lucretius explains that atoms in the void will not move unless acted upon by another atom a la an object at rest stays at rest. Does he ever attempt to explain the "first" motion?"If the universe is infinite, as Lucretius supposes, there is no first motion, nor a need for one. The "primordia" have been coming and going, growing and decaying, for eternity.
But doesn't Lucretius say that "nothing can come from nothing"? Where do the primordia come from?My head hurts.
Genni wrote: "But doesn't Lucretius say that "nothing can come from nothing"? Where do the primordia come from?My head hurts."
Exactly -- nothing comes from nothing. There is no way to square that with a genesis story, creation ex nihilo. The only alternative is that the universe is infinite and eternal. It's hard to think about infinity and eternity because they don't have boundaries, (sorry for your head!) but it's possible. In Buddhism it's called the doctrine of dependent origination, and it basically says that everything is interconnected; one thing becomes another; "mortal things exchange their lives". Lucretius seems to be on a similar track.
Did the beginning of the Book II remind anyone of Theoreau's Walden?And so we see that the nature of the body is such that it needs few things, namely those that banish pain and, in so doing, succeed in bestowing pleasures in plenty. Even if the halls contain no golden figures of youths, clasping flaring torches in their right hands to supply light for banquets after dark, even if the house lacks the luster of silver and the glitter of gold, even if no gold-fretted ceiling rings to the sound of the lyre, those who follow their true nature never feel cheated of enjoyment when they lie in friendly company on velvety turf near a running brook beneath the branches of a tall tree and provide their bodies with simple but agreeable refreshment, especially when the weather smiles and the season of the year spangles the green grass with flowers. Fiery fevers quit your body no quicker, if you toss in embroidered attire of blushing crimson, than if you must lie sick in a common garment. Therefore, since neither riches nor rank nor the pomp of power have any beneficial effect upon our bodies, we must assume that they are equally useless to our minds.
Lucretius; Ferguson Smith, Martin
See, Neoplatonists would claim that infinity/eternity cannot be thought, which follows from their epistemology, and that has great implications for the nature of the ultimate reality/God....Infinite regress was a big logical problem for the Greeks, and the "swerve" is as close as Lucretius gets to a solution to this. The swerve is essentially an uncaused movement. An infinite particle field eternally tending downward may in his theory erupt with random, spontaneous movement. Obviously, this did not satisfy atomism's critics, who continued to argue for centuries following that an infinite self-generated particle field would be featureless and changeless because there would be no "motor" for particle motion.
The Buddhist answer (at least through Nagarjuna) seems to be closest to Parmenides's: that motion as we perceive it has no actual existence. For Lucretius, a radical empiricist (for his day), this conclusion is unacceptable.
Borum wrote: "This sentence (liine 251-260) is a bit confusing for me. Is he concluding that our free will is derived from the swerve of atoms?"Yes, I think so. The problem that Lucretius has to solve is this: if the universe is composed of particles interacting in a deterministic way, controlled by natural laws, why is it that human actions are not determined by these laws? There must be an element of freedom in particles, he reasons, to explain this free will phenomenon.
The connection between the swerve of particles and free will seems pretty hazy to me. L. says that the swerve cannot be perceived (so who's to say that the particles don't swerve?) so it's not an observation. It isn't really a deduction either, or if it is it isn't a very sound one.
On one hand, the swerve looks like a kludge, a fix to save the appearances. But the metaphors that surround his explanation are worth noticing: they're about desire. He talks about the "desirous force of the horses" when the starting gates drop, and he says that "...the beginning of motion is created in the heart." He specifically notes that it is not a matter of force -- it is a matter of free will, as matters of the heart must be.
So could it be that particles swerve when they're in love?
I think we may be talking about an important point in the wrong direction. My edition's notes indicate:Moreover, it would be a mistake to suppose that Epicurus argued that the irregular movement of atoms proves the existence of free will: rather, as Lucretius’ account makes clear, the argument was that the fact of free will proves the existence of the atomic swerve. Unfortunately our surviving sources do not make clear exactly how a random atomic movement makes possible actions performed by choice. . .
Diogenes of Oinoanda, after criticizing Democritus for believing that all movements of atoms are controlled by necessity, and after commending Epicurus for discovering that atoms have “a free, swerving movement,” says: “The most important consideration is this: if fate is believed in, all admonition and censure are nullified, and not even the wicked [can justly be punished since they are not responsible for their wrongdoings]”
Lucretius; Ferguson Smith, Martin
Patrice wrote: It reminded me of that eb white essay we read for an interim read "once more to the lake"..."I was thinking of that essay too! I was thinking of it last week when I was contemplating the idea of "nothingness" but didn't see how it fit into the discussion and wasn't sure anyone else would understand. I read that essay maybe 30 years ago - didn't get a chance to participate in the group read here - and remembered it for that last scene where the author feels his own oblivion pressing against his loins (or something to that effect, that is how I remember it without going to re-read).
I haven't gotten to book 2 yet but am glad to see I am not alone in thinking of that essay.
Thomas wrote: "If the universe is infinite, as Lucretius supposes, there is no first motion, nor a need for one. The "primordia" have been coming and going, growing and decaying, for eternity. ..."
Exactly. I don't see anything difficult about that at all.
Genni wrote: "But doesn't Lucretius say that "nothing can come from nothing"? Where do the primordia come from?My head hurts."
If you are up for some serious masochistic philisophical flagelation check out this video on the debate over Something vs Nothing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5n4m... at the very least you will appreciate the comparative eloquence of Lucretius. If you'd rather skip it, in a nutshell, Smith makes the point that things come from other things (that have made space for them to emerge) and that the realization while it may not be an earth shattering moment of enlightenment, is still satisfactory.
One way or another, I think it is worth spending some time to contemplate the idea of "nothingness" whilest doing this read. Nothingness is real, and, according to some - like EB White - it's coming for you.
Of course an easy (maybe trite) way of saying "nothing comes from nothing" would be to say that the product of any number and zero is zero.
Genni wrote: "But doesn't Lucretius say that "nothing can come from nothing"? Where do the primordia come from?"The same place the material of the Big Bang came from?
Thomas wrote: "Yes, I think so. The problem that Lucretius has to solve is this: if the universe is composed of particles interacting in a deterministic way, controlled by natural laws, why is it that human actions are not determined by these laws? There must be an element of freedom in particles, he reasons, to explain this free will phenomenon.."It's the same problem Newtonian mechanics had/has, isn't it? If for every motion there is an equal and opposite motion, then every motion of a particle in our bodies must be completely predictable.
I'm not sure, as you aren't, that the swerve is a good answer, but then I'm not sure that modern physics/biology/neurology has that good an answer, either.
Everyman wrote: "Genni wrote: "But doesn't Lucretius say that "nothing can come from nothing"? Where do the primordia come from?"The same place the material of the Big Bang came from?"
The same thought occurred to me, but nowadays physicists are asking the question: then, where did the big bang come from? What was there before the big bang?
Thomas wrote: "Borum wrote: "This sentence (liine 251-260) is a bit confusing for me. Is he concluding that our free will is derived from the swerve of atoms?"Yes, I think so. The problem that Lucretius has to ..."
That may be one possible way of looking at it, as there must be some kind of force that caused the swerve, right? Whether love or magnetic force or anything else, the swerve, as well as the atom must have come from something.
Rex wrote: "Regarding classical Greek and Indian philosophy, including atomism, there are a lot of similarities, but who influenced who and the degree of influence is a contentious issue. Epicureanism is usual..."You are right. There is probably not a definite way to find out whether the influence is in any particular direction or whether there was any direct influence at all. Still, a very interesting finding along with the similar ideas shared between the east and west. I wonder if the east was more receptive to those ideas than the west?
Patrice wrote: "I liked that line about how the world could not have been made for us, there's too much wrong with it. It reminded me of a lecture given by Jerry coyne, an evolutionary biologist, on intelligent de..."True, some organs seem so redundant, but we may not know the whole picture of evolution and we are probably still a work in progress. :-)
Genni wrote: "Around Line 180 he says, "the gods most certainly never made the world for you and me: it stands too full of flaws." "Platonists and the Stoics would argue the contrary: the world is designed by god for a common dwelling place of gods and men. The design is good because the world is orderly, beautiful and life-sustaining.
Richard Dawkins would concede that IF the world is created by God, He must be "a genius in mathematics" . That's how good the design is! :)
For my part, I think it is rather futile, if not presumptuous, to argue whether the universe is well-designed or not. We simply don't know enough to qualify as judges.
Thomas wrote: "Exactly -- nothing comes from nothing. There is no way to square that with a genesis story, creation ex nihilo. The only alternative is that the universe is infinite and eternal. "Thinking about this more. The thesis "nothing comes from nothing" originates in Parmenides and was also held by Aristotle. These both believed that the universe was spatially finite though temporally infinite, and came to very different conclusions than Lucretius on the origin of motion. The issue of change/motion led Aristotle to his doctrines of actuality/potentiality, hylomorphism, and ultimately, to the unmoved mover. To Aristotle, change in the universe requires no chronologically first efficient cause, but it does require an ontological first cause as the engine of the actualization of potentialities. Otherwise, we are left with, as an analogy I believe to be Thomist in origin goes, infinite dark moons with no light to reflect between them.
The "dependent origination" you describe sounds like infinite contingency, which the Greeks would have regarded as rationally unacceptable. Indeed, Nagarjuna seems to have demonstrated this concept in his proofs of Buddhism in order to further demonstrate that causation has no ground and thus all things are "empty" and motion is ultimately a mere appearance, a coincidence of ephemeral conditions. If nothing, not even the cosmos, has absolute existence, and even nothing itself does not absolutely exist, then all things are ultimately no-thing.
Lucretius so far seems to be willing to brush past this whole line of thinking in order to affirm his central intuitions about reality, and he introduces the swerve to account for the gaps in his account of causality. I'm not complaining, really; we needn't expect the pioneers of a novel worldview--let alone poets--to have everything figured out.
Rex wrote: "If nothing, not even the cosmos, has absolute existence, and even nothing itself does not absolutely exist, then all things are ultimately no-thing."When I read that sentence, I get the strange feeling that someone is speaking out from the dark abyss...
If all things are ultimately no-thing, WHO or WHAT is making that pronouncement about no-thing?
(I'm not familiar with Buddhism at all, so pardon my ignorance)
One more note on movement.If everything are in perpetual motion, then there is no motion, because movement can only be known or observed from a reference point that doesn't move. In other words, for movement to exist, there must be rest.
So we're driven back to the problem of the cause of movement, what make some things move and not others?
Buddhism isn't my area of expertise, but I believe Nagarjuna's answer would be that this is a "non-pronouncement"--it is the articulation of an absence of conceptuality, the negation of self that is accessed experientially. So yes, it's basically the abyss speaking, the echo of self-realized nonexistence through the incomprehensible and dependently originating flux of conditions that comprise reality as we conventionally see it.
Why does non-existence speak rather than be dead silent?
I don't know if your question can be answered in these terms (as any "speaking," too, can be understood only on the level of "conventional" constructions of reality), and it's worth noting that although Nagarjuna was extremely influential in both his own tradition and Hinduism, a lot of Buddhists think he tried too hard to rationalize Buddhist metaphysics and ultimately fell short.Still, the point relevant to Lucretius is that he opts for the Scylla of irrational or spontaneous causation rather than the Charybdis of a denial of real causation altogether. I suspect most early naturalist metaphysical systems found themselves tending to one or the other. Lucretius, as an empiricist and realist, prefers to believe his senses that change/motion and free will are real and cover the problems that causes his philosophy with hypotheses like the swerve.
Mussenden Temple, Northern Ireland
"Tis pleasant, safely to behold from shore / The troubled sailor, and hear the tempests roar." DRN 2.1-2
Pleasant to behold the troubled sailor?
Nemo wrote: "I think it is rather futile, if not presumptuous, to argue whether the universe is well-designed or not. We simply don't know enough to qualify as judges."Yes, it must be difficult to make a scientific statement on the quality of the universe. In the religious/literary sphere it seems completely valid, though. The trouble with philosophy may be that it cannot (does not want to) decide where it belongs?
Reading DRN makes this problem acute.
Patrice wrote: "... he's saying is that we don't need a lot to be happy, just lack of pain and troubles can make us happy."You're probably right, but doesn't the troubled sailor cause pain for those who watch him struggle? The Epicurist must make a calculation: is this pain greater than the trouble of organizing a lifeboat organization?
Rex wrote: "Lucretius so far seems to be willing to brush past this whole line of thinking in order to affirm his central intuitions about reality, and he introduces the swerve to account for the gaps in his account of causality. "..."It's no surprise that he doesn't dwell on it, since the question of origination appears to be insoluble from a material point of view. A cyclical explanation would be nice, but you have pointed out the problems with that, and in fact L. doesn't propose this. Nagarjuna's solution would obviously not be acceptable to Lucretius, since particles for him have "real" being and are not convertible or reducible to anything. And I presume he rejects Aristotle because he, Lucretius, insists on the existence of true void (whereas for A. void is potentially substance.)
But the question is a natural one to ask of Lucretius, since he posits a universe of infinite space and time. The fact that he dodges the question might be an indication that all is not well with the purely material point of view. But he does it so deftly. Maybe that's another reason for the poetry.
Theresa wrote: "Genni wrote: "But doesn't Lucretius say that "nothing can come from nothing"? Where do the primordia come from?My head hurts."
If you are up for some serious masochistic philisophical flagelatio..."
Thanks, Theresa. Being into serious masochistic philosophical flegellation, I will check out the video. [g]
Nemo wrote: ""For my part, I think it is rather futile, if not presumptuous, to argue whether the universe is well-designed or not. We simply don't know enough to qualify as judges."Great point.
Nemo wrote: "For my part, I think it is rather futile, if not presumptuous, to argue whether the universe is well-designed or not. We simply don't know enough to qualify as judges."Some would make an important although pedantic point, like Lucretius does, that the universe could not have been "designed". Even so, the argument might be better stated by, "The universe is not well suited for life; the overwhelming majority of the universe is violently inhospitable.
We have every right to judge. Who is better qualified?
David wrote: "The universe is not well suited for life; the overwhelming majority of the universe is violently inhospitable."*sigh*. Why am I dragged into this exercise in futility?
Firstly, what do we really know about "the majority of the universe"? The observable universe may be a very tiny part of the whole Universe, like an elementary particle.
Secondly, even though the majority of the known universe may be inhospitable, it is very likely that every particle in the universe is necessary to sustain the life forms that exist.
If the universe is 14 billion years old, and homo sapiens a few hundred thousand years, it means that 14 billion years is necessary to make a human life form possible --with 3 billion DNA bps in its genome, even though a human life only lasts less than a hundred years, absolutely nothing compared to the universe in terms of length of time, but not in terms of value.
The same argument may be applied to space. But again, I simply do not know enough to present any evidence for it.
ETA: Blaise Pascal put it far more eloquently than I in his Pensees. You can read an excerpt here.
David wrote: "Nemo wrote: "For my part, I think it is rather futile, if not presumptuous, to argue whether the universe is well-designed or not. We simply don't know enough to qualify as judges."Some would mak..."
This reminds me of the anthropic principle, that says what we can expect to observe must be restricted by the conditions necessary for the presence of observers.
It is true that we are the main observer in this case (well, as far as we know of it) but we are also restricted by our conditions as well, and therefore our knowledge is restricted.
We, with our modern scientific evidence and methods, have proceeded to test the hypotheses made by the Greek philosophers, but there still remains lots of problems to be solved.
However, just because the Greek philosophers didn't follow up on their theories or because we still haven't fully verified them to the ultimate point, it doesn't mean that we are disqualified to make an attempt (meek or faulty at best, maybe, but at least a starting point) at the truth. As Pythagoras said, 'the beginning is half of the whole'.
David wrote: ".Even so, the argument might be better stated by, "The universe is not well suited for life; the overwhelming majority of the universe is violently inhospitable.."I won't try to refute you, but I am curious how you support this statement? How do you calculate that the overwhelming majority is inhospitable? How do you pit it against the parts that are not and come to this conclusion?
I like his argument for the existence of other worlds like ours. Since our world was made entirely by chance it is unlikely, in the vast scale of the universe the other worlds like ours were not made.Since we and our world are a product of Nature and with Nature being effectively infinite then somewhere else in existence there is another habitable world.
"If the same Force and the same Nature abide everywhere / To throw together atoms just as they're united here, / You must confess that there are other worlds with other races / Of people and other kinds of animals in other places."
Patrice wrote: "He contradicts himself. Doesn't he put faith in the senses? Yet he understands how from a distance lambs on a hill look still. It's an illusion. So how can we trust what we see?"I've heard Lucretius called an empiricist in this discussion, but I'm not sure where that comes from. (Where does it come from?) On numerous occasions he makes conclusions about the invisible world, and he presents this "lambs on the hill" metaphor to suggest that we can indeed understand things that we can't see clearly. Does he say somewhere that we can only trust the senses? (In that case, we would be unable to say anything at all about primary particles, since they apparently have no sensible properties.)
Also, I'm book one, around 700, he says, "what can we have more sure than sense to tell us false from true?".
Patrice wrote: "He observes and then makes analogies. He sees the way particles of dust behave and extrapolates that is the way atoms must behave..."That's what I see him doing as well. The observable is the "starting point" and then he extrapolates. As long as our senses don't contradict what we extrapolate, there is no reason to disbelieve the extrapolation. But is that a good reason to believe it?
Just finished book 2...though admittedly I found this part slow going, there were moments that really jumped out at me. I was amazed at his realization that color and light are related, and that things are inherently colorless until light hits them. He seems to have an intuition about things in general, though his methods and claims aren't rock solid. I loved this bit (from part C., tr. Bailey): "For whenever a thing changes and passes out of its own limits, straightway this is the death of that which was before. Therefore take care not to dye with colour the seeds of things, lest you see all things altogether pass away to naught." Seems like he really thought there was a danger in dyeing things!Another interesting thing is his belief (in part B) that the number of atoms are infinite. He uses the elephant example - there are not many elephants where he lives, but there are "many thousands" in India. Then he says "let there be, if you will, some one thing unique, alone in the body of its birth, to which there is not a fellow in the whole wide world; yet unless there is an unlimited stock of matter, from which it might be conceived and brought to birth, it will not be able to be created, nor, after that, to grow on and be nourished." (p. 48) In that quote and the surrounding passage, he seems to be arguing that there must be infinite atoms to overcome the odds of meeting, so that they can join into tangible things. Yet I'm not sure that's the best statistics (after all, the more atoms there are, wouldn't the "odds" of the right ones coming together in the right way become even more overwhelming... [insert Powerball reference here]).
That said, I think it's easy to read critically, having as we do the gift of scientific history, shared knowledge, and, nowadays, big data. I wonder what he would have taught, had he had the same abilities and resources.
Nemo wrote: "One more note on movement....for movement to exist, there must be rest. "Why?
Classics and the Western Canon
Books mentioned in this topic
On Ends (other topics)On the Republic / On the Laws (other topics)
Pensées (other topics)
He also mentions the famous swerve theory, which is the principle on which the concept of free will can be justified (since Newtonian physics in its pure form prohibits the possibility of free will).
Other of his assertions have not stood up to time.
However, I continue to be amazed at how much, with basically no instrumentation at all, he was able to get at least conceptually right.
This work seems to me to be almost entirely a thought experiment or exercise. He can observe the natural world around him, but how it came to being and what it is made of must be derived not from observation but from pure thought. And his seems to be remarkably accurate many aspects.