Some questions after the 1st half of Lucretius’ On The Nature Of Things
Lucretius (via Epicurus) makes the claim that all-that-is is made up of atoms and void. Can this be proven? What constitutes a proof? Lucretius says that all religion is hocus-pocus and that the gods do not interact, nor do they have the power to do so, with Nature, yet he seems to admit gods do exist. For Lucretius, belief in atoms & void rejects the notion of the immortal soul. Belief in nothingness after death is ultimate freedom for Lucretius. For the greatest fear in the heart of Man is eternal punishment, and that fear comes from religion. How is the mind or heart of man convinced of the make-up of the universe, and whether or not divine beings interact with it? What will Lucretius do about good and evil except deny it, or declare it customary? And in either case, how can religion be evil when all-that-is is moving atoms?
Is Lucretius seeking a doctrine, an account of the world, in which he can be rid of the fear of death and eternal punishment? Is that the same effort of religion? Is Lucretius promoting of a new faith?
He claims his doctrine is based wholly on his senses. By our senses alone, can we make serious claims of what came before the presently sensed world or after it? Or is that conjecture alone? Do we have any alternatives to conjecture?
If all-that-is is really just atoms and void, then all beings, whatever motion they have, have come together by chance + motion in something called the swerve. In Lucretius account (or logos), all the atoms of the universe are raining, or falling. The universe is infinite so they fall forever; this provides motion. The unexplained “switch” or “bang” provides chance and change, some of these atoms swerve while falling, triggering the “creation” of the universe by bumping into each other, and combining in ways according to their physical make-up. Using the analogy of the alphabet, if atoms were letters, some letters would link up with other letters to make real words that could hold their forms. Other letters would link up but quickly fall apart, and by great amounts of time, those that held their forms built upon each other to create order and even sustain that order. So somehow what was completely chance became orderly, with a smaller amount of chance remaining, due to “free” atoms still bouncing around in an unorderly fashion.
Ultimately Lucretius doesn’t give us the why or even really the what of anything. Why swerve? Why order out of chance? Why does it hold and not fall apart? Nature is said to give order to things. Where does Nature come from?
Having read only half the work so far, answers may be coming. Lucretius makes a “scientific” account of the world, but, as was the task of the ancients, he has to give an account of the whole cosmos. In other words, if all are atoms and void, he must also say what Love is, what Death is, whether or not there is Good and Evil (is murder universally evil?), how a man should live regarding ethics, philosophy, justice… all things (again the whole cosmos). Modern efforts are divided in the name of efficiency, i.e. science and philosophy are different departments and don’t have the unity, or required consistency with one another, as was attempted in the past. Is this a freeing thing? Is the disunity of knowledge acceptable? Scientists go about making hypotheses and conclusions based on the method, do their results need to fit into an account of the whole cosmos?
Does epistemology undercut natural science? Since there is no such thing natural science without a scientist, that is a real human being, do we need to be able to understand the human being’s nature of knowing beforehand? If the mind can perceive and sense immaterial things, does that totter the entire structure of material science? Which department owns that (hint: philosophy)?
Can any materialist (scientific creation stories), compel a man to be unafraid of death? Are we trapped in a desire to live because are atoms move that way? Can we then tell ourselves not to be afraid, knowing that our atoms are (darwinianly) “afraid” in their own make-up?
To be continued…
5 Comments
Hey man. Ah, I was just going to pop in and see what was going on, and now you’ve got me pulled into some sort of Lucreatian quandary (though I’m mostly just going on a wild tangent).
Not to be too psychoanalytical, but you seem to have a philosophical (theological?) fixation on fear (and its ultimate incarnation in mortal anxiety).
Take, for instance, your final statements: you discuss being “compelled” to be unafraid of death and being able to “tell ourselves not to be afraid.” You appear to accept the fact that fear of death is the “natural” (perhaps, more neutrally, “instinctual”) state of the individual. You seem to suggest that the only way for an individual to intervene in his/her “instinctual” (for lack of a better term) state of fear is through some sort of deliberative process (i.e. being compelled by stories, telling ourselves not be be afraid)–what you leave out is a person’s will (whether free or not), which is capable of generating instantaneous state change. Perhaps an individual can be “free” from the “natural” state of mortal anxiety by sheer force of will. When the object of will is internal rather than external the human mind may very well be without any bounds.
Howdy Taylor. Hope you are well. You need to visit Annapolis.
Actually, Lucretius has the fixation upon the fear of death. The entire work is an argument of positive Epicurean philosophy, freeing those who heed Epicurus’ “divine” words from the fear of death. Those “unenlightened” captives believe their souls are immortal, NOT because it’s the natural default but because of religion. Although there is no such thing as “nature” the way we think of it, all is chance and nothing has a persisting nature. So, those religious folk believe their souls must be going *somewhere* after they die, and that they should fear punishment for evils committed. But if only they knew beyond all doubt that really they just dissipate into billions of atoms, they need not fear! They should sit back, and enjoy the simple things in life. No need to worry about morality, ethics, justice. The universe will inevitably fall back apart in the way it came together, by chance. So just relax. Lucretius does believe that this “reasoned story” (i.e. logos) can cause/compel one to be unafraid of death, so much so that he closes his poem with a gruesome and painful depiction of a terrible death, for which he apparently is not afraid.
Lucretius also leaves out will, redefining our actions’ sources as purely mechanical; just as wind atoms may hit your eyes and make you blink, pizza atoms enter your eyes and by chain reaction knock your mouth into eating it. So, there’s your instantaneous state change, for Lucretius anyway: simple physics. The bounds are definite, and they are the “laws” of atoms as material. For Lucretius, atoms are like letters, you toss a bunch together, and if they form a word, they might stick for awhile, if not, they’ll just keep on moving alone until they bump into and fit into a real word. Why words exist, he does not explain.
Yes, Annapolis is on the list.
This will most likely not be any help in “understanding” De Rerum Natura, but I’m struck, at the moment, by the similarities between Lucretius’s advice about how to live your life (and die) and the Teacher in Ecclesiastes.
The Teacher claims that the dead in sheol know nothing. Any discussion of an afterlife is conspicuously absent from the book. And, the Teacher’s conclusion is to work hard and eat well and enjoy your “lot” in life. (I’m not sure about the original, but I seem to remember it in the form of “lot” which is a form of chance associated with spinning Fortune’s wheel. This chance seems to resonant with the senseless bumping together of atoms. After all, all is vanity a chasing after the wind.)
Could it have been an influence (direct or indirect)? Ecclesiastes predates Lucretius by at least a couple centuries.
Oh, and in defense of Lucretius, if all is void and atom and there is an infinity of of each, then “words” exist simply because they necessarily must. Even in Borges’s “Library of Babel” there were tomes that made sense without any intentionality– simply because all possible variations of the “book” existed in the library. In an infinite universe God would not have anything to create or to bring into being because it would (always) already exist.
I’ll stop because I’ve begun rambling. (I must be having withdrawals from not having anymore classes.)
Lucretius and Ecclesiastes are rather opposed it seems to me. Ecc’s ‘vanity’ isn’t quite the license and relaxation as it is for Lucretius. The word “lot” you’re asking about (in the LXX at least) is the word for “measure” or “portion.” So it’s not chance or fortune, God is the one doing things. While “all is vanity,” there is yet great value given to righteousness before God.
Lucretius denies any existence whatsoever after death, denies God, denies good & evil, and most of all denies any judgement and therefore his most repeated frame is “do NOT fear anything, especially death or judgement or gods.” Ecc closes: “Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole man. For God will bring every work into judgement, with everything that has been overlooked, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”
And for the last bit about the void and atoms… you’re saying that sensible arrangements (words) are built because every possible arrangement is built. Where are the non-sensible arrangements then? I should clarify non-sensible as non-sensible-as-a-word; we see letters make words, and we see letters in jibberish. So where’s the other infinite jibberish? What makes one “stick” and another “not stick”? Lucretius got around this problem by saying, well, it’ll be there someday, we may unstick at any moment, in fact, we’re probably in the process of unsticking right now.
There also seems to be a problem with “all possible books” and “infinite books” together. As soon as you say “all possible,” I’ll say, aha but, infinity is more than that. Aristotle would probably call that an impasse and look for something comprehensible.
As with most things eternal and infinitely complex, if we don’t admit some mystery, “things fall apart.”
You should go ahead and try every combination of roadways in the U.S. until you land in Annapolis, then we’ll do lunch.
When you were talking about the differences between “all possible” and “infinity” are you speaking mathematically or philosophically?
Also, when you write “as with most things eternal and infinitely complex” are you talking about the universe? Whether you go with scientific understand or with a scriptural understanding, I don’ think an “eternal” universe is “in the cards.”
But, you’re criticizing Lucretius here, right? Blah, I should probably just reread Lucretius, the whole Bible, and get back to you…
How does it feel to live in the most democratic state in America?
Post a Comment