Episode 019 - All Things Are Not Made of Pieces of the Same Thing, Or Pieces of All Things
Date: 05/23/20
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/1560-episode-nineteen-all-things-are-not-made-of-tiny-pieces-of-the-same-thing-or-of/
Summary
Section titled “Summary”Elaine reads the Daniel Brown passage on Anaxagoras’s homeomeria theory — the claim that everything is made of minute particles of the same substance (bones from little bones, blood from blood drops, gold from gold grains), extended to the position that all things are contained within all things with the most abundant substance determining what appears on the surface. Charles reads the second passage, in which Lucretius adds the celebrated sarcastic line at line 914: if Anaxagoras’s theory were true, the seeds themselves would be alive, “shaking their sides with laughter” and weeping at the absurdity. The passage closes with Lucretius’s statement of his own poetic method — he approaches the Pierian springs of discovery with excitement, writes Epicurus’s philosophy into verse because the theme is difficult, and sweetens the bitter draught of materialist truth with the honey of poetry, as a physician tinges the rim of a cup so that a child will drink the medicine without knowing it.
Discussion of Anaxagoras focuses on Lucretius’s consistent return to two foundational objections: the denial of void and the denial of a least particle. Martin notes that at an intermediate scale gold does appear as grains, but Anaxagoras meant infinite divisibility — and Lucretius’s point is that if you keep dividing indefinitely there is nothing to stop total dissolution. The “food paragraph” is discussed: if bodies grow from food and bodies contain bones, sinews, and veins, then food must contain all of these hidden within it; extending this logic to wood and fire, it is refuted by the simple observation that grinding corn does not produce blood and squeezing sheep’s wool does not yield sweet milk. Lucretius’s sarcastic treatment of Anaxagoras is contrasted with his blunt denunciation of Heraclitus: Anaxagoras erred honestly; Heraclitus deliberately obscured.
The wormwood-honey-physician metaphor generates the episode’s longest discussion. The “bitter draught” is both the cognitive difficulty of physics and the emotional confrontation of learning there is no afterlife and no divine providence. Stallings’s word “pill” brings in a digression on the red/black/white pill vocabulary of internet discourse, which Cassius notes maps fairly well onto the Epicurean project of bringing people into contact with reality — though the political connotations of that vocabulary make it unusable without qualification. Elaine proposes the “chocolate truth” as a better and more wholesome analogy; Cassius endorses it and closes by suggesting Lucretius’s wormwood was almost certainly given to children as an antiparasitic, making the metaphor more apt than ever: Epicurean philosophy is the medicine that removes the worms of supernatural fantasy from the soul.
Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius: Welcome to Episode 19 of Lucretius Today. I’m your host Cassius, and together with my panelists from the EpicureanFriends.com Forum, we’ll walk you through the six books of Lucretius’s poem and discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. Be aware that none of us are professional philosophers and everyone here is a self-taught Epicurean. We encourage you to study Epicurus for yourself, and we suggest the best place to start is the book Epicurus and His Philosophy by Canadian professor Norman DeWitt. Before we start with today’s episode, let me remind you of our three ground rules. First, our aim is to go back to the original text to bring you an accurate presentation of classical Epicurean philosophy as the ancient Epicureans understood it — not simply repeat for you what passes for conventional wisdom about Epicurus today. Second, we won’t be talking about Epicurus from the point of view of modern political perspectives. Epicurus must be understood on his own and not in terms of competitive schools which may seem similar to Epicurus but are fundamentally different and incompatible, such as Stoicism, Humanism, Buddhism, Taoism, Atheism, and Marxism. Third, we’ll be approaching Epicurus exactly as he intended, with the goal of understanding the fundamental nature of the universe as the essential base of Epicurean philosophy. From this perspective, you’ll see that Epicurus taught neither the pursuit of luxury nor the pursuit of simple living, but the pursuit of pleasure, using feeling as the guide to life and not supernatural gods, idealism, or virtue ethics. As important as anything else, Epicurus taught that there is no life after death, and that any happiness we will ever have must come in this life, which is why it is so important not to waste time in confusion. Remember that our podcast homepage is LucretiusToday.com, where you can download a free copy of the versions of the poem we’re reading, and our home for discussion of Lucretius and all other aspects of Epicurean philosophy is EpicureanFriends.com. Now for today in this Episode 19, we’ll discuss how all things are not formed from tiny pieces of the same thing, or either from tiny pieces of everything — which was the theory called homeomeria, put forth by Anaxagoras. Now let’s join our discussion with Elaine and Charles reading today’s text from Book 1.
Elaine: Now let us inquire into the homeomeria Anaxagoras — the Greeks so call it, but the poverty of the Latin tongue will not allow us to express it. But yet by a short paraphrase we can imagine that thing which he calls homeomeria, and makes the principles of bodies. For instance, bones proceed from small and little bones, and flesh is made of small and little bits of flesh, and blood is formed of many drops of blood flowing together. And gold, he thinks, consists of little grains of gold, and earth grows firm by particles of earth, fire is made of fire, water from water springs, and all things else he thinks from causes such as these arise. And yet this man in no case will allow in things a void, nor that there is an end to bodies being divided. He equally mistakes in both, and so do those sages spoken of before.
Besides, the seeds he chose are much too weak if of the same frail nature they consist as do the things themselves. They equally fall to decay and perish. Nothing hinders them from death, for which of these can long hold out against the fierce jaws of death and so escape destruction, crushed between his very teeth? Can fire? Can air? Can water? Which of these? Can blood? Can bone? In my opinion, none. All things in nature then would be equally liable to death as are such things we see before our eyes by any force destroyed.
But this, I think, is fully proved before, that nothing can fall to nothing, or from nothing rise. Besides, since food increases and supports the body, then we know the veins, the blood, the bones, consist of heterogeneous parts dissimilar, as does our food. But if they say all food consists of parts various and mixed, and in itself contains the little strings of nerves and bones, and all the veins and parts of blood, then all dry meat and drink must needs consist of parts dissimilar — of bones, of nerves, of veins and mingled blood.
Further, if all things which grow from the earth are in the earth contained, the earth must consist of parts dissimilar, as do those things from which from the earth arise. Now change the theme, but keep the terms the same. In wood, if flame and smoke and ashes lay concealed, then wood must needs consist of parts of different frame.
But here a thin evasion seems to shake this argument a little, and Anaxagoras himself makes use of it. He thinks all things are mixed with all things and lie hid, but that one thing only appears of which it most abounds and on the surface lies. But this reply is vain and wide from truth, for then the little grains of corn when ground would show some signs of blood, or of some other parts which form our bodies. And when we rub the stones, the blood would flow. But by the like reason, herbs would sweat sweet drops of liquor so delightful to the taste as flow from dugs of woolly sheep, and clods of crumbled earth would show the various kinds of fruits and herbs, and leaves distinct and hid in smallest particles within the earth. And then in wood divided, it might be seen concealed ashes and smoke, and smallest parts of fire. But since experience shows nothing of this appears, we must conclude there’s no such mixture as this in things, but say that common seeds of many things in various order joined are mixed in everything and lie concealed.
Cassius: Charles?
Charles: But oft, you say, upon the mountain tops the heads of lofty trees that grow together are by the violent blasts of forcing winds so rubbed by close collision that they soon are all on fire, and flames shine out. ‘Tis true, and yet there’s no actual fire within the wood — but many seeds of fire which by hard rubbing ignite, and so the wood is all in flames. For if so much of fire had lain concealed within the wood, this fire would have appeared immediately, and so consumed the wood entirely, and burnt its root and branches to the ground. You see therefore of what concern it is, as we observed before, with what first principles those seeds are joined, and in what order placed, and what the motions are they give and take among themselves, and how the seeds remaining ever the same, but yet their order changed, produce a fire from wood. Just as we write ignis and lignum — though quite different words, they are yet composed of letters much the same.
Lastly, if things most obvious to the senses you think cannot be formed unless you make their seeds consist of principles the same in nature, those principles would be destroyed. You would see some seeds would shake their little sides with laughing, and some would wet their face with tears.
Now what remains? Observe. Attend me close. I know my theme is dark, but the great love of praise pricks on my heart with sharpest spurs, and strikes my soul at once with sweet desire of the most tuneful line. But this urged on my mind and rapture — I haunt the Muses’ seats of difficult access and yet untrodden. I love to approach the pure springs and thence to draw large draughts. I love to crop fresh flowers and bind a noble garland for my head from thence where yet the Muses never bound another’s temple with a crown like mine. And first I write of lofty things and strive to free the mind from the severest bonds of what men call religion. Then my verse I frame so clear, although my theme be dark, seasoning my lines with the poetic sweets of fancy, and reason justifies the method. For as physicians, when they would prevail on children to take down a bitter draught of wormwood, first tinge the edges of the cup so that the children’s unsuspecting age may be deceived — at least their lips — and take the bitter juice, thus harmlessly betrayed but not abused. They have their health restored. So I, because this system seems severe and harsh to such who have not yet discerned its truth, and the common herd are utterly averse to this philosophy — I thought it fit to show their rigid principles in verse smooth and alluring, and tinge them, as it were, with sweet poetic honey, thus to charm thy mind with my soft numbers till you view the nature of all things clearly and perceive the figure and order they display.
Cassius: Thanks, Charles. That last paragraph has a lot in it that we’re going to want to discuss in detail, but so does the rest of the detail about Anaxagoras before that. So why don’t we go back to the beginning of what was read and start with that, but make sure we save enough time to discuss that last paragraph and all the poetic and general observations he’s making there.
Cassius: So going back to the beginning — homeomeria! Great word. I’m going to try to throw that into casual conversations sometime this week. So it seems like there are two divisions here. The homeomeria — where everything is composed. First of all, the theory seems to have been that bones are composed of little bones, and flesh is made of small pieces of flesh, and blood is made of small drops of blood and things like that. I guess that makes some sense. Although he also says, we can’t take that alone, because if he goes further down to saying that things are mixed with other things, but if there’s a preponderance of one thing, that’s what it’s going to look like.
Elaine: That’s a fascinating idea. You know, right? So maybe bones had bones and flesh and fire in it, but there were more bone particles. So it’s going to look like a bone instead. I think it’s really interesting. Before we had instruments that could measure things — I didn’t even know that this was one of the early ideas about how matter was composed. But you know, it’s not a stupid idea. It’s wrong, but it’s interesting. Our history of thinkers about the composition of matter.
Cassius: When you say it’s not a stupid idea — that’s what I was going to say next. He doesn’t call Anaxagoras a doting old fool like he had called Heraclitus. He disagrees. And he actually does kind of get sarcastic. I did not remember that this section was in this part, but in what’s labeled here as line 914, that’s when he kind of uses the sarcasm that if things really were divisible that way, then you’d have seeds that would be basically alive, and they would shake their little sides with laughter. And weep their face with tears — laughing at the concept of how ridiculous this idea was.
Elaine: I thought that was so funny that I was glad I had muted myself when Charles was reading, because I started laughing. I wouldn’t interrupt you, Charles.
Cassius: That was funny. Well, before we get back down into that detail, let’s go back still to the beginning. Okay — he lays out what the theory is. Gold is made of little particles of gold, and so forth. But then he also reminds us — lest we ever get too far from this concept — that Anaxagoras did not allow that there is a void in things, or that there’s an end to division. So, boy, Lucretius is constantly pointing us back to those two issues as being of very prime importance: that there must be a void in things, and that there is an end to division.
Elaine: We can add Anaxagoras to Lucretius’s onslaught here. Yes.
Martin: But it says that gold consists of little grains of gold — which is actually quite accurate at some level. That means there has to be some sort of limit implied in Anaxagoras’s homeomeria. But if they’re infinitely divisible, that’s not right. So, I mean, yes — there are gold atoms in a bar of gold, but the atoms themselves aren’t made of gold. They’re fundamental particles smaller than the atom. But if you look at moderate magnification, we actually can make visible that gold is made of grains of gold. So these are pieces of gold, which then one grain contains many atoms of gold. So it’s not something which could not be further divided. But many metals are normally structured like that, so that there is some intermediate scale where they form grains.
Cassius: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I can get that, but I don’t think that’s what he means, Martin. I think in Anaxagoras, the gold was infinitely divisible into just more gold — more gold, smaller and smaller. But then it doesn’t make sense to talk about grains of gold.
Elaine: Yeah, because it also goes to bones — because bones, you know, “small and little bones” — I’m sure it’s sort of “you have these little bits of matter, but they’re already small bits of the whole.” So I’m sure there’s no limit to that. And that’s exactly what Lucretius is talking about at line 843.
Martin: Right. I mean, this wouldn’t make sense if he was just talking about the intermediate scale — that’s pretty obvious. But he’s talking about Anaxagoras saying that you just keep on going. You can divide your blood up into drops and tinier drops and tinier drops and just keep on going forever. But with the bones it doesn’t make sense, because if you crack open a bone you see that it’s not homogeneous. You can easily distinguish at least two very different — probably three different — parts, and you can see open space between them. So that means either Anaxagoras was not empirical at all — he just looked at the whole bone and then was thinking up the rest. He might not have been talking about the marrow, which would be easier to see. He might just have been looking at the hard part that you can see.
Cassius: If we go on to the next paragraph, it’s interesting — you guys have made a lot of interesting points. Lucretius seems in the next paragraph to attack it from a slightly different direction, or just by making the point first: he goes back to the issue of infinite divisibility. He’s saying that if you could go back and continue dividing fire small enough, you’d have that same problem of eventually everything would be destroyed and everything would disappear.
Elaine: Right. All nature would be equally liable to death, and you would not see anything that would be able to resist the forces of destruction.
Cassius: So that’s his first observation. So just in terms of looking at Lucretius’s method of analysis: he explains what the theory is; he makes the point that the theory does not account for void and does not provide a least particle; then he makes the point that under Anaxagoras’s theory, you’d have the same problem of eventually everything being destroyed to nothing and reality disappearing. And then what’s the next one?
Elaine: The food paragraph is a bit confusing, I have to admit.
Cassius: Yes. He’s saying that the food we eat — right, that to make our bodies, if our bodies are made out of food because the food increases the body, then that must mean that the food has in itself little bits of sinews and bones and veins and portions of gore.
Elaine: Yes, yes. It sounds like a name of a band.
Cassius: So yeah — so everything would have to have in it our bodies, basically, already part of it. And then the earth — if everything that comes from the earth consists of parts of earth, then…
Elaine: Then the earth has to have all that in it, you know, just where you can’t see it. It’s hidden.
Cassius: It says: “flame lurks hidden in smoke and ash.” Then he uses that phrasing: “now change the theme, but keep the terms the same.” Munro translates that as “apply again this reasoning to other things, and you may use just the same words.” So he’s just saying: if that happens with the earth, then that would be the same with flame and smoke and wood, and you can just keep going if that’s the principle. The Bailey translation is pretty good: “Shift this to another field. You may use the same words again.” Yeah. Okay.
Cassius: So then after that is when he introduces the possibility that Anaxagoras also said that all things are in all things. Well, to that point, he’s been sort of more vertical — he’s been saying blood’s made of blood, gold’s made of gold. Now he’s saying that Anaxagoras allowed himself out in his argument by saying that, well, all things are in all things.
Charles: It’s not that only gold is in gold, but within gold there are little pieces of everything.
Elaine: Yeah, and the only thing you see is that which is the most — the majority wins.
Cassius: And I love this — this is when he starts to get funny — where he’s talking about the little grains of corn: you would have blood, because you grind it up, you’re going to see the parts that it’s made out of. You’d be able to get gold from those little grains of corn if you divided it up that way.
Elaine: Yeah, right. The sheep milk would be sweet.
Cassius: “But since experience shows nothing of this appears, we must conclude there’s no such mixture as this in things, but say that common seeds of many things in various order joined are mixed in everything and lie concealed.” So in that sense, when he gets down to the atomic level, does he end up kind of agreeing?
Elaine: Well, he’s saying it’s not a matter of the majority wins. It’s a matter of how you arrange the letters — which letters, and how you’re…
Cassius: Yeah, that makes sense. He makes a direct comparison at the end of line 906 with the letters and words again.
Cassius: What about — before we skip down there — what about this issue of the trees on the tops of mountains rubbing together and bursting out in flame?
Elaine: I’ve never heard of that. I’ve never heard of that. Do you think about lightning, as this is happening during a storm? But does friction never light a tree on fire? I thought I had heard of forest fires starting that way. Martin, have you heard of that?
Martin: Yes. I’ve heard also that this is a way how fire may happen naturally, especially in the Mediterranean, which at that time of Lucretius was already turned into quite dry forest in many areas. So the original forest was gone. And then the shrubs which grew after can really burn easily based on this mechanism in the summer.
Elaine: To go about this — I did a class on forestry, but I did not retain much. With no lightning at all, they can just start a fire?
Cassius: I know underbrush in a forest can get very densely packed with dead matter. Right, right. I don’t know where I read it, but I remember what Martin has remembered — that maybe the wind is strong enough and the wood is dry enough and the pieces are big enough.
Martin: You know, it’s not directly about whether the leaves are involved. Right. The leaves may be involved — if they’re around, they will catch fire more easily, because the wood will not give a strong flame first. It will just smolder a bit, and then it reaches the leaves. They may ignite and burn more rapidly and then promote the fire.
Elaine: Okay, so what I’m seeing here is: just like starting from the underbrush or by lightning, it can spread through the crowns. It can be a crown fire that spreads through the tops of the trees. But it didn’t start from the leaves rubbing against each other the way he’s describing here. He mentioned the leaves rather than the wood.
Cassius: I’m not seeing anything here about the wood at the tops of the trees being where the spontaneous fire started. By underbrush and dead matter getting enough heat to spontaneously combust — that would be by friction. Actually, I just reread it, and I don’t think he’s implying that it’s the wood.
Elaine: Or by extension — yes, the wood. Yeah, it would be the wood — “rubbed by close collision.” So he’s saying, “‘tis true, and yet there’s no actual fire within the wood — but many seeds of fire, which by hard rubbing ignite.” So I think he’s talking more about friction leading to a preponderance of fire within Anaxagoras’s theory. And that can come about by the trees being too close together. But I don’t think that actually happens. I don’t know if somebody can find a reference for that. Now you can rub your sticks together and do that, but I don’t think there’s anything about wind doing that.
Cassius: I mean, why? Oh, it can. That’s interesting. I went to a page with some guy from forestry. He says it’s rare, but it may happen. Can you send us the link? I saw a link to that effect on Quora a minute ago, but I know I’ve read that somewhere else. I’m going to — as people say on these podcasts — I’ll put a link in the show notes if I can find an example. I have this picture in my mind that I’ve seen somewhere: pictures of just trees waving back and forth in the wind and coming against each other and thereby generating enough friction. But it’s interesting. Let’s see if we can find an example of that. Yeah. It’s like actually seeing it happen so that you knew it didn’t come from the brush. Right. I think you’d want video.
Cassius: All right. Well, should we move to line 914 — the little seeds shaking their sides with laughter to the point of tears, it sounds like, because they’re amused at the thought?
Charles: I know what I’m comparing this to in my mind. There’s another section where they talk about souls lining up to inhabit bodies later on. That’s also sort of a sarcastic reference.
Cassius: This one is different though — this one is little seeds laughing at the idea.
Charles: Bureaucratic afterlife. I love it.
Cassius: I mean, this is so funny — that matter itself is laughing at you. That’s a fairly well-known section. Let’s see what Munro says: “if you suppose that whatever you perceive among visible things cannot be produced without imagining bodies of matter possessed of a like nature, in this way you’ll find the first beginnings of things are destroyed. It will come to this: that they will be shaken by loud fits of convulsive laughter, and will be wetted with salt tears, face and cheeks.” Bailey says: “Nay, it will come to be that they will be shaken with quivering mirth and laugh aloud, and wet face and cheeks with salt tears.”
Cassius: Okay, well now let’s go on to the final paragraph, which Bailey starts out by saying, “Come now, learn what remains and listen to clearer words.” And he goes back and repeats — I don’t know how many times in the book this appears — but he goes back and repeats the wormwood reference. But before he gets to wormwood, he talks about approaching the Pierian springs and drinking his fill. This is more poetry again. This is where Elaine needs to weigh in on this. Well, let’s see — we should look at Stallings then, because she has a knack for that. So let’s see.
Cassius: She says: “Now pay attention to what follows and prick up your ears. Nor does it escape me how obscure all this appears, but the goad of hope for glory strikes my spirit to inspire, and at the selfsame moment smites my heart with sweet desire for muses, stirring up my thought, my mind abuzz. I blaze new trails across their mountains and haunts, among untrodden ways. I thrill to come upon untasted springs and slake my thirst.”
Elaine: So this is the excitement of science. Yes, discovery — and the great love of praise as well.
Cassius: He’s going to win recognition for doing it. His mind in rapture, he haunts the Muses’ seats. And it’s difficult, it’s untried. Not anybody else has really gotten there yet, so that’s real exciting. When you say that, that reminds me of how he’s very clear in different sections that he does not believe that he could replace Epicurus, or he’s not setting himself up at the same level of achievement as Epicurus. And yet he’s saying these words here. Maybe what he’s referring to is that he’s committing Epicurus’s words to poetry — that’s what he’s the first to do.
Cassius: Okay. Well, he first makes comments about how he’s delighted with the sweet accomplishment of what he’s doing. And then what I see next in that paragraph is the part about writing of lofty things and striving to free the mind from the severest bonds of what men call religion. So he’s going back to the original opening of the book almost — he’s doing it by discussing the atoms, but he’s reminding us that all this discussion of the atoms has a purpose: to free ourselves from false claims of religion.
Elaine: Right. And then he talks about his verse — he makes it clear that though his theme is dark, he’s seasoning it. And that’s exactly what we’ve seen. There are multiple sections that are just talking about observations, they’re not particularly poetic, and then he comes back in and seasons it with the poetic sweets. Really, by that way, he’s making it clear — he’s saying that these are things that are difficult to understand. And so maybe part of what he’s saying there is that the difficulty of understanding is overcome not just by dry reasoning but by the senses.
Cassius: Oh, I thought you were going to say “by pleasure.”
Elaine: Well, right — by pleasure. So if you’re enjoying reading this because he’s made it a pleasant thing to read — unless you don’t like poetry — but if you’re enjoying poetry it’s going to make it easier to learn the parts that are a little bit more dry. But I also take this bitter draught not just as “okay, this is science, maybe we don’t want to do science if we’re poets.” It might be a little disappointing — you know — to some people to learn the truth about reality. Maybe a bitter draught that there’s not this afterlife and this other world and the gods and all that kind of thing. So that’s why I see him calling this a bitter draught of wormwood. It’s a little sad, but we’ve gotta sweeten it up.
Cassius: Right. I never realized that’s how you pronounce “draught.” I think I never put the “gh” together like that. I hear it pronounced differently, and sometimes I use “drought” or something too. But yeah, I think “draught” is appropriate as well — maybe that is proper.
Elaine: I want to say — it’s not really related to the text — but the edges of the cup being tinged sweetens what’s in the rest. I swear I’ve heard that before elsewhere, specifically with honey, but yes, I cannot remember where.
Cassius: …a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go?
Elaine: There you go! Oh, does Mary Poppins have Epicurus or Lucretius in it?
Cassius: I was expecting Elaine to raise that example so I got it first. But yeah, that’s the one I remember — the spoonful of sugar example. Yeah. It may have been Petronius, it may have been Shakespeare, it may have been Lucretius, but yeah, that immediately stuck out to me when I was reading it.
Elaine: And just for our listeners — as a caution: don’t use honey under age one because you can get botulism. But what we use to mask flavor — in case you ever need to know this — the best masker for bitter is chocolate. I did not know that. Yeah. So if you’re going to give a bitter medicine, really what I do is give them a little spoonful of chocolate syrup, or any kind of chocolate first, and then put a little chocolate in the medicine if it’s okay to mix it, and then follow it with a little chocolate taster, and you can get them to take it pretty well doing that.
Cassius: So you do mean sweet chocolate?
Elaine: Yeah. Oh yeah — they’re not gonna drink Aztec chocolate or whatever if you’re a kid. But yeah. So it’s not just the sugar; it’s actually the chocolate that masks it.
Cassius: So anyway — we’re trying to sweeten up this drink of material reality, but not with anything that’s not true. So it’s not really a deception. And Lucretius doesn’t say that. But I think it’s important to discuss that we’re not mixing our wormwood with any kind of lies on the edge of the cup. Everything that we’re saying is true. But it’s important that there’s a sweet part of the truth as well as maybe a bitter part. Chocolate of truth.
Cassius: That’s a really important part of what we’re reading here today, though — the issue of betrayal. I mean, whenever I’ve read these words in the past, that’s definitely part of what goes through my mind: he’s saying that the juice is bitter, the children are not really going to take it unless they are in some way bribed — or in some way deceived. Not deceived is not the right word exactly. But clearly there’s a component of the fact that some people are just not going to follow the truth and look to the end result unless you cajole them into doing it. Unless they’re goaded into it. Yes — seduced into it. But only with the truth. No, this is not a lie.
Charles: When Lucretius first said “wormwood,” I thought he was referring to absinthe at first.
Cassius: Referring to what? Absinthe? Did they have that back then?
Elaine: I don’t understand the word you’re saying, Charles.
Charles: Well — absinthe — the drink. It’s a type of alcohol. It actually has — doesn’t it have like a hallucinogen in it?
Cassius: I don’t know what that is.
Charles: It’s derived from wormwood. So there is such a thing as wormwood — I mean, it’s not a name that’s made up or anything. I know it’s an herb.
Cassius: Okay. I’ve never tasted it. I don’t know what that tastes like. I presume it’s not very tasty, to be used in this example. Elaine — the doctor — do you know what wormwood is?
Elaine: I’m looking it up, because it’s not something I have ever used. Okay. Here — it has in there about absinthe, the French liqueur, a favorite of Van Gogh. Also here apparently it is still used in traditional Chinese medicine, but even though it has a reputation for causing hallucinations, it’s not considered a hallucinogen. I don’t know — it’s pain-relieving, anti-inflammatory, anti-parasitic. So probably they were taking it for anti-parasitic purposes — if they were giving it to kids, to get rid of their worms. Side effects could cause seizures, kidney failure. I guess I’d stay away from it.
Cassius: As we continue through this paragraph, a lot of it is saying much the same thing over and over, but it’s so hugely important. The part that catches my eye right now is the very last section in the 1743 edition: “thus to charm thy mind with my soft numbers till you view the nature of all things clearly and perceive the figure and order they display.” So going back to what Elaine was saying — we’re not lying to you, and certainly we’re not approaching you with this information in order to hurt you in any way. We’re actually curing you of diseases that will make your life less happy or worse if you don’t understand it. The sugar or the honey gets you past the initial bitterness, till then — I guess you acquire the taste — or there’s an analogy for something that you do: once you’ve gotten over the initial fear or the initial recoiling away from it, you realize, “Hey, this is what I should have been doing all along.”
Cassius: Yeah. Okay. Let me read Stallings here — I really like this: “Since those who’ve never tasted of it think this philosophy is a bitter pill to swallow and the throng recoils, I wish to coat this physic in mellifluous song to kiss it, as it were, with the sweet honey of the Muse. That is the purpose of my poetry as you peruse my lines — to try to keep your mind’s attention while you start to understand the framework at the universe’s heart.”
Elaine: Interesting that she uses the word “pill,” because that’s what I would think of.
Charles: Yeah. How a lot of modern ideologies and philosophical views that are wide-sweeping like this — they usually refer to the allegorical taking of a pill.
Cassius: Yeah, like the red pill. Which is not to be confused with the super hardcore right-wing “red pill” and “going your own way” movements. We’re talking about the Matrix, right?
Charles: Right. So yeah, interesting that that’s not a new metaphor.
Cassius: Well, no. I mean — Stallings’s translation — I’m sure she put in the word “pill” because it’s the same idea, and it helps you — by her using that, you see the history of that kind of metaphor. Yeah, Stallings’s word choice for this is very contemporary.
Cassius: Well — so looking at Bailey — Bailey says “since this philosophy full often seems too bitter to those who have not tasted it.” And Stallings says “since those who’ve never tasted of it think this philosophy is a bitter pill to swallow.” Looking at Martin Ferguson Smith — he says “this philosophy of ours often appears somewhat off-putting to those who’ve not experienced it.” So that’s really kind of even pulling back a little bit and not saying it really is a bitter pill, but “you think it is, so I’m going to have to show you some honey so you can try it, and then once you see how things fit together you know it’ll be fine.”
Charles: The sort of language that it’s very dark and bitter… combined with Stallings’s usage of the word “pill” — yeah, I’m just sort of brought to the modern idea of the “black pill.”
Cassius: The “black pill” — I’m not up to date. What’s that?
Charles: It’s sort of an expression of a very fatalistic, nihilistic set of beliefs. It’s very new.
Cassius: When you said “expression of it” — to take the “black pill” is to become fatalist and to become reconciled to your death and to your fate, right, Charles?
Charles: And then — not so much fate, but I don’t like using that word — it’s kind of like extending your depression. And it’s — I mean, the “black pill” is pretty descriptive of what I understand it means. It means when you take the black pill you’re basically giving up, you’re not going to fight anymore, you’re going to go ahead and accept the worst and that kind of thing.
Cassius: Yes. Yes. It is very absurdist, very nihilistic. Yeah. It is. It’s a pretty new thing as well. Okay, I’m seeing here on Quora that it’s the extreme ideology of the incel community. Is that right? But is there a non-incel version of the black pill?
Charles: Yes, yeah. There are a lot of connotations with people who have sort of given up. So it infiltrates a lot of communities like that. But I would say there is definitely a subculture that is obsessed with using the word “pill.” Like we mentioned earlier with the red pill, but that’s a different matter. “Black pill” is basically becoming nihilist or depressed or sad or giving in to bad things. “Red pill” in a generic sense is becoming more acquainted with reality.
Cassius: What is “white pill”? Is there a white pill? What other pills are there that we need to know about?
Charles: I think there are several different colors of pill.
Cassius: Have you read Brave New World? — I have read Brave New World. Is “white pill” in Brave New World? Well, Soma. I guess what is “white pill” then — would it mean putting yourself to sleep? Maybe there is no such thing as “white pill,” and I’ll just — yes, no, I think that’s — and as soon as we have started it, we want to say: no, no, let’s cut this out of the discussion. There’s “black pill” and “red pill.”
Elaine: Would the antinatalists be kind of a “black pill”? You know — that we should stop reproducing and just let the human species go away because it’s just…
Charles: More about people who — incels, for example — it happens to them: this says they believe that reality is rigged and that some people are destined to fail no matter what they do.
Cassius: Yeah, that’s the way I see it used. Yes. “Hopeless.” Really hopeless. “Hopeless” is a good summary. Okay. I don’t know how much of that we should leave in and how much we’ll cut out. Not much. Yeah. Go. All right. Let’s go back to that final paragraph.
Charles: For the record — I do want to make it clear that I don’t believe in any of the red pill, black pill stuff.
Cassius: Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. I think it’s ridiculous. I mean, as a generic term in terms of coming in contact with reality, or “black pill” being turning really negative — those don’t necessarily have political connotation, do they? Or it’s just so tied up in this incel thing.
Cassius: Okay. So now I’m looking at Urban Dictionary — you can leave this out if you want to, but I just wanted to follow that up. The “white pill” — it says: “being aware of a difficult situation or position and having a fighting, can-do attitude and not giving up, plus accomplishing said things within the difficult situation.” So it gives an example: “Tom, how’d you get to the top of this business in just a few months of work?” “Jim: working hard, working correctly, and taking the white pill.” So that’s nice. That’s not like Soma, right?
Elaine: So we were wrong. It’s — so yes, no, no, no, no, no.
Charles: Okay. All my time spent on forums and talking about philosophy with other people around my age on social media sites and Discord — and I know this is just my anecdote — but I have never, in the years that this sort of terminology has become more relevant, seen the word “white pill” used to that meaning.
Cassius: But Charles, it does come from the Matrix movie, and the Matrix movie is not necessarily super political. Right? At least not inherently political. No. But a lot of people have used it to, yeah. Okay. And so that’s where the connection is formed. Yeah.
Charles: There’s a person who was interested in Epicurean philosophy, and this is before we kind of got along, but he was talking about the red pill. And I kind of blew him off — I don’t care about MGTOW or any of that — and he got really mad at me because he was saying, “No, the red pill’s not a right-wing thing.” So I did hear him out, but I still don’t really believe in it.
Cassius: Yeah. In fact, if I were using these terms and trying to apply Epicurean philosophy — I would say Epicurean philosophy is “red pilling” somebody, if you can cut out all the right-wing meaning of “red pilling” and go back to what the Matrix would mean — which my understanding is: the red pill means you then recognize that you’re being manipulated. I mean, that’s very Epicurean. And from that point of view, it’s just that you can’t use that term without being immediately categorized — which is why I’ve always sort of had that in the very, very back corner recesses of my mind, because there is a link there.
Charles: Because, yeah, as we know, Epicurus — and well, I mean, his philosophy was sort of heterodox to the rest of Hellenistic Greece. There’s a strong analogy here. In fact, if “red pill” was a term that was usable — which I don’t think it is — it’s almost like we need our own term for “red pilling” that doesn’t have those bad connotations. Because that’s a lot of what we’re doing here. This whole wormwood-honey thing is really — this is the medicine you need. The medicine of the soul. That’s why it stuck out to me: Epicurean philosophy is the medicine that cures these ills of the soul. That is clearly the analogy that Lucretius is using.
Elaine: Maybe the “chocolate truth” is much more wholesome.
Cassius: I love that! And yeah, I’m sure I’m going to use that this week. I’m determined to use the “chocolate truth.”
Charles: It’s a bit — a little more relatable. I don’t eat milk chocolate — I like the very bitter stuff, you know.
Cassius: Charles, really what Lucretius is talking about here is that Epicurean philosophy is a medicine that does bring you in contact with true reality, and shows you that the way to live your life in a healthy and happy way is to get in contact with what’s real — and not live your life with all these fantasies about religion and supernatural spirits and beings and heavens and hells and so forth. Coming into terms with reality. And even though it may appear to be bitter at the beginning, you come to understand that that’s the natural way to live. Or it may appear to be bitter before you’ve done it — you may have the wrong idea about it. So yeah.
Cassius: And I like — you know, the wormwood — I could even go further and say, since people use that for parasites, that’s probably why they would have been giving it to the kid. What are the “worms” you’re trying to get rid of with this philosophy? The worms of religion.
Cassius: I will admit that years ago, when I first was reading Lucretius and saw “wormwood,” I looked it up on the internet and ordered some wormwood capsules. I don’t know that I benefited from them in any way, and I’m not even sure what they’re supposed to be used for. But I know you can still buy wormwood as an herb.
Elaine: Absolutely. It’s part of these natural stores.
Cassius: But that would be going pretty far to apply Lucretius — to start taking wormwood. I’m looking at wormwood capsules, and even the capsules themselves look like little worms. Martin, are you still with us? Did you happen to find a link or two on the fire?
Martin: I sent two links here in Skype. We are not really conclusive, so if you can find something better you can replace it. But at least it indicates that some of the pros do think that friction can cause forest fires.
Cassius: Yeah, but is it saying friction on the top of the trees? I’m looking at that — I’m not seeing that. I saw — yeah, that’s what’s in my mind — these pictures and movies of tornadoes and so forth with all these hurricane-force winds blowing the tops of the trees in the forest against each other and then sparks coming off when they collide. But that’s a movie. I haven’t seen it, but there was — I saw this thread: looking it up, and a thread’s not the most authoritative source, but it was this guy: his neighbor had two trees in his yard and they were brushing up together towards the top — they had to be cut down, or the branches had to be cut because of that.
Martin: So this second link doesn’t say that — this just talks about a crown fire, but it doesn’t say that it started in the crown. So I don’t know. The other one is just a Quora link anyway.
Cassius: So maybe something that actually has a basis in fact — yeah, we’ll see. Well, let’s talk about closing comments for today. I would say that I go with Lucretius, and I would say that the draught of Epicurean philosophy you might think it’s bitter, but it’s really not. So give in to Lucretius’s honey, and take a drink of it and see what you think.
Cassius: Charles?
Charles: I don’t know about — that sounds a bit culty.
Cassius: What’s that?
Charles: I don’t really drink or, you know…
Cassius: Oh, like the Kool-Aid? It’s not Kool-Aid!
Charles: I know, that’s what they said.
Cassius: Oh gosh. I guess I don’t have one pertaining to the text.
Elaine: Well, I was going to say as a closing comment that maybe one way of saying this is: don’t take the red pill, or the white pill, or the black pill — but take the Epicurean pill instead. Take the reality pill.
Cassius: Yeah. The Epicurean pill is the reality pill. Martin — we shift to you for a more cogent closing comment.
Martin: As most of the time, I don’t have one.
Cassius: Okay. All right. Anybody else want to say anything? And I’m going to think more on that though — maybe there’s a thread in there somewhere. Well, the Matrix movie itself — if we were to keep the analogy referring to the Matrix movie, and that the red pill in the Matrix means getting in tune with reality and seeing past the falseness and the manipulation that’s around you — I don’t think there’s any issue, but that we would say that from an Epicurean perspective that’s what you’re doing by learning Epicurean philosophy.
Charles: Well, I mean — product of the times aside — with the Matrix, people are always going to superimpose meaning, whether it’s philosophical or political, onto the media. What was a product of its times? The Star Wars prequel movies — that a lot of people compared to the George Bush administration. So I don’t think a lot of the Matrix or the concepts are inherently political. That’s what happened afterward.
Cassius: Yes. There are different levels of meaning it seems like always going on. And yeah — most conversations — maybe an analogy here would be that even though we’re discussing these what appear to be dry details about atoms, there’s another level of meaning going on here: which is that this is the way you understand that all these fantasies about religion are unreal. Even though it may seem dry at times, even though it may seem bitter to spend your time talking about atoms and void, it’s important to do so.
Cassius: Well, shall we close for the day?
Elaine: I think so.
Cassius: Okay. Have a good week. Thanks, everybody. We’ll do it again soon.