Episode 020 - The Universe Is Infinite In Size
Date: 05/30/20
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/1572-episode-twenty-the-universe-is-infinite-in-size/
Summary
Section titled “Summary”Episode 020 takes up the closing arguments of Book One, where Lucretius establishes that the universe is infinite in size. Martin reads Daniel Brown’s 1743 translation of the key passages, which present two main arguments: a logical argument from the definition of “the All” (if it is everything, nothing outside it can bound it), and the famous javelin thought experiment (stand at the supposed edge of the universe and throw a dart — either something stops it, in which case there is space beyond, or it flies on indefinitely, confirming no edge exists). The group notes that these observations — infinite size and, next episode, no center — together close out Book One after Lucretius has established that matter and void are the only constituents of nature, that matter is indestructible, and that single-element and four-element theories are false.
Martin offers the modern physics perspective: general relativity, Big Bang cosmology, and the limits of the observable universe mean we cannot empirically confirm infinite extent, though non-Euclidean geometry — a three-dimensional hypersphere in four-dimensional space — would describe a mathematically finite but boundless universe that nevertheless cannot be directly observed. The group discusses historical predecessors: Anaxagoras also proposed an infinite universe (which Cassius suggests may partly explain why Lucretius is relatively gentle toward him), while Parmenides held the universe finite and spherical, and the Stoics later argued for finite matter within infinite void. Elaine identifies Kanada, the Indian atomist philosopher (sixth to fourth century BC), as another pre-Epicurean proponent of atoms. The Deist tendency to equate “the universe” with “God” — Spinozism — is noted as a much later echo of the same move.
The episode’s final section examines the mutual-bounding argument: matter must be bounded by void and void by matter, and if either were finite while the other infinite the result would be either total dispersal (finite matter in infinite void) or total compaction — neither matching observed reality. Lucretius closes with an explicit denial of intelligent design: the atoms arranged themselves through eternal motion and chance collisions, with no foreseeing mind or compact among elements. Cassius connects this to DeWitt’s formulation that in any local system destruction eventually prevails, but from the universal perspective preservation wins because the totality is never destroyed. Martin draws the parallel to modern cosmological expansion, noting that on any human-relevant timescale the universe may as well be infinite and eternal. The episode previews the final Book One topic — no center to the universe — and the transition to Book Two, “The Dance of Atoms.”
Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius: Welcome to Episode 20 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’ 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. Let me remind you first 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 Lucretius 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 as ends in themselves, but rather 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’s no life after death, and that any happiness we’ll ever have must come in this life, which is why it’s so important not to waste time in confusion. Remember that our podcast page is LucretiusToday.com, and there you can download a free copy of the versions of the poem we’re reading. Our home for discussion of Lucretius and all other aspects of Epicurean philosophy is the EpicureanFriends.com web forum. Now for today in this episode 20, we’ll discuss how the universe is infinite in size. We’ll now join the discussion with Martin reading today’s text. I would apologize that I am very congested in this episode, but the fact that I’m recording this a week after the episode was recorded testifies that I did not develop COVID-19 and I did not die. So with that, let’s start with Martin reading very close to the end of Book One of Lucretius.
Martin: “But since I thought the principles of matter are solid, are eternal, ever moving, nor are destroyed, now come let us inquire whether they have an end or are by nature infinite. And since we have found a void place or space in which all things are moved, let us now see whether the universe made up of void and body be circumscribed or thus to a profound immensity extent. This all, therefore, does not admit of bounds, for if it did, then it must have something extreme. Now no extreme can be unless it lies beyond those things whose bounds or whose extreme it is, from whence they may be seen, and beyond which our faculty of sight can reach no further. Now since we must own that nothing can be beyond the all, this all has therefore no extreme. It has no ends, no bounds, nor does it signify what spot of this great all you stand upon, for on what parts however you are fixed, you have a wide and infinite space around you every way. But if this wide extent of space be finite and circumscribed, let the man stand upon the utmost verge, and from thence throw a dart, whether you choose this dart with mighty force thus cast should reach the mark designed and fly swift on, or whether you think that something should hinder or oppose its flight — and one of these you must confess. Now either way you are caught and can’t escape, you are forced to own this all lies wide extended without bounds, for whether there be something that does hinder and stop its flight so that it cannot reach the mark designed and there rests still and fixed, or whether it flies forward, there this end you cannot fix, for if it stops then something must lie beyond the utmost verge, and if it flies there is a space beyond the extremest brink, and thus I will follow close and wheresoever you place extreme bounds I still demand what comes beyond your doubt, so that no bounds can anywhere be fixed, but space immense will always give a passage to its flight. Besides, where this all extended space shut up by certain bounds in every sight and was by nature finite, then this mass of matter pressed by its solid weight had long ere now sunk to the lowest place, and therefore nothing under the vault of heaven could have a being, nor could there be heavens at all, or the sun’s light, for then the seeds of things that had been sinking from all eternity would in conclusion lie on heaps. Now the principles of bodies have no rest at all, are ever moving, because there is no such thing as lowest place to which they may descend, no fixed abode where they should rest, but things are ever carried by motion never ending through every part of this vast all, from whence the active seeds of things arise, and by eternity so supplied. First, we see one thing bounds another — the air bounds in the hills, the hills the air, the earth shuts up the sea, and then again the sea surrounds the earth — but this great all, nothing exterior to itself can bind, for the nature of this place, this empty space, is such that rivers of the swift stream, were they to run for ages infinite with a perpetual current, could not run through it, or ever by their running prove that they had less of their course to run, so vast and wide this mighty space of things extended lies on all sides every way without all bounds. Besides, the laws of nature do provide that this universe of things will not admit of limits to itself, because body is bound to void and void bound to body, and by this mutual termination is it that this great all becomes immense — for were not each bound by the other, were body not a limit set to void, the void would be infinite and all finite bodies would be dissolved, and so nor sea nor earth nor the bright heavens nor mortal race of man nor sacred bodies of gods could be one moment of an hour, for the seeds of bodies being disunited in themselves would fly and quite dissolved be carried through the void, or rather being never joined had formed no being, for once scattered through this space there could not be compared to join again, for certainly the principles of things could never arrange themselves in form or order by counsel or by wisdom of the mind, nor any compact make how each should move. But being changed in various forms and struck with many blows, they are driven through this void for many ages, and having tried all kinds of motion and of union, at length by chance are so disposed to frame those bodies of which this universe of things consists. And these seeds once thrown into convenient motions, and keeping in the same for many ages — it is a true cause that rivers with a large supply of waters from their streams fill up the greedy sea, and the earth supported by the sun’s heat renews the fruits, and the races of living creatures flourish, and the rolling stars of heaven are kept alive — all which could never be if from this infinite mass a supply of seeds float not, from whence decaying things might rise and live and be from age to age repaired.”
Cassius: Martin, I would really like to hear from you particularly, being a physicist. Were any of the observations of modern physics similar to the things that Lucretius is saying here?
Martin: In some way, yes, but there are a few differences of course, because the reason why for us it all fits together now is that you have the general theory of relativity, and this was simply not available at that time. And also, what we can see is only our extrapolation back to what we call the Big Bang, and that looks for us like the start of the universe. What we do not know for sure is whether this start included an infinitely large mass or not. So whether the universe, as it’s filled with matter, whether it’s infinite in space or not, we don’t know that, and we may not even be able to find it out because of the limits set by the special theory of relativity. So that means, from what we know, we cannot 100% confirm that Epicurus and through Epicurus, Lucretius, were right. But they’re at least surprisingly close to what we know today, and especially if we take it from the empirical standpoint that for what matters for us on Earth, the simplistic model put forward by Epicurus and Lucretius is something which works.
Cassius: I’m very impressed. Is he the first one to propose that the universe is infinite? Did anybody come up with this before him? I don’t even know that. It seems like a really, really big deal. It is important to the rest of the philosophy, and it’s still important because if it were not infinite, it leaves room for this idea of a supernatural God-like perspective from outside of it — something outside materialism that can see everything at once and then you can actually have an absolute perspective. But there’s no room for that, because the material universe is everywhere.
Martin: Yes, and this is the thing — this is basically the relatively easiest way to simply get rid of completely of something like first mover, or God, or whatever. But there are more complicated ways to do that, so it’s not a necessary conclusion. It’s one way to do it, and from the way I see it, it’s the relatively most easy way, and this is the way to go if you don’t have really experimental data to go beyond.
Cassius: Yeah. I think this is what later during the Enlightenment was one of the key understandings that the Deists had — the Deists not being a group that really thought there was a prime creator that then just kind of went away, but actually were people that just said, well, everything is the universe, and so we’re just going to call that God.
Elaine: Spinozism.
Cassius: Yes, right. So I think listeners should realize how striking and probably radical this particular section is. It depends on other things that have already been said about matter and void, but it’s one of the really big conclusions. As for other philosophers about an eternal or rather infinite universe —
Elaine: Might have to look into the Eleatics. But I guess a similar philosopher that I can think of would be the Indian philosopher Kanada. That’s more along the lines of atomism.
Cassius: When was that?
Elaine: Well, that’s actually up for a lot of debate — sixth to fourth century BC. But in any case, before Epicurus.
Cassius: Do we know if Democritus had considered an infinite universe as part of his atomism?
Martin: I would expect Democritus was just not concerned with it. I don’t recall. That was more along the lines of Parmenides and the sort of monistic lines of thinking.
Elaine: We could substitute “the all” in the section of Lucretius and replace it with “the one,” whether it’s in Plato or Parmenides. Maybe we could look to Leucippus though.
Cassius: So let’s say Parmenides said the universe is finite and spherical. Anaxagoras thought that there was an infinite universe. Maybe that was one reason why Epicurus was easier on him. Oh yeah, the Stoics said that the universe is finite in size but surrounded by infinite void. Well, why don’t we begin to look paragraph by paragraph for a few minutes and go back to the beginning. I should say probably before we do that, that we’re closing in on the end of Book One here. Today we’ve moved away from discussing the nature of atoms and comparing it to saying that there’s four elements or that there’s a single element. We’ve now shifted to examine the universe itself, and the first observation before we end Book One is that the universe is unlimited in size, and then the only other observation included in Book One is that there’s no center to the universe — and we’ll discuss that in the next episode. But with those two observations, about the universe being unlimited in size and having no center, we come to the end of Book One. It’s hard to say what the significance of moving to our second book is, but presumably these two particular points, along with nothing comes from nothing and nothing goes to nothing, are some of the most fundamental physics of the Epicurean system.
Elaine: I guess we’ve previously established that the universe is eternal as well. So that would be among the list — nothing comes from nothing, nothing goes to nothing, the universe is eternal, now the universe is infinite in size, and next week the universe has no center. He’s built up to his cosmology, the fundamental particles.
Cassius: And I guess that’s kind of what he’s doing now. Going back to the first paragraph, he says something like that — “since I have taught that the principles of matter are solid, are eternal, are ever moving, and are not destroyed, then we move to the question of whether the universe is infinite or not.” Or actually — this one says it’s not just “is the universe infinite,” because after him the Stoics came up with “matter is finite but the void is infinite.” But are the particles infinite in number? That’s a very important point.
Elaine: Yeah.
Cassius: And that’s definitely going to be addressed — if it’s not addressed in this section, whether there’s an infinite number of particles or not. That is nicely related.
Martin: So if it has no beginning and no end and is infinite, then the number of particles has to be infinite too.
Cassius: Right. And I think that’s what he’s laying out here. Okay, so his list of his physical principles in that first passage is pretty clear. His first argument appears to be that there’s no extremity, and that everything has to have an extreme except for the universe itself. Let’s see — he’s partly talking about his definition, but then he gets into observations to support it. Where he says, “now we must own that nothing can be beyond the all” — that’s actually more of a reasoning.
Martin: Yeah, a logical construct.
Cassius: Yeah. Right. If it’s everything, then you can’t have anything outside of it, but he doesn’t stop there. So that’s really important. He’s not pulling a Plato. But it is one of those sort of practical reasoning things. Obviously, if it’s everything, then there’s nothing else. Well, the first sentence there — “the all therefore does not admit of bounds, for if it did, it must have something extreme” — you can say that’s a logical argument and it is, but it’s also based on our observation of everything we’ve ever come into contact with. If we can hold it in our hands or see it or have any interaction with it, then it’s got an edge to it that separates it from something else. So although it’s a logical conclusion, it’s certainly connected with things we observe.
Martin: When in the end there is no empirical way, especially at that time, to tell whether it’s infinite or not, so it’s still just a logical argument. It just gives a way to think about it in principle, and it’s actually valid if we think of it as what we call Euclidean space — that means the space which behaves like we think it does. But we can construct mathematically spaces which are like — it’s often visualized so: if we look at two-dimensional beings living on the surface of a sphere, their universe is not infinite. In a similar way, it has been argued that our universe might be a three-dimensional hypersphere in a four-dimensional space, so in these three dimensions the universe would not be infinite. And that is something you can’t really imagine, right? You can’t visualize it. You can visualize with math — if you do the geometry you can visualize it for yourself and conclude from two dimensions to three dimensions.
Cassius: Well, when I say visualize — can you actually visualize? I mean see, see in your mind four dimensions, and I don’t mean time.
Martin: No, no, no, no, no. So it’s not something that he’s sticking to things that you could either observe or imagine observing. That’s why we have this example of two-dimensional beings on a sphere — that one we can visualize, so then it’s fairly easy to understand that this same thing can happen one dimension higher.
Cassius: Well, I’m not sure I agree with that. That sounds like it could be a logical fallacy — you could say it might, but that doesn’t mean it does happen.
Martin: No, this says nothing about what is. This is something suggesting a model which would provide a finite universe, but it doesn’t claim that this is what is actually the case in reality.
Cassius: Right, so I mean I think that is actually the kind of thing where reasoning and abstract thought, once it gets completely away from any kind of evidence, can lead you into the weeds. I mean it’s interesting, but if you can’t test it — I don’t know what it means, it’s hard to say.
Martin: The thing is, we have done some tests, and so far we don’t see this. Everything behaves. Of course, the general theory of relativity leads to some bending of space, but if you go beyond this known effect of bending, there is no further curvature of space which would indicate this possibility of a finite universe. And this would also immediately open the question: what is that fourth dimension?
Cassius: Right, yeah. Maybe that discussion is a great introduction to moving to the next section, because this is a very well-known example that he gives in the next passage about a dart or a javelin. This is what Elaine mentioned — you can visualize what he’s about to say here. He’s telling you to think about the example of taking a javelin in your hand and throwing it, and asking yourself: if it could continue on indefinitely, would it ever hit anything that would stop it at the end of the universe, or would it continue to fly on indefinitely? Maybe the first comment I’d like to make about that is that this is probably him coming up with an example that says, don’t just think about possibilities — visualize a reality and consider whether you can visualize there being an end of the universe.
Elaine: This section on throwing the dart makes me think of the Truman Show. Did you ever see that?
Martin: No.
Elaine: It has Jim Carrey in it, and he grows up in this idealized, Disney-fied kind of 1950s childhood and everybody’s friendly and riding their bicycles around. But it’s all a TV show — a reality show — and he was raised from infancy with all these actors playing his friends and his family, and it’s in this giant dome. So the sky is a dome, and he finds the edge of his world. It’s a disillusioning moment, of course. That would be what it would be like if you had an edge. There could be an outside where we could be people running us in a sim. This relates to that whole thing.
Cassius: His sailboat — the dart. Yes. Yeah, right. He sails to the edge of the world, to the sky. Martin, since you’re more of a Star Trek original series fan like I am, that reminds me of the episode called “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky.” I don’t know if you remember that one or not, but they lived in a globe that they did not realize was a spaceship, and so a few of them would occasionally climb the mountain and touch the sky and realize that there was an edge to their world. That’s a terrible example — in terms of a terrible thing to live under. But I know, Elaine, you were talking about watching some of the series, so when you get to that one, that’s one of the better episodes — one of the very best.
Elaine: Yeah, I remember that vaguely from when I was a kid. So he’s asking you to visualize: can you touch the edge of the universe, and then think, well, what’s on the other side? Is that in the Letter to Herodotus — where you reach the edge of the universe and you’d be able to stick your arm out and extend?
Cassius: I think in the Letter to Herodotus — I don’t recall whether he uses the javelin analogy there or not, but maybe the point here is that it’s a difficult thing to get your arms around, to consider that the universe might not have an end. But it’s also difficult to get your arms around the idea that the universe has an end to it. And ultimately, in order to have a clear mind and confidence in your conclusions, you’ve got to become comfortable with one type of visualization. He’s suggesting that this visualization of your dart flying through infinity is just as easy — or easier — to come to terms with than it hitting the edge of the universe.
Martin: But again, this is assuming Euclidean space, and if it’s on the surface of a hypersphere, then it will just go on a bent curve and you eventually arrive at the starting point if you try to reach the end.
Cassius: Yeah, I think that’s a good point. He’s talking to people who are not necessarily familiar with Euclidean or other complicated geometry or math. He’s trying to address the concerns of your common-man type of person who is smart enough to think about whether the universe has an end or not, but not a dedicated scientist himself to come up with mathematical theories about it.
Martin: Right. In this case, if we take that standpoint, then it immediately follows that the universe is infinite.
Cassius: Yeah. I mean, this is related to this whole issue of how non-physicists, non-mathematicians today overcome superstitious supernatural thinking. It’s better — unless they want to get into the physics, which many of them will not want to — it’s good if they can have some simple ways to realize these points that we’re talking about, so that they can fully convince themselves that there’s no supernatural out there looming around ready to come down on them, or reward them after life and make them postpone living. That’s something we come back to over and over again — that we’re not all scientists, and we have to have a practical way of looking at things that gives us some guidance when we don’t know all the information we would like to know. So this next section — I think this is what you actually touched on earlier — this is our observations about edges: we see one thing bounds another, the air bounds the hills, the hills the air, the earth shuts up the sea, and the sea surrounds the earth. “But this great all, nothing exterior to itself can bind. You can’t bind something from outside if there is no outside.”
Elaine: Yes. That’s the list of practical observations that show us the analogies we point to. So how this is different from imagining the two-dimensional bodies in the three-dimensional universe is that it’s not adding qualities that we would have to just guess existed. It’s not changing anything, so it’s different from that kind of extrapolation.
Cassius: This next section seems a little dense to me, starting with around line 1006, just because of the way it’s worded — it may be a little confusing. So I think let’s look at some other translations. Actually, let me go to Martin Ferguson Smith, because sometimes when things are a little confusing he is good for that. All right, so he says: “Therefore the nature of space and the unfathomable depth of its abyss is such that not even streaks of lightning gliding through the desert of eternity could career through it in their course, nor could their progress diminish at all the distance that remains to be traveled — such is the immensity of the area of space that everywhere lies open to things, infinite in every direction on every side.” Okay, and then: “Furthermore, nature denies the aggregate of things the power of confining itself within limits, since she compels matter to be bounded by void, and void by matter, so that by their alternation she makes the universe infinite. Or else, even if one of the two component parts were not bounded by the other, the extent of its own simple substance would be measureless.” So you would have either measureless matter or measureless void. “But if space were finite it could not contain an infinite amount of matter, and if the aggregate of matter were finite, neither sea nor land nor the lambent precincts of the sky, nor the race of mortals, nor the sacred bodies of the gods, could subsist for one short hour of time, for the fund of matter rich depart from union would be disaggregated and carried through the vast void — or to be more precise, it would never have concreted to create anything, since its disconnected elements could not have been united.”
Martin: So this actually goes against the Stoic argument, even though it predated it. If you had infinite void but finite matter, the matter could never come together — it would be disaggregated.
Elaine: Yeah, that’s making it more clear now.
Cassius: The bottom line being just what you said — the point being that there’s only two elements, matter and void, so there’s no third thing that can be the limit to matter and void. So you’ve got those two things to start with, and then you have to ask yourself: well, is one of them unlimited and the other limited, or are they both limited, or are they both unlimited? And you come to the conclusion that the only way things can hang together is if both of them are unlimited. Because if matter were limited and void were unlimited, then it would all disperse. On the other hand, if void were limited and matter were unlimited, then everything would be packed together. So both have to be unlimited in order for the universe to survive the way it does. I think that’s the basic point being made here. Is that what you guys say?
Elaine: I’ve been poring over the text and also reading it side by side with the Letter to Herodotus. In the letter, Epicurus writes: “Besides this, we must not suppose that in a limited body there can be infinite parts or parts of every degree of smallness.” It’s kind of going back to what he said before about limited divisibility.
Cassius: Right.
Elaine: I’m thinking more about that the matter wouldn’t have connected with itself.
Cassius: Yeah. I don’t know whether it’s in the Letter to Herodotus or whether there’s just another version — but I have this picture in my mind at some point of a shipwreck floating on the water with all these tiny little pieces floating on the water. The point being that if the matter were limited in number — the pieces of the ship were limited in number — but the sea was infinite in size, then those pieces would always just disperse further and further apart and nothing would ever come together in the first place. There’s so much of this that if we were really being rigorous about it and going back and forth between the Letter to Herodotus, there’d be a lot to pull out of it.
Elaine: So this last section reminds me of looking at the origins of organic life and some of the experiments that have been done placing components of organic material to see if it organizes itself into organic matter under the right conditions without a creator. Kind of the blind watchmaker — how evolution can happen with natural selection, you don’t have to have anything from outside that’s doing this. So this starts off reading from Bailey: “For in truth not by design did the first beginnings of things place themselves each in their order with foreseeing mind” — so there’s no intelligent design — “nor indeed did they make compact what movements each to start” — so they weren’t consciously making agreements among themselves — “but because many of them shifting in many ways throughout the world are harried and buffeted by blows from limitless time, by trying movements and unions of every kind, at last they fall into such dispositions as those whereby our world of things is created and holds together.” So our world of things is not the whole universe. He’s not proposing that the Earth is eternal, but everything that we have was created and holds together because of these interactions of particles. “And it too, preserved from harm through many a mighty cycle of years, once it has been cast into the movement suited to its being, brings it about that the rivers replenish the greedy sea with the bounteous waters of their streams, and the Earth fostered by the sun’s heat renews its increase, and the race of living things flourishes, sent up from her womb, and the gliding fires of heaven are alive. All this they would in no wise do unless the store of matter might rise up from limitless space, out of which they are used to renew all their losses in due season.”
Cassius: He gets poetic again.
Elaine: We should go to Stallings.
Cassius: “Once set in proper motions makes the rivers’ generous streams like the thirsty sea, and makes the earth, warmed by the beams of the sun, renew its brood, and tribes of living things arise and thrive, and quicken celestial fires that glide along the skies.”
Elaine: This makes me think of this “seeing the Earth from space” kind of feeling.
Cassius: Right. Yeah, Elaine, he definitely takes the position that the Earth eventually will be destroyed. Very consistent that everything that comes together eventually is destroyed. The reason I say that is because I relate this to something I continue to remember from DeWitt about the forces of destruction and the forces of preservation. DeWitt talks about that in any local system, in any particular world, anything that has come together will eventually break apart, and then something new is eventually formed. But from the perspective of the universe as a whole, that does not carry through. From the point of view of the universe as a whole, the forces of preservation prevail, because the universe itself is never totally destroyed. It reorganizes itself in its localities, but as a totality it never goes away. And by no means does that mean that the universe is necessarily benevolent or wise or intelligent or conscious, but in the end, if you’re comparing preservation versus destruction, preservation wins out from the universal view.
Elaine: I guess that’s part of the explanation of matter having infinite extent, just like void has infinite extent. If void had infinite extent and matter were limited, then nothing would ever be formed.
Cassius: Right. But that’s not the way things are. But clearly that first passage you’re reading in that section around line 1020 — “not by design did the first beginnings of things place themselves each in their order” — that is a flat denial of intelligent design. It’s a flat denial of any theological prime mover argument. “Nor did they make compact among themselves” — so there’s no supernatural order from outside the universe, nor is there a supernatural order within the universe in which the elements made agreements about how to come into order.
Elaine: That is a flat denial of intelligent design.
Cassius: Martin, any thoughts on this?
Martin: Yeah, so maybe what I can do is make the link again to what we know today. So today we know that the universe dilutes itself over time more and more because of the expansion, and even more from the accelerated expansion because of space itself — that means the void expands. So the conditions under which worlds like ours form — the Earth, for example, or the planetary system around our sun — these conditions will not always prevail.
Cassius: I always like to point out when you say something like that, that you’re basing your comments on the observable universe.
Martin: Yes.
Cassius: And as the observable universe expands, we really don’t have necessarily information on what it’s expanding toward.
Martin: That’s always in our laws of nature as we know them. So our extrapolation is limited at the past — we cannot go completely close to the Big Bang, because our knowledge of the laws of physics has a limit, and the conditions for which we know they are valid are different when we get very close to that Big Bang. So there we know that there might have been some physics which is beyond what we know. But for the extrapolation in the future, there are still some different scenarios, and all of these scenarios tell us that matter will be diluted more and more. For a human, that doesn’t really matter, because we are concerned with our lives today and now, and what we can extrapolate is that in the far distant future, there’s no way that we can see now that mankind would survive long enough to see anything of that to happen.
Cassius: It’s like what you said two or three episodes ago — that from our perspective, just the time of our lives put into perspective with the age of the universe and into its future, it may as well be infinite.
Martin: Yes, exactly. So this Epicurean model of the universe with infinity in every sense — that one just makes sense from a practical perspective for us. There’s nothing that we can observe outside that would contradict our observations and tell us that there’s a supernatural God who wants us to live in some way other than what nature would provide for us.
Cassius: Well, maybe we should begin to think about closing comments for this week.
Martin: For me, that was basically my closing comment for what I said just now.
Elaine: So my takeaway from this is that if you have been listening to the way that he is building this whole structure — he started with the particles and void, and I hope convinced you that that’s what’s going on — and then from that foundation, he has started showing us his cosmology. And if you are making your own cosmology, it’s really important for the parts of it to be consistent with each other, for it to be coherent, and not to say, “Okay, I understand there are these fundamental particles in physics,” and then suddenly throw something into your cosmology that you don’t have any basis for. If you really want something that’s going to hold up for you philosophically, the pieces of it need to come together, and Lucretius has demonstrated this for us very nicely.
Cassius: Very good, very good. Okay, well in our next episode we will move to the end of Book One. We will discuss how the universe does not have a center, and we will then set the stage to move to Book Two, which continues our exploration of the details of the physics of the universe and moves us on to the point where we can apply that to the question of whether we have souls, and life after death, and things like that. But for the moment we’ll bring this to an end and be back soon.
Elaine: I can’t wait till we get to Book Four next year. What part of that is what you’re thinking about? Is that your love part or?
Cassius: What part of that is what you’re thinking about? Is that your love part?
Elaine: The sensations and images.
Cassius: Oh yes. Book Five too. Actually, it looks like — I’m looking at my table of topics on the wiki — Book Three is more the issue of whether the mind and the soul are mortal or not. So Book Two is going to continue basically on more about the atoms and the physics, and maybe he’s still in Book Two hammering the point that there’s no supernatural beings. The Stallings titles for the books are pretty on the point — Book Two is called “The Dance of Atoms.”
Elaine: Well, it’s interesting to think about why he separates the topics between Book One and Book Two. I don’t know exactly what the logical division is there.
Cassius: I would say that the universe itself being infinite and eternal and made up of atoms is being established in Book One, but I’m not sure what the logical division would be with Book Two. We can talk about that — because of course if he’s following an order that goes with the Letter to Herodotus, I guess it’s most important still to establish that the universe is natural and not governed by supernatural powers, and so maybe we have more to cover on that before we move to whether we have eternal souls or not.
Martin: Yeah, going from the topic of atoms and then eventually cosmology — it sort of narrows down throughout the following books until the last one.
Cassius: Yeah, okay — already called for closing comments. Shall we close for today?
Martin: I think so.
Elaine: I think so.
Cassius: Okay, well, thanks everybody. We’ll be back in a week or so.
Martin: Okay. Thanks.
Elaine: Bye.