Episode 027 - There is A Limit To the Size of Atoms
Date: 07/17/20
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/1617-episode-twenty-seven-there-is-a-limit-to-the-size-of-atoms/
Summary
Section titled “Summary”Episode 027 covers Book Two’s argument that atomic shapes, though various, are not infinite in number but finite — because if atoms could gain new parts without limit to alter their shapes, they would grow infinite in size, which Epicurus has already ruled out. Elaine reads Daniel Brown’s translation, which moves through: the explanation of hard, fluid, and intermediate matter by atomic shape (hard bodies = hooked/branching atoms; fluids = smooth round atoms; fire and smoke = acute, non-hooked atoms); the puzzling case of seawater, which is both fluid and salt (explained by a mixture of round smooth atoms and sharp non-hooked ones); the logical argument that shapes must be finite, illustrated by the impossibility of indefinitely rearranging a small number of parts without adding more and thus increasing size; a poetic passage arguing that without a limit on the best and worst of sensory experience, there could be no distinction between anything at all; and the observation that heat and cold are the extremes with a middle warmth equally distant from both.
The main philosophical discussion focuses on whether Lucretius — and Epicurus before him — are guilty of an epistemological error in this passage: using pure logical deduction to reach confident conclusions about things that cannot be observed. Elaine argues strongly that while using theoretical models pragmatically is legitimate, claiming certainty about unobserved things is a mistake, and one that can undermine the broader philosophy if the model later proves wrong. Martin notes that the phlogiston and ether theories are examples of models that were not exactly refuted but became useless when better models appeared — and that Epicurean atomic theory is in a similar position. Cassius reads from the Letter to Pythocles, where Epicurus explicitly says that when multiple hypotheses all harmonize with the phenomena, it is wrong to choose arbitrarily between them; Charles identifies this as an expression of Principal Doctrine 25. The episode closes with extended discussion of how non-scientists can develop appropriate confidence in the natural worldview without needing physics expertise — Elaine proposes that the key is teaching people to think pragmatically rather than oscillating between total skepticism and unwarranted certainty.
A notable textual discovery in the third paragraph: Lucretius here says for the first time that atoms have “parts” — “three, or a few more” — which appears to contradict the definition of atoms as indivisible. Martin resolves this: the “parts” refer to the geometric structure of the atom’s shape (like a shape with arms or projections), not to actually separable components. Cassius and Elaine explore the implication that this presupposes a limit on the minimum size of parts as well as a limit on maximum atom size, though it is unclear whether Lucretius has stated the minimum-size argument explicitly yet in the poem.
Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius: Welcome to Episode 27 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 Norman DeWitt. Before we start, here are our three main rules. First, our aim is to bring you an accurate presentation of classical Epicurean philosophy as the ancient Epicureans understood it, which may or may not be the same as what you read about Epicurus at other places on the internet today. Second, we aren’t talking about Lucretius with the goal of promoting any modern political perspective. Epicurus must be understood on his own, and not in terms of competing schools which may seem similar to Epicurus but are fundamentally different and incompatible, such as Stoicism, Humanism, Buddhism, Taoism, Atheism, and Marxism. Third, Epicurean philosophy is based on a fundamental view of the universe as natural, and not under the control of any supernatural gods or ideals of virtue. As you study Lucretius, you’ll find that Epicurus did not teach virtue or simple living as ends in themselves, but only as instruments in the pursuit of pleasure. For Epicurus, it is pleasurable feeling which provides the guide to life, within the context of the knowledge that there is no life after death, and that any happiness we will ever have must come in this life. And that’s why it’s so important not to waste time in confusion. Now let’s join the discussion with Elaine reading today’s text.
Elaine: Further, those things which appear to us hard and thick must necessarily be joined together by particles more hooked among themselves, and be held close by branching seeds. In the first rank of these, you are to place the rocks of adamant that defy the force of blows, and solid flints, and the strength of hard iron and brazen hinges that creak under the weight of their gates. But liquids, that consist of fluid bodies, must be formed of seeds more smooth and round, for their globular particles are not entangled among themselves, and their fluid motion rolls on forward with the greater ease. But lastly, all such things which you observe instantly to scatter and fly away — as smoke, clouds and flame — if they do not consist altogether of particles that are smooth and round, yet neither are they formed of hooked seeds, and therefore may pierce through bodies and penetrate into stones, nor do their particles nevertheless stick mutually to one another, as we observe the particles of thorns do. From thence you may easily conclude that they are not composed of hooked or entangled, but of acute principles.
But because you see the same things are both bitter and fluid — as the seawater — you are not to wonder in the least at this. For what is fluid is formed of principles that are smooth and round, but with these smooth and round seeds are mixed others that are sharp and give pain. Yet there is no necessity that these sharp seeds should be hooked and twined together. It is sufficient that they be globular as well as rough, that they be qualified to flow along in their proper course as well as to hurt the senses. And that you may the sooner believe that these sharp seeds are mixed with those that are smooth — from which the body of the sea becomes salt — the way is to separate them and consider them distinct. For the seawater grows sweet by being often filtered through the earth, and so fills hollows where it becomes soft; for it leaves behind the pungent seeds of the rough salt, which are more inclined to stick as they pass along than those particles that are globular and smooth.
This being proved, I shall here join another observation which justly derives its credit from what is explained before: that the seeds of things vary their figure not without end, but after a finite manner. If it were not so, some seeds by an infinite increase of their parts would be of an immense size. For in so small a body as an atom consists of, the figures have not room to change often among themselves. Suppose, if you will, these atoms or first seeds consist of smallest parts — three, suppose, or a few more. If you please, by varying these several parts of one atom or seed into all possible shapes, placing the uppermost below or turning the right to the left, you will find the several figures that every change will give the seed in all its parts. But if you would change its figure still further, you must add new parts to it; and by the same reason you must add still more if you think of changing its figure into more shapes, so that the body must increase in proportion as every new figure appears. And therefore you cannot conceive that the seeds should be distinguished by an infinite variety of forms, unless you admit that they are likewise infinite in magnitude — which, as I said above, is impossible to be proved.
Besides, the embroidered vests of Asia, the bright Meliboean purple dipped in the blood of the Thessalian shellfish, and the golden brood of peacocks glittering with their gaudy plumes, would lie undistinguished, being exceeded by other things of greater luster; and the smell of myrrh and the taste of honey would be despised; and the singing of the swan and the noblest verse sung to sweet music would by the same rule be outdone and cease to please, for other things might arise more agreeable than these. It does: some things we observe may advance into greater perfection, so others likewise may decline and grow worse. For one thing may succeed, another still more disagreeable to the nose, the ears, the eyes, and the taste. But since this does not appear in the nature of things — that there is no certain boundary to what is best and worst — we are obliged to own that matter is diversified by shapes that are finite and within fixed bounds.
Lastly, from fire to the piercing cold of winter a point is set; and so from cold to heat, there are both extremes. For heat and cold are the extremes; the middle warmth lies between both, and fills out the space between them. This warmth is distant equally from both extremes, and is confined by bounds on both sides — kept in on this side by heat, and on that by smarting cold.
Cassius: Thanks, Elaine, for reading that. Wow, I have some reactions to the third section here, but I think we should start with the first. But the third really jumped out at me as very different from anything that we’ve talked about so far. Well, one thing I was going to say — sort of a general framing before we get too far into it — is that in looking at some of the commentators, one of the main points being stressed here is the fact that atoms cannot be infinite in size.
Cassius: Yeah. So all of this is maybe another broad category to consider — something that DeWitt points out regularly — that we are using logic to try to derive the properties of the atoms. We’re not able to see these things, we’re not able to touch them directly. And so this would be another example of how Epicurus is both an empiricist, in a way, and also a logician.
Elaine: Well, and I’m going to say it leads to an important point about the problems with logic — that even if you base extrapolations on what you can see, once you get to the point where you’re making conclusions about things you can’t see, you’re on shaky ground. Let me say it’s practical to rely on reason sometimes. It’s just pragmatic, and there’s no problem with it. But it’s better to maintain an awareness that if you’re extrapolating from something you haven’t seen, there’s a decent chance you’re missing something — and that’s what happened here.
Cassius: Well, what would somebody from that period say in response to that? Epicurus taught, especially in terms of astronomy but in other cases as well, that if you have an explanation that appears to be consistent with the facts, it doesn’t always make a difference if that explanation is exactly what you’d ultimately conclude to be the final one. The important thing is to have an explanation that does not point toward supernatural divine control. And the important thing is that your explanation must be consistent with the evidence that you do have, and it must not rely on something that you don’t have. There’s also the subject of waiting — the fact that you have to wait in terms of reaching the conclusion before you can say with absolute certainty that something is true. But isn’t this like the issue of the stars or the movements of the heavens? It’s an explanation that is reasonably plausible and it gives you some confidence that you’ve got some kind of grasp of the subject without relying on the gods being in control of it — while at the same time you recognize that you may find additional evidence later, just as you were referring to, Elaine, that changes your precise explanation but doesn’t really lead you to another conclusion about the nature of the universe or the goal of life or the role of gods.
Elaine: Okay, so I think we’re not talking about the same thing. If it’s practical and it has use — if you can use the information to make decisions and things are going reasonably well — it’s okay to use. You know, there’s that quote: “All models are wrong, but some models are useful,” and I think that’s relevant to this. So if it’s working okay, that’s fine. But that is a different thing from provisional use of a model versus saying “this is how we know it’s true” and assigning unwarranted certainty. You never need to do that just to be able to use information in planning or making decisions. You don’t have to have any degree of certainty or acceptance that it’s true in order to do that. You can just say: this is what we think might be going on and we’re going to use it. I would always keep in mind that whenever you’re forming hypotheses based on what you can see about things you haven’t examined, there certainly could be all sorts of things you don’t know about that would change what’s really going on. I would say this is a mistake not only in the science — which is fine, they didn’t know those things, we don’t know things now — but it is a mistake to hold it with such certainty. I don’t agree with doing that.
Cassius: This could maybe consume almost all of what we discussed today, because I think this is a fascinating issue: the relationship between a scientific theory and what is Epicurean philosophy? Is it really a scientific theory of the precise motion of atoms, or is it a philosophy of how to live given the information that we have? Because there’s tons of material as we go through the book that we’re going to find we disagree with from our modern perspective.
Elaine: So let’s separate out my philosophy and my science, Cassius, because maybe my version of the philosophy is a little bit different. But I see no need to firmly accept information that I have no evidence for. It’s not necessary.
Cassius: Okay, Martin and Charles, you guys weigh in at this point.
Martin: Yeah, so this one just exemplifies how, in the framework of hard body theory — which Epicurus came up with to think about the atoms — the variety of phenomena like hard bodies, fluid bodies, smoke can all be explained by attributing these kinds of properties to atoms: that they have particular shapes which would lend themselves to make compounds, or which would rather lend themselves to stay separate and be more like a gas. So from that point it’s acceptable to me. But of course we cannot expect that this model — this idea we have to make the whole thing consistent — is factual.
Cassius: Martin, you have a very scientific background — as much as Elaine, or I started to say as much or more, but it’s just a different background: she’s medical, you’re physics. Tell me what you think about the role of a preliminary theory, or an interim theory, or the allegation that I think is pretty clear throughout a lot of Epicurean philosophy — that it’s more important for you to have a plausible theory that gives you something practical to work with than it is to be absolutely correct. What is your perspective on that?
Martin: I mean, basically I fully agree with whatever Elaine has said today so far. I just gave this comment that it’s still useful to have these speculative ideas which are presented here, because they can show that within that simplistic model there is the possibility to explain it all — and that is simply the purpose of it. For practical reasons, the ancient Epicureans did not know — and did not even have to make these kinds of assumptions about the atoms — because it didn’t matter.
Cassius: Okay. Where I’m going with both Elaine and with you is this: I think both of you in your fields always keep in mind that there will be new evidence from new scientific research every day, every month, every year, every decade from now on. And yet you don’t consider that your current understanding of the way to live is threatened or undermined by the knowledge that your precise understanding today may be overturned tomorrow. You still have a general framework in which you have confirmation and confidence in your own mind that the operation of these physics or medical issues are natural and ultimately a function of elemental particles — even though we may call them something different and understand them differently. You have a confidence in the way to live today that is not threatened or undermined by your knowledge that your precise understanding tomorrow may change. I think that’s an explanation of what you and Elaine both are doing. Is that the way you see it or do you see it differently?
Martin: It’s similar to this. I guess Elaine is more confronted with change, because you can probably often find that a newer study with better sampling or better analytical methods contradicts a past result and so gets to something better. In physics we don’t have it that much. Of course sometimes it happens that a theory gets outright refuted, but more typically those older theories just get abandoned because the newer ones are simply more powerful from a practical perspective and also from the power to explain things. And then there are the two prime examples I often refer to — the phlogiston theory for heat and the ether theory. In all their variations, they are not refuted in those aspects where they would give measured predictions. They have been set upper limits to those boundaries where phlogiston and the ether would have made predictions, and eventually it turned out that these two concepts are just not useful and they have been replaced with better models. So there is a difference between what we see in physics and in more practical sciences. Go ahead, Elaine.
Elaine: No, go ahead.
Cassius: Well, I’m just trying to continue to follow this line, and again I’m going to put myself in the very simplistic, common, everyday, uneducated category of people. And Charles is somewhere close to me. Many people listening to the podcast are not going to be specialized scientists. They’re going to have a wider gap and less confidence in their own understanding of the way the world works and the way the universe is set up. But everybody, in their own context, confronts the issue that they don’t have all the information they would like to have. Even you guys — with the physics and medical research — don’t have all the information you would like to have about how things actually work. And you keep in the back of your mind that some parts of your understanding may change with new research. But how do you incorporate that on a daily life basis — to both be comfortable with a lack of total knowledge and yet have confidence that in general Epicurus is correct? That there are no gods, there is no life after death, that there’s no reason to be targeting anything other than pleasure and pain as the guides of life? How do you balance those competing considerations?
Elaine: Okay, so for me this is not something that you should have to be specialized to understand — we just are not teaching it. So it’s not true that there’s either only a sort of faith-like “we’re going to accept this as true because it’s that way” versus total skepticism. I think that is a false dichotomy. The most common approach — which is actually what I observe ordinary people doing — is pragmatism: “this looks most likely and we’re going to go with it.” They may not explicitly be aware that they’re doing that. But with education, they can be taught to understand that that’s what they’re doing, and I think it would be extremely important to teach people that for their own pleasure. Because it would keep them from thinking that the options are just “total I give up, who knows anything” versus “we’re certain about this.” It would keep them from going down — well, maybe some of these conspiracy theories that make people unhappy. If they could take a more pragmatic approach and be okay — have a little negative capability, as Keats would say — leaving some questions open does not have to lead to distress. But you have to have some practice at it. There’s no reason you need a Ph.D to be able to learn to think like that, and I would educate everybody about those things early on.
Cassius: Let’s go to Charles for a down-to-earth perspective too.
Charles: Well, a lot has been said. I agreed with you when you were responding to Martin about the importance of whether or not this knowledge has practical use. I think it’s necessary that ideas and theories have to be accepted at first — sort of like a stepping ladder to build off of — as opposed to just total suspension of judgment about knowledge.
Cassius: Well, Charles, your background is closer to mine probably — you’re not a trained scientist in any field that I’m aware of. How much importance do you put in your own calculations? How much of your confidence, for example, that there’s no life after death, is based on study of physics or biology or things like that?
Charles: Oh, that’s a tough one. I’ve always held something like an interest in the study of nature and sciences — chemistry in particular — but it’s never been a career path or a specialized interest. And so for those questions like life after death, is there a god, and all that — I came to those conclusions way before I started taking scientific studies seriously. And I didn’t look at those through a lens of confirming my religious beliefs, but it certainly reinforced what I already thought. That’s not the reason why I’m looking into research or reading articles on scientific sites or things going on in the medical industry.
Cassius: Right. It’s like there is nothing in it that — it just confirmed the direction you’re already going.
Charles: Yeah.
Elaine: So let me put another problem that I see in stating things as facts that you haven’t seen, based on extrapolation from an abstract process. Not only can it lead to wrong conclusions that will cause you to sometimes take action against your pleasure — that definitely happens — but it’s a habit of thought. So if you do it here about physics, you’re going to be in that habit about other things. And that is a habit that is counterproductive to pleasure in general. But here’s another thing: if that is the way you think, I know — I wasn’t raised religious, but I know people who became non-religious who were raised in religions where you accepted the whole biblical teaching, or whatever religion it was, as a total system. Kind of the way Epicurean philosophy is — it’s a whole-cloth thing. If significant parts of that system that you’ve been told are right you find out directly are not true, that ends the religion for you. People learn some science things about the age of the universe, the age of the earth, or things like that and say, “Okay, well then maybe the rest of this is wrong,” and that’s a mistake. You shouldn’t set your philosophy up on that kind of foundation; it’s flimsy. So I don’t do it as an Epicurean. I don’t have any trouble with leaving things that are not yet known as empty places on the abstract map. It doesn’t bother me at all. So if some of the things that Epicurus thought were true back then turn out not to be true, it doesn’t undo the structure of my philosophy. Which is a risk if you’re making all of your reading about why the philosophy is valid based on particular scientific claims — you’re going to think, “Well, that was wrong, so what about the rest?” But I just don’t think that’s necessary.
Cassius: Elaine, maybe we should address the question that I asked Charles a minute ago — in your situation, where did your confidence come from in your conclusions about life after death or the lack of supernatural control of the universe? How much of your conclusions derive from — you’ve discussed in the past that your father was a physics professor, and so you’ve had a lack of religious background. You’re probably in a very small minority of people in at least the United States who had that kind of background. But regardless of how many people have that background, do you find most of your confidence coming from that early teaching of a perspective from your parents, or from what?
Elaine: So yeah, I think mostly from science — not just from physics, but from neuroscience. And I think physicists and neuroscientists have the highest percentage of atheists; I may be wrong about that, but I feel like I’ve read that at some point. Evolutionary biologists also. I have this biology background and there’s just no — I’m like, where would you put the supernatural? I don’t see any room for it. So all those things together. But I don’t have a strong background in physics per se. I mean, I’ve read Victor Stenger’s books, but I took physics 101 or 102. Of course, my dad talked to me about things, but it’s not like I have a real strong background in physics; I was never a physics major or minor or anything like that. So I don’t think you need that much. And I do know other people who, just from reading something like a pop-science book — like Victor Stenger’s stuff — you can get enough of it, even if you don’t remember all the details, to make progress. And then especially some of the pop neuroscience is sufficiently convincing. But you know — Epicurus had a strong emphasis on science at his feasts. You’re going to have to teach people some science if they’re going to be able to understand this. But I would teach it in the proper form, which is not total skepticism, but also not strong confidence in things that you haven’t observed. So it’s a third option.
Cassius: Well, part of my perspective as I think about what we’re reading here is that I’m gathering he’s dealing with third century BC people who don’t have nearly the scientific understanding that we do today on a general basis. So he’s talking in many cases to ordinary people, but he’s also talking to his students who are aware of the different philosophies that were competing with his in Athens. So I’m thinking there are several different levels going on here — that he’s including enough physics and general understanding of nature that anybody who comes into contact with the philosophy needs to understand, but he’s also concerned with issues like — I think this section today is probably leading up to this issue of: is there a limit on the size of an atom? Although we haven’t really gotten to that part of the detail of the discussion yet, that seems to be the conclusion he reaches: “I shall join another observation that justly derives its credit that the seeds of things vary their figure not without end but are finite.” There are logical implications in his mind that he’s dealing with — an allegation that the atoms might be infinite in number or infinite in size, that probably goes back to some of the earlier logical arguments from Parmenides or others about all the issues involved in the concept of infinity. So there are several different levels that these things have to be analyzed on. You can really go down rabbit holes in any direction — you can go down a rabbit hole of physics and talk about the minutiae of why his theories have been superseded by our own knowledge, and you can go down a rabbit hole of dialectical logical arguments about whether motion is possible and infinity and zero and things like that. But I guess normal people aren’t generally going to have to deal with issues like that in their day-to-day life. But I think Epicurus thought it was important to be able to provide a background so that if you were in a context where you needed to deal with those challenges, you’d have a plausible response to them.
Cassius: Let’s go back to Martin again. Your background and your orientation — a lot of people come to Epicurus through Lucretius and through the science arguments about the swerve and so forth. Is that where you see your primary connection with them, or in another area?
Martin: So let me answer it first in the sense of the earlier question. My confidence of no afterlife is not so much coming directly from physics, but rather indirectly — any assumption on something supernatural being significant is superfluous. There’s nothing from the phenomena we see for which we need anything supernatural to explain it. Yes. And the other thing is the obvious abuse of religion for political purposes. This shows that religion was just a smokescreen created by people who were basically irrational and then used by others.
Elaine: Yeah, I really feel pretty strongly, Cassius, that the reason you and other people who don’t have a strong science background find this sort of esoteric or unnecessarily geeky to talk about is because our education system is so poor. I don’t think any of this — some of the basic things that we understand now — is over the head of average people. They’re just not being exposed to it in the right way of thinking about science. But when I look at this, it looks to me like Lucretius here is doing something that really the philosophy says not to do. Overall, the process has used observations and has not gotten abstract beyond what you can observe. And here he’s doing it. And it turned out to be wrong. So I would like people to take a lesson from this: use caution with making conclusions about things that you have not tested.
Cassius: I think your summary is clearly exactly what Epicurus and Lucretius are suggesting that people do. Maybe they had a more sliding scale — and I think they did, in the sense that if they were confronted with what they considered to be a problem they felt they needed to deal with urgently, they were more willing to take a position on it than on some theoretical issue that had no implication to them. I’m thinking that they wanted to be more confident in certain areas we’re discussing here because they saw specific threats from other philosophies that they thought they needed to counter, such as the infinity issue.
Elaine: In doing that, don’t use the tools that you have already noted as a problem with this philosophy. That is what I’m saying. It winds up undermining your philosophy to do that. I think it was a mistake. It’s rare — it’s rare that I’m going to say that — but I would be surprised at myself if I didn’t think that certain things Lucretius said were maybe mistakes. And I think this was an error: that they used logic in a way that was not supported by testing. Even if it’s a defense against your opponents, these are tactics that you’ve already said are wrong. Don’t use your opponents’ tactics.
Cassius: Charles, I don’t know if you’re able to help me remember the applicable statements from the Letter to Pythocles. But when Epicurus discusses the astronomy issues, he makes several specific statements to the effect that we don’t necessarily have to have a theory of everything, and that if you’ve got a plausible theory — or if you have several plausible theories — he takes the position that if you have several plausible theories and you don’t have the ability to choose between them, it’s absolutely wrong to go ahead and choose arbitrarily between them. If you know your evidence is limited and there are several possibilities, it’s important for you to keep in mind that each of those possibilities could be valid. There are issues of epistemology and the canon here that are part of the overall philosophy even when we’re in the middle of detailed discussions of the atoms.
Charles: Yeah, I don’t remember exactly where that is in the Letter to Pythocles, but I know there’s a section where he talks about having multiple theories and whichever ones harmonize well — or sort of like, if you accept one thing and then deny another because what you accepted seems more consistent — right here: “But when one accepts one theory and rejects another which harmonizes as well with the phenomena, it is obvious that he altogether quits the path of scientific inquiry and has recourse to myth.” Right, right.
Cassius: You can’t pick and choose between them when you don’t have enough evidence to do so. If the evidence supports a conclusion, then you need to pick and choose. But if you don’t have enough evidence, that’s when you wait until you have more evidence to take a position. Because you can’t just accept the one that is more appealing to you.
Elaine: Right. If you’re taking a position because you think it’s a better argument against your opponents, or that people will like it better, then you shouldn’t do it. And I feel like that’s what’s being done here. I disagree with the direction.
Cassius: Go ahead, Charles.
Charles: It’s like Principal Doctrine number 25: “If on each occasion, instead of referring your actions to the end of nature, you turn to some other, nearer standard when you are making a choice or an avoidance, your actions will never be consistent with your principles.”
Cassius: Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. That actually brings me to a point we haven’t really discussed so much. A lot of people are drawn into Epicurean philosophy by Lucretius, or the fact that he was such a widely known proponent of atomic theory alongside Democritus back then. That’s fascinating to a lot of people, and so they’re drawn in by the scientific aspect. And the question then gets raised: was Epicurus a scientist? Was he a natural philosopher? Was he a natural historian? It’s been discussed before that the study of nature isn’t for the sake of science alone.
Charles: I believe that is what Lucretius here is trying to do. He is trying to provide an explanation that justifies his ethics. And if sometimes that required logic, then I feel he would be forced to use it.
Elaine: So do you understand what I’m saying — that if you prematurely accept conclusions because you think they support your framework, you could wind up undermining your happiness? Because it is hard to choose the most pleasure if you’re not getting an accurate picture of reality and the consequences of your choices.
Cassius: Yeah, I think Epicurus would absolutely agree with the way you just said that, Elaine. Yeah, so that is contrary to what he’s doing here. I’m not sure we’re ready for closing comments yet, but we’ve kept the discussion at a pretty general, high level today without really discussing any particular sentences up close. Elaine, is there anything in particular — I know in general everything you’ve said today and I agree with the general point — but is there anything in particular from among this text that you wanted to point out before we begin to reach the end of today’s session?
Elaine: Okay, well actually — I wanted to get to the third paragraph here in the Daniel Brown translation, which is the first time that he has actually said the seeds have parts. “Three, suppose, or a few more.” That is really different, because we’ve been talking this whole time that the seeds were the smallest parts. But now he is talking about the atoms having parts — like three or a few more. So maybe everything that’s been said previously is not talking about the seeds as the fundamental particles — the elementary particles — if they have parts. This is more like an atom having parts and subatomic particles. Or it almost sounds more like he’s talking about molecules as the seeds and atoms as the parts. But I’m not sure — I just think that’s really worth noticing, because I don’t think at any time before has he said that a seed has parts.
Cassius: Martin, can you help us with that?
Martin: Yeah, I thought about this differently. If we start from his concept of hard bodies as atoms, he came to the view that they need to have quite complex shapes. And then of course if you take a complex shape, you can break it down into parts — you cannot actually take that atom into these parts; it’s just that you can identify that maybe there are four arms coming out of this, okay — then this is an atom which has four arms. And by adding more arms you create different atoms — just from the geometric construction. It doesn’t mean that you actually build that atom from the arms; it’s just that when you create a geometric shape you can identify the parts of that shape and add more. But it doesn’t mean that the atom is created of these parts. I think he’s referring to this way of thinking about the atoms — that these are the parts of the atom geometrically. So it’s not that it can actually split into these parts; it’s just that the shape is like built from these parts.
Cassius: Okay, well, that’s not entirely clear which way he’s doing it, but I could see that as a possibility. I’ve read some detailed articles on this subject, and Martin, your direction is consistent with what I’m understanding most things I’ve read to be saying. Because obviously Elaine’s comment is correct — if the atom can be divided into parts, then it’s not an atom in the sense of an atom, because atom means “undividable.” So the question is: does this undividable atom have any kind of shape to it? And if it has a shape, does that mean there’s a top and a bottom or a left and a right? Does that mean there’s an edge? In fact, there’s one of the books — isn’t it? — on the “angle” of the atom, meaning apparently the edge of the atom or whatever. So no doubt there was a lot of theoretical discussion about whether an atom actually has sides and a shape. And you used the word “arms,” Martin — I’m gathering that’s probably what is being talked about here. Because he cannot have admitted that the atom can actually be divided into parts — because then it’s not an atom.
Elaine: So this argument is kind of assuming — okay, the geometric parts, not the separable parts of an atom. You have to imagine that the parts themselves have a limit to their smallness, or this doesn’t work. Right? Because you could make a certain three-dimensional shape — it doesn’t have to get larger just because the contour changes, unless you are saying that there’s a limit to how small a part can get. Does that make sense?
Cassius: Well, yeah. I guess he’s also concerned about the limit of how big it can get. If you say that there’s an unlimited number of parts, then presumably he’s deriving from that that somebody who alleges it has an infinite number of parts is going to be trapped into concluding that it’s infinite in size as well — because no matter how small the part is, if you keep adding them on, it gets bigger.
Elaine: Yeah. But you could still have a limit to smallness, because you could just make each part smaller when you added new parts. Right? So you’ve got both sides: if you have a limit to smallness — no matter how small it is, as long as it has a limit, it’s got some size to it — and so if you say that that thing of very small size, you have an infinite number of them, I think you’re almost trapped into saying that the whole is infinitely large in size. Right? That’s what I’m saying: if you don’t state the part about the limit to smallness, you can’t make the part about largeness being an issue. You have to have both.
Cassius: And I don’t think he’s gotten to that about the limit of smallness yet. Or Martin, you probably can answer that better than me — do you recall whether he said that there’s a limit of smallness already?
Martin: I don’t think this was said anywhere in the parts we’ve read so far.
Cassius: Okay, all right. That’s one thing I wish I’d devoted my life to the study of this book and were reading it every day — I’d be able to immediately answer that question. I feel confident that it’s in here somewhere, but I don’t recall whether we’ve had it or not. So just — you need that if you’re going to use that kind of logic. You have to have that, or it doesn’t work. Okay, now would be a good time to begin to think about closing comments for today. Who wants to go first? Martin always, Martin always goes first.
Martin: Okay, yeah. So in this section Lucretius gives examples of how this atomic theory works out, starting from the two simplistic models of atoms as hard bodies. Then he comes to the — then false — conclusion that they have these hard body shapes, which then need to have all kinds of hooks or something to be able to make compounds. But it doesn’t matter that this one turns out to be at least misleading compared to modern science. Because it just exemplifies that within that theory, things could be explained in full — and that is the value of it. Even though it should not be taken as a claim that this is in some way the truth; it’s just one model which follows from some basic assumptions of atomism and follows from there. And the other thing is that by adding, now implicitly, that there is a minimum size of atoms, this puts a limit on how many different atoms there can be.
Cassius: Okay, who’s next? Charles, go next.
Charles: I don’t have any closing thoughts — none this week.
Cassius: Okay, I guess mine would be — which I’ll probably say again here or there — that you can disagree with the strategy being used in Lucretius and still be an Epicurean. Yes. And I would add to that: to me, this is an example — I think we’ve had one of our better discussions today — even on a section that really doesn’t seem to have immediate practical use. If you just picked up Lucretius and went to this page and you’re a normal person in the year 2020, you’re going to read this and almost definitely roll your eyes. But the things that are being wrestled with here are really deep but really practical to us even today. We have a much higher level of scientific understanding even among normal people who don’t have a very good education than they did in 300 BC. And yet we still have the same issue: no matter how educated we are, we do not have — and we’re not going to have as long as we live — all the information we would like to have about how exactly things work together. And so we have to have in our own minds, as a philosophy, a frame of reference in which we decide what is important for us to know, what is not important, and what we’re going to base our day-to-day decisions of life on. And that’s where Epicurus leads in exactly the right direction. Elaine has pointed out over and over today that the specifics of his understanding of science have proven to be incorrect, and yet the ultimate conclusion he reached — I think most of us here today would say — is exactly correct: that ultimately, no matter what your level of scientific understanding is, nothing leads to the conclusion that there’s a supernatural divine fate that controls your life, or a set of ideal virtues that tells you how to live. You basically have the feelings of pleasure and pain, and the basic understanding that the universe is natural in form, and from that you live your life as best you can. And Epicurus is a great guide for how to do that. Okay, anything else for today from anybody?
Cassius: No? That’s it. Well, again, I think this has been one of our better discussions in a while, so I will work on getting this out to the internet as soon as possible, and we’ll do it again very, very soon. Thank you very much.
All: Thanks. Bye. Thank you.