Episode 034 - The Atoms Do Not Possess A Faculty of Sensation
Date: 08/31/20
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/1673-episode-thirty-four-the-atoms-do-not-possess-a-faculty-of-sensation/
Summary
Section titled “Summary”Episode 034 is a three-person episode (Cassius, Elaine reading, Charles; Martin is absent) covering approximately line 865 of Book Two, where Lucretius argues that sensible (sentient) beings must arise from insensible (non-sentient) seeds. The passage opens by appealing to common experience: nothing in experience refutes the conclusion that animals proceed from principles void of sense. Worms apparently arise from putrid earth (the group notes these are actually from invisible eggs); nature transforms food into living bodies much as dry wood is set ablaze. Against the “sensible seeds” theory, Lucretius offers three arguments: (1) sensible seeds would have to be soft — sensation requires nerves, bowels, and veins, which are soft and therefore not eternal; (2) each sensible seed would have to be a complete animal in itself, making it mortal; and (3) even if sensible seeds were both sentient and incorruptible, their union could only produce sentient things — never trees or metals. The egg argument is repeated: sensible life does arise from what was insensible before the animal was formed. The passage closes with the argument that no sense can arise in seeds lying scattered in air, water, earth, and fire before they unite into the proper vital motions.
The group’s first discussion concerns the word “sense” in the text — whether Lucretius means sensory perception or consciousness more broadly. MFS uses “sensible and insensible.” The group decides he is primarily addressing sensory perception: the ability to interact with the environment through the senses. This connects to PD 2 (that which is dissolved lacks sensation, and what lacks sensation is nothing to us), and Cassius notes that Lucretius carefully says “absence of sensation,” not “absence of life” or “absence of consciousness.” The Latin vivus (alive, living) and élan vital are raised as words Lucretius could have used but did not. Plants fall into a grey zone: Lucretius treats trees as lacking sense organs, though Elaine notes plants do have chemical receptors. The hard problem of consciousness is referenced; panpsychism (that matter has some rudimentary consciousness) is mentioned and rejected in favor of emergence through complexity as the explanation — consciousness as an emergent property of arrangement rather than a primitive property of seeds.
The episode’s second half ranges broadly. The worm-from-putrid-earth example leads into a discussion of spontaneous generation and whether the eternal universe implies life has always been arising somewhere. Elaine argues the timescales involved are so large as to be practically irrelevant; whether or not true, it changes nothing about what to do today. Charles raises Book One passages about humans not springing from the sea, which contrasts instructively with this section’s worms-from-dirt example. The Stoic concept of divine fire is briefly raised as a possible analogue to “sensible seeds.” Elaine and Charles discuss silicon-based life via Star Trek’s Horta creature (“The Devil in the Dark”), which tunnels through rock — an example of life arising from non-biological arrangements of matter. Elaine contributes a memorable hypothesis about alien abduction dreams: she suggests they are repressed infant memories of rectal temperature-taking, and wonders whether the new alien-abduction experience will shift to axillary or forehead scanner imagery. Whitley Strieber’s 1990s UFO wave is mentioned. Cassius closes by noting two forum-posted references: Frances Wright’s Chapter 15 of A Few Days in Athens on inert particles with emergent properties, and a Thomas Jefferson letter to John Adams from 1820 arguing that if we accept planetary gravitation without fully understanding it, we must accept that thought and sensation can arise from non-thinking, non-sensing matter. Jefferson’s letter pre-dates Wright’s book by two years; Cassius briefly wonders whether Jefferson plagiarized Frances Wright before realizing the timeline runs the other way.
Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius: Welcome to Episode 34 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. Today we’ll be reading from approximately line 865 in the Latin edition. Let’s join the discussion with Elaine reading today’s text.
Elaine: Now farther, those beings we see endued with sense, you must needs own, are produced from insensible seeds; nor is there anything we perceive by common experience which refutes or opposes this opinion. Everything rather leads us on and compels us to believe that animals, I say, proceed from principles that are void of sense. For we observe living worms come into being from stinking dung when the earth, moistened by unseasonable showers, grows putrid and rotten. Besides, beings of all kinds undergo continual changes. The waters, the leaves, and the sweet grass turn themselves into beasts; the beasts convert their nature into human bodies; and the bodies of wild beasts and birds increase and grow strong by these bodies of ours. Nature therefore changes all sorts of food into living bodies, and hence she forms the senses of all creatures much after the same manner as she quickens dry wood into fire and sets everything in a blaze. You see now it is of utmost importance in what order these first seeds are ranged, and when mingled together what motions they give and receive among themselves.
But tell me, what is it that lays a force upon your mind? What moves you, what drives you into another opinion, that you should not believe a thing sensible can be formed from insensible seeds? Perhaps you observe that stones and wood and earth, when mingled together, can produce no creature endued with sense. But you will do well to remember upon this occasion that I did not say things sensible or sense could instantly proceed from all seeds in general which go to the production of beings, but that a great consequence depends on what size the seeds are that created a being of sense, with what figures, motions, order, and position they are distinguished — nothing of which we observe in wood or clods of earth, yet these when they are made rotten by moisture produce worms, because the particles of matter, being changed from their former course by some new cause, are so united and disposed that living creatures are formed and creep into being.
Besides, those who contend that sensible beings may be raised from sensible seeds — and this you are taught by some philosophers — must needs allow those seeds to be soft, for all sense is joined to bowels, nerves, and veins, all of which we know are soft and consequently liable to change and dissolution. But grant their seeds to be eternal: yet if they are sensible, each seed must be endued with sense either as a part or as a whole, and be like a complete animal of itself. But no single part can perceive or exist of itself, for each part requires a union with the other parts to make it capable of sense; nor can the hand feel any more, or any other part retain its sense, when separated from the body. These seeds therefore must be perfect animals and so unite together in a vital sensibility. But how then can seeds be said to be eternal and secure from death when they have the nature of animals, and are one and the same with them in all respects, and therefore are mortal and must die? But allow these seeds to be sensible and incorruptible too — yet by their union and agreement they can produce nothing but animals and things sensible; that is, mankind and cattle and wild beasts can produce nothing but men and cattle and wild beasts. How then could things insensible, such as trees and metals, have a being?
If you say these seeds in mingling together lose their own proper sense and assume another, what needs you impute any sense at all to them when they must lose it again? Besides, as we’ve proved before, since we perceive the eggs of birds are changing into living young, and that worms break out of the earth when it is made rotten by unseasonable showers, we may conclude that things sensible may arise from insensible seeds. If anyone will assert here that sense indeed may proceed from insensible seeds by a sort of change made in the seeds by virtue of the thing that generates, before the animal is formed, it will be sufficient plainly to show him that no animal can be formed but by a union first of the seeds, nor can anything be changed but by agreement of the seeds — so that there can be no such thing as sense in any body before the animal is completely formed. And for this reason, because the seeds lie scattered in the air, the water, the earth, the fire, nor have they yet united together after a proper manner into any vital motions by which the senses of any animal may be produced in order to guide and preserve it.
Cassius: Okay, thank you Elaine for reading that. We’ve been spending a couple of weeks talking about things like colors and that the atoms do not have color — but now we’re into what is probably a payoff to that earlier argument: if atoms do not have color and other qualities like that, how can they possibly have sense in themselves? And of course that leads us into much deeper issues about whether living beings can come from inanimate seeds. That’s generally the topic for today. Who would like to start? Charles, what do you think?
Charles: I’m rereading all of it. Hold on.
Cassius: It’s always easiest if we go back through the details of each sentence as well if we need to. While you’re looking, we can see from the very first sentence that his standard of appeal is experience. He says: “nor is there anything we perceive by common experience which refutes or opposes this opinion.” We’ve been discussing in some of the threads on EpicureanFriends.com the aspect of the canonical analysis in which you look to see whether there’s anything that opposes or refutes the conclusion. You may not have enough positive evidence to say a particular conclusion is correct, but if you begin to see evidence that refutes something, you can eliminate that particular option among the possibilities. So he’s looking to experience to see whether there’s anything that refutes the position that sensible beings can come from insensible seeds.
Elaine: Yeah. Maybe we should even discuss when he talks about “sense.” It’s easy to start talking about — well, is he talking about consciousness? Is he talking about living beings? But he uses the word “sense” throughout here. Is that the same as referring to living beings, or conscious beings?
Charles: Consciousness. I was wondering that — or if it meant actually the senses.
Cassius: There’s not a lot that I recall on this in the vocabulary texts. Everybody seems to be using the same word there. Let’s go to Martin Ferguson Smith and see what word he uses. That’d be good.
Elaine: I did not have my copy of that with me today. Oh — he uses “sensible and insensible.” Interesting. I mean, when I’m reading this I’m thinking of the senses — and to be able to perceive, the ability to interact with the environment by sensing it.
Cassius: Okay, so MFS says: “Next we must admit the animals that sense and feel are made of insensible particles.” I mean, it’s still related to consciousness, but it’s specifically being able to perceive, to sense — I think. You know, I don’t recall there being a lot of discussion in the vocabulary texts about the word “consciousness” or anything that really equates to that.
Charles: Yeah, maybe it’s a later kind of conceptual language, because I would limit this to the senses. I mean, there are some parallels you can draw with the hard problem of consciousness and so on, but I bet he’s really talking about sensory perception.
Cassius: Which means, presumably, he’s not talking about plants. What do you think about that?
Elaine: Well, I don’t think so. Further down he says, in the third section here at the end, “how then could things insensible, such as trees, metals, have a being?” Okay, interesting. So he’s not seeing plants as having sense organs — which may not be the case. Their sense organs may just look different from ours, because of chemical receptors. There’s a lot of communication going on with plants. I don’t know that we can say they have the kind of nervous system that can have feeling, but you know — probably not the way we think of it, the experience of sense. But yeah, it’s interesting.
Cassius: Yeah. You know, even going back to Principal Doctrine 2, where he says “death is nothing to us but that which is dissolved is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us.” It really is probably a pretty deep issue — he’s equating sense as the indicator of… okay, I’m going to use the term “animate life,” though I don’t even know quite what that means. Animate life — does that mean higher beings above plants? Does it include plants?
Elaine: Well, “animate” means something that moves, right. “Animate life” — that’s a good question. It may mean animus, meaning spirit in Latin.
Cassius: Maybe it’s just as simple as sentience. Well, but what does that tell us? What is sentience?
Elaine: That it’s capable of feeling things — which is very similar to “sense.”
Cassius: Yeah, I was thinking it more in biological terms: having the quality or ability of motion — an animal form. Although plants of course move. A Venus flytrap — that’s animated, right? So let’s look at this a different way. I’m thinking about whether anything that we observe — or that he could observe — would refute what he said in this first section. Paragraph one of Daniel Brown: obviously the worms aren’t… well, I mean they are — so it’s not that you just get the ground wet and worms spontaneously arrive. There were eggs, right? Clearly there are small eggs that they can’t see that they’re not accounting for.
Elaine: Yeah, yeah. But the minerals — I mean, all of those things go into forming the body of the worm according to its DNA template. So they’re incorporated into it — even though it’s not just that you get the ground wet. He didn’t know any of that, but the underlying process of inanimate matter becoming part of the body of the animate — I mean, that’s true. I don’t really see anything to disagree with that basic conclusion.
Cassius: Yeah. There’s a lot of detail in what we have in the first two paragraphs. But I guess in the beginning of the third paragraph is the general topic, which is that some philosophers teach that sensible beings like human beings must ultimately come from sensible seeds — and he’s going to argue that that’s not the case. And so it’s still a matter of some controversy today. This is what they call the hard problem of consciousness. And there are even people who — I think they’re probably wrong — but who still believe in panpsychism: that there must be some property of matter which has rudimentary consciousness, not complex enough to be anything like what we would imagine, but there has to be some kind of property of matter which allows consciousness to arise without it just appearing. But I think the prevailing idea is that consciousness comes about during the process of complexity, and I think this section overall suggests to me that he was going in that direction — that it’s a property of complexity, not of the seeds themselves.
Elaine: Yeah, yeah. I agree with that.
Cassius: Would it be wrong to use the word “consciousness” in what I just said? Would it be over-generalizing to just say the issue here is whether life can come from non-life? Is that what he’s wrestling with?
Elaine: Well, I think that’s at least a parallel — if we stick to what he’s saying, which is the senses. I think that’s really clear. Think about something as complicated as your olfactory receptors in your nose. If you disrupt those — maybe by a COVID infection or some other injury to those receptors — you can’t smell anymore. So you break those apart and that sense is gone. So there clearly has to be a specific arrangement, a complex arrangement, to allow that sensory organ to work — and in your brain to process it — for you to have that experience of smelling something. And that’s not… it’s an emergent property of the arrangement of the seeds. It’s like the words from the letters — not in the seeds themselves. I think that is supported by all of our observations, what Lucretius could make and what we know now.
Cassius: When you first started that last paragraph of your statement, Elaine, I wasn’t completely sure I agreed with it, but I do think it’s very useful to stick with what he’s saying. Because he’s talking about sensation and sense — and that may mean something different to him than it means to us. We don’t necessarily know what implications are behind his use of a particular term at a particular time. So when I look back and continue to think about the parallel between this and PD 2 — when he says “death is nothing to us, that which lacks sensation is nothing to us” — well, you know, all he’s saying is that death is the absence of sensation. He really hasn’t said death is the absence of life or the absence of consciousness. I mean, you can imply all those things. Really, all he has said is that death is the absence of sensation — or, I’m not even sure he’s really said exactly that: he just says that whatever happens at death, you no longer have sensation, and if you don’t have sensation then it’s not relevant to us. So I think your approach of just taking it at face value to start with is probably very valuable.
Elaine: He hasn’t really said the word “life” or “consciousness” or animus or anything.
Cassius: Do they at that time even think about those as being separate things? That’s the question. I don’t know whether they did or not — and that’s what we would have to drill down and find out in order to trace out the implications. But you are right: he is talking about sensible seeds and sensation and sentient beings. Does that equate to the question of life? It’s not obvious to me that it does — it’s probably closely connected, but is it the same thing? What word would he be using if he were talking about life?
Elaine: Vitality — yeah, like I was saying, vivo — “I live.”
Charles: Like maybe something a bit more abstract, like élan vital.
Cassius: Right. And Latin is vivus — alive, living. Yeah. So Lucretius could easily have used something about vivus, and that does not appear to be the word he’s using. He’s using “sensation.” And I don’t know why that would be the case, but that’s what we’re dealing with.
It’s nice to think of sensory deprivation tanks, right? You still have experience even when you’re deprived of sensory input. So sensation is not the whole of consciousness. But I think that today at least we can go further and say that we don’t have any evidence that anything we would recognize as consciousness — that would feel like consciousness to us — is a property of dirt.
Elaine: Yeah, I think that level is the way this is intended and needs to be analyzed. That’s where he’s going with it, even though there may be some distinctions we should probably keep in the back of our minds.
Cassius: That seems to be the direction. The issue that bothers me: what about the idea that if we think this is a matter of life coming from non-living things — I believe there’s a part in the book later on where he says the earth is getting old and doesn’t produce things like it used to. But presumably the process he’s talking about — living things coming from non-living things — is a continuous process that continues to go on. What’s the implication, Elaine, of that? He says the universe is eternal, so these processes should have been going on eternally. There should never have been a time when the process did not go on.
Elaine: Certainly — if the earth was created at a particular time, in a particular explosion, then there’d be a particular time that it first started on earth. But if he’s taking the position that the universe is eternal, then this is a process that should have been capable of going on eternally.
Charles: I’m starting to see some echoes of the previous statements from Book One — about men being birthed from the sea and seeds. I’m seeing echoes of those sections.
Cassius: Oh yes, yes — right. That part was talking about how we just don’t fantastically spring out of nothing. It’s kind of a contrast with this section, where you get the dirt wet and the worms come up. So yeah, he’s kind of — it’s like, in the beginning he said we don’t see that, and then here he’s talking about things kind of springing out of the inanimate elements. But those statements in Book One, Charles — mostly I think they were statements that we do NOT see those fantastical things.
Elaine: Right, that’s what Charles is saying too. It’s like: we don’t see that. And then here he’s talking about things kind of arising from inanimate elements. But I guess the point is that there are predictable appearances — we’re not seeing bizarre and unpredictable things like humans springing fully formed out of the ocean, but we do see worms come out of the dirt. We just didn’t know they were eggs.
Charles: You know, the point you guys are just talking about — I think to some extent that’s addressed in this second paragraph, where he says “I did not say that sensible things could instantly proceed from all seeds in general which go to the production.”
Cassius: Yeah — because that’s really a significant part of the rest of this passage, where he goes back to the argument that the atoms have to be arranged in particular arrangements and motions and orders and positions. That’s what came to mind as a potential contradiction — and it’s probably the answer to his question about what drives you to the other opinion. Because you don’t just see stones and wood and earth mingled together haphazardly and instantly producing men or birds or fish. You don’t see that at all.
Elaine: Back to your question, Cassius — whether this has been just ongoing somewhere in the universe — I don’t think that’s what current cosmology theories support. But I don’t think it matters. It doesn’t really change that I’m not saying anything supernatural. I don’t see any requirement for the supernatural in anything that happens.
Cassius: So I would definitely say there’s no requirement of the supernatural. But as far as whether it makes any difference to you or not — it’s probably because you have not finished watching those Star Trek episodes that you said you were going to watch. Because if you had been watching those, you’d be intimately concerned about whether there’s life out there in the stars or not.
Elaine: Oh, no, no. I’m not saying that’s of no significance. I was actually addressing more your question about whether all of this was constantly going on — you know, humans or other life forms constantly arising, eternally, through this process. And I don’t think we have any reason to think that’s true. But whether it’s true or not would not change anything about what I’m going to do today.
Cassius: Right, right, right. It might change what you ought to do today. But probably would include watching some more Star Trek episodes, so you’d be more acclimating your mind to these arguments. Charles — the physics corner has spoken today about life on other parts of the universe. What do you think about that?
Charles: It’s, um — I know there’s a ton of nuance behind a lot of theories, but I think it’s possible. Just leave it at that.
Cassius: Do you expect astronauts — the further and further they go out — to find some forms of life?
Charles: Not by us. And when you say “by us” — that’s a matter of time, you mean? Or ever?
Cassius: A little bit of both. For the foreseeable future — I don’t know how many generations from now. Yeah, won’t be us in that sense.
Cassius: Elaine, do you follow NASA’s findings on Mars and so forth, and have an opinion about what they say?
Elaine: I look at some of that stuff when it comes up. I just — it’s interesting, so I don’t want to give the idea that I don’t think it’s interesting or that I don’t enjoy thinking about it. But whether there is life right now on other planets, or has been in the past, or will be in the future, is a different question from whether it’s been going on eternally. Those are two entirely different questions. And I feel like you’re addressing really more the first question — could there be life out there, could there have been life before, could there be life in the future. I agree with that; I don’t think that’s unlikely at all. But I don’t think we have anything to support that it’s been happening eternally. Although as Martin will always come in and say — from our perspective of time frames and what we can even imagine — it might as well be, because the timescale is so long. Does that make sense?
Cassius: Yes, yes, yes. I definitely have interest in the idea of life on other planets — before us, now, and later. I think that’s pretty likely and pretty cool. I think what you’re referring to with Martin is one of the general answers to just the issue of eternality: it just doesn’t make any difference, because the time scale involved to us is so long it might as well be eternal from our perspective. From our point of view, as long as you don’t allow the question to plant the seed in your mind of some supernatural factor, I agree it makes no difference. Charles, I hope I didn’t cut you off — were you about to say something else?
Charles: No, not really. Just that it would be unlikely for us even in the future to make contact, just because of our level of technology and the distance required.
Cassius: Yeah, I think that’s probably more something that we will enjoy thinking about but may never actually get to see in person. I know there are a lot of articles out there about why life hasn’t been discovered already, and the issue of whether we should have discovered it already, and whether all those things — I don’t follow that closely either. Some people get really interested in it; others don’t. It’s just a matter of individual taste. Now do I think we have already… no. Those faces they find on the moon and on Mars…
Elaine: I have a theory about all these common visions of people being carried by these beings and having rectal probes. I think they’re having their temperatures taken. I think they’re remembering infant memories. We used to use that a lot — it used to be the main way, and if you really want to know if a newborn has a fever, you’re going to have to check a rectal temperature. But more people are afraid of doing that now; it’s just not the common thing anymore. And so I’m wondering if now the alien abduction dreams are going to be axillary or forehead scanners or something like that. Anyway, that’s my hypothesis about all the alien abductions: I think they’re remembering being babies.
Cassius: It would be very easy to go off on a discussion of UFOs and things like that — I gather they’ve been producing new videos in the last couple of months that supposedly the Navy or the government… Go ahead, Charles.
Charles: I’ve been seeing less and less of those videos lately, compared to like the mid-2000s.
Cassius: Yeah. What’s that — Whitley Strieber? There was a big explosion of all that stuff in the 90s, really. I remember hearing a lot about it.
Charles: People were real excited about it, but there’s still a dedicated crew.
Cassius: Yeah. I was going to make that comment earlier — when we were joking about the Star Trek episodes — it seems like maybe there’s a cultural thing where interest in these things ebbs and flows. And maybe right now we’re not as interested. Back during the 60s and I guess even the type of movies today is a little bit different. It’s not really a type of base exploration as much as it is a Star Wars type of fantasy thing — it might as well be happening on Earth or anywhere else, as opposed to really being about space exploration.
Charles: Yeah, or maybe it’s a bit more grounded, like Blade Runner — it’s just kind of a technology thing, as opposed to exploring the outer reaches of space and coming into contact with new life and new civilizations, where no man has gone before.
Cassius: As Elaine knows by heart from watching all those Star Trek episodes. Yeah. I don’t know that there’s much more that can be said about the text here — it was a small section.
Elaine: Yeah, I was thinking it was long, but it actually is probably a little smaller than others.
Cassius: Now I wonder if there’s any relationship between what he’s arguing against — “you are taught by some philosophers that sensible things can come from sensible seeds” — and the Stoic doctrine of divine fire. Do you think there’s an analogy or a relationship there?
Elaine: Yeah, I don’t know whether the divine fire would have the attribute of having sensation, but I suppose if it’s divine it might.
Cassius: Well, maybe. Maybe there’s at least an analogy, if not exactly what he’s talking about.
Elaine: Yeah. I mean, if you go higher — not to the seeds but to molecules and more complicated structures than elementary particles — you could think about carbon-based life, right.
Cassius: And that makes me think of the Star Trek episode about the silicon-based life.
Elaine: Yes, I do know — Horta. That’s… if I recall correctly, that’s the Horta. You mean that big blob that would sort of ooze along?
Charles: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The tunneling — that’s it, that’s the Horta.
Elaine: Yes, yes. So thinking of life coming from certain arrangements of elements — I think we see that that’s the case. But if you go further down into the elementary particles, there’s not, so far as we know, a “consciousness particle” that has to be involved. So yeah — I think Lucretius’s reasoning process is sticking closer to the evidence here. So I’m okay with what he’s done.
Cassius: Well, in the thread on EpicureanFriends.com I’ve included a couple of references that I think are sort of parallel here. There’s a discussion in Chapter 15 of Frances Wright’s A Few Days in Athens where they talk about how — they use the word “inert” in that description — how inert particles can still have emerging properties that end up with consciousness. I don’t know that I’m going to read that while we’re on the podcast this morning.
And then there’s also a letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams in 1820, in which he kind of says basically the same thing. In fact, when I was posting this I was wondering if he was plagiarizing from A Few Days in Athens — but I’m not sure which of the two came first. Jefferson was making the point that someone who denies to nature the power of having thought processes arise from matter, and says that’s too incredible to believe that a thinking thing could come from a non-thinking thing — that person needs to be asked how the sun can attract planets, and how the motions of the universe can take place at a distance, because we don’t understand that at all either. And yet planets are made of dirt, and yet dirt, when combined together in ways that we don’t understand, can produce all sorts of seemingly miraculous things. So I guess the point being that as hard as it may be for some people to accept that sensation and life and even consciousness can arise from things that don’t have sensation and don’t have consciousness — still, that is the most likely explanation of the way things are.
Elaine: Yeah.
Cassius: All right, Charles — are you thinking of anything else we want to include today?
Charles: No, not really. Like you said earlier, this section is pretty small and we’ve sort of said all that can be said at the moment before going deeper into Book Two.
Cassius: Yeah. Eventually Book Three, where the mortality of the soul is discussed and sensation with the soul. Well, this is hopefully the transition period where we’ve been focusing on some really detailed qualities of atoms, but now we’re moving into that more controversial area you’re talking about — which is life itself. Because a lot of people are going to say they don’t care about atoms, but they are going to say they do care about where life came from and whether there’s a god and whether there’s a supernatural creator that tells us how to live that life — and things like that.
Charles: Right. Whether we have life after death — and that’s pretty closely parallel to what we’re already talking about today.
Cassius: All right, well we can begin to close then. Elaine — all right, I hope y’all have a good week. Yeah, okay — we’ll hopefully have Martin back next week. Thanks a lot.
Elaine: Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.
Charles: Bye.