Episode 259 - Nothing Comes From Nothing
Date: 11/18/24
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/4149-episode-259-nothing-comes-from-nothing/
Summary
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Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius: Welcome to episode 259 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucious who wrote on the Nature of Things, the most complete presentation of epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the epicurean text and we discuss how epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of epicurus@epicureanfriends.com where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes this week will be devoted to a discussion of the first of a series of important principles of epicurean philosophy that we feature@epicureanfriends.com. The first and second of these principles are devoted to issues of physics and that requires an explanation and a forward so that our listeners can get the most out of these episodes. We often find that many readers of epicures are resistant to going through the details of lucretius, going through the details of the letter to tus or otherwise attending to the specific discussion of atoms and void and the way the atoms move to which much of epicurean physics is devoted. In these episodes, we’re going to work as hard as we can to show you why skipping over these portions of the text can be a significant mistake. What we hope to do in these basic episodes is to bring out the why and the how of what Epicurus was doing with his discussion of physics, why he thought it was important and why it remains important today, even if details of our understanding of physics have changed, but even more importantly than why there is the issue of how he reached his conclusions, because the method of approach that Epicurus took in physics is the method he applied to his entire philosophy, and if you don’t understand the method that he’s using for his physics, you’re not likely to understand the method of approach that he’s using in ethics because they are closely related to each other. Today’s focus is going to be on the principle that Lucretius sets out as the starting place of epicurean reasoning about the nature of the universe, the issue of nothing coming from nothing. This is a subject that’s covered in chapter nine of the dewitt book under the title the New Physics, and the first thing that Dewitt says in this chapter is quote, in the epicurean scheme of knowledge, the physics takes precedence over the ethics because the physics furnishes the major premises from which the nature of the soul is deduced and the proper conduct of life is formulated. The sensations, anticipations and feelings that is the canon are not represented as furnishing the contents of knowledge, but as being instruments of precision by which the certainty of knowledge is tested at all times. When we look at lucious to see where he first brings up the issue of nothing coming from nothing just before he starts that process, this is what Lucretia says, and this is coming from the Loit edition line 1 46 of book one, this terror of mind. Therefore, and this gloom must be dispelled not by the sun’s rays or the bright shafts of day, but by the aspect and law of nature. The first principle of our study we will derive from this that no thing is ever by divine power produced from nothing. Now before we even get into the nothing aspect of that, I think that what lures is saying is what Dewitt is trying to focus on, that the simple receipt of a sensation, the simple view of something or hearing of a sound does not produce content that our minds understand in the form of a finished opinion. It produces raw data that then must be processed. This gets into the issue whether epicurean philosophy is limited to an empiricist view of everything and what role deductive reasoning has within Epicurean philosophy. The point being made here is that while the sensations anticipations and feelings are the instruments of precision as to which says it by which the certainty of knowledge is tested at all times, the actual knowledge itself comes from the deductive reasoning process, which is based on the information from the census. And while that might seem like a minor point, it’s extremely important in terms of analyzing the credibility of epicurean philosophy and applying its method to the way we live today. Therefore, as we go through this issue of nothing coming from nothing today, it’s not going to be sufficient for us to say epicure as hell, that nothing comes from nothing and then turn to modern science or anyone else’s opinion and just compare the finished opinions. The important thing is going to be to go through the process of reconstructing how Epicurus came to the conclusion that nothing comes from nothing, and in doing so we’ll see the depth of procedure that Epicurus was following and that will allow us to fit together this idea that all sensations are true with the larger picture of how it’s the aspect and study of nature with aspect and study of nature, meaning not simply observation but reasoning based on the observation. Here’s another statement from Dewitt that’s relevant to this. From page 25 of his book, the Adoption of the Euclidean textbook as a model involved the procedure by deductive reasoning. The 12 elementary principles were first stated and then demonstrated like theorems. Each theorem in turn once demonstrated, became available as a major premise for the deduction of subsidiary theorems. The truth of this subsidiary theorem is then confirmed by the evidence of the sensations which operate as criteria. The mistake of believing epicurus to be an empiricist must be avoided. It is not his teaching that knowledge has its origin and sensation. The status of the sensations is that of witnesses in court and is limited to confirming or not confirming the truth of a given proposition. Dewitt describes it further this way. The supreme requirement on the part of the student is to be able to handle smartly the synoptic views and the supreme objective is the perfected precision or perfection of detail. The method of procedure to adopt the phraseology of Plato and Aristotle is not from the particulars to first principles, but from the first principles to particulars. The reasoning is deductive. For example, let it be assumed that the problem is to decide whether the number of worlds is finite or infinite. The student has learned among others the following principles. Number one, that the multitude of atoms is infinite, and number two, that the void is infinite in extent from the first. It follows that the supply of atoms of any different kind could not be exhausted by the creation of one world or any number of worlds. From the second principle, it follows that space would not be lacking for any number of worlds, therefore the number of worlds is infinite or to express it differently. If the number of worlds were finite, the universe would not be infinite. Now, before Lucretius turns to discussing the specific observations and his deductions about them, lucretius gives us a reason why this is so important. At line 1 46 right after he says that, the first principle of the study is that no thing is ever by divine power produced from nothing. Lucretius says For assuredly, a dread holds all mortals thus in bond because they behold many things happening in heaven and earth whose causes they can by no means see, and they thank them to be done by divine power for which reason. When we shall perceive that nothing can be created from nothing, then we shall at once more correctly understand from that principle what we are seeking, both the source from which each thing can be made and the manner in which everything is done without the workings of Gods. Now lu is then going to turn into the specific questions that we’re going to address as we go forward today, but let’s talk for a minute about the implications of why nothing from nothing is important to epicure and philosophy, not just as a matter of science, but for purposes of having confidence that you can live successfully and happily if you follow a reason to course of conduct following the evidence of the senses and not get sidetracked by groundless concerns about absolute virtue or the dictates of supernatural gods. And so now we’ll address why does the question of whether nothing comes from nothing matter and in addressing the question of why nothing comes from nothing matters. I think we’ll also find what is equally important is the question of how we can be confident that nothing comes from nothing matters almost as much or more than the answer to that question.
Joshua: I’m going to start with an analogy that was used by Douglas Adams. He was a science fiction writer and people probably know him from his most famous book, which was the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in a different book called The Salmon of Doubt, hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time. He deals with the question of how we living in the cosmos should come to think of the place we find ourselves in. And he uses the analogy of a puddle and he says this, this is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking this is an interesting world. I find myself in an interesting hole. I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly? Well, it must have been made to have me in it. This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up as gradually the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be all right because this world was meant to have him in, it was built to have him in it. So the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something that we need to be on the watch for. It gives a hint as to the nature of the question throughout the time period that we’re most interested in, which is from the Socratic philosophers starting at about the fifth century BC all the way up to the present day, and there have been numerous ideas put forth as to how things came to be. Of course, the most common idea throughout history has been things exist because the universe was created by God. There’s going to be some overlap with what we talk about today and what we’re going to talk about next week when we get to the infinity and internality of the universe. But some of it deals also with this question of nothing comes from nothing because as you put in your outline, Cassius, one of the ideas that was put forth particularly among the Greeks was that the universe originated in a state of chaos and that order was a later innovation introduced onto a state of chaos. And in fact, just as Lucretius starts his explication of nature with the claim that nothing comes from nothing by the will of the Gods, epic started his own quest in philosophy after a teacher in philosophy failed to explain to him convincingly the nature of chaos. And so this is very much a point of origin for both of them. So you have this general idea that there is a God over the universe and that the God is what put things into motion. The God is what gave rise to what we see around us, the things that exist. And as time goes on in the ancient world, you have philosophers dressing up this argument with logic and one of those philosophers was Aristotle. And Aristotle has left a number of arguments for the existence of God and most of them come down to causation. There has to be a cause. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. Everything that moves was put into motion by something else, and if you follow that chain back, Aristotle thinks there has to be a first cause. There has to be a prime mover. Something’s got to get everything into motion. And when I spend time on Reddit today, the most common argument that I see for the existence of a God is the cosmological argument and the initial syllogism for that argument, I’m reading off of Wikipedia now, goes like this. I mostly associate it with William Lane Craig, who’s one of the more skillful Christian apologists. He puts forth the argument like this, everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause and there is a analysis of this argument and we’ll probably get into some of this next week. The universe that Epicurus and Lucretius offer is very different to this universe, the universe of the prime mover and the uncaused cause. And I go back to John Del’s Belfast address. John Tyle was an Irish physicist living in the Victorian period at the end of the 19th century and in his address he has high praise for the early materialists including Epicurus who he mentioned several times and lucious. And in one particularly important passage, he has this to set quote the Italian philosopher, Giordano Bruno was one of the earliest converts to the new astronomy, the astronomy of Copernicus who in turn was reviving the astronomy of Arista, of Samos, the first Greek thinker to place the sun at the center of the solar system. John Tyndall goes on to say this, taking lucious as his exemplar, he revived the notion of the infinity of worlds and combining it with the doctrine of Copernicus reached the sublime generalization that the fixed stars are suns, scattered numberless through space and accompanied by satellites which bear the same relation to them that our earth does to our sun or our moon to our earth. This was an expansion of transcendent import, but Bruno came closer than this to our present line of thought, struck with the problem of the generation and maintenance of organisms and duly pondering it. He came to the conclusion that nature in her productions does not imitate the technique of man. Her process is one of unraveling and unfolding the infinity of forms under which matter appears. Were not imposed upon it by an external artificer, by its own intrinsic force and virtue it brings these forms forth. Matter is not the mere naked empty capacity which philosophers have pictured her to be, but the universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb and the atoms are the seeds of that fruit. The atoms are the unmoved mover, the atoms are the first cause. And so when I think about the things surrounding me, the chair, I’m sitting in the table in front of me, it does me no good to think that a God must be the first mover that led to a long chain that resulted in the table. The atoms that composed the table are the first cause. They are the prime mover and the image that John Tindel gives us of matter as the universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb is almost directly taken from Lucious. Lucious in book two says this, and chief of all the earth hath in herself first bodies wence the springs rolling, chill waters renew forevermore. The unmeasured Maine hath wence. The fires arise for burns and many a spot her flad crust will the impetuous Aetna, a volcano in Greece raves indeed from more profounder fires and she again hath in herself the seed wince she can raise the shining grains and glad some trees for men wince also rivers, Frans and glad some pastures can she supply for mountain roaming beasts. Wherefore great mother of gods and mother of beasts and parent of man has she alone been named the earth or nature more broadly and we see the same sentiment in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet when Pryor Lawrence and his monologue says the earth, that’s nature’s mother is her tomb. What is her bearing grave that is her womb and from her womb children of diverse kinds spring forth. So the answer for an epicurean is not that there is no un cause, not that there is no prime mover, but that the atoms, the seeds of things themselves are that first cause.
Cassius: Yes, all of that takes us to the point of understanding that from an epicurean perspective there is no problem of there being a first cause because the things we see around us do not arise from some kind of will or intelligence that’s imposed on inert matter from the outside. The point that an epicurean takes is that it’s the matter itself which has the capacity within itself without an external supernatural force over it to generate everything that we see. Now we see in the letter to Tus where Epicurus gives us a very brief summary of this starting around line 38. He talks about how important it is for each mental image to be clear and how we must keep all of our investigations in accord with our sensations and in particular with the immediate apprehensions, whether of the mind or of any one of the instruments of judgment and likewise in accord with the feelings existing in us in order that we may have indications whereby we may judge both the problem of sense perception and the unseen. Now I think that last part here is a reference to what we’re talking about, that there are certain things that the senses do reveal to us. We can hear things, see things touch certain things. Those things that we can see and touch and hear also have to be evaluated in our mind so that we can make judgements about them and come up with true opinions. That’s one category of problem that confronts us is those things that we can sense. But there’s the whole second category of things that are not perceptible to our senses that we also have to make judgments about in certain aspects of life. And this is where the only thing that epicure says in the letter to Ous on this point is this very brief passage that says, having made these points clear, we must now consider things imperceptible to the senses. And here’s where he says first of all, that nothing is created out of that which does not exist for if it were everything would be created out of everything with no need of seeds. Now let’s turn to the issue of why and how. Epicurus concluded that nothing comes from nothing and epicurean is not going to believe that nothing comes from nothing just because Epicurus said so and so Epicurus gives not just a proposition that nothing is created out of that which does not exist, but he gives the evidence and reasoning behind the proposition and that’s where he explains that everything would be created out of everything with no need of seeds if nothing could come from nothing. That’s where the sense come in. The observations of seeing, hearing and touching is that using those we can make observations and see in fact are there things coming into existence from nothing. It’s that process of testing the proposition according to the census, according to the evidence of real life that gives us confidence that it is true. It’s not a matter of confidence in the authority or in some theory that has no ability to be tested. It’s a confidence that comes from having the attitude that you’re not going to believe anything, that you cannot have some way of testing and determining whether the evidence that you have around you supports it or not. And although Epicurus in the letter to Tus is giving just a brief presentation of the entire system, and although we don’t have the full 37 books on nature where he goes into much more detail about his reasoning, what we do have left to us in Lucretius does give us several more examples of how this testing process is applied and it is worth the time to take a few moments than just at least mention each one of them. The explanation that we see in Lucretius for what Epicurus has said, that nothing would require seeds if things could be created from nothing is elaborated on as follows. Lucretius says, ed line 1 59 for things came out of nothing. All kinds of things could be produced from all things, nothing would need a seed. Firstly, men would arise from the sea, from the earth. Scaly tribes and birds could hatch from the sky, cattle and other farm animals and every kind of wild creature would fill desert and cultivated land alike with no certainty as to birth. Nor would trees be constant in bearing the same fruit, but they would interchange all would be able to bear all seeing that there would be no bodies apt to generate each kind. How could there be a constant unchanging mother for all things, but as it is, because every kind is produced from fixed seeds, the source of everything that is born and comes into the borders of light is that in which is the material of it and its first bodies and therefore it is impossible that all things be born from all things because in particular things resides a distinct power. So the first of these arguments is this seed argument that everything that we do see around us seems to come from some germ of an existing material item. Trees, plants, animals, everything has a seed which generates it consistently. And if in fact it were true that seeds were not required, this list of examples that Lucretius has just given is what we would expect to see. You would expect to see birds pop into existence out of the air with nothing preceding it whatsoever. You would expect men to be born out of the sea, you would expect fish to be born out of the earth and you would expect birds to just simply hatch from the sky if in fact seeds were not required, you would be seeing these other things happening and you don’t. The fact that you don’t is what tells you that the theory that seeds are not required is wrong. Before we move on to the next example, it’s worth pointing out here that this is the procedure that we’re going to follow. Do we see something happening that would be consistent with a proposition, for example, that things can come from nothing. Another way of looking at it would be what about the proposition that the universe is superintended by a supernatural God? If a supernatural God were in fact controlling the world and our lives. We would see miraculous things happening all around us all the time. Things that violate the regular procedures of nature and we don’t see those things. We see allegations within religious communities that miracles happen, but that’s very slippery to ever validate and see, again, a miracle on call so to speak. And that’s of course a very deep subject on its own, but the same test that supplied to the conclusion that everything must come from something else, from its own particular seed could be applied also to the question of supernatural gods. If there are supernatural gods, there will be supernatural events happening all around us all the time. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see those supernatural events happening all the time. Therefore I can be confident in any conclusion that there is not a supernatural force manipulating our world.
Joshua: This part of the first book of Lucious is really good in part because it provides a lot of information about some of the thought of these particularly pre-Socratic philosophers in the ancient world because in addition to dealing with what would happen if things didn’t require seeds, he’s also dealing with ideas like homeo. Homeo Marie in the ancient world was the idea that everything is made of little bits of its own self bone is made of little bits of bone and no matter how far down you go, you’re just going to find more little bits of bone. Wood is made of little bits of wood and just as he is doing here, Lucius is taking to task all of these alternative ideas. So it’s not as if he’s just latched onto Adams, he’s considered essentially the whole field of thought. In the ancient world, people thought that the four classical elements of earth, fire, water, and air were at the foundation of things. And he has taken all of this into account and he’s gone through the procedure, Cassius, which you have suggested and which duet is laid out, and he simply asked if this explanation were true, does it accord with what we see in nature? And of course the answer in these cases is no, it does not. And Lucretius as one example, he says, if fire came from little bits of fire and wood comes from little bits of wood, then how does fire come from wood? Questions that are so simple but that really get to the heart of the problem in these physical systems of these other philosophers. Book one is really good for that going through each argument systematically and dealing with them and the atoms are what emerge out of this metaphorical chaos of other ideas because they stand up to the test that these other arguments fail. I’ll go back again to John Tyndall. He says this, the problem which had been previously approached from above was now attacked from below theoretic effort passed from the super to the subs sensible. It was felt that to construct the universe an idea it was necessary to have some notion of its constituent parts of what Lucretius subsequently called the first beginnings. Abstracting again from experience, leaders of scientific speculation reached at length the pregnant doctrine of atoms and molecules, the latest developments of which were set forth with such power and clearness at the last meeting of the British Association, thought no doubt had long hovered about this doctrine before it attained the precision and completeness which had assumed in the mind of Democrats, a philosopher who may well for a moment arrest our attention. Few great men says Lang a non materialist in his excellent history of materialism to the spirit and to the letter of which I am equally indebted, have been so despitefully used by history as Democrats in the distorted images sent down to us through unscientific traditions that remains of him almost nothing but the name of the laughing philosopher. While figures of immeasurably smaller significance spread themselves out at full length before us, Lang speaks of Bacon’s high appreciation for Democrat. It is evident indeed that Bacon considered Democrats to be a man of weightier metal than either Plato or Aristotle. Though their philosophy was noised and celebrated in the schools amid the din and pomp of professors, he goes on to say it was not they Plato an Aristotle, but the barbarian who sacked the Roman empire, who destroyed the atomic philosophy for at a time when all human learning had suffered shipwreck. These planks of Aristotelian and platonic philosophy as being of a lighter and more inflated substance were preserved and came down to us while things more solid sank and almost passed into oblivion. He’s referring there to aism this kernel of knowledge from the ancient world that was almost lost because it answers so many of these questions that these other theories fail to answer.
Cassius: Yes, Joshua, that’s the key. The theory of aism answers the questions that these other theories fail to answer, and the reason they fail is that they can be shown to contradict the things that we do see around us. Like I said, we started with this issue that anything could come into being without any need for fixed seeds, which is the first argument given us by lucretius and is the main argument presented in the letter to HERIs about this. But Lucretius gives us several additional arguments that I think we can learn from by seeing how the same procedure is applied. I’ll go through these quickly and then we’ll come back and discuss them as a group. The next one is that if things did come from nothing, things would come into being at any time. Now, Lucrecia says it this way at 1 74 or again, why do we see the roses in springing and the corn in summers heat and the vines bursting out when autumn summons them? If it be not that when in their own time the fixed seeds of things have flowed together, then it is disclosed each thing that comes to birth while the season is at hand and the lively earth and safety brings forth the fragile things into the coasts of life. But if they sprain from nothing, suddenly that arise at uncertain times and in hostile times of the year since indeed, there’d be no first beginnings, which might be kept apart from union at an ill starred season. So the first observation is that we see that things need seeds. The second observation is that we also see that things come into being at a regular schedule. In general. You see the seasons proceeding consistently over and over and over again, and the life that we have here on earth adjusts self to those seasons so as to be born and live successfully. And something is needed to coordinate that seasonality. And since something is needed, it’s a fair conclusion that there is something that brought these things into being and not nothing nothingness itself could not control seasonality. The next item is this. If things did come from nothing, they would grow at any pace. Now that’s different than the seasonality aspect of when things start coming into being. Lucious is making the observation that things proceed through life at a regular pace. Here’s the way he says it. At 180 4 na more, there would be no need for lapse of time for the increase of things upon the meeting of the seed. If they could grow from nothing, for little children would grow suddenly to youths and at once trees would come forth leaping from the earth. But of this, it is well seen that nothing comes to pass. Since all things grow slowly as is natural from a fixed seed, and as they grow, preserve their kind so that you can know that each thing grows great and is fostered out of its own substance. Again, the argument being that the atoms are providing the pacing of growth. And again, if there was nothing to provide that pacing, we would not see it happening. The next item is this. If things did come from nothing, there would be no regularity in the seasons. Lucius says it this way, we’ve touched on this, but at 1 92, Lucius says there is this too, that without fixed rain showers in the year, the earth could not put forth its glading produce, nor again held apart from food. Could the nature of living things renew its kind or preserve its life? So rather you may think that many bodies are common to many things as we see letters are to words, then that without first beginnings anything can come into being. The next argument is that if things can come into being from nothing, nature would produce men of superhuman size and strength. So we started out with just the bare fact of their existence, the time at which they come into existence, the pace then at which they grow, the regularity of the seasons in which they come into existence, and then the size and strength of things that nature produces. Lucretius at 1 99 says once more, why could not nature produce men so large that on their feet they might wade through the waters of ocean or render sun mighty mountains with their hands or live to overpass many generations of living men, if it be not because fixed substance has been appointed for the beginning of things from which it is ordained, what can arise? Therefore, we mis confess that nothing can be brought into being out of nothing in as much as it needs to seed from things from which each may be produced and brought forth into the general breezes of the air. And then the last of the ones that lucretius mentions is that if things did come from nothing, there would be no reason for us to plow the ground as crops would come into being without any work from us. At 208, Recia says lastly, and as much as we see that tilled grounds are better than the un tilled and when worked by hands yield better produce, we must know that there are in the earth first beginnings of things which we call forth to birth by turning the teeming sods with the plow share and drilling the soil of the earth. But if there were none such, you would see all things without toil of ours, of their own will come to be far better. So what we have here is a series of arguments, all of which are in the form that if things did come from nothing, then we would see X, but we don’t see X and therefore we can conclude safely that things don’t come from nothing. That’s the general format of the argument. It’s not an argument from authority on the basis of epicurus or any other wise person who used to simply take their word. It’s something that you can observe. You can test through your senses to see whether in fact these things are happening or not. And when you see that they’re not happening, a theory which would support them happening must be incorrect. And at that point in the discussion, it would be good to remember that as epicure said to Les, what we need for successful and happy living here on earth is an understanding of the general principle that all things operate naturally and without these arbitrary and hateful supernatural causes of harm. That doesn’t mean that we need to know the exact mechanism by which nature operates. We don’t know. We can’t know all the details about the way that nature operates. If we can determine that there are one or more reasonable possibilities for how the universe operates, then we can take comfort and move on with our lives knowing that we don’t have to worry about supernatural arbitrary punishment.
Joshua: Yeah, that is the key point because as you’ve been going through this list, Cassius, the thing that’s been occurring to me is everything that lucretius attributes to the atoms, Greek mythology attributes to the gods. How did the seasons come about? It was because Hades opened up a hole in the earth and swallowed Persephone daughter of deme and deme her in her grief through the whole earth into winter for six months out of every year almost everything on this list, you could point to a myth that is a violation of the general rule that things require seeds. They require the first beginnings, they require the atoms to work. It’s very much the case that the atoms are taking over from what had been attributed to the gods in these passages. And when you read it with that in mind, it becomes, I think, a lot easier to focus your attention on this stuff. I think the first time I read Lucius, I was somewhat bored probably, but when you go into it with the right frame of mind and you consider the import of what he is saying in every passage and what it means for the broader conclusions of human life, and as you said of human happiness, it becomes a much more interesting and indeed subversive poem in part because he is stealing metaphorical fire from the gods and giving that fire over to the Adams as the natural heirs of the explanation of how things work.
Cassius: Yes, it’s definitely subversive if you’re coming at it from the established elite that pushes supernaturalism as a basis for religion and authority and the state and so forth. But if you look at it from a more positive perspective, it’s revolutionary in a very good way. Like you mentioned Joshua, the Prometheus analogy, all the different things that have brought benefit to mankind. And of course Lucretius carries that analogy in discussing about how Epicurus is almost godlike in the blessings that he’s brought to people by showing them how to throw off the chains literally and figuratively of oppressive religious dogma that has no basis for it. And that contradicts the things that we can observe. Sometimes we run into questions about the details. We discussed that recently in our discussion of determinism and whether the swerve in fact is the explanation of free will or not. In going through the details of this argument and some of the other physics arguments, we see that what Epicurus is doing is not just taking some arbitrary position. He’s deducing the possibilities by comparing the possibilities to what we can observe. If multiple possibilities exist about something, then he’ll rank what he thinks is the most probable of the possibilities. But the real importance of this entire process is in the conclusions that you come to in realizing that some answers are in fact possible, that everything is not equally possible, that there’s not some supernatural arbitrariness that, but for the supernatural force, everything would be chaotic. There is an order in nature of nature within nature that is not what we superimpose on it as an order in the sense of a command given by a God. The universe operates regularly because of these atoms that we’re talking about. But again, when we talk about atoms, we’re not suggesting that Epicurus was predicting that in the year 1900 or 2000 or whatever, there would be a certain configuration of particles that we would conclude to be something we want to call an atom. He’s just basically saying that there is at some deep level and indivisible particle, and at this deep, smallest level, the particle is what provides the regularity and predictability that we see in the universe around us. It’s not something superimposed on the particles, but it is the particles themselves. Now, my point in bringing that up was that I don’t think an epicurean today should be wedded to a particular physics description of what the full list of particles is or is not, or exactly how they interoperate with each other. What Epicurus is saying is that as long as you’ve got a reasonable framework for analysis, the details can be filled in if and when you get the additional information that would allow you to do so. But if you don’t have the information to say that particles X, Y, and Z are doing specific things, what Epicurus is saying is that the final explanation is not something that is necessary in order for you to have confidence that at this atomic level, at this particle level is where things are operating naturally and without supernatural influence. It’s the confidence that the conclusion is going to be there, even though you don’t know the exact details. Whenever I say that, I always like to go back to Lucians Alexander the Oracle monger, where he specifically says that Epicurus or someone like him might not have been able to immediately understand how Alexander was deceiving the people with his snake, but Epicurus would’ve been confident that in fact there was a deception and that it could be understandable given enough time and ability to investigate it. That’s the kind of confidence that I think Epicurus is pointing to by following this procedure of testing someone’s suggestion of a supernatural against the things that you really observe. Ultimately, it’s the test of what you really observe that allows you to conclude whether something is true or false. So for today, our goal has been to address this question of nothing coming from nothing, all of which leads back to the conclusion that there are no supernatural forces over and above the universe, that the universe has within itself the capacity to do all that we see around us. And that whether we’re talking about multiverses, big bangs, steady states, any kind of theory that the latest modern information leads us towards, all of those come under the category of natural explanations that do not require some kind of a supernatural add-on command from outside of nature. So we’ll turn to more of the implications next week as we discuss the size and age and the universe, but it all starts in the epicurean reasoning process with this phase of observing and concluding that nothing comes from nothing. As we come to the end of our episode today, let’s see if we have any final thoughts. Joshua,
Joshua: I think it’s interesting to observe the way in which these key points that we’re going through in this series reinforce one another, feed into one another. We talked about necessity as you read there in Lucretius, food doesn’t just spring into existence. We have to cultivate it, and so atoms does entail necessity of a kind in some areas. Epicurious, as we quoted, says that some things happen by necessity, some by chance, some by our own will. In the book of Genesis, it’s a curse that man has to labor for his food. This is the result of sin in that story. For us, it’s the result of Adams. It’s the result of these first beginnings, the seeds of things, but the necessity that Aism entails also freeze us from a much broader problem, which is grim religion, as Lucious puts it, the shackles of religion, the shackles that Epicurus shatters with his conception of nature. And as you said, we’ll, beginning into some of that next week, I thought of a letter that was written by a poet and friend of several major and very important poets, Lord Byron and Percy Shelley. His name was Horace Smith, and in his letter he writes this, he says, though Shelly is my most particular friend, I regret the imp prudence of his early publications on more points than one. But as I know him, to possess the most exalted virtues and find in others who promulgate the most startling theories, most amiable traits, I learned to be liberal towards abstract speculations which not exercising any painful influence on their author’s lives are still less likely to corrupt others. Truth is great and will prevail. That is my motto, and I would therefore leave everything unshackled. What is true will stand and what is false ought to fall, whatever be the consequences ought we not to feel ashamed that Lucious could publish his book in the teeth of an established religion. While martyrs are groaning in perpetual imprisonment for expressing a conscientious dissent from Christianity, and he goes on to say, human punishments and rewards will generally be found sufficient for human control, so far as it can really be controlled. The hangman is the most effectual devil and the gallows, the most practical hell, the theoretical ones, the ones that come from religion, which could not deter from crime, are seldom much thought of by the rogue until these most tangible ones are about to punish him. Death unfortunately, is another consequence of the material universe that we live in. And for this element of the conversation, we’ll return again next week as we get into questions relating to some of the questions which we’ve already posed. Did the universe have a beginning? Is there a god over nature? The doctrine of aism is subversive, as I said earlier, and one of the attempts to contain this subversive doctrine, this is very interesting. DGen LAIs refers to a possibly Venetian proto philosopher named Moku, sometimes moku of pson and sometimes moku. The Venetian ATUs claimed that he authored to work on the history of Venetia. Strabo speaks of one moku or mosca of Pson as the author of the Atomic Theory and says that he was more ancient than the Trojan War. It is possible that Aism predates the Greek philosophers that we all know by name, but the way that later thinkers tried to contain aism and bring it into Christianity was expressed in this way. According to Robert Boyle, the father of modern chemistry learned, men attribute the devising of the anatomical hypothesis to one MCUs, a Venetian, and Wikipedia says, Isaac Newton, Isaac Koban, John Selden, Johannes Araria, Henry Moore and Ralph Cudworth also credit Moku of Pson as the author of the Atomic Theory, and some of them tried to identify moca with Moses, the Israelite law ringer. This is hilarious to me, but it does suggest one way that these early many of these guys are scientists, these early thinkers, these early inquirers into the nature of things are trying to perform this balancing act of religion on the one hand, but an uninterrupted uninhibited inquiry into nature on the other hand, and trying to balance the two. And I think we should be relieved to know that we do not have to balance the two any longer. The atoms as the prime mover, as the first cause are sufficient, and we don’t need to go looking for any other.
Cassius: Yes, Joshua, that’s a great way to summarize it. In Epicurean philosophy, the atoms serve the role that supernatural forces serve in other religions, other philosophies, other worldviews that rejected Epicurus, and that’s really at the core of everything that Epicurean philosophy stands for today. We’ve mentioned several times Democrats in positive references from other writers, especially John Tyndall, and it’s very interesting to think about how, as you said also, Joshua, all of these ideas come together in a unique way in Epicurus. Epicurus did follow Democrats in certain aspects of his aism, but there are other aspects and very important aspects of Democrat’s views which Epicurus rejected Democrat’s skepticism, Democrat determinism. Those were extremely important to Epicurus to see through the errors that Democrat had made and come up with a correct view of how the universe operates that freezes from determinism, which epicure has held to be as bad for us or worse than belief in supernatural religion. And Epicurus likewise rejected Democrat’s skepticism because what good is a philosophy that says it’s not possible to know anything. So in Epicurean philosophy, as we go through these key aspects of his thought, they come to together into a coherent whole, which is the most important thing that we’re looking to accomplish by going through these key doctrines. We cannot, of course, hope to do justice to each of these doctrines in the short time we have available to us in a Lucretius Today Podcast. But what we can do is summarize the most important points so that people will know what to look for when they do their own research into the details. We’re going to come back next week, and we’re going to bring the physics positions together into the ultimate conclusion that there is nothing outside the universe or before the universe. Again, speaking of the universe as everything that exists, there’s nothing over it to control it, which means there are no supernatural above natural forces for us to be concerned about. We’re going to come back next week and deal with that conclusion, which is probably the fundamental bedrock of Epicurean philosophy. And then in the coming weeks, we’ll take that conclusion and build on it. The other aspects of Epicurean philosophy always remaining consistent with these foundational principles as we establish them at the very beginning. As always, we invite you to drop by the form. Let us know if you have any comments or questions about our work on Epicurus. Thanks for your time today. We’ll see you soon. Bye.