The Twelve Fundamentals - Discussion on Lucretius Today Podcast

Quote from Don

A question and an observation:

Are you positing a difference between these two?

Quote from Nate

Everything radiates tiny, sensible particles. (EH 46.1-47.2)

Particles flow from things constantly. (EH 48.1-6)

Yeah, I chose to distinguish the proposition that particles radiate from the further specification that the manner in which they radiate is constant. Though, I see your point. I frankly hesitate to distinguish the first two propositions, that the existing things "cannot be created from nothing" and "cannot be destroyed into nothing" as the same thing demonstrating object permanency. I can see that same debate regarding the "multitude of particles and void", which could be separated into two propositions. Being biased with knowledge of the concept of spacetime, I feel the same way about "the universe being boundless" and "its contents being infinite", which both seem to express "spatial infinity" to me.

I'm also not sure we should imbue "12" with some sort of significance lest we go down a Pythagorean path. My personal take was that that was just the number of basic principles of... Something (perception, sensation, physics, etc?) that Epicurus felt was sufficient in a summary to explain what he needed.

Quote from Cassius

And why twelve fundamentals of physics (if that is the correct classification), but not a numbered list of anything else?

See, that's the issue. We have no way of knowing if it was a list of 12 physics propositions or 12 ways of sensing things or 12 basic particles or 12 fill in the blank. All the text does is quote 1 to 3 sentences (the text is unclear) that were somewhere "in the 12 basics". Whether that or those were actually "in that list" or whether they were contained in an explanation of the 12 or in the introduction to the list, we have *no way* of knowing.

PS

Quote from Cassius

not a numbered list of anything else?

We have no way of knowing how many lists, summaries, etc that Epicurus wrote and shared. We've lost too much.

Quote from Don

Quote from Nate

Agreed. Until someone can demonstrate better reason, I'm translating ΠAPEΓKΛIΣIΣ as "[the] wiggle".

Don't get me wrong, I *really* like "wiggle" but...

On a more serious note, do the atoms "wiggle" back and forth or do they veer off to one side or the other at random intervals? The connotation of "wiggle" is that they're vibrating. παρέγκλισις seems to imply the idea of diverging from a set path (hence, "swerve" I guess) but I fully agree with you that "swerve" has too much the flavor of intentionality. κλίσις had to do with bending, inclining, or even the turning of soldiers to the left or right (per LSJ). There was κλίνω bend, slant, lean, wander, stray. etc. The English word used for clinamen or ΠAPEΓKΛIΣIΣ should evoke a random, involuntary action on the part of the atom to deviate from a set direction, itself due to nothing more than the "weight" of the atom "falling" in a straight line.

I'm trying out the idea that particles are "twitchy" and "tweak" when they move. I'm finding that "twerks", "wiggles" and "wags" imply a patterned rhythm that does not reflect the spontaneous, irregular quality of the ΠAPEΓKΛIΣIΣ.

Quote from Nate

I'm trying out the idea that particles are "twitchy" and "tweak" when they move. I'm finding that "twerks", "wiggles" and "wags" imply a patterned rhythm that does not reflect the spontaneous, irregular quality of the ΠAPEΓKΛIΣIΣ.

Well, I applaud you for making the observation of intentionally with "swerve." So, kudos there. Wiggle is the most fun, but still misleading.

Some random synonyms:

veer

drift

pivot

turn

.... Sigh.... Harder than it sounds like it would be!

PS: Do we know if the clinamen is supposed to be a fast swerving all of a sudden or a drifting off to one side or the other?

"Drift" is intriguing... with this caveat:

Quote from Don

PS: Do we know if the clinamen is supposed to be a fast swerving all of a sudden or a drifting off to one side or the other?

Quote from Lucretius, Book 2

The atoms, as their own weight bears them down

Plumb through the void, at scarce determined times,

In scarce determined places, from their course

Decline a little- call it, so to speak,

Mere changed trend. For were it not their wont

Thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one,

Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void;

And then collisions ne'er could be nor blows

Among the primal elements; and thus

Nature would never have created aught.

...

The atoms must a little swerve at times-

But only the least, lest we should seem to feign

Motions oblique, and fact refute us there.

For this we see forthwith is manifest:

Whatever the weight, it can't obliquely go,

Down on its headlong journey from above,

At least so far as thou canst mark; but who

Is there can mark by sense that naught can swerve

At all aside from off its road's straight line?

Again, if ev'r all motions are co-linked,

And from the old ever arise the new

In fixed order, and primordial seeds

Produce not by their swerving some new start

Of motion to sunder the covenants of fate,

That cause succeed not cause from everlasting,

Whence this free will for creatures o'er the lands,

Whence is it wrested from the fates,- this will

Whereby we step right forward where desire

Leads each man on, whereby the same we swerve

In motions, not as at some fixed time,

Nor at some fixed line of space, but where

The mind itself has urged? For out of doubt

In these affairs 'tis each man's will itself

That gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs

Incipient motions are diffused.

Display More

From a modern perspective:

Drift vs. Swerve | the difference - CompareWords

Just a quick visual experiment as a point of reference.

I'm saying 4 with the caveat that that motion can happen more than once over time but not as often as 2.

And my take is that this was the primordial situation with all atoms falling in parallel "straight down." However, once a couple collisions happened, the order was interrupted by collisions and conglomerations in parts of the cosmos. In other parts, the parallel falling continued. And so on.

Quote from Cassius

...the big issue, which appears to be at least in part that the question is how "much" of a deviation occurs.

Is this really a big issue?

Quote from Don

And my take is that this was the primordial situation with all atoms falling in parallel "straight down." However, once a couple collisions happened, the order was interrupted by collisions and conglomerations in parts of the cosmos. In other parts, the parallel falling continued. And so on.

I've never been able to reconcile a 'primordial' downward movement with the concurrent claim that there was no beginning.

I think primordial is the wrong word. (I'm now waiting for Don or Nate to go find where Epicurus used exactly that word )

I think the image of atoms falling in parallel was an imaginary construction Epicurus used as evidence that there must be a swerve. I don't think it was intended to describe an actually existing state of the universe.

If there were no swerve, there would never be anything other than isolated atoms falling in parallel. Nothing more complex than individual atoms would ever come into existence. But other things do exist. Therefore...