And why twelve fundamentals of physics (if that is the correct classification), but not a numbered list of anything else?
The Twelve Fundamentals - Discussion on Lucretius Today Podcast
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Just FWIW I see that the Long article I cited is the source for this comment that I remembered about the comparison of DeWit's and Clay's list.
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A question and an observation:
Are you positing a difference between these two?
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.
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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.
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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 Cassiusnot 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.
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After reading my post from last night in the light of day, I can still feel my visceral reaction to that Stoic article. However, I ask the forum: Am I being too harsh?
Epicurus certainly didn't spare his barbed words for people he disagreed with, but he also said it's better to believe in the gods than it is to accept hard determinism.
To me, though, it seems like accepting one's Fate decreed by Providence is combining *both* the gods *and* determinism and trying to sit that fence must surely be uncomfortable in the end. But if they find pleasure in "believing" that, am I to point out the precariousness of their position?
It seems to me that Epicurus also held that the best way to live was to understand how the universe actually works in reality.
Thoughts welcomed (at the risk of hijacking this thread).
This thread is becoming a catchall for everything it seems, but I realized this morning I had another comment on this post from Don.
This kind of reaction to supernatural religion is exactly the kind of reaction I think Epicurus had, and I suspect that Epicurus thought that *this* was actually his main "calling in life" for his philosophy. Yes the goal of pleasure and the mechanics of reaching it are very important, but they come *after* one has first rejected the supernatural / providential / "idealist" nature of the universe. And one does that - one gains confidence in rejecting the supernatural / providential / idealist viewpoint - through the epistemology and the physics.
That's the focus of Lucretius' manner of presentation to Memmius, that's the focus of what appears to be the *first* letter of Epicurus (to Herodotus), and I strongly suspect it was the focus the school as a whole. In addition, I think that also needs to be "our' focus on Epicureanfriends as well. We don't need to lessen the importance of pleasure-seeking or anxiety-avoidance, but we need to keep them in their place, which is the path we take *after* we first establish the shared groundwork of a natural universe.
So to repeat the point of posting this, I think we begin to see our way to having an impact in real people's lives the more we see reactions like Don had to the Fisher article. The "modern atheists" attack religion and then stop, or else they veer off into "humanism" / idealism. Epicurus was pointing to a different path, and that's the one I think we can accomplish a lot by working to reconstruct and support with modern presentations.
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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.
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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?
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"Drift" is intriguing... with this caveat:
Quote from DonPS: 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?
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Quote from Lucretius, Book 2Display More
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.
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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.
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From a modern perspective:
Swerve vs Drift - What's the difference?As verbs the difference between swerve and drift is that swerve is to stray; to wander; to rove while drift is...wikidiff.com -
Which graphic best illustrates the ΠAPEΓKΛIΣIΣ? 4
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1. (1) 25%
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2. (0) 0%
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3. (0) 0%
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4. (3) 75%
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5. (0) 0%
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6. (0) 0%
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All (0) 0%
Just a quick visual experiment as a point of reference.
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I'm saying 4 with the caveat that that motion can happen more than once over time but not as often as 2.
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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.
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...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?
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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.
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I've never been able to reconcile a 'primordial' downward movement with the concurrent claim that there was no beginning
Isn't it even harder to accept that there *was* a beginning?
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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...
