Episode 259 - Nothing Comes From Nothing

Welcome to Episode 259 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, 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 texts, 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 at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we are continuing our review of the key doctrines of Epicurus that are featured here at Epicureansfriends on the front page of our website.

This week we will address what Epicurus and Lucretius use as the starting point for the discussion of Epicurean physics: nothing can come from nothing.

Full show notes here: Lucretius Today Episode 259 - Nothing Comes From Nothing

Editing of Lucretius Today Episode 258 is just about complete, and it will be up later today.

In the meantime, the outline for Episode 259 is up in raw form here:

Nothing Comes From Nothing

Our purpose in this series is to highlight:

1. The reasons why the issue is important;
2. The background and contentions of others to whom Epicurus was reacting;
3. The major aspects of Epicurus' reasoning in support of the doctrine; and
4. Takeaway implications of the doctrine.

There's a limit to what we have time to cover, so with these major goals in mind please feel free to make suggestions for additions here in this thread.

Over the next two episodes we'll be addressing Epicurus' big picture views of the universe from a practical point of view... which means: don't expect the last word in the last physics research from us. However, Epicurus had some very intelligent things to say about the universe not coming from nothing (this week) and being infinite in time and space (next week).

There are many youtube videos that cover these issues. Here are a few that talk about how the view that the universe started at a single point in time is by no means universal today:

Physics Videos Discussing Infinite Universe Possibilities:

1.1. Roger Penrose - Did The Universe Begin? https://youtu.be/OFqjA5ekmoY

1.2. Sean Carroll - Did the Universe Begin? https://youtu.be/FgpvCxDL7q4

1.3. Eternal Universe! The New Theory That Could Change the Way We Think about the Universe! https://youtu.be/_TGTcv894j4

1.4. PBS - What If The Universe DID NOT Start With The Big Bang? https://youtu.be/HRqBGnSxzyI

1.5. Celestium: Eternal Universe: The New Theory that Might Change the Way we Think About the Universe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28AstfdTiOA

1.6. Closer To Truth - What Would An Infinite Cosmos Mean? https://live-closer-to-truth.pantheonsite.io/video/what-wou…te-cosmos-mean/

Lucretius Today Episode 259 is now available: "Nothing Comes From Nothing"

I interpret the 'of course' to mean that a Euclidean approach clearly involves chains of deductions.

It is also clear from reading Lucretius and Herodotus that Epicurean physics involves a chain of deductive reasoning, starting with nothing come from nothing as the first deduction.

DeWitt is not the only commentator to take the position that there were twelve fundamentals and attempt to enumerate them - so does Diskin Clay, someone who is well recognized among mainstreatm commentators. His list is much the same, though not identical, to DeWitt's. See Clay's "Epicurus Last Will and Testament."

Also, the reason for the relevance of this is that we singled out "Nothing comes from nothing" so that we could spend more time in the episode on the deductive reasoning process, to illustrate that deductive reasoning, and not "if I can't see it I won't believe it" empiricism, is a major basis of Epicurean physics and therefore the rest of the philosophy as well.

I see Diskin Clay also mentions the Euclid parallel:

Each of the terms of Epicurus’ philosophical testament requires careful interpretation, but taken massively the first paragraphs of the Letter to Herodotus show that Epicurus in ordering, condensing and refining his earlier thought, fashioned a stoicheiosis whose aim is elegantly, if not completely expressed by the requirements Proclus found perfectly fulfilled in Euclid's Elements. Apassage from Proclus’ introduction to the first book of Euclid does not set out all that Epicurus required of his own stoicheiosis, but it deserves study for bringing Epicurus closer to his contemporaries, especially the geometers of the IV century who were at work securing and refining the work of their predecessors. Such an alignment might well seem odd, if not bizarre. A Stoic claimed that the Epicureans never stirred up the “learned dust” (emditus pulver) of geometry“, which goes too far. Such an alignment will not make Epicurus seem a physiologist among geometers. But in his concern for the methodic ordering and presentation of his thought, it does make him a geometer among physiologists.

Thanks for the input on Don's article Pacatus. Just now starting to scan it now and will probably have to come back to it. It is interesting to see that Plato's Philebus is cited early in the article:

According to Karasmanis, the roots of the connection between the latter two concepts are found in Plato’s Philebus in his notion of “apeiron” (“indeterminate”): “Plato’s approach to apeiron is rather mathematical. He ap- proaches magnitudes via incommensurability and not via infinite divisibility. Of course, all magnitudes are infinitely divisible in the Zenonian sense, and therefore continuous. But magnitudes are also dense, in the sense that they include incommensurable cuts. Is there any relation between infinite divisibility and incom- mensurability? Let me continue my reasoning beyond the text of Philebus.

I am sure at some point that someone is going to make some insightful observations after reading that article.

That someone is unlikely to be me.

What I will say is that my gut tells me that people who go down the rabbit whole too far in mathematical theory are never going to accept that no matter how internally consistent their systems might be, Epicurus was going to reject any aspect of it that did not yield practical benefit, or that seemed to contradict the trustworthiness of the senses. I suspect that he was or would have been more than happy to accept any practical benefits that mathematical calculations produced, but to the extent those calculations couldn't be linked to practical benefit, he just wasn't interested in spending his time that way. Nor would he have recommended anyone else do so, unless they experienced pleasure in the chase of the calculations. I understand that's possible - mathematical puzzles can be fun. But i really get the sense that criticism of Epicurus' position is based more on wanting to make him look "anti-knowledge," or the result of the critic feeling hurt for having his or her pet interest disparaged. Just like the rest of the criticism that Epicurus was "anti-science" or "anti-knowledge," those criticisms to me seem vastly overblown.

EDIT - I do however think that it would be very helpful to pin down some of the comments in the article about exactly where Epicurus' first objection to the system started. The article points to one or more initial axioms that Epicurus rejected, and it would probably help to identify what those were. Identifying the initial dealbreaker would be good to keep in memory, while any additional objections would probably be superfluous because once the foundation was rejected the rest would go out the window too. Was it the "indivisibility" assertion or something else? I kind of suspect something else about the presumptions behind the initial setup leading to indivisibility.

Quote from Page 191 of the article

3. The Epicurean Position
For the Epicureans, both issues (1) and (2) in Section 2 were objectionable. Issue (1) was perhaps the reason why mathematics was not part of the Epicurean curriculum, as it did not accord with Epicurean empiricism.

At risk of getting drawn in too far when I should be doing other things (which I suspect is the real objection), what are "issues 1 and 2 in Section 2".....?

Perhaps this:

Quote

Definitions

Definition 1.

A point is that which has no part.

Definition 2.

A line is breadthless length.

http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/elements/bookI/bookI.html

So the objection is that his definitions (a point with no part; a line with no breadth) is "inconceivable" - because we judge what is conceivable by what the senses tell us?) or otherwise not something that we can observe in reality, and thus not relevant to us (?)