"Lucretius believed that the sun circled around the earth, and he argued that the sun's heat and size could hardly be much greater than are perceived by our senses. He thought that worms were spontaneously generated from the wet soil, explained lightning as seeds of fire expelled from hollow clouds, and pictured the earth as a menopausal mother exhausted by the effort of so much breeding. But at the core of the poem lay key principles of a modern understanding of the world."
The Swerve is very much the story of how this book was lost and then recovered fifteen hundred years later, and then formed the intellectual framework, according to Greenblatt, that made the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and our modern age possible. According to Greenblatt, none of the great inventions of modern science would have been possible without the foundational insights of Lucretius. His (Lucretius') understanding liberated us from the Dark Ages, from religious war, from the cruel and pointless proscriptions of various Christian sects and the horrific torture, murder and oppression meted out to members of opposing sects and religions.
It is these 'key principles' of Lucretius that Greenblatt discusses at length in his chapter called "The Way Things Are." And it is these key principles that I want to focus on in this post. It is my contention that, given not just modern science in general, but the latest contemporary scientific findings and some simple, common sense introspection based on one's actual experience, that those 'key principles' of Lucretius may be as anachronistic and ludicrous as the rest of it, and the quicker they are recognized as such, the better it will be for all of us.
The gist of Lucretius' revelation is that the world is made up of two things, tiny particles of matter and void. The proof that there is void is that these tiny particles move, something that would be impossible if there were a plenum (a condition where there is no void, but only space stuffed to the brim with matter). These tiny particles, that Lucretius calls matter, are indivisible and eternal. There are many different types of these basic particles and they combine and recombine endlessly to form things. No particular combination of particles is eternal, including that combination of particles that we call human beings, but the individual particles that make up all things, including ourselves, are, themselves, eternal.
What we human beings, are, then, is a particular combination of these tiny particles and the void between them. That's it. There is no soul, no destiny, no purpose and no after life. At death the particles disperse, reorganize elsewhere and that is very much the end of that. There is no God, no guidance, no destiny, just accidental and temporary assemblages of particles; and once you accept that fact, as Greenblatt has done, you can get on with what is truly important in life: the pursuit of pleasure. And it is the liberation from thoughts of an after life and the prejudices and fearful assumptions about a harsh and judgemental God, that have held down human society and it's almost limitless power of invention, imagination and capacity for pleasure.
Okay. So there are two basic things: these tiny particles, that Lucretius calls matter, and the spaces between them, that he calls void. And Lucretius knows there is void between particles because they move. If things were stuffed to the brim with matter, Lucretius reasons, there would be no movement possible. Movement proves the presence of void. Very good. But how do they move? These tiny particles could not possibly be self-propelled. In truth, they do not move, but they are moved. And if they are moved, what is moving them? Let's not go to the very depth of this problem for a moment and just say something that, I think, everyone can agree on. These particles are moved by forces. In fact it is the regularity of these forces and the movements that they engender that allow us to live in a world that is, to a great degree, consistent. Although there is always variety within that consistency, it is the consistent framework within which that variety takes place, that allows us to live a life that is, at least to some degree, predictable, safe and familiar. In fact, the study of these forces and an attempt to understand the regularity of the movements that they cause--whether the people that are studying them believe that they are the random result of a series of accidents or the handiwork of God--this study has been the main thrust of theoretical physics ever since anyone first wondered about the way this world works.
I know that part of the appeal of Lucretius is its simplicity; that it may be comforting to think that all that there is are particles and void, but to this list, simple logic and the most rudimentary observation demands that we add at least a third element....forces. Now some people will even contend that these forces are particles, but they do not contend that they are particles of matter, in the usual way we think of particles, but rather are bundles of quantized energy. Whether there actually are quantized bundles of energy or whether it is our measuring devices that collapse waves of energy into bundles, is not entirely clear. Yet even if forces are quantized bundles of energy, they are not just bundles of energy. They are 'lawful,' guided bundles of energy. What is it that is guiding them? How are these laws of physics and thermodynamics and chemistry enforced? Gravity moves matter in a certain trajectory; electro-magnetism in another. Where is that trajectory? Is it matter or void? Particles generally move faster in heat and slower in cold. But aside from the particles, the heat and cold, itself, which is the context of this movement, is it matter or void? If I step off the roof, I will fall. That is the law and that law is there at the edge of my roof, whether or not someone or something is actually falling off it at any particular time. In fact, the entire universe is criss-crossed with forces that are not visible, but are only detected when we see objects moving, (really being forced to move) in certain directions and at certain velocities because of them. The entire universe of planets and stars and galaxies and black holes, are all held in place by the balance of these forces that are neither matter nor void, but that are absolutely essential to our existence.
Unlike human laws which must create methods of enforcement outside of the laws themselves to make them effective (jail time, loss of licenses, fines and such); natural laws somehow contain their own enforcement. The force is the law and the law is the force. These laws are neither matter nor void, but are there as surely as I will hit the ground if I step off the roof. So in this insightful compendium that makes the world and life and death so simple and clear, and that enables all these followers of Lucretius (and actually of Epicurus a thousand years earlier in Greece, from whom Lucretius got many of his ideas), to lead a worry free and wonder free life, and devote themselves exclusively to the pursuit of pleasures, we have to add to matter and void another ingredient.....forces. Whatever they are, they do 'force' particles to move in consistent ways, and they are neither matter nor void.
And what about us? Lucretius and many of his modern contemporary followers try to be 'objective,' which, to them, means focusing always on what they observe but never on the observer. So they never consider that observers may affect what it is that they are observing or that the observer is, also, very much a part of the universe, as much as are particles, void or forces. Even if they try to be objective about their observations, if there is a way that perceptions are interpreted that is particular to not just our culture or the contemporary zeitgeist in which we are living, but is particular to the entire species homo sapien and our sensory systems of perceiving and defining in basic ways those perceptions, then our observations will yield information as to the way humans perceive the world and not necessarily information about the way the world actually is.
But first let us discuss one part of the universe that we are very familiar with, even more familiar with than infinitesimal particles and voids. We may accept particles and voids because someone we respect, perhaps a scientist or a materialist philosopher, says that that is how the world is made up, but no one, including those scientists and philosophers, have ever directly observed or experienced anything that is either a truly solid particle or a completely empty void. What we do know, both from our experience and our observation, are forces.
Love is neither composed of infinitesimal particles nor is it a void. We know that love is there because we experience a fullness rather than a void. Oops! Bad word. Not a void, but rather an emptiness which is not really empty but is filled with thoughts of isolation and feelings of loneliness. Love is a force that emanates toward, and if you are lucky, from, the object of your love. So is hate. So is fear and jealousy and joy and ambition. We contain within us forces that run counter to other forces. We are, at times, conflicted. The force of fear makes us want to retreat, but the obligation or commitment to do something, also experieced as a force, pushes us forward against our fears. Our inner world, far from being a void, is, at times, a maelstrom of conflicting forces. And even if we are not in conflict, there is a force that moves us to metabolize energy to accomplish tasks. That force is desire and the will to follow that desire through to the completion of the tasks that our desires lead us to accomplish. Everything that our species has created and continues to create, from great masterpieces of literature and music and art, to houses and meals and homework and the simplest tasks, like tying our shoes, are done because someone, ourselves or someone who has power over us, wants them to be done.
We don't necessarily do these things eagerly. Sometimes we do them rather than face the consequences of not doing them. The fear of negative consequences is yet another force that can over ride whatever else our desires are pushing us to do at the moment. Lack of normal desire leads to depression and lack of activity. Absence of desire leads to catatonia and stupor. Desire is a key ingredient to life. Feelings lead us to desires and will leads us to marshall the energy to rearrange whatever collections of particles (things) that we need to rearrange in order to satisfy those desires. They also lead us to attempt to rearrange those collections of particles that we call people. These people may or may not be rearrangeable, however, because, they too, like us, are more than just a collection of particles, but have their own wills and desires and feelings that may lead them to want to do things that run counter to the things that we want them to do. Will and desire and feelings are not matter made of particles and they are not void. If we must label them in one general category, let's include them with forces. I should note, however, that forces and minute particles do not fully explain us. As opposed to things, we are beings. We are not arrangements of particles or forces, but we are the context in which things and forces, including will and desire and feelings, are experienced.
The physical universe, just like the universe within ourselves, is criss-crossed with forces and is either in balance or is somehow moving toward balance. Whether we have yet been able to accurately articulate all of these forces, they are there, in every nook and cranny of the universe. So not only must we add forces to our list of essential universal ingredients, but we can safely eliminate void. Whatever balance and stability there is in the universe, it is held together by forces. If we say there are episodes of instability, it is because of the 'seemingly' chaotic movement of forces, which themselves are moving in waves with a certain wavelength and in a certain shape and at a certain velocity which is the product, of the forces that are within and without this wave, and not randomly moving through a 'void.'
Let's talk about matter. If, as materialists contend, everything is matter, and anyone who believes in anything else is either naive or superstitious, fine; but what is matter? Lucretius spoke of a great variety of particles, too small to be seen, that configure and reconfigure to form combinations which include all the visible things of the physical universe.
Although Lucretius never mentioned 'atoms' by name, we assume that those are the tiny particles that he was speaking of. But Lucretius thought that these particles were solid, indivisible and eternal. The atom is anything but solid. Within the atom, the entire nucleus is roughly the size of a pea in relation to the race track size (a sphere whose diameter is the length of a race track), of the entire atom. The puny electrons are one thousandth the size of the nucleus. And the atom is certainly not indivisible. Electrons leave and join atoms all the time. During radioactive decay sections of the nucleus of the atom leave, changing the basic quality of the atom, and in nuclear fission one atom separates into two or even three new atoms of lighter elements. Naturally occurring radioactive decay and the now commonly accepted Big Bang Theory which has the explosion of forces preceding the formation of atoms, prove that atoms are not eternal.
Lucretius was also talking about a wide variety of these minuscule basic particles. He would be surprised by how little variety there is. Atoms are made of three basic elements: electrons, neutrons and protons. Each of these elements which I will refer to as particles for the moment, are identical with each other. In other words, a proton that finds itself in an atom of gold is exactly the same particle as a proton that finds itself in an atom of hydrogen. The same for neutrons or electrons. All the visible matter that we see is made up of various combinations of these three basic elements. That's it.
In fact, it is the proton that is really at the center of the remarkable variety of matter. In the stable form of every element the number of electrons equals the number of protons. If there happen to be one or two more or one or two fewer electrons than protons, those are ions of the same element. These ions, if they are negative, are eager to combine with other atoms and share their extra electron with them. If they are positive ions, they are eager to share an extra electron of another atom to balance out their own insufficiency. Aside from this increased reactivity with atoms with which they can share electrons, ions are the same element with the same chemical and physical properties as the stable form. Atoms of the same element may also have some variety in the number of neutrons they possess, but this still does not change the element, but creates isotopes of the same element. Isotopes of the same element have different weights, but, again, they are the same element with the same basic chemical and physical qualities. It is the number of protons that determine which element the atom is. Looking at the Periodic Table, one proton would produce an atom of hydrogen. Two would be helium. Three would be lithium. Four would be beryllium. Five would be boron and six would be carbon. Jumping to the heavier end of the periodic table, seventy-eight protons would yield platinum. Add one more proton and you get gold. Add one more and you get mercury.
What strange alchemy is this? And what kind of a particle could a proton possibly be to yield that much variety that by simply adding one more particle you get an entirely different element, often entirely different than the element that has one more or one fewer proton? When we think of particles we think of little solid capsules, usually spherical, like those diagrams of atoms that we all have seen with protons represented as fairly large balls of one bright color and neutrons represented by solid balls of the same size but a different bright color; while the electrons are represented by smaller balls of a third bright color. But these particles, if indeed they are particles, are not encapsulated and neither is the atom. It's not that an atom of carbon is encased in a sphere made out of carbon. There is no casing. The particular number of protons in relation to the particular number of neutrons and electrons is the carbon. That's it. These particles each must produce somehow a force and it is the intermingling of these forces, the particular force fields created between these particles that create all the different qualities that we think of when we consider all the different elements. In fact every adjective that we use to describe every aspect of the material world in every language on earth is created by our perception of various arrangements of protons, neutrons and electrons. Is the world as richly varied in texture and strength and color as it appears to us, or is this a function of the way our brains and nervous systems discriminate between these slight adjustments in the force fields between the nucleus and the surrounding electrons within atoms?
Yet we associate atoms with solidity. If they are not completely impenetrable and indivisible, they certainly require a huge force to penetrate or divide them. How can that be if the great, great majority of the space within the atom is absent of particles? It must be the force field and not the particles that is impenetrable.
If we've never actually observed them and our only understanding of them is conjectures about the forces that emanate from them, then why do we consider electrons, protons and neutrons to be particles in the first place? Because although we can't see them, we can measure a certain spin, a certain charge and a certain mass in discrete places within the atom. Spin must be measured from some point beyond the surface of the particle, if, indeed, there is a particle there. If our measuring device penetrated the surface of the particle it would either stop the spin or spin, itself, out of our control. Spin is a measurement of force not matter. The assumption that the force is taking place just beyond the surface of some kind of particle is purely an assumption. Charge tells us something about a force emanating out from the particle, which we call negative, or in toward the center of the particle, which we call positive. Again, charge like spin, is a measurement of force not matter. It is only the consistent and recurring reading of mass that let's us know that these subatomic particles are, indeed, particles, because mass is matter. The more mass, the more matter and the less mass, the less matter. But what matter could it possibly be? If the mass of a proton is made of matter, what matter is it made of?
As I said, the proton that happens to be in an atom of gold is identical to the proton that happens to be in an atom of carbon. So the matter within the proton is neither gold nor carbon, nor, itself, made of any element that we know of. If the proton is matter, if it contains some sort of solidity, it is some kind of matter that underlies atoms, and that is much, much smaller. The only matter that we know of consists of atoms and molecules that are held together by forces and it is the strength and pattern of these forces that give us the variety of matter as we experience it. If there is any matter there it must be within these tiny subatomic particles. And if that is the case, then how is this subatomic matter held together, if not by opposing forces? We are talking, then, about some substance so indivisible and so impenetrable that it does not need to be held together by force and that pervades every single atom in the universe and yet has entirely eluded our detection for all these many years of research. The only detection of matter in subatomic particles is the detection of mass. The entire materialist philosophy, and our only bases for assuming the existence of any solidity in the world at all, rests entirely on the assumption that the reading that we call 'mass' is identical to matter and that matter is identical to the reading we call 'mass.'
Although the total mass of the protons, neutrons and electrons of an atom is given as its atomic 'weight,' weight is really a changeable reading, depending on the gravitational field that the atom finds itself in. Mass is really a measure of resistance to acceleration; of the amount of inertia that exists within an object. That is the agreed upon way that it is measured. Acceleration is a force. If mass is measured by the amount of force required to accelerate an object, why can't mass, itself, be a force, a force that resists the force of acceleration; a force that creates inertia? How could that be? I will give you two examples, one of which I have used in previous posts.
1. You are holding a rope in your hand, say the thickness and weight of a clothesline. At the end of the rope is tied an object that weighs perhaps a pound or two. You start rotating your wrist in a clockwise fashion so that the rope with the weight at the end of it starts spinning around in a circle. Now the rope has centrifugal force and working against this centrifugal force is the centripedal force that I am exerting on the rope between my fingers. This centripedal force in relation to the opposing centrifugal force of the object at the end of the rope, is the force that is keeping the rope taut and spinning in a defined circle. If the rope and the object at the end of it is exerting a force that is outward and clockwise, so that if I let the rope go it would fly off in a direction that is a combination of the clockwise and outward components; the force that I am exerting between my fingers is the resistance to that force. This force is inward and counterclockwise. It is exerted in a very small area, at the point where my fingers touch the rope and it is not obviously visible. What is visible is the big spinning movement of the rope. The centripedal force is the hidden force, that, although it is not seen, it is the force at the center of this circle, that constrains the outward flight of the rope and establishes the boundary of the circle.
2. A discus thrower holds the discus in his hand and spins his whole body with his arm taut. This rapid movement creates a lot of potential centrifugal force in the discus. When he releases, the discus flies off at a distant commensurate to the amount of centrifugal force and the momentum that his spinning has created. The discus thrower's job, in addition to practicing ways to spin around with as much speed and force as possible, is to restrain the discus with his own centripedal force before releasing it. This restraint takes place at the shoulder of the discus thrower. The most common injuries to discus throwers are in the rotator cuff muscles and the glenoid labrum tissue of their shoulders, which comes from exerting this restraining, centripedal force, in opposition to the centrifugal force that is finally liberated when the discus is released. Again, what is seen is the discus and the whirling body of the thrower. What goes unseen is the centripedal resistance, at the center of this movement, that keeps the discus rotating in a constrained orbit until it is released.
From this perspective, spin is the circular movement of the rope or the discus thrower measured just beyond the surface of the rope and the discus. Charge is the excess of inward energy (positive) or outward energy (negative) measured just beyond the perimeter of these circles, and mass is, like positive charge, the amount of inward force, but measured from within the perimeter of the spinning rope and spinning discus.
In the pre-industrial world, the universe was looked at as an interplay of opposing forces. Sometimes those forces were called Yin and Yang, or In and Yo, or Baca and Fana, or Shiva and Shakti, or Heaven and Earth (as in the Judeo-Christian Bible) or Father Sky and Mother Earth. I talk about these in greater detail in other posts ( If Einstein Were a Taoist; Understanding the Quantum; The Particle/Wave Duality; What's the Matter with Matter?; The Complete Theory of Nothing; and Yin, Yang and Beyong), but suffice it to say, for now, that 'things' are made from the inward 'yang' force which is always at the center of an object and exerts a pull on all the parts of that object toward the center, and a yin force which exerts a force outward. Their balance creates stable objects, or the appearance of stable objects which are really force fields, the dimension of the object created by the outward force and the boundary of the object created by the inward force. From this perspective, there is no matter. The apparent world of matter is created by the interplay of these opposing forces. Instead of a world of particles and void as Lucretius and modern materialists see it, there is, beneath this illusion of void and solid particles, a world of forces.
And there is one other thing, which is you. You are consciousness. You are the context in which this dance of opposing forces is experienced. This precious thing, that is not a thing, but is the essence of what you are, is what allows you and all beings to experience things and to pursue desires which emanate from consciousness.
It is extremely interesting that Lucretius' poem begins with, of all things, a dedication to the God Venus, who stands at the center of the pantheon for Lucretius. Here's what he writes:
Venus, power of life, it is you who beneath the sky's sliding stars inspirit the ship-bearing sea, inspirit the productive land. To you every kind of living creature owes its conception and first glimpse of the sun's light. You, goddess, at your coming hush the winds and scatter the clouds; for you the creative earth thrust up fragrant flowers; for you the smooth stretches of the ocean smile, and the sky, tranquil now, is flooded with effulgent light.
You must admit that that is a rather odd dedication for the father of materialism. How do you explain this passionate dedication, only a short part of which I quoted above, which seems to run counter to everything else that Lucretius is saying? And if we take him at his word, then Venus or the power of Venus infuses every aspect of the physical world, so there is no void, but there is an unseen guidance that is neither matter nor void. This is the underlying schizophrenic position of the materialist. You cannot with any seriousness, possibly believe that eternal, although they are not eternal, and indivisible, although they are not indivisible, atoms and their accidental collisions have been responsible for the creation of something as dazzlingly complex as a human organism. If you believe such a thing, you are either woefully ignorant of the complexity of your own organism, or you have been so inculcated in dogmatic materialism that you are totally incapable of rational thought. Also, can you not see the unbridgeable gulf between inanimate matter and life, which includes a unitary consciousness with the capacity to experience and desire attached to an organism capable of fulfilling the specific desires that that consciousness pursues?
I know that materialists think that they have evolved past the silly superstitions and dangerous beliefs of religion, that has caused so much fear and suffering. But religion is not evil because it is too spiritual. It is evil because it is too material. It materializes God into something that exists apart from you, that you can either believe in (good) or not (bad). But if God permeates everything, then God is at the center of everything, and is not separate from you. In fact the more that you are able to get to the center of your self, the closer you get to God. God is not opposed to anything. Ultimately there is nothing that is not God. So at the center of your neighbors and relatives, of friends and strangers, is something that is unfathomably precious. Whether you believe that or not, imagine a world in which, not only everyone did believe that, but everyone practiced ways of actually experiencing that for themselves. What kind of a world would that be?
You don't have to give yourself a spiritual lobotomy to free yourself from ancient religious superstitions. And what kind of a world is created when people believe that they are nothing more than collections of particles? You know the 'enlightened' followers of Epicurus, from whom Lucretius copied many of his ideas, as they were attempting to discern which paths would yield them the greatest pleasures; they were lying on cushions arranged for them by slaves, drinking wine poured for them by slaves and eating grapes served to them by slaves. And why not? If human beings are nothing more than the arrangement of particles, then what could be the problem with slavery? There is none. Epicurus does not even discuss slavery as a problem and neither do his followers. In our more sophisticated times, when people thought that we were nothing more than a collection of genes, then why not have eugenics and cull out what you consider the weaker genes from the giant gene pool that we call humanity? That is what led directly to the atrocities of Nazism. If life at base is nothing but a random arrangement of particles, then why not pay your employees slave wages so that they cannot possibly afford a minimally decent and healthy life, while you reward yourself with a salary four hundred times greater than theirs? What's the problem with that? Why not create hierarchies where the person who has the most money, or the most fame, or the most physical or mental ability, is worshipped, while people that are not so blessed are ignored and considered worthless?
Until the materialists realize that they are more than particles, that they are consciousness with the capacity to experience and to love; that their children are not just a collection of genes and you either luck out with good talented kids or you lose out with untalented bad ones, but that each and every child is absolutely precious; and until religious sectarians realize that the God that they love and feel overwhelming gratitude for, does not have a specific name or a specific location, but pervades every molecule of the universe, and can be accessed at the very center of one's being, whether you are in a church or a synagogue or a mosque or by a waterfall; until that time, we are doomed to be two separate populations who do not understand each other, and who fear and scorn each other. Beyond and beneath the separations of left and right, of culture and race, this is the true schism that keeps us in an age of 'endarkenment' and away from the light.
One final word about the highly lauded 'pursuit of pleasure.' I have no problem with pleasure, as long as it is not harming or diminishing in any way another being. My problem is with the 'pursuit.' The frantic pursuit of pleasure is based on the assumption that pleasure, if it is to be found, is located somewhere out there, outside of your self. What is missed in this outward fixation is the pleasure, not of pursuit, but of stillness. It is within, through meditation, prayer, spiritual exercise, that happiness is found at the core of your being. And that happiness spreads out so that you realize that pleasure and true joy exist, not necessarily somewhere else, but right there and with the people and the house and the neighborhood and the country that you are already in.
This is not to say that conditions everywhere are ideal. Far from it. But great love and powerful bonding exist when you recognize that your neighbors are, in essence, the same being that you are, and that their suffering under these conditions are identical to your suffering. Then a life of great passion and beauty and struggle awaits you as you bond with your brothers and sisters to work to change those onerous conditions.
Curiosity is great, exploration is great, but not as enjoyable, not really as pleasurable, when it is driven by the conviction that happiness rests on the ability to escape from ones self or ones conditions, or the even more convoluted conviction that the self does not even exist.
I look forward to your comments.
