Lucretius, The Nature of the Universe. London: Penguin Books, 1951. I will set out to discourse to you on the ultimate realities of heaven and the gods. I will reveal those atoms from which nature created all things and increases and feeds them and into which, when they perish, nature again resolves them...

Titus Lucretius Carus lived in Rome in the 1st century before Christ. He was a follower of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who lived two centuries earlier in Athens.

Lucretius wrote a poem in Latin to praise Epicurus and explain Epicurian thought. Translated into English, it is a short and very readable book. In fact, no other ancient writer or philosopher speaks more persuasively to the modern mind. Plato and Aristotle seem quite dated by comparison.

Epicurus believed that we should take the evidence of the senses at face value:

• Knowledge comes from the senses. Things really are as they appear to us, or as they would appear if we could see them better.
  
  
• The universe and every thing in it is made of atoms, whose movements through empty space determine everything.

...Such is wind in its fury, when it whoops aloud with a mad menace in its shouting. Without question, therefore, there must be invisible particles of wind which sweep sea and land and the clouds in the sky, swooping upon them and whirling them along in a headlong hurricane.

• Social distinctions like rich/poor, citizen/alien, free/enslaved are just accidents of chance. They say nothing fundamental about the person.

• Gods (if they exist at all!) are far away and not interested in human affairs. They did not create the physical world, and do not control it. The universe is self-regulating.

Bear this well in mind, and you will immediately percieve that nature is free and uncontroled by proud masters and runs the universe by herself without the aid of gods.


• What we call "mind", "soul", or "spirit" is a physical part of our body, made of the movement of atoms like everything else. It will die when we die, but death is not to be feared because when it happens we won't "be there" to experience it.
  
  
• People have free will. Our choices in life are not absolutely determined by the movements of the atoms. (His explanation for this is kind of murky.)
  
  
• Epicurus rejects superstition and religion. If we should "worship" anything, he says, it should be Nature. Nature is blind, soulless and has no purpose but it is beautiful and fruitful anyway. The physical universe offers us plenty of reasons for wonderment and joy.
  
  
• Happiness lies in acccepting the obvious truth and enjoying the simple pleasures in life. You should honestly face your fears (of death, and of lacking purpose) and use your understanding of the universe to trample them underfoot! Tranquil pleasure is good, but intense pleasures & passions are bad because they leave you unsatisfied afterwards.
  

What I learned from reading Lucretius:

I am an Epicurian, and in fact it seems difficult for a serious scientist or science teacher to be otherwise. Science starts with all of the same assumptions that Epicurus did, and comes to most of the same conclusions. Today microscopes, telescopes, radar, DNA testing, etc. help us to sense things better than in ancient times, but we still get information from observation and measurement, not from tradition, intuition, or by making things up.

Science never assumes the existence of hidden factors which we do not understand. It is deliberately superficial. You apply the simplest possible explanation to every question.

The question of free will in humans and animals is an interesting one for both Epicurus and modern scientists. I once had a biology professor who tried to persuade me that my "free will" is really an illusion. I am so influenced by culture, circumstances, my DNA, my past experiences, my impulses, etc., he said, that no choice I make is really "free". However, it sure feels to me like I make choices. An atom of air moving in the wind has no choice of where it goes next, but I can do what I like, within limits.

We structure all of society as if we have the ability to make choices, too. I think we do have free will, but I'm not yet sure where it comes from if we are made of atoms and atoms themselves don't have it.

At the level of very tiny objects, quantum mechanics says that the motions of particles can only be expressed as probabilities, not certainties. There is also a kind of math called "chaos theory" which explains how tiny differences in starting conditions amplify into big differences in outcomes. That's why we can never predict the weather two weeks from now, even if we know exactly what the weather is right now.

Maybe our free will is somehow the result of quantum mechanics and/or chaos theory operating on the electrical impulses in our brains.

Anyway, I am going to assume that I have free will. And I will use it to enjoy my life and appreciate the beauty of the natural world, without looking for hidden meanings in it.

home