display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
7 ideas
| 5716 | Nature runs the universe by herself without the aid of gods [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Nature is free and uncontrolled by proud masters and runs the universe by herself without the aid of gods. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.1094) | |
| A reaction: A nice remark. This apparent personification of nature implies the application of laws to an essentially passive reality. See Idea 5442 and Nature|Laws of Nature|Essentialism for a different view. |
| 5704 | There can be no centre in infinity [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: There can be no centre in infinity. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.1069) | |
| A reaction: This is highly significant, because if we can establish that the universe is infinite (as Epicurus believes), it follows that the human race cannot be at the centre of it, as the Ptolemaic/medieval view proposed. |
| 5703 | The universe must be limitless, since there could be nothing outside to limit it [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: The universe is not bounded in any direction. If it were, it would necessarily have a limit somewhere, but a thing cannot have a limit unless there is something outside to limit it. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.959) | |
| A reaction: This is a subtler argument than the mere enquiry about why you would have to stop at the end of the universe. It still seems a nice argument, though Einstein's curvature of space seems to have thwarted it. |
| 5693 | Everything is created and fed by nature from atoms, and they return to atoms in death [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: The ultimate realities of heaven and the gods are the atoms, from which nature creates all things and increases and feeds them, and into which, when they perish, nature again resolves them. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.46) | |
| A reaction: Sounds right to me. Nothing in modern particle theory and string theory has refuted this claim. But what makes the atoms move, and what makes them combine in an orderly way? Is the orderliness of atoms made of atoms? Essences? |
| 5701 | If an object is infinitely subdivisible, it will be the same as the whole universe [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: If there are no atoms, the smallest bodies will have infinite parts, since they can be endlessly halved. ..But then there will be no difference between the smallest thing and the whole universe, as they will equally have infinite parts. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.620) | |
| A reaction: Another argument which remains effective even now. There must surely (intuitively) be more divisions possible in a large object than in a small one? Unless of course there were many different sizes of infinity…. See Cantor. |
| 5708 | In downward motion, atoms occasionally swerve slightly for no reason [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: When atoms are travelling straight down through empty space by their own weight, at quite indeterminate times and places they swerve ever so little from their course. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.217) | |
| A reaction: Never a popular theory because it seems to breach the Principle of Sufficient Reason (Ideas 306 + 3646). This seems to be the beginning of a strong need for the concept of free will, and an underlying explanation. Most thinkers put mind outside nature. |
| 17004 | Nothing can break the binding laws of eternity [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Nothing has power to break the binding laws of eternity. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], 5.56) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be virtually the only remark from the ancient world suggesting that there are 'laws' of nature, so I'm guessing it is a transient metaphor, not a theory about nature. 'Even the gods must bow to necessity'. |