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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
Humans are naturally inclined to be insatiable, which is fueled by fear and desire. Epicurus offered a doctrine to quench desire and provide pleasure, which is the highest good. Lucretius offered a philosophy which supports this doctrine in its revelation of the inner laws of nature. Fear is relieved by scientific knowing. But what about desire and the promise of pleasure? Can desire and pleasure be decoupled? How do we move forward once reading On the Nature of Things? Perhaps if we feel content in our knowing, that feeling of content is enough to quench desire as well. But does the acquisition of knowledge not beget desire for more knowledge? Perhaps Lucretius’ ideology allows for us to desire what brings us true pleasure.
(Read a different edition)
Interesting read, soft science, soft philosophy, soft epic. Glad to have read in verse but glad I had prose version elsewhere to consult when things got a little too WTF
Interesting read, soft science, soft philosophy, soft epic. Glad to have read in verse but glad I had prose version elsewhere to consult when things got a little too WTF
Lucrecio aúna poesía con ciencia y filosofía para exponer una incipiente teoría sobre los átomos y cómo estos explican el funcionamiento del mundo, alejándolo de religión y superstición. Leídas 2.000 años después, sus intuiciones maravillan: algunas veces por lo ingenuas pero muchas otras por lo cercanas a la verdad que acabó demostrándose.
“De Rerum Natura” é a obra-prima do poeta-filósofo Tito Lucrécio Caro (94-55 a.C). Se quiserem saber mais sobre a história e relevância deste texto que quase se perdeu nos meandros das parcas bibliotecas da Idade Média, aconselho vivamente a leitura de “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern” (2011) de Stephen Greenblatt. Mas se foi por meio de Greenblatt que me iniciei na leitura de Lucrécio, a quem agradeço, foi por meio da belíssima tradução de Agostinho da Silva (1962), para prosa em português, que cheguei ao conhecimento das palavras e pensamento de Lucrécio. Dizer ainda que se a obra se apresenta como poema, ele é mais porque é também ensaio, não apenas filosófico, mas também científico, e por isso não admira todo o ardor que Montaigne sentia por Lucrécio, explicando também o facto de se ter passado a designar a obra como poema-didático. Em suma, podemos dizer que a obra de Lucrécio é talvez o primeiro trabalho de sempre de Comunicação de Ciência. Mais do que filosofar, argumentar ou calcular, Lucrécio estava focado em dar a conhecer as ideias dos seus mestres — Demócrito (460-370 a.C.) e Epicuro (341-270 a.C.) — não se tendo poupado em esforços de comunicação, nomeadamente de persuasão, o que explicará o facto de ter sido escrito em verso.
Para além do impacto desta obra nas ideias dos períodos da Renascença e do Iluminismo, discutido por Greenblatt, é talvez ainda mais importante, porque responsável por esse impacto, o facto de...
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... continua no blog em:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com/2020/03/da-natureza-das-coisas.html
Para além do impacto desta obra nas ideias dos períodos da Renascença e do Iluminismo, discutido por Greenblatt, é talvez ainda mais importante, porque responsável por esse impacto, o facto de...
..
..
... continua no blog em:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com/2020/03/da-natureza-das-coisas.html
challenging
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
informative
slow-paced
challenging
According to Lucretius, the infinitely small perception is only a ray of light, allowing elementary particles to meet and repel each other without any original affinity.
The particles move, collide, unite and separate, uniquely formatted by the chance of encounters having no meaning.
The infinitely small, random number Pi is only an aggregate of forms disappearing and reborn according to their paths and impacts as absurd as unforeseeable.
No need to analyze each result; they mean nothing. Each product results from a quantum wind grouping a corpuscular all-comer without a mind. Each element, like a pinball ball, reveals different imagery in its contingent projections.
No plan, no garden of Eden, no promised land.
No life after death. When the body extinguishes, the soul had also ruined.
There's nothing to conquer or defend in an infinitely small, under the influence of its inconsistent pilings.
Reading is a real ordeal for a believer whose pillars crumble page after page.
Since everything, according to Lucretius, fire, hymnals, Bibles, and Gospels is only a disordered world without gods developing an incomprehensible order.
How to accept disappearing in smoke without the hope of a beyond? First, remove the cause and effect.
Still, life is nothing else by maintaining the course of its values in the middle of the imponderable drift of the elements.
The particles move, collide, unite and separate, uniquely formatted by the chance of encounters having no meaning.
The infinitely small, random number Pi is only an aggregate of forms disappearing and reborn according to their paths and impacts as absurd as unforeseeable.
No need to analyze each result; they mean nothing. Each product results from a quantum wind grouping a corpuscular all-comer without a mind. Each element, like a pinball ball, reveals different imagery in its contingent projections.
No plan, no garden of Eden, no promised land.
No life after death. When the body extinguishes, the soul had also ruined.
There's nothing to conquer or defend in an infinitely small, under the influence of its inconsistent pilings.
Reading is a real ordeal for a believer whose pillars crumble page after page.
Since everything, according to Lucretius, fire, hymnals, Bibles, and Gospels is only a disordered world without gods developing an incomprehensible order.
How to accept disappearing in smoke without the hope of a beyond? First, remove the cause and effect.
Still, life is nothing else by maintaining the course of its values in the middle of the imponderable drift of the elements.
The first chapter was promising, offering astute observations on human nature… but the later chapters digressed into unscientific explanations of natural phenomena which have been much better and more accurately explained in modern times. Overall, some points were made that were impressively relevant to our modern era, but I had a hard time appreciating the writing itself, which was convoluted and bogged down by boring examples and diversions (this was perhaps because of the translation)
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1391691.html
This is one of the best-argued cases for atheism I have read (speaking as a non-atheist). Millennia before Dawkins, Hitchens, or even Bertrand Russell, Lucretius argued the nature of the universe from first principles, concluding vigorously that there is no God and no afterlife, just matter made of atoms. There is no tedious sniping at current beliefs (apart from a rather funny bit towards the end about why Jupiter does not hurl thunderbolts; and he has a go also at the beliefs of Heraclitus and Empedocles about elements), just an explanation in detail of the philosophy of Epicurus and how that helps us understand the way the world around us works. As with all such books, it is tempting to give the author marks out of ten for the accuracy of his scientific explanations as compared to our current understanding, but that would be a mistake; it is amazing how far Lucretius got given his starting point. It reminded me a bit of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, but is of course much shorter; also Lucretius, writing in 55 BC or thereabouts, had two millennia less of scientific research to fit in. Unfortunately he doesn't appear to have finished it; the text ends rather abruptly after a description of the effects of plague.
This is one of the best-argued cases for atheism I have read (speaking as a non-atheist). Millennia before Dawkins, Hitchens, or even Bertrand Russell, Lucretius argued the nature of the universe from first principles, concluding vigorously that there is no God and no afterlife, just matter made of atoms. There is no tedious sniping at current beliefs (apart from a rather funny bit towards the end about why Jupiter does not hurl thunderbolts; and he has a go also at the beliefs of Heraclitus and Empedocles about elements), just an explanation in detail of the philosophy of Epicurus and how that helps us understand the way the world around us works. As with all such books, it is tempting to give the author marks out of ten for the accuracy of his scientific explanations as compared to our current understanding, but that would be a mistake; it is amazing how far Lucretius got given his starting point. It reminded me a bit of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, but is of course much shorter; also Lucretius, writing in 55 BC or thereabouts, had two millennia less of scientific research to fit in. Unfortunately he doesn't appear to have finished it; the text ends rather abruptly after a description of the effects of plague.