 Hi, my name is Monty Johnson and I teach philosophy at the University of California, San Diego And this is the second of six lectures on Lucretius this one on the variety motion and recombination of atoms and void According to Lucretius in De Rerum Natura book 2 and I'm using the translation of Cyril Bailey Which is available in the public domain through the internet archive Now to remind you of where we are in the overall structure of the poem Lucretius in book one had established the existence of atoms and void space in an infinite Cosmos and infinite plurality of Worlds or Cosmoi within the universe in this book He discusses how those atoms move around in the void and move in such ways as to Combine and form complexes of compounds that create the visible insensible Bodies that we see all around us So we are still operating at the microscopic level of discussing atoms and void Not just their existence now, but how they move and These microscopic principles Lucretius continues to infer from Macroscopic phenomena and he makes other sorts of arguments to convince you about how they move and What the variety of their? Causes of their motion are and so he continues to discuss the physical assumptions of the atomistic Theory and in this chapter we move from the stage of Birth and the basic conditions of things on to their growth and nurturing how they first Grow into what they are Now given outline of the Elements of book two the pro-em here is especially important and famous Lucretius points out how Observing the less fortunate from a safe position causes us Psychological tranquility and he also mentions the ease of providing for the needs of the body and even pleasure and avoiding pain and distress and he discusses the relative difficulty and Vanity of pursuing riches and power and he gives an exhortation to the study of philosophy as the only reliable means to tranquility of Of course the bulk of the book consists of the arguments about the motion speed and direction of the atoms in the void But he also discusses the variety of atomic shapes the infinitude of atoms of each shape how the recombination of atoms and Alternating processes of generation and destruction Correspond and he also argues that the atoms themselves are devoid of any Sensory qualities although their various shapes gives give rise to the variety of sensations that we experience and Then in the finale he discusses the infinite plurality of worlds which corresponds to the finale in book one Which proved the infinite quantity of atoms in the infinite void space of the cosmos but here instead of focusing on the Birth and origin of everything we end up discussing the inevitable destruction and decay of our world But we do discuss not just the Infinite plurality of atoms, but their combination into an infinite Set of worlds Including worlds Habited by other that is extraterrestrial life forms and even extraterrestrial intelligences now again the Prom or introduction to book two is Probably the most famous of the whole book and Lucretius discusses the calming effect of essentially looking down on or Thinking about people who are more Misfortunate than you and the poetic examples are very literal sitting on a cliff and looking at Ships in a storm struggling on turbulent seas or overlooking a land battle or Looking down from a skyscraper at people rushing about doing business appointments It is Creates a calm tranquil effect when one doesn't have to be concerned with that business or one isn't fighting in that battle Or one isn't at risk of sinking in that Sea and this isn't because we enjoy he's very careful to point out This isn't because we take pleasure or joy in other people's distress but because it is sweet to perceive when you are free of misfortune and This is essentially the end and purpose of life according to Epicureans is to be able to have a calm tranquil disposition Relative to everything because you're not suffering from it. So you can concentrate on the suffering That other people are experiencing hopefully Then taking steps to alleviate it Now the basic Psychological insight here is actually attributable to a much earlier philosopher Democritus who earlier recommended turning your focus Specifically away from those who are more fortunate than you because when you focus on people that are richer or more Beautiful or more successful than you then that causes painful emotions like envy Jealousy and generally feelings of relative deprivation But when you turn away from concentrating on those people and think about people who are poor and uglier and more unhealthy and Unfortunate than you then you replace those other kinds of feelings with feelings of pity and mercy and ultimately Democritus argues feelings of solidarity towards them and Lucretius Takes this idea and asserts that riches and nobility and power and glory You know conventional goods pursued by people all around him Don't afford the body or the mind any pleasure or tranquility or relief from pain and He contrasts how difficult the pursuit of such things is with how easy it is to free the mind from care and fear and to provide pleasure for the body and He here invokes again the overall slogan of the work Which we already saw in book one this terror then this darkness of the mind Must needs be scattered not by the rays of the Sun and the gleaming shafts of day but by the outer view and the inner law of nature and this the earlier context in which this was raised had to do with the fear of death and the fear of death must be dispelled by these Epicurean insights and here it's Getting rid of the negative emotions that are due to excessive desires that he's focusing on but the same the same Emotional Distress that disturbs and robs us of the happiness and tranquility that we're seeking in life The solution is the same and that is Comprehending the Epicurean philosophy Now this book also contains an excellent Model and way of thinking about Have a mystic physics and the unforgettable image of dust motes in Sunlight or sunbeams It's a familiar phenomenon as Lucretia says look closely whenever rays are let in and pour the sun's light through the dark places And houses for you will see many tiny bodies Mingle in many ways all through the empty space right in the red light of the rays Now first of all this phenomenon provides direct evidence that there are minute invisible bodies something that we demonstrated Already in book one, but here further evidence is Invoked to support that proposition and Lucretia says that if There are minute invisible bodies moving in all directions in this sunbeam then they they the visible ones must be colliding with invisible ones we don't See what is moving them so they must be smaller than we can see thus minute Invisible bodies again exist But this image of dust motes and sunlight is also just a model for the incessant motion and collision and recombination of material bodies in void space and Essentially, this is the deep view of the entire universe according to this philosophy that It's all these kind of material bodies moving chaotically through an infinite void space whose collisions ultimately give rise to and collide with and affect the motions of The bodies that are visible to us Now I just point out Lucretia doesn't say this but each mode of dust is actually very large relative to the atoms He would certainly agree with that But the bewildering amount of atoms something like 500 quadrillion atoms in a single dust mote shows us how tiny and Of course invisible Those atoms in fact are Now thus they in order for such minute entities to build up to Entities that are visible to us that are perceptible to us that connect with our Senses at a level that we can become aware of they must be built up over several levels And in fact these are levels of complexity. So the atoms have to recombine to form larger bodies We might say now something like molecules combinations of atoms to form molecules and then of course molecules Combining to form larger and larger bodies until we ultimately get to tissues and then we get to whole Organs and recombinant recombining organs till we get to the level of the organism these Recombinations to form larger Bodies happen at the micro level of the atoms themselves until they form molecules and enough molecules as it were Come together until they've compounded to reach visible bodies that we can see As Lucretia says from the first beginnings of things for the first beginnings of things move of themselves Then those bodies which are formed of a tiny union and are as it were nearest to the powers of the first beginnings are Smitten and stirred by their unseen blows and they in their turn rouse up bodies a little larger And so the movement passes upwards from the first beginnings and little by little comes forth to our senses So that those bodies move to which we can describe in the Sun's light yet It is not clearly seen by what blows they do it. So these Bodies that are visible to us even the ones that are as small as a moat of dust can be analyzed Into their constituent atoms and void and in fact into quadrillions of atoms and void now Lucretia's discusses the internal and external Causes of the fact that the atoms are in motion so far We've only proven that There are atoms and that there are void on the basis of there being larger scale structures that we can see But what are the causes of the atoms moving in the void because all atoms? He says are always in motion. They wander through the void He poetically puts it and this is due to one of the following necessary causes It could be due to their own weight or Gravity their heaviness as he calls it this causes them to move straight downwards in Parallel lines through the void So if something's heavy as we can see it move straight downwards So the atoms since they must be heavy of their own accord move Straight downwards. They also move however due to strong blows from other atoms Collision with other atoms and these collisions cause them to bounce Around and redound either at great distances when there is nothing Impeding them but void and so this accounts for phenomena like air light or heat moving at great distances for example think of the light and heat coming from the Sun or They redound at smaller distances because they've become entangled with other bodies And this is what happens with solid objects like wood, rock, metal, or diamond very hard Objects must have very small interstitial distances and voids in which these redounding Quadrillions of redounding atoms move Now Since it has already been shown that the universe is not limited in extent There can't actually be a bottom floor of the universe So all of the atoms must ever fall through the void Due to their own weight, they're constantly following falling through the void and Constantly colliding sending them in every possible direction much of course like dust motes in a Sunbeam Next Lucretius discusses the velocity or the speed at which this atomic motion is occurring all atoms He says basically move through the void At the same exact velocity and this must be as quickly as possible In fact the velocity says must be faster than the speed of light like the light coming from the Sun Because those light particles since they're visible must be larger than the atoms in Lucretius's view and Furthermore, they're moving through fields like the atmosphere the air or the water that contain other bodies with which they must collide occasionally and Thus be slowed down Now it's interesting here that Lucretius observes that light must travel at a finite speed It remains to be seen whether Anything can travel faster than light in some modern physical theories it Nothing can travel faster than light But if you had the smallest possible Objects so small for example that they had no mass and they were essentially moving through a void and were so small that through Voids and were so small they couldn't collide with anything then perhaps they could move faster now the Atoms however in the theory are the smallest possible objects and so when moving through the void They encounter no resistance whatsoever so they must all travel at an equal and constant speed in this circumstance nothing to slow them down and they're small so they move as fast as possible now after that argument we next have a digressive Attack on anthropocentrism an attack on the theory that the purpose of all of Nature and the universe is to benefit human beings Now this seems to follow an actual gap in the text which suggests that either our text has been mutilated in the form We've received it since Since it was put into the form that Lucretius wrote it or that Lucretius did not complete the poem and this section was Left imperfect But anyway, we suddenly are in a discussion of the fact that Those people are wrong who argue that the gods have designed the world and Designed its seasons and the motions and changes that happen in it all for the benefit of human beings now We can label such a view Anthropocentric does in such a view human beings are the center of the cosmos and the purpose of all creation as they are in for example Plato's timeeus and This is typically a feature of intelligent design creationist accounts of nature some God or Demiurge or craftsmen designs the whole world for the purpose of Human beings and Lucretius attributes such a view to an ignorance of matter and how materialist theories can better explain how the cosmos comes to be without depending on these super natural Entities and also can explain Not only why some things do appear suitable for human beings But why so many things don't and the universe seems to so Badly be set up for human beings now The main argument here then is that the nature of the world is by no means made by divine grace for us. There are too many flaws But Lucretius essentially puts off the discussion of what those flaws are of course they come Much sooner than the end of book six in these descriptions of the destructibility decay and inevitable destruction of our entire world and The vivid descriptions in book six which end with the plague and its horrible effects upon the Athenians So the point is there must not be a god in this Cosmos because it's not sustaining it or at least not sustaining it for the sake of human beings because Look at what actually Happens in it and how inconvenient it is for human beings Now returning to the discussion of the causes of atomic motions Recall that the atoms or first bodies are carried downward straight through the void by their own weight Now Lucretius asserts that at certain times Undetermined times and undetermined places. They actually push a little off this path Yet only so much as you could call a trend or just a slight Deviation that is we say atoms occasionally swerve At undetermined times and places atoms swerve from their straight downward path For if they always traveled at the exact same speed through the void in straight parallel Lines as they do as a result of their weight as we argued earlier Then none of them would ever collide with each other But if they never Collided because they could never catch up with each other since they're all moving exactly the same speed and exactly in parallel lines Then none of them would ever become entangled and then no compound bodies could have been Generated but it is apparent that compound bodies have been generated because there are Visible and sensible objects in our environment Thus atoms must occasionally swerve from their straight downward direction Now once an atom is off chorus It's free to collide and redound with other atoms and in fact cause a chain reaction of further Collisions and redounding which eventually cause Entanglements large enough to form compounds that are visible to us and the same process is ramified Upwards on the scales of complexity until we reach entire planets and entire solar systems and entire galaxies and entire clusters of galaxies and superclusters and the entire Universe now It turns out then that there are in fact three causes of atomic motion Two of them necessary Internal necessity of weight or gravity which causes them to move straight downwards the external necessity when there are blows or collisions Those are those are both kinds of necessary movement and then this unnecessary Movement and so it's it's hard to even consider it a cause But there is this indeterminacy in the overall system That we call swerves Now one nice feature of this theory of swerves is it allows Lucretius to avoid a problem about the Determinism of all events within his cosmos so in addition to Using the swerve to explain the existence of visible bodies and worlds a phenomenon phenomenon that certainly do need explanation This swerve also allows Lucretius to address a threat to voluntary motion Because if all motions in this universe were linked to previous motions in a continuous Chain-like succession then there would seem to be no possibility of free motion And so in contemporary parlance we'd say something like everything would be determined or predetermined by antecedent causes by a chain of causes But if the motion of atomic matter is not in fact predetermined by its antecedent causes That is its weight and blows But there is occasionally an unnecessary cause Swerves as we've just argued then it would not be the case that everything is determined or predetermined Sometimes there's just an atomic swerve So therefore determinism The idea that there's a universal unavoidable chain of necessary causes is not actually a threat to voluntary motion whether of animals like horses Lucretius's main example in the passage or of human action, which is clearly his main concern Now we can ask a lot of questions about this theory One Pressing one is how often do the swerves happen? So in theory perhaps there was only just one swerve ever in that case There would have been a sufficient condition met for there being Collisions and further entanglements and assuming there is a large enough chain reaction there would be a Overall cause of the formation of all worlds would be that single swerve but Lucretius seems to refer to several swerves So perhaps there's just one swerve every time a different world is formed and swerves begin the process of world formation But how often how often does that happen and do they happen within worlds and If so, are they rare or occasional within the same world? Perhaps they actually happen quite frequently like every time a free or voluntary Action is taken or every time there's a voluntary motion There must be a swerve of atoms happening in the mind happening in the soul atoms But I don't Not going to venture in answer to this question here. How often do swerves happen? But I will raise another troubling question for the theory, which is how a random swerve of atoms could possibly Allow for or explain free voluntary motion After all we want to need voluntary motions of Horses for example not to mention humans not to be random motions So I don't think that I'm only free when I just happened to not do something Because you know, I was going to smoke a cigarette and then I just happened to decide not to because there was a swerve of an atom in my mind I want to think that it's actually me doing it that I'm responsible for it, but Swerves seem to be completely random again. They happen at no determinant time and no determinant place And so the real Importance of the theory I think is that it undermines the assumptions of a determinism that would be a threat to freedom and voluntary motion now Even though there is all of this motion and swerving and colliding going on on the level of the atoms and void and their compounds According to Lucretius the universe as a whole is in a kind of steady state Despite appearing very chaotic when we Move out and look at the larger picture of the cosmos as a whole It's fairly uniform and it's pretty much always been like it is And that's because no matter ever gets added to it or subtracted from it Recalled the laws of conservation of matter the first two propositions in book one and So the distribution of matter in space is essentially Uniform although there is local variation and there is constant change going on and This is more and more evident at a smaller scale that you look at Dust motes in the Sunbeam, but then there are quadrillions of atoms moving within each dust mode But when we zoom out to the Global universe view it all essentially seems Almost static and there are abundant physical Analogies to things that appear to be at rest from a great distance But when viewed much more closely and definitely when viewed with things like microscopes look to consist of things that are greatly in motion and moving around now the next topic that Lucretius discusses at great length actually is the variety of atomic shapes So how many different shapes are there are there just a few like most of them are spheres or cubes Or are there all kinds of different shapes not just tetrahedrons dodecahedrons icosahedrons, but lots of other configurations of shapes and with features like Mountains and valleys and even hooks and eyelids Now Lucretius says the variety of atomic shapes is in fact very great For if the variety were small there wouldn't be such a great variety of things But as it is if you look at any two things in nature and examine them closely enough the same or Members of the same species including animals plants shells and so forth Will appear different and will show important differences and he makes a kind of Fractal like point that Again things from a distance appear to be very similar, but the closer and closer you view Then they Greater their variety seems to be so there must be a great variety of atomic shapes to account for these difference differences even between members of the same species and Several other considerations lead to the same conclusion There wouldn't be such a great variety of sensations for each sensory modality But there are a great variety of course of taste sounds odors colors hot and smooth smooth and rough Heart and hard and soft sensations Pleasures and pains all of those are so varied there must be a basis for them in a great variety of atomic shapes and Keep in mind that according to the theory all of these forms of sensation are ultimately forms of touch due to contact and collision of Sensible objects with sensory organs all of which completely consist of atoms and Void so there must be a great variety of shapes to account for this Great variety of the different modes of senses and then within each mode the great variety of Possible objects of sensation so the variety of atomic shapes is Responsible for all kinds of further differences. He points out like hardness liquidity Pungency evanescence and so on and then he has to work out a couple of cases Where there are apparent contradictions like things that seem liquid so that they ought to have one kind of atomic shape so that they can move freely but that are bitter and so must To some extent be sharp and tear up the sense organs These things he argues are due to the complexity of the Recombinations of such a variety of atomic shapes recall the proposition that nothing is made up of just a single Kind of atomic shape. Everything is made up of a great variety of atomic shapes Nevertheless the total variety of atomic shapes must be limited. He's careful to argue That's because if the total number of shapes was unlimited or infinite ever large is larger sizes of atoms would apparently be Necessary in order to accommodate the variations in shape and in that case There would actually become visible atoms at some point and even gigantic atoms atoms the size of whole worlds because an infinite variety of shapes would require infinitely large atoms, but of course no such large atoms are seen So the number of atomic shapes must be limited and thus the number of atomic sizes must be limited Again if the total number of shapes was infinite, there would be no limit to variation He says no boundaries of experience We would see ever greater extremes of the qualities like hot and cold pleasure and pain But the boundaries of experience of hot and cold and pleasure and pain are strictly limited on both sides So there must be a limited although admittedly great variety of atomic shapes That being said the number of atoms of any one shape must of course be infinite We've already proven that there are an infinite number of atoms moving through an infinite void space and given proves for that here he argues that the number of atoms of anyone shape or infinite for if the number were not infinite then either the shapes themselves would have to be Infinite or the total sum of matter would have to be finite but again a was just disproven that the shapes couldn't be infinite or else you would have infinitely large atoms and B was disproven earlier in book one when it was shown that there must be an infinite number of total atoms Now even a single natural kind He said if there even if there was a singular unique individual thing You would still need an infinite fund of atoms in order for it to subsist otherwise the finite number of Its component atomic shapes would have become scattered in the infinite void and never reassembled in the fullness of time but since natural kinds cohere and furthermore reproduce things of their own kind there again Must be an infinite store or fund of them to continue to do so and And in his view generation and destruction are always balanced, so there's always new things being born and Old things passing away and the old things passing away provide the material for the new things to be born And as he poetically puts it the whales of the newborn baby forever mingle with the Lamentations heard at Funerals now no compound Can consist of a single kind of element Even the ones that we commonly speak as if they do earth air water and fire So earth isn't a single element, but actually contains in itself fire water air and atoms of a great variety of shapes You know many of them cubicle, but many of them other shapes as well and After saying this Lucretius gives a digression into a kind of prayer to mother earth and how she's celebrated for giving birth and nurturing all but then as in book one and the Praise of Venus He immediately asserts all of this is false the earth itself is inanimate and The gods live far apart from all nature in perfect tranquility, so he states the Epicurean view of the gods and So these are very interesting passages to show how you know what little Concession he was making even poetically to these mythological figures Here he teases a little bit of that again, but then takes it away in the context of Demolishing the idea that there is some single element of things now all things contain atoms that have various shapes and That is why Different creatures can be nourished by the same food a single creature Consists of many different constituents a single thing can affect various senses and so on because they do have many of the same and thus compatible atoms to sort of recognize each other Everything is not so unique that each individual thing consists of its own kinds of atoms and Atomic recombination into compound bodies can be Compaired he says To the process of recombining the same limited variety of letters in order to form an infinity of different words and Sentences which he says is what he's doing as a poet. He is creating and bringing these verses into being but they fall into various natural kinds and so forth because he's got a Limited variety of letters to start with he can form an infinite number of combinations out of them but the Kinds will tend to recur because the initial letters starting out with are Limited in form and that's interesting and again Harkins back to a Fragment where Democritus points out that Tragedy and comedy are composed out of the very same letters So the most opposite seeming things and the most things having completely opposite effects on our own Emotional states and so forth Are caused by the same letters being rearranged in different ways and similarly all of the opposite sensible And perceptible phenomena hot and cold and so forth that we see are all caused by various Recombinations of the same limited number of atomic shapes and So not every combination is possible if every combination were possible We would see many more things that don't fall into natural kinds. We would more commonly see monstrosities and Chimeras coming to be But these of course are rare and not common and so Not every combination is possible You have to take into account the intervals spaces passages fastening weights blows meetings and movements how they differ not only in animate things But also in inanimate things and so there are just limitations as to how they can interlock and inter combine Now the atoms themselves lack all sensible qualities You can't directly perceive or image an atom atoms are colorless They also lack heat sound taste smell and so forth. They can't Emit anything from themselves because they're perfectly hard and solid and indivisible It's their recombination With other atoms that cause all of these sensible phenomena That is the atoms are the causes not the effects of the various sensible qualities Now need to point out that the atoms themselves are not capable of sensation They're not living things. So they're not capable of sensation living things originate from inanimate materials and Lucretius gives various kinds of evidence for this spontaneous generation the fact that inanimate food contributes to the sustenance of living things all this shows that inanimate materials can generate living things sensation depends on specific juxtapositions of specific recombinations of atoms just chance juxtapositions happening in the background don't produce any sensation and if atoms were capable of sensation then they would have to be soft and They would have to consist of parts and they would have to consist of Void then and in that case they would be destructible and in that case everything would be destructible But it's already been shown that they're indestructible and so That can't be in the atoms themselves must be incapable of sense The theory of a sensation presented by Lucretius is based on again contact or Collision and recombination of atomic compounds the changing juxtapositions and the ways that the atoms touch each other and are compounded together cause variations of sense so They themselves can't be subjects of those variations because they are the Objective basis of the variations the causes of the variations of Sensor again compared with the recombination of letters to produce different words sentences and so on and we can convey sense and emotion through words and sentences But we don't think that the Letters and punctuation marks and so forth experience emotions or sensations now the We build up to a finale to talk about the infinite Plurality of worlds not just infinite swirl of atoms in a big space, but an infinite Recombination of atoms into world structures Lucretius begs Memius to have an open mind towards this idea which he presents as new in a controversial Although it does go back to at least Democrates It's already been shown of course that void or empty space must be Infinite or indefinite that was shown in book one and that there is an infinite number of atoms ever moving through the void Showed in book one and then just repeated in book two and since there's no limit in any direction There's no reason to assume that this is the only world that could have come to be so we can only see our own Solar system actually there's one Object outside of our solar system. We can see which is which is another galaxy but There's no reason to assume that these are the only other Stars sun and moon or even other galaxies. There's an infinite amount of space out there So in an infinite number of voids Recon Atoms recombining in void space there. So why shouldn't they form worlds Since this world as he says was also made by nature as the seeds of things of their own accord Jostling from time to time were driven together in many ways Rashley idly and in vain and at last those united which suddenly cast together Might become ever and on at the beginnings of great things of earth and Sky and sea and the race of living things Wherefore again and again you must need to confess that there are here and there other gatherings of matter such as this So other worlds that form by exactly the same physical processes as ours other planets that are capable not just of having their own Land masses and atmospheres, but also other living things Alien Earths other solar systems alien living things other inhabited worlds other extraterrestrial intelligences other even extraterrestrial civilizations now that's a wonderful and interesting phenomenon to contemplate and He ends however by pointing out an implication of that if our world has come into being just like every other world Then just like every other thing that has come into being our world. We can presume will be destroyed as will every other world and other Later worlds will come to be out of the materials that were destroyed as the atoms ever clash and collide and swerve and recombine in the void But since our world we have to accept that our world came to be because of these natural causes and not the Gods we have to accept that our world is subject to Decay and destruction by those same natural causes and we might add by artificial causes of our own design but all of the temporary phenomena that the Combinations of atoms and void that we see will all Just as surely as they came into being go out of being and this includes our entire world Doesn't affect the entire universe as we already pointed out that remains a steady state As it were because no atom can know atoms or void or anything can be added to it or subtracted from it because of the laws of conservation of matter and So he ends by saying that our present-day earth already shows signs of this decay and destruction For example in the phenomenon of soil erosion and the book ends with the ancient plowman's Reflections on his land's gradual but inevitable decline now Recall that in book one we had these 12 propositions of atomism the laws of conservation of matter the proof that atoms and void exist and that there's nothing besides atoms and void the Proves that the atoms themselves are solid indestructible immutable and Indivisible that the universe is infinite that there are an infinite supply of bodies in it and that there are Recombinations which give rise to the compound natural bodies that we see We have added 12 new propositions in this book Which I've here grouped and color-coded the first three having to do with how the atoms move in void space The first being that they're in constant motion due to their weight and collisions and Redounding with other atoms That they move through the void at the same speed all as quickly as possible and That they must occasionally swerve from their straight paths at undetermined times and places But the universe as a whole is immovable Then we have the arguments about the atomic shapes that there are a great but limited variety of them There are an infinite supply for each kind of shape But no visible body consist of only a single element everything has a lot but a finite amount of variety and The atoms lack sensible qualities themselves, so they can't be apprehended directly, but they Are inanimate and are incapable of any kind of sensation sensation requires complex entities and collisions Finally, there are a plurality of other worlds including Inhabited worlds with living things that are similar to us and Our world having come to be through natural causes is subject to decay and destruction by those natural causes so those 24 propositions amount to the basic propositions of atomism and in the subsequent books we will Encounter a few more propositions, but then begin to make ethical inferences and ramifications from this physical theory of atomism