This is stock number 21J54, we are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, near New and used Jeep and Jeep Wrangler headquarters. Today we are checking out this brand new 2021 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara package. This vehicle has a 3.6 liter Pentastar V6 motor with the e-torque system on it. It's going to get you 24 miles per gallon on the highway, 19 city, and an average of 21 miles per gallon. Bright white is the color. We shoot all of our videos in 1080p, 60 frames per second. So if you have HD capabilities on your computer, tablet, or smartphone device, turn them on right now because it is definitely your best way to look at the vehicle. Check out all the options. See the color and styling before seeing it in person. And if you'd like to check out all the photos on this Jeep in the upper right hand part of your screen, there's a link to our website, click that and check us out there. Now this one is going to come with the painted and polished aluminum 18 inch rims. Those are granite crystal pockets. It has Goodyear Wrangler 25570R18 tires. They're kind of an all terrain tread pattern on there. You get the color matched fender flares. This one also has the color matched hard top, very popular on the Saharas to get the color matched top. This one also has the LED lighting group, which gives you the LED fog lamps, the LED headlamps, and halo lights around those headlamps. And you also get the LED running lights in the fenders. You're also going to get the silver trim on the grill, on the headlight bezels, and around the fog light bezels. You get the front tow hooks, the silver Sahara block lettering, and Jeep logo. You also get the sandals on that windshield guard there. And the Jeep climbing up the side of the windshield. Torx 50 on the door hinges to let you know which Torx range to use to get those open. We'll take a quick look at the original window sticker. Feel free to pause this at any second. I'm not going to go through everything, but just some of the main stuff on this vehicle. Anyways, this is an unlimited Sahara. Bright white clear coats of color. You get black and dark saddle interior colors. It has a 3.6 liter e-torque engine and 8 speed automatic transmission. Everything on your left there is standard equipment. And then all the optional equipment right there starts with the leather trim seats, which are $1595. The LED lighting group, which is $1295. Safety group, which includes the ParkSense rear park assist system and the blind spot monitoring. 8 speed automatic transmission is a $1,500 add-on. Anti-spin differential is $595. The e-torque V6 Pentastar is $1,500. And the color match hardtop is $2395. Total MSRP is $49,935. To get your summit price in the upper right hand part of your screen is a link to our website to get all the rebates and incentives on this particular vehicle. 3 year 36 bumper to bumper, 5 year 60 powertrain. There you're miles per gallon, 24 highway, 19 city, 21 average. And 4 star front crash test rating and 3 star rollover. No other safety radians on this one. Four wheel disc brakes on all the Wranglers. Do really like that color match hardtop. And you get those color match fenders standard with the Sahara package. Matching spare tire. Get a little bit better look at that tread pattern on there. Back storage area. You do get the case for the front hardtop pieces. All the bars on the inside of the vehicle are painted to match the body color. So that when you have the top off everything looks uniform. There is storage underneath here. There is a plug. So in case you get water back here you can drain it properly. And then you do get door hinge bolts, holders and roof bolt holders, and windshield bolt holders back here. And then you do have the jack tools underneath there. To get this hardtop off you have 3 bolts on the bottom, one on the top, so 4 on each side for a total of 8 to get this hardtop off. You do have to take the front hardtop pieces off first. And then there's 2 quick disconnects back here to get that hardtop all the way off. The glass works just like all the old JKs and the doors work just like that too. They did make these back doors lighter. And you do get this JL badge there for 2 door, 4 door, wheel base and overall length as well as water forwarding and then where they're made in Toledo, Ohio. LED lighting group also gives you the LED tail lamps. You get the black finish on the fuel door cover there. The Sahara's also come standard with the running boards which is a nice feature. You get those heated mirrors, blind spot monitoring in those mirrors. Inside that dark saddle brown interior really good looking. It's a nice contrast to the white outside. And you do get the Sahara's stitched into the backrest. These do come with side airbags now. Driver's seat height adjuster, lumbar, factory floor mats, auto headlamps, tilt and telescopic steering wheel, power windows, power locks, power mirrors. And as we hop inside here you can see that this one has the 7 inch LCD display. You do get that Jeep animation at the start there. I'll turn the lights on so we can dim this a little bit better and you can see it does have a digital speedometer. You do get a compass display and you can change those corners to read pretty much whatever you'd like. Comes with the leather wrapped steering wheel, cruise controls on the right, Bluetooth and information center controls on the left and audio controls on the back of the steering wheel. This one comes with the 7 inch Uconnect 4C radio which gives you AM, FM and Sirius XM radio capabilities. This is also where your backup camera shows up and you can check out that if you have the ignition on here. And you can see that that's an HD backup camera. We do have just a speck of dirt on there. But those grid lines are dynamic and you can see just how crystal clear that backup camera is. And you can pretty much check that out anytime you want.  Now if you don't like using the controls up there don't worry you can use them down here with the more tactile buttons. Also volume and tune control. You have your start stop capabilities, stability control, parking sensors, downhill assist control and you can turn the screen off there too. One last thing on the radio you do have Android Auto and Apple CarPlay capabilities so you can project your cell phone to the screen. So if you have a navigation system such as Waze or Google Maps on your cell phone you can project it to the screen and then it's just like you have navigation on the screen there. We actually did a demo on Android Auto for an 8.4. Very similar to the 7 inch touchscreen. It's all the same operating system and everything. So check that out. It's in the upper right hand part of the screen to check out that video. How to use Android Auto on a Uconnect radio. Down here you have your window controls. You get an AUGS USB and USB C jack. The command track 4x4 shifter is right there. And then you do get a Jeep logo on that 8 speed automatic transmission shifter. Keyless entry with the flipper. Switch blade style key fob there. Very chunky key fob. You're always going to know which key you have in your pocket. And the other really thing, the thing that I really like about the Sahara's is the leather trim dash with the tungsten stitching there. It's pretty cool. They changed the dashes on just about every trim level but I'd have to say the Sahara's my favorite trim level when it comes to the dash and that leather trim. You do get the crushed egg shell finish hard top.  They come off very similar to the old JKs. You do get home link buttons for your garage door security systems and lanes systems. And like I said they come off very similar to the JKs.  And we'll check out the back seats and then do one more final walk around here. So the back seats on the JLs are a lot, there's a lot more room. You also get 115 volt, 150 watt plug-in back here, two more USBs and two more USB-C's. Here's your rear window controls. Back to the seats, there's a lot more leg room here. You also get latch child safety systems for any child car seats. And then these headrests can go down for better visibility when nobody's sitting back here. And they can just stay down whereas opposed to the JKs every time you put the head or the backrest up, it would put that headrest up. But now you can have that down. Speaking of putting the backrests down, they go down a lot easier. You're not rubbing up on this seat like you were in the JKs like every time and they'd barely get down. It was crazy. But these work a lot better. The load floor is almost completely flat, which is nice if you have to haul a bunch of extra stuff. And you can see that that headrest stays down until you put it up. There's also cup holders actually in the headrest of the center seat, which is kind of neat. And you do get child safety locks on the back doors. We're going to do one more final walk around so you can check out all the LED lighting on here. The LED tail lamps, the LED license plate light as well. And I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today. And hopefully from this HD video you will have been able to tell just how good looking this Wrangler is all the way around inside and out. Got to learn a little bit about the exact options on this particular one and check out these headlights. Just awesome. Looks really good. One of the best looking Wranglers we've had on a lot. And thanks again for checking out the video and to see more pictures of this Wrangler. Or one of our other 450 new used cars, trucks, SCVs, minivans, Wranglers. You name it, we got to go to our website right there. www.SummitAuto.com. Full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at SummitAuto.com. And if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to youtube.com. Remember to like, subscribe, and share on this video and all the videos that you see there. In fact in a second you will see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on your left. It links more Jeep Wrangler videos like this one on your right. If you have not been to our website on the bottom, a link to this vehicle on our website. Click those, check us out, and we're super excited to be offering the 2021 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara in bright white clear coat. Thanks again for checking out the video.


This brings us to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. In our quest to understand how small things can get, we need to know if there is a measure of size below which we can't go. We see from our little thought experiment that as a wave, a particle's location is not fixed. The wave is spread out. Here we see three different wave packets for an electron. The wave packet at the top is narrow and therefore easier to locate, but it is less than one wavelength so its momentum is impossible to figure out. The bottom wave packet contains plenty of wavelength information, but it is quite spread out and its location is more uncertain. The wave packet in the middle has enough wavelength information to make its momentum less uncertain and it is less spread out than the one on the bottom, making its location less uncertain. But due to the spread out nature of matter waves, we still can't know both the location and momentum at the same time. Mathematically stated, the uncertainty in position times the uncertainty in momentum is always greater than or equal to Planck's constant divided by 4 pi. This is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. It has nothing to do with the accuracy of our instruments and everything to do with the wave nature of matter. A good way to illustrate this is to look at an electron in an energy well too deep for it to get out. But remembering that the electron has a wave function that gives the probability of finding it at any given point, and some of those points, admittedly with very low probability, can be found outside the walls of the well, as if it had tunneled through the wall when in fact it did not.


Hello and welcome to the return of hooded Cobra Commander 788. After my extended hiatus, I come back to find we're in a global pandemic with a deadly virus going around. Under the circumstances, talking about old action figures doesn't seem that important. Nonetheless, I want to let everyone know that I'm back making regular content. I should have a live stream on Tuesday and I miss you guys and I'm glad to be back with you guys. I hope everyone is taking the crisis seriously and is taking the appropriate measures to stay safe. We will get through this together and I would like for all of you to still be with us at the end of this. So please, as much as you can, stay at home, avoid contact, and wash your hands. Commander 788 here. This is the show where we review every vintage GI Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. Before we get started, I need to give a couple code names to some patrons. First, Damon Donoghan.  Then we have Terrence Johnson, Terrence Johnson, TJ and the Bear. Thank you Copper Bear and TJ and the Bear for your support. I've been fascinated by the Marine Corps since I was a child. It was the 1983 GI Joe action figure, Gung Ho, that sparked that fascination. The Marines, like Gung Ho and Leatherneck and Sergeant Slaughter, seemed gritty and tough and ready to take on Cobra. In 1987, Hasbro gave us a different kind of Marine figure. This figure was not ready to fight Cobra, it was ready for a parade. How could I possibly play with this guy? Even though it didn't integrate into my play time very well, I still loved it. I knew what it represented. It was a unique and special tribute to the Corps. Now that I know more about the figure, it's even more special to me. HCC788 presents Gung Ho in Marine Dress Blues. This is 1987 Gung Ho Version 2, GI Joe's Marine in Dress Blues. This figure was first introduced in 1987 and was also available in 1988. It was discontinued for 1989. Overstock of the figure was repackaged with different accessories and sold at a GI Joe convention. I'm not sure which convention, I wasn't able to confirm that, and I can't find a sealed example. There were five versions of Gung Ho in the vintage era, four pictured here because I do not have the 1993 Battle Corps version. Version 1 was released in 1983, version 2 was in 1987, version 3 was in 1992. There were two versions of Gung Ho in 1983, the Battle Corps version and the Mega Marines version. There were many post-vintage versions of Gung Ho, but none in his Dress Blues. To my eye, only the first two versions look like Gung Ho. The later versions look more like Major Dad. Version 1 had a prominent US Marines Eagle, Globe and Anchor tattoo on his chest. The chest is covered on version 2 and version 5. The 1992 version 3 made the tattoos smaller, and the 1993 version 4 moved the tattoo to his arm. That's not how tattoos work. Gung Ho Version 2 is a special figure. It's not intended as an action figure in that he's not meant for action. He is not mission ready. His uniform is unsuitable for the field, and his only weapon is ceremonial. In fact, the blue dress uniform would never be worn for combat. Marine uniform regulations prescribe it for specific occasions. The blue dress A uniform may be worn for parades, ceremonies and formal or semi-formal social functions, for NCOs and below throughout the year, and for officers and SNCOs as appropriate to the season, or those occasions requiring uniformity with NCOs and below. The dress A uniform will be worn for the following official military slash social occasions. Parades, ceremonies, reviews, solemnities, and entertainments when the commander slash senior officer present desires to pay special honors to the occasion. Official visits of, or to, the United States civil officials, officers of the United States armed forces, and officials slash officers of foreign governments, according to Chapter 12 U.S. Navy regulations. Receptions given by, or in honor of, officials slash officers listed in Chapter 12 U.S. Navy regulations. Despite Gung Ho not being combat ready in this forum, he still appeared on vehicle box art. He was on the box art for the Mobile Command Center and the Defiance Shuttle Complex. Is there a Cobra equivalent? In 1985, the Crimson Guard wears a red ceremonial dress uniform, but they are often depicted as going into combat with those uniforms. 1991 Red Star was a member of the Soviet Naval Infantry, the equivalent of the U.S. Marines for the Soviet Union. Red Star was a member of the October Guard, not Cobra. By that time, the October Guard was a GI Joe ally. I asked Ron Rudat, former character designer for Hasbro, for some background on this figure. Ron said he wanted Marines in the line because his father was a Marine in World War II. He favored Marines over the other branches. He acknowledges the requirement to change the uniform to fit the figure. They couldn't do the long blouse, as was on the real uniform, so they changed it to an Ike jacket. But this figure is special because it does have a connection to his family history. Let's take a look at Gun Ho's accessory. He came with only one. He came with what the card contents call a non-com dress saber. It is in gold plastic. The sword is sheathed, so it's not intended for fighting. It can be hooked on these knobs on the side of the action figure's waist. So he can hold it that way. This is a US Marine Corps non-commissioned officer's sword. This is a reasonable recreation of the real sword, but not exact. In theory, you should be able to put this sword in the figure's hand, but both of the hands on my Gun Ho action figure are way too tight, and I don't want to force the sword in his hand for fear of breaking the thumbs. The figure came with one other thing which you may or may not consider to be an accessory. He had rank and decoration stickers. It was a sticker sheet that would be applied by the purchaser, and it had the rank insignia and these ribbons that go on his chest. The placement of the stickers is apparent from the card art, so I guess that's how kids were supposed to figure out where to place these stickers. There is a problem with the rank insignia, but we will address that later. The card contents list one accessory the figure doesn't really come with. It lists dress hat as an accessory, but the hat is glued onto the figure's head. That makes me wonder, was the hat originally intended to be removable? Let's take a look at the articulation for Gun Ho. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures by 1987, so he could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. Not very much, a little bit limited by his collar. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow that allowed him to bend his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep that allowed him to swivel his arm all the way around. This was an O-ring figure, meaning the figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside. That allowed him to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color on Gun Ho starting with his head. His face sculpt is very similar to Version 1. They really did not change it very much at all. His face may be slightly wider, but otherwise it's the same face, the same mustache. One difference is that Version 1 figure was bald under his green cap. The Version 2 figure does have some sculpted hair, even though this hat on Version 2 is glued on. Some broken figures have the hat removed and there is sculpted hair under the hat. If you want to know what Gun Ho looks like without the hat, here he is, and he does have detailed sculpted hair under that hat. So it is conceivable they originally planned the hat to be removable. The hat is primarily white with a black brim and a gold marine core emblem on the front. This is a pretty good approximation of the real world hat. This is the US Marines Barracks cover. On his chest he has a dark blue jacket with red pipe trim. He has six buttons down the front, and those buttons were originally painted in gold paint, as was the button on the right pocket, and there are a couple gold symbols on his collar. The gold paint on my example has mostly worn away. The chest has some seam detail, which is present on the real uniform. He has breast pockets. On the left side he has a gold parachutist badge. He has some silver medals. He also has that sticker with the multicolor ribbons, and I do think that's a really nice touch. I'm glad they didn't leave that out. Based on this configuration I would say this is the B uniform. The A uniform has the full size medals on the left side and the ribbons on the right side. The B uniform consolidates the medals and ribbons onto the left side. There's a difference between the jacket shown here and the real uniform. A marine dress uniform jacket is longer, extending below the belt. This one cuts at the waist. According to Ron Rudd, they had to shorten the jacket because at the time they couldn't make it go over the waist, so they made it an Ike jacket. His arms feature dark blue long sleeves. He has red piping around his sleeve buttons. He's wearing white gloves. He has rank insignia on each arm, that's from the sticker sheet. The white gloves are correct, the buttons are mostly correct, and the insignia is definitely not correct. According to the file card, Gun Ho's grade is E7, Gunnery Sergeant. For that rank he should have three upper stripes, three lower stripes, and crossed rifles in the center. This sticker has four lower stripes and an indistinguishable dot in the center. It could be either a Master Gunnery Sergeant or a Sergeant Major, both of which are E9. His waist features a white belt with a gold belt buckle in the center. This should be another US Marine Corps emblem, but it doesn't really look like that. Based on the card art, I think this is supposed to be a Marine Corps emblem with a leaf cluster, but that doesn't really come through very well in the sculpting. On the left side it has those knobs, they're painted white, that's for attaching the sword. That's not how real swords work, but it's difficult to approximate that on an action figure. On the right side he has a red stripe. His legs feature blue trousers. This is a lighter shade of blue, more of a cursey blue. He has red stripes down the outside seam of both legs, and he has black shoes. This is accurate to the Marine Corps dress blue uniform. There are some variations that have different color trousers, but this is the most commonly recognized uniform. This is easily one of the most military accurate uniforms in the vintage GI Joe toy line, especially in 1987, yet it isn't perfectly accurate. Some changes were made to accommodate the articulation points. The rank insignia is just wrong. Even so, it is a beautiful homage to the real uniform. Let's take a look at Gung Ho's file card. His file card has his faction as GI Joe. It has an excellent portrait of Gung Ho. His co-name is Gung Ho, and for his specialty it just says Marine Dress Blues. His file name is Etienne R. Le Fite. His primary military specialty is Rekondo Instructor. That's a little different from his version 1 file card, where his primary military specialty was Rekondo. Rekondo means he is a graduate of Rekondo School at Fort Bragg. Fort Bragg is an army base, Gung Ho is a Marine, so maybe he was sent there under special GI Joe assignment. Secondary military specialty is Jungle Warfare Training Instructor. The Jungle Warfare Training Center is a US Marine training base in Okinawa, Japan. His birthplace is Fertilance, Louisiana, and that is a fictional place. There is no real town named that. And his grade is E7 in parentheses sergeant, that would be a gunnery sergeant. He has the same grade as on his version 1 file card, so no promotions between 1983 and 1987. This paragraph says, Gung Ho was born and raised in a swamp, went to boot camp in a swamp, and spent most of his Marine Corps career sneaking around in other countries' swamps, with a grenade launcher in his hands. He can low crawl through the nastiest black water, stinking mud, and bubbling slime for a week, with half his body covered in leeches, and the other half raw with bug bites, and still make an 0700 inspection formation with polished brass, spit-shined shoes, razor creases, and a mean look in his eye. That's a Marine. This file card alludes to some of the same background as the version 1 file card. I'm glad it mentioned the inspection with the formal uniform, because he sure as heck isn't doing any of this other stuff in that uniform. Looking at how Gung Ho was used in G.I. Joe media, Gung Ho has been in G.I. Joe animation since the first animated miniseries in 1983. He got significant screen time in part 4. In the series he was treated as a tough guy, as he should be. He was a fairly popular character, and appeared in a lot of episodes in the Sun Bo era. He was briefly in the 1987 G.I. Joe movie wearing his version 1 uniform. He didn't make the transition to the Deke series. To my knowledge, he didn't make any appearances in his version 2 uniform. Gung Ho also had plenty of appearances in the comic book series published by Marvel Comics. He first appeared in issue number 11, along with a lot of other new 1983 characters. He was in a snowy environment, but still wore his vest with bare arms and chest. It can be awkward to introduce a new character in an environment where his uniform doesn't make sense. But Gung Ho is so tough, he would rather endure the cold than cover up his Marine Corps tat. Surprisingly, he did appear in his dress blue uniform. Sort of. In issue number 22, he was a pallbearer at General Flag's funeral. You can see him in the procession, but he is miscolored. His uniform is colored green like all the army guys. Looking at this figure overall, I love this figure, but I can see why some collectors and even some kids back in 1987 just wouldn't be turned on by this figure. The only weapon he comes with is a ceremonial sword. He is in no way ready for action, and the whole point of playing with G.I. Joe was the action, right? This was an actionless figure. Back in 1987, I had watched enough movies and read enough books about the Marine Corps that I instantly recognized the uniform Gung Ho was wearing, and I had to have it. It's true, I didn't have a way to play with it, but I still had to have it. For fans who are less fascinated by the Marine Corps, you're probably not as interested in this figure, and I can't blame you for that. After all, we got hundreds of G.I. Joe characters from the army, but we tended to not get them in their dress uniforms. As an adult collector, I'm still impressed with how well they pulled off this real world uniform. But I'm just as intrigued about the inaccuracies as the accuracies. They did have to change the uniform a bit to fit the kind of figure it was, but there were some changes they made that they didn't have to make. Like the rank and signia stickers, I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't just make the rank and signia match the rank of the figure as it's stated on the file card. Despite these nitpicks when I look at the figure, I can see exactly what they were trying to do, and I still connect it with that rich history of the United States Marine Corps. And when I see it on a shelf, I still think it looks beautiful. That was my review of Gung Ho in Marine Dress Blues. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm back, baby, and thank you to Copper Bear and TJ and the Bear for their support. I should be back for another review next week as long as the isolation doesn't drive me mad. I hope to see you then. Thank you for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, I'm making more like it. So please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel, hit the notification bell so you don't miss any future videos, and share this video with your friends. That's what helps this channel grow. You can find me on social media, on Facebook and Twitter, and I have a website, hcc788.com. If you want to know if I've already reviewed a vintage GI Joe item, that's a good place to check. Thanks to all my supporters on Patreon, including the names you see on the screen now. Support on Patreon helps keep this show going. So if you like this show and you'd like to support this show in that way, please consider checking out Patreon. You can get some special rewards, including early access to reviews, and you can find out how to decode the secret messages you see in these videos. Thank you for joining me on this adventure of collecting vintage GI Joe toys. I'll see you next time, and until then, remember, only GI Joe is GI Joe.


Looks nice now, but it's gonna unleash later. 5.20 p.m. We're all tired at 5.20 p.m., right? Oh, I know I am. And it doesn't help that the clouds rolled in. You know, when it's gray out, it's always, your energy kind of goes down a little bit. So to help alleviate the deficit in energy levels, I've got fresh clean boots, fresh socks, and a little vitamin B12. Come on now. The day is not done. Keep persevering. Even though you want to go to bed on a Friday night. Am I right? Yes I am! Too pokey for you. You gotta go lower. Is it too hard? I can get it if you... Good job! Not good, folks. The vitamin B12 energy did not work. I've gotten more tired in the last 30 minutes. I don't know if we're gonna talk about Patreon tonight or today. Just bear with me. Just bear with me. We didn't sleep amazing last night. A lot of tossing and turning and cooing from the big mic. How are we doing the bluegrass? Yeah! Oh, Mama's going to bed. I need parting words for YouTube. Go to bed early when you can. Go to bed early when you can. That's my son. Precious. She gone. She gone to bed. Papa's jealous. Yeah, perfect.  We'll show them to you tomorrow, true love. Okay, let's go look at the flowers real quick. Remember the flowers you planted two weeks ago, YouTube? Remember the flowers? They are coming in, baby. Look at these guys. The idea is to cover our fence back here with beauty. Seeking beauty all the time. Are they nice? They're blooming. We're covering the whole thing. And then here's some more down here. Not too shabby. They're doing good. Oh, this one's doing real nice. It's going to cover the whole fence.


The Tiger, financial news network, update. Welcome folks, this is Jacob with the 4 p.m. market update. We're closing right here in the spy at 436. So that's a nice little day for it. After a long while, not having a good time. The cues really popped up and came right back down on pretty immense volume. And that happened with the spy as well. Or, right, knocked up over that 40th, excuse me, 437 level, thigh reaching, that was significant volume for the day at least. And then on that come back down was some pretty decent volume. Oh no, it was gonna come back up from the fall down. Interesting, we'll see what plays out on Monday. That's a good day for that. Let's take a look at everything else. N cues closing at 4,766. The gold contract closing at 19, 18, 60 cents. Silver at 2280. Copper at 370. Southern copper closing at 7,725. Kind of really big of a sideways kind of day with this. Of all of our boys here that we're looking at earlier with the home builders. Again, kind of just moving sideways throughout the day. I wanna say just that we have about a minute and a half left when we were talking with the Manjaro, the weight loss drugs. I was saying that China, it would be awesome to have them as a market in a way that they stay a market to a lot of our companies for quite a while until they're able to replicate everything. And that's what China is essentially doing now. So we're gonna go ahead and create a copycat version of the miracle weight loss drug here. But that's from Noho Nordisk this time. Give me a moment. So yeah, the pharmaceutical companies are developing domestic versions of the miracle weight loss drugs as they take on Western drug makers selling anti-obesity medication. This is why it's so important folks to have some kind of security with your IP. So the anti-obesity medication, one of the world's biggest markets, China's drug companies hope to compete with the Danish pharma group Novo Nordisk, pioneering drugs in China, which is the world's largest overweight and diabetic population. There it is. And successful, they could also potentially offer cheaper alternative in the West. Well, that was an interesting trading day folks. I hope it shaped out well for you all. Thank you so much for joining me. Tom will be back Monday. Have a great weekend and safe everyone.


Meanwhile, the Oni of Ife Obadiye, Ogunsi Ojaja, the second says, traditional rulers are well grounded on the challenges of insecurity. Hence, President Bola Am Tinibu should employ the services to tackle it. He gave the charge during a cut-save visit by the National Council of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria to the President at the State House Conference Centre in Abu-Jer. You know that your policy is for the betterment of the common people in this country. You can use us. Our people listen to us. Our people, when they hear us, that we are seeing what is going to be better for them. We traditional rulers are always seated to know the good. We are seated in our different kingdoms to know the bad. We are seated in our kingdoms to know the ugly. We will work with you. We are here today to pledge that this country, that you so work hard for, for you to actually attain the height of this country as the President of this country, as the father of all everything you want us to do. Be rest assured, please do not underestimate what we traditional rulers can do. We can compliment your government. We can compliment the betterment of this country. We can actually compliment and make the work a lot easier for you. Count on us. We are very committed. We are very united. We have our meetings that we hold on regular basis and we know how to coordinate ourselves very well. We want you to use us. Use us, Mr President. Use us, Mr President. Use us, Mr President. We want to work with you and make sure that Nigeria is a better place. Earlier, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alaji Sat Abubakar, the Third said, the visa is a normal tradition by the rulers whenever there's a change in leadership in the country. Well, we are an affiliate of the nation.


Hi, my name is Monty Johnson. I teach philosophy at the University of California, San Diego and this is the first of six lectures on Lucretius, this one about the overall structure and logic of his poem and the basic propositions of atomism, as he discusses in De Rerum Natura, book 1. And I'm using the translation of Cyril Bailey, which is widely available in the public domain, for example, through the Internet Archive. Now, start out by talking about the author himself, Lucretius and the address C of his poem and the nature of the poem. So actually start with the address C because he is better known than the author. Memius or Gaius Memius was the son-in-law of Sulla, a Roman politician and general. Memius was a cultured man and a patron of poets including Cthulis. Lucretius's frequent warnings throughout the poem about intellectual laziness, ambition, luxury, and greed seemed to imply that his well-known address C was badly in need of the instruction and Epicurean therapy that Lucretius offers in the poem. Now, Lucretius himself, we think was born around 94 BC and died around 55 BC. De Rerum Natura is his only known work. It's unclear if this work was completed. For example, there are what we call doublets, that is, repetitions of passages that we assume if it had been in a more finished state would have been removed. There's also debate about the end of the work, whether it has a proper conclusion. It ends with this dire and hideous description of people dying of the plague in Athens. Shouldn't the poem have ended on a more positive note? If so, perhaps it's lacking a conclusion and that might suggest that it was incomplete. The poem itself contains scant indications about Lucretius's character himself, although it's clear that he had an aristocratic status and a very high level of education that he probably had very good Greek. At any rate, he had a good comprehension of history of philosophy. It's clear that he is an adherent to Epicureanism and that he has a hatred of traditional religion, and so he's a bit of an iconoclast. Now, there are legends about Lucretius reported to us in a hostile source, the Church Father Jerome, that Lucretius consumed a love potion that he went mad, that he committed suicide. That's why the poem seems incomplete and even that his poem was later edited by Cicero. There's no evidence for any of that and none of it should be believed and none of it should be brought into the interpretation of his poem. Now, the poem itself is an epic didactic poem in hexameters. The translation we're using by Bailey is in prose, but there are translations in meter that are available and we must ever keep in mind that it is a poem and that Lucretius is very concerned with the aesthetics of the poem. In fact, we could have an entire account of the poem that focused on the aesthetic and literary merits of it, its precedents in other epic poetry like that of Homer or Empedocles, or its comparison with other Latin poetry like of Ovid, or its influence on later poetry down even into the modern period, and its reception and so forth. Even on the philosophical side, there could be a lot said about Lucretius's predecessors, not just Epicurus, but also the various presecratic figures that he refers to, Democritus and so forth, or we could compare Lucretius with other philosophers writing around the time, including the contemporary Epicurian philosopher Philodemus, or again, we could talk about the philosophical reception of the poem down to the modern age. But in this lecture, I'm not going to talk about any of the background influences poetic literary aspect or the reception of the poem, but instead concentrate on the most, as it were, prosaic aspects of the poem, its overall structure and architecture, and the logic of the philosophical arguments about nature that it contains. So first of all, about the overall structure of the poem. It consists of six books. And I give you a basic summary of what each book is about. First, the first book introduces us to the idea of atoms and void, and basic elements of things. The second book talks about how these atoms and void are combined into complexes and compounds that are visible to us. The third book discusses living things, animate things and souls and how living things and souls can be produced out of complexes and compounds of these simpler inanimate bodies, the atoms and void. Then the fourth book deals with various capabilities or abilities of living things, including sensation, desire and thought. Book five moves on to discuss astronomical topics like the nature of the moon, sun and stars, and also communities of humans and the origin and development of human civilization. And finally, the sixth book is concerned with the whole world with meteorological events like rain, clouds, wind, lightning, earthquakes and so forth, and what goes on in the sky. Now, we can divide the poem up into various ways. One very instructive way is to think of the books in pairs and to talk about three levels on which the poem operates. The first level taking books one and two would be the microscopic level of physics, where he's explaining the basic fundamental notions of physics, the minute and invisible atoms and void. In books three and four, we get on a higher level a discussion of living things, including the human soul, our senses and mind, that is talking about psychology. In books five and six, we go to a larger macroscopic level to talk about natural history in general, including anthropology and cosmology. So the poem progresses from the smallest, most minute level to the largest and universal level and passes through all of the stages in between. Thinking of it like that, operating on different levels, we can actually think of two halves of the poem, the first three books dealing with microscopic principles of nature as these can be inferred from macroscopic and visible phenomena. And so this part of the poem dealing with the physical assumptions of atomism and Epicureanism, while the latter three books, four, five and six, deal with macroscopic phenomena that are explained by the microscopic principles and brings out the ethical implications of the physical assumptions. Now, those are all very familiar ways of dividing the book, but there are other structures that we can detect in the architecture. For example, many people have pointed out the balance between the poem's opening, which talks about birth generation coming into being and the dismal closing of the poem dealing with disease, death and destruction due to the plague. And so we open with birth and end with death as it were. And I think we can actually see a structure that covers the whole development of a sort of lifecycle of an organism, especially a human being. So the first book dealing with themes about birth generation creation, going through the topics of growth and nurturing, adolescence, adulthood, decline, and finally death. So the poem itself has an organic, natural structure that mirrors a living thing. Now, a bit more about the structure of the six books. Each book contains about 1000 lines or a little more, and usually includes the following elements, a poem or introduction, randomly scattered exhortations or protreptic passages. The bulk of each book is consumed with arguments about atomism and Epicureanism. And then each book has a finale. And these are balanced in pairs of books, as I'll explain. Now, the poems are introductions. For example, in the first book, there is the invocation and praise of Venus, the goddess of birth and creation. In the second book, a praise of philosophy in general. In book three, a praise of Epicurus specifically. In book four, a description of Lucretius's mission. In book five, we get more praise of Epicurus. And then this reaches a kind of crescendo in the poem or introduction to book six, where there is praise of Epicurus and Epicurean gods and a virtual deification of Epicurus himself. The exhortations appear scattered throughout the work, but they make it clear that the work has an overall therapeutic purpose that is meant to resolve ills of the mind or psyche. And there are repeated exhortations for Memius and generically the reader to for us all to apply our mind to these teachings. Now, the arguments as I've just gone over deal with various levels of reality. The first book, basic propositions of atomism. The second book, motion and variety of the atoms and the infinity of worlds. Book three, life, soul and mortality. Book four, sensation, thought and the passions. Book five, astronomy, human evolution and civilization. And book six, meteorology and epidemiology. Now, each book also includes a finale. The finales are not cleanly set apart from the arguments themselves, but sort of blend into them. But we can tell that they are meant each to work up to a finale, not just because they clearly rhetorically do, but also because we can pair thematic topics that are in the finales. So in the first book, we end up discussing the mind blowing notion of the infinity of void space and the infinity of atoms that are constantly moving through it. And then in book two, we also get the mind blowing finale discussing the infinite plurality of worlds and the existence of other worlds beyond our solar system, including other inhabited worlds and extraterrestrial intelligences and extraterrestrial beings. In book three, we have an attack of on the fear of death at the very end and in book four, an attack on the passion of love. And these central books give as it were the core ethical message of the overall poem. The poem is meant to serve this therapeutic purpose of relieving the fear of death and relieving you from the pains of desire. And so those two themes are paired at the end of the central books. And for the last two books, at the end of book five, we have a very famous description of the achievements and ascendance and development of human civilization. And this is balanced by the end of book six, where we have a description of the horrific plague and disease and Athens, which is ruining civilization and shows how everything, even the greatest civilization, goes into decline and death, exactly as our world will do. So that's what I'll say about the general structure of the book. For the rest of this talk, I will concentrate on book one, beginning with giving an outline of it. So it consists of the poem, the opening invocation to Venus and appeal to Memius, Epicurus pitted against traditional religion, and the denouncement of the fear of death and disease, the promise that the author will deliver a cure for this fear. Then we have various exhortations scattered throughout book one. But most of book one, a thousand lines of it or so are devoted to arguments, which lay out basic propositions of atomism, issue a refutation of some rival theories, offer a proof that the universe is infinite, including an infinite void or empty space and an infinite number of bodies within it, that is the atoms or compounds. And finally, there is the finale, which deals with this infinite number of them. But we also, at the very end, get a reminder of the overall therapeutic purpose of the work and of another exhortation. So let's begin by talking about the famous introduction or poem, the invocation to Venus. Venus is the Roman name for the Greek goddess Aphrodite. This is the goddess of sex and love and generation, the symbolic mother of all creation and the generative force of nature. And Lucretius describes her as operating in every ecological niche. So there are references to beings in the ocean, fishes, beings in the sky, birds, creatures on land, like snakes and humans, and even the ecology of outer space or the heavens. And Venus represents hot desire, as he repeatedly says, that is the driver urge the desire to reproduce, to renew the stock of each kind of thing. And this relates to the ethical theme about limitation of desires that comes in later. Now, Lucretius implores Venus to subdue Mars, which is the Roman name for the Greek god Aries and the god of war. So Lucretius prays for peace. The context is he's writing in a time of war and chaos, so he needs peace, so that he can not only compose these verses, but also convey them to Memius, who can listen to them with a calm and open mind, and so start living as an Epicurean with a constant undistressed mind. Now, there are actually some very substantive philosophical things that are accomplished in the prompt. And the first of them is the beginning of an attack on religion. And this is stated in some very strong terms, I'll quote from around lines 62 to 79, when the life of man lay foul to see and groveling upon the earth crushed by the weight of religion, a man of Greece who dared first to raise his mortal eyes to meet her appears. He brings us tidings, what we can what can come to be and what cannot yay and in what way each thing has its power limited and its deep set boundary stone. And so religion in revenge is cast beneath men's feet and trampled and victory raises us to heaven. So he pits Epicurus and Epicurean philosophy against religion, which he sees as a destructive force to prove to argue that religion has such a destructive force, he refers to some very famous episodes in Greek mythology. For example, Agamemnon, who led the Greeks in the Trojan War, sacrificed his own daughter, if again, in order to provide so that so that the gods would provide favorable wins so that they could all sail off to Troy. And Lucretius comments how terrible and horrible this is that for the sake of war, he would murder his own daughter. Such evil deeds could religion prompt. And he points out that religion is responsible for all kinds of superstitious beliefs, the worst, according to him being the fear of death, which priests and religious advocates worsen with their ideas about everlasting punishments in the afterlife in Hades or hell or whatever. Now, the alternative to religion is going to be a naturalistic account. So Lucretius will obviate religious beliefs by providing materialist, naturalist, scientific accounts of all of the things that cause superstitious fear, including death. So he says, we must both give good account of the things on high in what way the courses of sun and moon come to be and by what force all things are governed on earth. And also, before all else, we must see by keen reasoning whence comes the soul and the nature of the mind and what thing it is that meets us and affrights our mind and waking life when we're touched with disease, etc. And Lucretius mentioned the difficulty of doing this in Latin, as opposed to the scientific and philosophical language of Greek, which even for English, the basis of our scientific vocabulary remains Greek. But he bids Memius to pay close attention to his words so that he may quote, spread before your mind a bright light whereby you may see the heart of hidden things. And this then introduces the overall slogan of the whole work. This terror then, this darkness of the mind must needs be scattered, not by the rays of sun and the gleaming shafts of day, but by the outer view and the inner law of nature. So we have to dispel fear and darkness that's caused by ignorance, and filled with religious and mythological stories, and find the inner law and actual structure of nature in order to resolve this fear. And those lines were repeated in book one, book two, book three, and at the end in book six. Now, the materialist thesis that we can replace religious explanations of things with descriptions of how material bodies interact comes immediately after the invocation of Venus. So he says, I will reveal the first beginnings of things from which nature creates all things and increases and fosters them and into which nature to dissolves them again at their perishing. These and rendering our account, it is want to call matter, material or creative bodies of things, and to name them the seeds of things and again, to term them the first bodies since they from them first things have their being. So it is fundamentally a materialist account of nature, and this is essentially where we get the term materialism to describe such theses. But notice that there are other terms besides matter for these principles, and these suggest organic or even biological material like creative bodies and seeds. And so though we have materialism, we have a kind of biomorphic terminology or at least metaphors applied to this materialism. Now, a question about this poem in book one. So just after giving the poem in the section on first principles, Lucretius writes, nothing is ever be gotten out of nothing by divine will. Fear foresoots so constraints all mortal men, because they behold many things come to pass on earth and in the sky, the use of whose working they can by no means see, and think that a divine power brings them about. Therefore, when we have seen that nothing can be created out of nothing, then more rightly after that shall we discern that for which we search both whence each thing can be created and in what way all things come to be without the aid of gods. So given Lucretius's adherence to Epicurean naturalism and materialism, and his professed hatred of religion, and his denial that any natural thing can ever be produced by a divinity or by divine will, why does he begin the poem with an invocation to a goddess, a mythological goddess, Venus as the mother of creation and generation. And a related, but even more general question, why does he use poetry of all media to convey Epicurean physics? I mean, Epicurus himself said that the wise man will be able to study and know about poetry and criticize it, but won't write poems himself. Whereas Epicurus is whereas Lucretius has not only written an epic didactic poem, but he has brought in some traditional religious imagery to introduce it. And there's a question as to why that would be. I think the answer relates to the therapeutic purpose of the whole work. So in one of the exhortative sections, Lucretius says that even as healers, when they try to give loathsome wormwood to children, first touch the rim all around the cup with the sweet golden moisture of honey, so that the unwitting age of children may be beguiled as far as the lips and meanwhile may drink the bitter draft of wormwood, and though charmed may not be harmed, but rather by such means may be restored and come to health. So now, since this philosophy full often seems too bitter to those who have not tasted it and the multitude shrinks back away from it, I have desired to set forth to you my reasoning in the sweet tongue song of the muses, and as though to touch it with the pleasant honey of poetry. So Lucretius draws an analogy between philosophy and medicine. Medicine treats the illnesses and diseases of the body, and it uses drugs to do this, and when children or adults with that matter are wary of the bitter medicine, the doctor can coat the rim of the cup containing the medicine with something sweet, and this will trick the patient into taking the medicine. But it won't harm them, instead it will help them. Similarly, Lucretius sees what he's doing as using philosophy to treat illnesses or diseases of the mind or the psyche, and the treatment is kind of a bitter medicine, because we have to accept these materialist and naturalist theses and get rid of all these religious notions that we've grown up with, and so to make that more palatable to us, he has to coat the rim of the medicine with the pleasant honey of poetry. So having introduced the poem itself and the poem to the first book, the rest of the first book is occupied with laying out the basic propositions of atomism, and on this slide I've grouped them and color coded them. The first two are what we call the law of conservation of matter, what we now call the law of conservation matter, and this is a common place in Greek physics that nothing comes to be from nothing and nothing can pass away into nothing. After introducing those, we get the specific hypotheses of atomism, that minute invisible bodies exist, and that they move around in void or empty space, and that there is fundamentally no third kind of thing besides atoms and void. After this, we get several propositions about the nature of the primary bodies, that they are solid, indestructible, immutable, and invisible, and then the propositions about the other end of the scale, the entire universe being infinite, and the supply of primary bodies or atoms being infinite. And the last proposition is that the compound natural bodies are formed by the motion, collision, and interlacing of the primary bodies in the infinite void, and not by external forces, and specifically not by any supernatural intelligence. So we begin to get the anti-religious conclusions of the poem. But let's go through each of these propositions in detail and see the kinds of arguments that Lucretius provides for them. But first of all, consider the general logical form of the arguments in support of the basic propositions, because they're all pretty similar. The form is to lay out the proposition, call it P, and then argue that if not P, then Q, some other thing would result. But since Q is observed not to result and is observed by the sense is to be false, then not P must be rejected, and so we must embrace the original proposition. That is, the consequences of the contrary of the proposition are unacceptable, and therefore we have to accept the original proposition. For example, we argue that void exists, because if it didn't exist, then nothing would be able to move, but many things are seen to move, like clouds, cats, cars, and so forth. Therefore there must be void. Or again, nothing could come to be from nothing, because if something could come to be from nothing, then we would see plants grow without seeds, but plants are never seen to grow without seeds, so nothing can come to be from nothing. And further, nothing can pass away into nothing. If anything could pass away into nothing, then trees would be seen to disappear all of a sudden, but trees are observed to slowly wither and die and decay in stages over long periods of time. Therefore, nothing could pass away into nothing. So let's look in detail at the argument that nothing can come to be from nothing. The argument is that if something could be come to be from nothing, then animals would be seen coming to be outside of their specific ecological niches, but animals are not seen coming to be outside of their specific ecological niches. For example, humans do not come to be in the sea, fish don't come to be on land, birds don't come to be out of thin air, cows don't come to be in the desert, and so on. So since those unacceptable consequences of the contrary of the proposition, we must accept the proposition itself since they are unacceptable. And many, many examples can be given in support of the unacceptable consequences that would obtain that aren't seen. And so Lucretius frequently provides many examples and very poetically. Now, instead of going through the complete version of each argument, I'll just give you the general run of the kinds of considerations made. So things are also not seen to be coming to be outside of fixed seasons of birth. And since they aren't, but would, if it were possible that something could come to be from nothing, then we should conclude that nothing could come to be from nothing. And again, things aren't seen growing outside fixed periods or without fixed nutrients or beyond fixed limits or growing in uncultivated soil and so forth. So all of these provide empirical evidence that the proposition nothing could come to be out of nothing must be true. And its counterpart, nothing could pass away into nothing has similar arguments. If something could pass away into nothing, then things would be seen to be destroyed all at once. But things aren't seen to be destroyed all at once. And things are not seen to disappear forever, but they're gradually replenished. And things are not all seen to be destroyed by the same force. And things are not seen to be continually decreasing. The loss of some things is accompanied by the increase of others. Thus, since those unacceptable and unwitnessed consequences of the contrary of the proposition occur, we must accept the proposition itself. Nothing could pass away into nothing. Now moving on to the specific propositions of atomism. And first, that minute invisible bodies exist. If they didn't, then wind wouldn't be able to move larger bodies because we can't see whatever those bodies or particles are in wind that cause larger bodies to move. So therefore, minute invisible bodies must exist. And scents are smelled without particles of scents being seen and heat and cold are felt without the particles of heat and cold being felt and sounds are heard without the particles or bodies being seen. Fabrics left outside are moistened without particles being seen. Water and feet can wear down stone, bronze statues can wear thin, iron blades can become dull, and in general many things decay without us seeing the particles that must be constantly being rubbed away. And therefore we have to conclude that minute invisible bodies exist. Furthermore, we must accept that void or empty space exists. For if it didn't, then nothing would be able to move. But many things are seen to move. For example, clouds in the air, fish in water, birds in the air, humans and snakes on land. But if there wasn't empty space, they wouldn't be able to move within it. And some apparently solid objects are in fact pervious, that is, they can be pervaded by other solid objects. And so they must contain void. Also, some objects that are similar in size differ in weight, so some larger objects weigh less than some smaller objects. So those larger objects must have more void, thus void or empty space must exist. And there is no third thing besides atoms in void. These are the fundamental constituents of all reality. Now, here Lucretius argues that if there were a third nature, then things would have to be grasped by some third kind of faculty other than the senses in and the mind. The senses grasp that there are bodies, we can feel them, they're tangible, we can also see them, hear them, smell them, etc. And the mind grasps the fact that there must be void space, because we infer that from the fact that we see things moving. But if there were some other kind of thing, we would have to have some other kind of faculty besides the senses and mind in order to apprehend it, but there appears to be no other faculty. Now they hold that all other things besides atoms in void are either properties of atoms in void, as heat is a property of fire, cold is a property of ice, both fire and ice consist of atoms in void, heat and cold are not themselves atoms in void, but they are properties of bodies that are configured in a certain way, like fire and ice. If other things that exist that aren't atoms or void or properties of bodies consisting of atoms in void are accidents of bodies consisting of atoms in void. For example, historical events like the Trojan war, the Trojan war is not a property of any body and it's not atoms in void itself, so in what sense does it exist? It exists as an accident of the actual place Troy, somewhere in Asia Minor, where the Trojan war happened, those bodies and void making up that place. It's an accident of them. This historical event occurred there. That is, there were other configurations of atoms and void, people moving around people fighting walls, horses, wooden horses and so on. All of those are accidents of the bodies and void. Now, a couple of propositions about the primary bodies. First of all, they must be solid, for if they were not solid, they would be mixed with void and then one would see things somehow both full and empty, but fullness and emptiness are seen to be mutually exclusive. So there have to be purely solid bodies that contain no void. And again, if there weren't such bodies, they would not be able to contain void. And then no compound body would seem to contain void, but we do see many compound bodies that contain void. Also, if they weren't solid, then nothing would be seen that's hard, only soft things. But we do see many things that are hard, like bronze or iron. Hard things can come to be both out of hard and soft elements, or from hard things, both hard and soft things can be formed. We can form soft things if we interspersed the hard things with more void. But soft things could never be formed. Hard things could never be formed out of soft things. Therefore, primary bodies must be solid. Furthermore, the primary bodies must be indestructible and immutable. If they were destructible, then everything in the fullness of time would be seen to be destroyed utterly and nothing would ever be renewed. But we do see things being renewed, and we see that not everything is utterly destroyed. And if the primary bodies were themselves changeable and undergoing constant change, then the natural kinds that we see would not remain constant and fixed. But we do see constant and fixed natural kinds, so different plant and animal species, cows reproducing cows, trees reproducing trees, humans reproducing humans. So the primary bodies that underlie all of those natural kinds must themselves not be constantly changing. And the primary bodies must be indivisible. In fact, this is why we call them atoms. The word atom means not cuttable. The a means not, and thomos means cuttable or dividable. So an atomos is something that is uncuttable or not dividable, indivisible. If they were divisible, then they would have to consist of parts that are smaller than some minimum. But we see that there are smallest possible parts and things. And if they were divisible, then they would have to be divided into parts that have some magnitude. But if they could be infinitely divided into such parts, then the smallest thing would be seen to have the same magnitude as the largest thing when you added up all of those infinite parts of finite magnitude. But of course, that's not seen. We do see some things to be smaller or larger than others. So there must be primary bodies of some finite magnitude. And if they were divisible, then they would have to be divided into parts that have no differentiation among themselves. Eventually, you would get down to just self similar parts. But then they couldn't be recombined into compound bodies. And we wouldn't see any compound bodies. But of course, we do see compound bodies. Therefore, we must reject that unacceptable result of the contrary of the proposition that the primary bodies are indivisible. Now, at this point, Lucretius stops his explication of the proposition to offer extensive criticisms of three earlier theories, the theory of Heraclitus of Ephesus, according to which there is just a single element underlying all things fire, Empedocles of Acragus, who argued that there is actually four elements underlying all things, fire, air, water, and earth, and Anaxagoras of Cladzemenia, who argues that there are an infinite number of elements underlying all things and that all things are in all things. Now we might wonder why are these people attacked and only these people attacked? And a plausible answer has been given that they're sort of representatives of the possible conceptual space about elements. So Heraclitus, the representative of the idea that there's one element or material monism, Empedocles, that there's a finite but plural set of elements, and Anaxagoras, that there are an infinite plurality of elements. Another reason that these people may be attacked is that in various ways, these people seem to have been influential on later enemies of Epicurean philosophy like Stoicism. So Heraclitus was kind of the taken to be the mascot of later Stoicism, and Stoics adopted the four element theory of Empedocles. So possibly this is an attempt to undermine a contemporary philosophy. I think the actual reason why this interlude comes exactly here is because Lucretius has just been debating the infinite divisibility of the elements, and all three of these earlier theories he thinks or argues are committed to the idea that the elements may be infinitely divisible. So we refute each of those theories and then are left with the theory that they must be indivisible. The basic elemental bodies that underlie all other things must be indivisible. Now the last major argument of the whole work is that the universe is infinite in extent, and contains an infinite number of bodies, and several arguments or proofs are offered for this. First, if it were finite or limited, then it would be bound by something. It would have boundaries, but nothing can be bound unless there is something beyond it, which acts as that boundary. But if there's ever something beyond, then that thing is not finite. And to make this clear, Lucretius conveys a thought experiment. He says, I could move to the edge of your so-called finite universe, and then I will throw a dart. And either the dart will continue on past your supposed edge of the cosmos, in which case it really wasn't the edge and the universe continues on, or it will hit a wall. But if it hits a wall, that wall must be a solid object. There must be an other side of that wall. There must be some thickness to that wall. And so the universe continues beyond the boundary that the dart has hit. And then I can replay the thought experiment at any other place, any other space in this cosmos, and I can apply the argument infinitely. So the universe must be infinite. And he also argues that if it were finite, then it would have some kind of invisible boundary. But the boundaries that we see are all visible. We see air bounding mountains, mountains, air, land bounding sea, sea bounding land, but we don't see any kind of immaterial, invisible boundary of the whole cosmos. And if it were finite, then all matter, since it's heavy, would collect at the bottom most edge of this container or boundaries of the universe. But we see that earth, air, water, fire, etc., are in fact differentiated from one another, exist in different quantities in different regions, and we don't see any bottom of the universe. And we don't see matter all collected or piled together. Finally, if matter were finite, then in the fullness of time, if the matter were finite, but the cosmos itself was infinite in extent, then in the fullness of time the finite matter would become so dispersed in the infinite void that no compound bodies would become visible. But since we do see compound bodies, we must accept that there is an infinite amount of material moving around in this infinite space. Now, that brings us to the issue of how compound bodies within the universe are formed. How do we get to the visible objects that we see? That is, how do the atoms and void recombine to form the objects that are visible to us? Well, first of all, Lucretius says it's not because the atoms and void are themselves intelligent or capable of organizing themselves. They're merely material principles. They don't have parts, so they can't think and they can't intelligently organize themselves into sun, moon, stars, plants, animals, humans, and so on. Furthermore, of course, Lucretius rejects the idea that the universe was designed or created by some supernatural intelligence. He says it's much too flawed for that, and we can give many examples of how it's flawed. Furthermore, since we're talking about the whole universe, it's not, can't be held together by some external set of forces. There's nothing outside of it. And inside of it, there's just the atoms and void themselves. So the compound bodies and regions of the world must be formed by continual movements and collisions of the bodies in space, as he says. But because many of them shifting in many ways throughout the world are harried in buffeted blows from limitless time, by trying movements and unions of every kind at last they fall into such dispositions as those whereby our world of things is created and holds together. So all of the objects we see are just recombinations of atoms and void, which because they've had an infinite amount of time have moved into every conceivable kind of combination. Now we'll say much more about this in book two, which is entirely devoted to how the atoms recombine. But just to conclude and recap what we've learned from book one, we've learned no less than 12 of the basic propositions of atomism, the law of conservation of matter, the existence of both atoms and void, the solid and indivisible properties of the primary bodies, and the overall infinitude of the universe, combined with a basic notion of how compound bodies are formed, not by intelligent or external forces, but by nature.