Clinamen

ClinamenSF

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Clinamen, derived from clīnāre, to incline, is the Latin name that Lucretius gave to the unpredictable swerve of atoms, to defend the atomistic doctrine of Epicurus (Wikipedia).

Epicurus

Epicurus was a Greek philosopher who was born and lived between 341 and 270 BC. Lucretius Carus was a poet and philosopher who was born and lived between 99 and 55 BC. Lucretius can sometimes be seen as the successor of Epicurus since he wrote a book based on Epicureanism: De Rerum Natura Libri Sex.

In Rerum Natura, Lucretius addressed clinamen as a change of motion, when bodies, due to uncertainties, swerve from their course. (Retallack 2) Here, Lucretius tried to explain clinamen as a change of motion. The action or process of moving or being moved (Oxford Languages). This way Lucretius addresses the natural part of the significance of clinamen. The idea of not being forced into one direction. So, this way clinamen can enforce the natural capacity to have a will of its own.

Lucretius

In the third century B.C.E. the Greek philosopher Epicurus posited the swerve (a.k.a. clinamen) to explain how change could occur in what early atomists had argued was a deterministic universe that he saw as composed of the elemental body moving in unalterable paths. (Retallack 2) Uncertainly, from this I can deduce that clinamen was the name for research on atoms. An atom is the smallest part of an object and is used to explain the most dominant changes in every single move in the atmosphere that happened until now on planet earth. In this way, clinamen can also be explained by the big bang theory. The Big Bang Theory is a cosmological model of the observable universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution (Silk 208).

In the text The Poethical Wager, Retallack adds a significant component to the concept of climanem. She stated that Cage’s idea of chance operation, or composed clinamen, highlights a productive sense of contingency. She refers to this later when she defines writing as nothing more and nothing less than living and composing one contemporariness. (Retallack 16-17). In this way, the idea of “composed clinamen’’ manipulates one’s ideas by, for example, writing. I see writing as well as reading as a way to manipulate one’s thoughts. This has to do with the fact that writing, when it’s read, can lead to a change in the way of thinking, or can leave something hanging that triggers a reaction later on. Furthermore, you can force movements, and in this case it’s the movement of neurons. So, these movements are convenient since we can access information and react to it, which will sum up in more movements.

On the other hand, “composed clinamen” can be negative, or can suggest negativity. An example of this is the pollution humans

The Poethical Wager -Retallack, www.physicsclassroom.com Wikipedia. have forced upon the earth in order to have more comfortable lives. A force is a push or pull upon an object resulting from the object’s interaction with another object. Whenever there is an interaction between two objects, there is a force upon each of the objects. When the interaction ceases, the two objects no longer experience the force. Forces only exist as a result of an interaction. (www.physicsclassroom.com)

Humans forced objects into existence that, instead of working naturally, found their way to produce irreversible changes in the world’s ecosystem. This resulted in global warming and its consequences regarding the mortality of species that put ourselves in danger. Furthermore, gravity emphasizes the unpredictable aspect of clinamen that is comparable to fate or destiny. How many times do we try to imagine how the future may look, and then realize that it’s just a fantasy? Who could predict all the happenings in 2020? Despite everything, we try to be positive by justifying all the negativities by clinamen, or a swerve in atoms. Just a bump in the movement of atoms can lead to a whole new story and incomprehensible changes that can be undone. Instead of this we just have to deal with it.

Nevertheless, it is remarkable that the fact that clinamen has a contingency shift in atoms one can still ensemble the meaning regarding swerve in literary confinement. In this way, this substantial move of atoms can also be related to words and open up new discussions. As I mentioned before, a composed clinamen in literature is a way of manipulating our brain to think or act differently. Along these lines, the actions of the society can be controlled by manipulating what they read or learn.

Clinamen, in the sense of a swerve of atoms, is primarily influenced by gravity. Gravity is the force that attracts a body towards the center of the earth, or towards any other physical body that has mass. (Oxford languages). This can add up to the significance of everything falling into place. Gravity is an important factor of unpredictability because you can do whatever you want but you always have to deal with the gravity on earth, or the weight of the body or objects. The power of gravity won’t change the own will of bodies but will direct their physical manifestations. This direction can go in many ways, one can just take the resistance of bacterias as an example. And even though gravity doesn’t force atoms to bump in each other it surely is an important aspect of clinamen.