Stoic principles analogous to Newton's laws of motion - Part II

 

"Once you have fixed on your governing principles, you must hold them as laws that you cannot transgress. Pay no heed to what is said of you for it is beyond your control"

  

- Epictetus

So, after discussing  abit about the application of (a qualitative analogy of) Newton's first law of motion, let us throw our gaze at what the second law, one of the fundamental laws of classical mechanics, has in store for us, shall we?

As I already said in my previous post, and I repeat, these 'laws' should not be thought of as scientific laws. Instead, think of them are analogies, guiding principles that can help simplify the complicated bits of life for all of us. And indeed, it is of crucial importance to think of ways in which we can cope up with this mad frenzy called life, anyway.

Newton's second law of motion: a quick revision 

TO be honest, the second law is the actual law, among the three, because it relates one of the fundamental properties of forces and motion to easily understandable maths. On the other hand, the first and third laws are actually special cases of the second law, instead of being independent scientific findings. Nonetheless, they have their own importance.

Still, since the second law if the most important, its analogy, also, is the most important one in this series of articles.

So, the second law states "The rate of change of momentum of a body is directly proportional to the magnitude of vector force applied on it, and the change in momentum aforementioned, takes place in the direction of the applied force". And thanks to its more quantitative and mathematical nature, people tend to forget it more often.

Momentum, if you're unfamiliar with the term's scientific definition, is the product of a body's mass and magnitude of velocity (speed). Qualitatively, it can be understood as the amount of motion in a body.

So, let us brush things up with a quick example. Say, player A hits the ball towards player B. Now, the ball is moving in the direction AB (A to B), and then, Player C, upon receiving the ball, kicks it towards player C. Now, the kick by player B is a force, i.e influence, and now the ball starts moving towards C, in the direction BC. Greater the force, i.e force of the kick by player B, faster is the ball's speed as it rolls towards C, and vice versa.

Of course, I kept things as simple as possible, so this visualization may not be 100% accurate, but it serves its purpose alright, in our case at least.

Now, this is the general form of the law, but a more specific form, as it is commonly understood in the domain of observation of classical mechanics (i.e the visible world around us, neither too small, nor too big), it is simplified to this statement: "The acceleration (rate of change of velocity) of a moving body is directly proportional to the magnitude of force applied on it". As you might recall, from your middle school lessons, F ∝ ma, or F = ma, the first form generalizing into the second, thanks to a careful choice of units. 

Obviously, F => Force, m => mass of the body and a => acceleration. For bodies moving at speeds much less than the speed of light, the change in mass (due to motion) is negligible, and so this is the approximate form of Newton's second law of motion. 

Okay, now let us consider the philosophical implications that this magnificent, yet simple, law holds for us. 

What's a good life, according to the Stoics?

I began this article, as you've noted, with a quote by Epictetus. There, he tells us first to devise our principles of living properly, and then follow them, unfailingly, to the best of our capabilities. It is immediately understandable, that there is an inextricable link between good life and good habits. 

Zeno, the founder of our grand school of Stoicism, famously remarked "Happiness is the good flow of life". It clarifies, therefore, that a good life is no still, static state of perfection. That would be a Utopian conception, of an unattainable state of self-sufficiency, omnipotence and omniscience, and such a state is only possible for God, hypothetically speaking. 

Ah, he got it right.

Then, what is a good life? It's a dynamic state, a journey that uplifts us continuously, making each day better than the previous day. It's a journey, that brings us closer and closer, and yet closer to perfection. Maybe that perfection is unattainable (after all, we aren't sages yet), but it matters not, does it? WHat matters, instead, is how well we fare against our own past selves. Thus, when we live a good life, we prosper, bloom and evolve, in the proper sense of these words. 

In the Upanishads, we find the ancient Rishis of India chant:  

ॐ असतो मा सद्गमय । तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय । मृत्योर्मा अमृतं गमय । 

i.e "Lead us from Unreality (of Transitory Existence) to the Reality (of the Eternal Self), 
Lead us from the Darkness (of Ignorance) to the Light (of Spiritual Knowledge),Lead us from the Fear of Death to the Knowledge of Immortality"

(This reveals, yet again, that the ancient sages of India were no strangers to Stoicism. Although they had referred to it using different names, the art of living was equally revered by. and contributed to by the ancient Aryans, as it was, by the Hellenistic philosophers). 

It is, therefore, quite logical to assume that good practices can help us live a good life. In fact, the very description of the Sage as an ideal role model to follow, is a method to maWhat can F = ma tell us about our lifestyle? ke sure that we never, ever give up on improving ourselves. And even the modern philosophy of transhumanism agrees with this. The very first element of Transhumanism is boundless expansion, the state of constant positive increment. 

F = ma in this regard

Now, I believe we can successfully relate this state of uplifting ourselves to what is known as state of uniform acceleration in mechanics, i.e when a body moves in a direction, under the influence of a constant thrust of force acting on it. 

As we see, F = ma. So, Force = mass x acceleration. Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity in the body, so a positive acceleration (such as 5 m/s^2) tells us that the speed of the body increases with time. And a negative acceleration means, the body is slowing down, gradually. 

Considering our scenario, it is evident that we can to speed up, i.e improve. So, we'll have to maintain a positive acceleration. And that means, a > 0. So, since F is proportional to a, F > 0, i.e we'll have to maintain a constant push, in the direction in which we want to move. 

So, when we develop a good habit, such as drinking enough water each day (more than 2.5 L, at least), or start learning a foreign language, we need to keep the habit under constant surveillance (sorry, victims of NSA) of the Prosokhe, our state of constant attention and conscious alertness. Neuroscience tells us, that it takes 3 weeks to make/break a habit, after all. 

For all of you who are sitting uninspired, waiting for some miracle to happen, understand that the true miracle is the result of our own choices, decisions and their implementation through our actions. No matter what our current state is, be it a prosperous, happy and content one or a state of bleak hopelessness, we CAN always improve things! Because no matter what a body's speed is, it can always move faster. 

Unless it has reached the speed of light, but that's a separate issue, since nothing can actually reach the speed of light, unless it has a rest mass of zero. To simplify things, let us denote the speed of light, c, as something analogous to the state of the Sage - unattainable, yet a great role-model to follow. 

So, what does the second law translate to, for the Stoics? Well, something like this: 

"If you want to develop a good habit, practice the habit daily and routinely, because your art of practising will make you better at it, each day". 

Sounds cheesy, eh? I'm no Virgil or Bankim, sadly. But you get the gist anyway, I hope. :P 

What happens if we stop? 

Okay, so whenever any body moves on the surface of another, there's the force of friction opposing the motion. This force of friction can be many types - rolling friction, kinetic friction, static friction, etc. Differentiating between them is beyond the scope of this post. It's just that friction is the antithesis of motion, so it'll always try to slow your body down. 

Now, when a force F acts on the body in the direction of its motion, another force f (the force of friction) simultaneously acts on it in the opposite direction. This force f = μ_k x N, where N is the force of normal reaction (usually, equal to the weight of the body) and μ_k is the coefficient of kinetic friction, a characteristic property associated with various surfaces. 

Yes, Prosokhe is the need of the hour!

For our analogy, when F contributes to the motion of the body, f opposes it. So, the net force acting on the body is ( F - f ). So, to make sure that the body moves, the force on it must be greater than the force of friction opposing it. 

If we want to live a good habit, therefore, we must act against our mind, when it tells us to stop, to give the thing up. And why is the mind telling us that? Because it is untrained. Because the general nature of any system is to generate entropy, i.e chaos, with time. And idleness, let me remind you all, is death. Life is dynamic, so we must be dynamic as well, to prosper. 

The idleness we face in the form of sentiments like "Ah, feeling too sleepy today. I'll definitely go for morning walks from tomorrow ;) ", "Oops! It's too late today, to finish that report. Ok, how 'bout day after tomorrow? :D ", "That extra dosa can't hurt my diet plans. And I am nothing if not a connoisseur :) ", are antagonistic, devotedly, to the process of development. That's why, Epictetus and Marcus remind us, time and again, to strictly follow our self-established rules, and not walk away from it, even for a single day. 

So, when we combine this with the Stoic analogy to Newton's first law of motion, we have the following Stoic principle in store for us: 

"Choose only good influences, and turn them into habits. Once you do that, never, even for a day, stop practising those habits, and you'll prosper, gradually but inevitably" 

Image credits 

Pixable, www.freegreatpicture.com, Wikipedia