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Updated FAQ Entry: Why Should I Care About Epicurean Physics When So Much Science Has Changed In The Last 2000 Years?

  • Cassius
  • March 26, 2026 at 1:57 PM
  • Go to last post

New Graphics: Are You On Team Epicurus? | Comparison Chart: Epicurus vs. Other Philosophies | Chart Of Key Epicurean Quotations | Accelerating Study Of Canonics Through Philodemus' "On Methods Of Inference" | Note to all users: If you have a problem posting in any forum, please message Cassius  

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  • Peter Konstans
    02 - Level Two
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    • June 18, 2026 at 5:54 AM
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    • #21
    Quote from Don
    Quote from Peter Konstans

    No philosophy, no advice, no magic formula made up of a string of words can bring down the iron walls of the environment and the brain. Someone's environment is what it is and someone's brain is what it is. This fixes human behavior in full.

    Now, the absence of moral agency doesn't mean humans can't influence other humans. This is trivially easy to do by means of manipulating the circuits of human neurobiology that govern pleasure and pain. This technique is morally neutral and people use it as they please both to benefit others and to do harm.

    I'm honestly trying to understand how both these can be true.

    How can our behavior be determined fully by brain physics and environment BUT we can still influence other humans. If all is determined by physics, doesn't that mean even the influencers are not responsible for their "influence" but merely acting out their predetermined behaviors which those influenced are just the next step in the chain of determinism?

    These ideas have also been expounded by Sipolsky and others, but I'm not entirely convinced by their arguments. I'll try to dig up some alternative perspectives at some point.

    The sense that this is a contradiction is an illusion. To resolve the contradiction we have to do two things.

    First, we have to explore what motivates people to try to influence other people in general. The answer is: to extract a desired reaction from them. In the case of influencers the desired reaction is likes, views, subscriptions etc. Why are those reactions desired? Because those reactions bring them money. And why do people want money? For the same reason they want energy. Money is effectively a form of energy as it can be converted to actual material goods and services. And why do people seek energy? Well, they have evolved to aggressively seek it. Why did they evolve to seek it? Because natural selection in humans favored strongly acquisitive behavior. Why is natural selection the way life works? Eventually the answers will lead us to see reality for what it is: arrangements of quantum fields, everything else being an illusion that reflects our cognitive limitations as human beings.

    Next, we have to explore what makes influencing the behavior of people possible. Obviously, this is possible. If it wasn't possible people wouldn't be motivated to try it so often, so intensely and so instinctively. Criticism is an extremely stubborn human behavior aimed at influencing the behavior of others through inducing feelings of shame. Although criticism doesn't actually work in changing behavior (except in children because their brains haven't fully developed yet) most people can't help themselves from constantly engaging in criticism over and over again over the same issues. Natural selection has selected for the constant drive to influence others and we stubbornly apply that instinct even when the evidence shows it doesn't work. Hell, we even apply it to our gadgets and machines when we curse and hit them for not cooperating with us.

    Influencing people only works reliably when we convince them we have access to something useful for biological fitness that they lack. The more useful and delectable that something is thought to be, the greater the influence. Influencers sell magic recipes for prosperity and likeability (what used to be called charms). And since most people have unrealistic notions of prosperity and life satisfaction they will always come back for more magic formulas. That's essentially the business plan of influencers. It works because people have evolved to share information that enhances fitness . In the modern environment most of that information is bullshit.

    Since a significant chunk of society's economic output comes from selling frivolous, useless or harmful products there's less money for the serious things, like science and the production of non-frivolous products, skills and services. Although many people know something about this state of affairs, magical thinking in the form of the sacred word 'freedom' prevents them from doing anything to stop it. Talk has been tried and it doesn't work.

    • PDF
  • Don
    ΕΠΙΚΟΥΡΕΙΟΣ (Epicurist)
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    • June 18, 2026 at 7:21 AM
    • New
    • #22
    Quote from Peter Konstans

    First, we have to explore what motivates people to try to influence other people in general.

    1. The answer is: to extract a desired reaction from them. In the case of influencers the desired reaction is likes, views, subscriptions etc.
    2. Why are those reactions desired?
      1. Because those reactions bring them money.
    3. And why do people want money?
      1. For the same reason they want energy. Money is effectively a form of energy as it can be converted to actual material goods and services.
    4. And why do people seek energy?
      1. Well, they have evolved to aggressively seek it.
    5. Why did they evolve to seek it?
      1. Because natural selection in humans favored strongly acquisitive behavior.
    6. Why is natural selection the way life works?
      1. Eventually the answers will lead us to see reality for what it is: arrangements of quantum fields, everything else being an illusion that reflects our cognitive limitations as human beings.

    [Etc...]

    This whole digression into online "influencers" misses my point. I was using "influence" in the broad sense of simply getting people to do what you'd like them to do, from changing one's trivial opinions on where they'd like to go to supper to more serious matters like how they live their life.

    The money issue seems to also be a tangent and one I'm not entirely sold on (pun intended). The only reason money can be exchanged for material goods is that we as a society have agreed to this shared social construct. "Money" is also a way that people try to signify their importance by concepts such as millionaire and billionaire. That money will never be able to purchase all possible material goods. It serves as a symbolic social status identifier. It also doesn't confer security as one has to be anxious about keeping it safe and other concerns.

    There are a number of leaps in those bullet points and the rest of the post that I'm not willing to concede. I also don't see thatn last post resolving the contradiction about which I inquired. This has also taken this thread far afield from the pertinent discussion on determinism, fatalism, and Epicurean philosophy.

    I'll agree that our choices are not entirely free of all constraints. We have general tendencies, dispositions, self-imposed and externally-imposed social constraints, etc. Even Epicurus states "some things happen by necessity, some by chance, and some by our own power." Some will argue fervently that it can only be necessity OR chance, that there is nothing we do that's "by our own power." I'm open to having my opinion influenced, but I'm not willing to entirely concede to not having anything determined "by my own power" for now.

    • PDF
  • Online
    Todd
    03 - Level Three
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    • June 18, 2026 at 9:29 AM
    • New
    • #23

    This seems relevant:

    Quote from Metrodorus (in Plutarch, Reply to Colotese)

    Some, through an abundance of vanity and arrogance, have so deep an insight into the business of [the state], that in treating about the precepts of good life and virtue, they suffer themselves to be carried away with the very same desires as were Lycurgus and Solon.

    ...

    It is then very well beseeming a free-born gentleman to laugh heartily, as at other men, so especially at these Solons and Lycurguses.

    • PDF

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