Posts by Martin

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For example, atoms cannot be observed directly; their existence and properties must be determined by deduction, and the principles thereby deduced serve as standards for assessing truth.

As mentioned a few weeks ago, this formulation is wrong. If you use only deduction, you are limited to logic and mathematics. Induction is necessary to justify a theory from which you want to deduce something about reality. At Epicurus time, direct observation of atoms was not possible, and we have no texts which show how Epicurus produced his axioms about existence and basic properties of the atoms. He might have obtained them by starting with a theory based on Democritus' atomism and alternating between checking how well the theory can explain all relevant observations and improving the theory. Democritus und his predecessors might have used a similar interplay between observations and precursor theories.

Prior to 20th century quantum mechanics or a thorough understanding of classical thermodynamics (which happened only after quantum mechanics), hard determinism appeared to be the most fitting to a materialist world view. I certainly would have fallen for the same trap. Embracing the swerve would have left a loophole for the church. Hard determinism rather than the swerve was going "all the way" at that time.

Epicurean non-belief creed

First draft:

I do not have any beliefs.

I know some stuff.

I know that some of my knowledge may be wrong.

I know that there is a lot more stuff which I do not know.

I know that there is stuff of which I do not even know that I do not know of it.

This very partial knowledge does not compel me to any belief, because so far, I have acquired any knowledge needed to enable a pleasurable life, and I am confident to keep this attitude until death terminates my existence.

In order to die as we lived in pleasure, we should avoid taking pain killers because practicing pain management by mental methods prepares us for a still mostly pleasurable experience when we suffer a painful death.

Just before death, we may be very confused. Therefore, we should practice focusing on pleasure at times when we are confused (preferably mental pleasures to avoid accidents in that state of confusion) such that we can assure pleasure to the end when we die.

From 6 PM EST onward, I should be able to join on most Fridays.

Welcome Jim!

Second Life seems to be close to what Cassius aims at.

A neighbor of mine uses it regularly to meet friends who live in Scotland. In addition to joking around, he plays virtual orchestra with them.

I am Maetes4 in Second Life. However, Maetes4 has hardly done anything in the first few months and has been in a coma for the last several years since then. I just checked: It seems there is an "Epicurus Beach" in Second Life but it seems that that one refers only to hedonistic activities and not the philosophy. Moreover, there are 3 "Epicurean" sims or whatever, but they are for adult rated and other entertainment. There is no Epicurean Garden or Kepos yet. If there is sufficient interest among us, we can consider building one and see how many people come in to explore the place. However, while playing is for free, building a place might cost something.

Yes, one aspect of the bookcase is community-building. Establishing systematic access to literature available in pdf-files is good to do in parallel.

For German texts, there is a lot at: Projekt Gutenberg-DE - Startseite (projekt-gutenberg.org)

(Cassius made me more aware of this one in an old thread on the Prussian King Friedrich II. (not the medieval Friedrich II.))

Nate's library of electronic files is a good idea if we make sure that no copyrights are violated.

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Martin are you able to edit this page?

Yes, I just did it. Please check and modify as you see fit.

The photo shows up twice but when I edit the post, it shows only once. How to remove one of the 2 identical photos from the post?

There are many public bookcases in Germany. The photo shows the one closest to my apartment. Anyone can place no more needed books in such a public bookcase or take books from it without obligation to return them.

These bookcases and having received a book by an Epicurean friend last year inspired the idea to set up a bookcase on http://www.epicureanfriends.com.

Preferably, there should be a page on http://www.epicureanfriends.com with the list of books. The format should not be like a forum page but a table which lists the books with author, title and username of the owner, with the option to add photos of the books and comments.

To minimize the need for administration, any member of http://www.epicureanfriends.com should be able to edit the list.

A member who would like to get a book from the list sends a private message to the owner to ask for the book and to write the address to where the book should be shipped. Then, the owner sends the book, pays the shipping fee and removes the book from the list, and the requestor gets it for free. It is up to the owner and the requestor to negotiate different terms.

Preferably, the content of books on the list should be philosophy, science, history, arts, self-help or non-trivial fiction, but there are no restrictions on the content except for spam and material which is restricted by law in some countries such as pornography, calls to commit a crime, Nazi propaganda.

An alternative way to implement the bookcase project could be that instead of one page with the table of all available books, each willing donor creates a list on the own profile page.

Please feel free to comment and suggest rules which should be added for the implementation.

epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/2979/

Logic does not need to be and cannot be validated by the senses. The theorems of logic are true. However, without premises based on observations, no conclusions on the world can be obtained from logic alone.

The truth Plato and probably most ancient philosophers had in mind concerning the world does not exist or is unavailable. What we can get from observations are tentative facts by using logic as a tool.

Welcome Ben!

Welcome Sid!

In response to #16:

Anyone who has done chemical lab courses can probably confirm that some chemical reactions are difficult to reproduce, which may make passing a lab course in time difficult. Chemistry students make jokes about this, e.g., there is a reaction called Mannich reaction, named after Carl Mannich. Instead, you can interpret the name of the reaction as in the verbal German phrase "ma' nich'" (in written German "mal nicht" for "once not"), so it is the reaction which sometimes works and sometimes not.

Joking aside, the reason for such difficulties is usually that the reaction is very sensitive to the experimental conditions. It is conceivable that this sensitivity is associated with amplification from an atomic level subjected to quantum indeterminacy to the macroscopic level in some cases, especially if we have a microscopic cell structure with complex connections and interplay between chemical reactions and charge transport at every connection.

Now, let us take a simplistic model of the brain with domains for sensory input, memory, internal drives and a domain for random generation sensitive to quantum indeterminacy, all connected to a domain for reasoning, which in turn is connected to a domain for decision-making and a domain which controls actions. Especially the domains for memory and internal drives distinguishes an individual person from others.

If the sensory inputs indicate a problem, the domain for reasoning tries to find a solution. The domain for memory may provide something which worked in the past, but the case may appear too different to mechanistically repeat a past action. The domain for random generation produces a series of random patterns, whereby almost all of them are useless nonsense but a few might represent solutions. The domain for reasoning discards the nonsense and picks a workable solution, possibly one which is based on experience modified by an idea from the domain for random generation.

There is no proof that this model is adequate for decision-making of the human brain or that there are amplification mechanisms in the brain to get from quantum indeterminacy to a different output of a domain. However, the model does provide a conceivable explanation how quantum indeterminacy (i.e. the swerve) can lead to free will / agency of the individual in a world which is mostly deterministic at the macroscopic level.

Free will has the connotation of a supernatural soul. In materialism without hard determinism, "agency" is the preferred term to replace the term "free will" to get rid of that supernatural connotation. This leaves enough room for anything from the little "free will" of Onfray to a lot of "free will" and is flexible enough to not be refuted by future research results on how far agency actually goes unless those results prove hard determinism. A proof of hard determinism in the real world as perceived by us appears to be not conceivable as of now.

Complementarily to the recommendations for coping with misery by enjoying the small pleasures, we can try to get out of misery. A major tool to reconcile sustained maximal pleasure as the goal with the actually available options is hedonic calculus. (Growing up as a weak and small guy in a working-class suburb with a construction worker who was an alcoholic as the father, I started off at the very opposite of the "opulent quarters" of the city, and so did Steve Jobs. I figured out hedonic calculus by myself and that helped me to get out of the misery.)

A slave in ancient Greece or in the United States in 19th century might have considered the following options:

1. Working hard to fulfill the master's orders to avoid the pain of corporal punishment and to eventually get freed as a reward.

2. Trying to escape to where conditions are better. (E.g. being a slave in Athens might have been better than to be a slave in Sparta; survival in hiding in a faraway wilderness might have been better than slavery under a cruel master, escaping to freedom in the North and possibly fighting as a Union soldier might have been worth the risk.)

3. Staying a slave because material security was assured under reasonably good circumstances. (E.g. after the rise of Rome and the end of Greek democracy, an educated Greek might have chosen to work as a slave to teach children of a wealthy Roman family.)

An employee in 2022 under miserable conditions might consider the following options:

1. Working hard, saving as much as possible and investing wisely to facilitate early retirement or to start a business.

2. Upgrading of education to qualify for promotion to a better position. (I took the opportunity to get as high an education as possible, which provided opportunities for pleasurable jobs. My sister worked for a bank after high school, quit to take care of her daughter, divorced and worked part time for a public institution, studied remotely for a university degree in her forties and then got the expected promotion to a full-time position which required the degree.)

3. Working for a different company or in a different industry.

Hard work is necessary for quite some years to get out of misery, meet demands of a spouse, provide a good education to the children and get a decent life. However, there is no point in working hard until retirement without much pleasure if then all we can still do is tottering around in an old peoples' home.

Welcome Waterholic!

Mill himself makes no claim to originate this but rather refers to unspecified earlier writers and seems to imply that it originates from Epicurus himself:

"But there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation. It must be admitted, however, that utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, etc., of the former — that is, in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. And on all these points utilitarians have fully proved their case; but they might have taken the other, and, as it may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone."

(John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, Chapter II, from http://fair-use.org/john-stuart-mill/utilitarianism)