that there is a smallest unit of length
A smallest unit of length has so far only been suggested but its existence is not proven. Epicurus did not claim the existence of a smallest unit of length either, possibly later Epicureans did that. A smallest unit of length (in terms of an exact number instead of something vague like quantum indeterminacy) would create big conceptual problems, both in Epicurus' metaphysics and in modern physics.
We should read Elli's claims as analogies, and not as identical ideas to modern science. The text would be a lot more complicated and less impressive if it was formulated in every sentence as analogy. Similarly, scientists mostly refer to reality instead of models because it would make their papers even less intelligible if they would explicitly include the model character of their theories in every sentence.
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Beetlemoses imagines how it may happen:
The ancients were certainly aware, that a piece of solid material could be ground such that the piece becomes smaller and the removed specs would still have color if visible or they were not visible, and that water evaporated without that they could see into what. It was straight forward to infer for Epicurus that the smallest spec still visible was not an atom and that atoms were smaller than to be seen with bare eyes. Moreover, his atoms did not have color, which adds to the impossibility to see them.
I would be in for Karaoke. After practicing at bit more, I hope to find a group of Karaoke fans in Bangkok, irrespective of philosophy or religion.
Elayne found a way to enjoy earworms instead of being annoyed by them; maybe it is somewhere on this forum. If a song which I like follows me as an earworm for a day, I enjoy it, too, but not if I do not like the song.
So...maybe time to get started on the Epicurean songbook!
Here it is:
Music With Epicurean Philosophical Themes - Epicureanfriends.com
Some ideas of Epicurus are impressively compatible with, or analogous too, modern knowledge. However, from an experimental perspective, Asimov's statement that "these are all twentieth-century discoveries" is mostly correct.
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In Asia, it is common to tell the age based on the year, irrespective of the day. This may have been common practice in Ancient Greece, too.
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Dialectic is a thing of closed logic, of minor and major premises leading inexorably toward irrefutable conclusions.
This seems to be nonsense and disqualifies Higgins as worth to read. Irrefutable conclusions exist only in logic but not in dialectic. The straight-forward logical description of dialectic contains contradictions of the type "A and not A". Whereas dialectic as derived from dialogue and used by Plato may sometimes be useful, the way Hegel's dialectic mimics logic is rather an unintended parody of logic and invalid.
Do we all agree that "to desire sth" is an "atom of experience" just like "feels warm" is, too, meaning both are indivisible and not made up of smaller, lower-level, more fine-grained units of experience?
I agree, at least in the sense that I am not aware of a meaningful way to compose a desire of smaller units.
..., he did not think it was important, and in fact was willing to radically redefine, that to which ordinary words are used to refer.
This is in contradiction to the quoted part of the letter to Herodotus:
For this purpose it is essential that the first mental image associated with each word should be regarded, and that there should be no need of explanation, ...
This means that typically, we should use words the way they are usually meant. Epicurus himself made exceptions from this and then usually gave an explanation why a word would be used with a different meaning than commonly (mis)understood.
The three categories are useful to understand Epicurus' philosophy and for prioritizing among those desires for which it is obvious into which category they fall. For natural but not necessary desires and for desires for which the category is not obvious, e.g. because of individual preferences or circumstances, it is more useful to answer the question whether the expected pleasure is worth the expected pain from fulfilling the desire.
Galaxy is too much for me, too. Solar system appears to be the modern term closest to what Epicurus called a cosmos.
10. Epicurus includes something that looks a lot like the “Dichotomy of Control” clearly showing they didn’t come up with it but gave it a catchy title.
It seems, "Stoics" or "Stoicism" should be included in this item from Session 4, e.g.
"10. Epicurus includes something that looks a lot like the “Dichotomy of Control” of the Stoics clearly showing they didn’t come up with it but gave it a catchy title."
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