Posts by TauPhi

Quote from Julia

I don't glorify pain, it is not an end in itself, but I do embrace pain and discomfort, because I know it is not just one, but indeed the only path towards pleasure, which is my goal and guides my selection of which pains to embrace and which to shun (because it either does or doesn't outweighing the pain previously endured to attain it).

I will try to answer Cassius's initial question by showing that pain is not the only path towards pleasure. Julia Please don't take what follows as a criticism of your position. I think hedonic calculus is not only subjective but strictly personal and it's everyone's responsibility to make the calculus as efficient for themselves as possible. Whatever works for you, I'm happy for you and it's not my business or intention to criticize. I will just present my position which happen to be different to yours.

Some years ago, I started to realise that it's rather easy to appreciate pleasure when it comes from pain. In other words, when we move from discomfort to comfort, it's rather obvious to most people that this is a good time to feel good. I also started to play with the idea of pleasure as the ever present background to life. The background which is largely neglected by people. It's easy to detect pleasure in a glass of water in the middle of Sahara but awfully difficult to detect pleasure in a glass of water standing at the bottom of crystal clear waterfall with infinite supply of refreshing water at our disposal. The abundance makes people indifferent.

To my understanding, by observing that the absence of pain is pleasure Epicurus removed 'neutral state' for the purpose of tuning people into pleasure that is provided by nature in abundance. In other words, to teach people to feel pleasure when they feel nothing because feeling nothing is missed opportunity due to our misjudgement of reality we find ourselves in.

So my answer to the question: Why Do We Consider The Absence of Pain To Be Pleasure? is this: To gain ability of noticing and thriving in abundance of pleasure available to us instead of neglecting, being overwhelmed, being ashamed and ultimately rejecting pleasure that doesn't come from pain. After all, we are trained to firmly believing that there's no such thing as free lunch, right? Free pleasure must be repulsive. Earn it by suffering or reject it completely. Well, no. Pain is not the only path towards pleasure. It's definitely one of the paths. We cannot avoid pain. It will come whether we like it or not. We should learn from pain how to deal with it and how not to be broken by it, sometimes even how to transform it to pleasure but mostly, we should realise, appreciate and learn how to live our lives unashamedly in pleasure.

I'm a bit late to the party, but at least I know I can't possibly make a worse job with birthday wishes that Cicero.

Joshua , Kalosyni : Have a fantastic next year. And in case I'm not here in a year to wish you another fantastic year, have a fantastic rest of your lives.

Brilliant, Bryan . Thank you very much.

Quote from Cassius

I know some of us are shying away from these conclusions, but I don't think that Epicurus would have shied away from them any more than from his other radical conclusions. This is a subject we need to examine much more closely but I see no supernatural force or "necessity" that any particular object must be limited to a set and particular life span.

I suspect Epicurus to shy away from such conclusions if he had lived in our times. He would have been aware of laws of thermodynamics, for example. As far as we currently know, you don't need supernatural force of any kind to limit immortality. Natural forces do the trick perfectly well. If any compound of atoms is to perform meaningful work (that is to exchange energy and interact with its surroundings), immortality is out of the equation.

I am perfectly aware that human knowledge is not at the point (not even close) where we can claim with authority what is physically possible and what is impossible but I think Epicurus would be very cautious regarding the immortality of compounds of atoms of any sort by any means.

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... it is possible to maintain that given an Epicurean physical theory and the doctrine that all compounds will dissolve, the Epicurean gods, as compounds, are yet still imperishable in the sense that they are morally incorruptible.

It's morally acceptable to kill a mosquito but killing a cat is morally unacceptable. It was morally acceptable for Epicurus to own slaves but it's morally unacceptable for us. I'm giving these examples to show that human morality is liquid, ever changing set of societal rules arbitrary agreed upon by majority of people at any given time.

To say that Epicurean gods are morally incorruptible basically means to me: Let's grant gods human liquid, ever changing morality and then let's make people believe they have to behave accordingly since they have godly example to imitate.

I see few problems with gods and morality combined. Epicurean morally incorruptible gods interpretation sounds awfully familiar to me. Is it just me or is it just another code name for Ten Commandments? After all, these dos and donts are perfectly sensible to live by in societies. Therefore, these commandments must have been given to us by a god to follow.

4th icon from the right at the top of the screen - it's called 'Control Panel'. Click it and at the very bottom, right in the centre of the pop-up menu you'll find 'Logout' button.

Joshua Around 40min mark when you talk about Empedocles and the four elements, I think we may already have a better source than Lucretius dealing with this failed idea. P. Herc. 1148, column 34 seems to be a refutation of philosophers endorsing the four elements as building blocks of reality coming directly from Epicurus in his 'On Nature - Book 14'.

I'm not going to pretend I know what I'm talking about, but if Bryan or Don or anyone else who knows Ancient Greek feels like spending some time on the fragment below, we may have few more words from the Dude himself to talk about.

DCLP/Trismegistos 59752 = LDAB 856

[πρὸς τοὺς]
ὁρίζοντας σχῆμα π̣[υρ]ὸς ἴ-
διο̣ν ἢ γῆς ἢ ὕδατος ἢ̣ [ἀ]έ̣ρος,
ὅτι γελοιότεροί εἰσι τῶν οὐχ ὁ-
ριζόντων μέν, κατὰ δὲ τὰς
παραθέσεις ὁμολογησάν-
[τ]ων ἂν ἢ ἑκουσίως ἢ ἀκου-
[σί]ως γίνεσθαί τινα σχημά-
[τ]ων ἴδια εἴδη καθ' ἑκάστην
[οὐ]σιώδη ῥηθεῖσαν ἂν σύγ-
[κρ]ισιν· ο̣ἱ μὲγ γὰρ τοῖς μὲν
[στ]οιχείο[ι]ς ἁμαρτάνουσιν,
[ἀ]κόλουθ̣ον δέ τι τούτοις
[μ]ᾶλλον, οὕτω λέγοντες,
[λέ]γ̣οιεν ἄ̣ν, καὶ ὅλως δὲ τὴν
[τα]ῖς μείξ̣εσι[ν] παραλλαγήν·
[οἱ] δὲ πρὸς τὴ̣ν   ̣  ̣  ̣ σ   ̣[  ̣  ̣] δι-
[ὰ σχημ]άτων̣ π[⁦ -ca.?- ⁩] 

Julia Thank you for taking time to write such a thorough post. From Epicurean perspective, I don't think there is much material regarding time available, but I want to mention two, maybe not so obvious, sources which I find particularly interesting.

1) Sextus Empiricus "Outlines of Pyrrhonism", Book 3, 137 (I provide two translations for comparison):

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Epicurus (according to Demetrius the Laconian) [defines time] as "a concurrence of concurrences, concomitant with days and nights and seasons and affections and nonaffections and motions and rests." - R.G. BURY - "OUTLINES PYRRHONISM" (1990) p. 235

Epicurus, according to Demetrius the Laconian, [defines time] as an event made up of events, accompanying days and nights, seasons, pathe and the opposite, motions and rests. - BENSON MATES - "THE SKEPTIC WAY Sextus Empiricus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism" (1996), p. 195

2) Epicurus, On Time (PHerc. 1413/1416)

If I remember correctly, someone has already mentioned this Herculaneum scroll in the forum (sorry, I don't remember exactly where I've seen it). I don't think there's English translation of the scroll available, but there's a summary of a talk from 2022 by Alessia Lavorante in the pdf linked below (pages 7-10) where a lot of information about the scroll is provided. Definitely worth a read.

http://www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2022-12/HercArch_27_2022%202nd%20version_web.pdf

Quote from Cassius

I've now read through most of the material and I don't see any of it that brands Aetius as a raving anti-Epicurean, so I wouldn't think he would be tempted to misrepresent Epicurus generally (or at least, not more than seems commonly the case).

I don't think it is possible to know anything about Aetius' position on anything. It's not even certain if such person ever existed. Take a look here (I just skimmed through the text so I can't vouch for its quality nor factual reliability).

Did the doxographer Aëtius ever exist? [the original 1983 paper, now see the detailed 2016 refutation of Diels's Aëtius hypothesis and of Mansfeld and Runia's attempt to save it: "The origin and transmission of the doxographical

The original 1983 manuscript of the paper "Did the doxographer Aetius ever exist?" published in microfiche form in: Philosophie et Culture,…

www.academia.edu

Never mind the author of 'Placita', the work seems very interesting. Thanks, Bryan for mentioning it.

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'Destiny, which some introduce as sovereign over all things, he laughs to scorn, affirming rather that some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency. For he sees that necessity destroys responsibility and that chance or fortune is inconstant; whereas our own actions are free, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach.' [Letter to Menoeceus, 133]

Recently, this fragment has caught my attention as it made me think about The Three Sisters of Fate for some reason. I never paid too much attention to them before, but this time I started to see them in more favourable light. I started to play with the idea of the Moirai as allegories for foundations on which our lives happen instead of a simple idea of our lives being determined by the Fates.

Let's call our theatre 'the Universe'. Atropos (Ἄτροπος) - The Sister of Necessity, the Inevitable, builds the theatre and sets universal laws which are not to be crossed, bent or dismissed. Theatre 'The Universe' is where everything is. Next comes Lachesis (Λάχεσις) - The Sister of Distribution, the Alloter. She builds the stage for our play called 'The Life'. She gives us our chances - our genes, health, environment where we operate etc. Finally, Clotho (Κλωθώ) - The Sister of Choice, the Spinner. She weaves the thread of our lives. She employees us as actors in 'The Life' play where we make the choices which are ours despite the fact that they are limited by the chances and necessities of the stage and the theatre.

Epicurus tells us to laugh at the idea of The Three Μοῖραι literal existance ([...] sovereign over all things, he laughs to scorn [...]) and treats the myth as the myths should be treated - as allegories ([...] affirming rather that some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency. [...]). This is one of the reasons I find Epicurus' words attractive. He basically says: Dude, stop with this silly business of putting your life in the hands of imaginary builders, scenographers and booking agents and use what you have to be a good actor in the 'The Life' staged in 'The Universe'.

BTW, this post was inspired by the latest Pacatus poem 'Way of the Seasons'. I love all of it but the 'fate' part is absolutely brilliant.

Relevant to the above discussion (with translation of the tetrapharmakos I personally like much better than the common 'wikipedia' one).

Laudator Temporis Acti: The Epicurean Tetrapharmakos

I came across this short but interesting article on the topic of Epicurus' appearance:

'How the portrait of the Athenian philosopher Epicurus became known to us' by Takis Panagiotopoulos:

https://www.epicuros.gr/pages/en/Panagiotopoulos_EpicurusPortrait.pdf

Eric My thoughts are similar to yours on the majority of topics mentioned in your post so I don't think you will benefit much from a fork praising other fork for being a fork. However, I do want to say that I had a big smile on my face reading your latest post. Not because I kept nodding to myself in agreement but because your clarity of thoughts is a pleasure to experience. Loved it. Thanks for sharing.

Looks to me that an indivisible limit applies only to matter but I never came across anything in Epicureanism touching on the smallest unit of length in void. As Martin pointed out, minima of length in void would lead to interesting problems like resolution of reality and atoms "teleporting" from one place to another.

All these "meaning crisis" people strike me as "gummy bear prophets". They try to find people who never had gummy bears in their lives, convince these poor folks that their lives suck and it's absolutely crucial to eat gummy bears to make their lives better. When the bait is taken, "gummy bear prophets" will conveniently reveal themselves as "gummy bear suppliers" and will stuff their victims with gummy bears until obesity takes its toll.

When ungrateful victims prove themselves to be incompetent enough to find a way to consume more gummy bears from six feet under, "gummy bear prophets" will announce to the world that another crisis is due but luckily for only $21.99 they are willing to share a solution. You'll get 50% discount if you share, like and subscribe and further 25% if you use their promo code: gummybearsrulez within the next two hours.

Quote from Cassius

[...] it is very tricky to identify just exactly what an "injustice" is. [...]

In the book I'm currently reading - Bertrand Russell "A History of Western Philosophy" (1946) - I found an interesting passage about Greek notion of justice and injustice. When Mr. Russell discusses Anaximander, he provides his words that caught my attention:

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'Into that from which things take their rise they pass away once more, as is ordained, for they make reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustice according to the ordering of time.'

Mr. Russell continues:

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'The idea of justice, both cosmic and human, played a part in Greek religion and philosophy which is not altogether easy for a modern to understand; indeed our word 'justice' hardly expresses what is meant, but it is difficult to find any other word that would be preferable. [...] This conception of justice - of not overstepping eternally fixed bounds - was one of the most profound of Greek beliefs. The gods were subject to justice just as much as men were, but this supreme power was not itself personal, and was not a supreme God.'

[pages 45-46]

In the above passage 'cosmic justice' is discussed, but 'human justice' would probably be understood in antiquity as 'not overstepping fixed bounds'.

A few of the recent conversations got me thinking and as a result a new perspective on ancient Epicurean worldview emerged in my mind. I'm curious how viable you think the perspective is, my dear EpicureanFriends.

Firstly, the required Epicurean foundations:
1) The universe is infinite. (both is geometry and duration)
2) Atoms and void are infinite (atoms in quantity (but not quality!) and duration, the void in geometry and duration)
3) Compounds of atoms are finite in quality (there are limits to what can exists due to quality limits of the atoms), duration (they decompose over time) and quality (they are bound to the worlds they create and freed again from the worlds when disintegrated into individual atoms). Examples of compounds: a flower, a planet, a TauPhi.

Secondly, few conclusions I drew from Epicurean physics that I hope don't violate any Epicurean doctrines:

1) Passing of time is irrelevant to what is infinite but relevant to what is finite (time might not even exist to what is infinite but the safer conclusion will suffice here).
2) Epicurean worlds are bubbles of finite amount of compounds of atoms. Each bubble contains a fraction of realised reality (of what is possible in the universe).
3) There are infinite amount of such bubbles in the universe, they are completely independent of each other (compounds of atoms cannot pass from one world to another) and they all contain some fractions of realised reality.
4) I call these fractions of realised reality: classes of compounds of atoms. (class of flowers, class of planets, class of TauPhis).
5) Classes are infinite in quantity (all that can exist must come to existence infinite numbers of times on infinite Epicurean worlds in the infinite universe). Classes are infinite in duration (they exist always, infinite amount of times). The only limits classes have is the limit of quality (as atoms themselves are limited in quality - what can exist in the universe is limited by possible arrangement of limited types of atoms).

From the above, the crucial is to keep in mind the nature of time, compounds and classes of compounds. Is it possible that the Epicureans came up with something like what follows?

Every class is godlike in nature. Classes are immortal (they exist always) and blessed (they can't experience passage of time due to their infinity in duration and therefore cannot be disturbed in their blessedness). Separation from other bubbles (the collapse into a singular Epicurean world) removes all infinite 'class' proprieties from compounds of atoms and give them singular, distinctive existence as perishable compounds of atoms that can experience time until they reach complete disintegration.

This perspective, more or less, elevates some of the problems I personally have with the Epicurean philosophy:

1) Gods. They no longer have to be something to aspire to (idealistic view) or some super advanced species bending the laws of mortality through technology (realistic view). Gods are neither. They are classes of things that exist infinitely in the universe. The class of TauPhies is godlike. It doesn't make me personally a god at all, however. I am TauPhi that is simply the singular manifestation of what is possible in this world. I don't have a bird's-eye view, nor experience, of the class of TauPhies (or any other class for that matter). All I have is a worm's-eye view, and experience, of the compounds of atoms called TauPhi. All the infinite TauPhies out there are incapable of experiencing the class of TauPhies, the continuity breaks within a singular world and there's no way for any individual TauPhi to become a god whereas the class of TauPhies don't have any choice but to be godlike forever.

2) The principle of isonomia. The balance of things in the universe is preserved. Even if there are no immortal things in any of the infinite worlds that can be experienced directly from worm's-eye view, there's equal amount of immortal classes of things from bird's-eye perspective of the universe.

3) I always liked the 'discontinuity' passage in Lucretius. Especially 'immortal death' and 'mortal life' in book 3 (line 869). I always thought of it as a nice poetic description but now I think 'immortal death' (mors inmortalis) taking 'mortal life' (mortalis vita) can be literal description of Epicurean physics. Please read lines 843-869 in book 3 for the context.

This post is getting way too long. Please mind that the above is not my personal worldview. I just tried to glue the pieces of what was transmitted to our times with my limited reasoning and recreate a possible worldview of ancient Epicureans. Let me know what you think about this attempt.

I'm always happy to exchange knowledge with others so count me in.

Quote from Cassius

At the moment I am thinking mainly of a discussion of research and writing tools that we use in the study of Epicurus, but that's something to discuss.

This can be useful not only for Epicureans but for everyone who uses computers in their research. Great topic for a start.

Quote from Cassius

If you're going to wrestle people out of the jail of supernatural religion you're going to need to replace "god" with something, and "atoms" is only a part of the picture. The rest of the picture as a whole requires "infinity" to be plausible and persuasive to people of normal intelligence - and people of normal intelligence shouldn't be asked to accept "trust the scientists" or "trust the mathematicians" any more than they accept "trust the priests" as an explanation.

I don't think it's fair to make such generalizations about people. I got myself out of the jail of supernatural religion as a teenager and I don't recall I've ever felt a need to replace "god" with anything particular. I seem to live my life, try to understand what's it about but I don't have irresistible need to fill myself with any absolutes. I'm ok with the realisation that I probably will never know what's it all about and I still find joy in trying to know. I don't think I'm noticeably less or more intelligent than a normal person and yet I don't want to be persuaded into anything by anyone. I want to grasp what I call reality the best I can based on my learning and understanding and not on trust or persuasion.

Quote from Cassius

In fact, I would say that the implication of what Epicurus has stated that we should do - MOST OF ALL -- is that we should study the principles of infinity and take them to be correct. We should not consider them to be "mind-blowing' at all, but they should be second nature and taken to be as obvious and easy to understand as anyone for the past 2000 years has taken the incorrect "In the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth..."

Epicurus was a dogmatist after all, so I guess the above claim is reasonably true.

Personally, as an Epicurean friend (not an Epicurean), I'm not convinced we should take anything to be correct on "believe me, dude" argument. Before we take something to be correct I find it more reasonable to focus on study and suspend definite judgements until we figure out a way to prove or disprove something (Pyrrho pays me to say this every Tuesday).

As of now, infinity of the universe (among other infinities) is neither obvious nor easy to understand (or prove) to humanity.