Revisiting Issues of The Use of AI in Epicurean Philosophy

Thank you Tau Phi.

Many of our EpicureanFriends participants arrived here after traveling through Stoicism - myself included. Many open-minded people read the Stoic materials and it's probably a good means of exposure for us to at least occasionally engage at appropriate times.

I have avoided skirmishing with the committed Stoics in the past, but I think we need at least a couple of articles setting out the ultimate points for those who are new to the study. The articles that are specifically anti-Epicurean and relatively high-profile - such as this one by Pigliucci on Substack - probably deserve individual attention.

In the future where specifically anti-Epicurean articles appear, i want to at least consider publishing a public response. I try to monitor the internet for new articles, but this one got past me for almost a month. As people see articles that deserve attention I will appreciate it if they will let me know by public thread or private message.

Quote from Don

I see you don't allow comments on Substack.

I may change that but have not thought it through.

Quote from DaveT

I wish you and he could engage in a scholarly journal on issues he asserted and your response.

It's an interesting question. I am not opposed to doing that at some point, and in fact I expect to do more interviews/discussions as we've done on the podcast in the past, but I need to think through exactly if and when debating with someone committed to an opposing position is worth the time.

If I were promoting myself as a guru or writing a book I wanted to sell or wanted to become a "personality" then that would clearly be the thing to do. However that is not my goal: my goal is the successful restoration of an Epicurean "camp" (to use that terminology here), and that isn't necessarily best accomplished by engaging in personality debates or trying to build my own personal "brand." I don't admit that anything we do here is anything other than correct Epicurean philosophy, so it would only detract to allow it to appear to be a "Cassius Amicus" innovation.

in fact I am remembering lately what Francis Wright had to say in A Few Days In Athens about how in-person arguments rarely produce anything good as a result.

As Martin and I and others observed over at Facebook, there is an unlimited supply of Stoics who love nothing better than arguing about detailed points of logic. The truth is that basic issues of the nature of the universe and our perspective on this world as sufficient for us, rather than focusing on a transcendent "true world" need no sophisticated analysis. The respective positions are unbridgeable and the main question is how to get the world to people who are open to the Epicurean side.

As you yourself indicated in an earlier post, engaging in debates where we have no reasonable expectations of coming to agreement with the other side. For the present I am thinking that the best thing i can do for the project is to continue to focus on the podcast and producing new content of our own. So I'm still thinking but those are my current thoughts.

We have a lot of projects going on here and those will probably continue to be my primary focus.

Quote from DaveT

My thinking was that a scholarly debate read in an academic journal, might raise the misstated issues by Pigliucci to professionals in the field. Any one of those who may better understand Epicurus though your forceful review of Pigliucci becomes a force multiplier so to speak toward your goal of clearing up misconceptions of Epicurean foundations.

Unfortunately my experience tells me to expect just the opposite as to who the "professionals in the field" can be expected to say is misguided. Although I am no Academic myself, it's my observation that Pigliucci's position is in fact the majority position of the vast majority of philosphic professionals.

This feeds back into our earlier discussion of "experts" and when to defer to them. I have to go with my reading of the sources and the commentators as to what makes sense to me after reviewing the best material available.

I'll be pleased if there are any Academics who would weigh in to agree with my position, but I don't expect it. If there were such writers out there already, we wouldn't be almost alone in the positions that have been taken on this forum on the best interpretation of Epicurus, and Pigliucci's positions would not be so prevalent.

This is an ongoing journey, and no one here should be under the false impression that they can refute Pigliucci's position by numbers of testimonials. For the present at least, anyone whose priority is to be in the mainstream of Academic scholarship likely isn't going to feel at home at EpicureanFriends.com.

Thanks Joshua I will incorporate that!

Thank you Dave let me be clear as to the organization of the articles and address what some no doubt are wondering:

In these two articles I have taken my draft outline as well as prior articles I've written on these topics and input the mix to AI to help structure the organization and presentation. After I get a second draft I have then edited all phrasing to be sure that I can personally stand by the wording 100%.

I see this as similar to the AI art that I've included with each article. There is no way I could myself produce such artwork without AI assistance, and yet the subject of the graphic is what I dictate it to be and the result is something that I am willing to stand by and significantly enhances the article.

No doubt there will be those who say that the result is "slop" and should be rejected out of hand because AI was involved in the composition. That's a criticism I am willing to take given that (1) the result takes my own points and arguments, and (2) the articles make no other points than what I myself am directing. Everything in these articles has been discussed numerous times in many ways in both articles here and on the podcast.

As for places of publication, for now I think I'm probably going to just let nature (and Facebook, X, and Substack) take their course on that. I see that as kind of like the issue of debates. At this point in my life my contribution to the team effort doesn't involve making myself a brand name or personality. My contribution (if any) is that of organizing material and calling it to the attention of others who can hopefully then take it to another level. That's a goal and a process in which I'm happy to take any assistance (alive or artificial) I can find.

As usual you are raising issues I think a lot about so thanks for the input.

Note -- In order to appreciate the context of Tau Phi's post 14, this earlier post is essential context.

Tau Phi I will think you have adequately stated your position as to any AI in this thread here. If you have some substantive criticism of the article please add it too.

I am going to certainly consider your position but I don't expect to require labeling of each and every post or article as involving AI no matter what level of involvement it has.

As I see it the job of presenting and promoting Epicurean philosophy is to express Epicurean ideas clearly and accurately. Holding the line against all AI under any circumstances is not consistent with that goal, and in fact an absolutist position against it would stand in the way of that goal.

At the moment I don't have much more to say about the specifics of labeling, but I do want to share a recent conversation elsewhere which has greatly influenced my thinking on this subject. For those who don't follow the link here's the thumbnail:

HaikuOS is an independent operating system deriving from the old "Be" computer company which folded 20+ years ago. A group of enthusiasts has kept it alive all these years since then, but progress in implementing new application software has been very slow. The following thread was started by a developer there who wanted to use AI to accelerate the pace of development. The thread exploded into harsh division between those who argue for the non-AI-purity of hand coding vs those who think AI is the way to accelerate development of the OS. While there are many differences in context the basic issue of "let's get the job done" vs "every line of code must be done by humans" has some basic analogies to our situation. Without AI the goals of the project might never be accomplished. With AI there are obvious hazards that need to be accounted for. This thread illustrates how the issues involved in AI can lead to absolutist positions on either side of the AI question which need to be avoided.

[TUTORIAL] How to install Claude Code on Haiku – because apparently waiting twenty years wasn't enough

▶ Moderated but left up for historical purposes (Slanderous strawman arguments) Here’s how to install Claude Code on Haiku. 1. Install Node.js and npm via…

discuss.haiku-os.org

Quote from Don

That summarizes my feelings. No AI was used in the composition of this post (unless you count spell-check and using a swipe keyboard on my phone).