Posts by Cassius

Right - by no means are we special. We are on the same continuum as the worms and as the gods, and though we naturally aspire to live as long as we can live pleasurably, and we hope the same for future generations, we don't control the universe and events that are unforeseen or out of our control definitely take place. What I think you're talking about is in my mind mainly a tone issue and I agree with your perspective that let's call it "human exceptionaiism" is not at all valid. That said, under just about every theory of the gods that we accept to be valid, our goal should be to dodge every last one of those meteorites for as long as we can do so pleasurably.

But since we are good Epicureans, we think along the line of Epicurus in providing for the school and for Metrodorus' children after his death, and of Diogenes of Oinoanda in instructing future generations currently unborn, right?

Fr. 3
[And I wanted to refute those who accuse natural science of being unable to be of any benefit to us.] In this way, [citizens], even though I am not engaging in public affairs, I say these things through the inscription just as if I were taking action, and in an endeavour to prove that what benefits our nature, namely freedom from disturbance, is identical for one and all.
And so, having described the second reason for the inscription, I now go on to mention my mission and to explain its character and nature.
Having already reached the sunset of my life (being almost on the verge of departure from the world on account of old age), I wanted, before being overtaken by death, to compose a [fine] anthem [to celebrate the] fullness [of pleasure] and so to help now those who are well-constituted. Now, if only one person or two or three or four or five or six or any larger number you choose, sir, provided that it is not very large, were in a bad predicament, I should address them individually and do all in my power to give them the best advice. But, as I have said before, the majority of people suffer from a common disease, as in a plague, with their false notions about things, and their number is increasing (for in mutual emulation they catch the disease from one another, like sheep) moreover, [it is] right to help [also] generations to come (for they too belong to us, though they are still unborn) and, besides, love of humanity prompts us to aid also the foreigners who come here. Now, since the remedies of the inscription reach a larger number of people, I wished to use this stoa to advertise publicly the [medicines] that bring salvation. These medicines we have put [fully] to the test; for we have dispelled the fears [that grip] us without justification, and, as for pains, those that are groundless we have completely excised, while those that are natural we have reduced to an absolute minimum, making their magnitude minute.

Quote from Twentier

Possible: that which is consistent with our senses.

Impossible: that which contradicts our senses.

But is that sufficient to deal with matters which we at any particular point we have not seen in the past, but which do not contradict the physics of what we have seen in the past, such as men flying? How do we know the limits of physics in situations that have not been tested?

Branching off from here, it would be productive to discuss the question, from Epicurus' point of view,*** what determines the possible and the impossible? What distinguishes between the two?

To get the discussion started I would suggest that the *only* thing that distinguishes the possible from the impossible is the properties and combinations of matter and void, and that there are no (1) divine / supernatural, or (2) purely logical, limits between the possible and the impossible.

Agree? Disagree? More to the story? If so, what?

And of course what I hear in the back of my mind in this question is Paul accusing the "pagans" of being "slaves to the weak and beggarly elements."

That's a derogatory way of stating it, but in fact do not the elemental particles and their combinations, and the elemental particles alone (which includes all the circumstances in which they may combine) determine what is possible?

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*** Epicurus' point of view being the appropriate starting point here on the forum, rather than necessarily the end, of the discussion.

I think that this line of thought should encourage us to discuss in detail:

What Determines That Which Is Possible And That Which Is Impossible?

Also: this is a point I mentioned briefly in the podcast last week and I will try to remember today: Velleius criticizes the platonists (if I have it right) for arguing that something which had a beginning could be endless / eternal. The implication I gather is that everything which is brought together from disparate parts eventually disperses again to those parts. Only the atoms and void have existed "eternally" in that sense.

It seems to me that this is a logical observation that serves as the limit to immortality, rather than a hard limit enforced by some higher power. This might be why Epicurus apparently said that the gods must work to maintain their deathlessness, and that he did not strictly consider them to be "eternal."

But the point is that how long something can stay together in time would be a function of the particular actions and circumstances (biology, technology) of that being, which appears to be at least in part why the gods are held to live in the intemundia as a favorable environment.

As for us, as I see it, that perspective would mean that we should want to continue to live as long as our circumstances allow more pleasure than pain. The point we leave the theatre because the play ceases to please us is practical and dependent on health and all other circumsances, not a hard limit set by some inflexible higher force.

It was partly but not entirely light-hearted. I do not think that humans will be limited to this planet much longer, and after that the solar system, and eventually the galaxy, will be left behind. And it will be entirely reasonable to leave our Sun behind when it eventually seems likely to terminate in some way.

I don't see that viewpoint as any different from the actions of Nature / Venus / Pleasure cited in the opening of book one of Lucretius in spurring all living things on to continue their species. Nature calls us to pursue pleasure as long as we are able, and life is necessary for pleasure.

Of course you are right that this is not a personal immortality for you or me or any particular person, even though I would expect lengthening of life span to go along with the technology of space travel. Not does a longer life mean "greater" pleasure. The theoretical maximum of "complete" pleasure is not made more complete by added time, but that does not mean that continued life and variety are not desirable.

Complete pleasure cannot be made more complete, but variety is pleasurable, pleasure is desirable, and pleasure requires life. All four observations are true, and none negate the others.

To me this gets back to the issue of "how long we should seek to live." I have always maintained that what Epicurus is saying is that life and variety are desirable, and the problem with worrying too much about them is that we do not have the ability to maintain them indefinitely. The hard limit is not 50 or 60 or 70 years but the "indefinitely" which is the logical hard limit that we have to accept.

But if we can expand healthy life to 100 years or 150 years or more there is no reason not to do so, and I think it would be foolish not to. This is why I usually kick back at the "I am satisfied that I have lived long enough" sentiment, because in my view Epicurus is saying that life is always desirable when it can be lived with more pleasure than pain, and that point when pain predominates is a practical one of circumstance, not a theoretical or logical limit which is fixed by God or fate or even nature itself. If healthy life span can be extended by technology, anc we have already made strides in medicine to do so, it seems non-controversial to me than an Epicurean would do so. If Epicurus has had the technology, he would have cured his kidney issues and continued on leading his school til some other factor intervened.

To me the question of life span is a subset of the ultimate question of "what happens to me if I make such and such a choice?". If the result of the longer life span, which is available in some technological way, is more pleasure than pain, then that choice is fully proper.

I think my attitude here is why I have no issue with the Epicurean gods being real. I see no issues at all with Epicurus being comfortable with space travel any more than he would have had an issue with human flight. A logical extension of the infinite and eternal universe, and insomnia, is that infinite numbere of species of human-like beings, of "infinite" technological advancement, have existed for an "infinite" time into the past, and will so exist into the infinite future. Their technology would naturally be expected to be far more advanced than ours, and they would be able to maintain themselves essentially indefinitely in what we would consider to be a perfectly happy state. And that's a goal worthy of emulation.

I think Epicurus would say that what is real to us is controlled by what we sense, feel, and anticipate, but we have to keep an open mind that advances in technology over time will expand what we ourselves find to be possible to sense, feel, and anticipate. No one 500 years ago could reasonably expect the details of our technology today.

I can't imagine Epicurus taking the position that "if God had meant men to fly he would have given them wings." What we do know is that nature has provided pleasure as a driving force, and one of the ways nature expresses pleasure is in the continuation of species, and the desire to continue to live where more life affords continuing pleasure. This is not far at all from Lucian's space travel story.

So I would consider it non-controversial from an Epicurean point of view that future generations of humans would act to continue their species in the face of any and all threats, including the end of our solar system, just as all other living things do.

Quote from Julia

I suggest we agree on “Time will tell, and until then, let's agree to disagree.” I will read your reply, but I won't reply in-turn to keep in line with the “no contemporary politics” rule; I feel like I've already overstepped the mark on that.

This sounds like a good plan. I don't know that the discussion has already gotten over the line of the "no contemporary politics" rule, but we'll all be better off if we talk mostly about the immediate personal dangers posed by potential emergencies and how to respond to them, rather than the policy issues that may lead to those issues.

Most of what would be productive to discuss could just as easily be attributable to "normal" acts of mother nature as much as anything else.

I do suggest at some future point that Epicureans consider getting together to produce an escape plan when the final end of the earth appears imminent (as Lucretius discusses will occur at some point) but unless some of us are extremely well positioned in a space program, we probably are just as well off leaving that for another day as well.

As noted above these posts were split off from the Solar Flare discussion.

The topic of self-suffiency in times of crisis is a subset of "Ethics" or "Lifestyle," and independent, but equally or more important, than the "prediction" aspect.

So let's post about the "dealing with" aspects of solar flares in this subforum, where it is nearby with other "disaster scenario" threads, and keep the "prediction and extent of" aspects in the other thread in the Physics section.

Julia if you would like to tweak the first post or the thread title in this subforum please feel free to do so.

I think that something like "self-sufficiency in time of crisis" is a good topic for continued discussion as I am very interested in doing some preparation myself. I spend a lot of time in a rural area subject to possibly weeke-long interruption in power from ice storme and hurricanes, so this is of practical interest.

Kalosyni we should look at moving this into a new topic under the lifestyle section, and revising the "personal posting" in general to a more specific name that reflects how even these posts are topical.

I think that something like "self-sufficiency in time of crisis" is a good topic for continued discussion as I am very interested in doing some preparation myself. I spend a lot of time in a rural area subject to possibly weeke-long interruption in power from ice storme and hurricanes, so this is of practical interest.

In this case I have "copied" (rather than moved) the last several posts into a new forum here:

Thread

Dealing With Electric Grid Disruption

Admin Edit - This thread was split off from the Solar Flare Discussion Started HERE.

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[…]

I've been down this trail of thoughts – let me give you my travel notes, as they might simplify your journey through this rabbit hole

Why blackouts can happen anytime, anywhere:

• There is no advance warning: Back in 2006, when the European grid was still in quite good condition, one operator negligence in northern Germany split the entire grid into three segments (an automatic fail-safe procedure), in the

…

Julia

May 11, 2024 at 4:49 AM

Please try to pursue the discussion of "self-sufficiency in time of crisis" in that forum, and in this one let's keep the specific issue of solar flares and the like.

I am going to try to keep a running list of Velleius' arguments against the existence of supernatural gods. The full list will be here. Below are the new ones we will add in Episode 288:

1. What were the world-building gods doing for an eternity of time before they made the universe?
   1. "But I would demand of you both, why these world-builders started up so suddenly, and lay dormant for so many ages? For we are not to conclude that, if there was no world, there were therefore no ages. I do not now speak of such ages as are finished by a certain number of days and nights in annual courses; for I acknowledge that those could not be without the revolution of the world; but there was a certain eternity from infinite time, not measured by any circumscription of seasons; but how that was in space we cannot understand, because we cannot possibly have even the slightest idea of time before time was. I desire, therefore, to know, Balbus, why this Providence of yours was idle for such an immense space of time? Did she avoid labor? But that could have no effect on the Deity; nor could there be any labor, since all nature, air, fire, earth, and water would obey the divine essence. What was it that incited the Deity to act the part of an ædile, to illuminate and decorate the world? If it was in order that God might be the better accommodated in his habitation, then he must have been dwelling an infinite length of time before in darkness as in a dungeon. But do we imagine that he was afterward delighted with that variety with which we see the heaven and earth adorned? What entertainment could that be to the Deity? If it was any, he would not have been without it so long.
2. Who benefited from the creation of the universe? If for the wise, that's a very small number. If for fools, why?
   1. Or were these things made, as you almost assert, by God for the sake of men? Was it for the wise? If so, then this great design was adopted for the sake of a very small number. Or for the sake of fools? First of all, there was no reason why God should consult the advantage of the wicked; and, further, what could be his object in doing so, since all fools are, without doubt, the most miserable of men, chiefly because they are fools? For what can we pronounce more deplorable than folly? Besides, there are many inconveniences in life which the wise can learn to think lightly of by dwelling rather on the advantages which they receive; but which fools are unable to avoid when they are coming, or to bear when they are come.
3. Those who assert that the world itself is a god make no sense, because a round world hurtling through space cannot be a god.
   1. They who affirm the world to be an animated and intelligent being have by no means discovered the nature of the mind, nor are able to conceive in what form that essence can exist; but of that I shall speak more hereafter. At present I must express my surprise at the weakness of those who endeavor to make it out to be not only animated and immortal, but likewise happy, and round, because Plato says that is the most beautiful form; whereas I think a cylinder, a square, a cone, or a pyramid more beautiful. But what life do they attribute to that round Deity? Truly it is a being whirled about with a celerity to which nothing can be even conceived by the imagination as equal; nor can I imagine how a settled mind and happy life can consist in such motion, the least degree of which would be troublesome to us. Why, therefore, should it not be considered troublesome also to the Deity? For the earth itself, as it is part of the world, is part also of the Deity. We see vast tracts of land barren and uninhabitable; some, because they are scorched by the too near approach of the sun; others, because they are bound up with frost and snow, through the great distance which the sun is from them. Therefore, if the world is a Deity, as these are parts of the world, some of the Deity’s limbs must be said to be scorched, and some frozen.
      

Welcome

to Episode 228 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where you will find a discussion thread for each of our podcast episodes and many other topics.

We are now discussing the Epicurean sections of Cicero's "On the Nature of The Gods," and this week we continue with the argument of the Epicurean spokesman Velleius, beginning in Section 9.

For the main text we are using primarily the Yonge translation, available here. The text which we include in these posts is the Yonge version, the full version of which is here at Epicureanfriends. We will also refer to the public domain version of the Loeb series, which contains both Latin and English, as translated by H. Rackham.

Additional versions can be found here:

• Frances Brooks 1896 translation at Online Library of Liberty
• Lacus Curtius Edition (Rackham)
• PDF Of Loeb Edition at Archive.org by Rackham
• Gutenberg.org version by CD Yonge 

A list of Velleius' arguments against the existence of supernatural gods will be here.

Today's Text

IX. But I would demand of you both, why these world-builders started up so suddenly, and lay dormant for so many ages? For we are not to conclude that, if there was no world, there were therefore no ages. I do not now speak of such ages as are finished by a certain number of days and nights in annual courses; for I acknowledge that those could not be without the revolution of the world; but there was a certain eternity from infinite time, not measured by any circumscription of seasons; but how that was in space we cannot understand, because we cannot possibly have even the slightest idea of time before time was. I desire, therefore, to know, Balbus, why this Providence of yours was idle for such an immense space of time? Did she avoid labor? But that could have no effect on the Deity; nor could there be any labor, since all nature, air, fire, earth, and water would obey the divine essence. What was it that incited the Deity to act the part of an ædile, to illuminate and decorate the world? If it was in order that God might be the better accommodated in his habitation, then he must have been dwelling an infinite length of time before in darkness as in a dungeon. But do we imagine that he was afterward delighted with that variety with which we see the heaven and earth adorned? What entertainment could that be to the Deity? If it was any, he would not have been without it so long.

Or were these things made, as you almost assert, by God for the sake of men? Was it for the wise? If so, then this great design was adopted for the sake of a very small number. Or for the sake of fools? First of all, there was no reason why God should consult the advantage of the wicked; and, further, what could be his object in doing so, since all fools are, without doubt, the most miserable of men, chiefly because they are fools? For what can we pronounce more deplorable than folly? Besides, there are many inconveniences in life which the wise can learn to think lightly of by dwelling rather on the advantages which they receive; but which fools are unable to avoid when they are coming, or to bear when they are come.

X. They who affirm the world to be an animated and intelligent being have by no means discovered the nature of the mind, nor are able to conceive in what form that essence can exist; but of that I shall speak more hereafter. At present I must express my surprise at the weakness of those who endeavor to make it out to be not only animated and immortal, but likewise happy, and round, because Plato says that is the most beautiful form; whereas I think a cylinder, a square, a cone, or a pyramid more beautiful. But what life do they attribute to that round Deity? Truly it is a being whirled about with a celerity to which nothing can be even conceived by the imagination as equal; nor can I imagine how a settled mind and happy life can consist in such motion, the least degree of which would be troublesome to us. Why, therefore, should it not be considered troublesome also to the Deity? For the earth itself, as it is part of the world, is part also of the Deity. We see vast tracts of land barren and uninhabitable; some, because they are scorched by the too near approach of the sun; others, because they are bound up with frost and snow, through the great distance which the sun is from them. Therefore, if the world is a Deity, as these are parts of the world, some of the Deity’s limbs must be said to be scorched, and some frozen.

These are your doctrines, Lucilius; but what those of others are I will endeavor to ascertain by tracing them back from the earliest of ancient philosophers. Thales the Milesian, who first inquired after such subjects, asserted water to be the origin of things, and that God was that mind which formed all things from water. If the Gods can exist without corporeal sense, and if there can be a mind without a body, why did he annex a mind to water?

It was Anaximander’s opinion that the Gods were born; that after a great length of time they died; and that they are innumerable worlds. But what conception can we possibly have of a Deity who is not eternal?

Anaximenes, after him, taught that the air is God, and that he was generated, and that he is immense, infinite, and always in motion; as if air, which has no form, could possibly be God; for the Deity must necessarily be not only of some form or other, but of the most beautiful form. Besides, is not everything that had a beginning subject to mortality?

XI. Anaxagoras, who received his learning from Anaximenes, was the first who affirmed the system and disposition of all things to be contrived and perfected by the power and reason of an infinite mind; in which infinity he did not perceive that there could be no conjunction of sense and motion, nor any sense in the least degree, where nature herself could feel no impulse. If he would have this mind to be a sort of animal, then there must be some more internal principle from whence that animal should receive its appellation. But what can be more internal than the mind? Let it, therefore, be clothed with an external body. But this is not agreeable to his doctrine; but we are utterly unable to conceive how a pure simple mind can exist without any substance annexed to it.

Alcmæon of Crotona, in attributing a divinity to the sun, the moon, and the rest of the stars, and also to the mind, did not perceive that he was ascribing immortality to mortal beings.

Pythagoras, who supposed the Deity to be one soul, mixing with and pervading all nature, from which our souls are taken, did not consider that the Deity himself must, in consequence of this doctrine, be maimed and torn with the rending every human soul from it; nor that, when the human mind is afflicted (as is the case in many instances), that part of the Deity must likewise be afflicted, which cannot be. If the human mind were a Deity, how could it be ignorant of any thing? Besides, how could that Deity, if it is nothing but soul, be mixed with, or infused into, the world?

Then Xenophanes, who said that everything in the world which had any existence, with the addition of intellect, was God, is as liable to exception as the rest, especially in relation to the infinity of it, in which there can be nothing sentient, nothing composite.

Parmenides formed a conceit to himself of something circular like a crown. (He names it Stephane.) It is an orb of constant light and heat around the heavens; this he calls God; in which there is no room to imagine any divine form or sense. And he uttered many other absurdities on the same subject; for he ascribed a divinity to war, to discord, to lust, and other passions of the same kind, which are destroyed by disease, or sleep, or oblivion, or age. The same honor he gives to the stars; but I shall forbear making any objections to his system here, having already done it in another place.

Today the Lucretius Today Podcast continues in the Epicurean section of Cicero's On The Nature of The Gods with Velleius beginning his attack on traditional views of the gods.

Happy Birthday to Sonderling! Learn more about Sonderling and say happy birthday on Sonderling's timeline: Sonderling

Very creative - thank you! Having intelligence without becoming corrupted over time is a very attractive character trait.

Glad to hear that you are OK Cyrano!

I find this to be a fascinating subject so thank you for those details Twentier and please keep adding them as you come across them.

Thanks Golbach for joining us at the meeting last night. It is always interesting and fun to hear about how people get interested in Epicurus and we look forward to your joining us again.

So far, it's Greek to me!