Posts by Cassius

Let me extend my doctor / JAMA example. Do I think that there might be circumstances in which a doctor found in his clinical practice that some treatment invariably worked, but held back from prescribing it because JAMA did not approve?

Absolutely yes such circumstances could exist. Maybe the doctor, for example, is president of JAMA, and is convinced that great benefit comes from JAMA being respected, and the treatment is for a minor condition, and the patient is a news reporter trying to undermine JAMA......

The point of this post is that I think that Epicurean philosophy cannot as a general abstraction lay down blanket rules about specific actions for all people at all times and all places. It is clear in the philosophy that sometimes we chose pain, sometimes we consider what appears to be good to be bad when we add up all the consequences.

The first and major contribution of Epicurean philosophy is that while it can give you suggestions in how to proceed in your decisionmaking, ultimately the points that are certain is that when you add up your consequences, DON"T think that you are going to be rewarded or punished after death, and DON'T think that you need to worry about appeasing or being punished by supernatural forces in this life, and DO realize that in the end there's only one thing given to you by Nature for you to take and analyze and then make your decisions based on. That one thing is the faculty of pleasure and pain, which applies to everything you experience, and it's up to you to analyze *all* the consequences of your actions and make your decisions accordingly.

There's of course a lot more, but the basic view of the universe informs how *you* will evaluate pleasure and pain, and getting that basic view of the universe right is essential.

Quote from UnPaid_Landlord

after all there is no emphirical scientific evidence on either side so we don't really know for sure, there are only arguements, better to think you are in control and honestly try and then give up and be passive.

I don't have a full and complete explanation for you but this phrasing helps emphasize to me that we need to talk more here on the forum about what it really means to "know for sure" and the relationship of that to "empirical scientific evidence."

Is everything always simply a matter of argument, or when do we shift our opinion so that we hold that we "know for sure" that something is true?

Do we wait for "empirical scientific" opinions to be issued, as if we are doctors waiting for an article from the Journal of the American Medical Association to be issued? And if fact if JAMA does issue an article, how many times have even they changed their opinions in the past? And if we in fact in our clinical fact find success with a treatment that has not yet been "approved" by the JAMA, do we stop our treatment of our patients and wait for a go-ahead from a published empiral scientific opinion journal?

I think the answer is found in the direction of "all sensations are true" in that the ultimate standard for us as humans involves trusting the senses as our ultimate tests of truth. If we sense the same thing over and over again under repeatable conditions, then we hold it to be true for us regardless of what any number of experts might say that "the science" really is.

And for example what I sense over and over again is that I can choose to eat, or not to eat, one more bite of food. I know that there are many influences that led me to be hungry and the food to be available and for me to assess what is a proper thing to eat, but in the end I sense that I have the mental ability to choose to eat one more bite or not.

And that's sufficient for me to conclude that Epicurus was correct: some things are under our control, some are not, and some happen purely by accident.

Once we agree that there's such a division then there is plenty of room for discussion about the causes that led up to a particular decision. The problem is not that past influences don't exist, but that the hard determinists deny that we as conscious organisms have any role to play in any decisionmaking. And if you conclude that to be the case, you've got a cascade of negative logical and psychological effects that follow.

After all that i do want to agree that DISsatisfaction is definitely a pain, and I certainly want to reduce it to a minimum. But I think what we are circling around here is the philosophical point made by expressions such as not being able to serve two masters.

Allusions to multitasking computers aside, it makes sense that ultimately you can have only one goal, one guide, that takes precedence over the others. i suppose the multitasking computers reference helps realize that "life comes at you fast" and you constantly have to make adjustments in how you calculate what you choose and avoid. From the perspective that constant adjustments are required, I think that's where you get to the practical conclusion that the best label for the goal is simply "pleasure" rather than combining the word pleasure with any modifier.

If you don't properly identify what that one overarching goal or guide is, then you are going to have trouble. I think that's what is mean by considering the real purpose, and then we check our progress toward that real purpose against the data we get from the senses - in this case, primarily the feelings of pleasure and pain.

PD22. We must consider both the real purpose, and all the evidence of direct perception, to which we always refer the conclusions of opinion; otherwise, all will be full of doubt and confusion.

Quote from Julia

Isn't aiming for satisfaction going to result in the maximum pleasure?

It won't if you consciously lower your desires so that they are satisfied, but those desires are less than you could have achieved if you set your sights higher and pursued what you were capable of achieving. This is the problem of the ascetic view -- the best way to achieve no pleasure is not to try for any.

Of course, i wouldn't say that it's illegitmate by nature to set your goals low and work to achieve them so you can say that you are "satisfied." There's no way by nature to say that that's wrong, as it could give that type of person100% pleasure if they lower their sights and also experience no pain. But many people, and I would say most people, would look at the missed opportunity of pleasures that could have been achieved at a reasonable cost in pain and have regret - a form of pain - that they did not use their lives more aggressively.

So this points out to me that when Epicurus was talking about the concept of absence of pain, he was talking about a concept first and foremost. PD09 talks about how pleasures can differ in duration, location of the body, and intensity. That's a different perspective than simply saying "I have pure pleasure because I have no pain." I think Torquatus' explanation makes clear that saying that your pleasure is undiiuted by pain, which makes it the "highest" pleasure, doesn't answer the question of exactly *what* you should be doing with your time.

Every person has to answer what they want to do with their time for themselves, but as for my view of what's possible to me in what time I have, I am going to pursue "the greatest pleasure" possible to me, even if there is a mixture of pain involved, and I am not going to consider "the greatest pleasure" to be achievable by lowering my activities to a bear minimum so I can say I achieved them and i am therefore "satisfied."

Yes I'd like to say that I satisfied my goal of achieving the greatest pleasure possible to me, but I would not sacrifice the attainment of many of them simply because I may not succeed in attaining "all' of them.

That's the kind of problem I would see with placing "satisfaction" as either my goal or my guide.

Quote from Julia

If one specific pleasure is the indicator of how well I compute and follow through with hedonic calculus, then doesn't that specific pleasure become my guide (towards maximising the net sum of all pleasure, which is still my goal)?

I would say 'yes" to this question, but that's exactly why I would not let the pleasure of "satisfaction" -- which is a pleasure, no doubt --- be my guide. Yes I would like to say at my time of departure that I am satisfied, but paradoxically I don't think it would be possible for me to say at the end that I was satsified if I had set "being satisfied" as my guide all along the way. That role belongs to "pleasure," which has many other very valuable facets besides "satisfaction."

This is a good exchange of ideas on an important topic.

Here's one way of looking at that question:

Epicurus held that the only thing given by Nature to determine what to choose and what to avoid is the feeling of (1) pleasure or (2) pain. This means literally everything referencing desirability or undesirability falls under one of these two categories:

The division into two categories is stated in Diogenes Laertius 10:34 : ”The internal sensations they say are two, pleasure and pain, which occur to every living creature, and the one is akin to nature and the other alien: by means of these two choice and avoidance are determined.“

It is also stated in more detail by Torquatus in Book One of Cicero's On Ends at 30:

Quote

Every creature, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure and delights therein as in its supreme good, while it recoils from pain as its supreme evil, and banishes that, so far as it can, from its own presence, and this it does while still uncorrupted, and while nature herself prompts unbiased and unaffected decisions. So he says we need no reasoning or debate to shew why pleasure is matter for desire, pain for aversion. These facts he thinks are simply perceived, just as the fact that fire is hot, snow is white, and honey sweet, no one of which facts are we bound to support by elaborate arguments; it is enough merely to draw attention to the fact; and there is a difference between proof and formal argument on the one hand and a slight hint and direction of the attention on the other; the one process reveals to us mysteries and things under a veil, so to speak; the other enables us to pronounce upon patent and evident facts. Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain?

• Torqatus in "On Ends" by Cicero [Book 1:30]

As to every evaluation of desirability or undesirability falling under one of these two categories we have this also from Torquatus:

Quote

Therefore Epicurus refused to allow that there is any middle term between pain and pleasure; what was thought by some to be a middle term, the absence of all pain, was not only itself pleasure, but the highest pleasure possible. Surely any one who is conscious of his own condition must needs be either in a state of pleasure or in a state of pain. Epicurus thinks that the highest degree of pleasure is defined by the removal of all pain, so that pleasure may afterwards exhibit diversities and differences but is incapable of increase or extension.“

• On Ends Book One, 38 :

There are many others on how Epicurus equates pleasure with absence of pain, but on the first question ("Why is "pleasure" stated as the ultimate goal rather than some other term?") among the most important answers to that would be that meaningfulness and satisfaction and other desirable emotions all fall within "pleasure." As a philosopher Epicurus giving the most general term first, in response to other general terms advanced by opposing schools. "Pleasure" stands in contrast to other general terms like "virtue" or "piety" which represent other major alternatives to "feeling" in competition for the title of "ultimate good."

It's also important to ask whether Epicurus advised any particular "type" of pleasure as the most desirable. Here I would say that he does give observations as to which desires will cost the most in pain to pursue, but Epicurus also says that we will sometimes choose pain in order to achieve a pleasure that is greater. Epicurus also says that sometimes we will die for a friend, so undergoing pain or even giving up life is not out of the question when circumstances require.

But when you drop back to the general Epicurean view of the world, in which there are no supernatural gods nor sources of absolute morality that apply to all times, peoples, and places, in the end Epicurus is saying that each person has to look to their own feelings and just what they will be happiest with achieving. Some will choose a quiet life, but that is not at all required by the analysis that Epicurus is describing. All that is required is to realize that you will eventually die and forever after cease to exist, and whatever experiences you decide to value must be achieved while you are alive.

And the general advice that Epicurus gave in the letter to Menoeceus included this - to seek the "most pleasant" life:

Quote

But the many at one moment shun death as the greatest of evils, at another (yearn for it) as a respite from the (evils) in life. (But the wise man neither seeks to escape life) nor fears the cessation of life, for neither does life offend him nor does the absence of life seem to be any evil. And just as with food he does not seek simply the larger share and nothing else, but rather the most pleasant, so he seeks to enjoy not the longest period of time, but the most pleasant. - Epicurus Letter to Menoeceus 126

Good addition Pacatus. And if I recall correctly I basically included much of that in our podcast recording today for the same reason.

Quote from Don

We have our ideas, informed by science and observation. I need to accept that Epicurus and the ancient Greek cosmological concepts have no necessity to equate with my modern ideas. They may overlap slightly, but they cannot be made to synchronize.

We all end at the same point - I think - that whatever is the truth, the universe is "natural" and doesn't have a supernatural overlay above it. So frequently the details are not necessarily important to reconcile, UNLESS they point to a major conclusion about the supernatural or life after death or something that would call into question whether the truth is natural or supernatural, or would call into question key issues about the "knowability" of any truth at all. Definitely when anything like that arises it does need to be made to synchronize at least at the conclusion level.

Wilding The Predictive Brain

Abstract

The Predictive Processing (PP) framework casts the brain as a probabilistic prediction engine that continually generates predictions of the causal structure of the world in order to construct for itself, from the top down, incoming sensory signals. Conceiving of the brain in this way has yielded incredible explanatory power, offering what many believe to be our first glimpse at a unified theory of the mind. In this paper, the picture of the mind brought into view by predictive processing theories is shown to be embodied, deeply affective and nicely poised for cognitive extension. We begin by giving an overview of the main themes of the framework, and situating this approach within embodied cognitive science. We show perception, action, homeostatic regulation and emotion to be underpinned by the very same predictive machinery. We conclude by showing how predictive minds will increasingly be understood as deeply interwoven with, and perhaps extended into, the surrounding social, cultural and technological landscape

https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wcs.1542

Quote from Don

If we want other cosmoi, we have to accept the multiverse, ie, other universes. All the universes together in modern cosmology make up The Universe, THE All. If one is trying to map Epicurean cosmology onto a modern paradigm, I contend that that's the only way to do it.

Yes this is where I ultimately will let those who want to follow the latest theories follow that terminology, and I'll likely never accept that in philosophical discussion there is a necessity of mapping into modern paradigms that are regularly changing and within which the experts don't even agree among themselves. I'll let those who want to try do to that pursue that, and I do understand that some want to do that.

The dictionary definition of universe of "all that exists" seems perfectly sufficient to me and won't change next year or the year after.

Over the next two episodes we'll be addressing Epicurus' big picture views of the universe from a practical point of view... which means: don't expect the last word in the last physics research from us. However, Epicurus had some very intelligent things to say about the universe not coming from nothing (this week) and being infinite in time and space (next week).

There are many youtube videos that cover these issues. Here are a few that talk about how the view that the universe started at a single point in time is by no means universal today:

Physics Videos Discussing Infinite Universe Possibilities:

1.1. Roger Penrose - Did The Universe Begin? https://youtu.be/OFqjA5ekmoY

1.2. Sean Carroll - Did the Universe Begin? https://youtu.be/FgpvCxDL7q4

1.3. Eternal Universe! The New Theory That Could Change the Way We Think about the Universe! https://youtu.be/_TGTcv894j4

1.4. PBS - What If The Universe DID NOT Start With The Big Bang? https://youtu.be/HRqBGnSxzyI

1.5. Celestium: Eternal Universe: The New Theory that Might Change the Way we Think About the Universe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28AstfdTiOA

1.6. Closer To Truth - What Would An Infinite Cosmos Mean? https://live-closer-to-truth.pantheonsite.io/video/what-wou…te-cosmos-mean/

Quote from Don

Epicurus posited many world-systems in an infinite All (universe). That's exactly what the texts provide.

... And that's exactly what I mean too when I say "the universe is all that exists." Any kind of terminology such as world systems or multiverses or anything else falls within "the universe is all that exists. " If it exists anywhere using any adjective, it's part of the "universe."

Quote from Don

By what means? Not being argumentative, just curious.

Probably by means not currently predictable by me, but I bet there are people who could suggest ready answers. Brain transplants would be a gross example, but i presume that the aging process has genetic control mechanisms which should be reversible. I'm rusty on my old Star Trek episodes and I am sure there are many more suggested mechanisms. But I don't see it as a stretch to say that there's nothing that happens to human bodies that shouldn't be reversible given advances in technology.

Probably we need a subsection of the physics forum devoted to life extension!

Thanks for letting us know about that GnothiSeauton, and I hope your post here will spur lots of discussion. And more thoughts from you on it as well.

The issue of how to deal with people who have firm pre-existing ideas about what Epicurean philosophy is all about, when those ideas turn out in fact to be an eclectic blend of Stoicism, Buddhism, humanism, and general "virtue-based-ethics," is never going to go away.

Those who are committed to those viewpoints don't understand that they are not Epicurean, and they are unlikely to be interested in changing them. As pointed out in A Few Days In Athens, argument over core ideas accomplishes little but disruption and bad feelings.

What we have tried to do here on the forum is be straightforward at the very beginning about core controversial issues. Hopefully no one who glances over the opening page or the new member materials will have any illusions - IF they read them.

The idea of any effort to force people to hold ideas with which they disagree would be absolutely anti-Epicurean, but at the same time freedom of thought doesn't mean that we have to ignore the thoughts of those who want to participate. There are many fundamental points of Epicurean philosophy involving controversial issues of determinism, skepticism, and the nature of what "absence of pain" really means that are non-negotiable if you're going to have a truly "Epicurean" group.

One point I always make is that there are plenty of other places on the internet, or meetup groups in the world, for those who want to study Buddhism or Stoicism or just want to do general riffing because they love to talk philosophy of any kind. It's my experience that trying to work with people who are commited to a generalist / eclectic / anything-goes approach rarely leads to anything truly beneficial and never lasts for long.

Every person and group has to decide for himself with whom they want to interact, but I think it's essential to have boundaries, and to be up-front and honest about where those boundaries are.

Here at the forum we have put a lot of time into refining our front page, our member rules documents, and our welcome messages about where those boundaries are. Those are there because it's a fact of life that Stoicism and Buddhism and humanism are much more popular than reading closely what Epicurus really wrote. And it's a fact of life that the prevailing view is that Epicurus was basically a Stoic or Buddhist who used different terminology. Therefore anyone who sets up any kind of "Epicurean" public endeavor has to expect that many who ask to participate are going to hold attitudes that are deadly to a "truly" Epicurean project.

So the first and most important comment I have is that your experiences are problems that we'll always be dealing with, but the rewards are worth dealing with them.

Quote from Pacatus

One of the considerations that seems to get shunted aside in discussions of the Epicurean gods (especially from a realist perspective, but also from an idealist one)

I agree that needs more attention. Many people seem to take it for granted that Epicurean gods equate to Zeus and his crowd, and I doubt very much that that is a good assumption at all.

Quote from Don

If you want to go down the physics route translated into a modern paradigm, I'm going to posit that the intermundia refers to another dimension or another universe in the multiplicity of universes out in The All. Gods are material and natural, but reside outside our universe under a different physics than our own. We cannot see them with our eyes, because our universe doesn't overlap with theirs. They are not aliens living on planets in our universe. That's just an assertion on my part, granted. But that's the only way I could right now "accept" a corporeal divinity in an Epicurean theological context.

I'd say your suggestions there are possibilities, but not really compelled at all by the texts. I would expect Epicurus thought of the universe as "all that exists."

Quote from Don

I find it much easier to think of the gods as what an ideal life would be like without the limits on mortal, corruptible bodies.

I think this indicates our difference in perspectives. I have no problem stipulating that it is possible within natural physics for a living being to find ways to completely replace its own atomic structure over time so as to not be subject to the necessity of death. In fact I'd find it much more difficult for me to argue that it's "impossible." Absent the standard possibilities of humanity blowing itself up etc., I'd wager we are me no more than a couple of hundred years from that ability ourselves, at the outside.

Sometimes the most contentious issues generate the most progress.

I would say that the construction "Whenever you find creatures that are living beings, blessed, and imperishable, ... you know for sure that those are not Epicurean gods." can be very useful if made more complete and clear.

I have added the ellipsis because I don't think it is clear what 'find' means, nor is it complete.

As to "find," much revolves around whether "images received by the mind" should be included within "find."

But the bigger issue I have is the completeness. The following variations that make the statement more complete I would say are clearly in harmony with Epicurus, and more practical to apply, especially as will be needed for application as we begin space travel and start finding alien life:

• Whenever you find creatures who appear to be living beings, blessed, and imperishable, and yet causing trouble for others or experiencing trouble themselves, you know for sure that those are not Epicurean gods.

Or -

• Whenever you find creatures who appear to be living beings, blessed, and imperishable, and yet suffering from pain disease or dying, you know for sure that those are not Epicurean gods.

But in contrast, to construct something that leads to "Whenever you find creatures who appear to be living beings, blessed, and imperishable, you know for sure that these are not gods" shifts the emphasis to a physics test, rather than one that follows the logical definition that Epicurus sets out in both Menoeceus and PD01.

In addition to being a physics test that is not clearly present in the texts, the latter construction rings of a dualism between gods and the rest of the universe. I know of no reason to infer that gods cannot come into contact with any non-god entity whatsoever under any circumstances. It seems clear that that was in part the reason for the discussion of the intermundia. To say that by definition they cannot have any contact with any other forms of matter would place them entirely outside the sphere of natural entities composed of atoms, which Epicurus seems to be working hard to keep them squarely within.

As to not making the gods a physics test, I would apply what David Sedley says about pleasure in "Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism" (my emphasis added):

By establishing that cognitive scepticism, the direct outcome of reductionist atomism, is self-refuting and untenable in practice, Epicurus justifies his non-reductionist alternative, according to which sensations are true and there are therefore bona fide truths at the phenomenal level accessible through them. The same will apply to the pathe, which Epicurus also held to be veridical. Pleasure, for example, is a direct datum of experience. It is commonly assumed that Epicurus must have equated pleasure with such and such a kind of movement of soul atoms; but although he will have taken it to have some explanation at the atomic level, I know of no evidence that he, any more than most moral philosophers or psychologists, would have held that an adequate analysis of it could be found at that level. Physics are strikingly absent from Epicurus’ ethical writings, and it is curious that interpreters are so much readier to import them there than they are when it comes to the moral philosophy of Plato or Aristotle.

In the meantime:

Wikipedia:

Determinism is the philosophical view that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable.

-----

And of course much much more which we can't hope to dissect in detail in the opening article. The practical affect of the issue is whether a human being has any control over his or future at all, and I would say that that is what Epicurus was addressing by referring mostly to the term "necessity" but also dealing with "fortune" and "fate" as well.

Hello UnPaid_Landlord. How so? Happy to hear your thoughts.

You might find some at least partial response in our recent podcast and notes for Episodes 257 and 258.

Thread

Episode 257 - There Is No Necessity To Live Under Necessity - Part 1

Welcome to Episode 257 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 we discuss this and all of our…

Cassius

November 18, 2024 at 2:06 PM

i discover I do have one more thing to add to this.

The statement "if they are detectable to humans then they are not gods" is very close to:

"Believe that a god is something you can never know anything about."

Then where would you be?

You would be at the point: "If you claim to know anything about a god then by definition then what you are talking about is not a god."

That might be a very neat word-play way of disposing with the entire idea of gods, but it would be more far-reachingly negative to the existence or usefulness of the concept of divinity than even the idealist view.

Note I am saying "very close to" and not "identical," but the difference in the positions would be in the finer points of the word "contact," and that's why I called attention to taking this too far.

Lucretius Book Six:

[68] And unless you spew out all this from your mind and banish far away thoughts unworthy of the gods and alien to their peace, the holy powers of the gods, degraded by thy thought, will often do thee harm; not that the high majesty of the gods can be polluted by thee, so that in wrath they should yearn to seek sharp retribution, but because you yourself will imagine that those tranquil beings in their placid peace set tossing the great billows of wrath, nor with quiet breast will you approach the shrines of the gods, nor have strength to drink in with tranquil peace of mind the images which are borne from their holy body to herald their divine form to the minds of men. And therefore what manner of life will follow, you may perceive.

Ok - let me go back to the opening post. The point of it (and the thrust of the article, I think) is that to even look for something you have to define what you are looking for. In this sense "look" refers to investigation to establish that something is real.

I can see that we have an ambiguity in what it means to find that something is real. Most of the time we are referring to the five senses to establish reality, but in this case Epicurus / Lucretius seem to be talking about direct receipt of images by the mind as the criteria by which we are motivated to think of them as real.

Most of the time images correspond to things that have physical reality. In the case of centaurs, he's apparently saying that images can arrange themselves and *not* correspond with reality. It's debatable whether gods fit into the category of centaurs or not. Idealists might say gods are in the centaur category and have absolutely no independent existence. Realists might say that gods do have an independent existence, but that existence is not in the form of what we think of as solid bodies, but in the form of "quasi-bodies" of apparently flowing atoms (referencing Velleius here).

As i read the thread now the essential point of controversy that Tau Phi is different from the point of the original post that you should define what you are investigating before you start your investigation.

Tau Phi is suggesting that the act of "finding" something by our having any perception of it whatsoever with any of our five senses by definition means that the perceived thing is not an Epicurean god.

In order to reach that conclusion, I would say that you would need to find a clear statement by an authoritative Epicurean that it is universally inherent in the nature of a god that a god cannot ever be perceptible to one of the human five senses.

(That gets back to the comment Kalosyni made earlier as to exactly what Epicurus said that gods re invisible. Did one of the key Epicureans make a clear statement that rules out an Epicurean god ever being visible under any conditions? If there is such a statement I can't call it to mind, and this issue could have caused the possibility of living in the intermundia to arise as a way to reconcile why they might be visible there but not visible to us here on earth.)

Here I would go back to the question of comparing our knowledge of gods to our knowledge of atoms. Throughout most of history we have had no capacity to sense an atom with any of our five senses, yet we would firmly believe that atoms exist. Do we also take the position that advances in technology will never make it possible through instrumentation to "see" an image of a "smallest" particle? I doubt there is a theoretical impossibility of -- through advanced science -- observing a visualization of an elemental particle.

In Epicurean philosophy as I understand it, "images" are like anything else - they are composed of elemental particles. If you take the David Konstan / traditional realist position that Epicurus meant what he said that gods are perceivable through images, then there is an atomic basis for gods just like anything else, and I would see no theoretical reason why that presence could not be detected at least through advanced instrumentation.

Further, I see no theoretical reason why, as the article indicates, that we should rule out finding living beings which are self-sustaining and successfully regenerate themselves indefinitely. The question of whether they would be detectable to our five senses if we were close enough to them physically is pretty much exactly what the article is all about.

It's not at all obvious to me that the simple act of our being able to "detect" them, like we do or will eventually detect atoms, would necessarily amount to their being "disturbed" by our act of being able to detect them. As it is already, I see no reason to infer that it is impossible for an Epicurean god to be aware of humans, even if we stipulate as we do that humans cause no "trouble" for gods. That would be parallel to our being able to visualize an atom through instrumentation -- visualizing an atom would not necessarily cause us any disturbance whatsoever.

To try to summarize at this point, the traditional realist view of Epicurean gods is that they have *some* kind of physical existence arising from atoms. "Atoms" are non-detectable to our unaided five senses, but I would expect that they either are already or will be detectable in the future via instrumentation. Certainly combinations of atoms frequently become visible and touchable to humans. The bottom line is that such observation is pleasurable and the additional pleasure that such knowledge brings makes it desirable.

To my knowledge there's nothing in the texts that rules out an analogy between combinations of atoms giving rise to other things that are theoretically detectable and combinations of atoms giving rise to gods.

To impose a flat rule that "if they are detectable to humans then they are not gods" seems to me to be going too far. To me, this imposes a limitation on the possibilities that I don't see good reason for in the texts. The texts, especially Lucretius, seem to refer to humans perceiving images of gods when asleep and even sometimes when awake, so to me the texts seem to me to go in the opposite direction.

Yes you have to be flexible in thinking about what "detection" really involves, but that's the very point of the article. it's helpful to think about how we look for things which we don't ordinarily perceive with our senses here on earth, because there are lots of such things that affect us.

Once we eventually find intelligent life in some other part of the universe, our failure to have detected their existence up to that point did not in any way mean that we should have ever presumed that they did not exist. We have had at least since the time of Epicurus very good reason to firmly expect that intelligent life outside earth exists. For the same reason, we have reason to expect that some of those life forms are imperishable and experience lives that fit Epicurus' definition of godlike. And our act of detecting them in some way doesn't necessarily violate our expectation that they are blessed and imperishable.

OK more than enough for the moment.....

Quote from TauPhi

I am responding to your parallel of looking for extraterrestrial life to looking for Epicurean gods. I am talking about active, physical pursuit of finding life (and gods) in the universe, not about an abstract deliberation on their existence or non-existence.

We definitely disagree on that. People in the past who were not able to go to the stars were limited in their knowledge, but had no need for regret about it, because they could not. People in the future can go to the stars and the Epicurean theories of life on other worlds and even divinity will have even more practical meaning than it does today. And the very thought that we should restrict ourselves from exploring space and learning more about the universe is antithetical to Epicurus' emphasis on studying nature as the best way to live happily. The best way to learn more about nature and our place in it will be to go to the stars. Not everyone will want to or be able to do that, but the idea of arguing against the desirability of doing so - for those who wish to - would be against the positive and even combative spirit of the ancient Epicureans.

Quote from TauPhi

And again I have to disagree with this, taking the Epicurean perspective into consideration. It doesn't matter how much progress we make. Even if we have technology to be everywhere at the same time in the universe, Epicurean gods are off limit to humans. This is non-negotiable. Otherwise, the idea of such gods collapses entirely and Epicurus is proven dead wrong in this area of his philosophy.

Again, we disagree. The texts are not clear that they are by nature non-sensible to us for all time, only that they are in the intermundia and/or for whatever reason they are not something we sense EXCEPT through prolepsis, and Epicurus is labeling that as "clear." So we disagree on this aspect -- totally - in taking it to the conclusion that any other intpretation would "collapse" the philosophy.

You're going further even than the "idealists" would go in stating that it would be "impossible" to gain additional knowledge about divinity.

Quote from TauPhi

The first part is about non-gods. The second part is about gods. They don't mix.

Again, I think we're just in fundamental disagreement here because you are maintaining that it is inherently impossible to gain additional knowledge in the future (after space travel) than we have today, and I think that's a fundamentally flawed perspective. We'll learn much more in the future about everything as we travel out into space, including what forms life may take in which it lives happily and imperishably.

This discussion is exactly what I thought might occur and I am glad to have the opportunity to explore it.

The biggest hurdle in Epicurean philosophy is to take seriously that Epicurus was using important words in different ways than the majority use them.

Pleasure IS the absence of pain literally and fully in Epicurean philosophy, because the feelings are defined to be one of two - either pleasure or pain, with no middle or third option. But most people are like Cicero, and that choice of wording just goes past them like water off a duck's back. Like Cicero, they insist on equating pleasure with sensual stimulation alone, and they refuse to include within pleasure other positive experiences of life that don't include sensory stimulation, so they have to get that definition out of their minds if they are going to understand Epicurus' position better than Cicero did.

The same thing is going on with gods. I am not going to assert why any one individual thinks the way they do, but I *will* assert that most every living being on the earth today has been conditioned to thing that "gods" are supernatural, omniscient, omnipotent, and all the other baggage that goes along with monotheism.

Epicurus was clearly breaking from that and saying that should define godhood as ONLY being happy and imperishable . That's why he could talk about being gods among men and not seem ridiculous, because he didn't for a minute entertain that there is anything supernatural about being a god. Being "imperishable" is somewhat allegorical, but even there there is allegory in surrounding yourself with "immortal" things like friendship.

It's possible Tau Phi that you have a unique perspective that makes you impervious to concerns about divinity, and again if that is so I applaud you for it. But you are in a small minority of people on earth if you are , and it was Epicurus' view that it was not sufficient to say "supernatural gods do not exist."

His direction clearly seems to be, "Supernatural gods do not exist, but the idea of "divinity" is not crazy at all, and there is good reason that people think about it." There's lots and lots of speculation that can be had about images and prolepsis and "why" Epicurus thought that people have legitimate concerns about divinity, and that's the kind of thing that this forum is setup to do -- to explore what Epicurus taught and then apply it as productively as possible. This is not one of those fringe areas of physics that is easy to admit that modern science has changed. This is a core area of human philosophy and psychology which is going to be with us as long as we are human.

And to repeat, even the "idealists" who reject the view that Epicurus thought his gods really existed appear to me to be essentially in agreement with how important a question this is. Having a proper perspective on divinity is a lot more than saying negatively "supernatural gods don't exist." It's an essential part of the picture to understand where the issue comes from and to have a positive position that relates to where we want to go in living as close to happily and imperishably as we can.