Posts by Cassius

Patrikios If I read you correctly I agree with your position.

There is a lot of ambiguity in both "natural" and "necessary" and I think it is very ill advised to be overly dogmatic (in the worst sense of the word) as to what activities or what desires go in each category.

That's why I try to emphasize that the categorization is a "tool of analysis" (which is the way I see Torquatus describing it, as a conceptual framework toward classification but not a bright line) , rather than trying to use the classification as a stand-alone blueprint.

Ultimately I don't think there are bright lines involved here other than the question of whether the desire is unlimited. If you pursue unlimited amounts of something you are by definition going to fail because as a human being you are limited by time and space. That's a bright line, and it can include sex if you choose to pursue unlimited amounts/types of sex.

II added this note near the part you quoted:

NOTE: In case it is not clear already, in the following discussion all specific desires are contextual and relative to the time and place and persons involved. The qualifier GENERALLY should be understood as applying to all specific desires, except insofar as any desire is pursued in UNLIMITED fashion. Depending on context the classification of a particular desire may shift from category to category, but the pursuit of any desire in UNLIMITED fashion is always going to be definitionally unattainable.

Please use this thread for discussion of the merits of the article and suggestions for substantive changes. Posts originally made in this thread regarding the use of AI in the blog post are being moved to the thread below, which begins with this Admin Note:

ADMIN NOTE BY CASSIUS -- I don't have the ability to create my own separate post here at the top of this thread so I am doing that in this ADMIN edit. I am moving all discussion of issues of the use of AI in two blog posts I generated in late March 2026 (of course it's applicable far beyond those) to this thread. I am posting in those original threads links to this thread. The original discussion threads for those articles should be used for discussing substantive comments, criticisms, changes, etc. Issues of the use of AI apply to both and should be made here in this thread entitled "Revisiting Issues of The Use of AI in Epicurean Philosophy"

Thread

Revisiting Issues of The Use of AI in Epicurean Philosophy

ADMIN NOTE BY CASSIUS -- I don't have the ability to create my own post so as to explain this thread so I am doing so in this ADMIN edit. I am moving all discussion of issues of the use of AI in two blog posts I generated in late March 2026 (of course it's applicable far beyond those) to this thread. I am posting in those original threads links to this thread. The original discussion threads for those articles should be used for discussing substantive comments, criticisms, changes, etc. …

Cassius

March 24, 2026 at 9:26 PM

This thread is being used to consolidate renewed discussion of AI in late March / early April 2026.

Quote from Don

If the goal is Epicurean evangelism and the argument is that those ends justify any means, that path leads down eventually (and admittedly hyperbolically) to Epicurean-prompted bots posting endlessly to FB, X, Instagram, etc., and replying algorithmically to human generated questions and comments, just to get the message out.

From my perspective, Epicurean philosophy is a human-centered philosophy based in human senses and human feelings and human reason in response to the natural, material world as humans experience it. Generative AI removes the human element from creative work, and the human element is what gives authenticity to what's expressed in those creations.

I think this does a pretty good job of identifying the issues I am currently considering.

And it immediately evokes in my mind the hypothetical of the "experience machine" and the issues involved in PD10.

The world is currently going through changes that probably are going to exceed that of the industrial revolution. It's commonplace to see movies and articles talking about AI leading to mass population reduction and worse.

Quote

Generative AI removes the human element from creative work, and the human element is what gives authenticity to what's expressed in those creations.

This is the question that is often posed and while I am still thinking it through I don't think I actually or can afford to agree. As to actuality, it doesn't "remove" the human element - it's a tool. And as for practicality, the forces arrayed against "us" - meaning against those who support living according to Epicurean philosophy - are too great to unilaterally disarm and give up this tool, which at the moment I see likely to become necessary forself-preservation.

Quote from Don

that path leads down eventually (and admittedly hyperbolically) to Epicurean-prompted bots posting endlessly to FB, X, Instagram, etc., and replying algorithmically to human generated questions and comments, just to get the message out.

And would that necessarily be a bad thing? Once again the considerations of PD10 apply - if there are methods by which we actually succeed in establishing and preserving an actual community of living Epicureans. would we say "Nah that's not worth the use of AI to do so because I find it makes me uneasy / is despicable"?

The question keeps asking itself over and over in different ways. As I see it, there's no way to get around asking "What is the ACTUAL result of the use of any tool or method - including AI?

At least at the moment my personal answer is that it doesn't make any difference who or what or how a presentation that is accurate, well-expressed, and persuasive is produced. If it meets those tests then it is useful no matter who or how produced. if it doesn't meet those test, then it makes no difference who produced it or how. The only ultimate test is "What happens if we pursue this course of action vs what happens if we don't?"

No doubt different people are going to make different predictions about that result, but I don't think it is justifiable to draw a red line because as we all agree in Epicurean philosophy there is no "fate," and I doubt anyone can justify concluding that every aspect of AI is one of "necessity."

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).

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

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

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.

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.

Martin it looks to me like I mention Kant once in the article, in a sentence that is focused on rejection of the senses:

Quote

On one side stands a tradition stretching from Plato through the Stoics, through medieval theology, through Kant, and into much of modern religion and academic philosophy: the view that what is genuinely real must be eternal, unchanging, and accessible not through the senses but through some higher faculty — pure reason, divine revelation, or the intellectual intuition of necessary truths.

I don't see that sentence as significantly a problem for the article's credibility. Of all the murkiness that surrounds Kant his rejection of sensation as a sufficient basis for considering this world of sensation as reality justifies including him in the general trend which is the focus of the article. For example I see in "Twilight of the Idols" that Nietzsche wrote:

If you see something specific or see other aspects of the article you'd like me to consider revising please let me know as I value your input and will include it as I consider revisions.

This will be the discussion thread for the blog article "Reality Does Not Require Being Eternally The Same" -

Blog Article

Reality Does Not Require Being Always The Same

This post is also available on Substack.

One of the deepest and most consequential divisions in the history of philosophy runs not between optimism and pessimism, or between free will and determinism, but between two fundamentally different answers to a single question: what makes something real?

On one side stands a tradition stretching from Plato through the Stoics, through medieval theology, through Kant, and into much of modern religion and academic philosophy: the view that what is genuinely…

Cassius

March 31, 2026 at 10:24 AM

I presume that the terms physics and metaphysics were available in both Greek and Latin, and the original Epicureans and then later the Romans could have established patterns of when to use each in discussing Epicurean philosophy.

Quote from Joshua

All of that is to say that I do not favor a change in nomenclature.

If anyone has an opinion or summary of what they think actually was the case (i.e., how often did Epicurus refer to one word or the other, or how often does Cicero or Seneca or Plutarch use them) that would be interesting to know.

This search of "metaphysics" at B&N does bring up what seems to be a majority of technical philosophy books, such as by Heidegger, but also some religion, and I see one on "Tarot." Glancing over the titles reminds me that to the extent I would have been in this section of B&N in the past I would have found the titles to give off a very "bad vibe." I would likely have lumped it all in as abstract nonsense that always in the past kept me from spending more time with philosophy.

So Eikadistes I'm not sure that statistically speaking the aura of being labeled like alchemy is justified, but practically speaking I sense you are correct (again, at least in the USA and among "normal people.")

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/metaphysics?Nrpp=20&Ns=P_Sales_Rank%7C0&page=8

Edit: the results at Amazon are more clearly weighted toward the alchemy side of things.

Edit2: thinking further about the book titles, i suspect the term "metaphysics" might also evoke in the mind of many people the very negative "obsolete/ancient/medieval physics."

Quote from Eikadistes

After all, the Garden "supposes the study of nature provides the proper space for the voices of the facts."

Sounds like you have a particular reference in mind there Eikadistes?

Quote from Eikadistes

Barnes & Noble uses the word to advertise something closer to "magic" or "alchemy".

Thanks for that reminder. Now that you say it, I think over the years that's where I sense a strongly negative vibe from the word. It seems to be usable in philosophy in a more neutral way, but I'm concerned about how "normal people" interpret it. In many cases it probably doesn't evoke any reaction at all and it's mainly just an unfamiliar word, but the intelligent "middle class" that might have heard of it from bookstores might well attach it to "alchemy' or even "witchcraft."

This might be an American take and not have the same effect in Europe.

Joshua this is something for us to keep in mind for the podcast.

In several conversations recently, including with Martin on one of our recent Zooms (if I recall correctly) and others here privately on the forum, the question has arisen as to whether it would be better to refer to Epicurus' study of nature as "Metaphysics" rather than "Physics."

No doubt we'll continue to use "Physics" as the generic term to organize most of our discussions here, but there are definite differences between "Metaphysics" and "Physics" that would probably be useful to discuss. For example, in some conversations I get the impression that some people (sometimes even me) consider "metaphysics" to imply something of lesser importance, or to be more suspicious of, than "physics." As I read it that attitude might arise from a modern tendency to consider "science" as the trump card for all matters for which we can claim knowledge (at least of a sort) while "metaphysics" is necessary speculative and impossible to be confidence about.

Here's the opening from Wikipedia on "metaphysics":

Metaphysics - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Quote from Wikiedia - Metaphysics

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of human understanding. Some philosophers, including Aristotle, designate metaphysics as first philosophy to suggest that it is more fundamental than other forms of philosophical inquiry.

Metaphysics encompasses a wide range of general and abstract topics. It investigates the nature of existence, the features all entities have in common, and their division into categories of being. An influential division is between particulars and universals. Particulars are unique individual entities, like a specific apple. Universals are general features that different particulars have in common, like the color red. Modal metaphysics examines what it means for something to be possible or necessary. Metaphysicians also explore the concepts of space, time, and change, and their connection to causality and the laws of nature. Other topics include how mind and matter are related, whether everything in the world is predetermined, and whether there is free will.

Maybe a concrete question might help:

Is the letter to Herodotus best described as "Physics," "Metaphysics," or both?

Is the poem of Lucretius "Physics," "Metaphysics," or both?

Is the conclusion that the universe is eternal in time and infinite in space Physics, Metaphysics, both, neither, or what?

Is the conclusion that there is no immortal soul that survives (for very long anyway) after death Physics, Metaphysics, or what?

I'd like to know what others here think so I can consider if I want to alter my own usage of these terms.

That IS Weird! I have no idea why....

I'll post separately that it might seem that the title of this thread and terms like "downward causation" are technicalities irrelevant to day to day life. However I'd posit that having a conceptual model of how complex systems like human beings emerge from atoms moving through the is essential to having any real confidence that the naturalistic explanation of the universe is sound.

If you can never get comfortable with the idea that non-thinking matter can give rise to thinking animals, then all the citations to 'atomism" in the world aren't going to serve the purpose for which they are needed. And in fact if you don't have a better developed understanding then you'll likely be stuck with Democrticus making some critically-damaging conclusions about the implications of atomism.

To help process the implications of this issue I recommend the following short three-minute video which Kalosyni found:

And to show that Thomas Jefferson too thought about this see the underlined section below:

Jefferson to John Adams, August 15, 1820

Full version at Founders.gov)

Here Jefferson complains to Adams about Christian theology and states that “To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise.”

…. But enough of criticism: let me turn to your puzzling letter of May 12. on matter, spirit, motion etc. It’s crowd of scepticisms kept me from sleep. I read it, and laid it down: read it, and laid it down, again and again: and to give rest to my mind, I was obliged to recur ultimately to my habitual anodyne, ‘I feel: therefore I exist.’ I feel bodies which are not myself: there are other existencies then. I call them *matter*. I feel them changing place. This gives me motion. Where there is an absence of matter, I call it *void*, or *nothing*, or *immaterial* *space*. On the basis of sensation, of matter and motion, we may erect the fabric of all the certainties we can have or need.

I can conceive thought to be an action of a particular organisation of matter, formed for that purpose by it’s creator, as well as that attraction in an action of matter, or magnetism of loadstone. When he who denies to the Creator the power of endowing matter with the mode of action called thinking shall shew how he could endow the Sun with the mode of action called attraction, which reins the planets in the tract of their orbits, or how an absence of matter can have a will, and, by that will, put matter into motion, then the materialist may be lawfully required to explain the process by which matter exercises the faculty of thinking. When once we quit the basis of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of *immaterial* existences is to talk of *nothings*. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are *nothings*, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart.

In today's Zoom and also podcast this issue was discussed as a result of David Sedley's article "Epicurean Anti-Reductionism." The basic concept as I understand it it likely this:

Epicurus would have understood just as we do today that it is not intuitive how atoms, which have no properties other than shape, size, and weight, can no matter how they combine have the ability to think and assume all the other complex phenomena that we see around us. In even simpler terms, how can atoms which do not possess the property of color combine into bodies that do have the property of color. Has something been added to the body that was not present in the originating atoms?

It is one thing to say that these phenomena "emerge" from the atoms, and another to offer any kind of coherent and persuasive conceptual model of how this might be possible. And note that I say "model" rather than "explanation," as "explanation might imply we can somehow list what might be an infinite series of causes.

In "Epicurean Anti-Reductionism" Sedley builds the Epicurean case for providing an explanation how this could occur, and he gives citations to where the phenomena is discussed in the texts, including Lucretius in Book 2 discussing how the mind of a horse issues orders for the horse to emerge onto the racetrack.

This also has obvious relevance for issues of determinism.

This is a very interesting area to develop and it continues to be a matter of discussion today, often under the name of "downward causation."

Here's a clip from Sedley's article and after that I will post a number of resources. I have not read them other than to glance at the first, which came from Joshua:

(There are many more references I will add as time allows.)

Crossreference to the Zoom where this arose.

Yes that video sets up the issue very well thank you!