Posts by Cassius

Quote from Julia

I agree. It might be worthwhile shifting more activity towards building/growing the wiki and other more organised knowledge bases. I already got in trouble for how much time I spent on some forum posts, so I doubt I'll be editing much myself, but I think that would be the way to go

Yes further Wiki / knowledge base development is where I plan to spend much of my time. But you should *never* consider yourself "in trouble" for lengthy contributions! They are welcome and needed, no matter how long they are! We really need more "articles" here that address things in longer form, and we can feature them accordingly so people won't treat them in the same way as they treat the ongoing "discussions." You and everyone are invited to contribute things like that! Currently our "Articles" section is really sparse, and that needs to change. We've had some good material in the past, such as Elayne's "On Pleasure, Pain, And Happiness," and we need more of it.

Related to this is the question of priorities. Lately I've devoted a lot of time to discussing Prolepsis and other detailed aspects of the gods issue. Those are enjoyable to me and are helping to fill in some gaps that need filling, but at the same time, the overall goal of the forum is more oriented to providing understandable and persuasive explanations of the "core issues" (such as the full list of 11 that are currently featured on the front page of the forum) which are of more interest to and needed by the vastly larger number of people.

I would like us to always try to steer our activities so that we always keep that in mind, not only because it helps us meet new people and expand our circles of friendships, which Epicurus emphasized, but also because it helps us focus on issues where we either do or should agree, rather on details where we are inevitably left to speculation and therefore less unanimity of opinion.

There's obviously also a lot of turnover among are participants - the majority of people drop by and stay for a relatively short while and then fade away. it's much more important for us to identify and focus on the clear core issues that have "staying power" - and that keep people coming back - than it is to blaze new trails on relatively obscure issues.

Our biggest challenge is to develop ongoing activities and interactions that lead to greater sense of community so that the effort as a whole can have the kind of staying power that is needed.

Quote from Remus

This confirms, once again, that everything sounds better with a posh English accent.

I very much agree with Remus - I feel exactly that way myself.

However Kalosyni's post reminds me of something I started to post this morning but held back. Now I'll go ahead:

The seductiveness of the posh English accent is not without its problems, and I actually prefer a strong "neutral" "midwestern" or other accents to the Academic English style in many cases.

I am exaggerating here, but the posh English approach scares me when I think about how they can read "Tea and crumpets at Two is Delicious" with exactly the same poshness and diffidence and tone of voice as when the read: "So great is the power of religion to prompt men to evil deeds."

However I see it perfectly suited to Cicero and Plato and even Aristotle!

Done and thanks Joshua! We can eventually delete posts 4 and 5 from this thread....

As usual, lots of caution, but this is an interesting recent article on one particular target of interest:

James Webb detects signs of life on exoplanet K2-18b

Webb Telescope's study on K2-18b reveals potential but inconclusive signs of extraterrestrial life; advanced technology needed for certainty.

www.earth.com

Lots of good photos here:

Webb Image Release- Webb Space Telescope GSFC/NASA

The Latest NASA Released Webb Image is featured on this page. The James Webb Space Telescope's revolutionary technology will study every phase of cosmic…

webb.nasa.gov

I can't determine when this went online but it looks very recent.

Well done in how it provides both closed caption and an on-line outline of the topic being discussed.

And interesting graphics too --

Very well done and thanks Julia for making us aware of this!

Lining the two sources up like that is a reminder of DeWitt's view that the reference to "the Epicureans generally" adding a fourth criteria was arguably a mistake. The way you've translated that "focus of the mind" reference would appear to indicate that there's no reason to split the term into two, and that it's best to think of there being only three categories, with the third being something like "the faculty that is involved in the focusing of the mind" as what Epicurus originally set forth.

Quote from Bryan

I agree, Godfrey. Also, of course, given the word "conception" is appropriate here is itself an indication that this is an idea and is past the point of preconception.

Great way to state it Bryan!

Quote from Bryan

"Before they see their first example" is too early to have an anticipation, as the anticipations are a sense just like the others. We cannot see anything until we have something to look a

And that's a great clarification too. It's not like an innate idea of numbers is encoded at birth, what we're searching for is a description of a mechanism that swings into action as soon as it is exposed to ________, just like the eyes swing into action when they open and are exposed to light.

Very good video! And while we're still searching for ways to say it precisely, I'd have to say that Yes "prolepsis is involved with numbers - and it seems to involve something "inmate" as in the example of the babies used in the video.

Before they have seen the first example of a difference in quantity, they have some kind of "etching" that tells them that difference in quantity is significant to them.

And I think that "before they have seen the first example" is where we need to focus as we try to describe a faculty of prolepsis. Not on how it gets more accurate with practice, but how and why it is there in the first place, just like pleasure and pain and the other faculties are also there at birth. Focusing on adults forming conceptions of oxes after seeing more and more of them is not the place to look.

I think this video illustrates the best way forward is to look again at babies, just like with pleasure and pain, at a time period when Nature is fully in control and there is no possiblity of corruption through mistaken opinion.

So just for clarification, I have set up a "conversation" with those who volunteer to help with Quiz creation, and we'll use that conversation thread to tell each other about updates and discuss the details of the quiz questions. It would probably undercut the "fun" if we posted each comment and thereby gave away all the questions and answers before they were used more publicly.

So we'll continue to take in this thread discussion of those who wish to volunteer in the project, but the thread won't expand on a day to day basis as we will move that part to a private discussion. If you wish to add yourself to the conversation list and participate in updating the list, just post here and we'll add you to the conversation.

1 - Great research work Bryan - thank you!

2 - (This is a poorly-thought-out comment but I will make it anyway) Consistent with that research and other things that we've discussed, it seems to me that LR's suggestion here:

Quote from Little Rocker

Would that mean something like, the gods' properties of being 'immortal and indestructible' are definitional, but that the gods having the property of 'living being' is one of τὰ Συμβεβηκότα?

... might be plausible as I can see "being a living being" as being more important than "deathlessness." We could not conceive of a god not being a "living being," but we could conceive of particular a god voluntarily giving up its immortality, because a particular god might choose for some reason to stop acting to maintain its deathlessness. Is it not possible to imagine that a god too might choose to leave the theatre when for some reason (hard to describe) the play ceased to please it? At the very least, it would not make sense to deprive a god of the free will to make such a decision.

Edit - My eyes have trouble following the Greek so I'll just refer to separable and inseparable. So to restate what I wrote, I can see "being a living being" as being inseparable from godhood. If you aren't living you can't be a god. But I can see "incorruptibility' as being separable from godhood, because I can imagine a god choosing to exit the theatre, and actually I can't imagine depriving a god of such a power. I find it conceivable to say that a god who chose to exit the theatre was still, while he existed, a god, and I can't imagine "trapping" a god into a situation where he could not choose to stop existing.

Oh that's great and we will very much appreciate your help! Let me set up a shared document that we can all work on together, and I will send a link by "conversation" to you and anyone else who is willing to help.

This episode is now on Youtube:

As another relevant analogy, we see Torquatus in On Ends arguing that Epicurus establishes the foundations of friendship, and implicitly justice, far more soundly by basing it on pleasure than do those who invoke fictional views of justice as established by gods or "Natural Law." Diogenes of Oinoanda makes much the same argument.

Torquatus:

[70] Men are found to say that there is a certain treaty of alliance which binds wise men not to esteem their friends less than they do themselves. Such alliance we not only understand to be possible, but often see it realized, and it is plain that nothing can be found more conducive to pleasantness of life than union of this kind. From all these different views we may conclude that not only are the principles of friendship left unconstrained, if the supreme good be made to reside in pleasure, but that without this view it is entirely impossible to discover a basis for friendship.

I think Epicurus blows to pieces any concept of "universal" rights that is alleged go be based on or protected by a god of Nature in a Stoic kind of way

But replacing it is the acknowledgement that humans by nature experience pleasure and pain as motivations, and where pain is inflicted one can expect pushback. Sometimes we will choose pain and deal with the pushback, but Epicurus leads to acknowledgment that the results are up to us. If we want certain rights (and we do) then it is up to us to act to obtain and keep them.

That's a much more realistic way of looking at things, and since it more consistent with reality it's very arguably more effective.

In regard to Don's notable beard, this is why I prefer how the 1743 edition translates Lucretius' "eventum" as "event" rather than accident.

Yes the philosophers seem to prefer to use the word, "accident," but in English parlance "accident" implies "fortuitousness" or "chance" in a way that should not be presumed.

It would probably raise the eyebrows of the normal person to think that it is an "accident" that Don has a beard worthy of Epicurus. It's much more appropriate to say that Don's beard is an "event" of Don's life, which conveys that it is an event that has occurred after much deliberate thought, rather than as an "accident" that Don lost his access to his razors through no input of his own.

Yes it is true that Don's beard could be removed from him without Don losing his identity, and that's what makes his beard an "event." But Don's beard surely should not be thought of to arise "by accident" any more than other emergent properties of bodies arise by "accident." Indeed, it's exactly the point of Epicurean physics - that emergent properties do not arise by the intention of gods, but neither do they arise "randomly" or by "chance" or "accident." Most things in the universe arise from the "laws of nature" that arise repeatedly, reliably, and predictably from the movement of the atoms through the void.

For those who find this topic interesting, we explored it further with the Latin from Lucretius in this thread:

Post

RE: Time in Epicurus, Lucretius, and Aristotle

[…]

Yes that is exactly the point.

In the mechanical aspects of the universe, things are not "accidental/fortuitous" in the sense that the exact same combinations of the same atoms in the same way at the same places will accidentally/fortuitously produce different results - they produce repeatable and reliable results, and that is why we see the regularity in the universe. The word "accident" can imply that the result could be otherwise for unknowable factors, and I would say that that is why…

Cassius

September 6, 2023 at 9:42 AM

Strangely to me, I don't recall that DeWitt makes much reference to comparing "we cannot be born twice" to the "born again" statements of Christianity.

Is being "born again" an obvious question that arises to everyone everywhere? I wonder what the probabilities are that the Epicureans were known for this "can't be born twice" and that that infuenced the use of the analogy.

As for me, if I were an early Christian talking about miraculous salvation, my wishful thinking would focus on "never dying" or "staying young" but remaining at least a young adult. Even if I were a miracle worker I don't think I'd consider being literally "born again" to be particularly appealing, so I doubt I would have normally thought to talk in those terms.

Maybe Dewitt or others argue this somewhere and I am not aware of it.

John 3:1-21

3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. ² This man came to Jesus^[a] by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” ³ Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again^[b] ” he cannot see the kingdom of God. ⁴ Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.^{[c] 7} Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You^[d] must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind^[e] blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

The long discussion of images begins in section 26 of Book 4. I would say that Epicurus seems to be making a distinction about about our ability to perceive the retained "shapes" of the groups of atoms that stream off the surface of things, and that this retained shape would not necessarily be the same as seeing, hearing tasting etc. For example the reference below to perceiving them in sleep are presumably not involving the eyes because our eyes are closed when asleep?

But the references do seem to be dealt with as a group so it's going to be difficult to pull it apart. Some of this might apply to mirages and some might not, and then there's the separate discussion (somewhere else) about how images are involved before we walk or take other actions.

[26] But since I have taught of what manner are the beginnings of all things, and how, differing in their diverse forms, of their own accord they fly on, spurred by everlasting motion; and in what way each several thing can be created from them; and since I have taught what was the nature of the mind, and whereof composed it grew in due order with the body, and in what way rent asunder it passed back into its first-beginnings: now I will begin to tell you what exceeding nearly concerns this theme, that there are what we call idols of things; which, like films stripped from the outermost body of things, fly forward and backward through the air; and they too when they meet us in waking hours affright our minds, yea, and in sleep too, when we often gaze on wondrous shapes, and the idols of those who have lost the light of day, which in awful wise have often roused us, as we lay languid, from our sleep; lest by chance we should think that souls escape from Acheron, or that shades fly abroad among the living, or that something of us can be left after death, when body alike and the nature of mind have perished and parted asunder into their several first-beginnings. I say then that likenesses of things and their shapes are given off by things from the outermost body of things, which may be called, as it were, films or even rind, because the image bears an appearance and form like to that, whatever it be, from whose body it appears to be shed, ere it wanders abroad. That we may learn from this, however dull be our wits.

Quote from Don

My understanding is that *all* our sensations are based on "images"/fields/eidola. The mental faculty simply picks up the finest, most subtle images. But all sensations are based on touch, from the sense of touch itself to vision touching the images emitted by objects, to the mental faculty touching the finest most subtle fields.

As to "all sensations are based on touch," I would agree, that contact between atoms is the way all of them work - no "action at a distance" without touch.

But I think we ought to dig further, presumably into book 4 of Lucretius, to clarify whether smell or touch or taste, for example, are based on "images."

Quote from Bryan

We smell and see the film that comes from our meal, for example.

Ok now *there* is another potential issue. I thought that "images" are received directly by the mind, without going through the eyes, and that the "images" technically speaking are not visible or otherwise detectable by the five senses. Is that not the implication of the discussion in Book 4 of Lucretius, and the implication of what Cicero says to Cassius about the mind selecting images as involved in thinking of someone who is not present?

Bryan would you agree or disagree with saying that the difficulty of prolepsis operates on "images?"

And do you see any connection between the Centaur / image example in Lucretius and prolepsis?