Posts by Cassius

Cassius:

"If the elementary particles are quanta, for example, would pleasure cease being the foundation of human morality? I think not." That is a great example of an update in physics that does not change the conclusions an iota. On the other hand, if the elementary particles are found to be inscribed "Best wishes, Jehova" then that would be a scientific discovery that WOULD change the conclusions rather dramatically. As humans we will never see these elementary particles ourselves, so we need a framework for having confidence in our conclusions in the absence of seeing them with our own naked eyes. Are we to say to ourselves, "Yes it's POSSIBLE that they are so inscribed, because I haven't seen them"? I feel confident that even given our advances to date, Epicurus would still say "no." One might want to qualify that with "reasonably possible" or other hedge words, but at some point you're simply playing a word game rather than dealing in useful concepts, because once you truly believe that "anything is possible" then you're a long way toward totally losing touch with human reality.

Alan to Ilkka:

Ilkka I agree with all of that. I only disagree with those who vehemently say that we need the swerve to have agency or even that the swerve of Epicurean atoms really truly exists in the very precise context that Epicurus stipulated them to serve in. You're not saying that, so we don't have a disagreement. The swerve of Epicurean atoms is a very different thing than the random motion of particles in a gas or fluid or the superposition of quantum states or the fundamental inability to register both a particles position and momentum to arbitrary accuracy (all those things that I suggested above that could be considered a 'modern swerve').

Up the line in this thread I promised a cite to a David Sedley article with an interesting description of how Sedley thinks Epicurus came up with the swerve, more from a "Determinism" standpoint rather than simply due to physics theory. Your mileage may vary, but in my experience Sedley is one of the most perceptive commentators on Epicurus alive today. The article is "Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism" and can be found here:

File

Sedley: "Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism"

1983 Paper which is the one of the best treatments of Epicurus' view of the Free Will / Agency / Determinism issue available.

Cassius

June 3, 2020 at 8:40 AM

Ilkka to Alan:

Alan, the swerve is "random movement by a particle". Whatever consequences it has further down the line, it also has a physical definition. I'm sure that Epicurus didn't have any of those things you listed in mind when he formulated the swerve, but that doesn't change the fact that there is random movement. Several different kinds in fact, if I've understood it correctly.

Swerve was an attempt to ground the self evident facts, of compound objects and choice making, in the physical structure of the world. It was the best that could have been done at the time, and something we're still trying to figure out. Maybe we should cut the ancients some slack in matters not settled yet.

Cassius: (to Alan)

"This is all well and good, but it is not what Epicurus originally had in mind." <<< Well, it's probable also that Epicurus had more than one thing in mind when he suggested the theory of the swerve. In apparently making no effort to explain the "mechanism" of the swerve, he was simply stating the effect rather than speculating as to a cause or even really a manner of operation. I am all for further exploration and discussion of possible mechanisms, as I am sure that Epicurus would be -- the point I keep emphasizing is that in engaging in speculation we should never lose site of the big philosophical picture, nor should we open the door in our own minds, or specially in the minds of those who are not trained in the speculative sciences, that we are suggesting that Jehovah or Allah are possible explanations.

I know that you personally are committed to not doing that, but there are many scientists (apparently) who are all too willing to make those connections, and we need to be careful in consideration of our own peace of mind, plus (or more) that of others who are neither equipped nor disposed to deal with these issues. Standing in the theatre and yelling "the atoms are divisible and they are on fire and may explode at any second" would be improper from many perspectives. Of course YOU Alan are not doing that in any way shape or form, but the world got to the mess it is in today in large part because there are so many people who ARE willing to do that, and no debate ever takes place in a totally contextless vacuum.

alan:

Ilkka - I agree with everything you said except for the "still swerving" statement, as specifically applied proactively in the context of modern physics. What you are suggesting is a basic redefinition of what we mean by the swerve, and I would also be for that. The swerve as first formulated by Epicurus (that is, the reason for why there are macroscopic objects and why we have free-will in an otherwise deterministic universe) is not attested to by modern physics. What you are now suggesting we understand the swerve to be is perhaps quantum indeterminacy, or perhaps Brownian motion, or perhaps Heisenberg uncertainty. This is all well and good, but it is not what Epicurus originally had in mind.

Ilkka:

I've never had any trouble integrating modern particle physics and Epicurean philosophy... But I'm not a physicist.

It's only an accident of history that we use "atom" in a different way than Epicurus did. It would have saved us a lot of confusion if we didn't. Modern meaning and the ancient one are two different things.

In the context of Epicurean philosophy we can say atom and be understood to mean "the smallest possible particle". In the context of modern physics that statement is false, because we know that there are smaller particles than those that physicists call atoms.

I think that we as modern Epicureans should -- in the interest of clarity -- use modern terms.

It seems to me that there is no difference in saying "atoms and void" or "mass-energy and space-time". These statements are synonymous.

We should also remember that while Epicurean ethics rest on the study of nature, both rest on epistemology. The physical theories must change with new knowledge, and so must the ethical theories.

But what has actually changed in practical, human terms?

If the elementary particles are quanta, for example, would pleasure cease being the foundation of human morality? I think not.

Similarly the fact that the universe is billions of years old is in practice an eternity. The numbers remain so staggeringly large as to be unfathomable. When we assign 14.3 as the age of the universe we're creating a mirage that we think we understand: we know that a mirage is a reflection... but what we see is an image hovering in the air.

If quantum theory is true, the particles are still moving randomly. Still swerving. As far as I the layman can make out...

As a final note I'd like to ask a question: What do you think Epicurus would do if he was presented with the evidence we have available to us?

I think he would rejoice... and update his physics.

Cassius:

Ok this tangent and your example of your feeling the chair means we are over a pretty big hump I think

Now as to the existence of an afterlife, there are also going to be numerous places we have to check, and I am going to have to start by just listing a couple first. I think you are asking for more detail that just the statement that death is nothing to us because it means absence of sensation, you are probably looking for the extended discussion of how spirit and atoms cannot form an eternal bond that continues after death disperses the atoms of the body.

I am tempted to suggest that we start a different thread since this is such an important and deep topic as well. Let's do that, and that will help us call in others for assistance and extend us over into tomorrow.

What Arguments Did Epicurus Use To Prove the Non-Existence of Life After Death?

Alan:

Cassius Hm, okay I agree with that. Epicurus absolutely did, at least according to DeWitt, use the structure of a syllogistic argument to prove the swerve.

As you say, what we are delving into now is a separate issue, but also important. I disagree with the rationalists and would affirm that certain truths can be ascertained from direct sensation, for example: I am now sitting in my chair at my desk and I feel the chair under me, therefore the chair exists. This is not a syllogism because there is only one premise.

So to expand my question from earlier, how would Epicurus have proved the nonexistence of the afterlife either by way of direct empirical experience or by using a syllogistic argument form as he did with the swerve and the infinity of the universe?

Cassius:

As Ilkka said upstream, the physics is based in large part on epistemology, and Epicurus' epistemology is a rejection of Platonic and Aristotelian rationalism, so we are now in a discussion of even greater significance than the astrophysics we were discussing earlier.

Cassius:

Alan as I interpret what DeLacy is conveying, you are correct when you say "If you say that Epicurus did not use a syllogism to prove the swerve than you are not accepting the standard definition of a syllogism." I interpret DeLacy to be saying that ultimately Plato and Aristotle were both rationalists who contended that truth comes essentially ONLY through reason, and that conclusions based fundamentally in sensory data can never be true unless they can be converted into syllogisms. This is a huge issue separate and apart from where we started today on physics, so we need to keep that in mind.

- Edit yes absolutely, the two pages at the link are near the beginning of the point, but this appendix article in full is an excellent summary of the epistemological revolution Epicurus was engaged in. I have not found a better summary of these issues than this article. It is unfortunately not something that is easily distilled into a couple of sentences.

Alan:

Cassius, Okay, I've done the reading. I think that Aristotle is wrong here. Empirical experience is a candidate for truth, which is attested in the sensations of the Canon. Not sure how the rest of what follows is relevant to our discussion.

Again we are not using the same terms for the same things. What I mean by a syllogism is the standard definition, here from Oxford as "an instance of a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn (whether validly or not) from two given or assumed propositions (premises), each of which shares a term with the conclusion, and shares a common or middle term not present in the conclusion (e.g., all dogs are animals; all animals have four legs; therefore all dogs have four legs )."

If you say that Epicurus did not use a syllogism to prove the swerve than you are not accepting the standard definition of a syllogism. I explicitly laid out the premises and the conclusion in an earlier comment.

There is no truth content in the syllogism itself. The syllogism is just a relational structure. The deduction that arises from the syllogism only bears truth if and only if its premises are valid and also true, as attested to by other criteria, such as empirical experience.

Cassius:

Well first of all and most importantly, in asking for a syllogism and suggesting that only through syllogism is truth obtained, you are directly contravening a core Epicurean position in which Epicurus fought against Plato and Aristotle. This is explained at length in the Delacy commentary to Philodemus on methods of inference. I will come back here and add a page reference in just a moment. I am attaching a clip of a core part of the discussion where DeLacy is explaining aristotle's view - unfortunately it will be necessay to read this in some detail to see his explanation of how Epicurus rejected this. This can be found at the following link:

https://archive.org/stream/philode…ge/126/mode/2up

Alan Reyes has posed another deep question: "So to expand my question from earlier, how would Epicurus have proved the nonexistence of the afterlife either by way of direct empirical experience or by using a syllogistic argument form as he did with the swerve and the infinity of the universe?"

You'll note that the way this is phrased the presumption is that Epicurus considered his arguments on the swerve and infinity to be based in syllogisms, and that may only be true in part. But for purposes of this discussion let's generalize the question and ask "What arguments did Epicurus use to 'prove' that there is no life after death?"

I think it is fair to say that Epicurus used a number of arguments in addition to the contention in PD2 that death is nothing to us because all good and evil comes to us through sensation, and death is the absence of sensation. Probably the best source for a list of those arguments is going to be in Lucretius, particularly in Book Three. The argument occurs roughly in the following sequence, but this following list is not a statement of the argument. It's really necessary to go through Book 3 and pull the argument out of these topics:

• Our mind and spirit is material, just like everything else, and although it is composed of very special particles, it too is physical and it is inseparable from the body and dies with it.
• The Mind and body are born together and age together, and the mind can be sick just like the body can.
• The mind may be composed of particles that are immortal, but it is not immortal itself. Even if the particles of our mind came together in the same arrangement in future ages, our minds would have no memory of being us as we are now, just as our minds now have no memory of ever being together in the same combination and arrangement in past ages.
• Our minds and spirits are born and die with our bodies.
• Our minds and spirits are able to experience things only through sensation, and death brings the end of all sensation, so the state of being dead is nothing to us, and time after our death has no more relevance to us than did the time before we were born.

So with that as background, "What arguments did Epicurus use to 'prove' that there is no life after death?"

Alan wrote:

Cassius, We are mostly in agreement, though I am not sure if the Epicureans did explicitly formulate a deduction regarding the afterlife. If you can cite one or plausibly render such a syllogism, I would be willing to examine it.

The only criteria for soundness in syllogistic logic is for the premises to be self-consistent and necessarily resulting in the conclusions (i.e., validity) and also being each individually attested to in truth, which grants soundness to the validity. My argument against the afterlife is admittedly inductive.

Cassius responded:

Alan I don't have too much trouble with that analysis, but I can imagine a strong possibility that Epicurus would go further than that. When you say " To be clear, that is not to say that we are 100% confident that there is no afterlife. Such a declaration could only be based on sound deduction, which I do no know that we have..." I think there are a couple of issues there. First is the issue of being "100% confident." What does that even mean (I ask rhetorically)? I think Epicurus might say that being "100% confident" might be a false standard, if what is implied here is some kind of god-link omniscient certainty which we would previously rule out as an impossibility in an atomistic universe.

Also, I am not sure that Epicurus would admit that the no-afterlife conclusion could not be based on sound deduction. Is "being there" or "observing it with our own eyes" absolutely required for a deduction to be considered sound? Again I think the answer is "no," with the deduction being based on the conclusions that only the ultimate particles are eternal, and all else is subject to dissolution, which would again be a combination and interplay of observations about the scene and deductions about the unseen.

We are probably skirting the issue of "dogmatism" here and what Epicurus meant when he apparently wrote about how knowledge of certain things is possible, while also maintaining a practical view that some things of tremendous importance to us (life after death, perhaps life on other worlds) will never be open to our direct observation. Are we forever foreclosed from being confident about things that we cannot see? I think Epicurus would say that at least in some situations (life after death; existence of supernatural gods) we can in fact be confident. Now we individually may have a sliding scale of our own confidence in many of the other conclusions, but i personally have no problem accepting with confidence his arguments that there is essentially no "limit" to the size of the universe, and I am also confident that given an advanced enough spaceship to make the travel time manageable, we will to a certainty find life on other words. And following further what they apparently described as isonomia, that nature never makes only a single thing of a kind, and that there is a sort of distribution of things in the universe, I personally am also quite confident that we will find that there are living beings which are technologically further advanced than we are, and that it is also very likely that some of them have essentially perfected a means of sustaining themselves from death for a duration that may not have a future limit.

So those are examples where I personally find Epicurean philosophy compelling on many additional details. I don't have any intention of running a cult so I have no right or intention of stating where the line is between who is an Epicurean and who is not, but I do think the things we are discussing, and where we are already in large agreement, are near the core of what it ought to mean to consider oneself to be an Epicurean. And for me, these things go far beyond the more practical homespun advice on things like "natural and necessary" which are very useful, but not core philosophical ideas. (Of course that's another separate topic too, but the key point would be that in an atomistic universe no universal standard is possible and choices must be evaluated contextually, while the observation that "natural and necessary" is a helpful guideline is a secondary idea in that it is just a specific application of the key point to a particular context.)

Alan wrote:

Cassius Okay, very good. Let's hone in on Conclusion 5 then. Christopher Hitchens (who one self-described as an Epicurean) is known for having invented his own philosophical razor, which states that "any claim put forward without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." I think therefore (but not solely on those grounds but for many reasons) that the notion of the afterlife can be dismissed. Therefore, we ought to live our lives as if the afterlife does not exist, to try to make the most pleasant experience as possible for ourselves on Earth in our short time, and to follow Epicurus in the paraphrase: when we are gone, we are not here, and so death is nothing for us. To be clear, that is not to say that we are 100% confident that there is no afterlife.

Such a declaration could only be based on sound deduction, which I do no know that we have. What we can rely on is very strong induction, since no one has ever observed continuity of consciousness past the life-death boundary, etc. So effectively, I am satisfactorily confident (say 99.9+% if you want to be statistical) that an afterlife does not exist, but I retain a very small likelihood that, given extremely compelling evidence, I could be wrong.

Cassius Reply Back to Alan:

Other than Conclusion 5 we are very definitely closing the gap, and I bet we can close it on 5 too. I think Epicurus would say that there is never any logical reason to accept a contention without any evidence at all, and that there is absolutely no evidence of life after death, and much evidence to indicate that life is like everything else, and that all that comes together eventually dissolves back into the elements from which it came (plus many other arguments).

The issue here is that I think Epicurus was ultimately a philosopher and he was in fact fully engaging the other philosophers on their own territory -- logic -- as well as physics. I think he would say that the "true" rules of reason are such that accepting something as possible without any reliable evidence whatsoever would undermine the rules of reasoning which are necessary to live happily. (You would be right to think that I believe this applies to the physics arguments as well.)

Someone reading into this argument further would want to research Philodemus' "On Methods of Inference" and the commentary in the DeLacy translation of what remains of that work.

So maybe someone would want to argue that there IS some kind of evidence of life after death, and if so we could debate that. But in the end I think the direction Epicurus was going is that in order to live happily you have to adopt rules of what you are even going to consider as evidence, and at least for me I see your conclusion 5 too as one of those things which has to simply be ruled out of court for consideration based on the evidence we already have.

From Alan:

Cassius Okay, yes, we are getting closer to a mutual understanding. I understand the utility of retaining some position rather than nothing when it comes to dealing with the largest questions and not giving in to Pyrrhonism or ultimate skepticism. For this we can rigorously employ polyvalent logic/the simultaneity of sound hypotheses principle, and have a variety of explanations that are consistent with empirical experience (e.g., the universe is literally both infinite and finite, until one or the other is contradicted by the evidence, much like a quantum state can be a superposition of many until observed and the wave function is collapsed).

If Epicurus would ask me how would I defend our conclusions from a modern perspective, I would say the following:

Conclusion 1) There are no supernatural gods which intervene because if they exist it would fly in the face of everything we understand from modern physics about nature. If there are gods, they could be biologically immortal or even post-biological and so advanced and concerned with themselves to the point that they need not bother with us. They could even be aware of us but not interested in us, like an advanced Kardashev civilization in a Matrioshka brain.

Conclusion 2) There are no ideal forms because abstractions are not the things in themselves. Nowhere in nature will you find something supernatural. Just because we imagine it does not mean it is real.

Conclusion 3) There are no compulsory virtues. We evolved Darwinistically as social and communal beings, and it was conducive to our survival fitness to contribute to the group and be altruistic. However, there is no mandate to be altruistic/virtuous, it is just a useful tool/accessory that helped us to survive (e.g. in Pleistocene Africa and during the Ice age, etc.)

Conclusion 4) There is no fatalism because we do have (at the very least the appearance of) agency. Even in a mostly causally deterministic universe, we have these minds that are simultaneously reductionist (traceable to electroneurochemical brain firings) and emergent (coming about as more than the sum than its parts), and it is also very clear to us that we have the appearance of free-will. An evolutionary argument could also be made that agency is necessary to facilitate interactions within the group (what Epicurus would call natural justice), because otherwise we could not give accountability or praise for actions. We do not need the swerve to defend free will.

Conclusion 5) There is no afterlife. We have to take this one on faith because if we are being truly honest, we don’t know for sure whether there is one or not. The best we can say is that there has never been compelling evidence to believe that an afterlife exists, and it is not useful for this life to place our hopes in an afterlife (and by doing so may lead to many real repercussions in this life). To say that our consciousness goes on in any meaningful way in this naturalistic universe violates entropy and thermodynamics and cannot be. The only way for there to be an afterlife would be for it to be necessarily supernatural, in which case we would be wrong.

To Alan:

You and I are certainly moving closer on some things but perhaps apart on others. First a couple of comments:

"The particular conclusions of Epicurean physics that I disagree with are 1) swerve, 2) infinity of the universe, and 3) eternality and immutability of atoms." <<< Well you're sure listing some big ones but at least we are being clear.

"This is how I understand how (through DeWitt) Epicurus derives the above. Regarding the swerve: Premise 1) The atoms move in straight lines with constant speed. Premise 2) If the atoms never contact one another, there could be no macroscopic objects. Premise 3) We observe that there are macroscopic objects. Conclusion ) Therefore, the atoms must swerve." <<<< I think you are correct in large part as to Dewitt, but I think even DeWitt factored in he deduction based on what we observe about free will. I think you will be interested in an article some of us recently discussed by David Sedley (I will get the title and paste here) where Sedley contends that Epicurus came to the conclusion about the swerve from another direction primarily, rather than physics. Regardless of which approach is correct, it appears the swerve was a deduction and was apparently not considered to be a topic of prime importance by Epicurus.

"Lastly regarding the eternality and immutability of atoms, I am not sure if he deduced these or if he held those to be axiomatic." << I would project that this too was based on deductive logic, as DeWitt contends. Of course in the Epicurean scheme, deductive logic is tied as tightly as possible to observations, so they go hand in hand.

"We can still employ the Canon and the Ethics in our lives because at the root of both is an appeal to the metaphysical position of naturalism/materialism and empiricism, and a hard rejection of supernaturalist explanations of things. There are still no supernatural gods, no ideal forms (in reality, but perhaps in our imagination), no compulsory virtues, no fatalism (we do not need the swerve to defend free-will), and no afterlife. We haven’t lost any of the important Epicurean conclusions by dismissing the results from the old physics." <<< I think in response to this Epicurus would say in part something like, "Ok Mr, Reyes, if you don't like mine, what is YOUR explanation for these physical phenomena?" And if you are able to give a coherent one which is understandable to ordinary people, without leaving them dazed in conclusion, then possibly you would be right when you say that 'we haven't lost any of the important Epicurean conclusions.' Otherwise you are making assertions on which there is no good reason to have confidence than if you asserted the opposite about your positions."

Because I think that Epicurus would also say, further, that in the absence of a coherent and understandable explanation of the universe which allows us to have confidence in our conclusions, then theories which end up saying simply "we don't know" about the important questions about our / humanity's place in the universe end up as a practical matter undermining our ability to live happily. There are a number of statements to that effect in Epicurus, one of which is in the letter to Menoeceus that it would be better to believe in a false religion than to believe that we where the slaves of hard determinism and thus had no power whatsoever to effect our future happiness.

As for me personally, I enjoy reading scientific material, and I welcome every bit of new evidence I can find. But I also conclude more strongly as I get older that it is rare for "science" to come at us totally without an "agenda" of the carrier, and in many if not most cases, there is an "agenda" behind what is presented so as to emphasize uncertainty and doubt while replacing it with attitudes of radical skepticism and other damaging viewpoints. There are exceptions to this, and I understand from my limited reading that Victor Stenger is one.

I should also say that I am cautious not to attempt to go toe to toe on the details of the latest research, but I do harbor the strong suspicion that the attitude of many theorists is flawed because they do not understand, or they reject, the ultimate philosophic approach that we are discussing. How many times do we see people talk about an "expanding universe" without making very clear that we are talking about "the universe we have observed so far?" When someone fails to acknowledge that limitation in their position I almost automatically disqualify their sweeping conclusions. Same with Lawrence Krauss and his "A Universe from Nothing" book titles which gloss over that his definition of "nothing" is not consistent with the literal philosophic definition of the word.

So in conclusion at this point I can fully agree with you that some particular scientific positions certainly need to be revised, but I also think Epicurus would say that tearing down our confidence in a natural understanding of our place in the universe, without replacing it with something more firm based on better science, is extremely dangerous, And the worst possible variation of that would be to contend that we should "have faith in science" which is really another bottom line of what I detect in the position of some advocates. There is ultimately no such thing as "science" - the valid part comes down to real people talking about their observations from experience. In the practical experience of most (if not all) humans, productive discussion of science requires a framework of thought that makes sense and is consistent with the information available to us through our senses.

If you rip away the framework that gives us confidence in our conclusions, you end up as doing nothing more than making assertions without any grounds for confidence in them, thereby undermining our confidence in living our own lives. In the words of book four of Lucretius, "And though reason is not able to assign a cause why an object that is really four-square when near, should appear round when seen at a distance; yet, if we cannot explain this difficulty, it is better to give any solution, even a false one, than to deliver up all Certainty out of our power, to break in upon our first principle of belief, and tear up all foundations upon which our life and security depend. For not only all reason must be overthrown, but life itself must be immediately extinguished, unless you give credit to your senses. These direct you to fly from a precipice and other evils of this sort which are to be avoided, and to pursue what tends to your security. All therefore is nothing more than an empty parade of words that can be offered against the certainty of sense." (Daniel Brown version)