Posts by Cassius

Yes I don't mean to be taking the position that I am a "believer" in ESP. My dividing line is in my view strictly pragmatic - I am not sure exactly how I would define that, but my attitude is something like "if it can be shown to be a repeatable phenomena that can be observed by more than one observer over time and under conditions that eliminate subterfuge, then I don't care how many "scientists" have previously said it "can't happen." The "proof is in the pudding" and all sorts of other cliches that focus on the actual results rather than on prior predictions of what is possible.

On the other hand, the question is "Do we have to suspend judgment and accept any alleged theory where someone says 'it hasn't been proved yet, but it will be?" My answer would be "no" to that too.

Quote from Susan Hill

Yes.

HA!

Quote from Susan Hill

I think the answer to that is presently as elusive to science as the question of how consciousness arises. Some even say consciousness is an illusion, therefore.

I think the first sentence is well taken, but as for those who say consciousness is an illusion, I think we're going to find that Epicurus took consciousness to be one of those primaries (like the senses) that must be accepted and not looked behind, so therefore NOT an illusion. I'm thinking that this is one of those areas that leads down the slippery slope to nihiism in practical terms, but it's also something that is probably part of the "logic" debate that I think Epicurus was also having with the other schools. So we probably have two separate issues (1) the physics of the operation of the brain, and (2) our correctness in considering the senses as primary contacts with reality, with consciousness too being subject to all types of error, but not an "illusion" as if we could one day wake up from it. I presume it's more correct to say that consciousness "is" us like saying Toys'RUs - ConsciousnessIsUs.

I reserve the right to revise, extend, or retract all those statements! But that is where I currently am thinking makes the most sense trying to reconcile the state of modern science plus what Epicurus was saying.

It's easy for us to go to google and dig out observations on "What modern science says" even though of course there are lots of unresolved questions there.

I think it's our particular challenge here to also ask "What was Epicurus thinking?" because he was immersed in the high-level logical arguments of ancient Greek philosophy, and I sometimes think (as in the "absence of pain" formulation) that he was so far ahead of us in the terms of his discussion that we don't recognize what he was saying. Probably the same can be said for his statements on divinity.

Quote from Susan Hill

So perhaps Epicurean spirituality is the recognition of the profound, intricate, beautiful, blissful, subtle, elating, humbling and tranquil nature of the gods, and the practice of attuning our own nature to that god-like state.

I think in response here that I would say that probably either as a part of anticipations, of pleasure-recognition, or of both, that there is a disposition to recognize the profound, intricate, beautiful, blissful, subtle, elating, humbling and tranquil nature of anything which we would expect to find the highest manifestation thereof in the highest level of beings which we would expect to exist within the universe.

So those characteristics you list are all things that exist in varying degrees in the things we come into contact with here on earth and would experience as part of those interactions, so we have a faculty of recognizing those characteristics which does process data received through the eyes/ears/tongue/nose/skin, but that faculty of recognition is probably not itself a part of the eyes/ears/tongue/nose/skin.

So the question that is probably on the table is how this faculty of recognition operates, and whether it can receive stimulus that is not strictly part of the eyes/ears/tongue/nose/skin.

1. Is this faculty purely operating in accord with the "etching" that it has at birth?

2. Is this faculty operating purely in accord with its etching plus its influences by the things we see/hear/taste/touch/smell during our lifetime after birth?

3. Is this faculty operating in accord with its etching, plus what we see/hear/taste/touch/smell during our lifetime after birth, plus something else that is perceivable by the brain through mechanisms not currently understood by science, but understandable by science after additional study through techniques not yet invented? (For a gross example, attempts to study claims of "ESP" or "gravity waves" or "cosmic rays" or similar claims of repeatable phenomena, all of which - if proved to exist through repeated observation - we will presume due to our prior conclusions to be the work of a "natural" and not the work of a "universe-creating-supernatural-being" phenomena? I suppose even "contact with a UFO" or "contact with an alien race" would fit in this category if they actually landed in Central Park and said "We are here to serve men" and gave us what we thought at first was a table of profound natural laws but which turned out to be a cookbook. )

Quote from Susan Hill

And yet we do manage to talk about it, even without a dictionary definition.

I definitely think we need to work on at least a "working" definition for our use here, which we will eventually want to add to the Lexicon and/or the FAQ. That's pretty much exactly what we have to do with "Gods" "Virtue" "Pleasure" "Truth" and probably many other words.

In this case it doesn't help much but whatever working definition probably needs to include the "not supernatural" qualifier, but obviously that's not a satisfactory start. "Divinity" is a term that presumably exists whether we recognize it or not, because "the Epicurean gods" are held to exist whether or not we know it. I presume "spirit" is also a term that is used so thoroughly that we can say that it exists whether we recognize it or not, but it's closely tied in to "mind" and "soul" and has be better articulated.

It's entirely unclear to me whether "spirit" in the Epicurean sense has any real connection with "the Epicurean gods" or what that connection would be. From the point of view of the surviving texts, we could probably have reverence for "the gods" and profit from that presumably even if we never had a "spiritual" experience.

Probably it is first necessary to define "spirit" before we define "spiritual experience." If the spirit is different from the mind, then presumably it has its own "experiences" which are different from mental or "physical" experiences. But of course there is the premise that nothing exists except "matter" and void, so whatever experiences are going on presumably have a "material" aspect to them.

I think the place to start is more the question of separating the terms "mind" "soul" and 'spirit" and determining whether they are separate entities from the Epicurean viewpoint.

NOTE: Again, I think it's best we start "from the Epicurean viewpoint" rather than "what we ourselves think is the case" because we can't really be sure whether we agree or disagree with Epicurus unless we know what HIS viewpoint was.

Yes that's definitely a foundational link. It seems like within the last year I found a link to a German website that had facsimiles of the originals, so any site that attempts to organize them has to go in the list.

As people add to this list I will go back and update the first post in the thread.

Quote from Susan Hill

As for the Hadzsits article, I don't think you will have a problem with his translations, because he doesn't translate anything. All sources are given in Latin and Greek.

Oh I HATE articles like that! I suppose academics have a right to write for other academics

Quote from Susan Hill

The Lexicon structure is probably better.

I am happy to give full access to any regular participant here who is interested in trying to work with the lexicon or other features. If someone tries to do something and doesn't seem to have access rights just let me know. I think it best that people go ahead on the "easier to get forgiveness than permission" theory. If someone posts something that we need to reorganize then we can do that afterwards - once material is typed in the hard part is done.

Quote from Susan Hill

Is there a point at which we can say "Okay, I think get the gist of this, let's give it a whirl!"

Yes I think we are definitely at that point and we need to talk about what "giving it a whirl" means. I keep thinking in terms of online interaction via zoom or skype or whatever, leading eventually to a polished presentation that we can maybe commit to video and then distribute for the use of others. That's something we can talk further about here in these threads and also on the 20th.

Brett that's a great idea to devote a section to it - There are several options on how to implement that, including the "Lexicon" page. I haven't really figured out how to use it but I think it works like a shared wiki.

I set this page up here: Epicurean Techniques for Better Living

And gave write access to those of us participating in this thread - if I missed anyone please let me know.

I think at that location we can basically develop a numbered list perhaps? I would appreciate anyone's input on this - this is an example of where I can help provide the infrastructure but I am sorely lacking in creativity and imagination to get things going sometimes!

This is the "home page" of the Lexicon: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/lexicon/

This is the page announcing the setup and probably a good place to discuss how to use it:

Addition of the "Lexicon" Feature of the Forum

I'm starting this thread to place here links to the best online sources for review of the Philodemus materials from Herculaneum. Currently that is spread out over other threads and we need to pin this to the top of the Philodemus section as a starting point.

1. Foundational Lists of Resources
   1. The Herculaneum Society (England)
2. Philodemus On Piety
3. Philodemus On Methods of Inference
4. Philodemus On Rhetoric
5. Epicurus On Nature

Some comments on a number of posts:

Quote from Godfrey

so are you saying that that makes spirituality innate?

I singled that out as a good example of the need for a definition of spirituality. What is "spirituality"? Have we made any progress in defining what we mean there?

Quote from Godfrey

grappling with the gods

I like that phrase!

Quote from Godfrey

justice and fair play seem to be a way of connecting our sensations with our feelings.

Yes I am thinking in that direction too. Maybe more generally, "anticipations are a way of connecting our sensations with our feelings." Or at the very least, "anticipations and sensations and feelings are all connected closely" which I think is a point that DeWitt emphasizes.

Quote from Susan Hill

there is a genetic and innate neurological proclivity towards spiritual seeking/belief,

That's another sentence that cries out for clarity in "what does spiritual mean?"

Quote from Susan Hill

I'm wondering if this were the definition of a prolepsis/anticipation, how would it be different from simple "learning ability" or "the faculty of cognition", or "knowledge creation ability"?

Right Susan. That's where I think the issue is with the Diogenese Laetrius section on anticipations, and the standard position on anticipations today. Clearly there is a process of "conceptual reasoning" that coincides with your terms "leaning ability" and "faculty of cognition" and "knowledge creation ability." Clearly all normal people go through life seeing new things (cell phones for example) and forming new pictures/conceptions of groups of cell phones until they have a mental image/definition of a cell phone that they then apply to new experiences. There's no doubt that conceptual reasoning exists. The big question is whether there is any "etching" of mental operations that plants the seeds so to speak as to how that process is going to occur or the directions it is going to pursue. Even if we agree (I think most of us do) that there are no innate "ideas," there do seem to be innate "principles of operation" that will end up disposing us in certain directions.

I think a decent analogy here is that of how we distinguish a computer operating system from application software. The operating system sets the basis limits and bounds of what a computer can do to interface with the real world (including printers and hard disks and monitors) while the application program is where true "data" is dumped in over time and the conceptual assembly process gets working to do advanced calculatiing.

So think the big problem is that the standard commentators are caught in the "blank slate" Aristotelian position and they focus exclusively on conceptual reasoning, which is part of the process, but they exclude the "etching" aspect which is clearly stated in Velleius because they think that conflicts with their blank slate starting point.

Also Susan et al we need to find a good online source for material from Philodemus' "On Piety." I think the major reference is a work by Obbirk from 1996 which I have looked at but not studied closely. This brings us back to the continuing frustration that there ought to be free online access to at least some aspects of the Herculaneum material, even if individual researchers want/need to copyright and profit from their commentaries on it. I think in fact there are pages which do contain some of the raw material, and we've even discussed some of them here on the forum, but we haven't used them regularly enough to really get familiar with the material.

And IMHO that's particularly important with On Piety, since the material is challenging and I think I remember that what is left from Herculaneum is much more fragmentary than some of the other Philodemus material. This is one of the most delicate areas where we need to verify for ourselves exactly what the translator is working with and how much they are reconstructing, so we can more confidently assess how much stock to put into what they come up with.

As we go down this road in pursuing the divinity aspect of the philosophy I think we can really contribute to the state of understanding if we rigorously check the sources to make sure the commentator is being faithful to the rest of the texts in their word choices.

Quote from Godfrey

Consider the anticipations as "pattern recognition."

I think that we've gotten in the the habit of thinking that "pattern recognition" is a part of anticipations, and I think that is a good start. However as we go further it's not clear to me that this is much more than a start, because what do we mean by "pattern" and "recognition." if we consider it to be a "matching" of something that is already within us then we have to be careful that we're not going Platonic and considering the mind at birth to have ready-made ideas of any kind within it. I don't really have anything better to suggest at the moment but if forced to say something more I would probably use words like a "faculty" that "disposes us to organize what we perceive" in ways that are helpful to our forming of mental images that we then store in our memories and use as operators for further analysis.

That would pretty well track what Diogenes Laertius was saying, but I'm thinking that what is missing in Laertius is a discussion of "how the faculty works" and what kind of "dispositions" do exist within it that influence the pictures that we eventually form. If we were to consider the faculty of anticipations as a process of forming these images within our minds then it might not be far-fetched to consider the possibility that this process could be influenced directly within the mind by infliuences from outside that don't come through the eyes, ears, nose, skin, or tongue, but more like I gather scientists experimenting with doing by use of ....(what, I am not sure how they are doing it, but I presume somehow electrical or magnetic?) stimuli.

So basically I am saying that calling anticipations pattern recognition is probably the start of the analysis rather than the end.

Michele has forwarded me the following announcement for a competition for an award for a masters degree or doctoral thesis. The topic appears very wide and simply generally related to Epicurean philosophy. It looks like the best way to find out more information will be to contact michelepinto directly. Thanks Michele!

Quote from Don

Epicurus does say we can live a life worthy of the gods (or was that Lucretius?)

I think your referencing Lucretius where he talks about using reason to deak with the residual forces that nature implants within us, but of course also it's Epicurus who talked about living "as gods among men."

I think it's a huge issue as to why, once we find that we can have pleasure even living in a cave on bread and water, we would ever decide to venture out for variations in pleasure. There are many practical reasons, of course, but I do think there is an inner drive to "self-improvement" that is associated or part of this pleasure drive. Variation may not be necessary, but there's no commandment or reason to settle for "simple pleasures" when there are other pleasures that you decide are within your reach at a reasonable cost in pain and that you judge (or feel) would be rewarding for you to have. And of course the aspect of "visualizing goals" seems to be deeply rooted in human psychology.

Susan I will see what I can find myself, but over the years I've worked with this software I've been very impressed with the people behind the program, but not so impressed with the documentation. I think their theory is that everything should be made as self-explanatory as possible for users, so they don't seem to have ready-made answers to frequently asked questions. So I am sad to say we may not find much and we probably need to just help each other as we can.

Also I don't think the software is actually more limited than on the phone. I think what's going on especially with pasting is that the operating systems copy different attributes, and that varies from system to system. It's frequently a problem on any platform that if you copy text from another program it tries to paste in the HTML attributes, so you're left to try to strip that yourself. That's probably why each of the major font controls in the toolbar has a "Remove" feature at the bottom.

Thank you for that information on the Greek, Don.

This is one of those places where I have to watch that I don't overstate the case, but I think it is mandatory, essential, and a key to the entire philosophy that Epicurus would not allow a major premise or observation to stand contradicted by another one, and leave the contradiction unresolved. Meaning, once he concluded that the gods were of such nature that they were (1) nonsupernatural, and (2) living in perfect peace, with the implication of no favorites or enemies among humans, and (3) by their nature in the intermundia or in some other way not here on earth where their type of existence would be excluded, then I think he would rigorously maintain that everything else has to be understood in accord with those premises.

So while we always have to be careful not to take things to an extreme that the words we have won't bear, I think the key to interpretation of the other passages is to work from the beginning on what is meant by "images" and also by "anticipations" and work toward a position that is logically consistent with those earlier "physics" positions about the nature of the gods.

I think all sorts of the term "idola" or "images" or "spectres" is possible, with the main limiting factor being that Epicurus was looking to explain how things occur naturally, and that "action at a distance" can never be supernatural, so must involve the flow of something between object and observer. That leaves a huge variety of options to choose from so long as it doesn't involve supernatural universe-creating god(s), and given that I understand Plato was postulating "lesser gods" as a means of world-governing then Epicurus might have left open that there are beings who are not gods who nevertheless could (if we could prove it) be flying around the universe. Of course what I am talking about there is more on the order of "Martians" and other sci-fi material, but I also gather without wearing too much tin foil that even the current observations of UFOs might not be ridiculous to entertain.

However to bring this back to base I think a large part of what Epicurus was thinking about was the benefit of contemplating what "the best life" might entail, as a means of inspiration and aspiration and motivation, all of which are necessary at least to some degrees for some people to ward off the ultimate evil of "nihilism."

Quote from Susan Hill

that he saw, e.g. Venus, as though in a dream - as a visual object.

Or I think it is also conceivable in all sorts of allegorical ways, as in seeing a statue or painting of Venus

As a note to @Martin on an issue I think he raised, I think the "gods are in the intermundia" point above bolsters Martin's observation. We have to accept the conclusion that the gods are in the intermundia, rather than here on earth, for a variety of reasons, and one thing that implies is that the gods are going to be so far away that we won't expect to be able to "see" them with normal vision any more than we can see the details of stars or planets. Were we to think we see a person-sized being in front of us talking to us, then no doubt we are experiencing something, but that person-sized being in front of us would not be expectable be a true "God" from the intermundia. In fact I think I will use the "conceivable" word there. Seeing a true god in front of us in human form would be "inconceivable" given our premises about true gods.

Quote from Susan Hill

Just me throwing woo into things again, right?

No, I don't think that is throwing woo into things, but for example in this case I think we need to question that wikipedia article's choice of words, this one in particular:

WIKIPEDIA: He did not mean that people can see the gods as physical objects, but rather that they can see visions of the gods sent from the remote regions of interstellar space in which they actually reside.

I would question the accuracy of this sentence, which in fact seems to me to be a little contradictory, in stating first that we can't "see" but then that we can "see." I question whether "see" is the right word even though "vision" is the word that I see is used to translate the passage from the letter to Menoeceus. This is Bailey:

This is where we need a Don to help us track down any critical Greek wording on "see," but my view is that these images are likely not the same kind of images that we talk about being received by "looking at that tree over there." If the gods are in the intermundia (which is probably a fundamental premise of discussions on gods, since it wouldn't e possible to life a perfectly happy life here on earth) then we aren't going to be able to "see" them directly with our eyes like we can see other things.

A related question would be: what do we "see" in dreams? Are we using the eyes for that?

I am thinking that the "knowledge of them by clear vision" must involve something other than the eyes, which I gather is why DeWitt talks about the brain as a "supersensory" mechanism (if I remember his term correctly). The whole nature of the "images" discussion seems to contemplate them traveling all across space in all directions at all times, regardless of whether we choose to turn our head and focus our eyes in a particular direction or not. That would be much like today we are constantly surrounded by radio and television waves which contain information, but which we can't interpret without electronic equipment.

Plus, I think it's probably true that the "images" discussion in general probably includes smells and sounds as well, since the whole discussion of all the bodily senses seems to involve particles traveling across space as the means of transmission.

So no I don't think that this discussion necessarily involves "woo" because I think that there is a lot of detail about images in the texts which are not being given effect by people who stop at the consideration of them as being "through the eyes." This is where I think the DeWitt approach is most important - we should dig through the details of the texts with fresh and unprejudiced eyes, without dismissing what we see at first glance as being "wrong," because Epicurus' frame of reference is so different from ours. I am convinced that Epicurus never "made things up" to suit his conclusions, and if he gave consideration to a particular phenomena like gods or divinity he did so because he thought there was something real there which needed examination.

I am perfectly prepared to believe that the explanation he gave to the phenomena might not be exactly correct, but at least for me I start with a strong presumption that the phenomena does exist in some way. We just need to work to dig it out, which is something that centuries of christians have had no real disposition to do.

Quote from Susan Hill

. Is there a manual for the software somewhere? I might just be more limited on my phone.

Hmm that is a good question. The software company has a user forum at this location, but I will have to go looking for whether there is a basic "help" page: https://community.woltlab.com/

Remembering always that all I can say is what I think makes the most sense from the material I have read, here is my view:

Quote from timrobbe

To summarize in my own words. EP states we can reach conclusions about gods through the anticipations. Gods are blissful and are not immortal per se, but have reached a level of competence which enable them to stop their body from 'falling apart' and die (so to speak).

Yes, that is pretty much exactly correct per my reading. What I would add is that the "conclusions" that can be reached about the gods through anticipations are probably pretty limited, to the view that such beings exist, and that since the goal of all life is total pleasure (with zero pain or as little as possible) then beings which have reached the zenith are leading lives that are fully pleasurable to them and are not concerned with rewarding human friends or punishing human enemies. In other words the conclusions that we can be confident about are pretty high level and the more detailed speculation you get into about how they spend their time, beyond the basics, the less confidence we can have in that particular speculation, such as "the gods speak Greek" or look like humans,

Quote from timrobbe

As simulacra in dreams about gods are insufficient proof of their existence and/or their properties we cannot infer that by simulacra in dreams about dead people, dead people have exist or have the same properties.

Now that one I think is mostly correct in both parts of the sentence but your are linking them in way that might need to be unwound. Yes I would say that Epicurus would hold that images of gods received in dreams is not sufficient proof of their existence. Yes I would say that Epicurus would hold that images of dead people (or anything else) received in a dream are not sufficient proof of the reality of what has been dreamed. Now whether the images received in dreams of gods vs dreams of people have any relationship that might need further discussion, because I get the impression that dreams of dead people and other things are generally dreams involving things that we have actually seen in the past, while awake, in distinction to dreams about gods, which pretty much by definition we have never seen while awake. So there is probably a distinction worth thinking about there.