Posts by Cassius

Yes, Godfrey I agree. I can understand the technical issues being discussed by those who challenge "free will" - at least I think I can - but I also observe that those who really get into arguing against "free will" seem to have an agenda with implications that go far more deep than just a desire to be technically correct. Some version of "free will" is something that seems to be just as real to us as pleasure and pain, and from a practical point of view that pretty much ends the discussion of whether it is "real" or not.

I was going to ask if this was an original video to you Eoghan, but all I had to do was hear that accent in the first words -- listening now! Looks great so far!

Outstanding video! I hope we will get lots of comments at the various places this gets posted, and I encourage everyone to watch and consider "sharing."

Don your comment on feet is interesting too, since it has always struck me how odd Lucretius' formulation is in the discussion of those who deny the existence of any kind of knowledge, which also contains a "foot" analogy -

I see Munro uses "where his feet should be" to pursue the analogy, but I was expecting to see some variation of "pedes" here and see "vestgia" instead so I am not sure how firmly the foot analogy holds. (However since I think Munro tried very much to be literal, I bet it does.)

Yes Don - I hate to be so dependent on the commentators, but this is one of those areas that has sunk into my mind I think from a variety of sources - and not just DeWitt - that the "cosmos/world" reference in Herodotus is intended not just to refer to the Earth, but (I presume) pretty much everything we see in the sky as well. And yes that would certainly lend itself to interpretation that Epicurus was distinguishing "our visible universes" from "all other infinitely numbered other universes that are out there beyond those that we can see ourselves. "

However all along the way I drag my feet about using the word "universe" in this phrasing, since I grew up on the definition that "universe" means "everything" and "everything" in fact means "every thing" !

But times change and if people want to use "universe" to mean some segment of the whole then that is OK with me, just like I acknowledge that there are all sorts of languages other than English, and in the end the terms are matters of convention.

From that article I just cited, here is the part that seems to me to be the centerof the criticism against "A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing," both the book and the terminology. I think the questions I underlined here are things we have to wrestle with in thinking about "Infinity and the Expanding Universe":

Quote

That brings me to South African physicist George Ellis. When I interviewed Ellis last year, I asked him if Krauss’s book answers the question posed by its subtitle. Ellis responded:

Certainly not. He is presenting untested speculative theories of how things came into existence out of a pre-existing complex of entities, including variational principles, quantum field theory, specific symmetry groups, a bubbling vacuum, all the components of the standard model of particle physics, and so on. He does not explain in what way these entities could have pre-existed the coming into being of the universe, why they should have existed at all, or why they should have had the form they did. And he gives no experimental or observational process whereby we could test these vivid speculations of the supposed universe-generation mechanism. How indeed can you test what existed before the universe existed? You can’t.

Thus what he is presenting is not tested science. It’s a philosophical speculation, which he apparently believes is so compelling he does not have to give any specification of evidence that would confirm it is true. Well, you can’t get any evidence about what existed before space and time came into being. Above all he believes that these mathematically based speculations solve thousand year old philosophical conundrums, without seriously engaging those philosophical issues. The belief that all of reality can be fully comprehended in terms of physics and the equations of physics is a fantasy. As pointed out so well by Eddington in his Gifford lectures, they are partial and incomplete representations of physical, biological, psychological, and social reality.

And above all Krauss does not address why the laws of physics exist, why they have the form they have, or in what kind of manifestation they existed before the universe existed (which he must believe if he believes they brought the universe into existence). Who or what dreamt up symmetry principles, Lagrangians, specific symmetry groups, gauge theories, and so on? He does not begin to answer these questions. It’s very ironic when he says philosophy is bunk and then himself engages in this kind of attempt at philosophy.

So as to: "The belief that all of reality can be fully comprehended in terms of physics and the equations of physics is a fantasy. " I think Epicurus would say that statement is exactly correct. Our human reality cannot be fully understood as "physics." Our human reality is real to us through the canonical faculties, including not just the bodily senses, which are "more" understandable in terms of physics, but also the feeling of pleasure and pain and anticipations, which arise from physical processes but in effect constitute a separate playing field of understanding. On that playing feel we are competing with supernatural religion and philosophical questions to which our nature impels us toward finding answers, and I think Epicurus would say that the best (most pleasurable) life requires that we address these issues as best we can.

Quote from Martin

Heat "death" is somewhat misleading. While we are no more after death, the universe exists without being alive and will still exist when it reaches heat death. ..... conditions will become too adverse for any lifeform to survive.

Martin, I think you mentioned this aspect briefly in the podcast, that the "death" part in "heat death" does not refer to the universe ceasing to exist, but to conditions for life (at least as we know it) not being possible.

I meant to backtrack and bring that out but I think I failed to get back to it. My concern with the subject was that we were planting the notion in less-read peoples' minds that we were entertaining a view in which the universe ceased to exist entirely. But I definitely remember your saying that so it's in the podcast episode and can always be referred to if anyone got really confused and thought we were totally off base from Epicurus.

In general that's really my main concern with most of the terminology like Krauss' "A Universe From Nothing." (Is Lawrence Krauss a Physicist, Or Just a Bad Philosopher?) I just came across that article and have only read it once, but I think the writer pretty much has the attitude I have. I am not sure if this attitude I am describing is that of a philosopher, or a "theologian" as the article mentions, but I think that whatever the issue really boils down to, Epicurus himself would be accused by Krauss of being a philosopher rather than a physicist in taking a position on the eternality of the elemental particles, and that there is no reason from a philosophical perspective to ascribe their existence to a supernatural god.

So I get the impression Krauss and people like him would not be on the side of Epicurus, and would actually be significantly opposed to many of his conclusions, or at least his procedures for reaching his conclusions, and that makes me concerned about seeming to cite their arguments without clarification.

The modern use of words like "nothing" (and maybe I should add "heat death") appear to the untrained to be making claims about ultimate traditional logical issues that are counterintuitive from/against the traditional Epicurean perspective, and should not be accepted on that level.

Plus, I have always been concerned, and continue to be concerned, that people like Krauss did not pick up their terminology because it was really compelled by the science, but exactly because it "tweaked" those who held to the older views, and that's an attitude I personally associate with radical skepticism and nihilism. That's just my personal viewpoint, of course, and it isn't necessarily implied or true in the case of any particular individual or theory, just something that seems to me to be worth considering in writing/talking about these issues to wider audiences.

(Sorry that this post is disjointed - i came across the article in mid-post and added it in. I need to pick up some of those points from that article in a separate post.)

Quote from Don

it can incorporate an idea like the multiverse or evolution or the possibility of alien life or other science with barely a shrug

As to the alien life, of course we know that Epicurus specifically predicted that to occur, which I think is an example of how he did take the position that we could use logic based on observation to produce rules in which we can have confidence ("nature never makes only a single thing of a kind") to extrapolate what we see here to other places which we have not seen. (Pretty much the same goes with a theory of evolution, at least of a kind, and also "other worlds" if you consider "worlds" to be analogous to a universe.)

I do think it is important to consider what seem to be the rules of extrapolating. Seems to me that epicurus is saying that those rules include preference (or at least, accepting it as more substantial evidence) that if we see a thing here, then we know it CAN exist. That gives the thing a head up over pure speculation of something that has never been observed, such as the kind of speculating that says that something MAY exist somewhere else just because we haven't been there to eliminate it.

That's probably not well stated on my part, but I think that's what's going on in our current example of where we are in Book 2. Where we are now, Lucretius has been saying that there must be a limit to size of an atom because to not have a limit would be inconceivable. (Presumably because or else we would see them? Or else if there were not a limit, then a single atom would take up the full universe?)

In other words, it seems to be a premise that Epicurus held that it is legitimate to hold that conditions that we observe here (never seeing an atom; no one thing of a single kind) are at least to some extent extrapolatable throughout the infinite universe. ("At least to some extent" meaning that if we observe them here there is a good reason to expect we will observe them elsewhere where conditions are similar.)

Now what I have just said may not be a good summary at all, but these are the issues I think they were getting at, and they deserve a lot of thought:

Are we not justified in having confidence in certain conclusions about the entire universe (that there is no supernatural god) based on extrapolation of what is observed here? And we have confidence of that even in face of the argument that "But you've never been there!" The answer to that question would have to be "yes i can be confident in some things (no supernatural god there either)" or else we'd never have confidence in much of anything. If we admit any possibility just because we've never been there, no confidence would ever be possible, it would be possible for the supernatural god from the next universe over to pop in at any moment. It seems clear to me that Epicurus did (and was justified in) ruling out that sort of argument.

We're dealing in complex logical issues but the only way to get confident in our conclusion is to think about what we're saying and consider the alternatives, just as he said in suggesting we think about infinity. Because infinity can either be our worst enemy ("the anything is possible argument") or our best friend (Godfrey's it eliminates supernatural gods, for one thing) in getting confident about our decisions on how to live.

I'm going to drop this here without elaboration but we also need to keep in mind in thinking about infinity the related issue we've discussed elsewhere about PD3 and the "limit of pleasure" in how Plato , Seneca, and others argued that a thing cannot be "the best" unless it has a limit, and they alleged pleasure to be something that is unlimited and therefore rejected from competition for the role of "best life." I would expect there to be a clear connection between getting comfortable with discussing limit vs infinity in the field of pleasure (ethics) and limit vs infinity in the field of physics.

Is it possible that one of the issues Epicurus saw was that we need to get comfortable with the idea of the unlimited universe being the highest there is so that we can get comfortable with allegedly unlimited pleasure as the highest goal of life?

Stated another way, maybe one way to get comfortable that there is no single goal of life that is the same for everyone is to compare that question to the size of the universe, for which there is also no single set "end" that everyone would reach if they traveled infinitely in the same direction? No single "best life" might be comparable to no single "end" of the universe in any direction. In both cases we are tempted to think that a supernatural god is the answer for both, but in fact there is no supernatural god and the entire question is logically illegitimate (because we have never observed evidence for a supernatural god, but we have observed lots of evidence that things work naturally, and we reject the "it's possible because we haven't been there to eliminate it" argument).

Having confidence in our answer to one of these questions helps (I think) with our confidence in answering the other one.

I've never really had any major issue with the idea of "multiverses" so long as the presumption is still there that everything is natural and there's no supernatural creeping in. In fact it's pretty clear in the letter the Herodotus that Epicurus was describing "worlds" as something like "star systems" and not just "planets,'" and that seems to me to be very compatible with what i understand to be the basic thrust of any "multiverse" theory (though I have certainly not studied them like Don has).

But at the same time I've also sensed that there was never any reason to transmute the word "universe" from meaning "everything" as it traditionally did to something less than everything. I've always sensed that there was an "agenda" of some kind in doing that, and that part of that agenda was to suspend all rules of extrapolating that what we observe here can be of any use in predicting what would be expected to exist elsewhere in the universe. Obviously there are great hazards in extrapolating like that, but there are also great hazards in taking an "anything goes" approach (such as opening the door to the supernatural).

There's not much to do with that concern other than to note it and move on, but I think the implications of accepting in the distant past that "maybe God lives on Mars and it's possible because we've ever been there" are pretty much the same as "maybe god lives in another part of the multiverse." There are always going to be people who use science in support of their agendas, and its probably safer to say that every scientific theory should be presumed to have an agenda and examined for it at the beginning rather than to accept the alleged sincerity of every theory that comes down the road.

Even saying that, however, I am firmly convinced that most if not all people who really get into Epicurean philosophy are going to be keenly interested in "science" and never put aside that interest as long as they live - too much depends upon it to ever do that. I see the issue as kind of like the question of "logic" - we're always going to be "threatened" by people who use science and logic for their own agendas, and therefore a certain amount of training in it is essential for everyone for self-protection.

Right -- so long as the infinite has no boundary, then there's no "other side" for god to live on, and any gods that do exist must live in our own universe. Good point.

Quote from Don

Scientists have "seen" (with extensions of their senses) space expanding and the broad consensus is that it will keep expanding until the last bit of energy is spent.

THIS is the point where I have my issue. I think by definition they need to realize and admit and most of all BE CLEAR that what they have seen, as far as they can see, no matter how good the technology gets, is not "the end" of the universe, It's only "the limit of our ability to observe." It still seems to me very clear that we would expect (based on the reasoning that matter and void must both be infinite) that there is indeed no limit to how much matter is out there. So that in fact what probably should be the presumption is that even though "our" universe appears to expanding as far as we can see, we ought to presume (based on the logical arguments) that there is in fact no end, and outside/past our ability to see is additional infinite space with additional cosmos that may or may not be expanding or contracting or whatever in the same way that ours is.

That is why I see a major distinction between the innumerable grains of sand and the infinity of space. If in fact you had the time and inclination and perseverance to could the "grains of sand" on the beach, or on the whole earth, that would seem to be theoretically possible to count and one day come to an end.

With the number of objects in space, however, it would be theoretically impossible to even come to an end in counting, because the best argument is that the universe is infinite in size, and therefore there will always be more to be counted no matter how long one tried.

And at least for me, still shaking off the hold of my religious background, I see a difference in kind between the two situations, and not just a difference in degree. It's coming to terms with the idea that there is no counting EVER the number of elements in the universe that is hard, not coming to terms with the idea of counting the grains of sand on the beach. And it's therefore the problem of infinite space which I would see as the worse enemy in polluting mens' minds with religion, rather than the problem of counting the sand on the beach. The challenge of counting the grains of sand I think could eventually be explained to most "normal" rational people, but the problem of counting something that in fact has no end is where the mind gets tempted toward the supernatural, and that's the temptation that needs to be addressed.

As you say this is an excellent discussion and I am glad we have an open forum where it can be extended in depth.

Quote from Don

And I also agree that most people don't need to concern themselves.....

Yes setting the context is a continuing issue. Not only are we constantly dealing with background political issues that are distracting (kind of like Lucretrius), it's always going to be necessary to tune the discussion to the listener so that they can understand it and appreciate it.

Most of us here I would expect are pretty far advanced into the technical and philosophical issues, but I know at least in my own case that I want to be sure to try to reach out to people who might be open to the core issues, but who aren't on the same page in terms of attitude or knowledge toward science, etc.

Ultimately I guess that entails the need to have respect for both approaches and means that any team working together on Epicurean philosophy is going to have a division of labor and a division of approach tailored to the target audience. In the end i don't think that the key issues involve major gray areas that would be a bar to that.

Yes I agree, but just as we have to remain flexible toward ultimate particles we ha e to be at least as flexible and skeptical, or more so, about any particular theoretical model, especially if it is used to imply or advocate interpretations that would undermine the conclusion that the senses (thecanonical faculties) are what human life is all about.

"They're made up of sub-atomic particles according to the Standard Model"

That explanation seems to me a good example of how different people are going to be comfortable with different levels of speculation. I presume that if the theory is that there is a "superstructure" and that "popping" doesn't really mean "from nothing" but rather means that it is somehow generated by the superstructure and "incorporated back into the superstructure," then there's really no violation of the "nothing from nothing" rule which is sort of a logical barrier where the issue is really being fought.

My discomfort with this kind of discussion is that in fact to most common people it does in fact sound "spooky and supernatural" even if it is not intended to be so by the specialists who are theorizing it.

I don't think it is ever appropriate to suggest that there are different "truths" for different types of people on something like this, but I would say that we do need to be aware of the different levels of analysis that people are capable of doing, or maybe said another way, the different perspectives that are in play in which people interpret words at different levels of subtlety.

I'm thinking that Epicurus was perfectly happy to discuss any level of scientific detail himself, but that he also thought it appropriate to reduce things down into broader outlines that most anyone is capable of understanding. "Nothing comes or goes to nothing" is probably such a formulation, useful for most people to keep them away from being manipulated by religion or other types of manipulators, and so it's generally useful to talk in those terms, even if at times it is also appropriate, among experts, to adopt highly-technical definitions of each of the words in the formulation for purposes of scientific theorizing.

So again I think part of this discussion is the issue of context and the purpose of the entire discussion. If we are conducting a seminar of astrophysicists then one way of speaking is appropriate, while if we are talking to the remaining 99% of the people in the world another manner is appropriate. And of course in lumping everyone else into the 99% group, there are huge numbers of subdivisions of categories by language, age, etc, which would be relevant to how to explain things to them.

So maybe this is an issue that involves proper communication as much or more than it does precise scientific theory.

Quote from Don

For me, this idea makes sense in that the universe would have the same life as everything else.

I think what an everyday ancient Epicurean might say in response to that is that Yes, the rule of having a set lifetime applies to BODIES (of which the Universe as a whole is a big "body" arguably) but the rule does not apply to the elemental particles themselves, which are eternal, never having been created and never being destroyed (or changing at all).

Definitely all component parts of the universe are presumed to always be moving and combining and dissipating and recombining, so that every bodily accumulation of particles has a "date" when it comes together and when it dissipates, so the universe is and always will be a moving and changing "collection" of particles, of which that collection never came from nothing nor will return to nothing.

I gather that's rule number one of Epicurean physics, and the only major "exception" (which really isn't an exception) is that if you master the art of keeping your particles together you might be able to stay that way indefinitely (the Epicurean gods).

Ha, Don and I crossposted and took opposite positions on the heat death issue Well to each his own there, and I think we get a lot out of discussing the issue, because in doing so we get exercise in deciding how much consistency and confidence is appropriate. Does "nothing come from nothing or go to nothing" really mean that, or should be be open to exceptions even there? My perspective is that Epicurus is saying that the evidence before us gives us good reason to be confidence that the principle we are deriving from these observations has no exceptions whatsoever. We then have to deal with the issue that we won't be around long enough to be sure what the "correct" answer is, and so the issue becomes how to apply these rules of thought in the meantime.

Quote from Don

My take recently was that something doesn't need to be literally infinite for us humans to consider it so. An example is the task of counting of all the grains of sand on every beach and in every desert on Earth. Sure, that's a finite number but for all intents and purposes it might as well be infinite in relation to a human lifespan.

My personal take is that Epicurus is stressing the need to think about and get comfortable with the idea that there are certain things that are very difficult to get our minds around. He's saying that instead of defaulting to some mystical attitude that "it must be god/divine/magical," we should come to terms with the limits of our capabilities and get comfortable with making decisions within that scope, with is itself a very desirable thing to be good at.

I also think personally there is an important distinction between "uncountable because we don't have the time or ability" (the grains of sand on the beach) vs. "uncountable because it in fact has no limit on the number of instances" (the number of stars or planets or whatever in the universe).

That's why personally for me when we discuss (in the podcasts for example) that it doesn't matter whether the heat death of the universe theory is correct or not, because the time span is too great to be of relevance to us, I personally don't find that a satisfactory place to stop. I don't think Epicurus would have accepted (or suggest that we should entertain) any theory as possible which would postulate that anything could go to nothing, or come from nothing, much less the universe as a whole.

I personally think that the bigger picture argument (will "everything" at some point cease to exist") requires addressing directly. Personally for myself, I am confident that the right answer is "no, the universe will never cease to exist" even though I am not and never will be an expert physicist. At some point the "logical" argument becomes so overwhelming, despite our absolute inability to "be there and experience if for ourselves," that it deserves to be treated as if we are "certain" of it (whatever meaning we assign to "certainty").

So in the end I trace all these issues back together to thinking that Epicurus is asking us to confront the overall general question "How do we take a position when the evidence is less complete than we would like?"

In some cases it is going to be appropriate to "wait" for more evidence, and in some cases it is appropriate to consider ourselves to be "certain" even as we are. One of the major factors in deciding when it's appropriate to wait or not is whether "waiting" would conflict with prior premises that we have accepted with certain. Of course in that case if we are rigorous we would never wait at all or hesitate to pronounce the theory as invalid.

Another factor would be whether the issue is particularly damage-causing, such as opening the possibility of the supernatural, and we also have to consider that we aren't having these discussions in a vacuum among dedicated scientists, but among normal people who will never be specialists, so we need to be concerned about the "practical" effect of theoretical speculation on them. In the end the ultimate goal is NOT "wisdom" or "truth" in the abstract sense (probably a cue there for the nearby "Abstract Ideas" thread).

To me, the issue of studying infinity and similar questions is closely related to the issue of how to think about day to day issues and so its of immediate importance for that reason.

In several of our podcasts and discussions we have touched on issues that arise from "abstractions" and "abstract ideas," with the point being that there is a peril involved in abstractions when/if they are not verified against the information provided by the rest of the Epicurean canon. It seems to me this is a very deep subject which requires a lot more elaboration than we've given it so far. It's the purpose of this thread to prompt us to begin to focus on this issue, but it's the purpose of this post to start the discussion off on more of a fun footing.

This afternoon I happened to see this cheesy 1958 movie and as you'll see from the closing part of this brief segment, I immediately thought of Elayne because she could have written this dialog Here's a very short clip and you'll have no problem seeing its relevance

I wish we had this movie character with us to explain what he meant, because he's clearly thinking along the same lines as some of us, but unfortunately he doesn't make it in the movie past this clip.

At any rate, let's start thinking about the role of "abstractions" and "abstract ideas" and the Epicurean attitude toward them.

One more note - I kind we could consider the dark haired "captain" here as Plato himself, telling the rest of mankind that they are too childish to survive unless they work to become superhuman like him.

Interesting pictures! All I know for sure is that in discussing this we're doing what Epicurus suggested at the end of the letter to Pythocles:

All these things, Pythocles, you must bear in mind; for thus you will escape in most things from superstition and will be enabled to understand what is akin to them. And most of all give yourself up to the study of the beginnings and of infinity and of the things akin to them, and also of the criteria of truth and of the feelings, and of the purpose for which we reason out these things. For these points when they are thoroughly studied will most easily enable you to understand the causes of the details. But those who have not thoroughly taken these things to heart could not rightly study them in themselves, nor have they made their own the reason for observing them.

1 - Wow that cartoon software works pretty well!

2 - I use Audacity for all the editing of the Lucretius Today Podcast and it works well

3 - I know people swear by OBS Studio and have played with it but not found reason to use it - we record the podcast in Skype and I just edit that file in Audacity.

4 - The visual annotation feature looks like it is perfect for the type of video you're talking about.

Sounds great Joshua - keep us posted!