Posts by Martin

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* With two Jewish grandparents, you could have ended up in a death camp. With one Jewish great grandfather, you should have been safe but usually could not join a Nazi organization and not become an officer in the military and possibly not be a civil servant either. One of my grand uncles had to prove that there was no Jew in his family tree up to 5 generations back to become an officer in the army.

Welcome SamSara!

The German translation "perfekt" has "perfekter" and "perfektester" and similar words as grammatically correct comparison forms but I do not recall any actual usage of those forms.

Onenski
Thanks for the comprehensive summary.
Our exchange was not about ideological but metaphysical opinions. Suitable metaphysical assumptions facilitate depth of understanding and avoidance of skepticism. Most of Epicurus' physics was actually metaphysics at that time. Advancement of science has enabled us to replace a lot of what was metaphysics with physics, whereby some of Epicurus' assumptions have been confirmed to be facts, some have been completely refuted, and some have been formally refuted but have noteworthy analogies in today's physics. It is good that we agree on the core of Epicurus' philosophy despite the differences in our metaphysical opinions. I expect that the discussed topics will come up again on occasion in other threads, so it is helpful to have clarified one difference among us.

Onenski

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"In this observation, I'd like to point out that the premise is not about what we know, but about what it is. I'd appreciate if you tell us if the premise is correct by doing this observation."

If the premise is about what it is, then the premise is correct by definition.
What is does not matter if we do not know it. This might inject a flaw into the logic because we are talking about something in the real world, and logic is notoriously shaky with propositions regarding reality instead of just an idealistic realm of thought.

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"I forgot to make explicit that 16 is about regularities in macroscopic nature (for 8, if I remember well). According to the argument, we have new events and new circumstances all the time (we don't have the same phenomena because for this we need the same causes (if I'm ok with the last observation), but new causes (the swerves) produce different phenomena). So regularities in the macroscopic level should be less, much less, that those we see. Irregularities should be more than regularities."

No! Epicurus was careful to let the swerve just do a minimal change each time. This allows for almost deterministic regularity at the macroscopic level.
In the quantum mechanical analogon, this shows up in the difficulty of observing macroscopic quantum effects. Almost all of the indeterminacies at the microscopic level average out at the macroscopic level. This scales with the size of objects and the simplicity of the applicable laws of nature: We can calculate the path of Earth for millions of years ahead but not where I will be in one hour.

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"Possibly you missed one of the comments in which I made a difference between leeway freedom (the capacity to do otherwise) and source freedom (the capacity to act intentionally) in the free will debate. By reading your analysis of the argument I observed that you took the source sense instead of the leeway sense. The argument is directed to the second one (as I stated in the assumption, 1).

Agency and accountability are compatibilist concepts (this means, that they are compatible with a deterministic scenario, even if we are not in a deterministic scenario). I understand why if we take them, the argument gets invalid and your observations are precise in this aspect. But there would be a change in terms in the middle of the argument, because I started with the incompatibilist free will (leeway sense). (I hope you see that if we introduce the swerve as the basis for free will we are trying to defend the leeway sense, not the source sense.)

I don't see a problem if we take the compatibilist approach for epicurean philosophy, I even suggested it. However, that would do the swerve an unnecessary concept for free will basis. It would be a concept just to talk about the formation of compounds, as you pointed out."

I do aim at leeway freedom. Even though the swerve might not be necessary for the original concept of agency, leeway freedom does considerably strengthen agency beyond the not fully convincing argument for it within hard determinism.
There is no issue in applying agency and accountability beyond compatibilism. (By contrast, applying idealistic concepts in a materialistic philosophy is a guarantee for contradictions.)

"Another observation is that if we part from agency and accountability, more options (introduced by a very limited and specific swerve) don't add something relevant for moral evaluation. That is, the swerve is unnecessary and irrelevant for accountability. (If this part sounds obscure I can explain more.)

But let's think, as the argument goes in this part, that the swerve occur (and it has macroscopic effects and occurs continually) and we want leeway freedom. The idea is that we need a lot of luck to be successful in our purposes. First, we may have intentions that were formed by uncaused causes; intentions that have nothing to do with you and your life. We will need luck to have the intentions that are according to our personal identity, that is, we need luck in order to the swerves don't produce random intentions.

Second, we may have an intention and not being able to put them in practice in circumstances that permit to do it (because there are new intentions formed by uncaused causes). We need luck in order to the swerves don't produce something that precludes the intentions that are according to you.

Third, we may have an intention to act, do the action and have outcomes (because there are new events caused by the swerves) that would be unreasonable to attribute to the person. We need luck, so that our actions have the intended outcomes."

We can force the luck by taking more time to think. If we expect to find the solution to a problem within 10 milliseconds, then we are strongly dependent on luck. By taking hours, days or weeks, we give the swerve a lot more opportunities to inject new options for consideration. This may very well make the swerve relevant for moral evaluation (if we want to go that path at all).

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"With these observations in mind, do you think the argument is valid?"

No, partly because of the preceding responses in this comment. There are other, more fundamental issues than the itemized statements in this discussion between you and me:
Epicurus' philosophy does make some use of logic, but it should not be mistaken for a logical system. Going from axioms and definitions to increasingly sophisticated conclusions works reasonably well within mathematics and maybe some other variants of idealistic philosophy. However, with the exception of mathematical models skillfully chosen to describe reality, concepts of idealism are typically meaningless in materialism. Any proposition containing a meaningless concept is meaningless and has no logical value of true or false. This reminds me Wolfgang Pauli's comment on an inadequate theory that it is not even wrong. Moral responsibility is such a meaningless concept. Its prominent occurrence in the argument is already enough to render the argument invalid. If a materialist accepts the definitions of idealists, his materialistic philosophy can most likely be refuted with logic by deriving contradictions.

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In order to improve the account on the swerve I thought about the following argument. It is important to identify the flaws in it, possibly Martin or DavidN can help us.

1. Assumption: The swerve is the basis for sustaining free will (leeway freedom a.k.a. the capacity to have done otherwise).

[...]

Here you go:

1 - 11 seem to be OK. What might be fishy does not show up within 1 - 11.

"12. Events can have multiple effects and be caused by multiple events (as pointed out by DavidN). Besides, scientific reasoning tell us that the same event has the same cause(s): if a phenomenon happens in certain circumstances by events A, B, C, we will expect that in the same circumstances under the same events A, B, C, we will have the same phenomenon."

Anyone trying to reproduce a chemical reaction can tell you that it is sometimnes not like that because in addition to the known A, B, C, there may be unknown events D, E, F, which combined with A, B, C give a different result because D, E, F have changed while A, B, C have not.

"13. The swerves are unpredictable and their effects are unpredictable as well (for 2 and 4)"

Some effects are predictable: The existence of the swerve enabled in Epicurus' physics the formation of compounds.

"14. If the swerve occurs continually and unpredictably (for 11 and 13), it would be less probable that the same circumstances for a phenomenon repeat (Considering 12). It seems that there will be new circumstances continually and there would be new and different events continually."

This seems to be OK.

"15. The basis for regularities and laws in nature is the repetition of phenomena."

This seems to be OK.

"16. The swerve doesn't permit to explain regularities in nature (for 14 and 15). (From this we can conclude that human behavior is impossible, but let's consider more things.)"

This statement is wrong. We can arrange apparent irregularities in a systematic way and find and explain regularities. In the quantum physical analog, this is expressed in the Ehrenfest theorem: The laws of classical physics for classical quantities are usually valid for expectation values of the corresponding quantum mechanical quantities. (This is my dumbed down version.)

"17. Free Will is the basis for moral responsibility (if a person acts freely, she's responsible for her action). A person can't be responsible for something beyond her control (in a strong sense, as the capacity to have done otherwise, the leeway sense). (For 1)"

The argument in 17 is mixing und blurring different perspectives. Free will and moral responsibility are words of idealism meant for an I identified as a supernatural soul different from the body with which it is only temporarily associated. In Epicurus' philosophy, the soul is not an independent entity on its own but an organ of the living being. In the materialistic context, the meaning of free will and moral responsibility is different. If we do not change the words, we hide the change in definition. With the change in definition, the logic becomes invalid.
We can try to reformulate 17 with the analog words. For free will, agency is an established choice. For moral responsibility, we might choose accountability. With the new words, we might state:
17'. Agency is the basis for accountability (if a person acts, she's responsible for her action). A person can't be responsible for something beyond her control.
E.g., I usually do not cause outbreaks of volcanoes. An outbreak of a volcano will not give me remorse, and no one can reasonably hold me accountable for it.
However, an action which I carry out and which results in unpleasant consequences may give me remorse, and I may be held accountable for it, irrespective of how much leeway I had to do otherwise.

"18. Human behavior is under the unpredictable effects of the swerves (for 8 and 13), so we can imagine at least the following scenario: James intends to do A in order to have certain effects. The swerve can produce events between the intention to do A and the action A, and between the action A and its intended effects. So, sometimes he has success in his intention (he does A), sometimes the action doesn't ocur (because there are unpredictable events that produce other events different to James intention), and sometimes the action A has different effects than those intended by James.
He needs lucky to act and to have the effects he wants."

The swerve may increase the options James has to choose from. It is his choice which option he chooses and not merely a random outcome.

"19. If human choices are not the outcome of their will, their behavior is beyond their control and they're not responsible of it. If the outcomes of actions are beyond reasonable control of the agents, then they're not morally responsible for them (for 17 and 18)."

19 falls apart because it depends on 17 and 18, which have been shown to be invalid.

"20. If agents are not responsible of their actions, then they don't have free will (for 17)."

20 is wrong because agents are always responsible for their actions in Epicurus' philosophy as expressed in 17'.

"21. Agents don't have free will (for Modus tollens of 19 and 20) [Modus tollens is an inference that say that if we have the conditional "If A then B", it is equivalent to "if not B then not A". So if we have "Not B". Then we infer "not A"]"

This is invalid because 19 and 20 do not hold.

"22. Given that 21 is the product of assuming 1 and leads to it's negation, there's a contradiction."

There is no contradiction because 21 is invalid.

"23. If an assumption leads to a contradiction, then we should conclude that it's false. So, the swerve is not the basis for free will."

The contradiction does not exist. The swerve can be the basis for free will/agency as described in the comment to 18.

"Probably you have the impression that determinism is one of the "Four Horsemen", but if you think carefully on a strong indeterminism, you may want to include it as well."

Strong indeterminism would lead to counterproductive skepticism and is foreign to Epicurus' philosophy.

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There is, as we know, also the fact that atoms would never have been able to make contact with each other without an uncaused swerve -

This is a fact only within Epicurus' ancient physics. In modern physics, there are forces which attract particles to each other and thereby bent the straight paths expected by both Epicurus and Newton's first law. Once the particles are close enough, there are mechanisms which can bond them together.

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- in a void, heavy atoms are not able to catch up to lighter ones and and therefore unable to cause a collision.

In Epicurus' ancient physics, the atoms move with constant speed irrespective of their weight.

Materialism and monism should be compatible. According to Epicurus, the soul is closely associated with the body. This is monism, too, in my understanding. There may be other aspects of monism which are not directly related to Epicurus' philosophy.

Welcome Ataraktosalexandros!

I have chosen
- pleasure as the goal of my life
- materialism as the adequate attitude toward the world
- the scientific method as the only reliable method to gain fundamental knowledge for understanding the world by iteration of improved models and new observations enabled by the improved models and new tools.
I aim at pleasure by choosing carefully which desires to fulfill, willingly accept temporary pain if it is a side effect of actions (e.g. hard study, hard work, delay of enjoyments) to maximize future pleasure which is worth the endured pain or to minimize future pain, hold up the no-harm principle and trust my reasoning capability and my intuition on love, friendship, compassion and justice to avoid counterproductive egoism and the limits of scientism.
These items of my philosophy of life are identical with corresponding items of Epicurus' philosophy when it is interpreted consistently by resolving apparent contradictions between different quotes of the extant texts instead of being misrepresented as primitive hedonism or ascetic hedonism depending on which subsets of quotes are neglected or misinterpretated as absolute statements.
I differ from Epicurus in at least the following aspects, which are sufficiently minor that I call myself an Epicurean:
- I do not claim that my chosen philosophy of life is true philosophy or that any scientific theory is true because no school of philosophy can reasonably claim truth for itself, and whereas the adequacy or superiority of a theory can be demonstrated, there is no way to prove that it is true, although in the banalities of daily life sufficiently covered by common sense, there might be no obvious difference between adequacy and truth. Truth is fundamentally limited to the validity of logical constructs and truthfulness of protocols of events.
- Scientific progress has made parts of his metaphysics obsolete and has in particular refuted his physics of the gods and the images the brain would receive from them.
In other interpretations of Epicurus than the one which is typically supported at epicureanfriends.com, additional differences might be:
- I may do things to extremes without moderation.
- I aim for ecstatic pleasure occasionally.
- I claim that romantic love is conducive to and potentially a required ingredient for maximized pleasure.
- I found marriage to be consistent with Epicurus' philosophy but probably I do not qualify as a sage, so the statement of Epicurus against marriage for Epicurean sages in typical cases might not be applicable to me anyway.
- I do not do gluttony for extended periods.
- I can do asceticism but usually, I am not ascetic.

Welcome Sanantoniogarden!

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... the LHC’s failures to lend much support for the standard model ...

in comment #20 is wrong. Everything the LHC has found so far confirms the standard model. So far, the LHC has failed to find new physics beyond the standard model, and calling that "failure" is odd.

Calling fields "fluids", "fluid-like substances" or just "substances" appears to be misleading. Other than that, David Tong's presentation is well done.