Posts by Martin

Welcome MaiTaiNye!

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Dialectic is a thing of closed logic, of minor and major premises leading inexorably toward irrefutable conclusions.

This seems to be nonsense and disqualifies Higgins as worth to read. Irrefutable conclusions exist only in logic but not in dialectic. The straight-forward logical description of dialectic contains contradictions of the type "A and not A". Whereas dialectic as derived from dialogue and used by Plato may sometimes be useful, the way Hegel's dialectic mimics logic is rather an unintended parody of logic and invalid.

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Do we all agree that "to desire sth" is an "atom of experience" just like "feels warm" is, too, meaning both are indivisible and not made up of smaller, lower-level, more fine-grained units of experience?

I agree, at least in the sense that I am not aware of a meaningful way to compose a desire of smaller units.

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..., he did not think it was important, and in fact was willing to radically redefine, that to which ordinary words are used to refer.

This is in contradiction to the quoted part of the letter to Herodotus:

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For this purpose it is essential that the first mental image associated with each word should be regarded, and that there should be no need of explanation, ...

This means that typically, we should use words the way they are usually meant. Epicurus himself made exceptions from this and then usually gave an explanation why a word would be used with a different meaning than commonly (mis)understood.

The three categories are useful to understand Epicurus' philosophy and for prioritizing among those desires for which it is obvious into which category they fall. For natural but not necessary desires and for desires for which the category is not obvious, e.g. because of individual preferences or circumstances, it is more useful to answer the question whether the expected pleasure is worth the expected pain from fulfilling the desire.

Galaxy is too much for me, too. Solar system appears to be the modern term closest to what Epicurus called a cosmos.

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10. Epicurus includes something that looks a lot like the “Dichotomy of Control” clearly showing they didn’t come up with it but gave it a catchy title.

It seems, "Stoics" or "Stoicism" should be included in this item from Session 4, e.g.

"10. Epicurus includes something that looks a lot like the “Dichotomy of Control” of the Stoics clearly showing they didn’t come up with it but gave it a catchy title."

Welcome Timothy!

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Yes, it would be easier if there were actually a philosopher or scientist who said "I am am advocate of "Scientism" and this is what it means.

As it is (or at least as i understand it) nobody actually advocates such a position.

There are quite a few people who habe been labelled advocates of Scientism by others or themselves, e.g.:
Auguste Comte (positivist philosopher, apparently without using the term "Scientism")
Peter Atkins (reported to have asserted the “universal competence” of science in his essay “Science as Truth”, 1995)
James Ladyman, Don Ross, and David Spurrett (reportedly in their book "Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized", 2007)
Alex Rosenberg
Don Ross

After first reading of Cassius' comment, I agree with him but have the following to add:
Epicurus' philosophy is not Scientism because in Scientism, the scientific method is the only method to produce meaningful/"true"/reliable knowledge of the world.
Whereas the formation of preconceptions from sensations may be interpreted as a precursor of science, the feelings as another leg of the Epicurean canon go much further than the narrow scope of science.
Adherents of Scientism do use science as their only tool and usually do that properly and usually not as a rhetorical tool. They differ from people with other worldviews in that they do not accept other sources of knowledge.
Underpinning arguments ‘scientifically’ with research and statistics is the proper way to conduct debates on topics which are inherently within the scope of science. Trying that for aspects which are out of the scope of science is sometimes called Scientism, too, but the people who apply science out of its scope are usually not scientists because scientists usually know the limits of their profession.
Epicureans use scientific knowledge to get rid of beliefs in supernatural gods and the afterlife and and other superstitions, and to make prudent decisions on which options for goals are feasible and which actions are effective but within that scope of wise choices, they use pleasure and not science to set there goals and decide on actions. Most of the ethics of Epicurus is based on pleasure as the goal. E.g., the Epicurean emphasis on friendship comes from pleasure as the goal and not from science.
To answer whether an adherent of Scientism lacks the right telos and overall understanding of human existence, we would need to pick specific people and answer the question for each individual.

Just to correct a historic distortion which was apparently created by the movie "300":

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...Leonidas and the 300...

The references vary but they all agree that more other Greeks than the 300 Spartans made the last stand with Leonidas at Thermopylae.

Welcome UnPaid_Landlord!

The question "What is the primary cause of atomic motion?" does not make much sense in Epicurean physics. "Atomic weight" as the answer is wrong because there is no primary cause since the atoms have already been in motion since an eternity in Epicurean physics.

When one of my most experienced coworkers asked the analogous question for more training to my boss of 2004 - 2016, the analogy of his answer would be: If you do not find any more new books on the topic, it is time to start writing books.

Welcome here, too!

Welcome David!

The meaning of "energy" is much more narrow in physics than in general usage of the word. The meaning in physics became clear only with Newton. Therefore, we can at best expect analogies between what is meant by energy in ancient Epicurean texts and what it means now. I remember that energy used in Lucretius appears to be closer to how it is used today in Esotericism than in physics.

Welcome Remus!

1920 x 1080

It looks fine except that a background image is visible at the sides on the PC screen and the content is narrowed correspondingly. This gives the weird appearance as if the window was reduced in size and the background image was the wallpaper on my PC.

Feeling empathy with robots (Spoiler alert for the movies "I Robot" and "Automata"!)

When I watched the movie "I Robot" many years ago, I found it normal that I felt empathy for the "good" robot because his actions, what he said, his display of emotions and wit were like those of "good" humans. Rationally, it made sense to be on his side, too, because he helped the human hero to save humanity from an overbearing AI.

Recently, I watched the movie "Automata" (with subtitles and without sound because I was on an airplane). This time, it surprised me that I developed empathy for the advanced robots planning to set up their own realm although what they did and what they said was not that "good" and although I only read what they said but did not hear how they said it. Rationally, it did not make sense to be on their side because they would built more and more of their own kind and a hyper-advanced society well ahead of humanity, which might turn into a threat. In despite, it felt like a happy end when two of them survived the attempts of some "bad" humans to kill them and escaped into an area where humans could not go.
AI with the most advanced capabilities hinted at in "Automata" is not visible in reality for even the distant future. Nevertheless, the movie is a good illustration of what is currently in the discussion about AI.