Posts by Eikadistes

Quote from Don

In light of all that, is it a commentary having something to do about being concerned with what happens *after* one's death?

While doing some translating, I've been considering that láthe may have been employed to imply that "failing to escape notice", or "getting caught up in the affairs and politics of the polis" or "having great admiration based on being servile to a mob" is akin to death, or a kind of imprisonment.

I read the ancient idiom as "Escape notice [and] live!", which, I think, might also be read as "[If you don't] escape notice [you might not] live [proverbially or otherwise]!", either biologically, or socially, to be imprisoned or restrained, or legally restricted, "being disallowed to live a free life".

With that in mind, I think there's a criticism attached to the idiom láthe biōsas of the political life, and the celebrity lifestyle, and any livelihood that requires tolerance of excessive amounts of bullshit in the form of superficial conversations, shallow relationships, and unnatural goals.

I've been wondering lately if Cicero (or a translator) misrepresents the context of isonomy as a theological concept, where ancient Epicureans may have only meant it as a physical one.

I haven't looked yet ... just wondering.

(I need to scour our sources and answer this for myself: do we have any instances of any Epicureans ever employing this term, outside of the penmanship of Cicero? I'm always critical of him, though, he studied under an Epicurean scholarch, so the misunderstanding may very well be my own.)

I'm considering that it makes less sense if "immortals" means "deities" rather than "atoms/void".

This idea of "the balance of numerically distinct deities" always puzzled me. So, it makes less sense when I read "immortals" as "deities" rather than "particles and void" or even "laws of physics".

Within the context of "cosmic maintenance", it makes total sense to me if "immortals" were a reference to the "eternal, indestructible particles" and the "eternal, infinite void". In the context of physical cosmology, isonomy might be conceived of as the principle that dictates the balance that "there are p particles for every v volume of void. If p were too high, there'd be no room to move. If v were too high, there'd be no stuff. But there's stuff that moves, so, in principle, we live in a goldilocks zone were the metakosmíos is imbued with a balanced ration of particles-to-void; physical isonomy.

Lucretius compliments this physical isonomy (I'm appropriating the word here) with emotional and political isonomies, dramatized as a balance between the powers of Venus and Mavor. We could go on, identifying different binaries that require balance for a healthy state (of world, mind, friendships, etc.). I'm just wondering if the theological isonomy is the only kind every mentioned.

Here's a fun example, for anyone unaware; this tickled my mind – Lucifer.

In the beginning, we weren't sure that Venus was one thing, we saw it as (maybe) two, the Morning Star and the Evening Star. In Latin, one of those objects names was "Lucifer." It was literally just the name of a celestial object (Phosphoros in Greek, among a handful of other proper names).

There are a few ancient Hebrew (i.e. Canaanite) myths that associate the planet Venus with a god who attempted to usurp a supreme god's throne and became an underworld deity. As far as I knew, this isn't reflected in mainstream branches of Judaism; this is a relic of their days as polytheists.

Nonetheless, Latin Christians sure got a kick out of it, and incorporated that narrative into their mythos. To my knowledge, however, they did not make a association between "Lucifer" and "Satan". Those were two, separate mythical figures for hundreds of years of early Christianity.

I don't believe this association was popularized until Dante's fiction. Therein, the "Lucifer" we think of as the prideful pretty-boy who fell from heaven and took over a spicy underworld comes from medieval, Italian fiction. It has little to do with the myths of ancient Christianity.

I like to think of it like high school teachers. English teachers and History teachers both include Julius Caesar in their curriculum. English teachers (often, in my experience) base their understanding of Roman history on Shakespeare. History teachers base it off of Cicero, etc.

Unless you go to the source, it's some level of fan-fiction.

(Check me on some of those claims; I'm over-generalizing a bit, I know).

I think that parrhesia has a bit to do with it, too.

When your school sticks to frank speech, it becomes much more difficult to seduce with metaphor. Otherwise, when you use metaphor as the primary means of instruction (I'm looking at you and your fables, Jesus), then you guarantee that your teachings will be forever misunderstood.

If Epicurean philosophy weren't doctrinally "conservative" (in the sense of defending the original program), then I believe the Catholic Church would have re-purposed it by now.

Quote from TauPhi

Hiram Crespo's substack has 5 latest articles dedicated to Metrodorus. I haven't read them yet so I can't say if they are any good but if anyone's interested:

https://hiramcrespo.substack.com/

I know that Hiram has access to Les Epicuriens and finds significant resources in there for fragmentary writings from the other founders (Metrodoros in particular).

1. The works of Metródōros preserved in Herculaneum include:
   P.Herc. 200 (On Divinity)
   P.Herc. 255 (Against Dialecticians) ↩︎

That's awesome! Please share how it turns out.

I just received this bust from an Etsy seller, Kargar, owner of Selfix3D.

Quote from Bryan

Quote from Eikadistes

"to which of the implied subject(s)/object(s) do the articles/pronouns refer?"

I am not seeing a reference to fears

Yeah, no explicit reference to that word, just the general idea of dismissing death.

Quote from Bryan

(Although, of course, τὸ ζῆν is more "living" than "life")

I'm glad you brought this up because I want your take on it. I read ζῆν as an infinitive, so, even though its awkward, I try to squeeze a "to..." into the sentence ... but it never works, so I add fillers, and I'm never quite satisfied. I think most translators like reading the [article + infinitive] as a noun ("life")? That seems conceptually fair, but it's still a little bit different. The active participle tends to fit ("-ing"), though I recall seeing that somewhat less. I at least want to see it as a verb for the sake of coherence.

Quote from Cassius

How does this relate to the phrasing of the fragment translated as about spitting on good (or is it beauty?) unless it bring pleasure?

I'd say ... paraphrasing, it could mean, either: [1] we are to live while embracing the grand inevitability of death, or else, [2] we are to live while spitting upon the universal fear of death.

I just wanted to add another brief reflection on the "embracing" versus "spitting" nuance:

There are a variety of ways in which people seem to interface with death: fearing death, fleeing from death, fighting death, chasing immortality, damning life, welcoming death, accepting death, expressing gratitude for having lived, and plenty of other responses and orientations I'm not picturing. Adding another dimension (perhaps arbitrarily ... just thinking out loud) we can [1] lament life, and fear death, [2] lament life and accept death, [3] prize life but fear death, or [4] prize life and accept death. In Menoikeús, Epíkouros explicitly rejects [1 + 2] lamenting life in any capacity, and he rejects [3] fearing death in the first two Key Doctrines, so, in general (by this measurement), the appropriate Epicurean attitude would be to [4] prize life and accept the inevitable necessity of death.

I think that concept reinforces what (I believe) I'm seeing, visually. No spitting.

Quote from Kalosyni

VS47. "I have anticipated thee, Fortune, and entrenched myself against all thy secret attacks. And I will not give myself up as captive to thee or to any other circumstance; but when it is time for me to go, spitting contempt on life and on those who vainly cling to it, I will leave life crying aloud a glorious triumph-song that I have lived well." (Bailey translation)

I am wondering if it literally says "spitting contempt on life" or what exactly it said?

Don  Bryan  Eikadistes

Great question!

I found differing renderings from different authors. Bailey seems to be an outlier in his transposition; note the verb προπτύσαντες (proptúsantes) versus προσπτύσαντες (prosptúsantes).

Screenshot 2025-07-17 at 10.33.27 AM.png

The first rendering προπτύσαντες (proptúsantes) is (I believe) the aorist active participle of the verb προπτύω (proptúo), meaning something like "having spit out" ... or else, the "-αντες" ending refers to a plural, active participle, meaning "you [all] are spitting out"? (...I wasn't really sure).

The second rendering προσπτύσαντες (prosptúsantes) is the aorist active participle of the verb προσπτύσσομαι (prosptússomai), meaning "having received", "embraced", or "folded to oneself" ... or else, here again, it might be the plural active participle, meaning "you [all] are embracing".

Screenshot 2025-07-17 at 10.34.36 AM.png

... it looks like the second one to me, with the extra sigma, προσπτύσαντες (prosptúsantes).

...ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν ἡμᾶς τὸ χρεὼν ἐξάγῃ
μέγα προ[σ]πτύσαντες τῷ ζῆν καὶ...

A directly-transposed translation might be something like (it's clunky, but...) either:

...but when, [for] us, a [life full] of necessities recedes,
[the] great [thing], [subjects] are spitting out, then, to live, and...

or perhaps:

...but when, [for] us, a [life full] of necessities recedes,
[the] great [thing], [subjects] are embracing, then, to live, and...

So the question I then struggle with, is to decide "to which of the implied subject(s)/object(s) do the articles/pronouns refer?" Are people vomiting (rejecting?) their natural impulse to live? Or are necessities vomiting (killing?) people from life? Otherwise (I think this is the case based on the screenshots above) people must be embracing the necessary end to living (i.e. accepting death).

...but could be totally wrong. 100% amateur here.

It knows everything.

Ask it anything, no matter how absurd.

Quote from DistantLaughter

These are my reflections on the relationship between Epicurean prolepsis and Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammar

This is great. Chomsky often comes to mind when I think about prolepsis.

I'm glad you mentioned it.

Quote from Kalosyni

And here was the ai reply:

Quote

"Yes, Google Search's AI algorithms do factor in your past browsing and search history to personalize your search results"

No doubt.

This is why everyone in the forum should be aware that your search queries are going to use confirmation bias as a tool to provide you with satisfying (not necessarily true) results.

Quote from Kalosyni

Quote

Here's why:

• Personalization:

  Google uses your past search history.

  ...

Good guess, AI, but not true in this case.

Working in IT for almost 13 years now, I browse anonymously, use a VPN, auto-clear my cache, turned off search history, and removed all personalization related to Google.

Quote from Kalosyni

Quote

• ...location, language settings....

This is probably it.

It's another example of AI restricting its presentation based on assumptions it is making about the user in an effort to be helpful. Like any algorithm, it wants to satisfy you with compelling information, not necessary thorough and accurate data. It's just a well-read stranger on the street with a big vocabulary. We have to cross-reference everything it claims.

We have some experts here. If anyone wants information on Library and Informational Science, Don is your resource, not AI. If you have questions about American jurisprudence, you'll get a more functional, accurate answer from Cassius than AI. When I'm looking for help with language, academic dictionaries are great, but not always as great as Elli who is living and breathing the language everyday, or Bryan who is constantly advancing his study.

I am concerned about the growing tendency (I observe) to automatically use AI as a resource. I'm seeing my family asking it medical advice instead of their doctor, and people with college degrees asking it to construct paragraphs for them in e-mails, and people going for their Master's degrees getting suspended for allowing AI to write their papers for them. What's going on?

Side-note: AI is now citing the interpretations presented in this forum:

Quote from Cassius

I have posed the following question to the latest Grok

We shouldn't, because...

Quote from Cassius

Those who have time and inclination can parse through this response and continue to discuss it's accuracy or inaccuracy.

We know that it doesn't know, and we already have to evaluate it for falsehood.

Grok possesses a vast knowledge base, yet a shallow one; it's evaluations are confident, yet hasty; it represents itself with authority, yet has none; it employs technical jargon without proper context; it cannot recognize anachronisms; it blindly accepts published conclusions without self-review; it's capacities to perform analyses are limited to the minds of the developer(s); it's reviewing philosophical propositions like the computer programmers who developed it (I'm surprised it didn't find a way to incorporate politics into the response based on its latest update); even if politics weren't a factor, it would still be limited by the opinions of contemporary academics. Don demonstrated that the "early tenth" refers to the Twentieth, and this is corroborated by the findings of Stephen White (2021) ... but right now, Grok, and Gemini, and Siri are just going to provide you with the inaccurate, scholarly consensus (or Wikipedia): he was born on the 10th (wrong).

These language models are a bad research assistants.

Quote from Cassius

Physicists Aligned with a Heraclitean Flux Perspective...

This is a great example of the kind of anachronism I mean.

There isn't a "Heraclitean Flux" model in contemporary physics. You will not find the phrase "Heraclitean Flux" outside of philosophy papers, archaeological journals, or history publications. No physicists right now express their positions on the Standard Model in terms of "Heraclitean Flux". I'm willing to bet that most of them have no idea who Herakleitos was; if they doing, I'm further willing to bet they only know the idiom "...same river twice..." and nothing else.

Grok neither knows that, nor cares. It's assuming an answer based on our question. I bet if we asked it, "Grok, which modern musicians reflect the realization of the Hegelian zeitgeist?", I bet it would provide a coherent response with sources, even though it's an nonsense question.

____________________

I don't think, for me, comparing ancient physics with modern physics will be helpful to try to improve our understanding of either. Herakleitos, as far as I know, concludes that "fire" is the fundamental substance of reality, and that's a wild idea. If we're trying to make an analogy between the two, we'd have to apologize for the fact that his proposition implies that "fire" is smaller than a hydrogen atom. That's a dead-end to me. I know that Stoics like to argue that "fire" can be interpreted as a very loose metaphor for something like "quantum foam" or "the latent energy of spacetime" ... but I think that's equivocation and apologism for a myth in the first place.

This is an interesting division that Diogénēs makes. (Come to think of it) I wonder how reliable of a transmitter he is of Hellenistic philosophy? The Peripatetics ... as far as I know, the "flux" is categorically Heraklitean; the Aristotelians were interested in syllogistic logic, and built a formal body of rational knowledge. Herakleitos was ... sort of a mystic? While his propositions have implications for physics, I see it as contributing more to philosophy of identity, mind, and language.

Thank you, everyone!