Posts by Godfrey

For several years my son and I have looked at the moon most evenings that it's visible. This discussion of the lunar calendar has me intrigued as to what it might be like to tune in more closely to the lunar cycles as another way of being in nature. To that end, I found an app! Oh, the irony....

At any rate, Daff Moon gets my vote as an excellent tool. I've been using it for a few weeks now; my favorite features are a chart showing the phases of the moon, and a "sphere" feature that shows the sun and the moon in a simple 3D view in relation to the ground plane at my location. It has lots more: the sun, the planets, orbits, if those are of interest. Two thumbs up!

The objections to "extravagant" are certainly valid. On the other hand, it has kind of a delightful, libertine quality to it by making an unnecessary pleasure, be it pink icing or a bit of ice cream, into a little celebration. It can be a reminder that pleasure is the goal, and to enjoy life.

Fascinating! It's for good reason that the poetry of DRN became the subject of study in antiquity, even when the core ideas were marginalized by its opponents. I regret that I never studied Latin: it almost seems worth taking up just to gain a fuller appreciation of the poem. Thanks Joshua for your posts!

So Epicurus was on to something: maybe (part of) the brain is in the chest

Fascinating with respect to the Canon!

That all makes sense. Where I get a little mystified is with the epibolai of the dianoia as these seem to be more than a sensation. To me, it seems too obvious to consider that the way the images are received is a type of sensation: there wouldn't have been any disagreement with that unless there is something more involved. Would that thing be something between a sensation and a conscious thought, and would it have some function relating to, but different from, an anticipation? If so, understanding that could be illuminating.

FWIW, this from Epicurean Philosophy: An Introduction from the "Garden of Athens", page 144, kindle edition:

Quote

the reputable American Professor of Psychiatry and famous writer Irvin Yalom recently wrote: “The more I learn about this extraordinary Athenian thinker, the more strongly I recognize Epicurus as the first existential psychotherapist”

This thread and the Episode 155 thread are getting intertwined! I just posted there before reading the last couple of posts here. Here's the link to that post, so I don't duplicate it:

Post

RE: Episode 155 - "Epicurus And His Philosophy" Part 11 - The Canon, Reason, and Nature 02

From the Hopkins Press article linked in Don 's post above: "In De Anima (Of the Soul) he [Aristotle] argues that, for every sense, there is a sense organ." It would seem that Epicurus was referencing this, and thinking of the brain as a sense organ when he wrote about images, dreams and knowledge of the gods. Centaurs and such were also perceived in this way by images getting jumbled in transit, as it were.

Our conception of the brain is far removed from this idea, and this makes it more…

Godfrey

January 11, 2023 at 1:22 AM

From the Hopkins Press article linked in Don 's post above: "In De Anima (Of the Soul) he [Aristotle] argues that, for every sense, there is a sense organ." It would seem that Epicurus was referencing this, and thinking of the brain as a sense organ when he wrote about images, dreams and knowledge of the gods. Centaurs and such were also perceived in this way by images getting jumbled in transit, as it were.

Our conception of the brain is far removed from this idea, and this makes it more difficult to understand the Canon as Epicurus intended it. Dreams, images and gods do originate from outside input. The difference between Epicurus and us is that we see such things as subconscious mental processes, processing external input from myths, legends and religion, often occurring in infancy and early childhood. Epicurus (to my understanding) describes such things as sensations that the brain experiences directly, with no processing involved.

However there's a further point about which I'm quite unclear. What exactly are epibolai? And what is meant by "grasping" and "focusing the attention"? The latter two, at least, sound to me like mental processes. Then my question is whether or not any Epicureans are including these mental processes in the Canon and why? This may have already been answered and I missed it in my befuddlement: if so, I apologize.

Not sure; I was reacting to the above posts. I'm pretty unclear as to the 4th criterion and the epibolai so I'm just trying to get my footing at this point. Also, as I recall epibolai have something to do with grasping (as in understanding?). Both dreams and intuitive leaps are mechanisms for grasping, to my thinking.

Quote from Todd

Is it a sensation? I think that's the best fit. It is an observation, but it's an observation of internal reality rather than external. That seems acceptable to me - the human mind is part of nature too - but it might seem like a slippery slope. And it is very different from the traditional senses.

I'd vote for this one. In Zen the mind is sometimes referred to as a thought generating organ. With this in mind (pardon the pun), observing one's thoughts might be similar to observing one's breathing. Or observing any other bodily function.

Am I correct in understanding that "intuitive leaps" are being discussed as a part of this 4th leg? These would be the kind of thing that gives you an "aha!" moment in the shower, for example. If so, the dividing line as to whether or not these are a criterion would be whether or not they are conscious of non-conscious.

Dreams are non-conscious constructs from prior input and are considered "true." Aha moments, I think, are also non-conscious constructs from prior input, so would they, too, be true? Is the answer different depending on whether you consider it from the Epicurean theory of atoms or from modern science?

Here are a couple of other papers that have been in my "to read" list for way too long....

EpicurusOnImpressionsOfTheMind_DeWitt_14pp.pdf

EpicurusOnTruthAndFalsehood_Bown_41pp.pdf

This post is just an introductory post for this introductory book. I'm only part way through the book, but there are two topics in particular which look to be fruitful for discussion here.

But first, a quick overview. As the title indicates, this is intended to be an introductory book. In keeping with that, it's a fairly quick read. The Principal Doctrines, the Vatican Sayings, some of Diogenes Laertius, and the three letters are included (these are not new translations, for those interested). The chapters are essays written by members of the Garden of Athens and originally published separately over the last decade or so.

The essays provide an introductory outline of the philosophy, and include a few that focus on the Canon and epistemology (or gnoseology, the term used in the book).

The topics of particular interest here are:

1) The principles of atomic physics. Not 12, not 10, but 18 principles are listed. I didn't notice how this number was derived. Given some of the recent discussion on the forum, however, this might be fuel for a post or two

2) Even more interesting, to me, is the discussion of epistemology. A case is made for the Canon having four parts, not three. Here, we subscribe to the idea of the three part Canon but are aware of the argument for a fourth part; in the book they make the argument for the fourth, which is "the imaginary impositions of the mind." Definitely a topic worth discussing!

There's more, but this is as far as I've read so far. I'll want to go back and review some of the book before I post in detail: consider this a teaser for the book They have some different takes on the philosophy than we do, and understanding their thinking on various issues will, I think, be very useful for us, whether we eventually agree or not.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on the book. It's reasonably priced, and the Kindle version is available for free on Amazon Unlimited. (For the budget conscious: a couple of weeks ago I got a two month AU subscription for 99 cents a month, but I'm not sure if Amazon is still offering that.)

FWIW, I always cringe when pleasures are referred to as useful, harmful and such. This implies a ranking of pleasures, which to my understanding, Epicurus was firmly against. To me, choices and avoidances occur with desires, not pleasures. This is perhaps picking a nit, but it's a nit that can lead to "fancy pleasures" like absence of pain, as well as a misunderstanding of the philosophy.

From a modern perspective:

Drift vs. Swerve | the difference - CompareWords

"Drift" is intriguing... with this caveat:

Quote from Don

PS: Do we know if the clinamen is supposed to be a fast swerving all of a sudden or a drifting off to one side or the other?

Back at you. Happy New Year to all!

Thanks for all your hard work Don . Merry Christmas!

Quote from Todd

Maybe the transition to Latin was where it all started to go wrong.

This would be interesting to pursue, maybe in another thread. I don't have the Greek or Latin chops to pursue it, but if anyone else wants to I'll follow it with interest Meanwhile, this paper that Don linked to sounds fruitful!

Slippery bastard, indeed! In reading through the above download, it seems that at least every other line could be easily refuted (which is similar to the rest of the tiny amount of Plato that I've read). Yet the argument blithely proceeds....

Don there are some examples of "good" in there in case you're interested.