Posts by Godfrey

Quote from Nate

Buddhism's propositions are much closer to Epicurus' opponents than to Epicurus in any meaningful way.

Eikadistes you are much more familiar with the material than I am, but this is my take-away as well.

Personally I was attracted to Eastern thought because of the emptiness of the Platonic and Aristotlean traditions. I had thought that this was the basis of all Western thinking and so was looking elsewhere for a sensible philosophy. In stumbling across Epicurus I discovered that there actually is a sensible Western tradition and that it was no longer necessary to try to 'splain away the parts of Eastern thought that made no sense to me.

I'm mainly familiar with Zen, but I generally disagree with the characterizations of nihilistic and passive. Particularly passivity: Buddhism as I understand it is extremely socially engaged.

Some scholars have documented an historic connection between Buddhism and the Greeks but I believe that their work is not without controversy. This connection is in the person of Pyrrho, who apparently spent several years in India and absorbed many of the Buddhist teachings. Another theory is that Pyrrho and the Buddhists influenced each other.

Epicurus was reputed to admire Pyrrho, however he didn't accept his philosophy. So as I understand it currently, Buddhism and/or Pyrrhonism was just one more line of thinking that Epicurus supplanted in developing his system.

I'll leave to those more well versed than me to give a synopsis of Buddhism.

My post here doesn't deal with logic but with preconceptions. I find the wording in the following quote excerpt from post #7 disturbing:

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[31] Logic they reject as misleading....Thus in _The Canon_ Epicurus says that the tests of truth are the sensations and concepts and the feelings; the Epicureans add to these the intuitive apprehensions of the mind....

Is this from Bailey? If anything, I would think that "concepts" and "intuitive apprehensions of the mind" should be reversed.

From the text cover page on epicurus.info, fwiw:

Epicureanism

by William Wallace (1843-1897)

Originally published by the "Society for promoting Christian Knowledge" in 1880 (now in public domain).

I read something online about him incorporating some Epicurean ideas in his writing but it was assumed to be only for purposes of political satire.

His book about the moon can be downloaded in English from a link at the bottom of the Wikipedia page. It seems his other writing, if available, is available only in French.

The recent film Cyrano de Bergerac has a scene in which Roxanne refuses to wear a red dress. Was this in the original play, and did this inspire the Police song Roxanne? As best as I can tell, the song was inspired by a poster of the play in the vicinity of a group of prostitutes and it would seem that the song then inspired the scene in the movie.

But it turns out that the real Cyrano was a 17th century French libertine and the original play, though not the romance, was loosely based on his life. From Wikipedia:

Cyrano de Bergerac - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

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Cyrano was a pupil of the French polymath Pierre Gassendi, a canon of the Catholic Church who tried to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity.

Cyrano de Bergerac's works L'Autre Monde: ou les États et Empires de la Lune ("Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon", published posthumously, 1657) and Les États et Empires du Soleil (The States and Empires of the Sun, 1662) are classics of early modern science fiction. In the former, Cyrano travels to the Moon using rockets powered by firecrackers (it may be the earliest description of a space flight by use of a vessel that has rockets attached) and meets the inhabitants. The Moon-men have four legs, firearms that shoot game and cook it, and talking earrings used to educate children.

His mixture of science and romance in the last two works furnished a model for many subsequent writers, among them Jonathan Swift, Edgar Allan Poe and probably Voltaire. Corneille and Molière freely borrowed ideas from Le Pédant joué.

I've no idea if he could be considered an Epicurean, but his association with Gassendi is intriguing. As are his stated written works, which seem to be inspired by Lucian.

I agree completely Don .

Having said that though, I can't say if that's what Epicurus meant or if he was focused on a philosophical argument. However in practical day to day terms I think your conclusion is spot on.

BTW I always enjoy an Eagles reference

Quote from smoothiekiwi

Well, but the theory that "the world only consists of atoms and void" is false (waves), that the "universe is infinite" (it only expands really fast, but it has a border), that the multitude of atoms is infinite (we've only a few types of quarks and bosons), etc..... so I wouldn't call EP coherent by today's standards. Sadly

Ancient atomic theory is the basis for modern physics. The fact that the theory has evolved over 2300 years doesn't, for me, discredit the original theory, particularly since the original theory was conceived without the benefit of modern technology.

I'm not aware of the universe having a border, only that there is a limit to what we can perceive due to the speed of light. But maybe Martin has more to add to that.

According to Epicurus the multitude of atoms is infinite but the types of atoms are uncountable but not unlimited. So I assume what you're referring to is the "uncountable" types of atoms, not the overall quantity of atoms.

Atomic theory, to my understanding, is validated as the ancient theory of physics that is most in line with our current understanding of the universe.

The book God and the Atom by Victor Stenger provides a history of the the development of atomic theory from Democritus to fairly recently. There are many others, this one in particular is not Epicurean but favorable to Epicurean theory.

It comes to mind that a good basic "catchphrase", rather than pleasure or atomism, is simply "Physics, Canonic, Ethics".

This emphasizes the complete worldview in a synoptic way. If someone you are trying to introduce to the philosophy then has specific questions, they can be clearly related back to the big picture.

As I recall, the Stoics use "Physics, Logic, Ethics" as their basic structure. And for me that's where Stoicism fell apart: the moderns try to sidestep the physics and its emphasis on logos, the logic was baffling, and therefore the ethics had no grounding. On the contrary, the strength of EP is that it holds together as a complete worldview and it seems most effective to present it in this way.

I discovered Epicurus while reading Cicero in a hammock in my garden.... There's something quite nice about reading that way. Mostly being in nature, but the repose aids significantly.

In retrospect, being relaxed in nature may have heightened the BS meter of my faculties. I'd been reading Eastern and Stoic philosophy there over a period of months but somehow they didn't "click". Reading Epicurus in that environment somehow made perfect sense of the things that I'd been struggling with.

But I digress. I don't have a book and artifact collection, but I do have a garden and a hammock.

I'm going to skip Tuesday and attend Thursday... if I do both my wife will think I've joined a cult

Also of interest to the "arrogance" of Epicurus is a paper regarding Leucippus that I've attached here:

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RE: Epicurus On The Issue of Materiality - Ultimate Particles

Attached are two brief papers on the origins of ancient atomism, discussing how it was a response to Parmenides' theory of Being.

Godfrey

January 13, 2022 at 4:53 PM

Attached are two brief papers on the origins of ancient atomism, discussing how it was a response to Parmenides' theory of Being.

Thanks for the links Cassius. I'm intrigued by these. It just depends on time costs v benefits as to whether I'll dig deeper into them. They're certainly worth knowing about in general, so I'll watch some videos and see how they look.

How would one go about learning to use these? Start with Markup and then move on to Obsidian and/or Logseq? Or is Markup a part of Obsidian and Logseq so that you can just pick one of the two of them to learn and still have the functionality of Markup?

Are these set up for non-techie users or is some knowledge of programming required? The last programming I did was with punch cards

Is Markdown a program similar to Obsidian and Logseq, or is it the basis of these? What type of learning curve is there to these? The last thing I want to do is get bogged down in learning new software, but if they're easy to learn and use then I might be interested. But right now I confess that I'm clueless about this

I've done both the focused sitting and the active version and find both of them relaxing and centering. Most often these days as I'm in the midst of some activity I'll notice tension somewhere in my body, typically my shoulders or lower back, then consciously relax the tension and take a few conscious breaths as I continue to relax the tension.

Ahhhhhh.... With a bit of practice it's very effective.

Good point. What is Markdown?

Are those beignets?

@smoothiekiwi in many ways it's an advantage being exposed to Epicurus at a young age. How you choose to continue your education, or how you choose a job, or a partner, or where to live, or so many other things... these are big picture "choices and avoidances" that will enable you to bring more pleasure into your life for decades to come. As you come to understand the philosophy on a deeper level you will find that following your canonic faculties will be a great aid in making such decisions, as well as the small day to day choices and avoidances that lead to a pleasant life.

Epicurus studied natural philosophy and the art of life; many current subjects that you might study in school have evolved from these and you may find one or more of them pleasurable and enlightening, even worth pursuing further.

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VS27. Whereas other pursuits yield their fruit only to those who have practiced them to perfection, in the love and practice of wisdom knowledge is accompanied by delight; for here enjoying comes along with learning, not afterward.