Posts by Godfrey

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...nothing makes a thing beautiful but the presence and participation of beauty in whatever way or manner obtained; for as to the manner I am uncertain, but I stoutly contend that by beauty all beautiful things become beautiful.

Seriously?

Great; thanks for the list Cassius!

This discussion got me interested in Lucian; I read A True Story last night as I've been meaning to do so for quite a while. I think I'll give Hermotimus a read today: much more enjoyable than Phaedo!

Continuing on the tangent, the article that I linked to at the beginning of the thread The Polytheism of the Epicureans is a good and fairly brief presentation of the realist viewpoint. I've tended to follow the idealist take, but this got me thinking...

In the dialog there's a "thumbnail" button to place it in the message like this.

Great discussion!

@Susan Hill I add images from my phone or tablet using the paper clip icon (next to the emoji icon) below where I'm entering text and above the "reply" and "preview" buttons. It opens a dialog for attaching files; there is a maximum file size which you need to be aware of.

Timely news:

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/…and-andrea-ghez

Regarding infinity, he begins talking about it around 1 hour 13 minutes in the video.

All I can say is... I'm going to take a nap now.

Thanks Susan! Of course I'm not as smart as Penrose but to me, infinitely small is different from infinite in extent. One Epicurean argument is against infinite divisibility of atoms, but I'm not even sure if this is addressing that argument. Another Epicurean argument is that the universe is infinite in extent, but it doesn't seem like he's addressing that argument. He mentions infinities of different sizes, but again I think that applies to number but not extent (?).

I started watching that video but got interrupted; I'll have to get back to it at some point and try to catch his argument if I can.

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The infinity of a universe can be observed from without. It is only infinite from within that universe. You can have infinities of different sizes.

Huh? By the standard definition this makes no sense: what's he talking about?

Here's the pdf; I mistakenly uploaded it in another thread.

Yes he does. This particular book is a history from Democritus to the year the book was written, and quantum theory is included in that. He has many other books and it could be that another one deals with it in greater depth for those interested. His basic premise in all of his books seems to me to be that modern science refutes the belief in the supernatural.

Victor Stenger, at least in God and the Atom, seems quite favorable to Epicurus. I posted a review of sorts: God and the Atom by Victor Stenger: a very brief review. That strained the limits of my non-scientific background.

Here's the pdf from the expired link above.

It's a fascinating and involved question as to what Epicurus thought of religion and the gods. There are some threads here addressing the "idealist" vs the "realist" viewpoints. These basically correspond to the view that Epicurus considered the gods to be a mental construct for contemplation vs the view that he considered the gods to be real. The thread that Don linked to above has an essay that presents a case for the realist interpretation, which I found thought provoking.

As mentioned in the essay, the prolepses are intricately intertwined with the conception of the gods, along with the idea that we know of the gods from extremely fine particles that they emit. These two subjects (gods and prolepses) just might be the least understood ideas in EP.

The issue of how we interpret these ideas today adds yet another layer of complexity. On recent threads we've discussed justice and truth as prolepses; are the gods a prolepsis as Epicurus apparently states? Today many (if not most) of us are indoctrinated from childhood into believing in a single god. Prolepses, however, are "pre-conceptual" and more primitive, and to the best of my limited knowledge, primitive societies believed in multiple gods (although not of the Epicurean kind). To me there seems to be a prolepsis of awe/wonder at the immensity of the universe, but does this translate to a prolepsis of gods? Didn't primitive gods function as explanations of the mysteries of existence? And didn't Epicurus, and subsequent science, dispel many of these mysteries?

But I'm rambling....

This paper hit my inbox this week, and it's a worthwhile read presenting a case for the "realist" interpretation of the Epicurean gods. It also has some discussion of the prolepses, as is appropriate when considering the gods:

The Polytheism of the Epicureans

However the reason that I'm posting this is because of some of the references included. On pages 30-31, he includes the text of a letter purportedly written by Epicurus and found in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri [(wikipedia) and (google books)], with which I'm totally unfamiliar. The source of his reference is an essay by A.J. Festugière, ‘Épicure et ses Dieux,’ in a 1946 collection Mythes et Religions, edited by P.E. Couchoud, publisher Presse Universitaires de France-Paris. Apparently this is translated into English in Epicurus and His Gods by C.W. Chilton.

In addition to thoughts on the article, is anybody familiar with any of these sources? I'm curious where else they might lead....

"Whiplash" really is a satisfying movie on many levels: nuance despite all the drama, well written, well acted. I second the recommendation!

I've actually been thinking of taking up the blues harmonica as a form of breath work. Much simpler than the bagpipes, but I'll be taking into account the above comments. Very timely

Personally, although some games sound interesting to me I've never been very interested in playing them. When my kids were little I tried some of their games but was always put off by the open ended nature of the games. Back then I didn't have the time to get sucked into a game; now I prefer to have some idea of the time commitment before I get involved in just about any entertainment. Even if I binge watch a show, I know beforehand how many episodes there are and how many I might watch in one sitting.

So I guess for me it comes down to a personal time commitment. I've spent many years working digitally and am all too familiar with the phenomenon of getting sucked into the screen and not coming out for hours. There's a certain pleasure to that sense of "hyper-focus," but it can also be damaging. One of the benefits of stumbling into Epicurus' garden, for me, has been in re-connecting to the pleasures of the big picture.

This article showed up in my inbox and may or may not bear fruit regarding this:

The Popularity of Epicureanism in Late Republic Roman Society