Posts by Joshua

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"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."

-Frank Herbert, Dune

Thank you, Cassius!

I was just wondering to myself how I should prepare for tomorrow, this is very helpful.

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And as for these symmetries and proportions of the pores, or little passages in the organs of the senses, about which they talk so much, and those different mixtures of seeds, which, they say, being dispersed through all savors, odors, and colors, move the senses of different persons to perceive different qualities, do they not manifestly drive them to this, that things are no more of one quality than another? For to pacify those who think the sense is deceived and lies because they see contrary events and passions in such as use the same objects, and to solve this objection, they teach,—that all things being mixed and confounded together, and yet one nevertheless being more suitable and fitting to one, and another to another, it is not possible that there should in all cases be a contact and comprehension of one and the same quality, nor does the object equally affect all with all its parts, every one meeting only those to which it has its sense commensurate and [p. 343] proportioned; so that they are to blame so obstinately to insist that a thing is either good or bad, white or not white, thinking to establish their own senses by destroying those of others; whereas they ought neither to combat the senses,—because they all touch some quality, each one drawing from this confused mixture, as from a living and large fountain, what is suitable and convenient,—nor to pronounce of the whole, by touching only the parts, nor to think that all ought to be affected after one and the same manner by the same thing, seeing that one is affected by one quality and faculty of it, and another by another. Let us then seek who those men are which bring in this opinion that things are not more of one quality than another, if they are not those who hold that every sensible thing is a mixture, composed of all sorts of qualities, like a mixture of new wine fermenting, and who confess that all their rules are lost and their faculty of judging quite gone, if they admit any sensible object that is pure and simple, and do not make each one thing to be many?

‘αἱ δὲ πολυθρύλητοι συμμετρίαι καὶ ἁρμονίαι τῶν περὶ τὰ αἰσθητήρια πόρων αἵ τε πολυμιξίαι τῶν σπερμάτων, ἃ δὴ πᾶσι χυμοῖς καὶ ὀσμαῖς καὶ χρόαις ἐνδιεσπαρμένα λέγουσιν ἑτέραν ἑτέρῳ ποιότητος κινεῖν αἴσθησιν, οὐκ ἄντικρυς εἰς τὸ μὴ μᾶλλον τὰ πράγματα συνελαύνουσιν αὐτοῖς; τοὺς γὰρ οἰομένους ψεύδεσθαι τὴν αἴσθησιν, ὅτι τἀναντία πάθη γιγνόμενα τοῖς χρωμένοις ἀπὸ τῶν αὐτῶν ὁρῶσι, παραμυθούμενοι διδάσκουσιν, ὡς ἀναπεφυρμένων καὶ συμμεμιγμένων ὁμοῦ τι πάντων, ἄλλου δ᾽ ἄλλῳ πεφυκότος ἐναρμόττειν, οὐκ ἔστι τῆς αὐτῆς ποιότητος ἐπαφὴ καὶ ἀντίληψις οὐδὲ πᾶσι τοῖς μέρεσι κινεῖ πάντας ὡσαύτως τὸ ὑποκείμενον: ἀλλ᾽ ἐκείνοις ἕκαστοι μόνοις ἐντυγχάνοντες, πρὸς ἃ σύμμετρον ἔχουσι τὴν αἴσθησιν, οὐκ ὀρθῶς διαμάχονται περὶ τοῦ χρηστὸν ἢ πονηρὸν ἢ λευκὸν ἢ μὴ λευκὸν εἶναι τὸ πρᾶγμα, τὰς αὑτῶν οἰόμενοι βεβαιοῦν αἰσθήσεις τῷ τὰς ἄλλων ἀναιρεῖν: δεῖν δ᾽ αἰσθήσει [p. 428] μὲν μηδεμιᾷ μάχεσθαι πᾶσαι γὰρ ἅπτονταί τινος, οἷον ἐκ πηγῆς τῆς πολυμιξίας ἑκάστη λαμβάνουσα τὸ πρόσφορον καὶ οἰκεῖον: ὅλου δὲ μὴ κατηγορεῖν, ἁπτομένους μερῶν, μηδὲ ταὐτὸ δεῖν οἴεσθαι πάσχειν ἅπαντας, ἄλλους κατ᾽ ἄλλην ποιότητα καὶ δύναμιν αὐτοῦ πάσχοντας.’ ὥρα δὴ σκοπεῖν, τίνες μᾶλλον ἄνθρωποι τὸ μὴ μᾶλλον ἐπάγουσι τοῖς πράγμασιν ἢ οἳ πᾶν μὲν τὸ αἰσθητὸν κρᾶμα παντοδαπῶν ποιοτήτων ἀποφαίνουσι
σύμμικτον ὥστε γλεῦκος αὐλητήριον,
ἔρρειν δ᾽ ὁμολογοῦσι τοὺς κανόνας αὐτοῖς καὶ παντάπασιν οἴχεσθαι τὸ κριτήριον, ἄνπερ εἰλικρινὲς αἰσθητὸν ὁτιοῦν καὶ μὴ πολλὰ ἕκαστον ἀπέλιπον.

--Plutarch, Adversus Colotem

I consulted Sedley's reconstruction of the 37 books On Nature, but he writes that there is too little surviving evidence to reconstruct books 16-37. My initial reaction to the phrase παρὰ τὰς [ἐξ] ἡμῶ[ν] is that this sounds a lot like the simulacra or eidola of Lucretius' fourth book;

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Lastly those images
Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear,
In water, or in any shining surface,
Must be, since furnished with like look of things,
Fashioned from images of things sent out.
There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms,
Like unto them, which no one can divine
When taken singly, which do yet give back,
When by continued and recurrent discharge
Expelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane.
Nor otherwise, it seems, can they be kept
So well conserved that thus be given back
Figures so like each object.

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So in this reading of the fragment, the atomic films keep their proportion even though the usual case with atoms is a series of repeated collisions that, one would think, would quickly render these films unintelligible. However, Plutarch's mention of the "symmetry (of atom to sense organ; ie scent to the nose, taste to the tongue, etc) about which they talk so much" leads me to believe that he is responding directly to Epicurus as quoted in this fragment. I'm not entirely sure I have Plutarch's meaning though.

I am part way through Heroes, the second volume of Stephen Fry's Mythos series, and can heartily recommend them as a good reintroduction to Greek mythology. The audiobooks, read by Fry himself, are especially pleasant. The work is narrative and not scholarly, but the stories are good and the author is passionate about then.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07SLLYGF6?ref_=dbs_m_mng_wam_calw_tkin_0&storeType=ebooks

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-Morally bad Pleasure ? => When it would destroy friendship or the justice to others it would destroy our values, securities, good feelings/pleasures with others, chances of reciprocy advantages, bring great disturbances and destroys our kastastematic Pleasure, so an Epicurean would avoid it. Nature gave us for that feelings like compassion, empathy and good feelings(Pleasure) by helping others.

I've been trying to take a more careful approach to the language that we use when we talk about pleasure and pain, and a crucial distinction needs to be made here between 'pleasure', which is a feeling, and 'actions or choices that produce pleasure'. The feeling of pleasure is always intrinsically good; behaviors and decisions that produce pleasure may or may not be instrumentally good.

When we say that some pleasures should be chosen and some avoided, what we are really saying is that the actions we take to pursue the intrinsic good of pleasure are sometimes more likely to produce the intrinsic bad of pain. And the reverse is true is well; choosing to endure for a time the intrinsic bad of pain can often lead to greater pleasure.

These points are no less true for the masochist; if he tells me that enduring pain can be psychologically pleasureable, and that the psychological pleasure is greater than the physical pain, then he, too, is practicing choice and avoidance.

But I agree with most of what you say! I wouldn't want to lose the capacity to feel pain entirely while I still lived.

Pain is biologically advantageous but only up to a point. The skin->spinal cord->muscle reflex arc protects us from hot stoves and sharp objects, internal pain is symptomatic of injury or disease, and mental suffering may indicate that a change in lifestyle is needed.

But of what use is that pain that comes from vain ambition, fear of mortality, desire for limitless wealth, and terror in conceptualizing the gods? The irony of his position is that his argument is consequentialist. 'Pain is useful, therefore pain cannot be bad'.

Thought experiment; as it is, computers throw error messages when something goes wrong. If we could design a computer that feels pain and screams when something goes wrong, would that be an ethically neutral decision? No; pain is bad.

I have to apologize for my seasonal allergies in this episode, my voice was clearly strained!

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The world view of Philolaus . In the world view of Philolaus, the center is occupied by the Central Fire, Anticthon (Counter-Earth, CE),The Earth, the Moon (M), the Sun, and beyond those lie the spheres of the five planets and that of the fixed stars. The crystalline spheres around the Central Fire are 10 (= 1+2+3+4), equal to the sum of the first four numbers.

-The Heliocentric System from the Orphic Hymns and the Pythagoreans to the Emperor Julian link

Words that start with Χαπ- seem to be exceedingly rare. I did not find any in the two volume ~1500 page Cambridge Greek Lexicon on my book shelf. Χαρ- and καπ- are way more common.

If the word is actually Χαριέστερος (or -ον) this is a word that Epicurus does use in the Letter to Pythocles;

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οὐδὲ γὰρ ‹ἂν› εἰς τὸ τυχὸν ζῷον κἂν μικρῷ χαριέστερον ᾖ, ἡ τοιαύτη μωρία ἐκπέσοι, μὴ ὅτι εἰς παντελῆ εὐδαιμονίαν κεκτημένον.

Bailey: For not even the lowest animal, although ‘a small thing gives the greater pleasure,’ would be seized by such foolishness, much less one who was possessed of perfect happiness.

Yonge: Nor can such folly as this occur to any being who is even moderately comfortable, much less to one which is possessed of perfect happiness.

Cassius has asked for a clear refutation of the Ontological Argument and I have promised to attempt it. First, here is a syllogism of the argument as presented on the Wikipedia page.

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In Chapter 3, Anselm presents a further argument in the same vein:[23]

1. By definition, God is a being than which none greater can be imagined.
2. A being that necessarily exists in reality is greater than a being that does not necessarily exist.
3. Thus, by definition, if God exists as an idea in the mind but does not necessarily exist in reality, then we can imagine something that is greater than God.
4. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God.
5. Thus, if God exists in the mind as an idea, then God necessarily exists in reality.
6. God exists in the mind as an idea.
7. Therefore, God necessarily exists in reality.

End Quote.

Let's look at these individually.

This premise establishes our major terms;

1. God: a being than which none greater can be imagined.
2. Being: an existence either imagined or real.
3. Greatness: an attribute of a being. Only one being can embody the superlative of this attribute, Greatest.
4. Imagined: Existing in the mind as an idea, but not exclusively; an imagined existence may also be a real existence.
5. Real: Existing outside the mind, but not exclusively; a real existence may also be an imagined existence.

"Necessarily" has a precise meaning in logic. Necessary conditions are often contrasted with sufficient conditions. e.g. A square is a parallelogram with four equal sides and four right angles. Having four sides is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a square--all quadrilaterals have four sides but not all of them are squares. Having four sides is a necessary and sufficient condition for being a quadrilateral.

This premise is a bare assertion, and to that extent is fairly weak. Why is a being that necessarily exists in reality greater than a being that does not necessarily exist? Let me offer the following syllogism as a counter;

1. By definition, God is a being than which none greater can be imagined.
2. A being that has the power to choose whether to exist in reality or not is greater than a being, either real or imagined, that does not have this power.
3. Thus, by definition, God either exists in reality or does not according to his will.
4. It is not possible for us to know whether God has decided to cease existing in reality in any given moment.
5. Therefore, it is not possible to know whether God exists in reality.

Can it be demonstrated that St. Anselm's second premise is truer than my second premise? Remember, they cannot both be true; a being that necessarily exists in reality cannot choose not to exist in reality. However, they can certainly both be false.

To be continued...

VS46. Let us completely rid ourselves of our bad habits as if they were evil men who have done us long and grievous harm.

τὰς φαύλας συνηθείας ὥσπερ ἄνδρας πονηροὺς πολὺν χρόνον μέγα βλάψαντες τελείως ἐκδιώκομεν.

With the usual caveat that we don't know who wrote these maxims.

I'm not familiar with any such citation. Certainly Plato thought that matter was a crude and illusory imitation of form--a sort of counterfeit. Literally insubstantial, because the substance of every thing is not the thing itself or its physical components, but the changeless, timeless Form of that kind of thing.

That's gorgeous!

We saw a bit when we went north of town, these are from a three or four second exposure.

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Maybe! The problem is I remember so little--only the rough outline of a passing vignette...

I think;

-That it was a poem (rough start, I know!)

-The poem was written by a British man.

-And was written in the Victorian period or earlier.

-The speaker of the poem is intoxicated, possibly by opium or laudanum, or maybe by absinthe or wine. In any case, there's delirium.

-The speaker meets an 'exotic' man, and tries to speak to him.

-When English fails, the speaker switches to ancient Greek, possibly by recitating a few lines from Homer.

That's all I've got! I thought it was Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859), who wrote Confessions of an English Opium Eater, but he was an essayist. His Greek, however, was very good.

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I finally found it, and it was in De Quincey's book.

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My knowledge of the Oriental tongues is not remarkably extensive, being indeed confined to two words—the Arabic word for barley and the Turkish for opium (madjoon), which I have learned from Anastasius; and as I had neither a Malay dictionary nor even Adelung’s Mithridates, which might have helped me to a few words, I addressed him in some lines from the Iliad, considering that, of such languages as I possessed, Greek, in point of longitude, came geographically nearest to an Oriental one. He worshipped me in a most devout manner, and replied in what I suppose was Malay. In this way I saved my reputation with my neighbours, for the Malay had no means of betraying the secret.

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CASSIUS: Be thou my witness that against my will, | As Pompey was, am I compell'd to set | Upon one battle all our liberties. | You know that I held Epicurus strong | And his opinion: now I change my mind, | And partly credit things that do presage

This apparent change of heart at witnessing the allegedly supernatural also echoes Horace's repudiation of Epicureanism;

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A remiss and irregular worshiper of the gods, while I professed the errors of a senseless philosophy, I am now obliged to set sail back again, and to renew the course that I had deserted. For Jupiter, who usually cleaves the clouds with his gleaming lightning, lately drove his thundering horses and rapid chariot through the clear serene; which the sluggish earth, and wandering rivers; at which Styx, and the horrid seat of detested Tænarus, and the utmost boundary of Atlas were shaken. The Deity is able to make exchange between the highest and the lowest, and diminishes the exalted, bringing to light the obscure; rapacious fortune, with a shrill whizzing, has borne off the plume from one head, and delights in having placed it on another.

-Odes, Book I Ode 34

Samuel Butler's translation of The Iliad, of Vulcan forging a shield for Achilles in imitation of creation;

Compare the language used by Homer with that of Velleius;

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For with what eyes of the mind was your Plato able to see that workhouse of such stupendous toil, in which he makes the world to be modelled and built by God? What materials, what tools, what bars, what machines, what servants, were employed in so vast a work? How could the air, fire, water, and earth pay obedience and submit to the will of the architect? From whence arose those five forms, of which the rest were composed, so aptly contributing to frame the mind and produce the senses? It is tedious to go through all, as they are of such a sort that they look more like things to be desired than to be discovered.

But, what is more remarkable, he gives us a world which has been not only created, but, if I may so say, in a manner formed with hands, and yet he says it is eternal. Do you conceive him to have the least skill in natural philosophy who is capable of thinking anything to be everlasting that had a beginning? For what can possibly ever have been put together which cannot be dissolved again? Or what is there that had a beginning which will not have an end? If your Providence, Lucilius, is the same as Plato’s God, I ask you, as before, who were the assistants, what were the engines, what was the plan and preparation of the whole work? If it is not the same, then why did she make the world mortal, and not everlasting, like Plato’s God?

The nature of things: a didactic poem : Lucretius Carus, Titus : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

In blank verse

archive.org

This is John Mason Good's introduction to his translation of Lucretius, where he expresses on page lxv the view that the Epicureans believed in a First Cause or Prime Mover, and that it was this deity that created the lower order of gods that dwell in the intermundia.

I can also recommend Mitchell and Webb for sketch comedy!

Regarding Plato's forms, Fry and Laurie have an amusing take on it near the end of this video.