Posts by Joshua

I just glanced over the thread here and didn't see it, maybe I haven't come across this before. It's worth noting that this is the same Landor that Frost mentions in his poem "Lucretius versus the Lake Poets".

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‘Nature I loved; and next to Nature, Art.’

Dean , adult education may seem silly.

What of it, though? I got some willy-nilly

The other evening at your college deanery.

And grateful for it (let's not be facetious!)

For I thought Epicurus and Lucretius

By Nature meant the Whole Goddam Machinery.

But you say that in college nomenclature

The only meaning possible for Nature

In Landor's quatrain would be Pretty Scenery.

Which makes opposing it to Art absurd

I grant you—if you're sure about the word.

God bless the Dean and make his deanship plenary.

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Aphrodite was born of foam off Cythera, but went to Cyprus. Both islands had cultic sites dedicated to her. Athena was born from Zeus' head, but is associated also with the island of Rhodes.

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ANONYMOUS: I, THE pencil, was silver when I came from the fire, but in thy hands I have become golden likewise. So, charming Leontion, hath Athena well gifted thee with supremacy in art, and Cypris with supremacy in beauty.

Book 16 of the Planudean Anthology.

I wonder if she died some time before Epicurus. Their practice of memorializing the dead through books of praise would explain Cicero's complaint. Then there is that connection between the names Leontion and Leontius. Perhaps Leontion was the daughter of Themista and Leontius. Impossible to say at this distance.

I seem to recall finding mention of Leontion in the Greek Anthology, I'll have to check when I get home.

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In the school of Epicurus I never heard one mention of Lycurgus, Solon, Miltiades, Themistocles, Epaminondas, who are always on the lips of the other philosophers. And now that we Romans too have begun to treat of these themes, what a marvellous roll of great men will our friend Atticus supply to us from his store-houses of learning! Would it not be better to talk of these than to devote those bulky volumes to Themista? Let us leave that sort of thing to the Greeks. True we owe to them philosophy and all the liberal sciences; yet there are topics not permitted to us, that are allowable for them. Battle rages between the Stoics and the Peripatetics. One school declares that nothing is good but Moral Worth, the other that, while it assigns the greatest, and by far the greatest, value to Morality, yet still some bodily and external things are good. Here is an honourable quarrel, fought out in high debate! For the whole dispute turns on the true worth of virtue. But when one argues with your [Epicurean] friends, one has to listen to a great deal about even the grosser forms of pleasure! Epicurus is always harping upon them!

Cicero, De Finibus, book 2

Livioandronico2013 - Own work

CC BY-SA 4.0

Tomorrow, Saturday April 8th, is the 203rd anniversary of the rediscovery of the Venus de Milo in 1820. As Don pointed out recently, April was the month dedicated to Venus/Aphrodite by the Romans.

Creatress, mother of the Roman line,

Dear Venus, joy of earth and joy of heaven,

All things that live below that heraldry

Of star and planet, whose processional

Moves ever slow and solemn over us,

All things conceived, all things that face the light

In their bright visit, the grain-bearing fields,

The marinered oceans, where the wind and cloud

Are quiet in your presence – all proclaim

Your gift, without which they are nothingness.

For you that sweet artificer, the earth,

Submits her flowers, and for you the deep

Of ocean smiles, and the calm heaven shines

With shoreless light.

-Trans. Rolfe Humphries

I think this might be one of our better episodes on materialism, in part because of the focused effort to work out the implications of atomism and follow them through to their conclusions.

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Episode 167 - "Epicurus And His Philosophy" Part 20 - Chapter 9 - The New Physics 02

Welcome to Episode 167 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the only complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where you will find a discussion thread…

Cassius

March 25, 2023 at 3:42 PM

I mainly see it as a question of emphasis--with the caveat being that what we emphasize in life colors our perception of what life amounts to while we live it.

Show Notes:

Thoreau, on Lucretius and Prometheus;

"[I was] struck only with the lines referring to Promethius (sic)—whose vivida vis animi…extra/processit longe flammantia moenia mundi.”

"Gravity" [2013] Fire Extinguisher Scene

Virgil, Georgics, Book II, verse 490

"Me indeed first and before all things may the sweet Muses, whose priest I am and whose great love hath smitten me, take to themselves and show me the pathways of the sky, the stars, and the diverse eclipses of the sun and the moon’s travails; whence is the earthquake; by what force the seas swell high over their burst barriers and sink back into themselves again; why winter suns so hasten to dip in Ocean, or what hindrance keeps back the lingering nights. But if I may not so attain to this side of nature for the clog of chilly blood about my heart, may the country and the streams that water the valleys content me, and lost to fame let me love stream and woodland. Ah, where the plains spread by Spercheus, and Laconian girls revel on Taygetus! ah for one to lay me in Haemus’ cool dells and cover me in immeasurable shade of boughs! Happy he who hath availed to know the causes of things, and hath laid all fears and immitigable Fate and the roar of hungry Acheron under his feet."

-Trans. J.W. Mackail

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas - Wikipedia

Two philosophers on motion;

Zeno of Elea - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Heraclitus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Omaha is 100 miles south of the city I grew up in, and its zoo is consistently ranked as one of the best in the nation. It was also a feature of my childhood, and we went several times a year. Among its other achievements--the largest nocturnal exhibit, the largest indoor swamp, one of the largest indoor rainforests and desert domes in the world, the largest glazed geodesic dome on earth, and so forth--was an ornangutan who could pick locks.

Every night, zookeepers would close and lock the great ape enclosures and then lock the building they were housed in. Every morning, when they opened the building, they found all of the orangutans loose inside. This went on for some time, until at last they discovered that Fu Manchu, a Sumatran orangutan, was keeping a length of wire along his gumline. When the zookeepers went home for the night, Fu Manchu would set to work with his wire, and pick the lock on the entrance to the orangutan enclosure.

Not only did he grasp the concept of locks and how they work, he also understood that his wire was "contraband" of a sort, and that it needed to stay hidden when not in use. And he understood that his mouth was a good place to hide it--he would always have it with him, and no one would suspect!

The head zookeeper was on the point of firing someone for carelessness before they discovered the real cause.

We were discussing Helen Keller on the chat this evening, and how she came to learn not just superficial things about her environment, but achieved a fully aware understanding of abstract concepts and principles. It seems to me that the brain is thirsty for information, and given the right stuff it finds a way. I can imagine a future intelligent supercomputer being as confused about the human understanding of mathematics as we are about Fu Manchu's grasp of the principles involved in lockpicking.

"Retaining his imperium, or power to command, Torquatus was in Africa in 47.[17] There the surviving boni raised an army which included 40,000 men (about 8 legions), a powerful cavalry force led by Caesar's former right-hand man, the talented Titus Labienus, forces of allied local kings and 60 war elephants. The two armies engaged in small skirmishes to gauge the strength of the opposing force, during which two legions switched to Caesar's side. Meanwhile, Caesar expected reinforcements from Sicily. In the beginning of February 46, Caesar arrived in Thapsus and besieged the city. The boni, led by Metellus Scipio, could not risk the loss of this position and were forced to accept battle. Scipio commanded "without skill or success",[18] and Caesar won a crushing victory which ended the war. Torquatus fled the field along with Scipio, attempting to escape to Hispania, but was trapped at Hippo Regius by the fleet of Publius Sittius. Scipio committed suicide on board a ship and Torquatus either committed suicide with him or was captured and executed.[19]"

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I think I still have qualms about seeing "instinctual behavior" as evidence of a prolepsis.

I mean I'm basically throwing out the prolepsis of the gods without hesitation, I think it's fair play to reconsider a lot of it.

It also occurs to me to say that part of that conversation included a question from Cassius as to whether any anticipation of justice is separable from the feelings of pleasure and pain. We do refer to the "prick of the conscience", after all.

One part of our conversation was particularly insightful on that point. Charles (to summarize) said that Epicurus' definition of justice as non-absolute and existing in mutual advantage by social convention was well above and beyond the operation of the anticipations. Steve replied that there was a considerable amount of cultural overlay, but that the prolepsis of justice might be operating underneath all that at a far more basic level. Steve's response seemed to me good, and the only way to reconcile the prolepsis of justice with what Epicurus says in the Principal Doctrines: as for example in this one;

32. Those animals which are incapable of making covenants with one another, to the end that they may neither inflict nor suffer harm, are without either justice or injustice. And those tribes which either could not or would not form mutual covenants to the same end are in like case.

To speak of chimpanzees and capuchins as forming covenants to protect their idea of fairness is bordering on the absurd, but the operation of fairness and compassion do seem to be present at some level. So I would, like Steve, try to draw a distinction between the mutual rational justice of the principal doctrines and the canonic pre-rational anticipation of justice, which might be present also in lower orders of animals.

What do we think of this as a start?

The attributes of agreements of justice:

• Rational
• Cultural
• Social
• Leading to stated or implied contractual behavior
  • With the expectation of reciprocity, without which the compact breaks down; more like a treaty between sovereign nations

The attributes of the anticipation of justice:

• Pre-rational
• Evolutionary
• Individual
• Leading to voluntary behavior
  • With no expectation of reciprocity: More like giving a gift; maybe you'll get one in return someday

Having now watched both of these videos, I have to say they're far better than any of my summaries might suggest!

Fernando brought up the work of Dr. Frans de Waal in the discussions on primates and the prolepsis of justice, which I wanted to start a thread about since we didn't get into it on the call.

Moral behavior in animals

What happens when two monkeys are paid unequally? Fairness, reciprocity, empathy, cooperation -- caring about the well-being of others seems like a very human…

www.ted.com

We've been talking about this recently and I haven't been properly crediting the source, so thank you Fernando!

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I much prefer the designation that Athenaeus provides in Deipnosophistae (5:3), that we are ΠPOΦHTAΣ ATOMΩN, or, "Atom Prophets".

I like this, it reminds me of the Machine Priests from The Foundation Trilogy.

Show Notes:

Imperial Units of Measurement at Trafalgar Square

Research on the "newly-sighted"

Seeing a flat plane of indiscriminate shape and color:

At First Sight: Gaining Sight as an Adult

It's harder than you think.

www.psychologytoday.com

Recognizing human locomotion:

After a lifetime of blindness, newly sighted can immediately identify human locomotion

Researchers find blind patients who had very limited visual exposure to human bodily movement could immediately recognize human locomotion after the removal of…

news.mit.edu

It seems fitting here to remember that W. B. Yeats considered Lucretius' fourth book to contain "the greatest description of sexual intercourse ever written". He responded to it by writing that "the tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul"--in other words, that, try as they might, lovers never can succeed in becoming two in one.

We do have this thread going, which is an excellent resource, and great for compiling this kind of information. I generally like to keep tidy formatting there and limited conversation, but Nate, your post would be a great addition.