Posts by Joshua

I have family who swear by fasting, but they're devout Christians. I occasionally go a day without eating, but not on purpose. (Either because of work, or because of binging video games.)

Yeah, I don't really believe it myself. Just something that occurred to me this morning.

Here's a random thought I just had that probably isn't worthy of it's own thread...

If vegetarians are half as likely to develop kidney stones (as I've read), is that circumstantial evidence against Epicurus' often-alleged vegetarianism?

A few quick sketches of an Epicurean ring. I've been curious about lost-wax cold-casting metal for a long time (and I used to cast hot metal at a foundry as my job), so I'm thinking I might get a chunk of wax and see if I can't carve one that looks ok. Or possibly not...I'm pretty lazy when it comes down to it. I'll let you know though.

I think you're on the right track there, Cassius. It speaks well of the Epicurean tradition that it produced a biting satirist like Lucian, and attracted a self-styled pamphleteer like Hitchens and a revolutionary like Jefferson. Hitchens identified irony as the redeeming quality of literature as opposed to scripture ("the gin in the campari," he called it, "and the cream in the coffee"), and irony was with Epicureanism from the beginning, as in Vatican Maxim #40.

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He who asserts that everything happens by necessity can hardly find fault with one who denies that everything happens by necessity; by his own theory this very argument is voiced by necessity.

Hard to read that without imagining the wry, sardonic smile that must have accompanied its writing.

I've been listening to Isaac Asimov's Second Foundation, and am nearly at the end of the trilogy. I came across an interesting idea;

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So he created his Foundations according to the laws of psychohistory, but who knew better than he that even those laws were relative? He never created a finished product. Finished products are for decadent minds. His was an evolving mechanism, and the Second Foundation was the instrument of that evolution.

This got me thinking about something that has bothered me since high school; if ideology is nearly always a problem in societies (and the ideology could be nearly anything; religion, nationalism, fascism, communism, scientism, etc.), then is it any good to select ideology as the antidote?

I suspect that it was this paradox that drove me initially to Thoreau (who positively delights in paradox), and through him to the East, where men like Lao Tzu have been speaking in ironic contradictions for millennia. Christopher Hitchens encountered the same problem; he was a Trotskyist agitator at Oxford, and much later an ally of the Bush Administration. He eventually concluded that

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The synthesis for which one aimed was the Orwellian one of evolving a consistent and integral anti-totalitarianism.

Did Epicurus create a "finished product," and we are merely "decadent minds" rifling the dry scrolls of the past? Did he create an "evolving mechanism," and we are the means of its modern evolution?

NB; both Asimov and Hitchens were anti-religious; thought well of pleasure; and wrote reverently of Lucretius. It's an intriguing cluster of men and ideas.

Thanks Cassius! I thought DeWitt had made the same point but wouldn't have known where to grab the citation.

I think to understand the rejection of geometry as a prerequisite of philosophy we really need to understand the sort of claims that were made for it. These claims have in fact never stopped being made, and find a fascinating expression in, of all people, Abraham Lincoln;

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"He studied and nearly mastered the Six-books of Euclid (geometry) since he was a member of Congress. He began a course of rigid mental discipline with the intent to improve his faculties, especially his powers of logic and language. Hence his fondness for Euclid, which he carried with him on the circuit till he could demonstrate with ease all the propositions in the six books; often studying far into the night, with a candle near his pillow, while his fellow-lawyers, half a dozen in a room, filled the air with interminable snoring." Abraham Lincoln from Short Autobiography of 1860.

The assumption here is that if one understands how to prove a geometric theorem, one will equally know how to prove a philosophical one, as here;

But this involves a logical sleight-of-hand; it employs an argument by analogy, but argument by analogy only works if things really ARE analogous. Epicurus would challenge Lincoln on this point. If he wants to argue an end to slavery, he needs to argue from a foundation of sensation, anticipations, or feelings--because people aren't triangles, they're people.

Simply put, geometry as a foundation of philosophy is an invitation to casuistry. Nevertheless, I will always enjoy a wonderful performance by Mr. Daniel Day-Lewis!

I seem to be struggling with images today.

Edit; Alright, I think it worked!

With time to spare on a load to South Portland, I caught a ride to the seaside. What a delight it was to see the Atlantic again! I haven't stepped in it's waters since I was a boy. I started the day at Two Lights, and strode into the surf still wearing socks and shoes. This I later regretted, but was completely enchanted with.

People were scattered on the rocks, watching the spray and the sailboats on a cloudless day; one man was fishing, and pulled in a striped sea bass while I watched.

The driver had directed me to the lobster shack for lunch, and there I soon bent my sloshing steps. I am lately a lover of Lobster Rolls, having tried them for the first time in Salt Lake City. Homemade blueberry pie to accompany, and all of it seasoned with a view of the sea. After this I walked the 6 miles up to Fort William's Park, the home of Portland Head Light.

This view inspired the following ditty (an emblem of our school?), and I was fascinated to learn of all the hands that go toward maintaining a lighthouse through the ages. New hands, new lenses to focus, new paint on the exterior; but an unchanging tradition of guidance, refuge and safe harbor.

The Lighthouse

Perched on shores of treacherous shoals

Where water heaves and, crashing, rolls

Beneath the beam that scans for souls,

The weathered prow and turning lens

That mortal after mortal tends

Stands firm unto the end of ends.

I finished the day with a stroll along the wharfside in downtown Portland; a well-made margherita pizza at the Porland Pie Co.; a cigar for desert by sundown over the city; and a third conversation with yet another driver as I returned to the truck.

(P.S. I also experienced sore feet and a small blister; the loss of my phone, and it's safe return; and the sight of a doomsday preacher in the park. Those and other pleasures I reserve for my later amusement.)

-Josh

I don't really follow it all that closely, Cassius. Obviously the subject figures prominently in Science Fiction, which I'm trying to read more of. Some of my friends are more into all that than I am, but I talk with them about it, and the subject invariably comes up in conversations about meaning, the afterlife, the shape of the world, etc. For me it's the vastness of it all that is most enchanting. Richard Feynam believed that that alone was evidence against religion; "the stage is too big for the drama."

And now for Sean Bean, and some misplaced Yorkshire goodness;

Here's a scattershot summary of the state of play. I'm mostly just going off what I've learned in reading.

1. H²O is more common than people think. Hydrogen is most common element; helium second, oxygen third. Most common molecule is H². Helium is inert, doesn't bond. O² is quite common as well; H²O very likely to be widespread.

2. Exoplanets being discovered all the time, including at the nearest star system to Sol (Proxima Centauri). This process is mostly done by computers now.

3. Earth-life more resilient than once thought. Thriving microorganisms happily bubbling away at deep-water vents, where the water is hot enough to boil, but can't because the pressure is too high. These extremophiles suggest the goldilocks zone wider than we thought.

4. Space is BIG. Proxima Centauri is the closest system, and it's still 4 light-years away. It would take our fastest probes 50,000 years to get there. Humans discovered agriculture at the end of the last ice-age, about 12,000 years ago. Written history is at most 5,000 years old. We're simply not equipped to conceive of these distances/timescales.

5. Space is OLD. Hold your arm out to the side, parallel to the ground. If you measure the history of Earth from the center of your sternum to the edge of your fingertip, all of human history would vanish in one pass of a nail file at the end of your fingernail. What if there WAS a space-faring civilization "nearby", but we missed it by half a billion years?

6. The Dark Forest Theory; this is an attempt to answer the Fermi paradox (where's all the life?) based on game theory. Basically, any civilization would have to assume that a contact event would have a high probability of being catastrophic for that civilization. So if there are other civilizations out there, we should assume they are trying not to be found. (In Earth's history, our most influential contact-event was the European discovery of the Americas. It was disastrous for the Native Americans.)

This question was one of the three major 'problems' in Epicureanism that led St. Augustine of Hippo to reject the school as impossible to reconcile with the faith he was trying to codify. However attractive he found our ethics, he couldn't tolerate a philosophy that taught: first, that the Universe was the sport of chance; second, that the soul perished with the body; and third, that there were other worlds, and an infinity of time in both directions.

He responded thus; "There is no place beside the world, no time before the world." Some readers try to reinterpret that phrase to mean "no place beside the universe, etc..."

But it's very clear what he meant, and who he was responding to.

Thanks Cassius! The backdrop of this dialogue is Abonoteichus on the Black Sea, during the 'reign' of Alexander-the-Oracle-Monger, prophet of the snake-god Glycon. Lucian mentions that Alexander once made himself "supremely ridiculous" by burning a copy of Epicurus' Principle Doctrines and throwing the ashes into the sea. I wanted to explore the reaction of the Epicurean community to such aggressions.

I have Giordano Bruno in mind in the third line from the end, although I'm not sure that kind of sacrifice is really sound doctrine. And I'm also aware that "Scholarch" may not be the right word here, in a school so far from Athens.

This poem is written in the form of a sestina, with repeating end-words. The first stanza sets the pattern; each subsequent stanza recycles the words according to the one before, in this formula: 5, 2, 4, 3, 6, 1. Because the second-line word goes second in the next stanza as well, its position never changes. That word is "garden"--stable, reliable, unaltered.

The scene of the poem is the city written about by Lucian.

Abonoteichus - a dialogue

Scholarch:

By winds and waves that storm our coast for ages!

By sighing Aphrodite in her garden,

Where hast thou been my son, for there is fire

Deep in thine eyes, and strife upon thy temple?

What trial shakes thy soul with trembling atoms,

Sieging thy mind like a beleaguered city?

Ephebos:

I strain my limbs for use of all their atoms

And refuge take in this the soothing garden,

For multitudes are gathered at the temple

Where piled scrolls are ravaged in the fire!

A sickness lies upon this seething city,

And men disgrace the memory of ages!

Scholarch:

Ah--is that all? Have ye not seen this city

Charméd by snakes, defiling grove and garden,

With grim religion spreading fast as fire?

Have ye not seen them lurking by that temple--

and of all sexes, qualities, and ages--

Who rain on Epicurus scorn like atoms?

Ephebos:

But can it have been so in all past ages?

Can truth have grown free only in a garden

Which ought by rights have garlanded a temple?

Will all mankind forsake that sacred fire,

Spurning pleasure--denying void and atoms?

Naught but Euxine waters would cleanse this city!

Scholarch:

Peace son! Their worth is measured not in atoms.

Some yet will seek true health, and this our garden

Will beckon them--a solitary fire

Against the darkness; a bright green-grass temple

Unroofed to starlight, shining like a city,

And crowned with all the wisdom of the ages!

Ephebos:

Wilt thou then that we leave for that city?

Scholarch:

And bear the fruit of peace from out this garden.

Ephebos:

Even into the shadow of that temple?

Scholarch:

For Epicurus, even unto fire.

Ephebos:

And make his wisdom echo through the ages--

Scholarch:

And calm that rage, that rends his scrolls to atoms.

-josh

His Getty lecture was great. I really wish he had read the audiobook himself, it always enhances the experience if they're good at.

The Italian gentleman who did read the audiobook did well though, and his native language helped a lot with all of the Italian words and names.

Excellent write-up, Hiram. Nice to have these brief biographies all in one place. Happy twentieth!

You've been keeping busy! Looks great, I hope everyone has a good time!

Excellent post, Cassius, and happy Twentieth!

An excerpt from Thoreau's journal (emphasis mine).

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Up and down the town, men and boys that are under subjection are polishing their shoes and brushing their go-to-meeting clothes. I, a descendant of Northmen who worshipped Thor, spend my time worshipping neither Thor nor Christ; a descendant of Northmen who sacrificed men and horses, sacrifice neither men nor horses. I care not for Thor nor for the Jews. I sympathize not to-day with those who go to church in newest clothes and sit quietly in straight-backed pews. I sympathize rather with the boy who has none to look after him, who borrows a boat and a paddle and in common clothes sets out to explore these temporary vernal lakes. I meet such a boy paddling along under a sunny bank, with bare feet and his pants rolled up to his knees, ready to leap into the water at a moment’s warning. Better for him to read “Robinson Crusoe” than Baxter’s “Saints’ Rest.”

A life dedicated to pleasure and the study of nature. Nature ephermal, changing in appearance but unchanging in its atomic laws; raw, real, beautiful.

Fill your cup with pleasures!