You can choose to imagine them, but I think it ought to be pretty apparent (at least in most situations) whether you are perceiving something that is "out there" beyond you, or whether you have chosen to summon the image from memory or from a new construct.
See, that's my sticking point here in reference to the gods. No one has ever seen a god and yet Epicurus says we have an image of them?
PS...
Has anyone tracked down the "the gods are giant-people-shaped and speak Greek" citation?
You would generally expect that images coming from real objects will be observed over time and in varying conditions and are thus repeatable, while images arising from random combinations would be unlikely to be repeated in substantially similar form
Hmm... I can repeatedly think about centaurs and unicorns in substantially similar forms.
I agree looking in the Lucretius sections may be helpful, but I'm not sure I agree (at first blush) on your repeatability criteria.
The Platonic (?) model implies (at least to me) something more supernatural
I don't believe that's the case.
"In the fifth century BC, Empedocles postulated that everything was composed of four elements; fire, air, earth and water. He believed that Aphrodite made the human eye out of the four elements and that she lit the fire in the eye which shone out from the eye making sight possible. If this were true, then one could see during the night just as well as during the day, so Empedocles postulated an interaction between rays from the eyes and rays from a source such as the sun. He stated that light has a finite speed."
Lots to wade through on this thread, but my responses will have to wait until tonight.
Elen síla lúmenn’ omentielvo!
Okay here are some random thoughts on this this morning:
I just happened across this passage in Lucretius, which relates to the LM passage discussed above:
"Unless you expel these ideas from your mind and drive far away beliefs unworthy of the gods and alien to their tranquillity, the holy divinity of the gods, damaged by you, will frequently do you harm: not because of the possibility of violating the gods’ supreme power, and of their consequent angry thirst for bitter vengeance, but because you yourself will imagine that those tranquil and peaceful beings are rolling mighty billows of wrath against you. You will be unable to visit the shrines of the gods with a calm heart, and incapable of receiving with tranquillity and peace the images from their holy bodies which travel into men’s minds to reveal the gods’ appearance. The direct effect on your life is obvious." (Lucretius 6.68–79, Long and Sedley translation, The Hellenistic Philosophers)
This reads to me like the best resolution of the realist and idealist views that I've seen. It appears to acknowledge the realist view that the gods exist, while at the same time stressing that what is important to our well-being is how we view them.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Godfrey ! I had not seen this before.
For anyone who wants to see the Latin referenced here:
Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, Liber Sextus, line 43
quae nisi respuis ex animo longeque remittis
dis indigna putare alienaque pacis eorum,
delibata deum per te tibi numina sancta
saepe oberunt; non quo violari summa deum vis
possit, ut ex ira poenas petere inbibat acris,
sed quia tute tibi placida cum pace quietos
constitues magnos irarum volvere fluctus,
nec delubra deum placido cum pectore adibis,
nec de corpore quae sancto simulacra feruntur
in mentes hominum divinae nuntia formae,
suscipere haec animi tranquilla pace valebis.
inde videre licet qualis iam vita sequatur.
Images here is "simulacra": http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?do…ry%3Dsimulacrum
which seems to have the same double entendre that ειδωλον does in Greek.
Question: Is Lucretius (and Epicurus) referring to images received from gods "out there" somewhere... or is he referring to the images received of their statues in the shrines? "You will be unable to visit the shrines of the gods with a calm heart, and incapable of receiving with tranquillity and peace the images from their holy bodies which travel into men’s minds to reveal the gods’ appearance." The fact that he talks first about visiting the shrines of the gods THEN goes directly to "incapable of receiving ... the images from their holy bodies which travel into men’s minds" looks ambiguous, at least in this translation. Is it meant to be ambiguous? Does looking at a statue, an image, an ειδωλον or simulacra of the god, allow one to "see" that god in one's mind?
No answers, just posing a question I never thought of before reading this selection from Long & Sedley.
PS:
I ran part of that Latin through Google Translate (I know, not the greatest option!!), and got this:
...and you will not approach the temples of the gods with a calm heart, nor will you be able to receive these images of the divine form in the minds of men, from the body which is a holy image.
That last part (underlined) sounds to me like the the images are coming from the temples and the images are coming from whatever is in the temples.
I found this line of thinking intriguing, maybe simply because its novel to me. But maybe that's one reason Epicurus was able to enthusiastically advocating taking part in the regular worship of the Greek gods. It was the statues of the gods, the images in the temple as well as seeing the statues themselves that gave the Epicurean access to an image in the mind of a literally larger-than-life, blessed, incorruptible being to which the Epicurean could aspire. Hmm...Food for thought for me at least.
I have to stop now, but I haven't even addressed whether it is possible for such waves to exist above or beyond our spectrum of visible light.
I'm not sure what "waves" you're referring to. We do have telescopes that "see" infrared, ultraviolet, radio, microwave, and x-ray wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. There's plenty we can see given the right instruments.
As far as the images of the gods in our minds, our brains aren't receivers... To the best of my understanding.
New summary article and podcast episode.
As always, I'd also suggest people take a look at Eikadistes 's compilation of translations.
Here's the Greek:
Ὁ θάνατος οὐδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς· τὸ γὰρ διαλυθὲν ἀναισθητεῖ· τὸ δ’ ἀναισθητοῦν οὐδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς.
Pertinent words for this discussion are:
ἀναισθητεῖ and ἀναισθητοῦν
Variants of the same word: ἀναισθητέω
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἀναισθ-ητέω
Also
That's a good quote.
For anyone curious, it's the opening lines of Dawkins' Unweaving the Rainbow.
That's an even better point, Joshua 
Thanks for that post!
That's an even better point, Joshua Thanks for that post!
Display MoreThe use of the word "idol" in 46 should not be construed to carry its religious connotations. Epicurus uses the Greek word εἴδωλον, eidolon, which is the root of the English word but means:
Noun Editεἴδωλον • (eídōlon) n (genitive εἰδώλου); second declension
1. phantom, ghost2. shape, figure, image
3. image of the mind: idea, fancy
4. representation, statue, idol
We appear to be dealing with some combination of definitions 2 and 3.
Agreed, but I do find it interesting to remember that the literal definition of the (English) word "idol" is a "representation" of a god and stems directly from ειδολών.
Display MoreThe use of the word "idol" in 46 should not be construed to carry its religious connotations. Epicurus uses the Greek word εἴδωλον, eidolon, which is the root of the English word but means:
Noun Editεἴδωλον • (eídōlon) n (genitive εἰδώλου); second declension
1. phantom, ghost2. shape, figure, image
3. image of the mind: idea, fancy
4. representation, statue, idol
We appear to be dealing with some combination of definitions 2 and 3.
Agreed, but I do find it interesting to remember that the literal definition of the (English) word "idol" is a "representation" of a god and stems directly from ειδολών.
That's one problem I have with the new book by Paul Bloom. He seems (I've not read the book but heard him on several podcasts talking about it) to see some problem in taking pleasure in things, even things that may have been difficult to achieve. His stress on "meaning vs pleasure" seems specious to me:
Now, one alternative to pleasure is meaning. This drive for meaning is every bit as important as the drive to have a good time, to enjoy ourselves, to be happy.
But from my perspective, that "meaning" he stresses gives one pleasure, so we're right back to an Epicurean square one. It's the hedonist = "a string of drinking parties and festivals" straw-man fallacy that is not what Epicurus advocated.
FYI Did not realize the word came from a comic strip:
Also the discussion of "down" comes up in [60]:
[60] "Further, we must not assert `up' or `down' of that which is unlimited, as if there were a zenith or nadir.92 As to the space overhead, however, if it be possible to draw93 a line to infinity from the point where we stand, we know that never will this space --or, for that matter, the space below the supposed standpoint if produced to infinity--appear to us to be at the same time `up' and `down' with reference to the same point ; for this is inconceivable. Hence it is possible to assume one direction of motion, which we conceive as extending upwards ad infinitum, and another downwards, even if it should happen ten thousand times that what moves from us to the spaces above our heads reaches the feet of those above us, or that which moves downwards from us the heads of those below us. None the less is it true that the whole of the motion in the respective cases is conceived as extending in opposite directions ad infinitum.
[61] "When they are travelling through the void and meet with no resistance, the atoms must move with equal speed. Neither will heavy atoms travel more quickly than small and light ones, so long as nothing meets them, nor will small atoms travel more quickly than large ones, provided they always find a passage suitable to their size, and provided also that they meet with no obstruction. Nor will their upward or their lateral motion, which is due to collisions, nor again their downward motion, due to weight, affect their velocity. As long as either motion obtains, it must continue, quick as the speed of thought, provided there is no obstruction, whether due to external collision or to the atoms' own weight counteracting the force of the blow.
FYI when you're agonizing over boundless vs infinite vs incomprehensible number in "verse" 42/43 seems kind of moot in that the word used in Greek that appears to be used in all places in the text is ἄπειρος "boundless," literally from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + πεῖραρ (peîrar), πέρας (péras, “end, limit”) :
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἄπειρος
The "not comprehensible" is simply οὐχ ἄπειροι "not apeiroi"
so philosophy is useless if it does not remove suffering from the soul.
, οὕτως οὐδὲ φιλοσοφίας, εἰ μὴ τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐκβάλλει πάθος.
btw ἐκβάλλει is not merely "remove." It connotes cast away, hurl away, or throw from. "Remove" strikes me as a little milquetoast.
A philosopher's words are empty if they do not heal the suffering of mankind. For just as medicine is useless if it does not remove sickness from the body, so philosophy is useless if it does not remove suffering from the soul. κενὸς ἐκείνου φιλοσόφου λόγος, ὑφʼ οὗ μηδὲν πάθος ἀνθρώπου θεραπεύεται· ὥσπερ γὰρ ἰατρικῆς οὐδὲν ὄφελος μὴ τὰς νόσους τῶν σωμάτων ἐκβαλλούσης, οὕτως οὐδὲ φιλοσοφίας, εἰ μὴ τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐκβάλλει πάθος.
