Posts by Bryan

Thank you, Cyrano. I truly think this is a work of brilliance and courage. I fully agree with you. Bravo!

We must reject the absurdities of matter coming in and out of existence, an origin of the universe, or any influence on empty space.

"The overview is often needed but the details we only need occasionally" - and this is an excellent overview!

When I see such good productions as this, I think of page 1 of the 830 page Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism which says “...contemporary philosophers continue to churn out article after article of increasing sophistication defending or (mostly) attempting to refute Epicurus’s arguments about the harmlessness of death. […] I imagine many professional scholars may sometimes feel that their contributions somehow lack the immediate visceral appeal of those flashier productions of true believers touting Epicureanism as a cure for everything […] it is doubtful that many of the scholars in this volume write as believers…”

Today I came across a related quote from Hermarchus about our pre-rational sense of justice. The topic is legislation prohibiting murder:

"...some people have come to the consideration of the utility, previously perceiving it irrationally and often forgetting, but others were terrified by the magnitude of the punishments."

καὶ τοὺς μὲν εἰς ἐπιλογισμὸν τοῦ χρησίμου καταστήσαντες, ἀλόγως αὐτοῦ πρότερον αἰσθανομένους καὶ πολλάκις ἐπιλανθανομένους, τοὺς δὲ τῷ μεγέθει τῶν ἐπιτιμίων καταπλήξαντες. (Porphyry, De Abstinentia 1.8)

ἀλόγως αὐτοῦ πρότερον αἰσθανομένους = Sensing it without reason in advance, Having a pre-rational perception of it beforehand.

I'm passionate about physics, from Epicurus up to classical mechanics. However, I'm critical of the dominant interpretations in modern physics, which I believe are cynically promoted. This sentiment echoes my views on art: while I admire classical art, I find myself disenchanted with much of what is promoted as art today. To me, both modern physics and modern art seem to primarily exist to mock their classical predecessors. I reject that there is a scientific basis of some modern physics concepts, such as particles popping in and out of existence, the origin of the universe, or influence upon empty space, these are aligned with religious beliefs from the Talmud not with natural science. Their math is a self-referencing game and their experiments could more easily be interpreted. I seek a scientific understanding based upon empirical evidence -- Epicurus offers a tangible basis, unlike the promoted contemporary theories. I believe that a true understanding of physics supports a fulfilling life, but what is often presented as "physics" today appears to be more influenced by religious doctrine than scientific inquiry. This is sad and makes a mockery of many smart people who did not want to think religiously but were nevertheless corralled in that direction.

Einstein's theories will eventually be fully recognized as just a fashion of the elites, while the contributions of Epicurus will continue to endure.

Quote from BrainToBeing

However, if the tower is never visible....

Similarly, a small percentage of people argue that 'justice' is non-existent, often because they expect to observe some ethereal, immutable concept they can label as 'justice.' Their search for a transcendent, all-encompassing form of justice is futile, as it simply does not exist. In seeking such an unrealistic ideal, they inadvertently set an impossible standard for what justice should be, leading them to erroneously conclude that justice itself is a fallacy. However, most people reject the notion that justice does not exist, because they have a reflexive image of justice in their minds.

Nevertheless, the ability to recognize justice is contingent on our willingness to look for it. Also, if we seek a form of justice that exists without reference to specific physical interactions, we are doomed to never find it. Justice, in reality, must be grounded in specific, physical contexts.

Thank you for the conversation.

Quote from Don

Which comes first? Did the "image" arise in the mind after you "think" of something, or did you think of something and then the image arises in the mind?

I should not have said 'think' but maintained the use of 'focus.' Thank you for the correction! It seems that this is the very reason Epicurus used 'focus' (ἡ ἐπιβολή) instead of a word for thinking (ὁ λογισμός, ὁ λόγος, ἡ νόησις, ἡ γνῶσις, ἡ δόξα, etc).

Epicurus was pointing to the pre-rational image that strikes us. If we choose to 'think' of something, we must first mentally 'focus' on it.

Quote from BrainToBeing

"God the Father" However, what if all of it is a form of prolepsis.

People have a natural mental image of the gods, but this natural sense can be quickly obfuscated by culture/opinion. Epicurus lived in a world where depictions of gods were as common as seeing a statue of Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. The gods in ancient Greece were extremely reified by the culture.

We now have the opposite problem. We come from many generations of people who suffered under the idea (from Judaism, and present in Protestantism) that god cannot be pictured and should not be imagined.

If images of friendship and thinking about 'the characteristics of friendship' were considered for thousands years to be a serious mental transgression, we would eventually expect some people to come to the conclusion that friendship is not real.

Just because, from one viewpoint, some clouds are obfuscating a distant tower does not mean the tower does not exist.

A pencil is worthy to be called a pencil if its fundamental characteristics (συμβεβηκότα) are of a pencil. Just like 'justice,' we cannot deny the existence of the word or category of 'god' so then we must take that label, look around the universe, and put the label on something that exists and is worthy of the label.

Yes a mental image of a pencil is a prolepsis. You will not have a prolepsis of a pencil unless you have had some contact with it (even if it is just a description or a simple drawing), but the clarity increases with increased exposure. I think we can wave away Cicero's description as "innate or inborn 'thoughts'" insitae vel potius inatae 'cogitiones'. Even the Latin could mean that the 'thoughts' were "implanted in or grew up" with the mind (as Bailey points out).

Just as 'epibole' (ἡ ἐπιβολή) is 'focus,' the meaning of 'prolepsis' (ἡ πρόληψις) is simply 'a mental image.' It is the image that comes to mind when you think of something. Similar to external objects, the level of detail depends on your focus and the extent of your exposure / repeated viewings.

Quote from Cassius

You have a couple of versions of each sentence joined with a sort of "nodictionaries.com" word by word definition?

Quote from Don

Some of the grammar and definitions are basic

I want to give a very hearty thanks to you both, Don and Cassius, for your attention and comments. I am about to start giving this project more attention, and rewriting the GPT errors. I wanted to share this prototype with the group - any further comments and critiques will be appreciated and will likely help the process. Thank you.

OneDrive

Adding some of the sources for the Mithres event:

"When Metrodorus went down to the Peiraeus, a distance of some forty stades, to help one Mithres, a Syrian, a royal officer who had been arrested, letters went out to everyone, men and women alike, with Epicurus' solemn glorification of that journey." (Plutarch, Reply to Colotes, 1126E)

"...the letters [Epicurus] sent to his friends as he extolled and magnified Metrodorus, telling how nobly and manfully he went from town to the coast to help Mithres the Syrian, and this although Metrodorus accomplished nothing on that occasion." (Plutarch, A pleasant life is impossible 1097B)

Quote from Martin

I guess it is that counter-interintuitive loss which is disturbing with the theories of relativity. I felt this disturbance, too.

Thank you Martin, yes that gets to the heart of my objection.

Allow me to press a little farther: I wonder if the calculations for relativity fit together because they are self-referential and constructed with their own set of rules.

For example: it is my understanding that the speed of light has not been measured -- even if we grant that round-trips have been calculated -- the idea that light moves at a consistent speed is only a convention, is this correct?

Yet the assumption of this constancy of the speed of light is at the basis of his subsequent propositions.

Quote from Martin

Epicureans need to accept that the void can be filled with force fields.

Hello Martin,

Thank you for responding. Filling the void is easy to accept, but it is not easy to accept that the void is affected in any way, which (as far as I understand it) is ultimately part of his argument.

Can we interpret Einstein in way that leaves the void untouched and unaffected, but only the host of forces/matter?

Thank you for the conversation!

It seems to me that the data contained in sight is pre-rational and automatic whether (1) we are purposefully focusing our eyes on something, (2) we just happen to see that thing, or (3) that thing grabs our attention.

If we choose to look at a dog, the data we see about the dog will still be pre-rational upon reception. We will then immediately (but nevertheless subsequently) start thinking about this data.

Similarly our anticipations are honest witnesses that report directly the data contained in the perpetuated disturbances that strike and stimulate the mind. Just like sight, anticipations/stereotypes are pre-rational and automatic whether (1) we focus on them, (2) we observe them as they come and go, or (3) they grab our attention.

Examples:

(1) We choose to think of a dog, the general stereotype (our anticipation) of a dog automatically strikes our mind -- and from this pre-rational basis -- we can then immediately begin to manipulate the idea/image of a dog.

(2) We let the images come and go without thought or analysis -- most often when we are very relaxed or sleeping.

(3) We see a dog-like thing, the general stereotype (our anticipation) of a dog automatically strikes our mind -- we can then immediately (but nevertheless subsequently) begin to think "this is a dog," "this is a dog-like animal," or "this is actually just a statue of a dog."

(excuse my slight swerve from the topic)

This is fun:

Quote from Relativity: The Special and General Theory, 1916, Translated: Robert W. Lawson

The purpose of mechanics is to describe how bodies change their position in space with "time." I should load my conscience with grave sins against the sacred spirit of lucidity were I to formulate the aims of mechanics in this way, without serious reflection and detailed explanations. Let us proceed to disclose these sins.

It is not clear what is to be understood here by "position" and "space." I stand at the

window of a railway carriage which is travelling uniformly, and drop a stone on the

embankment, without throwing it. Then, disregarding the influence of the air resistance, I see the stone descend in a straight line. A pedestrian who observes the misdeed from the footpath notices that the stone falls to earth in a parabolic curve. I now ask: Do the "positions" traversed by the stone lie "in reality" on a straight line or on a parabola?

Moreover, what is meant here by motion "in space" ? From the considerations of the

previous section the answer is self-evident. In the first place we entirely shun the vague word "space," of which, we must honestly acknowledge, we cannot form the slightest conception, and we replace it by "motion relative to a practically rigid body of reference."

The positions relative to the body of reference (railway carriage or embankment) have

already been defined in detail in the preceding section. If instead of " body of reference" we insert "system of co-ordinates," which is a useful idea for mathematical description, we are in a position to say : The stone traverses a straight line relative to a system of coordinates rigidly attached to the carriage, but relative to a system of co-ordinates rigidly attached to the ground (embankment) it describes a parabola. With the aid of this example it is clearly seen that there is no such thing as an independently existing trajectory, but only a trajectory relative to a particular body of reference.

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When it is put so simply, it is easy to simply disagree with it.

Ultimately, Einstein throws away the void, and his "vacuum" is affected by gravity.

Thanks for sharing!

Yes (expanding on what I said in KD24) instead of using the modern analogy of ‘focusing’ the mind (as though the mind were something like a camera), Epicureans used the analogy of ‘throwing’ or ‘casting’ the mind (as though the mind were something like a net). The paraphrases animī iniectus ("throwing the mind") and ἡ επιβολή τῆς διανοίας ("casting the mind upon") therefore are equivalent to our modern use of ‘attention' or 'focus' in the broad sense. Everything from trying to hear a particular sound out of many to focusing on our automatic mental images/stereotypes.

As Lucretius says, often things in the room with us are totally out of our thoughts, so much so they may as well be miles away—until we focus on them. He says the same of our mental images. Many people are very busy and ignore all but the most pressing impressions that cannot be ignored for life to continue (stereotypes of dangerous things, for example).

There is also the idea (cynically promoted by those who prefer that they -- not you -- are in control of your thoughts) that if a stereotype is wrong even once it is invalid. But abandoning this natural mechanism would make us defenseless in body and enfeebled in the mind. In reality nobody can actually live for very long without using them.

If some people tell you to stop relying on your senses as the basis of your thinking, you must stop trusting those people.

Epibolai really just means “focus.” We understand the eyes can focus on a specific range within the sea of information around us, whereas the ears can focus on a different range within this sea of information, and so for the rest of the senses.

As we know, there is a lot more data out there. From radio waves to radiation, there are many perpetuated disturbances (waves/eidola) all around us that carry information that our external senses do not pick up.

Epicurus understood the internal sense of the mind also focuses on a range of this information, which produces mental images (prolepseis). If we have a thought that is not based on images – it is just "a label on an empty box" (hypolepsis). So, we are talking about a “mental picture.”

Just as when we increase our views of the formerly distant tower, we come to see it’s true nature – as we increase our views of these mental pictures, while guided by the laws of nature, we are more acutely able to focus on and more accurately able see what exists within the universe.

The anticipations are these mental pictures, and mental focus (ἡ ἐπιβολή τῆς διανοίας) is our attention to them.

Quote from Pacatus

...the distinction by the Pyrrhonians between “criteria for truth” (which they found suspect – at least with regard to certain knowledge about “nonevident matters”) and “criteria for agency.” That latter may be uncertain, but can be the best evidence we have to make choices and act upon. It strikes me that, based on Dr. Glidden’s analysis, the prolepseis might fall into that second category.

Yes, it is interesting that Dr. Glidden is keeping the anticipations distinct from the visual focus of the mind (αἱ φανταστικαί Ἐπιβολαί τῆς διανοίας), and not accepting the anticipations as a criteria of truth. I have preferred to coalesce them.

He takes Diogenes as being sloppy here "[10.31] They reject dialectic as superfluous; holding that in their inquiries the physicists should be content to employ the ordinary terms for things. Now in The Canon Epicurus affirms that our sensations and anticipations and our feelings are the standards of truth ; the Epicureans generally make the visual focus of the mind to be also standards."

He prefers to stick to Epicurus "[KD24] If you reject even one sensation and you will not separate (1) a theory about what is still pending, versus (2) what is actually present according to the senses, feelings, and the visual focus of the mind: then you will disturb the remaining senses with empty thought – as you will be rejecting the whole basis of judgment."

Some people point to the non-sequiturs and repetitions in DRN as evidence of it not being fully edited (Let us forget Jerome’s silly statement regarding Cicero’s editing). The repetitions are certainly present, but they are short and cover important points. Happily, more often when there seems to be some lines missing, the text picks up on the same topic. We do not know the state of the manuscript the Carolingians copied from, and the bottom/tops of some of the pages may have been missing or illegible.

Some say that it is unfinished because there is no full section on the gods. It is true that Lucretius does promise to talk at length about the gods (tibi posterius largo sermone probabo – I will show to you later in a large discourse, 5.155), but does not do so.

Some even argue that is is unfinished because it ends on the topic of mass death. However, the beginning of the book is about birth and the end is about death, which seems appropriate to me. The books are all about the same length, with the later books being a bit longer.

The ancient DRN probably did not have the gaps we have. Munro says “not that the great mass of his poem is not in a sound and satisfactory state… but owing to the way in which it has been handed down, his text has suffered in some portions irreparable loss.”

PHerc. 365 may be DRN book 2. But there is too little there to even be certain if it is DRN or not. So the earliest manuscript we have is the one from Dungal of Bobbio when he was in Saint-Denis working in a Carolingian scriptorium between 811 and 825.

There are very many good things about this book. To highlight a few:

Excellent introduction – lots of vocabulary treasures from our school are given in Greek and clearly explained – and you make those bright terms shine even brighter by contrasting them with darkness, as אפיקורוס (“epikorós” meaning “heretic”) is also presented and explained.

Adding art throughout the text is an excellent choice. Other traditions focus so much on words and logic, they forget to use their eyes as a basis of their thinking. Epicureans do not make this mistake. I am slowly producing an edition of Lucretius that has no text and is only pictures.

The double columns on each page are a very appealing formatting choice. The Herculaneum papyri shows how slender the columns were in ancient texts (often only 15 to 20 letters long), so double columns on each page is a format we can embrace with ancient precedent.

The section headings are masterful. Breaking up the original works into labeled sections seems necessary and your work here is excellent. This adds a lot of coherency and accessibility. Coupled with the columns, this book is not a wall of text, but clearly labeled, easily digestible and inviting sections.