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Cassius
PostOctober 17, 2026 at 11:44 AM I am adding this summary prepared with Claude to EpicurusToday.com:
https://epicurustoday.com/02-key-sources/identicalthings/ -
Cassius
PostOctober 17, 2026 at 10:42 AM When we finished last week we were grapplying with the following statement by Lucullus (the Stoic), and we will start again with it this week, from Section 18 of Book 2 -
And that must be very absurd which you sometimes are in the habit of saying, when… -
Cassius
ThreadOctober 17, 2026 at 10:15 AM Welcome to Episode 356 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the… -
Kalosyni
October 17, 2026 at 10:09 AM Replied to the thread Ancient Greek/Roman Customs, Culture, and Clothing.Post[…]
I can't find any source that says "styled and trimmed", just this:
Alciphron's Letters of Parasites, translation by A. R. Benner and F. H. Forbes, as quoted in The Mask of Socrates, the relevant sentence reads: “And there was the Epicurean… -
Bryan
October 17, 2026 at 1:14 AM Replied to the thread Ancient Greek/Roman Customs, Culture, and Clothing.Post“The Epicureans wore styled and trimmed beards” I do not see the source for this information in the article… do we know where the source is? -
Cassius
October 16, 2026 at 5:38 PM Posted the thread Excellent Article By Eikadistes On The "Epicurean Paradox" About the Gods.Thread -
Pacatus
October 16, 2026 at 4:15 PM Replied to the thread Episode 355 - EATAQ37 - Have We Lived All Our Lives In A House of Mirrors?.Post[…]
Yes. Absolutely. But it can take time, education and effort (and often some kind of therapy) to unravel conditioning (often fear-baesd) that begins at very early age, and becomes subconsciously embedded (I have before compared it to a long, slow,… -
Cassius
October 16, 2026 at 4:07 PM Replied to the thread Episode 355 - EATAQ37 - Have We Lived All Our Lives In A House of Mirrors?.PostSummary
Continuing Book Two of Cicero's Academic Questions, Cassius and Joshua go back through Section 18 in detail, focusing on the figure at the center of Lucullus's epistemology: the Stoic wise man, who withholds his assent from anything that could… -
Cassius
October 16, 2026 at 3:54 PM Replied to the thread Episode 355 - EATAQ37 - Have We Lived All Our Lives In A House of Mirrors?.PostAs I see it at least one huge problem with both Plato's cave and any allegory that we are living in a house of mirrors is this: Who gives Plato the right to suggest that nature is the equivalent of a set of manipulators who are holding us in chains… -
Pacatus
October 16, 2026 at 3:42 PM Replied to the thread Episode 355 - EATAQ37 - Have We Lived All Our Lives In A House of Mirrors?.PostOh agreed. But I also think that often people seem to "defraud" themselves into such beliefs, mostly from fear and social/cultural conditioning. (I know I did for many years.) -
Cassius
October 16, 2026 at 2:46 PM Replied to the thread Episode 355 - EATAQ37 - Have We Lived All Our Lives In A House of Mirrors?.Post[…]
That's definitely the word used in philosophic discussion, but I think it's far too generous and sounds much too nice to adequately describe what is really going on. Plato and the Stoics aren't saying "Why not the best?" They are saying "I don't… -
Cassius
October 16, 2026 at 1:17 PM Replied to the thread EpicureanFriends Provisional AI Posting Policies.Post[…]
I completely agree as to society in general. Here, however, we can hold people to that standard. -
Pacatus
October 16, 2026 at 12:53 PM Replied to the thread Episode 355 - EATAQ37 - Have We Lived All Our Lives In A House of Mirrors?.Post[…]
In a word: Idealism. Michael Onfray in his Hedonist Manifesto pretty much lays it all back on Plato -- And Plato's successors (e.g. Christianity, Kant):
"There is only this: the real, matter, life, and living. Platonism declares war on all of it,… -
Cassius
October 16, 2026 at 12:25 PM Replied to the thread Episode 355 - EATAQ37 - Have We Lived All Our Lives In A House of Mirrors?.PostAlso - as we go forward in the coming weeks, i am going to suggest that there is a common thread - a common denominator - a common problem - shared by both the Plato's cave analogy and the house of mirrors analogy - that Epicurus is revealing to us as… -
Pacatus
October 16, 2026 at 12:16 PM Replied to the thread EpicureanFriends Provisional AI Posting Policies.Post[…]
I'm not going to swing back into the AI debates. I will just say that only a little critical observation of society -- including business and politics -- suggests those expectations are at least a bit naïve. -
Cassius
October 16, 2026 at 12:00 PM Replied to the thread Episode 355 - EATAQ37 - Have We Lived All Our Lives In A House of Mirrors?.PostI think this is a good episode covering important points, including one with which we closed the episode, in which Lucullus (the Stoic) thows an accusation at the Skeptics:
[…]
We'll return to this in the upcoming episode so any suggestions as to the best… -
Cassius
October 16, 2026 at 11:40 AM Replied to the thread Episode 355 - EATAQ37 - Have We Lived All Our Lives In A House of Mirrors?.PostLucretius Today Podcast Episode 354 is now available: "Have We Lived All Our Lives In A House Of Mirrors?"
spreaker.com/episode/75827181/media -
Kalosyni
October 16, 2026 at 8:09 AM Replied to the thread Ancient Greek/Roman Customs, Culture, and Clothing.PostInteresting historical trivia, saying Epicurean men wore styled and trimmed beards:
[…]
Source
*****
Edit note on October 17, 2026: have not found a true source for the phrase "styled and trimmed". -
Cassius
October 15, 2026 at 5:34 PM Replied to the thread EpicureanFriends Provisional AI Posting Policies.PostOver the last 20 years probably no single person has had more of an impact on developments in the computer world than Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, the software kernel that runs so much of the computer world today.
I don't consider Torvalds to be… -
Cassius
October 15, 2026 at 3:56 PM Replied to the thread The Full Epicurean Reasoning Regarding a Material Universe.PostThanks for the link. I think I've seen people link to this before but I've never listened myself and it would be interesting to get feedback from those who have.
In the meantime, I have to question the attention to detail, or sympathy to Epicurus, of a… -
Kalosyni
October 15, 2026 at 2:27 PM Replied to the thread The Full Epicurean Reasoning Regarding a Material Universe.PostBeyond just reading Book 3 of Lucretius, this lecture could be helpful regarding the nature of the soul:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=cB39d7GhXJo -
wbernys
October 15, 2026 at 11:42 AM Replied to the thread Epilepsy in Epicureanism.Post[…]
Let's just hope I don't die looking like a porcupine as well lol. -
Cassius
October 15, 2026 at 11:18 AM Replied to the thread Epilepsy in Epicureanism.PostGood luck Wbernys! As to epilepsy I suppose there is no more famous (traditional) example than Julius Caesar, as I am sure you've heard, so you're in prestigious company. -
wbernys
October 15, 2026 at 10:39 AM Posted the thread Epilepsy in Epicureanism.ThreadHello all, I apologize for missing the Wednesday meeting. I was getting discharged from the hospital.
I then got a nasty toothache so all around had a shitty week, I managed to learn the truth of both sides of the coin of PD4, I have general epilepsy,… -
Cassius
October 15, 2026 at 9:24 AM Posted the thread Philosophical Implications of Jason And The Argonauts.ThreadI am setting up this thread as a placeholder for potential future discussion of the story of Jason and the Argonauts. This comes to mind because there is a well known 1963 movie version which I recently came across, and due to the recent rise of… -
Kalosyni
October 15, 2026 at 8:52 AM Replied to the thread The Full Epicurean Reasoning Regarding a Material Universe.PostHere are my notes from last night's Zoom meeting:
Apologies as these are pretty rough. After the topic was presented, we went around the Zoom circle to ask for thoughts. I did not take note of who said what, so these are anonymous.
***
atomic theory -->… -
Cassius
October 15, 2026 at 5:57 AM Replied to the thread The Full Epicurean Reasoning Regarding a Material Universe.PostWe had a good discussion of this topic in our live meeting of October 14.
It's not enough just to have a passing familiarity with genera Epicurean physics or even atomnism. Simply granting that the universe is made of particles does not at all guarantee… -
Kalosyni
October 14, 2026 at 7:17 PM Replied to the thread The Full Epicurean Reasoning Regarding a Material Universe.PostCreating a concise explanation would also be the basis and reasoning behind recognizing that the soul is mortal and that the gods are indifferent.
This might be of interest: Chapter 2 - "Atomic Worlds" of Catherine Wilson's book Epicureanism: A Very Short… -
Kalosyni
October 14, 2026 at 6:43 PM Posted the thread The Full Epicurean Reasoning Regarding a Material Universe.ThreadI wanted to start this thread so that we can create a concise explanation of the reasoning from start to finish about how we come to understand that the universe is a material universe. This would be based on both Letter to Pythocles and Letter to… -
Cassius
October 13, 2026 at 9:05 PM Replied to the thread Episode 354 - EATAQ36 - The "Monstrous Absurdity" of Academic Skepticism.Post[…]
To really hone in on the issue, we probably need to be very clear about what it would mean "to be the same cat." I presume that two cats might be absolutely identical in every way, even potentially in experience, but the key issue is whether THEY…
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