Posts by Eikadistes

Happy Thanksgiving! Have a toast to the health of the belly.

Quote from Cassius

I'm totally good with the pleasures of the stomach, but the thrust of many of these quotes makes the belly appear to be more important than any other part of the body

Well, it might be.

I was just thinking about this the other day. I was asking myself, "If I had to take a basic math test, would I score better with a stomach virus? Or with heartbreak?" I'm not sure if the answer would be the same for everyone, but I decided that I could manage with heartbreak (or turmoil better). With a stomach virus, I'd feel incapable of mustering the focus to apply critical thought. With heartbreak, through extreme focus, I can make the numbers make sense. I was thinking back to when I took the SATs, and I do well on those kind of tests, and I was a psychiatric mess when I took it. But when, back in the day, I'd suffer a hangover, I could barely focus on my name, let alone algebra.

I'm also thinking in terms of the value of digestive processes versus intellectual faculties for growing organisms. Depressive thoughts can mislead you, but a stomach ache is as honest as your eyes. It will never give you severe pain without a concerning, physical cause. Sometimes the mind hypes itself up. At that, we have the Epicurean Doctrine about the infinite desires of the mind, because, without a sharp intellect, the mind doesn't self-regulate. But the stomach won't let you trick yourself. You can't just shove something down that makes you sick the way you can repress bad memories ... well, maybe to a degree, but I think you see what I mean, in general.

Quote from Don

WHO owns the hardware

I'm eagerly anticipating evidence.

"And therefore, [when] this [proposition is] definitely, in fact, [unconfirmed, then] one must withhold a judgment, so that neither is the criteria [of the kanṓn] being confuted against the [self-evident] clarity [of nature], nor is the [evidence] being neglected [so that] similarly everything [that] is [otherwise capable of] being validated is [now] being confounded." (Ep. Her. 10.52)

Quote from Kalosyni

Quote from Cassius

I have anticipated you Fortune and I have entrenched myself against all your secret attacks. I have not and will not give myself up as captive to you or to any other circumstance. When it is time for me to go, I will spit contempt upon those who vainly cling to life, and I will leave life crying aloud in glorious triumph that I have lived well.

I also want to say that the "spitting contempt" part just doesn't make sense from an Epicurean standpoint - at least in my mind. The Epicurean would be too busy either: enjoying a last taste of something pleasurable, or busy remembering an event that was one of the best moments of life.

The original manuscript shows the verb προσπτύσαντες (prosptúsantes, or “embracing“) as opposed to the nearly-identical verb προπτύσαντες (proptúsantes, or “spitting on“). Metródōros either means to “embrace the great inevitability” or “spit upon great fear“. I'm with you in preferring the former.

Quote from Robert

The fact that Epicurus influenced thinkers as divergent as Jefferson and Marx blows my mind.

No doubt! Once I saw a few Lucretian callbacks in Shakespeare, I began compiling a list of other writers who make explicit or indirect mention of either Epicurean Philosophy or De Rerum Natura (usually the latter, having been received from Latin): Bacon, Bergson, Byron, Chaucer, de Bergerac, Darwin, Deleuze, Descartes, Diderot, d’Holbach, Dryden, Einstein, Erasmus, Frederick II, Freud, Gassendi, Goethe, Halley, Hitchens, Hobbes, Horace, Hume, Kant, La Mettrie, Leo X, Locke, Lovecraft, Machiavelli, Milton, Montaigne, Newton, Nietzsche, Pope, Rousseau, Sagan, Santayana, Shakespeare, Spenser, Spinoza, Stevenson, Tennyson, Thomsen, Virgil, Voltaire, Whitman, and Wordsworth.

Quote from DaveT

Eikadistes Yes, thank you. I understand your reply, but can you address my use of the Internet description of divine simulacra:

Quote from DaveT

"Ancient Philosophy (Epicureanism): In Epicurean philosophy, "divine simulacra" (or eidola) were believed to be fine atomic emanations that constantly stream from the "quasi-bodies" of the gods and strike human perception. Perceiving these simulacra was a way for humans to form a concept (prolepsis) of the gods, who were seen as models of perfect happiness and imperturbability, but who did not actively intervene in human affairs."

I respectfully believe that the original quote creates a misconception about the nature of "divine simulacra" by mistakenly equating the words "eidola" with "divine images": eidola are not necessarily "divine", most are just the mundane images we see throughout the day with our eyes. I have not found "eidola" to be exclusively linked with "god images" in the original texts, so far as εἴδωλᾰ (eídōla) is employed by Epíkouros in the Epistle to Herodotos, as well as the context in which eídōla are discussed by Philódēmos in his treatise On Piety , as well as the way that Lucretius fluidly employs simulacra throughout De Rerum Natura (I'll cite each Lucretius' examples).

We inherit simulacra from Lucretius, who employed it as an approximation for the Greek eídōla. It is translated by H. A. J. Munro (whom I consider to be reliable) as "images" (1.1060, 2.24, 3.433, 6.420), "representations" (2.110), "mimicry" (2.324) and "idols" (1.123, 5.62, 5.308, 6.80). Lucretius also compares the concept of simulacra as "representations" against imago or "pictures" (2.112). Munro personally inflects simulacra as "idols" instead of "images" when referring to the "pictures of the gods", however, both divine images ("of the gods") and non-divine images (of normal stuff) are constituted of simulacra as is preserved in the language that Lucretius uses.

He pays particular attention to these the visual-mental act of forming internal images in Book Four of De Rerum Natura, using declensions of the word simulacra several dozen times. A number of scholars have found it helpful to loosely equate the "films" of the "images" (eídōla and simulacra) with the contemporary concept of photons, generally speaking, the physical particles of light that we perceive. These particles (eídōla or simulacra), as the authors describe in high resolution, physically travel from an external body, through the air, and collide with our eyes, creating an impulse that travels through a perceptual relay, creating an internal cascade that yields an internal representation that is apprehensible by the human intellect, experienced by the "mind's eye".

These stanzas in Book Four corresponds with notions expressed by Epíkouros in the Epistle to Herodotos (10.46-51). Lucretius means to faithfully represent Epíkouros' teachings in Latin verse, so his neologisms and descriptions of the fact that "things open to sight many emit bodies" corresponds with the Hegemon describing that the "impinging [of images occurs] on account of a certain thing from the outside[that enables] us to observe and to consider" (10.49). In each case, the authors consistently explain that the images that human beings reproduce as visual representations in the mind are limited to real forms that have been physically observed in nature. For example, a culture cannot create the myth of a centaur without having some knowledge of a horse.

It is important to mention that in both Ep. Her. (49-51) and DRN 4, the authors do not discuss the formation of "divine" images, or delineate them as images originating from a special class of beings. Philódēmos, however, provides a high resolution description in On Piety, and compares the formation of "numerically-distinct" images that reflect a "singular", body in one's external environment versus "sublimated" streams of "compatible" images that form in the imagination from a variety of visual inspirations. Philódēmos explicitly categorizes "the images of the gods" as being the latter, images formed in the imagination from a variety of sources. By contrast Epíkouros and Lucretius only ever refer to the eídola and simulacra of everyday objects like architecture and animals. Our conception of "the form of a god" or "the gods" is necessarily conditioned by the visible particles that have previously emanated from human forms, whether those forms are the bodies of our friends, statues of the gods, or drawings of superheroes.

Given this, I want to (respectfully) caution against translators who interpret the "the images of the gods" as "a special class of 'god' particles that originate from 'god'-bodies that exist as animal-beings in a specially-privileged 'god'-biome in outer space that physically exists 'external' of the human mind". I want to caution against translators who interpret "images traveling through space" to mean "...through the vacuum of deep, outer space" rather than simply "...traveling from a Google Search page, through the two feet in front of your computer screen, into your eyeball."

I think it is really important to consider Philódēmos' delineation of images into the two categories of things that truly correspond with singular, unitary, external objects versus things that only exist as constructions within the human imagination (which is not to lessen the value of their existence as "real" things, just not things that "truly" correspond with singular, unitary objects, independent of the mind). Without considering Philódēmos, I think translators inductively project the manner in which normal images (like a horse) form onto the ways in which "divine" images form, as though the gods are like horses, but in a god barn, somewhere on a god farm, beyond our universe.

I mean all of this as respectfully as I am a total amateur when it comes to linguistics.

Quote from DaveT

And then can you address my question earlier, if divine simulacra stream from those "quasi-bodies" of the gods (in the quote above) does Epicurus consider that the simulacra comes from the gods.?

"Quasi-bodies" comes from Cicero's character Velleius — Cassius , here's an example of where I think Cicero is misleading us into an exaggerated conception without explicitly making a "false" statements. When it comes to this topic, I personally want to avoid Cicero's input, and focus strictly on what Epíkouros and Philódēmos have to say about the formation of internal images. The notion of "quasi-bodies", here again, makes it sound like "the gods" are space ghosts made of aether, and that their simulacra are traveling from deep space like x-rays from a quasar. From my humble understanding, the "quasi-bodies" of Velleius should properly refer to "the physical representation that is being physically stored in our physical, human memory" and, further, that this intellectual representation in memory was formed by seeing mundane people in everyday life. Men may think of Aphrodite as having those features that appeal to their subjective sense of arousal based on their experiences with women whom they have found to be attractive. The gods are pristine physical specimens (as per cultural standards of beauty) — the men are ripped like body builders, the women are soft and voluptuous (...here again, with everyone, I want to emphasize, context aside, that we treat Marvel superheroes eerily similarly with the way gods were depicted).

In summation, based on the above sources, I want to suggest that thinking of simulacra as "emanating from external gods" only makes sense in terms of observing stone statues, or in terms of retrieving visual constructions from memory. I don't think the gods are space radios.

Quote from DaveT

And if Epicurus does consider it so, if the gods are indeed influencing mankind's actions in a passive sort of way, isn't this opposite from being indifferent, as I thought Epicurus declared?

While I want to reinforce, as Diogénes writes, that Epíkouros "only" saw the gods as being "apprehensible" through a directed act of "contemplation" by the "intellect" (10.139), even if we are to consider "the gods" to be a class of space ghosts who broadcast dreams through radio waves ... one way of the other, "the gods'" are indifferent and unconcerned with our happiness. The "indifference" of the gods is part of their definition. They are untroubled. They have no stress, no concern, no anxiety, no fear of death, and, therefore, no bio-chemical compulsion to stick out their necks to protect temporary, fragile, extra-terrestrial forms of life (in this case, us, Earthlings). They have so many better things to do than straighten out American healthcare (for example), or ensure that human life is improved through a proliferation of universal, scientific literacy, or mitigate the impact of climate change ... regardless of whether they are space ghosts or comic books.

(I really want to emphasize the "reality" of fictional super-people. The "spirit of Christmas" is a total, mythic fabrication ... that has a measurable, socio-economic impact on our culture. The "spirit of Christmas" is indifferent to its socio-economic impact, as are the images of the gods).

I hope this helps! I'm also throwing a few of my own ideas out there for general consideration. Cicero is an exceptional source, but also, a biased one. He was a laywer... he had an agenda, and that agenda was not to produce a neutral, historical survey of competing thoughts. He meant to discredit his opponents by tearing holes in their arguments. It behooved him to exxagerate.

That's awesome! Very cool idea.

Quote from DaveT

but focusing on the definition from the Internet on Epicureanism, I'm wondering if his philosophy considers that the simulacra comes from the gods. And then if the gods are indeed influencing mankind's actions in a passive sort of way, isn't this opposite from being indifferent, as I thought Epicurus declared?

"Superman" positively inspired generations of kids, even if he only existed in 64 colors.

"Lady Liberty" continues to wield a torch for many, even if she's fixed in bronze.

So long as we identify "the gods" as images ("simulacra", "eidola"), those images, like any other symbols, have measurable impacts on our physical lives. The image of Jesus Christ, itself, is a huge influence to billions of people. "Jesus" doesn't need to "truly" exist to have influence.

Quote from Cassius

Quote from Eikadistes

Cicero is speaking through Velleius, and using him as a literary tool, ultimately to persuade his audience to his cause, not necessarily provide an objective survey of history. So, I think that anything that the character Velleius proposes in Cicero's narrative needs to be referenced against the established doctrines set by Epíkouros and preserved by Philódēmos. There are a few things Cicero records that are surprising, so I read him cautiously.

Eikadistes I agree with this general concern, but as of yet I have not (to my memory) run into anything spoken by Velleius that I have found reason to question as being in actual or potential conflict with any other authoritative texts. Have you seen anything in particular to question from that section? If any occur to you over time and you remember this thread I hope you'll point them out so we can include those caveats in future discussions.

I'm with you there. I think my primary criticism is with the authenticity of the characters' arguments rather than the coherence of the arguments. Overwhelmingly, I like what he has to say. For example, his characterization of mythic gods as "world-builders" who may have suffered from ennui, or found themselves alone in an infinite dungeon of darkness, reminds me of the critical tone Diogenes takes against the cartoonish depictions of "god". I particularly like this critical approach.

I wonder, however, if these observations reflect statements made by Epíkouros, himself, anywhere in On Nature or another text, or whether these are comical inferences (though coherent) made by a later admirer? Or else, here again, are the amusing examples described by Velleius poetic devices employed by Cicero to shape his character and enliven his text for readers? I think a sympathetic reader would find Velleius to be an enjoyable character, and I would personally wish for this likable depiction to reflects a real, likable personality from history. Though, I could also see how an opponent might find Velleius to be disrespectful or mocking, in which case, the characterizing of Velleius as mocking by his opponents (if that's how you read it) might have been Cicero's way to discredit his opponent by associating their philosophy with jarring behavior.

For example, with his discussion of the composition of the "blood" of deities — that seems (to me) like it may have been a point of fascination with Cicero, or his readers, but I'm not sure that the Epicurean philosophers had interest in the topic of "god blood". I haven't found discussion of "god blood" in any of the Hellenistic texts. This could potentially be a strawman argument to make Epicureans seem like they represent their positions in a ... cartoonish (?) way. Velleius at a point seems unable to further elaborate upon his argument, and resorts to justification by authority (which is not one of the three criteria of knowledge): "Though these distinctions were more acutely devised and more artfully expressed by Epicurus than any common capacity can comprehend". Or, I may be treating the characterization unfairly. I'm just suspicious of it as a literary tool or a rhetorical tactic.

I've been thinking about it kind of like this: imagine one philosopher shows another the spatter from someone getting shot in a video game. They point at the screen and ask, "what's happened?" The other person probably wouldn't say, "oh, well our eyes are observing the images generated on the LCD screen from optical output rendered in a computer..." — they'd say, "That's a kill streak. So bloody..." Now, of course, they wouldn't mean, warm, sticky, real blood from a human animal in need of immediate medical intervention, they'd just mean "the comic violence that just happened on-screen". ... now, imagine that you personally walk into a room, expecting to hold a symposium with two friends with opposing philosophies, and the topic of conversation is a heated discussion over ... the "reality" of the cartoon blood ... and both sides are passionately engaged in the argument ... well, I might roll my eyes and wonder "Is this the caliber of thought I'm dealing with?"

If I'm Cicero, and I want to convince undecided voters that the attractive, rational, Epicurean position is false, I might try to associate the position with figures who gets caught up on ideas like "god blood". That's not to say it's incoherent. I think a huge part of Epicurean theology was to demonstrate that the images of the mind are all "real", just not necessarily "true". Breaking down, however, god bodies into amalgamations of organs, and not eidola, seems like it could be a kind of red herring or else a sort of scarecrow from Cicero. ... or not, but, I'm suspicious.

It's an exceptional resource. It also may not be the best resource for new students.

As an academic text, The Handbook is organized as a collection of essays from respected scholars. In total (in over 800 pages), they present a synoptic view of Epicurean Philosophy; in particular, each focuses on a specific topic; some of those topics are much more narrow in scope than other overviews. Sometimes, the topics covered express interpretative disagreements in contemporary scholarship; in these cases, a background in the philosophy may be assumed by the author.

I think that students may struggle with the presentation — for example, depending on the author, and the author's voice, they may, or may not assume that you already know ancient Greek, or may or may not employ non-standard, in-text citations, or may over-use academic jargon, so I anticipate that some of the essays might strike new readers as being (understandably) obfusticating. Some of the topics are tangential, and inter-disciplinary, so I think of The Handbook as more of a supplement.

Still, each essay is filled with great information. The book is expansive, and the authors, as one would expect of academics, provide voluminous support for their analyses. You'll also find a wealth of peripheral, historical information as it relates to non-Epicureans, and modern philsophers.

It's also chunky enough that it stands up on its own on a bookshelf.

Quote from Matteng

Hi,

How do you see the Stoic theory/ view of the passions/ pathei/apatheia/ eupathei and hoe differ it in the Epicurean view ? I know Philodemus did there much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoic_passions

As far as I know, each tradition's evaluation of "desire" and "passion" contradict.

For Epicureans, "feeling", itself, is one of the principle criteria of knowledge. We accept that the "affective sympathies" we feel are as informative as the colors we see. As Epíkouros writes, wise people will feel anger at injustice, and will experience pain upon being tortured. In each case, the lack of anger, or pain would make us numb and passive. We would feel apathy and indifference.

Meanwhile, "apathy" and "indifference" are preferred by those who see emotions, themselves, as deviant ripples the disrupt the pure, unblemished surface of the clear pond that is the mind. I think we'll find other parallels to many contemplative traditions that view pleasant emotions with suspicion, and privilege a sort of pure, neutral state to fun and laughter.

Quote from Matteng

When I understood Philodemus right, I think the Epicurean view would only match with the Stoic view when the Emotion

1) has harmful consequences ( pleasure then is not choiceworthy for example )
2) is irrational, based on empty believe
3) is based on unnecessary desire

I think you're on-point, there. Anger with harmful consequences, irrational anger, or anger based on unnecessary desires marks the line over which we are recommended not the cross, in which anger metastasizes into wrath or rage, as Philódēmos reinforces in On Anger.

Quote from Martin

There seems to be a mix-up of two different usages of "irrational":
The usage in the quote seems to indicate that "irrational" is something "bad", against reason, to be avoided.
The other usage is neutral and refers to sensations, emotions, feelings being fundamentally, by definition, irrational, in contrast to something we have obtained with reasoning.

This is a great point, and just to demonstrate the fluidity of the usage, Diogénēs' records Epíkouros as having employed the word ἄλογός (alogós), or "irrational" to refer to sensation:

“'For every' [Epíkouros] affirms 'sensation is irrational and moved by no single memory...'" (10.31)

In the Epistle to Herodotos, the Hegemon uses another declension of that same word ἀλόγῳ (alógoi) to refer to the veracity beliefs that are incoherent, foolish, or absurd:

"...[the study of nature] will banish anything irrational..." (10.81)

Quote from DaveT

How could Cicero know so much detail of the views of so many Greek thinkers on the divinities he referred to in this narrative?

Cicero, himself, visited the Athenian Garden under the leadership of Zḗnōn of Sidon, a scholarch who instructed Philódēmos — Philódēmos, himself, was a contemporary of Cicero. Many of Cicero's texts are responses to contemporary philosophical opponents with whom he was actively corresponding (not Philódēmos in this case, but other contemporaries, and Roman inheritors of the Hellenistic traditions). He lived at a unique, cultural intersection of professional law and national politics, so his relations were diverse and his resources were expansive. He was in the thick of it.

As a general observation, however, I think we should take caution against receiving Velleius at his word, because Velleius isn't always speaking — Cicero is speaking through Velleius, and using him as a literary tool, ultimately to persuade his audience to his cause, not necessarily provide an objective survey of history. So, I think that anything that the character Velleius proposes in Cicero's narrative needs to be referenced against the established doctrines set by Epíkouros and preserved by Philódēmos. There are a few things Cicero records that are surprising, so I read him cautiously.

As far as the dialogue is represented Cassius , great video! The text provides a wealth of attestation that reinforces existing opinions and the presentation exhibits it clearly; it also reliably provides a critique that accurately represents the criticism from Epicurean opponents.

Quote from Kalosyni

Since we don't have an American annual ritual of ancestor veneration, then I think it would feel awkwar to try to start doing that, especially if as Epicureans we don't believe that a spirit survives death.

I find a bit of a facsimile in Memorial Day.

Greetings!

I think I found a solution.

Happy birthdays!

Quote from DaveT

Quote from Eikadistes

He quotes Epíkouros as writing "...that it is possible even for many eternal and immortal gods to exist"

"Possible" does not remotely approach

Just for the record, since I've been parsing through the Greek, he writes ἐξεῖναι (exeínai), the present, active infinitive of ἔξεστι meaning "to be possible" or also "to be allowed", so, that's a fair translation. I think he's just saying that "eternal god" concept is coherent with Epicurean physics ... so long as any given "eternal god" only exists as a formation in the minds of people.

Quote from DaveT

This general topic of who, or what gods may exist and what they do seems pretty vaguely written

I don't read it as quite "vague" in On Piety, or with the description of eidola in Herodotos.

They take us through a moment-by-moment procession of the means by which different bundles of particles coalesce to form mental images. This corresponds with Epíkouros' description in the Epistle to Herodotos of "impulses" that "sequentially" travel through a kind of "relay" in the soul to then "sublimate" together to form "images" which are then "apprehended by the intellect".

Quote from DaveT

If there is only matter and void in his world view, how can transcendent gods

Definitely no transcendent thing exists or transcends bodies and void — no doubt about that.

I purport that the natural gods (natural simply meaning "made of particles") can exist as images in the mind that coalesce together from different streams of compatible images.

Quote from DaveT

I wonder how important the existence of gods was to Epicurus anyway, since his foundation was to simply not fear the gods (if they even possibly exist?)

This is a great point, and I agree, if by "existence of gods" you mean "the presence of chunky lifeforms living beyond the stars", and I think it reinforces the notion that gods are appearances in the mind. Suppose there are not gods-as-extraordinary-lifeforms-beyond-the-stars: this in no way impacts Epicurean piety, prayer, or practice. The entire process of engaging piety only requires deities to exist as deeply inspiring icons and idols. If they aren't "'really' out there", no big deal.

Quote from DaveT

He certainly never, that I have seen, propounded on where they came from and why they exist at all, did he?

I think we can take the description from the Epistle to Herodotos as a reliable description of the formation of the mental appearance of gods. As Obbink translates in On Piety, there is a further delineation of two kinds of mental images, some bundles of particles that all come from the "same" source, and some bundles of "similar" particles that come together from multiple sources; the gods, as I read it, are identified as images of the latter, a mixture of bundles from different sources.

Nonetheless, you might appreciate the following, because after going on-and-on about all of the above in On Piety, Philódēmos (if we accept Obbink's reconstruction) concedes that “no one has been prolific in finding convincing demonstrations for the existences of the gods; nevertheless all men, with the exception of some […] worship them, as do we” (οὐδεὶς εἱκνουμένας περὶ τ[οὺ θ]εοὺς ὑπάρχε[ιν τἀς ἀπο]δείξεις εύπ[όρησ]εν· ὁμῶς δε [σέβ]ονται πάντε[ς εἱ μή παρ]άκοποί τινε[ς αὑτούς, On Piety, Col. 23, 13-17), so I think your previous point, if I'm reading you correctly, is true, that the hard, chunky, massive, physical existence of animal-like-beings, beyond-the-stars is unnecessary for the Epicurean understanding of theology and practice of piety to still be true.

Quote from Don

Are the gods athanatos in some texts?

They sure are!

Philódēmos employs the word καθανατοις (kathanatois) in lines 69-70 of On Piety.

In line 1139, he refers to ἀθάνασιαν (athanasian) or "immortality".

Quote from Don

I was under the impression that the gods were "incorruptible" and not "immortal."

On Piety gives us at least three alternatives to ἄφθαρτον (aphtharton).

He quotes Epíkouros as writing "...that it is possible even for many eternal and immortal gods to exist" (lines 65-70). Obbink translates "eternal" from [2] ἀΐδιος (áidios). Then, in line 693, he uses the word [3] διαινωια (diainōia), from "δια-" and "αινωια", roughly, "for forever".

Though, they are also "incorruptible" as per KD1 and the Epistle to Menoikeus.

One problem I also seen with the notion that the gods exist, by themselves, independent of the human mind, is that they are "eternal", whereas humans had a release date. If the human-shaped gods are "eternal" as things that exist independent of the human mind, and independent of the planet Earth, then that would imply that the human form, itself, somehow existed in the metakosmios prior to the evolution of the human animal on Earth, and that contradicts his rejection of Platonic Forms. Human forms cannot exist before witnessing human animals.

Epíkouros (in Book 12 of On Nature, so Philódēmos writes) provides a historical description of early humans beings, and the ways in which they "arrived" at conceptions of the gods. So the notion of the forms of the gods as humans see them, according to Epíkouros, has a genesis in history. That seems to reinforce the notion that human gods are not more ancient than human beings.

He further describes that the ways in which we arrive at the gods has slightly changed.

As I see it, after modern humans appeared on the scene, it didn't take us too long to develop art and invent story-telling ... set on low heat for a few dozen millennia... and voilà! You get paleolithic, limestone statues like the Venus of Willendorf, and other "Mother Goddess" depictions. After that point, I consider that (with increasing frequency) new, human children were being born into cultures that were littered with visual depictions of the forms of those beings we call "the gods". Neither you nor I invented them. Those chunky statues were waiting for us, like everything else.

That's a bit of a difference, when we're discussing how we apprehend images of the gods. Prehistoric children weren't born into cultures with god-art. We're all stuck in it.

So we're situated in this colorful place in history where no living person remembers a period of time on Earth when there were no visual depictions of gods. This period has lasted for millennia, and, so long as humans continue existing, we're going to continue to be "inundated" with god-images.

I couldn't even walk through the Advent hospital in Orlando without seeing paintings on the wall of a long-haired, white-robbed, bearded hippie, holding the hands of surgeons in the operating room. For some reason, a larger-than-lifesize mural of Adam and Eve was waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator. Pictures of smiling, winged humans were abundant. Truly, "knowledge of the gods is evident" because you can't even get medical care without running into pictures of them.

And this, I think, is where I see practical coherence with the word "immortal". Friendship is also described as "immortal", and it has a definite beginning. It's not immortal both ways, it's only immortal going forward, into the future. Likewise, "the gods" don't need to have existed infinitely from the past. Their forms just need to have the possibility of being reproduced after the deaths of those who contemplate them. Visual art provides us (I think) with a great analogy: the form of Aphrodite is "immortal" in this regard, because even though individual marble constructions can be broken, the form can be reproduced forever. That's why we have busts on our desks.

So, if we distance ourselves from the idea that "immortal" means "going back forever", then that puts less necessity on the idea that "human-forms must have existed somewhere beyond the stars, over billions and billions of years ago, living life as would future-humans-on-Earth". Their mental forms are eternally-reproducible by new people imagining them, and their new forms are made of particles in new minds (just like casting new busts with new plaster to reproduce old designs).

Sorry, that was a roundabout way to make my point about "immortal".