Posts by Joshua

  • Why Everything Turns More Complex

    That is a very interesting article, Martin, thank you!


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    Kauffman argues that biological evolution is thus constantly creating not just new types of organisms but new possibilities for organisms, ones that not only did not exist at an earlier stage of evolution but could not possibly have existed. From the soup of single-celled organisms that constituted life on Earth 3 billion years ago, no elephant could have suddenly emerged — this required a whole host of preceding, contingent but specific innovations.

  • Anniversary of the Founding of Alexandria in 331 BC (Mon, Apr 7th 2025)

    Joshua created a new event:

    Event

    Anniversary of the Founding of Alexandria in 331 BC

    Following the work of the French Egyptologist Pierre Jouguet on the so-called pseudo-Callisthenes in 1940, April 7th 331 BC is the traditional date for the founding of the ancient city of Alexandria. Here is an account of that founding, from The Rise and Fall of Alexandria by Justin Pollard and Howard Reid (a book which I have listened to repeatedly, and always with pleasure):

    […]

    Mon, Apr 7th 2025
    Joshua
    April 3, 2025 at 10:16 PM

  • Epicurus and His Influence on History, Ben Gazur,

    Quote from Cleveland Okie

    One of the chapters of the book is about Titus Pomponius, “called Atticus for his love of all things Athenian.”Gazur says it is not certain that Atticus was an Epicurean, but at the very least it appears he was interested in Epicureanism and influenced by it. (I noticed there was a thread about him on this forum, and I will look at it after I post this).

    The book says that when Julius Caesar came to Athens, he stayed at Atticus’ home. It says Atticus did not take sides in various civil wars and conflicts. It also says, “His refusal to join a band of rich men in raising funds for Caesar’s assassins led to the collapse of the attempt. But when Brutus, who was a close friend, had to flee to exile he sent him money. He would not support a friend for political reasons, but never ignored a friend in need. When Brutus himself had fallen, Atticus extended friendship to the dead man’s mother, despite the risks.”

    Today (March 31st) happens to be the anniversary of the death of Atticus:

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    [21] # After [Atticus] had completed, in such a course of life, seventy-seven years, and had advanced, not less in dignity, than in favour and fortune (for he obtained many legacies on no other account than his goodness of disposition), and had also been in the enjoyment of so happy a state of health, that he had wanted no medicine for thirty years, he contracted a disorder of which at first both himself and the physicians thought lightly, for they supposed it to be a dysentery, and speedy and easy remedies were proposed for it; but after he had passed three months under it without any pain, except what he suffered from the means adopted for his cure, such force of the disease fell into the one intestine, that at last a putrid ulcer broke out through his loins. Before this took place, and when he found that the pain was daily increasing, and that fever was superadded, he caused his son-in-law Agrippa to be called to him, and with him Lucius Cornelius Balbus and Sextus Peducaeus. When he saw that they were come, he said, as he supported himself on his elbow, "How much care and diligence I have employed to restore my health on this occasion, there is no necessity for me to state at large, since I have yourselves as witnesses; and since I have, as I hope, satisfied you, that I have left nothing undone that seemed likely to cure me, it remains that I consult for myself. Of this feeling on my part I had no wish that you should be ignorant; for I have determined on ceasing to feed the disease; as, by the food and drink that I have taken during the last few days, I have prolonged life only so as to increase my pains without hope of recovery. I therefore entreat you, in the first place, to give your approbation to my resolution, and in the next, not to labour in vain by endeavouring to dissuade me from executing it."

    [22] Having delivered this address with so much steadiness of voice and countenance, that he seemed to be removing, not out of life, but out of one house into another, - when Agrippa, weeping over him and kissing him, entreated and conjured him "not to accelerate that which nature herself would bring, and, since he might live some time longer, to preserve his life for himself and his friends,"- he put a stop to his prayers, by an obstinate silence. After he had accordingly abstained from food for two days, the fever suddenly left him, and the disease began to be less oppressive. He persisted, nevertheless, in executing his purpose; and in consequence, on the fifth day after he had fixed his resolution, and on the last day of March, in the consulship of Cnaeus Domitius and Caius Sosius [ 32 B.C. ], he died. His body was carried out of his house on a small couch, as he himself had directed, without any funereal pomp, all the respectable portion of the people attending, and a vast crowd of the populace. He was buried close by the Appian Way, at the fifth milestone from the city, in the sepulchre of his uncle Quintus Caecilius.

    -Cornelius Nepos, The Life of Atticus

    edit; there is a mention of Lucretius in the same source that I was unaware of;

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    He also brought off Lucius Julius Calidus, whom I think I may truly assert to have been the most elegant poet that our age has produced since the death of Lucretius and Catullus, as well as a man of high character, and distinguished by the best intellectual accomplishments, who, in his absence, after the proscription of the knights, had been enrolled in the number of the proscribed by Publius Volumnius, the captain of Antonius's engineers, on account of his great possessions in Africa; 5 an act on the part of Atticus, of which it was hard to judge at the time, whether it were more onerous or honourable. But it was well known that the friends of Atticus, in times of danger, were not less his care in their absence than when they were present.

  • Episode 272 - TD02 - Is Death An Evil?

    Quote from Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 24

    I may become a poor man; I shall then be one among many. I may be exiled; I shall then regard myself as born in the place to which I shall be sent. They may put me in chains. What then? Am I free from bonds now? Behold this clogging burden of a body, to which nature has fettered me! “I shall die,” you say; you mean to say “I shall cease to run the risk of sickness; I shall cease to run the risk of imprisonment; I shall cease to run the risk of death.” 18. I am not so foolish as to go through at this juncture the arguments which Epicurus harps upon, and say that the terrors of the world below are idle,—that Ixion does not whirl round on his wheel, that Sisyphus does not shoulder his stone uphill, that a man’s entrails cannot be restored and devoured every day;[8] no one is so childish as to fear Cerberus, or the shadows, or the spectral garb of those who are held together by naught but their unfleshed bones. Death either annihilates us or strips us bare. If we are then released, there remains the better part, after the burden has been withdrawn; if we are annihilated, nothing remains; good and bad are alike removed.

  • Did the Ancient Epicureans Travel in Pairs?

    This is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I am noticing that there are a number of named pairs in the surviving fragments of Epicureans journeying to (and getting kicked out of) the ancient cities of the Mediterranean.

    Cicero in his Academic Questions addresses the style of Amafinius and Rabirius, and elsewhere says that Amafinius was the first to write philosophical texts in Latin.

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    And, therefore, I did not choose to write treatises which unlearned men could not understand, and learned men would not be at the trouble of reading. And you yourself are aware of this. For you have learnt that we cannot resemble Amafanius[3] or Rabirius,[4] who without any art discuss matters which come before the eyes of every one in plain ordinary language, giving no accurate definitions, making no divisions, drawing no inferences by well-directed questions, and who appear to think that there is no such thing as any art of speaking or disputing.

    Aelian, found here and elsewhere venting his spleen in the general direction of the Ceramicus, is quoted in the Suda in a passage relating to the Epicureans Alcaeus and Philiscus:

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    They banished the Epicureans from Rome by a public senatorial decree.[8] And also the Messenians, the ones who live in Arcadia, expelled those reputed to be members of this, let us say, "manger", saying that they were corrupters of the youth and attaching to their doctrine the stain of infamy because of their effeminacy and impiety; and they gave orders that, before sunset, the Epicureans be out of the borders of Messenia and that after they had left, the priests purify the temples and the timouchoi (this is the name Messenians give to their magistrates) purify the whole city, as delivered from some filthy contaminations and offscourings. [Note] that in Crete the citizens of Lyktos[9] chased away some Epicureans who had come there. And a law was written in the local language, stating that whoever thought of adhering to this effeminate and ignominious and hideous doctrine were enemies of the gods and should be banished from Lyktos; but if anybody dared to come and neglect the orders of the law, he should be bound in a pillory near the office of the magistrates for twenty days, naked and with his body spread with honey and milk, so that he would be a meal for bees and flies and the insects would in the stated time kill them. After this time, if he were still alive, he should be thrown from a cliff, dressed in women's clothes.

    Footnote: "[8] The reference is to the expulsion of the Epicureans Alcaeus and Philiscus in 154 BCE as a result of their ethical teaching."

    Diogenes Laertius in his tenth book of Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers gives the names of two others:

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    And there were the two Ptolemaei of Alexandria, Ptolemaeus the Black, and Ptolemaeus the Fair.

    Strabo in his Geography lends interesting insight into these practices:

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    Among the other philosophers, “‘Those whom I know, and could in order name,” were Plutiades and Diogenes, who went about from city to city, instituting schools of philosophy as the opportunity occurred. Diogenes, as if inspired by Apollo, composed and rehearsed poems, chiefly of the tragic kind, upon any subject that was proposed.

    Wikipedia suggests that this passage from Diogenes Laertius refers to the same Diogenes:

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    That even if the wise man were to be put to the torture, he would still be happy. That the wise man will only feel gratitude to his friends, but to them equally whether they are present or absent. Nor will he groan and howl when he is put to the torture. Nor will he marry a wife whom the laws forbid, as Diogenes says, in his epitome of the Ethical Maxims of Epicurus.

    And I am grateful as always for the work of our friend Eikadistes for compiling this list; perhaps some of the other names listed there will shed light upon the question.

  • Epicureanism as the spiritual essence or 'religion' of an entire community

    Quote from DaveT

    He taught that there is no un-caused cause; there is nothing that comes from nothing.

    This is getting into semantics, but one could perhaps say that the atoms themselves are the uncaused causes.

    Cicero In his De Finibus says this;

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    "The swerving [of the atoms] is itself an arbitrary fiction; for Epicurus says the atoms swerve without a cause, — yet this is the capital offence in a natural philosopher, to speak of something taking place uncaused."

    However, the atoms are uncaused if we are speaking in terms only of their existence. The particular motion of the atoms is partially caused by an infinite regress of other causes (an endless chain of billiard balls bouncing, hooking, clinging, separating, and hurling apart through the void inertially), and partially, as in the swerve, their motion is caused by their own nature.

  • Epicureanism as the spiritual essence or 'religion' of an entire community

    This is probably of some interest here as well;

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    U152

    Philodemus, On Frank Criticism, Vol. Herc. 1, V.2, fragment VI:

    "he will be frank with the one who has erred and even with him who responds with bitterness. Therefore, Epicurus too, when Leonteus, because of Pythocles, did not admit belief in gods, reproached Pythocles in moderation, and wrote to him {i.e., Leonteus, though Usener renders “Mys”} the so-called “famous letter,” taking his point of departure from Pythocles..."

  • Epicurean Views of "Teleology"

    OK, I am off work. You have raised a number of excellent points and I agree that we need to refine this mass of material down to something digestible.

    Relevant Texts

    [All citations in this section are to translations by Cyril Bailey]

    Epicurus, Letter to Pythocles, sections 115-116;

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    The signs of the weather which are given by certain animals result from mere coincidence of occasion. For the animals do not exert any compulsion for winter to come to an end, nor is there some divine nature which sits and watches the outgoings of these animals and then fulfills the signs they give.

    [116] For not even the lowest animal, although ‘a small thing gives the greater pleasure,’ would be seized by such foolishness, much less one who was possessed of perfect happiness.

    All these things, Pythocles, you must bear in mind; for thus you will escape in most things from superstition and will be enabled to understand what is akin to them. And most of all give yourself up to the study of the beginnings and of infinity and of the things akin to them, and also of the criteria of truth and of the feelings, and of the purpose for which we reason out these things. For these points when they are thoroughly studied will most easily enable you to understand the causes of the details. But those who have not thoroughly taken these things to heart could not rightly study them in themselves, nor have they made their own the reason for observing them.

    • The animals do not migrate for the purpose of changing the seasons,
    • The seasons do not change for the purpose of moving the animals,
    • And no divine mind has set these things into motion.

    Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus, section 64;

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    [64] Further, you must grasp that the soul possesses the chief cause of sensation: yet it could not have acquired sensation, unless it were in some way enclosed by the rest of the structure. And this in its turn having afforded the soul this cause of sensation acquires itself too a share in this contingent capacity from the soul. Yet it does not acquire all the capacities which the soul possesses: and therefore when the soul is released from the body, the body no longer has sensation. For it never possessed this power in itself, but used to afford opportunity for it to another existence, brought into being at the same time with itself: and this existence, owing to the power now consummated within itself as a result of motion, used spontaneously to produce for itself the capacity of sensation and then to communicate it to the body as well, in virtue of its contact and correspondence of movement, as I have already said.

    This passage (and the subsequent passages as well, to some extant) is relevant because of the pains Epicurus goes to to avoid teleological language;

    • The body, having come into existence with the soul, affords opportunity to the soul to experience sensation.
    • The body, having afforded this opportunity to the soul, acquires its own share in this "contingent capacity" from the soul - that is, the body acquires its share in sensation.
    • We can summarize this ateleological view in the following way: the use of any natural thing is afforded by its existence, not the other way around.
    • By contrast, the existence of any artificial thing could be said to be afforded by its planned use. A table is brought into being for the purpose of dining. The human hand is pressed into service (say, of transferring food from the table to the mouth) only after it is found to exist.

    The most important text, as cited by Cassius above, is Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, Book 5;

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    [823] Herein you must eagerly desire to shun this fault, and with foresighted fear to avoid this error; do not think that the bright light of the eyes was created in order that we may be able to look before us, or that, in order that we may have power to plant long paces, therefore the tops of shanks and thighs, based upon the feet, are able to bend; or again, that the forearms are jointed to the strong upper arms and hands given us to serve us on either side, in order that we might be able to do what was needful for life. All other ideas of this sort, which men proclaim, by distorted reasoning set effect for cause, since nothing at all was born in the body that we might be able to use it, but what is born creates its own use. Nor did sight exist before the light of the eyes was born, nor pleading in words before the tongue was created, but rather the birth of the tongue came long before discourse, and the ears were created much before sound was heard, and in short all the limbs, I trow, existed before their use came about: they cannot then have grown for the purpose of using them.

    [843] But, on the other side, to join hands in the strife of battle, to mangle limbs and befoul the body with gore; these things were known long before gleaming darts flew abroad, and nature constrained men to avoid a wounding blow, before the left arm, trained by art, held up the defence of a shield. And of a surety to trust the tired body to rest was a habit far older than the soft-spread bed, and the slaking of the thirst was born before cups. These things, then, which are invented to suit the needs of life, might well be thought to have been discovered for the purpose of using them. But all those other things lie apart, which were first born themselves, and thereafter revealed the concept of their usefulness. In this class first of all we see the senses and the limbs; wherefore, again and again, it cannot be that you should believe that they could have been created for the purpose of useful service.

    [858] This, likewise, is no cause for wonder, that the nature of the body of every living thing of itself seeks food. For verily I have shown that many bodies ebb and pass away from things in many ways, but most are bound to pass from living creatures. For because they are sorely tried by motion and many bodies by sweating are squeezed and pass out from deep beneath, many are breathed out through their mouths, when they pant in weariness; by these means then the body grows rare, and all the nature is undermined; and on this follows pain. Therefore food is taken to support the limbs and renew strength when it passes within, and to muzzle the gaping desire for eating through all the limbs and veins. Likewise, moisture spreads into all the spots which demand moisture; and the many gathered bodies of heat, which furnish the fires to our stomach, are scattered by the incoming moisture, and quenched like a flame, that the dry heat may no longer be able to burn our body. Thus then the panting thirst is washed away from our body, thus the hungry yearning is satisfied.

    • "All other ideas of this sort, which men proclaim, by distorted reasoning set effect for cause, since nothing at all was born in the body that we might be able to use it, but what is born creates its own use."

    Further Reading

    Norman DeWitt, Epicurus and His Philosophy, page 67;

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    The limited teleology at which Epicurus finally arrived had nothing to do either with creationism or adaptation of organ to function. It had nothing to do with the universe at large, which was ruled by natural laws. It had nothing to do even with animals, although animal behavior afforded evidence that pleasure was the end or telos of living. It was recognized, to be sure, that animals possess volition and that certain kinds of animals are actuated by innate ideas to organize themselves into herds for mutual protection, but only the rational human being was believed capable of intelligent planning for living and for keeping steadily in view the fact that pleasure is the end or telos ordained by Nature. This amounts to saying that a nonpurposive Nature had produced a purposive creature, for whom alone an end or goal of living could have a meaning. This is teleology at a minimum. For such a belief no teacher had set a precedent.

    Ian Johnston, Lecture on Lucretius;

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    The poem’s influence, according to Stuart Gillespie and Donald Mackenzie, can be linked to a range of twentieth-century poets and philosophers. So pervasive is its presence in the intellectual climate that for one critic at least (Stuart Gillespie) Charles Darwin’s claim that he had not read Lucretius is rather like Milton’s claiming that he had not read Genesis.

    John Tyndall, Address at Belfast;

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    Trace the line of life backwards, and see it approaching more and more to what we call the purely physical [54/55] condition. We come at length to those organisms which I have compared to drops of oil suspended in a mixture of alcohol and water. We reach the protogenes of Haeckel, in which we have 'a type distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only by its finely granular character.' Can we pause here? We break a magnet and find two poles in each of its fragments. We continue the process of breaking, but, however small the parts, each carries with it, though enfeebled, the polarity of the whole. And when we can break no longer, we prolong the intellectual vision to the polar molecules. Are we not urged to do something similar in the case of life? Is there not a temptation to close to some extent with Lucretius, when he affirms that 'nature is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the gods?' or with Bruno, when he declares that Matter is not 'that mere empty capacity which philosophers have pictured her to be, but the universal mother who wrings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb?' Believing as I do in the continuity of Nature, I cannot stop abruptly where our microscopes cease to be of use. Here the vision of the mind authoritatively supplements the vision of the eye. By an intellectual necessity I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in that Matter which we, in our ignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of all terrestrial Life.

    [Note: the following areas (and more) need work]

    Why is the question of teleology in nature important?

    []

    How has evolutionary biology on the one hand and Abrahamic monotheism on the other changed how we talk about purpose in nature?

    []

  • Epicurean Views of "Teleology"

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    Some things, like hammers, are in fact shaped by intelligences, and it is appropriate to understand them based on the reason that they exist. So"teleoglogical thinking" is not always wrong in itself

    Absolutely correct! Humans are intelligent agents capable of ascribing purpose to their own creations. Nature is not.

  • Epicurean Views of "Teleology"

    We can speak of four causes for the sake of clarity and limiting the scope of the discussion, but I don't think even Aristotle supposed there were only four. If the material cause of a table is the wood that it is made of, that answers to one of the proximate causes. But of course there are innumerable antecedent causes; the milling of the lumber follows the felling of the tree, which follows the growth of the tree, which follows the production of the acorn, and so on. But for Aristotle this can't go on forever; there cannot be an infinite regress of antecedent causes, so there must be an uncaused cause to start the chain.

    The question (as raised by chatgtp) as to whether purpose-driven language should be used in biology is precisely one of the areas of contention. Lucretius seems to imply that it should not.

    But in general I think that summary is ok. But we're not presenting Epicureanism to the professional philosophers of the world who already deeply understand these issues. We're presenting to other normal people like ourselves, and normal people use teleogical language, probably without knowing it, in areas it maybe shouldn't apply.

  • Epicurean Views of "Teleology"

    Another way to put it; how does Lucretius justify the claim that 'the eyes don't develop in order to let you see'?

    Aristotle makes a clear distinction between each of his five causes. The first cause, or prime mover, which you could say is God. Then four proximate causes;

    • The material cause. What is it made of?
    • The efficient cause. How was it made?
    • The formal cause. What shape does it take? (Echoes of Plato and his forms on this one)
    • And the final cause. Why was it made? What is its purpose? What end (telos) does its existence serve?

  • Epicurean Views of "Teleology"

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    2 - The non-purposiveness issue is something that ought to flow from the implications of the first and second and third of these statements

    No, I don't think that is necessarily the case.

    I don't have time for a full response, but consider the following statements;

    1. You shouldn't wear clothes. Humans didn't evolve in order to need clothes.
    2. You shouldn't drink cow's milk. Cows don't produce milk in order to nourish humans.
    3. You shouldn't have sex outside of marriage. God didn't give us sex in order for us to enjoy the pleasure it produces, but in order to produce children within the context of marriage.

    Only one of these claims presupposes the existence of a creator, but all three claims are teleological.

    More on this later!

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