Give Us an Example of God!

Given my own personal background, I tend to imagine gods looking like their appearance in Greek or Roman statues, perhaps updated to fit the science fiction depictions of superior beings that I've also been exposed to over the years. Various "Star Trek" episodes tend to come to mind in my case, particularly "Errand of Mercy" which seems almost as if it was written to address this question. In that episode the god-like examples were portrayed as old men, however, and I don't necessarily see the "old" part as appropriate. (This picture will refresh the memory of those who have seen it.)

To keep it consistent with the views that the Epicureans talked about, I would see a group of beings like that living with absolutely no burdensome work to perform, but still active in an Olympus-like environment, dealing with each other absolutely happily and with no conflicts, and never growing older or subject to disease or death.

I agree with Twentier's first post that as a practical matter it would take a path of technological progression to reach that stage, and that most of the way along that path there would be "work" involved to maintain the machinery to keep the environment safe. And if there is an indeed an issue that the gods are deathless but have not been eternally immortal, then there would be some kind of activity that they are involved in which would maintain them in their state of happiness and security, even though they would not consider that maintenance to be "work."

But in imagining gods of any appearance whatsoever, the core requirement is to see them as totally blessed and imperishable so that they are in no way interested in our human activities, so it's hard to imagine what kind of activities they would find most fruitful to them. So long as that core requirement is maintained, I would expect that we're right in the middle of one of those exercises where "multiple possibilities" have to be entertained, meaning that we have to be satisfied thinking of options but not choosing only one as the only possible godlike way to spend your time. It's easy to understand the point that each person or being is going to have their own history of exposures to different people and depictions and that they will develop their own mental pictures of such beings.

The difference in mental depictions however does not mean that real beings that fit the general descriptions don't actually exist. I have in my mind right now a picture of an average Englishman or average German or average Russian, and just because my mental depictions don't exactly match what I would see if I actually went to England or Germany or Russia, that discrepancy does not mean that Englishmen and Germans and Russians don't actually exist.

The exercise involved in thinking about how such an existence might operate is probably the most beneficial aspect of the exercise, as a means of seeing how we might incrementally adjust our own experience to come as close to that "superior" way of life as we possibly can. It's a way of visually thinking about the question: "How might I reorganize my life to live better given my own circumstances."

When talking about the gods, I think we really need to stop conflating oneself with one's body.

Because the gods aren't troubled, I think they would inhabit machines which can maintain themselves, maintain each other, and, if ever needed, replicate somehow. Such a machine can be biological, like human bodies, but it can also be a fancy robot housing a quantum computer, and that fancy robot could actually be a space ship, travelling to harvest raw materials and energy, so it can keep running and renewing itself perpetually.

The god, then, would not be the space ship, would not be the robot, or the animal body. The god would be in the space ship, in the robot, in the animal. It would be the software that runs inside of it, the consciousness in its mind, merely inhabiting it, possessing it for a while, for fun, for pleasure and to sustain its existence. Just like software exists and lives in, but remains different from a computer. Just like I can inhabit and possess a costume to wear to a costume party, and will make certain experiences because of that costume. Experiences which I wouldn't make without wearing it, and which would be different if my costume was different – and which would have above-average likelihood to be similar if someone else wore the same costume.

To the gods, their corporeal existence is like fashion and style are to us. We get into trouble if we don't wear anything, but as long as we wear something, we can basically be whoever we want – including the same over and over, including someone new every day.

So my guess is the gods are incorporeal entities ("software") inhabiting fancy bio-mechanical space ships ("hardware"), which repair and replicate themselves. I would need to think about whether they are conscious, whether they are introspective, whether they are self-aware – I'm not sure if that is actually pleasing.

Why wouldn't they be sophisticated instincts inside mechanical jellyfish happily shape-shifting through space – no introspection, no sense of self as we know it?

PS: After all, simpler animals like reptiles can be happy and unhappy, feel pleasure and pain – but they're not self-aware or introspective, they're not equipped with a consciousness the way we have one. They're also not social animals. Why would the gods be different from a happy reptile in these regards?

Quote from Julia

incorporeal entities ("software") inhabiting fancy bio-mechanical space ships ("hardware"), which repair

Although the only incorporeal entity is the void, which cannot think or do anything at all. Nothing incorporeal can act or be acted upon.

Certainly, the environment supporting gods is naturally occurring between the kosmoi by automatic infinite processes of nature (just as the environment supporting waterfalls is naturally occurring on Earth by automatic finite processes of nature).

Great topic!

Quote from Bryan

Certainly, the environment supporting gods is naturally occurring between the kosmoi by automatic infinite processes of nature

I like that idea (if you mean what I think you do ), but hadn't thought of it that way – what is the Epicurean position on these kosmoi? It seems easy to bring this to congruence with my experiences of life and death, which is quite comforting to me

(Even though I know that everything is atoms and void, and that therefore all my experiences must have just been unusual neuronal activity, there is a big, deep, and profound felt sense of importance and truth attached to the experiences, such that I find it hard to dismiss them. I have always stuck with the thought that what I experienced where, in fact, some kind of other dimensions or realms, simply because that brought me comfort and did me no harm, as I didn't let it affect my judgement negatively (I did let it affect my judgement only in reality-tested, hedonically-sensible ways, via insights, through lessons learnt).)

Tangent: Incorporeal entities vs patterns, and proper vocabulary for them

Quote from Bryan

Although the only incorporeal entity is the void, which cannot think or do anything at all. Nothing incorporeal can act or be acted upon.

Well that is technically correct (which means I was technically wrong), but…

Here's a more verbose elaboration of what I meant to say, and I realise what I say doesn't seem to align cleanly with Epicurean philosophy, but I do think that it actually does align. Maybe I'm just missing some vocabulary to express myself well in this regard? If so, please do teach me some words!

What I meant with "incorporeal entity", et cetera:

Is mathematics real? No, because nobody can touch it, measure it, sense it. It has no weight, no dimensions, doesn't age or swerve. Does that mean it is void? No, because we can use it, and so it has to be something. The same could be said about knowledge itself, language itself, about all concepts. What are concepts in Epicurean philosophy? Patterns of atoms? But then, what's the difference between a pattern and an incorporeal entity? Aren't both the same thing?

Software is a pattern that always has to exist in one or the other corporeal representation (various vastly different ways to code the same pattern, different ways to represent it are possible, from punch cards to rote memorisation of source code to flash drives). But the fact that it depends on having a corporeal representation doesn't make the pattern itself corporeal. I'm not quite sure how to describe that. (And I do realise that what I've just said doesn't quite fit into Epicurean philosophy…?)

The various "incarnations" (for lack of a better word) of a piece of software can act and be acted upon, but even if they were destroyed (overwritten, deleted), they could also be restored perfectly (reinstalled, restored from backup, reinfected) – and the places from which they were restored could differ, such that tape could be used to restore a hard disk, and furthermore the source of that restoration could even be "dead" (for lack of a better word), because it was merely a backup drive, not attached to any hardware able to execute it (bring it to life) – much like a virus is considered dead, because it has no own metabolism, but it still carries the DNA and everything else needed to infect a new host cell, where it will be brought to life and replicate itself.

The same processes which exist with software/hardware today could, theoretically, exist in nature, if one brain could copy (part of) its content into another brain through some kind of neural link (just like one human can program another (largely through language and physical acts)), and even more so should be possible with (quantum) computers (which could reside inside fancy space-dwelling robots). The gods could then be software which moves itself around – always needing to exist in one physical form or another, one arrangement of atoms or another, but not bound to any one of them, without becoming any one of them, just like a virus can infect many host cells without becoming the host cell, just like software can run on many different computers, just like ideas can spread from one human mind to another…?

I usually take the approach that it wouldn't take imagining things exceedingly different or extraordinary to get to Epicurean Godhood. If some lower class folks in the Epicurean hayday could get much from the philosophy then blessedness must not be too far out of grasp for me living in the 21st century American context. I also read a lot of more left-wing anthropology, so I usually imagine Gods as some sort of subsistence farming or hunter gathering community; or a culture that reconstitutes their society with the seasons or generationally to continue to live blessedly and in balance with the psychic impulses of the human animal to that end. I think about this more scaled-down vision as a personal and achieveable goal I am working towards i.e. living in a tighter-knit community with friends and not just the nuclear family. Yang Zhu had a particular valorization of the "the ancients" in his context from my limited study of his system, so this look to the past fits with that tradition.

I'm not really too interested in futurism as I find tech integration and most transhuman concepts beyond healing diseases to be pretty disconcerting. I do like a good blanket Star Trek-like vision for futurity if I am considering it, though I am not that familiar or interested in the details of that franchises' lore.

I think Epicurean philosophy applies to humans and other similar enough biological entities no matter where in technological progression they find themselves in. Perhaps it's good practice to contemplate Epicurean Godhood at every stage of development we can imagine: the Blessed Epicurean ancients (and look to those who still live close to that presently) and the Epicurean future, in order to better reason to how we can live an Epicurean present which is accelerating technologically. The theology could be a way to understand that blessedness comes in many varieties and is possible to nearly grasp in most contexts.

Quote from Root304

The theology could be a way to understand that blessedness comes in many varieties and is possible to nearly grasp in most contexts.

As much as I agree with the first half of that sentence, I don't see how blessedness "is possible to nearly grasp", shy of being a healthy heiress in a liberal country, rich enough to be free from worries (other than love) while still being poor enough to fly below the paparazzi radar. That would indeed be winning the lottery.

Tangent: Personal thoughts on Transhumanism

Quote from Root304

I find tech integration and most transhuman concepts beyond healing diseases to be pretty disconcerting.

I find them disconcerting, too – but at the same time, I also find them liberating. I wear glasses, know people with artificial sensory implants (for hearing, for sensing electro-magnetic fields, …), artificial joints, vessels and valves, artificially enhanced attention, executive function and memory. One universal of advanced civilisations appears to be that people raised within them are taught to favour modifying their environment (instead of submitting to it), and as a person, I reside within a human, but I am not it, and as such, my body is as much my environment as the flat I use to shelter it, and the society I use to shelter that flat. What, then, is the difference between a tattoo and a picture on the wall? What, then, is the difference between air conditioning and an implant? Both should be fine if they bring me pleasure – the disconcerting aspect is the new and severe power dynamics that can (but don't need to) come with this development. Will natural humans be at a disadvantage to enhance ones? They already are, so that is obvious, and nothing new – those with resources always used them to establish and enshrine their own advantages. But will we be at the mercy of tech corporations? Probably, but not necessarily. So I choose to hope for the best and ignore it otherwise, because I can't change the weather, politics, or the future (yet ).

Julia

Thanks so much for the thoughtful reply!

While I recognize that I have geographic, ethnic and gender advantages in my favor, I also have fortunately known, congregated and am among many poor and frugal folk who understand the true value of a friend. You can make so much happen in terms of material and moral enrichment even with meager means if you indeed hold your friends close and your enemies afar. Living one's life receiving and repaying wiselike, in excess and in kind is a most gratifying way to live under the present conditions.

Quote from Julia

and as a person, I reside within a human, but I am not it, and as such, my body is as much my environment as the flat I use to shelter it, and the society I use to shelter that flat.

I suppose in studying Epicureanism's doctrine of the Soul, I came to see myself as the totality of my body, and the mind as just another piece of it that is important, but I am more expansive than that. Even though some of my body's functions are unconscious does not mean they aren't me, or that I can't apprehend it's thoughts with my mind. The "immortality" of Epicurean friendship surely extends to who and what I am in the world as I appear to others as well. My Father, who has past, was to me not his mind but the way he was received to me through the senses and emotions; smells, feelings, touch, voice, etc. The Epicurean soul must surely include the biochemical, mental and bodily memories between people as well.

As for immortality being a part of Epicurean Theology, I honestly part ways with Philodemus there. Living for exceedingly long times is another fear of mine.

Quote from Twentier

This brings up another point: various Epicureans have presented the argument that a Creator cannot be a god because a Creator must have been bored, or lonely, or in need of other beings prior to creation; such a state is inconsistent with blessedness.

Which is why I would expect Epicurus to have emphasized life in the universe along a "spectrum" in which there will be lots of beings lots more advanced than us which *do* create their own "worlds" (but not from nothing), with the status of "god" being reserved for those that have in fact reached the point of wanting nothing that they do not already have.

Quote from Twentier

How can a blessed quasi-animal always have existed?

I tend to think that their answer there would have been that gods "as a kind" have always existed as a part of natural processes leading to that result, but that gods as individuals have not existed forever, given that the only things that have existed without creation are matter and void. This leads down the road DeWitt mentions that the gods have to act to maintain their deathlessness. I suppose it's not inconceivable that individual gods might conclude after eons that variety really does not add to complete pleasure, and decide voluntarily to go out of existence. I wouldn't be surprised if the ancient Epicureans asked themselves that question, at the very least as part of the discussion about beings like us, who will surely die, and questioning how much in fact we necessarily lose by being mortal rather than deathless. Variety is in fact nice to us who haven't learned the lesson, but if we were to in fact experience for ourselves (through technology in the future) how it does not in fact make pleasure "more complete," then I am thinking that it would be conceivable to decide, once we were really sure that we had experienced "complete" pleasure, that nothing more is needed, and to get tired of the "more."

Quote from Twentier

not just directionless experimenting (usually unethical) for the sake of experimenting.

I think they're seeking to enhance themselves (artificial senses, nootropics, …), in the same way that I'm using tools (car, knife, …) – so I don't see it as directionless, I don't see it as experimenting for the sake of experimenting, and I don't think it can be unethical what one does to one's own body (unless whatever that is inevitably causes a considerable burden to others; such as a parent burdening a child by being an addict or by wilfully disabling their body). My basic rule would be: My body, my choice.

However, I think they're (almost always) misguided in their longing for such enhancements, because they seem to be (almost always) driven by limitless desires (vain & empty) or their underlying desire is natural-but-unnecessary and they got the risks wrong, skewing the results of their hedonic calculation (which, to me, doesn't make it unethical, it just makes it stupid ).

Quote from Twentier

- Similar to Charvaka and Yangism in their hedonist ethics and naturalistic physics. But they are atheistic and non-theistic traditions, so they reject any images of God as having validity.

Thank you for mentioning those! I found it interesting to read a short summary about them. To me, it is nice to know Epicurean philosophy isn't entirely a one-off after all.

Quote from Root304

I also have fortunately known, congregated and am among many poor and frugal folk who understand the true value of a friend. You can make so much happen in terms of material and moral enrichment even with meager means if you indeed hold your friends close and your enemies afar. Living one's life receiving and repaying wiselike, in excess and in kind is a most gratifying way to live under the present conditions.

Reading that, I couldn't help but instinctively reject the notion of friends, which then told me I have some more healing to do – and when I thought I have some more healing to do, I rejected that in turn, as an expression of assimilationism into the social construct of normalcy, as an internalised norm contrary to my own ways of being. It shall be interesting to see where I land on that subject a decade or so down the road, when the experience of friendship might be safe, affordable and attainable.

Quote from Root304

The "immortality" of Epicurean friendship surely extends to who and what I am in the world as I appear to others as well. My Father, who has past, was to me not his mind but the way he was received to me through the senses and emotions; smells, feelings, touch, voice, etc. The Epicurean soul must surely include the biochemical, mental and bodily memories between people as well.

To me, the members of family (who all have passed), are concepts, interaction models, "software", disembodied (which is probably both bizarre and unhealthy…). Either way, I don't perceive the world as physical as you do. To me, experientially, the world is just the medium in which patterns interact – the patterns being selves, conscious concepts, "brain software", or whatever you would want to call it. To me, this is the difference between a person (the entity inside a body) and a human (the animal). The soul, to me, is the mind of the body, as opposed to the mind which hosts the person. I suppose this distinction is hard to explain, let alone make visceral, to anyone who hasn't seen or experienced a body alive and well, yet devoid of a person inside. It's…like an abandoned care with the engine running, like a house with the lights on when nobody's home. Most people then just sit and stare, other's go through very basic motions cued in by their environment (eg they drink when presented with water, but their overall actions are utterly unplanned and directionless, like opening and closing doors for no apparent reason, taking objects them replacing them, just doing the habit-/instinct-based actions of whatever they find in their surroundings). Such a body, however, still has primitive feelings of active/tired, warm/cold, hunger/thirst, and pain/pleasure. Not sure if I explained that well…?

Anyways, this is why some parts of the interaction patterns which to me mean my family are alive as long as I will be: I absorbed those aspects of them and continue to repeat them (in modified ways), which metaphorically is sort of like replicating an inherited DNA of behaviour.

Quote from Twentier

Here's (above) an image that depicts (to me) the gods

Off topic, just curious: Did ancient Epicureans use mind-altering substances (other than alcohol), as the painting suggests?

Quote from Twentier

the gods primarily as mental concepts, rather than as physical object to which mental concepts corresponds.

If the gods were merely a special type of concept they would not be subject to the laws of nature.

Quote from Cassius

I suppose it's not inconceivable that individual gods might conclude after eons that variety really does not add to complete pleasure, and decide voluntarily to go out of existence.

That is why I cannot imagine the gods as self-aware and conscious, as indicated above. If the gods are more like fancy jellyfish, like reptile minds, bundles of instinct, then they can be eternally happy without being bored by the passage of time or the constant repetition. The question, of course, is whether something that has no self-awareness and isn't conscious in the way we understand it can be "happy" to begin with, but I'd say that every self-regulating system has a state which is "pleasing" to the system because it is within all the tolerance and reference ranges for its operating conditions: not too warm, not too cold, not too hungry, …

Quote from Twentier

the Epicurean gods jive with my self-induced psychedelic experiences more than they are cohering to any one animalistic conception I've tried to formulate.

I agree, because as mentioned…

Quote from Julia

It seems easy to bring this to congruence with my experiences of life and death, which is quite comforting to me

…I find even the idea of entirely denying any and all not-physically-explainable experience to be quite displeasing, or rather…

Quote from Julia

Even though I know that everything is atoms and void, and that therefore all my experiences must have just been unusual neuronal activity, there is a big, deep, and profound felt sense of importance and truth attached to the experiences, such that I find it hard to dismiss them.

…that even though they are physically explainable, I find their subjective weight ought to be honoured adequately, instead of being brushed aside as a mere biochemical fluke…

…at the same time, however, that feels like a slippery slope into theism, and as such, I'm quite happy with the gods having a blast in the intermundia, and my brain merely having "tuned into that other dimension" for a little while (which, physically speaking, is delusional – I'm aware of that, but I like the idea anyhow).

Quote from Twentier

I found one! Kykeon.

Thank you! I'll have a look into that