Posts by Cassius

We've discussed many of these issues many times in many plaves, but Just for the sake of having fun with the last post here is an example of how I would push back at the contention that Epicurean physics is obsolete. Ironically I would also expect that an AI engine would probably do a better job of laying out both sides of these arguments and how they might be reconciled than some of us are able to do.

These are several of the most fundamental issues on which I contend Epicurus can and should be defended:

1. It cannot be true that matter and space are "infinitely" divisible. If that were true then movement would truly be impossible, because you would always have to traverse infinite distances of space to move at all. Further, dividing bodies infinitely would amount to their ceasing to have any real existence. If all things were infinitely divisible then all things would have long since ceased to exist, because they could not have been replaced (as our experience tells us that things do not come from nothing). Epicurus makes no specific claim about any step along the way other than that there is an ending point to divisibility. "Atom" means nothing other than that end-point - uncuttable. Whether we today call that point some kind of subatomic particles makes no difference - the only issue is that division cannot be continued without end. At some point division must stop and you must arrive at a particle that has size, shape, and weight (motion).
2. The empty space in the universe and the part of the universe that is material and not empty are both infinite in extent. If bodies were infinite in number but space was limited, everything would be filled up with bodies. If space were infinite but bodies were not infinite in number, bodies would never come together to form combinations, just as the wreckage of a ship drifts further and further apart and does not reassemble itself into a ship.
3. The universe as a whole had no beginning because nothing can come from nothing. The universe as a whole will never have an end because no thing can go to nothing. These are logical positions that make perfect sense and require nothing specific about how the matter and space are arranged in any locality within the universe as a whole.
4. Epicurus' essential claim about images is that we do not perceive the world around us through some kind of magical or divine communication, but because particles flow constantly in all directions. Our senses react to contact with those particles. Call those particles photons or waves of electromagnetic emissions or whatever, the information we receive comes through particles interacting with each other between us and the object of our attention.
5. Epicurus' only specific claims about gods are that we should think of them as blessed and imperishable. This is an opinion, and like all opinions they originate from our minds processing our contacts with the outside world. Our five senses and two feelings receive stimulations from outside us (including non-visual images, and our anticipations pick out patterns from among them from which our minds generate opinions. Among the concepts we form from those patterns are "blessedness" and "imperishableness." These conceptions are formed from real patterns, but we are often mistaken when apply those conceptions to specific phenomena. Many of these errors arise because we presume that a blessed and imperishable being would be like us and reward friends and punish enemies, but we can correct these false opinions by rejecting opinions that are inconsistent with true blessedness and imperishableness. (I am using "imperishableness" rather than "imperishability" because I am convinced DeWitt is correct that Epicurus held that gods are not by necessity deathless, but that they must act (and do act) to maintain their continued existence.)

Also for kicks, this is what Claude did with those five points.

Quote from TauPhi

Cassius , please don't take my post as an attempt to pick a fight - I'm just presenting my opinions about the concep

Fully understood and no problem. And we will go merrily along our way because I know you understand that I disagree with every significant statement of fact you have made in that post as to Epicurus having been "proven wrong." Out terminology is not his terminology but the ultimate logical conclusions he reached have not in my opinion been proven wrong on any significant issue, including that of "images."

I just saw what Patrikios wrote and i agree with it - seems consistent with what Joshua said.

Beyond that I want to go further, because I think there's a direct analogy between the problem we face today in explaining Epicurus' views of the gods and the problem we face explaining Epicurus' views of Pleasure.

We have SIX LONG thousand-line chapters of an extensive poem that's really nothing more than a literate restatement of a through text on Epicurean philosophy.

When you read methodically through the great detail in which Lucretius explains what Epicurus had to say about the nature of the universe, and his regular complaints about supernatural religion and imputing to the gods anything except deathlessness and blessedness, there's no reason in the world to go any further than Joshua did in this thread, or Velleius did in explaining to Cicero the fundamentals of the nature of gods. There's no reason in the world, and every reason NOT to, infer that Epicurus held that Zeus of Apollo or Venus were anything more than conceptual personifications of what a blessed and imperishable being would be. Anything further --- and you can go somewhat further using the isonomia / eternal / infinite universe theory that give us confidence that life on earth is neither the only nor highest in the universe, is very much beyond what Epicurus was telling people was essential to believe.

AND YET DESPITE THAT people look at a couple of lines in the letter to Menoeceus that say nothing of the sort and conclude "Epicurus held that Venus was the goddess of love and emerged from the ocean at Cyprus and wrestles with Mars to stop wars and they can't get it out of their minds that Epicurus was likely sacrificing bulls to Zeus every week.

Same goes for Pleasure. Lucretius makes very clear over the better part of 10,000 lines explaining that pleasure is the goal of life, and that if we pursue pleasure intelligently we can be happy, and yet people look at similarly-brief passages in the letter to Menoeceus which are incorporated within the same Pleasure-focused orientation as Lucretius, and still they say: "NO! PLEASURE IS NOT THE GUIDE AND GOAL! NO - THE GOAL IS "Tranquility" and "Absence of Pain" so stop talking about Pleasure - That makes us look bad!!"

So this is one place where I depart somewhat from the reading recommendations that Professor Sadler recently gave. It is terrible advice to tell a new student of Epicurus to start with the letter to Menoeceus and imply that they can stop there. Granted there are worse examples - Nietzsche comes to mind because it's hard to understand ANYTHING Nietzsche says without lots of background.

But much the same warning goes for Epicurus as with Nietzsche. If you read only the letter to Menoeceus and stop you're likely to be hopelessly confused about gods and about the relationship between pleasure and absence of pain. You'll probably be OK on the issues of death and determinism, and you'll know that Epicurus seems to like pleasure, but you won't have a firm idea of what Epicurus means even about something so basic as happiness.

I'd have to think about what percentage to assign, but I'd bet well over 70% of the disagreements people have about Epicurus is that they refuse to go further than the letter to Menoeceus. The truth is that the complete picture still does largely exist, but it requires consideration of Lucretius and Diogenes of Oinoanda and the other surviving secondary sources.

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After checking back on the title of the thread to remember what we are supposed to be talking about. , I want to add this:

ironically, I think many of the issues we are debating are handled handled better by LLM's than they are by people who have focused only on the letter to Menoeceus and the collected sayings. The LLM comments in this thread on prolepsis, and now with Patrikios' LLM on the gods are far more balanced and perceptive than what a lot of people get out of the letter to Menoeceus. The LLM's seem to be taking into account a much wider context than can be gleaned only from Menoeceus.

I wouldn't prefer to take the side of AI in a debate, but at this point I could easily argue that AI is more likely to be the salvation of Epicurean philosophy than its death. Anything that opens up the discussion beyond Menoeceus to include Herodotus and Pythocles and Lucretius and Diogenes of Oinoanda has the potential to revolutionize the study of Epicurus for the better.

Quote from DaveT

. It's so sad that the extent fragments, the letters, and Lucretius are all we have to resolve the issue of how he could believe in gods that neither he or anyone had ever sensed with the five senses

He could believe in them in exactly the same way he believes in atoms, which he has also never perceived with his five senses.

Quote from DaveT

king frankly, when he says there are gods, to me, he believes they exist without evidence

Again, he had the same level of evidence he had as to atoms - all inference, no direct evidence - yet fully "believed" in atoms.

Quote from DaveT

Yet, still scratching my head: Under this, his gods being immortal are coexistent with eternal atoms, even though the gods are composed of atoms

Because the gods must act to maintain their deathlessness. forces exist which tend toward dissolution and will cause that if not counteracted, but there is no "fate" which prevents counteracting forces from being sustainable without definite limit.

Quote from DaveT

In a way, the apparent inconsistency of methodology illuminates Epicurus' common humanity.

And as for the last part I am not saying this to be contentious but to say what I think and Epicurean from the ancient world would say even if they were alive today and have access to the same science we have:

You have every right to disagree with Epicurus and think that the error you think he committed proves his humanity. An ancient Epicurean would say that the error is yours for not agreeing with Epicurus' argument as to proof from circumstantial evidence. Although I am not an ancient Epicurus, I would say that I would agree with their position even given all the additional science we have today, which I don't think touches in any way the essence of Epicurus' logical argument.

This week we will continue around line 734 discussing ideas of what the universe is fundamentally made.

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Quote from DaveT

I still don't understand how Epicurus actually believed there were Greek Gods

At least as for me, I don't mean to say that Epicurus believed in the "Greek Gods." He may have spoken loosely at times about one or another of them, but I interpret him as never straying from the point that "gods as a class" exist - not that any individual Greek god has any individual characteristic attached to him or her.

The images and prolepses we are talking about are generic perceptions of classes of things, as the chatgpt model referenced. As for the physical existece of such beings, you also have the conclusions that derive from how atoms work and lead to the formation of real entities over an eternal and boundless universe, such as those forces led to life here on Earth. And you have the "isonomia" in which we observe the spectrum of things from "lowest" to "highest," which means that what has happened here has happened a countless number of times elsewhere, and has led to the formation of beings much smarter and more successful and long-lasting than ourselves.

I personally have no problem constructing from those various observations a firm belief that there is a class of being called gods. But anyone sassert to me that jehovah or Zeus or any other PARTICULAR god has done something or said something has an extremely high burden of proof which is going to be extremely difficult and likely impossible to meet given the observations that led me to conclude that they exist in the first place. Yes there will be aliens who are smarter and long-lived than we are, but even smart aliens doesn't get you to true "godhood" unless you're fully successful in those attributes.

From the article:

Quote

Moreover, I had to remind myself that my granddaughter and her friends were here for an after-school program, not a classroom or lecture hall. So, I pivoted.

The Turning Point: From Theory to Practice

Instead of focusing on theory, I jumped straight into teaching the three disciplines—judgment, assent, and action—while linking them directly to each student’s lived experiences. The shift was immediate.

In other words, he stopped teaching Stoicism, and started teaching modern psychology. He detached his teaching from any evaluation as to whether happiness is or should be the goal of life, whether there is eternal punishment after death to worry about, or how to make decisions about what it true or what is false.

That's the story of modern Stoicism and is why it's not really Stoicism at all, which is something explored in the other article Don linked.

In contrast, it's possible and much more effectie in the long run to pay attention to both the big picture and the details, and flip back and forth between them so they make sense at both levels:

Quote

For those who are unable, Herodotus, to work in detail through all that I have written about nature, or to peruse the larger books which I have composed, I have already prepared at sufficient length an epitome of the whole system, that they may keep adequately in mind at least the most general principles in each department, in order that as occasion arises they may be able to assist themselves on the most important points, in so far as they undertake the study of nature. But those also who have made considerable progress in the survey of the main principles ought to bear in mind the scheme of the whole system set forth in its essentials. For we have frequent need of the general view, but not so often of the detailed exposition.

[36] Indeed it is necessary to go back on the main principles, and constantly to fix in one’s memory enough to give one the most essential comprehension of the truth. And in fact the accurate knowledge of details will be fully discovered, if the general principles in the various departments are thoroughly grasped and borne in mind; for even in the case of one fully initiated the most essential feature in all accurate knowledge is the capacity to make a rapid use of observation and mental apprehension, and this can be done if everything is summed up in elementary principles and formulae. For it is not possible for anyone to abbreviate the complete course through the whole system, if he cannot embrace in his own mind by means of short formulae all that might be set out with accuracy in detail.

Quote from Bryan

. And [Epicurus says] that it is not possible either to investigate, nor to be at a loss, nor indeed to judge -- but not even to refute -- without an anticipation."

So Bryan correct me if I am wrong here but this is how the entire discussion of prolepsis refutes what Plato had taught about ideal forms/reincarnation.

It is an obvious point that you can never investigate, refute, or judge whether you are correct about something unless you start with an understanding of what the "something" is. If you've never dealt with something before you cannot understand it unless you relate it to something you already understand.

Plato and gang want to suggest that you must have been born with from another life, or have been given by a divine god, a set of understandings that you then take and apply to your experience after you are born. You recognize a horse because before you were born you were implanted with the "form" of a horse, and when you see a horse after you are born you know it's a horse becaues you're remembering your pre-birth knowledge (or what god told you).

Epicurus says that 's nonsense. Like an LLM, your brain has evolved to be able to selectively pick out of the background noise the patterns that repeat within that noise. Sort of similar in a way that in the past when people looked at the noise on the screen of a black and white TV, you could begin to pick out the shapes of the objects on the screen even though they were covered in static.

That ability to pick out repeated patterns comes from the fact that the repeated patterns are in fact there in the static and our minds get used over time to picking them out. We aren't born with the patterns and the patterns are not in fact arbitrary - they are there in the static of the picture if we apply our attention and pick them out. For those of us who tune our TVs to shows about horses, we begin to be able to pick out in the programming the shapes to to which we apply the word "horse" or "equus" or whatever language we use.

This process is entirely natural and has no involvement with gods or pre-birth ideas or supernatural forms. But it is essential to human life and if this process did not exist, we would never be able to investige, judge, or refute anything. If provides the framework for understanding human knowledge that repudiates the supernaturalism of Plato and all those who claim that truth only exists in a "beyond-world" which is inaccessible to us as humans using our senses. No geometry or syllogistic logic or divine revelation is required.

The disaster is that even today people continue to accept Plato's basic argument - that truth is impossible for humans to obtain through our natural faculties, and that we either (1) require supernatural assistance to find true knowledge or (2) should give up on the idea of true knowledge in the first place becaues it doesn't exist.

"At first I thought, well he never experienced a god, so how could he say he knows of them from prolepsis."

This sounds to me as though you are not considering a prolepsis to be an experience. That's an issue we talk about regularly without much to work with, but at the very least: To the extent that prolepsis processes not only the five senses but also the feelings and also "images," I think some would maintain that Epicurus regarded "knowing them from prolepsis" as indeed "experiencing" them.

Bryan would you say that differently?

Just to be clear it looks like the outside box is you talking DaveT e, and not quoting Titus? I can fix that if you can't but I don't want to change it if indeed that outside box is somehow from Titus.

Also Titus this chat exchange has me thinking about something that I think needs to be a focus of the forum in the future - and it's an aspect of prolepsis.

Taken separately, I think the data in the chat you presented is largely correct. As I said it's probably stated more clearly than many of us can do ourselves. That makes the information in the post a valuable data point.

But the value of that data point is limited if we can't integrate it into a bigger picture of how and why it fits into the philosophy as a whole. I see this problem as analogous to what prolepsis itself does - it's a faculty that takes individual data points out of an otherwise overwhelming background noise, allows us to recognize patterns, and helps us apply those patterns to evaluate future experiences.

Ultimately, the biggest pattern we need to be concerned about is the philosophy as a whole. Saying "I understand what Chatgpt just wrote about anticipations" accomplishes next to nothing if we have the ability to fit it into the big picture and then use that picture.

I'll use another example I think is far more of a problem: Reading the letter to Meneoeceus and seeing "By pleasure we mean the absence of pain" means absolutely nothing unless we can intelligently fix that into the big picture. Failing to see that the letter is about happiness, and that happiness is about pleasure, but taking that part out of that context as if it can be taken alone converts the entire philosophy into the command "minimize pain." And that's a disaster.

We've developed, and will continue to develop, lots of detailed information about individual letters and books and writers and summaries. Each of those detailed treatments gives us valuable data points. But if we don't integrate those points into the bigger picture they are useless and get us nowhere.

Someone I follow on youtube had what I thought was a good video (below) about this issue of high level integrated thinking. He framed it in terms of how to stay ahead of AI, but the focus of his argument is that what makes humans smarter than AI is stronger ability to juggle lots of isolated facts and see their relationships and evaluate them by context.

That's what I take away from your AI chat -- the facts stated seem to me to be generally correct. The issue is whether we ourselves can integrate that information into a big picture that allows us to see why it is important and what it means for daily life. The video makes the point that "low-level thinking" - the accumulation of isolated facts - does not necessarily lead to "higher-level thinking" where those facts are integrated into a working whole. I think he's right, and that's a big problem we face.

I don't know what the best way to push that forward will be. The video makes a couple of suggestions. But I think "thematicallt" we need to move the forum forward needs to be in that direction. All of the detailed information we develop is useless or even potentially harmful if we don't see the relationships and integrate them into a working whole we can confidently apply.

Sunday June 14, 2026 - Zoom Discussion 12:30 PM EST - Lucretius Book Review - Lucretius Book 1 - 645 - The Competitor Theories As To What Things Are Made Of

1. Welcome and news / requests for new topics. We'll continue to deal with individual topics as they occur. Just message me and we will set up an agenda each week that allows for new topics.
2. Please help us stay on topic. Don't be afraid to comment or ask questions about the implication of any section we are covering, but please remember that there are controversies outside the scope of our project that we don't have time to cover.
3. Every session let's try to cover questions like:
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   4. What are the implications of these points?
4. Notes on New Topics / Announcements
   • Last week we discussed:
   • Plutarch on necessity of eating and drinking
   • Robert - Can we experience both pleasure and pain at the same time.
   • Bryan quoting Epicurus on his pain at the end
   • This week we will continue with Lucretius Book 1:645.

Welcome to Episode 338 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 Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we start are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective, which gives us an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and helps us understand Epicurus' position on the same issues. This week will continue toward completion of Section 8 of Book 2

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackham translation here:

• Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

I would say analysis of this issue goes right along with analysis of the issue of the proper aspects of anger as referenced by Philodemus. If we don't have the integrity and presence of mind to feel righteous anger when ourselves or especially our friends are suffering serious harm, then we don't have the integrity and presence of mind to feel true love or compassion or graciousness or any other natural emotion when those are appropriate. As humans, pain is something we want to avoid, but we need to listen to Nature's signals and not suppress them. When it is natural and appropriate to feel pain, we need to feel it, just like the wise man cries out when under torture, but nevertheless remains "happy" in the broader sense of the word.

Quote from Kalosyni

I don't think that the use of mocking words against philosophical enemies is constructive, and it goes against suavity. (I like to think that Diogene Laertius got that aspect of Epicurus wrong).

Also....VS79. The man who is serene causes no disturbance to himself or to another

That's why we need this discussion. It is clearly established in the texts that Epicurus and other Epicureans did exactly that (referred to philosophical opponents or at least their opinions in mocking terms). Yet Epicurus and his followers (Atticus' biography is an example) were considered by their friends to be a model of proper living.

If certain of us today have a definition of suavity that excludes the combination of graciousness toward friends with frankness toward enemies, then the burden is on us to undestand way. I think it's relatively easy to find a way to reconcile the evidence rather than conclude that we are smarter than Epicurus on that point.

Titus I would say that that discussion of a working theory of what Epicurus mean by prolepsis is better than what 98% of us on the forum could do if we sat down and decided to devote 20 minutes to tackling it. I am sure that most of us would also find tweaks we would suggest but in general I think someone who followed this model would be in good shape. I think it does a pretty good job as well with what often seems to be the trickiest part - that anticipations are not in themselves opinions, but foundations on which opinions are generated.

We very much need articles addressing the nature of "good manners" both in general and here on the forum. We know that Epicurus did not hesitate to use mocking wordss against his philosophical enemies, and we know that he strongly advised "frank speech" in ways that are direct but constructive. Kalosyni if you have any interest in this I hope you will help in that project of getting together some advisory material on this.

We want frank and direct exchanges here on the forum because we have a lot to do that needs to be accomplished, and we need to be efficient. On the other hand we also want it to be clear that this is EpicureanFriends and not Reddit. Tone and diplomacy and sticking to subjects are major problems on internet forums, and we've failed to investigate and address this subject for far too long, despite the clear pointers that we have from the section written by DeWitt.

Episode 337 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Confidence In Knowledge And The Epicurean Attitude Toward Pascal's Wager"

Transcript: https://epicurustoday.com/00-lucretiusto…337/#transcript

Thank you for taking the time to write that Elli!