I just started studying what we have of this guy's writings and I genuinely cannot believe what I'm reading.
Are we sure he was not a time traveler?

Nobody is asking so I will just elaborate of my own volition. Most people only know this guy for coining the problem of evil argument which still BTFOs youth pastor wannabes on /his/ to this day but his stuff actually goes so much deeper.

>Atoms make up everything.
>The universe is boundless in both space and matter.
>There is no center or edge to the cosmos.
>Worlds and stars arise due to high quantities of matter coagulating.
>There are infinitely many worlds (kosmoi), some like ours and others very different. ("Some have no moon, others more than one.")
>These worlds are not eternal—they are born, change, and eventually perish.
Bruh

>In Epicurean cosmology (described in more detail by his Roman follower Lucretius in De Rerum Natura), the earth at one time produced a variety of creatures, many of which died out because they were not suited for survival. Those that survived were better suited to their environments.
That's the 300 BC version of the theory of evolution WHAT.
Or at the very least natural selection. His works were lost, what we have of this guy is an incomplete view that was passed down to us through others. He actually wrote 37 (THIRTY SEVEN!!) volumes on naturalist philosophy.

He also coins the "you didn't exist before you were born so why are you scared of not existing after you die?" argument that's become so prevalent.

He also makes an argument against divine punishment that is essentially the teleporter paradox. I'm not exaggerating.

He and his followers also allowed women and slaves to partake in activities and stand on equal terms within the communities they set up. He faced a ton of backlash over this in particular since it was 3rd century BC Athens, although he faced backlash over all his ideas, other philosophers laughed at him for saying the world and humans arose due to random chance for example and he faced a ton of accusations of impiety and his philosophy promoting immoral behaviour.

Overall this has to be the most wholesome Reddit chungus Keanu stuff ever bro.

>"What a disappointment that Epicurus, the sage I most need, should have written over three hundred treatises! And what a relief that they are lost!" -E.M. Cioran
lel

>>24474329 (OP)
the world's first redditor

Redditors seem to think the Epicureans actually held orgies and they think it's based. That is literally slander made up by people like Plutarch and Cicero who hated their guts. Epicurus himself was actually critical of sexual promiscuity and encouraged familial structures.

>>24474329 (OP)
Ancient conversations in philosophy
>how big is the sun?
>as big as it looks to you.
>huh muh metaphysics
>yeah bro just keep staring at it

>>24474632
There were discussions around that time in Greece about heliocentrism vs geocentrism and geocentrism won out but going by Lucretius it actually seems the Epicureans were on the side of heliocentrism.
Dudes just can't stop taking Ws.

>>24474425
The secret ingredient of Ancient Greek philosophy was Eleusinian LSD. It revealed the cosmic truth to them during ritualized communal tripping.

>>24474666
>but going by Lucretius it actually seems the Epicureans were on the side of heliocentrism.
Not really, he rejects geocentrism, but doesn't end up supporting heliocentrism

>>24474632
Not really, it's closer to
>How big is the sun
>about 30 earth radius
>actually that uses an inaccurate measurement for the distance to the moon, it's closer to 70 earth radio

>>24474701
radii*
I fucking hate autocorrect

>>24474680
He wrote it at a time when geocentrism had become entrenched in academic thought. The fact that he fence-sits on the issue definitely gives me the vibe that the older Epicureans he was pulling from were not on that side.

>Aristotle in charge of not being a tard

>>24474680
that's even more of a W because heliocentrism is wrong too. the sun is not the center of the universe

>>24474590
>tips baseball cap

Kinda funny to see 2000 years ago materialists were causing immense amounts of seethe and getting hated on by everyone and 2000 years later it's the same story.

>>24474425
There's also a whole library found in Pompeii which apparently has mostly epicurean texts, so more stuff from the man could be forthcoming soon (the challenge is how to read the carbonized scrolls without destroying them)

>>24476097
I heard about that, they were using AI to try and decipher them. It's been "coming soon" for 2-3 years now.

I'm continuing my read tonight.

>>24474425
the Hindus also independently created their own school of atomism.

>paramāṇu = "smallest particle" - indivisible, eternal, invisible.
>These atoms combine to form dyads (dvyaṇuka), triads (tryaṇuka), and complex substances.
>see Vaisesika (Kanada)

>>24474425
>He and his followers also allowed women and slaves to partake in activities and stand on equal terms within the communities they set up.
*sigh* yeah just fuck our women bros skin colour doesn't matter

>>24478092
Go back to/pol/ retard

>>24474329 (OP)
He really aounds like a predditor that accidentally went back in time and had no idea how to invent electricity or anything else, so he just dropped random bullshit he remembered.

>>24474425
>He also makes an argument against divine punishment that is essentially the teleporter paradox. I'm not exaggerating.
That is: Your "soul" is a physical process of the body (it's literally made of atoms according to him). Nothing is observed leaving your body when you die, it all remains there and dissolves into its constituent elements. If a divine being that is angry with you and wanted to punish you even existed it would have to reassemble you after death and according to him this reassembled person would not be you, your "soul" having been destroyed upon your initial death and dissolution into its constituent parts.

Now replace "soul" with "consciousness". You have the teleporter paradox on your hands.

>>24474425
Continuing:

>Matter cannot be created or destroyed. The universe is a closed system. ("Nothing comes into being from what is not, and nothing perishes into what is not." -Epicurean First Principle)

>He seems to have had some early conception of photons he named eidola (images), which were particles that traveled incredibly quickly that were emitted by all objects which carried information about said objects that could then be picked up by our eyes and processed. He does not identify this with light sources though. Instead going by Lucretius it seems that they thought light somehow enabled the processing of the eidola that objects were permanently emmiting, independently of light. It's primitive but still much closer to reality than Plato's eye lasers.

>They did a better job with sound identifying many properties correctly, but it's still thought to be an emission of particles streaming outwards from the object while in actuality it's a vibration of pre-existing particles.

>Perfect perception is created within the mind by the images, error is caused by opinion and interpretation.

>It is unclear what the Epicurean conception of gods actually was due to lack of surviving evidence. It's been interpreted either as them thinking the gods are real (Realist Interpretation) but existing in kind of a separate plane and completely uninterested in humans and human affairs or that they thought of them as kind of mental projections (Idealist Interpretation), human inventions essentially, that represented ideals which could be emulated and they were basically proto-atheists.

>Aliens fucking EXIST, life is all over the universe and it arises naturally on planets during their early histories from "combinations of atoms" in sort of an early period of fertility. It's not quite the modern idea of abiogenesis since he (... probably) did not conceive of microscopic organisms but still give the guy some points. (Or take them away I guess if you think big G did it.)

>He goes on about how he hates superstition and how assigning causality and intent to celestial/earthly phenomena where there is none is one of the greatest causes of disturbance within the human soul.

>>24474425
Continuing:

Matter cannot be created or destroyed. The universe is a closed system. ("Nothing comes into being from what is not, and nothing perishes into what is not." -Epicurean First Principle)

He seems to have had some early conception of photons he named eidola (images), which were particles that traveled incredibly quickly that were emitted by all objects which carried information about said objects that could then be picked up by our eyes and processed. He does not identify this with light sources though. Instead going by Lucretius it seems that they thought light somehow enabled the processing of the eidola that objects were permanently emmiting, independently of light. It's primitive but still much closer to reality than Plato's eye lasers.

They did a better job with sound identifying many properties correctly, but it's still thought to be an emission of particles streaming outwards from the object while in actuality it's a vibration of pre-existing particles.

Perfect perception is created within the mind by the images, error is caused by opinion and interpretation.

It is unclear what the Epicurean conception of gods actually was due to lack of surviving evidence. It's been interpreted either as them thinking the gods are real (Realist Interpretation) but existing in kind of a separate plane and completely uninterested in humans and human affairs or that they thought of them as kind of mental projections (Idealist Interpretation), human inventions essentially, that represented ideals which could be emulated and they were basically proto-atheists.

Aliens fucking EXIST, life is all over the universe and it arises naturally on planets during their early histories from "combinations of atoms" in sort of an early period of fertility. It's not quite the modern idea of abiogenesis since he (... probably) did not conceive of microscopic organisms but still give the guy some points. (Or take them away I guess if you think big G did it.)

He goes on about how he hates superstition and how assigning causality and intent to celestial/earthly phenomena where there is none is one of the greatest causes of disturbance within the human soul.

>>24474425
>>Atoms make up everything.
The atomists came to this conclusion based on speculation rooted in reason, not by means of an objective science.
>>The universe is boundless in both space and matter.
Retroactively refuted by Aristotle

>>24474425
>goyed-up bugmen existed even in antiquity !!
yes.

>>24479757
>The atomists came to this conclusion based on speculation rooted in reason, not by means of an objective science.
Obviously. They didn't have any means to observe them. It's still a crazy good guess, I don't think of it as something that comes to us intuitively.
>Retroactively refuted by Aristotle
It hasn't been refuted even by modern science (we still can't detect any curvature of the universe) much less by giant bee man Aristotle.

I gotta get back into reading the Greeks. They were truly the best.

>>24479760
It's funny you say that, Chrysippus the Stoic used to derisively reffer to the Epicureans as "eunuchs".
We've had tradlarper X-tards calling materialist redditors soibois for at least 2300 years.

>>24479825
>It's still a crazy good guess
The leap from atoms existing to physicalism is still absurd.

>>24479871
fucking lol we truly havent changed
>Homeric Theatric Universe
:O

Fucking kek I can't believe this
>Ironically, despite being a speculative cosmologist by modern standards, Epicurus warned against baseless speculation:
>“We must not fight against the facts in feeling, but rather recognize what gives rise to those feelings.”
Literally "FACTS DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS SWEATIE".

This one is really strange: ancient quantum mechanics?

Epicurus introduced a concept where on the smallest possible scale atoms would sometimes experience random movements (a "swerve") that were completely impossible to predict. He did this because he felt free will inherently existed and needed to justify why (as Democritus' atomist system was entirely deterministic) so he introduced this in order to break determinism. Now... I know it's not the same thing... And he had literally no evidence... But... Quantum fluctuations? It's hard not to see the resemblance at least on a conceptual level.

It's like these guys were just receiving random insights onto the nature of existence from getting high on hemp.

>>24474425
A lot of those ideas were in the milieu in Greece at that time already.

>>24474425
Lucretius thought the earth was flat and that all atoms were constantly falling downward, which was his explanation of gravity. He was a retard.

It's the stoics who got the spherical earth right.

>>24480137
He had the best name out of all the Greeks though, by default making him the wisest of them all. That's a sweet name. Lucretius

>>24480136
I'm aware.
>>24480137
I have not read Lucretius but a cursory search seems to indicate that what you are saying is false.
Epicurus himself does talk about the shape of kosmoi (planets) in his surviving letter to Herodotus and he describes the possible shapes being either round or egg-shaped.

>>24474701
If you're going for a volume measurement then it's significantly larger. I don't know how large but I imagine a million Earths arent out of the question.

>>24479064
Go back to mongering oracles Alexander.

>>24474666
The school that won't die. Continue your path of tranquility!

bropsky sorry to tell you but actually democritus' concept of atom is far away from being the modern or the contemporary concept of atom. they called the atom atom because it meant indivisible in greek, but it is not related to the later theories of atoms.

i also dislike with a passion charlatans that profit from difficult times of despair and anguish to sell to the people their ideas on living. epicurus was the l. ron hubbard of its time.

>>24474425
Annihilationist dogshit, and atomism is for literal retards.

>>24479745
>The universe is a closed system.
>IT JUST IS, OKAY?!
Epicurus really is midwit fly paper huh lol

>>24480282
nta but he did give a coherent argument - nothing comes from nothing; therefore there is no new stuff or matter popping up out of nowhere for no reason; therefore the universe is a closed system, in the sense in which he meant to claim that it is. I don't even like Epicureanism but you are the midwit in this exchange. People like you ruin online philosophical discussions.

>>24474425
>le ebin science bearded guy
Other than that, his stance on the problem of evil is retarded (it’s fucking amateur hour tier) and so is his “bro why worry about death if you weren’t conscious before being born?” Gee, I don’t know, epicuckreous, because existing is pretty much a game changer

>>24480221
>they called the atom atom because it meant indivisible in greek
I don't think that is the case as they talked about atoms of different sizes. It might more broadly be said to encompass all microscopic particles like quarks, etc. if you want to fit it into modern definitions.
>it is not related to the later theories of atoms
"The atom is not related to the atom". Come on now. They didn't reuse the ancient name for nothing.
>i also dislike with a passion charlatans that profit from difficult times
I get you but you have to also understand that in ancient Greece this was essentially the norm. Fields of study were not separated as they are today, like even Democritus was peddling his philosophy and hot takes along with his more scientific ideas. Everyone was doing it. And by most accounts Epicurus was a swell guy. He didn't profit off his followers, in fact he was against pooling the property of his followers like the Pythagoreans were doing, and he lived frugally. Without him we would have next to no knowledge of Greek atomism.

>>24480301
>"The atom is not related to the atom". Come on now. They didn't reuse the ancient name for nothing.
nta, but you are right insofar as even ancient atomism is vaguely similar to modern atomism. But the other anon is right that ancient atomism has more to do with the problems of infinite divisibility + Eleatic monism ('there must be something that simply *is* because being can't come from not-being').

>>24474762
..where did he teach that?

>>24474329 (OP)

>>24480289
>Blah blah blah
You and Epicurus are free to prove the Universe doesn't have a transcendent cause for its existence any day now.

>>24480282
>Atomists: *describe borderline current physics*
>EHMM SOURCE? FUCKING PSEUDS!!!

>Aristotle: uhmm so the stars revolve around the earth plato told me that he heard socrates mention that he dreamt it in a dream once... also did I mention there are giant bees north of the danube??? it's very important that you know that
>Holy shit Aristotle you are like the smartest guy ever!!! The father of western civilization!

>>24480137
The spherical earth had been a basic part of Greek astronomy for centuries, even if Lucretius didn't believe it it'd be strange for all other Epicureans to also go along with it. They knew it was what caused eclipses to be seen differently from different places, and the visual phenomenon of faraway ships disappearing beneath the waves. Plato and Aristotle both taught that it's spherical, Pliny brings it up in his Natural History as well.
>>24480311
Not him, but that's from On the Heavens. Aristotle reasons that because we see the planets and such move across space on their own, eternally yet without being pushed, that they must be made of a material that naturally moves in infinite circles (aether), and they have to be perfect (or may even have a soul, like Plato writes in Timaeus). Sub-lunar imperfection vs supra-lunar perfection is a big deal to him, sub-lunar has all the generation and corruption while supra-lunar is unchanging and divine. This was elaborated upon (and tweaked) in Ptolemy's Almagest and became basic astronomy for over a thousand years.

>>24474329 (OP)

>>24480529
Those are the guys that fucked it all up.

>>24480388
>Aristotle reasons that because we see the planets and such move across space on their own, eternally yet without being pushed, that they must be made of a material that naturally moves in infinite circles (aether), and they have to be perfect (or may even have a soul, like Plato writes in Timaeus).

So how do you get geocentricity of the universe out of that?

>>24480340
>>24480529
jewish capeshit. Will go out with a wimper rather than a bang.

>>24480661
Oh, sorry, I was only explaining aether there.
Basically, if you know that the earth is round, and you can see that things go down, then clearly they're moving towards the center of the earth. From there it's easy to say that the center of the earth has to be the center of the universe, especially because they thought the earth wasn't moving. A common argument was that if the earth was constantly rotating, then throwing something up would obviously mean it'd land somewhere farther away from you, because the ground below would meanwhile be moving. And if the earth itself was not just rotating but moving around like the planets (which implied an incredibly high speed contrasted with the stillness we experience) then anything you'd separate from the earth and throw up should just fly off into space. Remember, this was a world where the concept of gravity didn't exist, and they had an absolute frame of reference.

>>24480720
>, then throwing something up would obviously mean it'd land somewhere farther away from you, because the ground below would meanwhile be moving.

this is true though

>>24480219
>If you're going for a volume measurement
I was talking about radius estimations, and the sun is about 109 earth radii. It's honestly amazing that the greeks got into even the rough ballpark w/ 70 radii considering their primitive tools

>>24474329 (OP)

>>24480924
It's reasonable, yes, and it wouldn't be until Newton and momentum that we could have an explanation for why the ball in the air seemingly stays still. Since he unified sub-lunar and supra-lunar physics, this was also the moment where everyone accepted heliocentrism for good, as the model required it.

>>24480968
its not reasonable, its true. as in fact. its just hard to detect if its a short drop

>>24474329 (OP)

>shill language
my interest is gone

>>24480137
wait wtf it's real???

>>24478059
based hindus

>>24474425
>Atoms make up everything
Wrong, what is the supposedly indivisible unit of matter? Doesn't exist.
>The universe is boundless in both space and matter.
Wrong, the universe has finite space
>There are infinitely many worlds (kosmoi), some like ours and others very different. ("Some have no moon, others more than one.")
Wrong, the universe is finite, with finitely many worlds
>>24474666
Heliocentrism is wrong, the Sun is not the center of the Universe, but if we want to pretend modern heliocentrism is what they believed that is wrong too, the Earth and Sun are both falling towards each other.
>>24479745
>Aliens fucking EXIST
Where are they? They aren't real

>>24474329 (OP)

>>24479871
that kinda proves its core and constance

>>24481501
>what is the supposedly indivisible unit of matter? Doesn't exist.
Quarks are currently thought to be indivisible.
If you zoom further then the Planck Length is the smallest possible unit of distance before physics starts breaking down.
>Wrong, the universe has finite space
>Wrong, the universe is finite, with finitely many worlds
Source?

>>24474329 (OP)
>>24474425
This is basically if Scientism was a religion.

/lit/ am I finally losing it or did bro just kinda describe galaxies?

>“A cosmos is a circumscribed portion of the heavens which contains stars and planets and all the phenomena, whose dissolution will involve the destruction of everything within it; it is separated off from the unlimited and terminates at a boundary which is either rare or dense; it is either revolving or stationary; it has an outline which is round or triangular, or some shape or other. For all of these are possibilities. For none of the phenomena in this cosmos testifies against [these possibilities], since here it is not possible to grasp a limit [of our cosmos].”

>>24482272
> “...a cosmos may be born both from another cosmos and in the intercosmic void—when the appropriate atoms converge from one or more cosmoi or from the intercosmos and gradually produce conjunctions and articulations, and cause shifts of position, producing influxes [of atoms] of the right kind, until the point of completion and stability is reached, for as long as the foundations laid can accept new material.”

>>24482272
>>24482349
Nevermind shut it down, massive fucking Ls in the following passages.

God dammit they (both him and Democritus) actually thought the stars were small bright objects and they were local to our kosmoi, kind of like a world-sphere that contained the earth, the sun the stars, which was encased within an outer layer of debated constitution. This would also contain the Milky Way, it's local, not something immense in scale that we are part of. Then past our kosmoi there is pan (void) filled with atoms and other kosmoi which could be similar or different to ours. It's kind of like that artwork you see of multiverse theory except each sphere is much much smaller in scale.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/greek-cosmologists/cosmos-of-the-atomists/48AFD1C466C35BC79CABF8CB82CF7720#access-block

Quite disappointing overall.

>>24482247
>if Scientism was a religion.
It already is, and it's the state-funded religion. But all the midwits think they're super 2smert4u for believing exactly what they're programmed to believe by the government schools and mockingbird media.

>>24482727
Oh it's so over Atomist bros...

>Democritus: Along with his teacher Leucippus, Democritus is said to have believed the Earth was disk-shaped (δισκοειδῆ μὲν τῷ πλάτει) and even concave in the middle (κοίλην δὲ τῷ μέσῳ). Some sources also describe it as "drum-shaped" (τυμπανοειδῆ). This view was likely consistent with their atomist philosophy, where the world was formed by a vortex of atoms, and the heavier, larger atoms settled in the center to form the Earth.
>Epicurus: Epicurus, a follower of Democritus's atomism, also rejected the idea of a spherical Earth. He held that the Earth was flat. This was consistent with his empiricist theory of knowledge, as the Earth appears flat to our senses. For Epicurus, if something appeared flat, and there was no compelling reason from his atomist framework to suggest otherwise, then it was flat. His philosophy emphasized that the universe is infinite and therefore could not have a center, which further conflicted with the idea of a central, spherical Earth in a finite cosmos.
>Lucretius: As a devoted follower and expositor of Epicurean philosophy, Lucretius, in his poem De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), faithfully presented Epicurus's views, including the notion of a flat Earth. He explicitly argued against the idea of a spherical Earth, often ridiculing the concept that people on the "underside" of a sphere would not fall off. This was a direct consequence of the Epicurean view of an infinite universe with no intrinsic "up" or "down" and atoms falling in parallel lines.

They thought the kosmoi, our local bubble, was round or egg-shaped. Not the earth itself.

>>24482727
This was a good read on the subject.

https://aeon.co/essays/lucretius-the-flat-earth-and-the-malaise-of-modern-science?hl=en-GB

>>24478059
I want to lick this woman's armpits.

>>24474329 (OP)
If you cast your eye over thousands of years worth of random faggots spouting whatever nonsense they can think of, sooner or later you'll find something that seems like it makes sense, or something that unwittingly accords with modern scientific findings. For every man that comes up with the concept of atoms, there are a hundred men that come up with concepts like the four humours or moxibustion.

>>24474425
Berkeley thought objects only exist when perceived. I guess you should become an idealist theist since he predicted wave function collapse.

>>24474329 (OP)

Fun fact: It was an Atomist, Anaxarchus, that told Alexander there are infinite worlds and caused that famous scene.

>>24474329 (OP)
> Are we sure he was not a time traveler?
Human nature never changes, ergo history is doomed to repeat itself. Read the philosophy of world history by Hegel.
People look for freedom — to liberate themselves from oppression— but human nature seeks to exert power and control over others, to influence others, to hoarde most resources.