Epicurus

Epicurus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Epicurus (c.341-270 BCE) was a Greek materialist philosopher, born on the island of Samos who founded a school at Mitylene in 310 BCE. In 305 BCE he opened a school of philosophy in Athens, leading an exemplary life of simplicity and temperance.

From a few extant letters and fragments, we learn that Epicurus believed that happiness was the highest good and that life ended at the point of death. This was not the path of wanton hedonism, as some medieval Christian opponents suspected, but rather deliverance from pain and worry.

The Christian disdain for Epicurus, aside from his disbelief in the afterlife, was exacerbated by some of his followers who advocated sensual pleasure-seeking as the highest goal in life. While Epicurus did see pleasure and pain as standards against which to measure a successful or unsuccessful life, he also advocated restraint. And his understanding of pleasure was more akin to the notion of tranquility than a succession of ephemeral thrills.

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Epicurism

Epicurian Postcard / Epicure de Rappel (Photo credit: Pierre Metivier)

Today, epicurism usually means the pursuit of pleasure, as in fine cuisine, wine-tasting, etc. This everyday usage distorts the original doctrines of the philosophical school of Epicureanism.

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Anna Freud

Anna Freud (1895-1982) was the daughter of Sigmund Freud and an important psychoanalytic thinker particularly in the area of child psychoanalysis. Her The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence (1936) elaborated on her father’s idea of defense mechanisms.

Sigmund and his daughter Anna Freud Nederlands: Foto van Sigmund en Anna Freud, op vakantie in de Italiaanse Dolomieten (1913) Česky: Sigmund Freud se svou dcerou Annou (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Four Noble Truths

Dhamekh Stupa, where the Buddha gave the first sermon on the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path to his five disciples after attaining enlightenment at Bodh Gaya. Also seen behind the stupa in the left corner is the yellow-coloured spire of Digamber Jain temple, dedicated to 11th Jain Tirthankar, Shreyansanath, known to be his birth place. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Four Noble Truths are the core of Buddhist teaching, said to have been outlined by the Buddha in his first discourse at Benares. They are as follows:

1. All of life is suffering (dukkha)
2. The cause of suffering is wrongful desire, craving or thirst (tanha)
3. Suffering can be overcome by eliminating these causes
4. The method for eliminating suffering is outlined in the Eightfold Path.

This differs from the Christian view of suffering. Christians, particularly Catholics, tend to make room for a positive view of some forms of suffering, regarded as a means towards purification in preparation for everlasting heaven. While neurotic suffering is not accepted and unnecessary suffering is to be avoided, the Catholic saints do not try to eradicate unavoidable “holy suffering,” which they believe should be patiently endured.

In some cases extreme suffering is welcomed as a blessing by the Catholic saint. St. Faustina Kowalska, for instance, embraced holy suffering because she believed she was instructed by Christ that it would maximize her heavenly reward. The depth psychologist C. G. Jung had something similar (but not identical) to say in his treatment of alchemy. For Jung suffering was a necessary kind of ‘smelting,’ as it were, for soul making—or rather, self making.

Again, the Buddhist understanding of suffering is very different from that of both Jungian theory and Christian theology. Buddhism sees all suffering as bad and something to be avoided, whereas mystical Christians see some types of suffering as a valuable experience leading toward purification and a heavenly reward beyond all human imagination. Jung’s take on suffering isn’t quite so grand as the Christian view. It’s more focused on psychological development within this life, and doesn’t really speak to the afterlife.

The Buddhist view of suffering and its solution also involves a supposed realization that we have no individual self. To most Christians and Jungians, alike, this view is simply misguided.

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Gaia Hypothesis

A rendition of life on planet earth via Wikipedia

The Gaia hypothesis was proposed by the British scientist, author and environmentalist James Lovelock (1919-). It suggests that the Earth, itself, is a self-regulating entity geared toward sustaining life.

In his own words, Gaia is

a complex entity involving the Earth’s biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet.¹

This view is alternately accepted and rejected by various scientists. And it’s often mistaken for Lewis Thomas‘ speculation that the Earth, if viewed from space, looks like a single cell.

The Gaia hypothesis is also used out of context by some New Age enthusiasts who uphold it as support for the pantheistic idea that God and the natural, observable world are identical.

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¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis

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Locke, John

Title page for the fourth edition of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding via Wikipedia

John Locke (1632-1704) was a British philosopher who had a profound influence on the school of empiricism.

Locke believed the human infant enters the world with a tabula rasa (i.e. a blank slate). Accordingly, we inherit nothing more than physical characteristics and a basic sense of goodness. This makes the mind free and equal among different individuals.

Although this may seem somewhat speculative today, Locke, himself, argued against abstract speculation in favor of recognizing the limits of knowledge through direct experience.

For Locke, we can only know about an object’s “primary qualities” of size, shape and motion. These qualities exist independently of perception. We can never know anything about an object’s “secondary qualities” of color, taste, smell, warmth, texture and sound because these are products of the object’s interaction with our senses–i.e. qualities that don’t inhere to the object itself.

Locke’s pragmatism didn’t close him off to the possibility of God’s existence. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) he argued for the “reasonableness” of the idea of God.

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Panpsychism

Toaster is in lurve: Cle0patra

Panpsychism is the philosophical idea that all things possess consciousness appropriate to their complexity of organization.

According to this view, a machine or electrical circuit could generate consciousness with a character in keeping with the degree of that object’s organizational complexity.

When we consider that human consciousness is in large part affected by our bodies and especially the electrochemical charges running through of the brain, nervous system and organs, the panpsychic view is perhaps not too far-fetched.

Theological critiques of this view tend to rely on the ancient Greek distinction between organic and inorganic substances,¹ and usually add that it’s doubtful that machines have souls, which for many believers is an essential component to life.

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¹ Historically speaking, we have a “basic distinction between organic and inorganic substances, following Aristotle’s distinction between the mineral kingdom and the animal and vegetative kingdoms.” See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism

» Artificial Intelligence (AI), Strong AI Thesis, Leibniz (Gottfried, Wilhelm)

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Strong AI Thesis

Photo: fd / John Watson

Strong AI Thesis

A term coined by American philosopher John Searle (born 1931), representing the hypothesis that artificial intelligence possesses actual consciousness like that of a human being.

The idea is expressed as follows:

The appropriately programmed digital computer with the right inputs and outputs would thereby have a mind in exactly the sense that human beings have minds”

John Searle, 1998 in Dennett, Damiel C. Consciousness Explained, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1991 p. 435.

It should be noted, however, that Searle rejects the Strong AI Thesis. He believes that computer intelligence simulates but doesn’t possess real thought, a position called “Weak AI.”

Others believe that Strong AI isn’t too far-fetched when we consider that human beings are, at least in part, composed of electrochemical interactions.

If strong AI is true, we can take it down to the simplest levels and argue that even your refrigerator, toaster or iPod have some kind of unique electro-organizational consciousness that would distinguish them from, say, a pile of rocks.

» Artificial Intelligence (AI), Asimov (Isaac), Data (Commander), Hal 9000, Panpsychism

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Vanaprashta

Vashist Forest 2

Originally uploaded by ElPablo!

Vanaprashta (Skt: ‘home in the forest or woods’)

In traditional Hinduism this is the third asrama (Vedic stage of life) in which the male, having fulfilled his matrimonial dharma as a householder, generally retreats to the forest to study the deeper meaning of sacred texts and become adept at meditation.

A difficult path to follow, especially today, within the changing face of Hinduism its contemporary translation is more a psychosocial rather than geographical withdrawal–that is, the Hindu meditator, whether he be male or female, may withdraw into the deeper aspects of the psyche (and perhaps beyond) without necessarily leaving the household as in former times.

This shift is made evident in Pauline Kolenda’s ethnographic study conducted in Khalapur, where she notes:

Jivan Mal was a Gandhian. Like Gandhi, he tried to live his life according to the four ashramas, and when we knew him, he was in the third ashrama; he was a vanaprashta one who had retired from ordinary life to devote himself to religion. He explained that he and his wife were “like brother and sister”; he had given up sexual activity. Consistent with his religiosity and his Gandhianism was his strict vegetarian diet, but inconsistent with his Gandhianism was his inability to consort with untouchables, to be near them or to take food or drink from them or with them.

Source » Pauline Kolenda, “Micro-Ideology and Micro-Utopia in Khalapur: Changes in the Discourse on Caste over Thirty Years,” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 24, No. 32 (Aug. 12, 1989: 1831-1838), pp. 1833-1834.

Of course, one may rightly ask how such unsavory snobbishness could be taken as sign of positive spirituality and in keeping with God’s will.

» Asrama, Dharma, Hinduism

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Xenophanes

Gold and Ivory Artemis(?)

Originally uploaded by greekgeek

Xenophanes (c. 570 BCE)

Greek thinker born in Colophon, an Ionian Greek coastal city.

Xenophanes critiqued the cosmology of Homer, Hesiod and the popular pre-Socratic take on religion and mythology.

From his surviving fragments – and from others commenting on his work – it’s clear that Xenophanes satirized the anthropomorphic nature of the Greek pagan gods, arguing that God must be unmoving and changeless.

5. But mortals suppose that the gods are born (as they themselves are), and that they wear man’s clothing and have human voice and body. [Zeller, 524, n. 2. Cf Arist. Rhet. ii. 23; 1399 b 6.]

6. But if cattle or lions had hands, so as to paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do, they would paint their gods and give them bodies in form like their own-horses like horses, cattle like cattle. [Zeller, 525, n. 2. Diog Laer. iii. 16; Cic. de nat. Deor. i. 27.]

Arthur Fairbanks, ed. and trans. “Xenophanes: Fragments and Commentary,” The First Philosophers of Greece (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1898), p. 67.

Likewise, the early Christian writer Clement of Alexandria (2^nd – 3^rd CE) wrote in his Miscellanies 5. 109:

Xenophanes of Colophon puts it well indeed in teaching that god is one and without a body (asomatos): “There is one god, greatest among gods and men, who is not like human beings either in form (demas) or in thought (noema).”

Source » “XENOPHANES of Colophon” http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/xenophanes.html

Offering piercing criticisms of the pre-Soctratic mindset, Xenophanes nevertheless believed that we cannot be certain about anything. As such, he said that his observations were necessarily conjecture.

E. L. Hussey says that Xenophanes made the “first known attempt at philosophical theology”–i.e. thinking about faith instead of glossing over and mindlessly reproducing its cultural and historical aspects (Ted Honderich, ed., Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 1995, p. 920).

» Comparative Religion

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