Epicureanism is more like science than religion
June 10, 2010 · Filed Under Epicurean solutions, science
“There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science
will win because it works.” – Stephen Hawking in an interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News.
Hawking used the words “because it works”, rather than “because it is true”. Determination of “truth” in any other way would
require an ultimate authority, and ultimate authority is religion’s game.
In this context Epicureanism is more like science than like religion: it did work for the decent, rational and reasonable middle class of the Roman Empire for 800 years just as well as it does for us today.
“There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.” said Stephen Hawking in an interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News.
Hawking used the words “because it works”, rather than “because it is true”. Determination of “truth” in any other way would require an ultimate authority, and ultimate authority is religion’s game.
In this context Epicureanism is more like science than religion: it did work for the decent, rational and reasonable middle class of the Roman Empire for 800 years just as well as it does for us today.
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4 Responses to “Epicureanism is more like science than religion”
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Stephan:
I happened to be reading yesterday on the Epicurus.info page this “Epicurea” entry which is relevant to Hawkings’ point that you posted today, so I thought I would add it as a comment here:
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Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians II (Against the Dogmatists, II).9: Epicurus said that all sensibles (sensations?) were true and real. For there is no difference between saying that something is true and that it is real. And that is why, in giving a formalization of the true and the false, he says, “that which is such as it is said to be, is true” and “that which is not such as it is said to be, is false.”
“Science will win because it works” is probably just a more narrow version of saying “Science will win because it is REAL.”
So your comment is spot on:
“Determination of “truth” in any other way would require an ultimate authority, and ultimate authority is religion’s game.”
— with maybe the addition that Epicurus would likely have said also that Plato and other false philosophers are playing the same game as religion, but from another angle.
Cassius: You are right. Plato’s “philosophy” on the ‘Republic’ was the model for all the tyrannies, including Communist Russia, Nazi Germany and all the ancient, medieval and modern theocracies.
Galenios: I gather that among the many reasons Epicurus deserves greater recognition was that he was the leading and perhaps the ultimate opponent of Platonism, as Thomas Jefferson mentions in the letter to William Short.
Sciences such as general relativity and quantum mechanics cannot be reconciled with epicurean physics. Bending SPACE (=VOID)? Particles without SHAPE and SIZE? Time as a dimention? Big bang (creatio ex nihilo), and black holes (ininitly small body)?
Modern physics is not only irrational (mixes objects/bodies with concepts) but also platonic in its roots (purely mathematical approach and intellectual elitism).
On the other hand religion is better than this sciences because it at least gives moral guidance, and secures free will. Maybe modern physics do not praise deterministic universe but it have very bad influence on someone who accepts theirs opinions about nature.
One can on it’s basis believe in another (parallel) universes or/and in some kind of infinite life (thru some technological impróvements in the human body). Former can shake man’s courage to accept things with he cannot change as he can dream of some kind another reality where he may be happyier. Latter makes thinking that “death is nothing to us” irrelevant, because strenthen belief that man can have infinite life span.
Scientist (g. relativists and quantum mechanists) seriously debate on that issues along with others such as time travels.
Seriously I don’t see any difference between modern phyz, religion and science fiction anymore…
Also I thinks that what hawking is saying really mean: “Science will win because it works in OUR EQUATIONS”. So it appears to be “battle” between artificial means of knowledge and mystic revelation, or in simple words between mathematics and religion/theology.