How could the greeks prove that the atom existed and what does that have to do with being happy watch video to find out? Okay, the greeks, dopest people that ever lived? They figured out all this stuff for us, our politics, the sports, math law, medicine, you name it baby, but most importantly, philosophy. Thank you, greek person, as we discuss on this channel before they even dig into topics like how to be happy. The stoix talks about this topic a lot aristotle pondered about this. A lot soak retains you know did we benefit so much from the greeks, but why does it seem like still so many people are unhappy bro if you're sad, just don't be sad.

Well, i read epicurus the art of happiness and i think it highlights pretty well why why so many people are still unhappy to this day. Epicurism is quite similar to stoicism in many ways. There's a few determining factors don't need to get into the nitty-gritty. This is not an expert essay, i'm literally i'm doing this video and hope that people will continue their exploration and discover epicurus and read the book themselves.

Basically um. I was going to say a great way to understand. Epicurism is by just looking at the title. I thought the title was the the science of happiness, apparently the art of happiness.

They, it should be the signs of happiness, they messed it up. I'm just gon na pretend that that's what the book is called the signs of happiness. Thank you because epicurism was using science as a fundamental for everything, god damn it, this completely ruined my point by understanding things: they alleviate your fear from them. People feared the gods.

For example, they were quite wrathful people back in the ancient, greek and uh. You know, christianity, people, fear hell, it's a similar concept, but their view was uh, more eggnog agnostic in the sense that the gods don't really interact with us. We're there's, no re, don't worry about them, basically and from the principle of science. Therefore, you know the the ancient greeks explain all this natural phenomena by these amazing stories.

You know: helios the sun, god being this chariot, that carried the sun across the sky and all these uh stories to explain these natural phenomena. But the epicureans didn't believe in this. They they understood that, there's a way to explain everything. You can explain the heavenly bodies and what they are and they're not there because of the gods, necessarily or if you see a rainbow, there's a natural way of explaining why it occurs.

It's not some! It's not! It's not some irish dude hiding a bunch of treasure in the end of this book. They have all these. They go through all these natural occurrences and they try and explain them, but they don't necessarily say. Oh, we know for sure this is how it is so.

Even though it isn't great, you know they don't explain everything perfectly. Obviously, i that's still what science is? They do their best of trying to explain things um from how they observe it, but there's one thing that epicurus in particular knew for sure, which is the existence of the atom, which i think is so cool. When i heard about this first time, i was like what how how did they figure that out, i'm sorry what they figured out the atom existed 2000 years ago. Why so? He knew this based on two principles.

Number one that we we can all observe is that bodies move yeah number two is the principle that nothing comes into the existence from nothing. This was a principle that was uh known throughout at this time by some, at least that upheld it. As far as i understand - and it kind of goes with the whole point that they didn't try and explain natural occurrences as something magical made up by the gods, but rather trying to understand how they come into existence based on other things. They basically understood that for anything to occur, there has to be a reason for it to occur, or next there's an explanation for why it happens.

Those are the two things, so these bodies that we observe we can break down into pieces. Anyone can understand that, but epicures knew that this process of breaking down into pieces, it can't go on forever, because then it would break the law that the bodies would dissolve into nothing eventually, if you repeat this process, so he understood that there has to be one Singular non-compound entity that exists, which is the atom there. You go another thing that he believed was that the universe is infinite. You know which isn't hypothetically false.

At least it's not impossible, so i don't know, i just think it's cool, so they figured out all this scientific stuff, felix, okay, great. What about it? How do i become happy? Well, so their actual philosophy, epicurism philosophy, is technically hedonistic, which means indulging in pleasures and that's what they value now, as it turns out, slander is not a unique concept for our time. It occurred back then as well, and the group of epicureans were heavily slandered through this principle of hedonism and and try to print them as this sort of uh sex-mongering orgy, porgy alcohol, drunkards, uh group of people and that's worked successfully for many many years until scholars Decided actually, no there's plenty evidence to show complete opposite that this was all fabricated and in fact the truth is that they were quite ecstatic in in the terms of practicing their own self-discipline. So when you say they're technically hedonistic, what that means is that to them? The highest pleasure is a clear mind from free from any of the pain.

Their goal is to achieve pleasure, but also eliminate pain, and they divide very cleverly. I think pleasure into three categories. Number one is what we all need, which is a shelter home relationships, something that we all sort of depend on more or less number two is things that we want, such as luxuries sex alcohol. Much like the stoic they they say.

You know it's, it's, okay! To indulge in these things, but practice it in moderation and considering their request is quite aesthetic. You know they understood the dangers of on indulging in these things, and then you have the last one, which is things that you want, but they are just bad for you. In general, sorry, which is power being famous, and the principle here, is that you will never have enough of these things. You will never be satisfied.

Having these things, uh very few people go and say, hey, you know what i have enough money now. Thank you. Jeff bezos isn't really going hey. You know what i got enough: fame and power, i'm quite pleased.

Now. No, everyone keeps pursuing these things uh. At least most people do because they have no limit, and i would actually argue that the these two go in the same category as sex and and luxuries, but i'm also very heavily simplifying these things. So take it with a grain of salt, so epicurus had this garden, which is on the cover, which is quite famous and referenced by a lot of people.

I think it was used as this area, where you would teach yourself to not be dependent on these luxuries and sort of things. Uh and and garden is quite fitting for that. If i remember, i think it was socrates, that that was pondering of what things are good and what things are bad kind of similar to epicurus, and there was this example of a flower being this pure good, because you smell it, you enjoy it and there's no Bad consequences for it, but whether you you drink alcohol, you might feel good, but afterwards there's a consequence for it, and a lot of epicurrism is knowing what these things are. Taking action to avoid or engage with, depending on that, so in a lot of sense, it makes sense that the science of happiness in the terms of knowing what things are good for us, there's virtue in in knowing basically so in that sense, we can take measures In life of not feeling pain later, maybe you enjoy smoking well, we know that causes cancer, so you might want to avoid that and that's the sort of net positive and net the loss that epicurism is based on trying to compare you know, is it worth.

It is it worth engaging with these things if you're practicing asceticism it's a balance, basically and the same thing when you're practicing asceticism in self-discipline, you know, if you're, gaining more pain from withstanding from things in the long run. Obviously you know doesn't that kind of feed the whole purpose epicurusism also focus a lot on mental pain and, and they put that up as a worse in physical pain because it happens before during and after so they link that with the this might be come out. A bit out of nowhere, but i i did like this passage as someone who's dealt with a lot of anxiety myself. They sort of use this principle of avoiding mental pain by uh talking about fear of death, for example.

Second, you should accustom yourself to believing that death means nothing to us, since every good and every evil lies in sensation. But death is the pervasion of sensation. Hence a correct comprehension of the fact that death means nothing to us, makes the mortal aspect of life pleasurable. Not by conferring on us a boundless period of time, but by removing the uranus for deathlessness, there's nothing fearful in living for the person who has really laid hold of the fact that there is nothing fearful in not living.

So it is silly for a person to say that he dreads death, not because it will be painful when it arrives, but because it pains him now as a future. Certainty for that which makes no trouble for us when it arrives, is a meaningless pain. When we await it, this, the most horrifying of evils means nothing to us, then, because so long as we are existent death is not present, and whenever it is present, we are not existent. It is of no concern either to the living or to those who have completed their lives for the former.

It is non-existent and the latter are themselves non-existent. It was also passage uh. I don't remember where it is, but it was talking about. Life is long enough for someone that lives it well wish.

I could find it read the book. It's great um, so you know, since epicurism and stoicism are quite similar, i'm probably still uh more in the stoic sort of playfield of ideas that i prefer having pain. Can always be avoided, no matter what measures you take and having that pain, be. Your virtue, i think, is something really powerful.

Science is setting us free from pain, but you can also argue that science causes pain and it creates more of these things that we are dependent on that is necessary in modern society to to you engage with when we're talking about the things that we absolutely necessarily Need which is a home food and and friends, you know now it seems like you need some form of transport to get around. You need access to the internet, otherwise you can't really be a productive member anymore and sure we can alleviate the fear of god by by understanding things about. You know the heavenly bodies, but it doesn't that also sort of alleviate any form of spirituality that we had with those things um sure we understand that the sun is not the sun, god helios carrying it across the sky, but we understand it's just a ball of Gas or whatever, that we could literally shoot with nuclear missiles. If we so damn pleases us is there a net loss or a net gain there? I don't know, but epicurusism in is, in a sense, a withdrawal from society, so you know likely they wouldn't even care to have these sort of things anyway, it's living your life.

The way you do it engage in the things that you find positive for yourself and completely ignore everything that doesn't that's not necessarily a bad thing, and i think that could work for a lot of people. So i say i recommend the book check it out. If you enjoyed it smash like subscribe and you can win a billion which, of course you wouldn't want anyway, am i right bye.