misconception about stoicism is that it's about cultivating an attitude of detachment from things and people . It turns people into doormats . It's a quietest philosophy . It's about. N ot reacting . It's about not doing things and sort of isolate yourself from the rest of the world . But that's stoicism with the little S , which is not, in fact, what real stoicism with a capital as , toi cis m. The philosophy is about. I am, Masimo, Pel, Y uci . I am, an evolutionary biologist and a philosopher of S cien ce . And. My latest book is calledBeyond stoicism coauored with Greg Lopez and Mered Kuns . De bunking misconceptions about stoicism . P erh aps predictably. There is a lot of discussion and even a little bit of confusion about what Sttoiceism mean is and is not if you read a random writing about stoicism, or you listen to a random podcast about stoicism, you would hear things like, oh, don't don't go that way because that's not really sism me. It's there any fact to some extent I've done this as well. I think I have arguments for it. These arguments, I think are based on a good understanding of the philosophy as well as on the original texts ,. But I admit, there are different opinions. About. . T. He, nature of sto ism . This is not surprising . We. See the same thing in other philosophies and religion . There are different opinions about what Christianity is . There are different opinions about what Buddhism is . A nd ,. In fact, , arguably ,. There are different Christianityities and different B ud dhi sms , meaning that there are different ways to interpret what the ancient texts say, and also different ways to update those texts and those philosophies to the 21 st century . So. The same goes for stoicism . In fact , to some extent, ,. This has happened from the beginning . Y eah . O ne of the students of Zeena of S aiu m , who was the originator of stores, was the guy who actually started the store . One of his students is on record , disagreeing on some of the things that about some of the things that Zeino was saying . and starting his own thing . he went on on in a different direction . And. He started his own school. So. This has happened since the beginning . disagree agreementment is the nature of philosophy and possibly the nature of the human condition . Y eah . N everth ele ss ,. One needs to be cautious about what we read and how we think about things, because we need to make at least an honest concerted effort, if we're interested in a particular philosophy or religion to get to the bottom of what the thing is actually about and not what necessarily some people claim it is about.

Stoicism at the moment is in resurgence. It's very popular for number of years. Now you will easily find new books and new articles and new podcasts and new . E says on stoysism as a practical philosophy, , and one might ask reasonably why stoicism all of a sudden . W ell ,. On the one hand, , stoicism really never went away . It is true that all of the eenistic philosophies . G radu ally disappeared from view between the third and the fourth century , essentially contemporaneously with the rise of Christianity and the two things artifact, in fact, more or less related . But it's also true that a lot of stoic ideas were, in fact, , incorporated into Christianity, and they were transmitted by the church , the early church fathers into the Middle Ages. Eventually, they reemerged as stoic ideas into the Renaissance and later on into the E, nme nt ,. And so the fact that today, we are talking about stoicism and people are practicing stoicism isn't really that surprising . On. The other hand, , it is certainly the case that the number of people who are interested in sism as searched dramatically over the last 10 to 15 years . and so it makes sense to ask ourselves. Well, why . O kay . P ossi bly. One of the answers is that we live in turbulent times, which are essentially the same kinds of times that led to the initial flourishing of stoicism, , stoicism flourished during the ellenistic period , which was a major period of lasting two or three centuries of political change, , social change. In fact, all of the so-called eenistic philosophies , not just stoicism , but also epicureanism , two different forms of skepticism and a number of others . W ere very popular and or arose at that time, , precisely because people were looking for answers, , people were looking for ways to navigate a rapidly changing world that was difficult to make sense of, and it was even more difficult to cope with . T oday , arguably since I would say, at least the 2 0t h century and certainly into the 21 st century ,. We live in a similar world , last century, we went through two world wars . T hen. We developed enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet many times over , then near the end of the 2 0t h century and beginning of the 21 st. We started being more aware of yet another major challenge, which we referred to as climate change. N ot to mention , of course, , more local . in a national level or a regional level, , political change, , social change that keeps happening at a very high pace. And a lot of people are distraught by this ,. They don't know how to process this ,. They don't know what their place is going to be in a society that looks very different from not only the society of their parents and grandparents , but even the society that they experience as younger selves . So. It's not surprise that stoicism in particular , which is a philosophy after all of resilience and of coping with . Po tential challenges and potential drawbacks is having a moment of resurgence . I think it's perfectly reasonable . and fact, it's very useful . H owever , that does bring . P eople to a misunderstanding ,. A lot of people seem to think that that's what toy ism ,. That's all that syism me is ,. That is that stoyism is good only as a remedy toward setbacks and challenges ,. For instance, , Y eah . D uri ng, the recent COVID pandemic , I personally got a lot of calls from people of town, asking me about stoicism and say, , you know, can I use sicism to deal with the situation. And the answer was , of course, you can , but you also don't want to forget that . Y eah . We make decisions all the time in life throughout our lives , whether it's good times or bad times , whether it's a challenge or an opportunity ,. It doesn't matter . we still have to make the best decisions we can. And sism. In a sense, , is a philosophy about decision making about the best way to approach decision making . so it's just as useful in good times. So to speak, as it is in bad times , it's just that people tend to reach for it only when they are in distress. And then they become sort of a little bit relaxed, probably inappropriately relaxed , I should say, , when it comes to the good times , we don't we don't think that if we are. G oing through things that are positive , let's say, we come into ,. We have a good moment on our career or we come into some money or something that those are problems ,. But in fact, they are problems . B eca use. They also carry the necessity of decision making. If you came into some money , what are you going to do with that money? ,? How are you going to invest it ,? How are you going to ,? How is that going to change your life in for the better ,? It may not the answer to those questions may not be that obvious. And so good decision making is always useful, no matter what the situation positive or negative .

W hen ever a philosophy or effect fact , even a religion becomes popular ,. Inevitably, there are people who are going to use it in a way that . E ss enti ally is a misunderstanding of the original idea or a significant distortion of the original idea . This is happening, not surprisingly, also with stoicism ,. There's a number of people , especially certain kind of young man who are attracted to what they think of as stoicism, because it validates their notion that a a good person, , a strong person. , particularly strong man, is somebody who is silent, who controls their emotions and so on and so forth. , but that's stoicism with the little S is the stoic attitude , the stiff upper lip , the suppression of emotion , the sp approach to life , which is not, in fact, what real stoicism with a capital as , stoicism ,. The philosophy is about Of course . L ike, any misconception , there is a grainer truth . The stiff upper lip ,. For instance, , comes from the fact that . E nura nce is in fairas stoic value ,. The stoics would say, look, if something is going to happen to you that you cannot do anything about , then your only choice is really your only irrational choice is to endure it ,. What are you going to do? You're either going to endure it or you're going to endure it and then complain about it, complaining doesn't really add anything. It only makes you feel worse, so just deal with it ,. Just endure it. B ut. That's not the same as a stiff upper lip because it's only a minor component of what stoic philosophy is about. T heno tion , the misgaid notion that stoicism is about suppressing. The emotions also comes from a distortion of a real aspect of stoic philosophy ,. The stoics make a big deal about the notion of talking to your emotions, , and modulating your emotions through reason, , for instance, , dealing with your anger , in a way that it's not anger anymore , but it becomes something healthy , something positive ,. For instance, , a sense of justice that you want to pursue instead of a destructive sense of anger . Y eah . T hat can also easily be misconstrued as suppressing emotions. ,. There is no such thing as suppressing emotions. ,. We cannot suppress emotions, because emotions are part and parcel. The way our brain works. The only way to suppress your emotions is to literally cut off a part of your brain, and that will turn you into a psychopath or otherwise, somebody who has a serious mental issues ,. You don't want to do that . T. He . H owever ,. There is a danger of what I sometimes refer to as the broification, as in bro of stoicism, , or this interpretation of stoicism that tends to be on the darker side of things, tends to emphasize masculinity and tends to emphasize this view of mythical view, almost of the man who doesn't really react in any external way to things and just takes it, and then is stronger because of that . Y eah . O ne of the arguments that these people make , for instance, , is that stoicism is a type of virtual ethics, and that the word virtue comes from the Latin there , V IR , which, in fact, means men ,. So there you go right , even the etymology tells you that it's about being a manly man and that sort of stuff . B ut that argument misses an important crucial point , which is . T. He word ver itself. Virtual in Latin is actually a translation of the original ,. The original was Greek because soicism ultimately is a Greek philosophy , not a Roman one ,. And the original word in Greek is Arte AR ETE , which just means excellence ,. It doesn't mean mainly anything ,. It just means do the best that you can , and it's gender neutral . Y eah . It ' s not a masculine, you know, word at all . So. Even at that level , we see sort of a superficial understanding , even at an etymological level ,. And certainly, at a historical level , we see a superficial misunderstanding , which turns into what I think is a counterproductive and potentially even dangerous kind of attitude . O kay . S toi cis m certainly does not condone a menly man approach to things. The ancient stocks themselves actually were unusual among Gregreor, Roman philosophers, because they explicitly said in writing , that women are rational human beings, just like men, and they're just as capable of understanding and practicing philosophy. ,. It's right there, black and white ,. It's in the writings ,. It doesn't need any interpretation. , both epicpictetus and Seneca explicitly say that in multiple points . So to pretend that somehow, this is a man thing, and that women need to be treated differently is just not stoicism , demonstrably not the case. ,. Also, if we're talking about virtue . W hile thetoics try to practice multiple virtues ,. One of these is justice . A nd justiceice is interpreted by the stoics as treating other people , any other people , regardless of gender, , race, , nationality, , ethnicity, , religion, or anything else , any other people with dignity , with respect in the way in which you yourself will want to be treated ,. So it's clearly nothing to do with a man approach to things , whatever that means .

P erh aps, not surprisingly , many people approach stoicism . In a way that oversimplifies the philosophy they want immediate results ,. They don't care about the historical background ,. They don't care as much about the complexities and the nuance of the philosophy. They just want something to work and I understand that sort of . N eed . At the same time , however, , there is a danger in oversimpling things ,. You may misconstrue things and you might act in a way that it's actually not at all in line with the philosophy itself . There are , for instance, , two ways to common ways to misconstrue sici sm . O ne is to do stoicism by quotations ,. So you find all over the internet, , snippets of stoic quotes , sometimes they're misattributed ,. They're actually not from a stoic , but let's say, from an E urea. N. Y eah . O ne of the most amusing mistakes that you find on the internet , for instance, , is that often, people quote the stoic epic pictet us , but they accompanied the quote with a picture of Epicurus, who was most definitely not a stoic, and epicpictetus would have been seriously disturbed by being mistaken for E pic ica us. B ut this issue of quoting things is problematic because . T. He se quotation marks , the sics are eminently. Quotable . That is ,. That is true . There is a lot of memorable phrases , sentences that you find in the stoic text . But. When you abstract them completely from the background , they not only begin to make less sense . they actually might . L et lead people to think in a way that it's contrary to stoic philosophy. ,. In fact, , apparently this was happening already 2000 years ago because the Stoic Seneca, who lived in the first century , W ar ns, one of his friends , L uci lus ,. And he says, . D on ' t fall into the temptation of just quoting bits and pieces of our authors , because that will lead you to misunderstanding the philosophy . You have to read the whole thing . You have to read what Zeeno was writing, or what Christryipus was writing , not just the bits and pieces , because otherwise, , you're not gonna understand what's going on. And. You are therefore going to act in a way that it's not in alignment with the philosophy . The other way to oversimplifytoicism is to approach it as a series of life hacks as opposed to a coherent philosophy of life . A nd, perhaps one way to understand what I'm getting at here is to make an analogy with another very famous and useful philosophy of life , which is B ud dhi sm , most people associate Buddhism with meditation . A nd. In fact, , Buddhism does come with a series of meditation ,. There are different kinds of meditations that you can do for different purposes within Buddhist philosophy. ,. However, , it turns out that empiricalbily speaking , a lot of Buddhist practitioners do not actually meditate . O kay . A nd? Just because you meditate, that doesn't make you Buddhist what makes your Buddhist is, for instance, , to accept the four noble truths or to try to follow the eightfold path to enlighten. That is the philosophy. That is what makes your Buddhist, whether you meditate or not. It's a different thing. Meditation is supposed to be an aid , a technical aid for doing the things that the philosophy says you should be doing, but people can achieve the same result without actually meditating. Now that said, meditation is, in fact, a standalone meditation is, in fact, useful mean, we have empirical evidence from modern medicine and modern psychology that meditation does certain things and allows you, for instance, , to deal better with chronic pain. It's certainly reduces your anxiety and things like that under certain conditions, but those are not the goals of B ud dhi sm , the philosophy, B ud dhi sm ,. The philosophy is not about anxiety or pain. It's about how to live your life. The same thing goes . F or stoicism , stoic techniques are, in fact, very useful, even when they are abstracted from stoic philosophy. , and proof of that is that cognitive behavioral therapy . T. He most popular evidence based type of psychotherapy that we use in the 21 st century did originate from an inspiration from stoicism, and it does use still today, a number of techniques that are found in storing texts , but Car behavioral therapy is not a philosophy of life . Y ou can be a very efficient . P raci tion er of cognitive behavioral therapy ,. You can solve your day to day problems and still be a psychopath or behave very badly or other people that would not make you a stoic. What makes you a stoic is if you try to behave to live your life in a reasonbased pro- oci al fashion. If you try to remind yourself that everybody on earth, every human being on earth, is your brother or sister, that is what makes you a stoic, whether you actually do your evening meditation in the way in which Marcus Aurelius did or not. That ' s , A practical aspect of it is a useful aspect of it ,. But that isn't what makes you bi .

O ne common assumption is that stoicism is the antiticesis of pleasure ,. And in fact, often, if we're talking about Greor, Roman philosophies, , stoicism is opposed to epicureanism and epicurean ,. Most people think of epicureanism as sex, drugs and rock and roll of ancient philosophy, even though that description definitely would have been surprising to any ancient epicurean . O kay . It is true that Eureanism is a hedonistic philosophy. That is it's a philosophy that puts pleasure and it', specifically, in fact, reduction of pain at the center of their philosophizing at the center of their life ,. And it's true that stoism is not a hedonistic philosophy ,. It's a virtue ethics philosophy ,. It's based on character ,. The notion is to improve your character to become a better human being. However . T. He ancienttor Seneca himself says , " I'm not stupid , I prefer pleasure to pain . I prefer to be healthy to sick , I prefer even to be wealthy , to poor if possible. It's just that those are not my priorities. That is my life doesn't depend. The wordiness of my life does not depend on being rich. It does not depend on being healthy even, and it certainly doesn't depend on feeling pleasure. If I do have all of those things. Sure, I'll welcome them, but those are not crucial. The most important part of life for the Stoic is to be a decent human being , a human being that acts reasonably and pro socialcily. So for instance . Y eah . W hen I see articles that say, such and such billionaire got his success by being a stoic , I internally laugh or cringe depending on the situation because that's not what Su is about ,. It's not about becoming rich or famous . W ealth , reputation , even health are what the stoics call preferred indifferent . An indifferent isn't in a stoic parlance , something that you don't care about , as in the modern English word ,. It's something that literally does not make a difference. , does not make a difference to what to your character . To, who you are as a person . A gain the ss are very explicit about it. Epicpictus at some point tells some of his students. He says, here is a nonsor. And nonsor is something that doesn't follow in logic, right? Here's a nons qui or , I am rich , therefore, better I'm a richer than you are , therefore, I'm a better person than you are ,. He says that doesn't follow ,. What follows from the fact that you're richer than I am? Is that you have more money . Y eah , or well , that's the definition of being richer . It does not follow. You're a better person because being rich or being poor, doesn't make you a good person or a bad person ,. The two things are completely independent. You know the misconception about stoicism is that it's about cultivating an attitude of detachment from things and people . K ind of like B ud dhi sm. , often stoicism is presented as the Western alternative to B ud dhi sm ,. But there too , things are not quite that simple . F or the S toi Cs ,. There is nothing wrong with caring about things and caring about people. We're human beings , that's what we do. It's just that those things do not define who you are. W hich first a talk is the most important thing ,. In other words, , they don't actually define your character the way in which you behave . T, he interest like Cappiitus puts in very nicely in an analogy that uses with his students. , he says, you should try to go through life as if you were visiting an inn or a hotel while you are in the inn. , that's your room . Y eah . N obo dy is going to come in just all of a sudden versionrgin in. It's your room. The lamp on the table is your it is your lamp. That's your table ,. That's your bed and so on and so forth ,. So those things are in a sense yours, but you don't want to get attached to them, too attached to them, because you know that you are only passing through at some point, you will be checking out . Y eah . A nd moving on to something else. And when you do that , you want to leave all of those things , the table , the bed, , the lamp in as good, a shape as you found them , if not even better, because somebody else is going to use them. Next. The saying goes with things and people in life. It's not that they're not yours in that limited sense. , absolutely enjoy your friends, , your loved ones, enjoy the material possessions that you have. But the notion of , N ot developing too much of an attachment is in that particular sense, , treat everybody and everything as if you were passing through because you are passing through , absolutely take advantage of what's there . B ut then be ready to let go because at some point, you will have to let go . And. Your only two choices are you're going to let go. Graciously or ungraciously . Those are your only choices. Eventually things are going to go because you are going to go . One of my favorite metaphors by epicpicteus. That is related to this concept is the notion of figs in winter . Y eah . At some point ,. One of his students is complaining because a friend of that student is just left ,. We went overseas. And so he's not going to see him possibly for years , maybe ever ,. And he's very sad and all that . A nd Epius says , well , what you're doing now is pining for figs in winter ,. You want ,. In other words, , something that is not possible because it's not the right season. A nd, if you data says, not only you should accept that right now, it's winter and therefore, you're not going to have your fig. But . T. His should be a lesson to you to cultivate the notion that you should be enjoying the figs during the proper season during the summer ,. And that's a great lesson because very often, we don't pay attention ,. We take people and things for granted until they're gone . A nd then I mean, , this has happened to me as well. , you know, ,. One of the things that triggered my midlife crisis that eventually brought me, totoicism was the death of my father. A nd even though I knew that my father was suffering from cancer , he suffering , he had been suffering from multiple cancers over a period of years , and as a biologist , I understand what cancer is ,. So I had a knowledge of what was happening, and yet I still went on my life as if my father was going to be there forever . Y eah . A nd, then something happened , he died, and I was not there. , I was not present ,. So I regret that , but I learned that the lesson and said, I've lost other people since and I internalize the figs in winter lesson and I'm making I've been making and I'm still making a concerted effort with relatives and friends to actually be there and to savor that experience to savor those fruits of life. So to speak, because I know that the summer is going to go, eventually it' going to turn into winter. And that way I will be happy. I will not be complaining about opportunities missed because I will not have missed. Them.

O ne baffling misconception for me about stoicism is that it turns people into doormats . it's a it's a quietest philosophy. It's about. N ot reacting ,. It's about not doing things , just trying to retreat into yourself and sort of isolate yourself from the rest of the world . I am not sure exactly where that particular misconception comes from , if not , again, , as a byproduct of the notion that stoicism values endurance . B ut. It's clearly contradicted by both the letter of the philosophy by what you read from thetoics themselves. And more importantly, perhaps, by the actions that we know those philosophers actually took in their life in the discourses. Epicttus gives us several examples of S stoics, who , as we were put today spoke truth to power ,. In fact, there was a whole group of stoic philosophers and Roman senators during the reigns of the emperors, Nero Vepaian and D oit ian , who were known as the stoic composition ,. These were people who were actually going to object to the dictates of Nero doitian and Vepaian because they saw them as tyrants . A nd liberty , freedom , independence , those are actual stoic values . An atoic could not abide by a tyrant ,. So these people risked their lives ,. In fact, some of them lost their lives as a result of a direct opposition to tyranny . T. Here are other examples as well. , Seneca talks a lot about a guy named Cato the Y oun gg er , who was a contemporary of Juli C aes ar . C ato opposed Caesar on the floor of the S ena te ,. They were both senators at one point in their political career . A nd Cato saw seeesar as increasingly developing sort of tyrannical aspects to his way of doing things. And so he opposed him on the Senate floor for many years. ,. Then at some point, famously , Judith Caesar picked up arms and moved to war against the Roman R epub lic ,. He crossed the Ruicon River famously saying, , you the Dais cast in our words , I am now cognizant of the fact that this is irreversible. Action. W ell , what did Cato do? ? It ' soka y ,. The time of debate is over. , I need to pick up arms as well. And so he organized an army, and he led an army against Juli C aes ar ,. So both Ju Caesar and Ca, the Youngger pick up arms ,. There is a civil war . It ' s a horrible thing, and there's nothing civil about it. , lots of people die on both sides. , eventually Ju prevails , you. He was an excellent general, and he defeats the Republican army . So now Caesar is after C ato ,. He wants to capture Cato alive because he wants to use him as a political . P ea ce ,. He wants to essentially show his magnanimity by saying, , here is my enemy . He actually picked up arms against me , but I'm. Okay. With that . I'm going to forgive him . But Cato was a man of principle, and he was not about to let . C aes ar take advantage of the situation that way. So Cato decides that the only way to avoid that is to . T ake his own life to commit suicide . The stoics have a whole literature about suicide . They take the issue very , very seriously . They say that it's it ought to be the last resort only under extreme circumstances . But Cato finds himself . In the last resort under extreme circumstances. , so he very calmly prepares himself. , he sends away his friends and his loved ones . P picks up a book , we know actually which book he read ,. He read one of Plato's dialogues about the nature of the soul . He has his dagger nearby ,. He picks up the dagger, and he stabs himself as the Roman did in his stomach ,. However, , he had been injured in battle, and so his hand, particularly in his hand, and his hand was not strong enough , so he falls down . Y eah . makes noise, therefore, , and so everybody rushes in from the other room, and a doctor sees what's happening ,. He realizes that no vital organ is being punctured, even though there is a mess around the blood all over. So the doctor tries to stitch the wound to put back things and then try to save Cato's life . K to ,. In the meantime comes back he had lost consciousness ,. He sees what the doctor is trying to do . P ushe s. The doctor away , reaches with his hand inside his own guts, , tears them away and throws them on the floor , thus dying . It takes a lot of courage and determination to do that sort of thing . I mean , I think that even the first part taking your dagger in your hand and stbbing yourself , that takes courage and determination , But going as far in the second bit, as Cato did means that this was a man who had a high sense of honor , a high sense of his own virtue and a high sense of what . Y eah . T. He meaning of his existence , Caesar realized what had happened, and he was really upset about it. He admitted that Cato had bated him at this. And in fact, Cato became a hero of the Republican cause for many ,. Many years afterwards. So here we have an example of atoic who actually was fighting and eventually died as a result of ,. Y eah . U nde rst anding, what the right thing to do was and wanted to do the right thing. , not endorsing injustice , not retreating into a passive, you know, inactive situation ,. So that should be inspiration to modern strikes, not necessarily in the sense that we're going to have to pick up weapons, hopefully against anybody , but certainly, it is about speaking out. Certainly, it is about. Y eah . D efendi ng one's own liberty and other people's liberty ,. It 's about personal autonomy and the autonomy of other people. And whenever you see as a stoic as a stoic practitioner , you see those things threatened ,. You really ought to speak out ,. It 's your duty as a stoic practitioner to do so and then face the consequences , which may not be pleasant , of course . Y eah . O ne of the features of stoicism that I find most attractive is that built into the system ,. There is an openness to new ideas and to adjust the philosophy internally so that it adapts to whatever it is that we may discover moving forward ,. In fact, , one of the ancient stoics S ene. Ca . W ites at one point that look ,. The people that came before us are not our masters ,. They're just our teachers ,. They knew a lot of things. And some of those things were very useful, and that's why we adopt them. B ut. That doesn't mean that they discovered everything ,. That doesn't mean that there are no new things to be discovered ,. And if we do find new ways and better ways of doing things, , Seneca says, ,. The only rational thing to do is to adjust our philosophy accordingly and move in a different direction. Stoicism, of course, is a philosophy that is over 2000 years old . It started out in the fourth century BC in A thens ,. You might expect . T hat, some things that we've learned in the meantime might be problematic in that respect ,. That is the Stoics didn't know everything that science and even philosophy have achieved over the intervening almost two and a half millennia ,. That means that if you're a practitioner of Stoicism today in the 21 st century , you cannot simply take everything that the ancient Stoics said. And go with it , pretty much in the same way in which nobody today is a practitioner of, say, Buddhism or Christianity, in exactly the same way in which people were practicing Buddhism or Christianity to millennia or two. And a half millennia ago . F orin stance , the stoic concept of Pronce is both . I nt eres ting and beautiful on the one hand, and yet I think deeply flawed and needs to be rejected on the other. And this is going to have practical consequences Let me back up for a second and explain what this is about the ancient Stoics were panists. That is, they believed that God is the same thing as the universe . It 's coincident with the universe . A nd. Therefore, they thought of the universe itself as a living organism endowed with reason ,. The universe is G od , nature is G od , God is thinking ,. And therefore, everything that happens in the universe is the result of the thinking and doing of G od . T. He cosmos or G od , the universe Now I find this a very beautiful idea. If only I could believe it. As a modern biologist. And as somebody who does a little bit knows a little bit about physics , I don't think of the cosmos as a living organism , I cannot imagine that sort of connection. Now you might say, , oh ,. So what this is just a metaphysical dispute, right? The the ancient stoic thought about God in the universe that way ,. You don't think of it that way ,. What difference does that make in practice? ? T urns out, it does make a big practical difference. ,. There are a few passages in the discourses of Epicteus as well as in his manual . W. Here, he says, something really surprising , really interesting. And at the same time, disturbing , he says, , remember when you go to sleep . K iss. Good night to your wife and your child because they're mortal, and they might not be alive tomorrow morning. That way you will not be disturbed . N ow when the first time I read that passage , I thought, what kind of a psycho about this ,? This guy , he's telling me that I should realize that my loved ones are mortal , I'm. Okay. With that ,. Yes , we are ,. We're all mortal . A nd therefore, , that means that at some day. I or them will die ,. But to say that I should remind myself of this so that I'm not going to be disturbed. , are you kidding me? , of course, I'm going to be disturbed if my daughter or my wife were to die. ? B ut then I understood where he was coming from ,. In fact, , Epiteus himself clearly makes an analogy , an interesting analogy that shows where he's coming from ,. He says . L ook , you are like a foot that is part of an organism ,. Let's say that the organism that the body has to get home and in order to get home , it has to cross a muddy path ,. It is up to you as the foot to step into the mud . N ow , if you think of that, only from the point of view of a foot . W ithout remembering that you're connected to a body, that's disgusting. Why would I want to step into the mud? This is not a not a pleasant thing ,. But if you remember that you are connected to a body, and then in fact, your entire purpose in life is to bring that body wherever it needs to go. Including ,. S tt ain g into the mud ,. Then not only you're going to do it , but you're going to do it gladly . Y ou ' re going to embrace not just accept your fate , so to speak , but embrace your fate . So. What Eteus is saying there is not as being psychopathic as far as we can tell. It's just being realistic in the way he understood the world, He said ,. Look . We ' re all literally bits and pieces of the God universe, and whatever happens to us , including the unpleasant bits , is actually for the good of the God universe ,. So if you understand things that way , not only you're going to accept what happens. So you're actually going to embrace it. N ow, it makes sense when he says, , you know, , if your loved ones die , you should not be upset , you should not be disturbed because you realize that whatever is happening , even though you may only get a small ,. P orti on of that picture , but whatever is happening is part of this universal cosmic plan, and you should feel good about it. , not this drop . It 's a beautiful way of looking at life . Un. Fortunately, , I don't think it's the right way to look at life . I wish I could bring myself to being a panteist in the way in which the engine stocks were . T hat would definitely provide me with a lot of comfort whenever something bad happens to me or to my loved ones. , but I don't believe in the cosmic G od ,. And therefore, I think that whatever happens to us is the result of neutral forces ,. The universe doesn't care one way or the other . T hat means that I cannot avail myself of the story concept of P rov iden ce ,. So what do I replace it with ?? W ell acceptance is still part of it. , right? I have to accept the reality of things . I am a biologist . I understand that people die. In fact, I understand that death is a natural part of the process of being alive, or the process of life on earth , If. Other people had not died , I would not be here because I would not have been born And. So my death , the death of other people ,. It 's natural. And as such . Y eah . It 's reasonable to accept it as much as one can at a rational level , but at an emotional level, , I am still not going to be happy about it. and I think that's okay. Not to be happy about it. So. That's one example of something that the ancient stoics thought at a metaphysical level and had consequences in terms of their day to day life , their ethics . A nd modern stoics have to modify , I think ,. Because in the meantime, , both philosophy and science have progressed to a point that makes the original idea untenable. In fact . If you're still not convinced ,. Let me give you one bit , one more bit of evidence that that things work pretty much in the way I just described it. If one asks well , what was . E pict eus is argument for thinking that the universe is a living G od . He does actually provide us with an argument. In fact, several the Stoics drew , Seneca does as well , and some of the other earlier S toi Cs , people like Z een o , who was the founder of the Stoic approach in the first place. , does the same thing ,. They all use an argument from design . T. Hey, say, just like the sword, perfectly fits the scabbard. And that tells you that somebody designed both of those objects to actually fit together in a functional way in a way that works . If you look around, you'll see that the universe is built in the same way. And frankly, , if I had lived 2000 years ago, I would probably buy into that argument ,. It 's a really cogent argument ,. You look around the complexity of the world, and you say, yeah, , that makes sense . Y eah . B ut I don't live 2000 years ago, , I live in the 21 st century , which means that I live after two major objections were raised to that way of looking at things to the design argument, specifically , the philosopher David Hume in the 1 8t h century, criticized the design argument on philosophical logical basis and showed that it's not really coherent . A nd then about a century later, , Charles D ar win , a biologist , actually proposed an alternative mechanism. We called it evolution by natural selection for why things seem to be designed in a certain way . G iven that knowledge , I have to reject the argument from design as pretty much every biologist does . And. If I reject that , then I also reject the stoic view of P anis m. And. If I reject that I have to revise my notions of ethics and providence . So. This is a good example , I. Think of how all of these things work together. scientific advancements will question our philosophical views. And . It 's a good thing if the philosophical views are able to adapt to what comes out of the new science , of course, , science in another century or five centuries or 10 centuries may tell us something different. And if they're stoics . Y eah . 10 centuries down the road , they will themselves face the same problem and have to adapt somehow . I find that very refreshing, because unlike other philosophical or religious systems, , tend, which tend to be much more rigid , resistant to change. This notion that change is inherent in the way in which we do stoic. Philosophy is very useful , very reasonable and very refreshing . W ant to support the channel , join the Big Think members community, where you get access to videos early , ad free .