 The corporeal nature of the soul has two crucial consequences for Epicureanism. First, it is the basis of Epicurus’ demonstration that the soul does not survive the death of the body (other arguments to this effect are presented in Lucretius 3.417–614). The soul’s texture is too delicate to exist independently of the body that contains it, and in any case the connection with the body is necessary for sensation to occur. From this it follows that there can be no punishment after death, nor any regrets for the life that has been lost. Second, the soul is responsive to physical impressions, whether those that arrive from without in the form of laminas or simulacra, or those that arise from internal motions of the body. No phenomena are purely mental, in the sense of being disembodied states or objects of pure consciousness conceived as separate from embodiment. The elementary sensations of pleasure and pain, accordingly, rather than abstract moral principles or abstract concepts of goodness or badness, are the fundamental guides to what is good and bad, since all sentient creatures are naturally attracted to the one and repelled by the other. The function of the human mind — that part of the soul that is located in our chest — is not to seek higher things, but to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. That is its entire objective; the risk (a substantial one) is that it may miscalculate, since it is subject to false beliefs and errors in cognitive processes.