Posts by Elayne

If I were a politician, my pleasure would probably partly depend on keeping my job and upon accomplishing policy that would bring me pleasure, otherwise I wouldn't have run for office -- and to do that, I would need to consider the pleasure needs of the voters, otherwise they might vote me out. So I don't see those processes as incompatible.

I would likely vote for an Epicurean before a utilitarian (depending on their specific policy positions), because a social utilitarian takes a quasi-religious view towards creating some kind of hypothetical "average happiness", and an Epicurean would be more likely to assess the actual pleasure requirements of real voters and not according to some sort of ideal. A person like that would be interested in what I need for pleasure, because I have friends and could influence the election, possibly. At least at the state level, I have been able to influence an occasional election by public speaking without making any financial contributions.

Plus, I could get to know that Epicurean as a friend, and then her happiness would include mine, lol.

Catching up here-- and I see that part of my post today on FB is relevant and echoes what others have said:

"VS 56 The wise man feels no more pain when being tortured himself than when his friend tortured.

VS 57 On occasion a man will die for his friend, for if he betrays his friend, his whole life will be confounded by distrust and completely upset. (both of these translations I got from epicureanfriends.com and there is a note that these have been reconstructed).

These last two quotes are very important, IMO. We are _not_ being advised to feel pain or to die for friends as if to be virtuous-- these are descriptive quotes. They are observations of what true friendship feels like-- that we are so connected to our friends that their pleasures and pains cause us pleasures and pains. Although friendship must be mutual to be real, the feelings themselves are not contractual. There is not a cold calculation that we use, nor logic, minus feelings, when it comes to our friends, because we love them with all our hearts."

Perhaps we could assign a number or nickname to each error type-- corresponding to the Not Neo-Epicurean list? And then note some common patterns by the same shorthand-- "this is the 1-2-5 error", etc.

Back when I was politically outspoken on my prior FB personal page, I got tired of making repetitive rebuttals to nonsense. So I wrote a long, numbered "note" with all my arguments, evidence and references included. Every time someone would use one of the arguments I'd already countered, I would just post a link to my note with the relevant number. Occasionally there were long conversations in which my opponents kept repeating the same long fallacious statements, nothing new or creative, and my responses were only numbers, often the same numbers repeated.

Well, the "Martians" might be even more gullible... it would depend on the evolutionary pressures in their environment, I guess?

I am thinking that there is generally always a subset of humans who have their minds changed by evidence, and then there is a larger subset who will maintain their current beliefs as a social issue, no matter what the evidence says. For religion, that middle group always seems to find a way to pretend there are two magisteria. The dying out of those beliefs may involve some social process different from exposure to facts. I have seen research that people in affluent, stable societies with low socioeconomic disparity tend to become much less religious.

And then there is a smaller but vehement subset who are the "flat-earthers", out of touch with both science and the cultural majority.

Ok, I have inserted a section on Aponia and Ataraxia. I had actually already referenced PD 3 just prior to where I inserted the new section, so I have removed that reference to consolidate things and replaced it with PD 3 in the new section. Happily for me, this meant I didn't have to re-order my end notes!

This results in hitting on the "only two" aspect several times in different sections, but I think this is such a critical point that it is better to repeat it in different ways.

So you don't have to go back and hunt for that section, here it is below. Elli, what do you think?

Ataraxia and Aponia

I have mentioned ataraxia as a word commonly misunderstood by neo-Epicureans. Some neo-Epicureans make the mistake of thinking ataraxia is a “fancy pleasure”, and they put this new interpretation of Epicurus' words as their goal instead of the real life pleasure he recommended. Because Buddhism has become a fad for many Westerners, I have seen some conflate detachment – part of the way Buddhists see tranquility—with ataraxia. This leads neo-Epicureans to think that they should not seek pleasure but just take a detached perspective on life and not get ruffled. They may think this is “fancy pleasure”. It is not pleasure—it is a disconnection from reality which leads to pain.

So what is ataraxia? What are those neo-Epicureans missing? Ataraxia is the Greek word for "without agitation", and agitation is pain of the mind. Ataraxia is paired with aponia, "without pain" of the body. If you apply these descriptions, without pain of body and mind, to your cup of feelings, it should be clear by now that you will be left with only pleasure of body and mind, not some alternative to pleasure or pain. Remember, there are only two options, pleasure and pain-- not three options, pleasure, absence of pain, and pain.

A person with ataraxia and aponia is enjoying the full wellbeing of pleasure, the most pleasure humanly possible, in their entire body and mind! And this wonderful feeling is available to us during the course of many ordinary days in an ordinary human life, if we plan wisely.

From now on, when you read commentary saying Epicurus wasn't advising actual pleasure but just to be untroubled, as if there is even the possibility of freedom from pain and agitation which is not wholly pleasurable, you will know that writer has completely and thoroughly misunderstood Epicurus.


When you read PD 3 in this light, you will have an accurate understanding: "The limit of quantity in pleasures is the removal of all that is painful. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body nor of mind, nor of both at once"(6).

I am pretty sure my term "fancy pleasure", as I explained it, takes care of the idea that there is something other than regular pleasure.

But I will revise the ataraxia part as Elli suggested and probably put in another section-- I think in my own words, I have described exactly the situation of ataraxia/ aponia elsewhere, but I see why it is a good idea to have a specific section to cover it.

Not sure I will have time to get to this until Saturday, but I will do it before next week for sure!

Elli, do you think I need to re-word the part about ataraxia to be more clear?

Great, thanks! A hot pain, lol!! I have fixed those things.

Cassius, oops-- I don't think I should say ataraxia is a feeling of freedom when I've just said there are two feelings, pain and pleasure-- freedom is not a third feeling. Obviously most of us use the word feeling much more loosely in conversation, but here I've used a strict rule. I either need to label it as a pleasure itself, due to freedom, or a "condition of freedom", or some other revision. I'll check in the morning and see what you think.

Ah-- if you see the link and small discussion I put in the end notes, about how the brain works-- I know of zero evidence that the pain/ pleasure function of the brain ever fails to weigh in at any time in life, on anything that comes to our attention, but the intensity of feeling can certainly vary. It would be a pretty extraordinary assertion that sometimes pain/ pleasure shuts off-- I would need some replicated research to be willing to say that. And it would be against my personal experience entirely. So that is one of the points I mentioned we didn't have consensus on.

I will fix the ataraxia sentence.

I do not think it is ever a confusion whether someone is having pleasure. But there is definitely a confusion, which I have observed in person first hand and would be unwilling to argue against, of people not recognizing low grade pain for what it is. They can have what is clinically termed "alexithymia", inability to describe a feeling. I have never, ever observed this with pleasure. When I question the confused person who doesn't know what their feeling is, after some time I can help them realize that it is an unwanted feeling, which means it is a pain. As I mention in the paper, sometimes they are just so used to pain that it is like water to a fish. They have forgotten there is an alternative. But people in pleasure don't forget they are happy. They can habituate to an experience in regards to pleasure, but not to the feeling itself.

I don't know why this is the case, just that it is definitely so. It isn't that there is a 3rd feeling, but maybe pain is confusing to people in some way that pleasure is not?

I think by saying the feelings are two that I don't need to say pleasure is of a similar type, otherwise there would be more than two.

I have finished my second draft-- took me 6 hours! I think this one says everything I want to say. If more academic addendums need to be added at the end, I am fine with that but am probably not the person to write it.

I have to say I am especially thrilled with my new and snarky term "fancy pleasures"-- I hope it gives somebody a laugh. I think Epicurus would have liked it.

LINK TO THE SECOND DRAFT

Ok, here is an alternate sort of wording: "In the absence of pleasure, only pain can occur, not any hypothetical neutral state. In the absence of pain, only pleasure can occur, not any other state. This is the same as knowing that where there isn't void, only atoms will be present, and where there are no atoms, only void." And I will work on adding the other details I've proposed, such as there being no third sort of "mystical pleasure" feeling that's different from regular pleasure feelings.

I really do think this is a key point and that we should not concede any ground to confused people who think any feeling other than pleasure will happen when pain is _effectively_ minimized.

I also continue to strenuously disagree with the idea of representing feelings in abstract numerical form, especially given Epicurus' known antipathy towards the way math was used in his time. I'm an old calculus team gal, who is very comfortable with math, but it does not belong as a representation of feelings-- I advise we must always stay with the feeling itself when deciding which result we want. Seeing that graphic with the numbers makes me cringe, lol.

However, I can include a line that there is not a consensus on this point.

I think I have a way to allay those concerns about modern people not knowing what pleasure is.

1) I will add a mention that in addition to absence of pain not being a hypothetical "nothing" experience, it is also not a hypothetical type of pleasure different from what we already know as pleasure from ordinary activities. This, I believe, is another key aspect of what Epicurus said about only variation after the cup is full. It's not a different feeling.

Along this line, I disagree with the idea that a person who has deep enjoyment of a smaller variety and number of experiences and thereby achieves continual pleasure as often as anyone can is somehow having a less full cup or smaller cup than someone who enjoys a great many experiences. And vice versa-- both can be fully happy. Some of that is really just a preference. If a person in Ancient Greece couldn't be fully happy with the limited variety of availability activities compared to the much wider number of experiences to choose from now, due to technology, this philosophy wouldn't make sense. However, if the person feels a lack of variety, she has not met her personal need for it and should do more things.

2) I will add a section on the most effective practical method of minimizing pain, which is to maximize pleasure. If both methods worked as well, they would have the exact same end result-- pleasure-- but in practice, focusing on pleasure is more effective.

3) I will add a section explaining that humans are not fundamentally insatiable.

Ha, it's thundering here, so I will write a little more.

I need to reword the death comment--didn't intend to imply that there's anything after death, just that it's the only complete end of both pleasure and pain. Until then, one or both of those is always present.

On happiness, I see I made an error-- I meant to say maximum happiness was a pleasurable feeling resulting from maximizing pleasure in all areas of life-- basically, it is pleasure of having the full cup of pleasures, or at least more pleasure than not, especially in regards to the life time "movie" of that cup. Without including maximum, I've inadvertently left out more ordinary situations. By saying it is a pleasurable feeling, I do not believe I have left room for it to be other than pleasure, and I'm not sure how that could be derived. We have all sorts of different sources of the pleasure feeling, and the response to awareness that our life's cup is mostly full of pleasure is itself a pleasure. I will say that at least that's what I mean by happiness. The feeling is the same as for other pleasures, but the stimulus is specific.

Maybe I could just reword it as "happiness is the feeling of pleasure that comes from awareness that one's lifetime cup is more full of pleasure than pain."

On absence of pain/fullness of pleasure, I am baffled by your answer-- it seems like you are disagreeing with the synonymous aspect, although you say you aren't, and I can't get a grasp on your train of thought. I would tell the person who says minimizing pain results in maximum pleasure that he is correct, and then I'd ask how he plans go go about it. If it is by withdrawing from activity, and he wouldn't listen to my advice that this will result in more pain, not less, then I'd tell him to check in with me in a year, earlier when he gets bored.

If he asked me how to minimize pain, of course it depends on the situation he is in, but I would give him ways to maximize pleasure, and tell him it is the exact same end result, and IMO, _easier_ to approach actively by seeking pleasure than by only withdrawing from pain. But if the withdrawing did result in minimum pain, it would have worked just as well. There should be no difference at all.

I'm not even trying here to describe what pleasure feels like, if that's the issue--that's like trying to describe "sweet." If they don't know the feeling of pleasure by adulthood, I can't imagine I would be able to help them out. There isn't any sufficient description, IMO, other than by using synonyms.

On the size of the cup... I guess this is just me seeing the metaphor differently. I don't see the cup as representing numbers of experiences but the organism's feeling capacity. I don't think it helps to imagine people's cups of different sizes, if the cup represents feelings. Because then you'd have to say, well your cup might be full of pleasure but it's too small, so you aren't having enough. And how would you know? How would you measure it, if they are saying nope, I'm in total bliss here-- how can you say they could have more, based on an outside assessment of their activities? If they aren't having enough pleasure, their cup isn't full, rather than being too small-- they still have pain.

Instead of restricted experience shrinking the cup of feeling, I would see it as the cup being in mostly a pain state, perhaps of low intensity boredom.

Cassius, thank you for your comments-- it will be likely Monday before I have time to give a full response.

I will throw out there, though, that although pleasure is felt at all normal times as a response to a specific experience (as is pain), I think the activity itself is not the pleasure or the pain. My first reason to think so is that the same activity under different conditions of the same person can be pleasurable or painful. This gives the nervous system a more flexible, accurate way to indicate to us the desirability of whatever it is we are doing, in different circumstances.

The second reason I think that is the issue that under abnormal circumstances, a sensation of pleasure can be somewhat unhinged from a direct action. I can think of two ways to do this-- electrical stimulation of the brain during surgery, and drugs which bind to the pleasure neurotransmitter receptors in an abnormal way, causing prolonged feelings of pleasure with no other cause than the drug.

Although actions-- electrical stimulation and drug taking-- did initiate the feelings of pleasure, the feelings are not being produced through the normal pathways and are not serving as a useful feedback about the health and safety of the action. It is not so much that the person is enjoying the action but that artificial bypassing of the natural feedback system is going on. It's not at all the same type of pleasure-action association, neurologically, as pleasurable reading.

This is similar to a "sense of knowing", where electrical stimulation of the brain can cause a person to feel they "know something", a sense of certainty, but without any content.

I do completely agree that we know pleasure when we feel it, and that normally it's a result of activity, but not that it "is" the activity.

Ok, that's the last of it. The differences between my perspective and Cassius, as I understand it, are:

1) Cassius does not think absence of pain in a living person is synonymous with fullness of pleasure. IMO this would require a third state, neutral, which I do not believe actually exists.

2) Cassius proposes that the cup itself can be enlarged to admit more pleasures. I would take the position I understand meant by Epicurus saying that once the cup is full, it only admits variations.

Please discuss the Article "On Pleasure Pain and Happiness" in the thread below (rather than in the comments under the article)

Besides the aspects of intensity, duration, etc-- perhaps add the "extent" or some word to describe whether the pleasure involves as many aspects for the person as possible? I'm thinking of PD 9, where he talks about if all pleasures could involve the entire person or the "principal parts"-- which suggests he was thinking of some pleasures only involving parts of us.

An example of a widespread (?) pleasurable experience to me would be listening to some favorite music while eating a bowl of cut fresh tomatoes and reading a good book. I've got all my senses involved-- hearing, vision, smell, texture, taste... plus my cognitions on the book. Whereas some pleasures, even if intense, may not occupy very many senses or cognitive faculties. I personally find that experiences which involve more faculties seem heightened in a way that seems different from intensity.

I think I would avoid trying to revert to a former or esoteric meaning of atheism, personally. I don't think Epicurus would go for that, because it would create confusion. But we may need more discussion to come to a consensus.

I would stick to defining words which have a current conflicting opinion. I think there are two main terms that need defining-- eudaemonia, which is what I really think most normal people imagine when they hear the word happiness in English, even if they don't say so-- and agency/ free will. I suspect we need actually to have brief articles on those two terms.