REMINDER: SUNDAY WEEKLY ZOOM - February 8, 2026 -12:30 PM EDT - Ancient text study and discussion: De Rerum Natura - Level 03 members and above (and Level 02 by Admin. approval) - read more info on it here.
Quote from BrainToBeingAs a neurologist I've spent my career looking at behavior from an "organic" (biological) perspective. I can actually have a lot to say on the subject, if we (collectively) are interested.
I for one am interested, as this seems very pertinent to the Epicurean Canonic.
That's a great resource Cassius !
Thanks for that clarification @waterholic ! This makes perfect sense; I interpreted rules based standard quite differently so now I understand what you're getting at.
Applying some sort of rule-based standard will create a structure and force the person to face the truth.
This sounds to me to be at odds with a philosophy based on individual responsibility. Isn't the point that, in a purely material universe, there is no rule-based standard?
However the fact that there is no rule-based standard leaves open the possibility that one can create a rule-based standard for oneself, as long as they don't assume that it will necessarily apply to anyone else. That's part of the beauty of the world we live in!
Another possible model for pleasure and pain is the act of making a painting. There are continuous judgements being made as to the various colors to use, and how to use them. What are the varying intensities of each of the colors? What are their locations? As your eyes travel over a painting, what is the duration of each particular color? (That might be a little abstract; how pervasive is the color?)
These also apply to the forms or shapes in the painting, to spatial relationships, to subject matter and to multivalence of interpretations of the painting.
A model such as this is valuable partly because it demonstrates the complexity of choices and rejections, as well as their intuitive nature. For me, attempting to accomplish a model like this through mathematics introduces a degree of removal from and abstraction of the process of living which conflicts with the nature of the Epicurean Canon: something that would delight a pompous aristocrat like Cicero. 
From https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/algeb…dney%20stones.:
Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz are both credited with the invention of modern calculus in the 17th century.
In Latin, calculus means “pebble.” Because the Romans used pebbles to do addition and subtraction on a counting board, the word became associated with computation. Calculus has also been borrowed into English as a medical term that refers to masses of hard matter in the body, such as kidney stones.
Judging by this, "calculus" wasn't even a word in Greek. So "hedonic calculus" would be a later overlay onto choices and rejections, which probably doesn't add any clarity to this thread. 🤔
Does anybody recall where the phrase "hedonic calculus" was first used? It seems to me that a later Epicurean (Philodemus?) used it, but I can't put my finger on it. I'm curious as to what the original Greek (?) words were and what exactly they might infer. IDK whether or not that would be pertinent here, but I just want to add it to the mix.
Sometimes while in deep sleep, I experienced extreme fear which took a minute or more to disappear when suddenly waking up from deep sleep, without that I could even tell what caused the fear because deep sleep appears to be dreamless.
That sounds like it may have been sleep apnea.
That is a whole lot of text! Maybe provide that as a transcript below in the YouTube page?
Quote from Cassius"Total absence of pain is the highest pleasure."
"Total" seems like a good clarification here 
And we know that we have to undergo some pain (ex., exercise) for future pleasure (ex., better health, longer life hopefully). I have no problem with that scenario.
That's specifically what I was referring to. It sounds like we're in agreement; I got thrown off by "simply"
When PD09 refers to "intensity," location, and duration, are we talking about how pleasures differ from one another and how saying "absence of pain = 100% pleasure" does not tell us all we need to know about which pleasure to choose?
PD09. If every pleasure could be intensified so that it lasted, and influenced the whole organism or the most essential parts of our nature, pleasures would never differ from one another.
I think that the answer to this question must be "Yes!" If you want to describe an ethics of pleasure, you need to go into detail as to how to work with pleasure. You can't stop at "absence of pain = 100% pleasure", which is overarching and somewhat abstract.
Epicurus, as far as I can tell, developed at least three methods to approach a personal ethics of pleasure:
1) understand the difference between desires and pleasures, and work with the three categories of desires
2) examine the attributes of your various pleasures using intensity, location and duration
3) understand and work with katastematic and kinetic pleasures (which is difficult, given the dearth of texts on the matter)
These methods are not mutually exclusive, and in fact are mutually supportive. Or at least that's my current take.
For Epicurus, pleasure is simply that feeling which is not painful derived from actions or states which do not result in struggle, distress, anxiety, pain, etc. Additionally, Pleasure comes in two "flavors" - that which is felt in a state of rest; that which consists in motion and activity.
I would add to this as per my comments above. Also, I'm not sure that I agree with "simply" in the above quote, Don . Some pleasures do involve various pains, but the resultant pleasure outweighs the pain involved in obtaining the pleasure (I think we all agree on that). I think what you're describing is pleasure resulting from natural and necessary desires.
Now, I'm not sure what we are to glean from the translation referring to a "neutral state" ἀπαθείαις (apatheiais) because that's not one of the two feelings of pleasure: κινήσεσι and στάσεσιν. But that might have to wait for another thread.
Could it be that, early on, Epicurus had not yet settled on the idea of no neutral state? If so, could this give a rough idea of the approximate date the letter? (Just a thought for another thread.)
Just thinking over intensity, location and duration:
If Lucretius was deciding between spending a life as a shepherd or spending it writing didactic poetry, how would intensity, duration and duration apply? I tend to think of this breakdown in terms of maximizing overall pleasure. In this case:
- Duration for each choice is basically the same: his lifetime. He may consider that he can write poetry into old age, whereas he may not be able to herd sheep once his physical abilities decline. He could also compare whether one lifestyle would provide opportunities for more varieties of pleasure, whereas one might take up all of his waking hours.
- I think of location as referring to where in the body/mind feeling is experienced. It is interior to the body/mind, not something external. He could look at the physical (this is a location) pleasures and pains of being outside v being inside (outside v inside wouldn't be considered "location", but a particular external variable) in terms of how the pleasure of basking in the sun or the pain of being in the wind and rain. He may consider the mental pleasures of, say unfocused daydreaming or stream of consciousness philosophizing of a shepherd, or the mental pleasure of gathering knowledge of sheep and nature firsthand. He might compare this to the rigorous mental pleasure or pain of studying philosophy and composing verse.
- As to intensity, he may feel that he could experience much more intense pleasure with the poetic life, and a less intense pleasure with the life of a shepherd. He can then think about whether he prefers more or less intensity in this particular regard.
So thinking in terms of intensity, location and duration provides a framework for evaluating pleasures. I don't see this as a mathematical process of adding up hedons and dolons. It's an intuitive way of looking more specifically at what brings you pleasure or pain. A person may attempt to quantify from this, but that's pretty much beside the point. Even more, trying to count pleasure tokens seems to me to be counterproductive.
I don't know if I just clarified or mudding the issue....
I'm jumping into this late, but in response to Kalosyni 's post about mixed pleasures, I'd like to put in a plug for my current favorite categorization of feelings as being composed of the three aspects of intensity, location and duration (as can be discerned from the PDs).
Examining these aspects helps me to deepen my understanding of pleasure, and to realize that there are innumerable locations where we experience pleasure (big toe, little toe, stomach, thoughts about death, thoughts about previous happy experiences, stimulation of listening to music &c) and that I can maximize my pleasure partly by doing things that maximize the locations and duration of my pleasure. Because of the innumerable locations and potentially overlapping durations, pleasure is, most likely, always "mixed" overall (unless you're a god...). Part of maximizing my pleasure is understanding which locations of pleasure (which some people might refer to as "types" of pleasure) are the most personally satisfying, and in what intensities and durations.
I have a niggling feeling that k&k pleasures have a relationship to these three aspects. But I don't think that these aspects are a defining characteristic of k&k, or vice versa. I'm currently thinking of them as two mental models, and people can utilize whichever is most useful to them, or both. A third mental model is the categories of desires. The three mental models seem to me to work well together, reinforcing one another. But I see all three as well-conceived tools for helping people understand and maximize their pleasure.
This just appeared in my feed and may be of some interest here:
Excellent episode! Joshua , it brings me great pleasure to see that you so firmly share my distaste for Cicero.
The thought occurred to me after hearing Joshua 's comparison of Books 1 and 2: how would Cicero's argument be affected if the two books were presented in the opposite order? Meaning Cicero's ranting first, then answered with Torquatus' explanation, giving Torquatus the last word....
I've only had a chance to read IX, but to my mind, all of the arguments are spurious.
- Classifying desires as three or as two, one of which has two parts: the latter may be important if you're concerned with a system of classification, but the former is, to me, more useful. Cicero is only making an argument about form, not about substance.
- His principal technique seems to be to set up and tear down a straw man. He defines something in a way that has little relation to the idea being examined, then proceeds to tear apart this definition of the idea.
- Cicero defines desire very narrowly and negatively, and completely misses the point that Epicurus has a deeper understanding of desire than he, Cicero, does. (The same as with pleasure.) Understanding that desire isn't an evil to be banished was a major innovation of Epicurus', and his classifications are key to that. Cicero, at least to this point, tries to totally eliminate that by centering his argument on the outmoded (or simply wrong) definition of desire, which lumps all desires into what are correctly considered vain desires. By doing this, he's completely missing out on the nuanced and practical conception of desires in Epicurus' philosophy.
- Cicero was part of the privileged class, and he would use any means to preserve that distinction. He may have been an effective lawyer, but he is an extremely shallow and narrow minded philosopher. In his writings his main project seems to be to tear down any ideas foreign to his own, rather than to honestly and deeply examine such ideas. To this point in this passage he's done just that, and reads to me like a buffoon. But, unlike him, I'll try to keep an open mind going forward. 
With a nod to Lucretius, something like "Venus, life force, thriving on pleasure...."
It always amazes me how willing the "moralists" are to engage in slander, and how stridently they do so. Goes with the territory I suppose.
Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, supported that unrestrained intercourse could cure dysentery.”
That one's news to me! 
I've been taking a qigong course this year. At one point, in answer to somebody's query, the instructor posted a chart with guidelines for sexual release. I don't remember the details; something like every day when in one's 20s, every thirty days after one turns 60 (don't quote me on those!), and a sliding scale in the decades between.Apparently one or more students had been instructed by others to retain their semen and were having various ailments. So, at least for some schools of Chinese medicine, sex is considered to be healthy. (I personally don't have much understanding of Chinese medicine: just passing along an anecdote.)
