Posts by Don

Quote from Cassius

As to the bliss pill, I also see Elayne's point that the general principle that she's laying out is very wide from the mark. She's choosing to emphasize that the problem would be that "the causes of pain and pleasure would be obscured." Well, why is that a problem? If the bliss pill works, who cares WHY it works -- that's principle doctrine 10 in spades. The clear implication of this phrasing is that it is the KNOWLEDGE of the causes that is of concern to Wilson.

I don't want to go down the "bliss pill" rabbit hole again, but, in principle, I agree with Wilson about this. I continue to assert that PD 10 is about personal responsibility and it's specifically saying the "pleasures of the profligate" are not recommended, and that the most important word in that Doctrine is *if*. If they do these things, then we have no complaints... But those pleasures *don't* provide freedom from fear or teach us limits, etc. That's the point. Plus it has to be taken in context with the Letter to Menoikeus which appears to me to be commentary on PD 10:

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10If the things that produced the delights of those who are decadent washed away the mind’s fears about astronomical phenomena and death and suffering, and furthermore if they taught us the limits of our pains and desires, then we would have no complaints against them, since they would be filled with every joy and would contain not a single pain or distress (and that’s what is bad).

In the Letter to Menoikos: So when we say that pleasure is the goal, we do not mean the pleasures of decadent people or the enjoyment of sleep, as is believed by those who are ignorant or who don't understand us or who are ill-disposed to us, but to be free from bodily pain and mental disturbance. For a pleasant life is produced not by drinking and endless parties and enjoying boys and women and consuming fish and other delicacies of an extravagant table, but by sober reasoning, searching out the cause of everything we accept or reject, and driving out opinions that cause the greatest trouble in the soul.

If we're on the bliss pill or on the experience machine or constantly intoxicated or eating lotuses, we can't use "sober reasoning" or "search out the cause of everything we accept our reject." Taking the bliss pill could be a personal choice, but I think it would fall under the unrecommended pleasures of the profligate (literally, the lost) and I don't believe Epicurus would endorse that. Pleasure is pleasure, but not every pleasure should be chosen.

I realize I may be a minority opinion, but this is one I haven't been convinced to change yet.

I'll weigh in a little more so Cassius can see if he was right in his understanding of my motives

I'm not a huge Wilson fan, but my perspective is that she should be cut a little slack in this article. She's writing for a popular magazine for a popular audience. Her arguments are not going to be finely detailed or nuanced. I'm sure she had a hard word limit, too.

Wilson says:

If the exercise of our rationality in learning, thinking and communicating were not pleasurable, there would be no point in trying to master any subject or practice.

So, she doesn't say if it's a long-term pleasure or immediate pleasure etc. Just that learning, thinking and communicating can be pleasurable. Maybe she means short term pain of study leading to long term pleasure. Maybe the pleasure of learning something new. Can't tell. I'm willing to defer judgement. The fact that pleasure is said to be worthy in a popular article: good enough for me right now.

The whole "bliss pill"/"experience machine" thing is *always* going to come up in any popular article about pleasure being a worthy goal, so she needed to address it. I think she did an acceptable job in addressing that in a few words. Additionally, I agree with her on the general principle she lays out. I'm not going down that alley here though. Again, word limit. Asked and she answered after a fashion.

Finally, I'm just happy to see Epicurus's name in a popular magazine where it's not some Stoic writing how unworthy pleasure is as a goal then going off on their "following nature" and virtue rant.

First impressions on the article:

I agree with her take on the "bliss pill."

She gets a little utilitarian but that may just be for historical context.

I'm less enamoured of the last two paragraphs. They seemed tacked on to me.

She's not an ideal Epicurean spokesperson but Epicureans aren't into Platonic ideals anyway.

At least someone is getting Epicurean airtime against the Stoics!

Reading Philodemus's On Piety and Obbink's commentary has given me an entirely new perspective on Epicurus's participation in the religious and ritual life of his day. So, with that as preface:

By Zeus! I found JCRAGO 's article an interesting read and overall didn't see anything overly concerning. I think he provides ample justification for the practices he outlines, especially in keeping with Epicurus's and the founders' participation in the festivals and rites of their day and Lucretius's metaphorical language.

That 10th Principle of Atheopaganism he references seems in keeping with Principal Doctrines 31-33 to not harm nor be harmed.

I would have avoided the term "religiosity." That has negative connotations.

I may have additional comments, but - Paian Anax! - I think he may be on to something.

Quote from Elayne

I'm not sure why you don't agree that awareness of having had sequential pleasure would be painful if the person thought they weren't supposed to feel pleasure? That happens all the time with people in repressive religions, with sex. They feel guilty, sometimes simultaneously with pleasure.

Oh, I'm not saying they don't feel pleasure nor that they don't feel guilty/pain.They're human. They sense pleasure and pain. But if they feel pleasure and say they aren't happy, then their pleasure causes them pain in sequence. Or there's a mixture of pleasure and pain, but they can't exist simultaneously in the same moment. I'll posit an alternative though. I could maybe see parallels to people taking pleasure in eating hot peppers. They've acclimated themselves to sense the pain of the burn with pleasure. But I still think that's cognition. Similar to religious guilt where they've trained themselves to interpret pleasure as bad/painful. The pleasure is still there. That's a human sensation. It's in the interpretation where things go awry. They may not be conscious of it since it's so ingrained. But the non-judgemental sensation leads to the subjective "feeling".

Thanks for posting these, Cassius . And thanks to Elli and Elayne for their in-depth responses (some of which I wholeheartedly agree). I'm looking forward to reading the original article.

Quote from Elayne

On atoms meaning elements-- of course, elements are made of atoms (in current usage), not molecules. Maybe I am misunderstanding the suggestion though. Modern atoms would not fit Epicurus' atoms better than elementary particles, because they aren't just "cuttable"-- they can change into each other through radioactive decay.

Modern atoms would not - do not - fit the concept of ancient atoms. That's exactly my point. I'm sure Epicurus didn't know about radioactive decay, so I'll side step that.

Epicurus's and Lucretius's atoms/seeds/particles are fundamental building blocks of the cosmos in their system. They come together in novel ways to make everything. The seeds remain unchanged. My suggestion is that it's easier to think about their "Atomoi" more like our "elements" - carbon "atoms", hydrogen "atoms". I know our atoms are cuttable. (At one point, we didn't think they were but right now that's beside the point I'm trying to make). Leaving aside the cuttability for a moment, Epicurus's "Atomoi" came together in various configurations for a time, composed a compound, then came apart to go form another compound somewhere else. Our modern atoms of elements do this - at a very basic level of popular understanding. The carbon atom in a pencil is the same carbon atom in a diamond. The element atom doesn't change. Likewise, our atoms take on chemical bonds, some stronger, some weaker. I liken this to Lucretius's description of hooked and smooth "seeds". No, there aren't hooked and smooth atoms in our understanding now, but some bonds are stronger than others. They get "entangled" to use an ancient way of thinking: liked a box of fishhooks (or Christmas tree ornament hooks!). Smooth marbles don't become entangled, so - to Epicurus or Lucretius - marbles are like water "Atomoi". Granite is a stronger bond and harder to break apart. That's like the fishhooks being harder to break apart.

I'm trying to make an analogy between the ancient and modern ideas, not to equate one concept with another. That's all.

Quote from Elayne

Awareness of sequential pleasure would be nothing if not for the fact that such awareness itself is pleasure, and I am quite certain I myself experience it as a feeling 😃 and not a cognition.

Okay, I'll give you that. But you're still just precognitively reacting to stimuli with the sensation of pleasure. I keep coming back to the fact that humans react to stimuli with either pleasure or pain (I'm trying to stay within the Epicurean canon). We describe how that sensation makes us "feel" with language, but we experience the sensation itself precognitively.

Quote from Elayne

If a person felt guilty about pleasure, awareness of sequential pleasure wouldn't feel happy but painful.

Interesting premise although I don't think that's the case. One can't experience pleasure "as" pain. They would be experiencing pain. What you seem to be describing is how someone would be thinking about their feelings which sounds contrary to your next statement.

Quote from Elayne

I do think Platonism has penetrated culture sufficiently that there are some people who define the word conceptually. But I stand by my assertion that most ordinary people, non academics, "feel happy" rather than "think happy."

I don't think Platonism is at play here. We're not defining an ideal happiness.

Are you then simply using the same word "happy" to stand in for "pleasure"? What about all the synonyms for happy?

I'm not saying you "think happy". What I'm saying is that:

1) A person experiences the sensation of what is called "pleasure" as opposed to a sensation of "pain" or they are experiencing more pleasure right now than pain.

2) That person interprets that sensation as "making" them happy. At the speed of thought, so it might appear simultaneous. But the sensation comes first. The description comes second.

People can try to convince themselves to say they're happy. You can't fool yourself as to sensing pleasure or pain.

Quote from Bryan

Here are some personal notes I have on the Principle Doctrines along with some new translations.

Just started to look through, but this looks great. Thanks for sharing!

In the interest of reciprocity: https://sites.google.com/view/epicureansage here's a translation I did of the characteristics of the Epicurean sage.

Quote from Elayne

I did a poll once of my FB friends on whether happiness is a feeling or a concept. They said feeling except for one person. The songs "Don't worry, be happy", "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands"-- these are feeling songs. To use it abstractly is a philosophy attempt to denigrate feeling by saying your happy feeling isn't real happiness-- you should seek an abstract ideal instead. It's the ivory tower against the people, trying to make life esoteric 😂. That's Platonic, to make it abstract.

I use it the way ordinary people do, as an expression of a pleasurable feeling.

I don't agree. The feeling/reaction to a situation or stimulus is *pleasure.* "Being happy" is the cognitive response to that feeling of pleasure. "Happiness" is the state of being that you are aware of yourself being in when you experience sequential pleasurable sensations over a certain duration.

If I say "I'm happy," one can ask "Why are you happy?" This thing and this thing and this event "make" me happy. Happiness can often be broken down into constituent parts.

"If I say "Aaaaaaah" as i close my eyes and look up on a warm sunlit day, I'm experiencing pleasure. I may also think "I'm happy" at that moment but that comes after the actual sensation of pleasure.

Quote from Cassius

"That's what I find so intriguing about the range of words translated as happy from the texts: makarios, eudaimonia, then types of happiness like euphrosyne and khara."

Don is it safe to presume that these words had different shades of meaning, so that using happiness in each case is almost certainly overbroad?

Yep

I'm thinking happiness is more of a process or state or condition: the state of a continued subjective sense of well-being or contentment.

"I am happy" has a spectrum of meaning.

That's what I find so intriguing about the range of words translated as happy from the texts:

makarios, eudaimonia, then types of happiness like euphrosyne and khara.

"I am happy" has so many shades as to be almost open to meaning anything unless we say "I know it when I see it."

My quick reaction to that thread heading is pleasure (vs pain) is a reaction to something. I would agree happiness is an abstract concept. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjectiv…ing?wprov=sfla1

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This is why we say that pleasure is the beginning and the end of a completely happy life. καὶ διὰ τοῦτο τὴν ἡδονὴν ἀρχὴν καὶ τέλος λέγομεν εἶναι τοῦ μακαρίως ζῆν.

Happiness is such a vague concept even among positive psychology researchers. Like the proverbial obscenity: "I know it when I see it." It's used to translate any number of words in the original texts, sometimes it seems arbitrarily. Here it's the same word from PD1 translated "blessed" there.

[ADMIN NOTE: This is an very important discussion that needs to be findable in the future, so I clipped the next several posts from another thread and pasted them here, in an older thread directly on point]

I get where you're coming from. I do have a question:

Quote from Matt

My position is this...pleasure is the goal. Happiness is the goal.

Which is it? Technically, those are two goals. You can't run both ways down the field.

One caveat off the top of my head: We have to be careful about calling what Epicurus and the ancient Greeks did "science." They wrote and thought about things that we would group under the heading of "science" but they weren't "doing science." They called their pursuits "physiology" (to anglicize their term) - the study of nature writ large, φύσις (physis) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physis?wprov=sfla1. They observed and thought about how the natural world works - including the whole cosmos - but calling it "science" places undue burden on their obligation to be "right." It sets up an unfair comparison where people can be smug and denigrate and deride how much they "got wrong." We need to look at their accomplishments in context and appreciate why they thought what they did. "Proto-science" or the precursor of science, but not "science."

Thank you, Cassius , for putting that post together. There's a LOT to unpack there. Here are some initial thoughts.

Cosmos, world, universe. The English words here obscure and obfuscate what Epicurus actually said. There's an interesting excerpt from the Letter to Pythokles:

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[DL X.88]... ...A world is a circumscribed portion of the universe, which contains stars and earth and all other visible things, cut off from the infinite, and terminating [and terminating in a boundary which may be either thick or thin, a boundary whose dissolution will bring about the wreck of all within it] in an exterior which may either revolve or be at rest, and be round or triangular or of any other shape whatever. All these alternatives are possible : they are contradicted by none of the facts in this world, in which an extremity can nowhere be discerned. [89] "That there is an infinite number of such worlds can be perceived, and that such a world may arise in a world or in one of the intermundia (by which term we mean the spaces between worlds) in a tolerably empty space and not, as some maintain, in a vast space perfectly clear and void.

The "world" here is [kosmos] http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l…0:chapter=1&i=1

The "universe" is [ouranos] the "vault or firmament of heaven" http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l…r=1&i=1#lexicon

It almost seems to me that in this case, the [kosmos] is the "visible universe" and the [ouranos] is the entire universe. But it also seems like the cosmos (to use the usual English spelling of that word) is the only part of the universe that we have access to because the cosmos has " stars and earth and all other visible things, cut off from the infinite, and terminating [and terminating in a boundary...]"

Now, I'm betting that Epicurus's concept of the cosmos was the Earth surrounded by a firmament of fixed stars and moving planets in the sky/heavens/ouranos. That is *our* cosmos. But the ouranos was bigger than our cosmos and could include other cosmoi to which we may not have access. And the extent of these cosmoi -- ours plus all the rest -- were [apeiros] http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l…r=1&i=5#lexicon literally "not-limited" or boundless or infinite. According to the Pythokles letter, our cosmos *has* some kind of boundary but exists in an infinite heaven (NOTE: This has NOTHING to do with a religious "heaven"! Poetic nomenclature only for the expanse of the universe.] Our cosmos is just a piece of the infinite. So, our cosmos could be both infinite and bounded. Wrap your brain around this one: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/8897…ite-and-bounded

I have more thoughts to come, but I wanted to end on this. I firmly believe that one must avoid equating Epicurus's atomos with our modern concept of an atom. Epicurus's point was that the atomos (and I'm purposefully using the Greek transliteration to make the point) was a finite particle of stuff that was "uncuttable". It didn't change and was also distinct from what it made up. Atomoi made up dogs, trees, and people but there were not dog-atomoi, tree-atomoi, and people-atimoi. His primary mission in this was to contend against rival theories of his day. He wasn't trying to establish the Standard Model of quarks, gluons, mesons we have today. He'd be intrigued by this maybe, but I don't think he'd change his system. His system was adequate for his purposes. So when people slight him or try to dismiss him or try to shoehorn atomoi into the modern Standard Model, they all miss some part of the point. If you need an analog for atomoi in the modern theories, my suggestion is to think of them more as elements that make up molecules. The elements don't change whether they're in a star, a tree, or your big toe. They come together to form compounds. The elements -as building blocks - are a basic constituent of compounds. That's what Epicurus wanted to get across. There are basic building blocks in the Cosmos that can be put together in infinite ways. He posited that these building blocks were uncuttable to avoid the problem of an infinite regression. He *decided* you have to stop somewhere. That somewhere for him was the level of the atomos. You don't need to go further to account for the things in the cosmos.

Quote from Elayne

I would like to reassure readers that in no way would a temporally finite universe, a universe with a beginning, have any effect on the universe being material, without supernatural realms or entities, and that it is unnecessary to adopt an infinite model just to resolve anxiety about such things. None of the current physics models include supernatural gods.

And, just to emphasize, Epicurus did not posit *any* responsibility for the "gods" (however he conceived of them or we understand his conception of the "divine") in the creation or administration of the cosmos. Atoms composing things and void through which the atoms can move: That's it. However the cosmos exists, it exists as a physical, material thing governed by knowable physical processes.

I'm sure many if not all of you saw this blog exchange a while ago between Wilson and Pigliucci but, if not, this seemed a good spot to repost:

https://massimopigliucci.medium.com/guest-post-wro…sm-6f60ae1df232

I don't agree with all of Wilson's characterizations of Epicureanism, but the back and forth between the two was at least entertaining after a fashion.

This stanza of Ithaka rang very Epicurean to me:

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Always keep Ithaca in your mind.

To arrive there is your ultimate goal.

But do not hurry the voyage at all.

It is better to let it last for many years;

and to anchor at the island when you are old,

rich with all you have gained on the way,

not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

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It made me think of Epicurus's instruction to remember the pleasures of your past so you don't grow old. And also the connection between ataraxia and smooth sailing.

Paian Anax! Thanks so much for spurring me to look into his work!