Posts by Don

Quote from Bryan

"Elephants, many thousands of which fortify India with an ivory wall " (DRN 2.537)

Is that a metaphor for using elephant-mounted troops in warfare? Like Themistocles interpreting "wooden walls" as ships.

Quote from BrainToBeing

And, yes, I realize that "down in the weeds" of "pleasure" is the idea that self-sacrifice may be interpreted as personal "pleasure". However, I can certainly tell you that doing what was right, rather than what was pleasurable, was not pleasure in many, many situations (long story with many elements).

From my perspective, that is actually the point. Don't dismiss those weeds too lightly. Are you able or willing to admit to yourself that doing what you felt was "right" was pleasurable to you. Feeling that you did the correct action *was* pleasurable. If you want to say that doing what you felt was right brought you a sense of satisfaction, I can see that. But satisfaction is a type of pleasure in long run.

Quote from Nate

It was impressed upon me (by Peripatetics) in college that "flourishing" was the only acceptable definition of εὐδαιμονία. One of the professors of the department described Aristotle as "the smartest person who ever lived."

I'll gladly give Aristotle his due up to a point, but "the smartest person who ever lived." LOL! I think he was more clever than smart, and too clever by half from what I've read.

FYI for anyone interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alasdair_MacIntyre?wprov=sfla1

Quote from BrainToBeing

I'm more interested in doing something constructive as my core driver.

And "doing something constructive" gives you pleasure, right?

Quote from BrainToBeing

I deny pleasure where pursuing it would not be constructive (e.g. coffee and a glass of wine at dinner are my only drugs). I voluntarily accept pain where it comes necessarily as a consequence of doing something constructive (e.g. vigorous exercise entails some pain).

"And because pleasure is the fundamental and inborn good, this is why not every pleasure is seized and we pass by many pleasures when greater unpleasant things were to result for us as a result: and we think many pains better than pleasures whenever greater pleasure were to follow for a longer time by patiently abiding the pain." -Epicurus, letter to Menoikeus

I don't know. You might be an Epicurean after all.

Quote from Bryan

I am ready to put my vote for a nice new script for writing English!

For your consideration:

Constructed scripts and languages

www.omniglot.com

Quote from Pacatus

NOTE: I had a philosopher friend, who did his dissertation on the Nicomachean Ethics, who insisted the best rendering of eudaimonia was "flourishing" -- but that strikes me as even more problematic than "happy."

Fully agree. "Flourishing" seems ... wrong? Merriam-Webster defines "flourishing" as

"marked by vigorous and healthy growth; very active and successful."

Your "happy well-being" is better, for sure. I lean more in the direction of "satisfied well-being" or "contented well-being." To be even more literal, I might suggest "to be in good spirits," but that might be taking the linguistic pun too far.

BrainToBeing , that's a great post! Thanks for sharing your expertise and insights. Dr. Anna Lembke (author of Dopamine Nation) touched on some of the same themes. I like the way you described the relation but difference between nociception and suffering. How would you describe the pain from "painful" memories or similar mental pains? There's no actual nociception going on there, is there? I'm curious for you to expand on the "existential pain" you mentioned in passing.

Quote from BrainToBeing

Mostly I was reflecting on the issue of "a happy life".

It's a great question, and, in many ways, comes down to "How do you define the word 'happy'?" The word translated as English "happy" in most ancient texts is eudaimonia. I like to translate that as "well-being" instead of "happy." Well-being is kind of a play on the word components of eu-daimonia, but that's into the weeds. "Happy" carries so much semantic baggage in English it can get in the way.

Quote from BrainToBeing

I believe Epicureanism has been challenged as advocating hedonism.

We have discussions on here all the time about Epicurus's "hedonism." Hedonism gets hung with "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" often, but it seems there are different brands. I believe Emily Austin describes Epicurus's philosophy as psychological hedonism, "the view that the ultimate motive for all voluntary human action is the desire to experience pleasure or to avoid pain. Immediate gratification can be sacrificed for a chance of greater, future pleasure."

Quote from Bryan

I am interested, but sincerely ignorant of Tolkien (beyond the fact he is the author of The Lord of the Rings). I just did a quick wikipedia read however - interesting stuff! Is the script of Tengwar actually printed in the books and legible?

I won't steal Eikadistes 's fire, but chime in on my own experience.

The Appendices of The Lord of Rings have a whole section on the languages and wriiting systems. They can be see in use on most editions' title pages, on The Doors of Durin at the entrance to Moria, in the song book "The Road Goes Ever On" with Tolkien and Swann, and in Tolkien calligraphy online (and there's a LOT of fan art with the letters).

The thing that has always endeared Tolkien to me is that **the languages came first**! He was a conlanger from an early age, created the "Elvish" languages and wanted a world in which they were spoken... hence Middle-earth came into being!

If you're curious at all, a wonderful site is Ardalambion from Helge Fauskanger.

I realize we're way afield of Epicurus's Garden here, so I'll put my Tolkien fandom (which began back in the late 70s/early 80s) back into my pocketses for now.

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Quote

Thoughts, perspectives? (Or, have you already talked that into the ground?)

Honestly, there's no topic that has been exhausted or talked into the ground. Each time a topic comes up, it provides the opportunity for fresh perspectives, honing one's arguments, and wrestling with interesting and challenging questions. Thanks for raising the topic!

From my perspective, "happy life or a relevant, contributing life" is a false dichotomy. For one reason, self-care is of vital importance to truly be contributing. Burning oneself out on "contributing" does no one any good.

And "relevant" to whom? "Contributing" to what?

An important perspective on this, from my view, is Principle Doctrine 5:

It is not possible to live a pleasurable life without the traits of wisdom, morality, and justice; and it is impossible to live with wisdom, morality, and justice without living pleasurably. When one of these is lacking, it is impossible to live a pleasurable life.

Eikadistes : Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo!! ✨

The evolution of Greek pronunciation is fascinating. Modern Greek has gone all in on the fricatives βδγφθχ and also collapsed a number of vowels and diphthongs. But the language started back in Classical times with phonemic distinctions like aspirated vs unaspirated stops, pitch accent, phonemic vowel length, and others. I highly recommend Luke Ranieri's Greek Pronunciation Chronology Spreadsheet to see it laid out:

Ranieri's Greek Pronunciation Chronology

All Greek w/ Alternative Coaeval Pronunciations All Greek with Alternative Coaeval Phonemes,Luke Amadeus Ranieri's GREEK PRONUNCIATION CHRONOLOGY Spreadsheet…

docs.google.com

So, Stratakis uses a reconstructed Classical Attic convention, including all those ancient distinctions; whereas Ranieri provides a spectrum of evolutionary steps. Both are firmly rooted and supported by historical and linguistic research.

I'm a bit of a linguistics nerd and find all this fascinating. I learned the International Phonetic Alphabet in high school, etc. I fully agree with Ranieri when he talks about the importance of pitch accent and vowel length in especially being able to appreciate ancient poetry and to appreciate just the sound of the language. It's an interesting thought experiment to consider how "evolved" Epicurus's pronunciation was toward fricativization and other features, or Philodemus, or Diogenes of Oenoanda.

Full disclosure: This is a highly controversial topic in some circles but historical evidence is clear, compelling, and definitive in backing up this linguistic evolution. All languages go through it.

Here are some other links on Ranieri's site:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/80661461

https://lukeranieri.com/lucianpronunciation/

I like the quote:

"Most of us think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, but we are actually feeling creatures that think."

Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey

Quote from Bryan

This chart shows clearly what I think is one of the more complicated parts of pronunciation.

That's one of the reasons I'm gravitating toward the Pompeian Variant of Lucian Reconstruction with fricative φθχ although I like the aspirated stops. That latter Classical pronunciation is used by Ioannis Stratakis at Podium Arts. It's just really hard, as an English speaker, to distinguish and produce the required contrast between aspirated and unaspirated stops. Plus we have Philodemus's connection to the area of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

This is the video I've been waiting on!!

Quote from BrainToBeing

is "prolepesis" the same as "prolepsis"?

Prolepsis is the singular. Prolepseis is just the plural.

fwiw, here's a 3-year-old post related to this topic:

Post

PD24 - Commentary and Translation of PD 24

Principal Doctrine 24 (PD 24) is one of the more convoluted doctrines with multiple phrases and conjunctions. I would like to provide some commentary and break the doctrine down into manageable words and phrases for everyone to get a more coherent understanding of what Epicurus was communicating. You may also want to take a look at this doctrine’s page on the Epicurus Wiki:

First the original text:

[…]

Now, let’s break it down before we put it all back together. I’ll provide a (mostly) literal…

Don

September 2, 2020 at 11:56 PM

Quote from Cassius

Well, isn't deciding whether something is pleasing or painful an "evaluation" of at least a sort?

I don't think so. Pleasure and pain have an automatic component to them. For example:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007091219302387

Quote

Pain is recognized to have both a sensory dimension (intensity) and an affective dimension (unpleasantness). Pain feels like a single unpleasant bodily experience, but investigations of human pain have long considered these two dimensions of pain to be separable and differentially modifiable.

There's also this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4425246/

That first paper talks about the sensory component of pain and then the "affective" dimension - the "feeling" of pleasantness or unpleasantness that follows (what seems like simultaneously). It seems to me that there is a sensory stimulus - if pain, touching a hot rack in the oven - our brains have predicted that we're if we experience damage to our hand if we let it in this spot, and immediately - automatically - pulls it away. Almost, but not quite, the "feeling" of displeasure is associated with that stimulus. THEN we can think cognitively *after* that that "I need to never do that again! That hurts! That's certainly not good!" We put a *value* judgement on the act - on the feeling - after we experience the sensory input and the pain in quick succession. Then we can cognitively think about "How stupid!" and all kinds of other thoughts.

Great stuff, BrainToBeing !! Glad to have you aboard our little boat here.

I really like your "bootstrap" contribution to the discussion. From my perspective, that dovetails in many ways with what we've (I've) been trying to articulate here on the forum for awhile. If I understand where you're coming from...

To go with a computer metaphor: We have innate, inborn "operating systems" and some basic software that can be applied to make sense of novel situations in our experience? We use those basics as the foundation for more complex behaviors and beliefs as we grow? We get thrown into a world, bombarded by sensory input, and our operating system and basic "programs" begin to sift, sort, organize, and construct our understanding of reality.

This reminds me of the work of Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett (and others...I'm just more familiar with her name) who talks about our brains being "prediction engines." According to her work, our brains are constantly using past experience to predict what the flood of sensory data coming in "means," and therefore how to react to it. If we, in fact, DID only react to incoming stimuli after it came in...we'd end up dead. We can't "react" fast enough in real time. Our brains are constantly predicting what actions should follow and act on that. Which, as I understand, is why we jump away from a "snake" on the trail only to "see" later that it was actually just a stick. Our brains do a prediction THEN an observation like: "We're in the woods. What things do we expect to see in the woods? We need to be aware of dangers in the woods. We've seen long slender things before that are snakes. Snakes are dangers. Long slender thing on trail.. SNAKE! JUMP! Take a second observation.... Oh! Just a stick."***

For my part, I see those predictions as prolepseis against which incoming sense data is compared. BUT I can also see some of the bootstrapping to be connected as well.

I should also state explicitly that, as obvious as it is, Epicurus did NOT have access to the latest research in psychology, neuroscience, physiology, etc. He was working on observation and intuition and trying to make sense of his world with the tools he had. However, he came up with (or, at least, refined) the idea of atoms - tiny particles that make up the universe - LONG before we had observational evidence... So, I think he was doing pretty well with those tools that he had.

***PS: Note - My example is an over-simplification of the process. For more detail, see the following:

The brain is a prediction machine: It knows how well we are doing something before we even try — Department of Experimental Psychology

Interoceptive predictions in the brain

Intuition suggests that perception follows sensation and therefore bodily feelings originate in the body. However, recent evidence goes against this logic:…

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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the brain forms neural representations that are constructed from previous experience. These function as a generative model of how stimuli in the environment cause sensations. Rather than neurons simply lying dormant until information arrives via the external sensors of the body (that is, the eyes, ears and taste receptors, among others), the brain anticipates incoming sensory inputs, which it implements as predictions that cascade throughout the cortex.

See also

How your brain creates reality, explained by a neuroscientist

Your 'social reality' isn’t an absolute reality. A leading neuroscientist explains why.

bigthink.com