Posts by Kalosyni

Quote from smoothiekiwi

I can agree with that- but doesn't every human being possesses these traits at least in some quantity? where would you draw the line of "that's enough"?

I also completely agree that these traits help you to live happily- that's extremely important. But when will you stop seeking and being content with the possible partner you have? Pure hedonistic calculus?

The question of...how do you know if someone will make a good life partner?

There are certain personality traits that lead to better outcomes in marriage...conscientiousness and agreeableness:

Quote

Conscientiousness and Agreeableness

As might be expected, high levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness predict relationship satisfaction, in part because these traits signify low impulsivity and high interpersonal trust, respectively.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insigh…r-romantic-life

And the personality trait of neuroticism is negatively correlated with marriage satisfaction:

Quote

By a broad (and rare) scholarly consensus, neuroticism is the personality trait most strongly predictive of a person’s romantic destiny. High neuroticism is uniformly bad news in this context. For example, in 1987 University of Michigan researchers Lowell Kelly and James Connelly published a study that followed 300 married couples over 30 years. The neuroticism of one spouse predicted dissatisfaction in marriage and divorce. Adding insult to injury, research has also shown that high neuroticism predicts low resilience post-divorce.

Neuroticism appears to interfere with relationship satisfaction in multiple ways. By definition, neurotic individuals tend to be highly reactive to stress and prone to experiencing negative emotions. These tendencies are likely to radiate onto the partner and create problems over time.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insigh…r-romantic-life

Should you stay with your partner or leave them to find someone better?

There is no reason to stay in a bad relationship unless you already have children. Especially if the relationship is toxic, that would be a good reason to end it for the sake of protecting the children...physical or mental abuse, substance abuse or addiction, and anger management issues. And when there are children, then going to a therapist to improve the relationship would be a good idea, and would also help determine if the relationship can be mended or if the couple should separate or divorce.

If there are no children, then it comes down to a "prudent calculus" and also if the couple is willing to put work into improving the relationship.

Quote from Godfrey

Trying to remove the pain always causes me to focus even more on the pain, whereas acknowledging the pain and pursuing pleasure has led me to much better outcomes. Often it might be just taking "baby steps" of agency, little nibbles of pleasure leading toward a larger meal.

Focusing on the problem makes the pain more observable also. It's important to see that if one just launches into pursuing pleasure then there is a chance that is it just a temporary "band-aid"...although there could be a place for this in some situations.

Speaking of "nibbles of pleasure leading toward a larger meal"...the food analogy brings up a common problem of using food to cope with mental pain, especially fun foods and treats, which will result in weight gain and health problems down the road.

There is the need to address the root cause of the mental pain, or you may end up not ending the pain, as well as developing some kind of addiction to mask the pain.

So first analyze the situation and to find the best way to remove pain, then add in pleasure into that mode...the medicine of removing pain may be bitter, but make sure to also add some honey to the rim of the glass.

In a best case scenario, I can imagine an Epicurean community in which everyone lived in the same city or nearby, and we could help each other out...and this would be similar to Christian church communites such a "barn raisings" etc.

To state this question in the opposite order:

Is the motivation to remove pain the same as the motivation to pursue pleasure?

I think that there are differences, and the differences will create different outcomes.

For example, if I want to remove the mental pain of loneliness, how does this compare with the goal of seeking the pleasure of friends?

The framing of the problem is different in seeking pleasure vs removal of pain.

If we start with the uncomfortable feelings of mental pain and then ask how to remove them, then we might arrive at a list of possible ways to remove the pain...one option of which is to seek the pleasure of friendship.

Once we have determined that this is the best option to remove the pain of loneliness, then we must switch to a "pleasure optimising" goal...which would answer the question: "How can I best find the pleasure of friends?"

This seeking of pleasure will then lead to more and better options for ending the mental pain of loneliness.

We use a "short-cut" when we study Epicureanism, Principle Doctrine 27:

I am curious to hear other's thoughts on pursuit of pleasure vs. removal of pain, ...do these appear the same or different?

Quote from Scott

Pretty much everyone in this EF forum understands that EP gets a bad rap from mainstream culture, and has ever since Stoics and Christians and similar "transcendent value" ethics have held sway. An (abbreviated) version of the most common critical narrative goes something like this:

*Epicureanism is about hedonism, which means they pursue pleasure instead of the (grander) {virtue/deity worship/other abstract/transcendent values/value systems}. Chasing after pleasures is shallow, unreliable and dangerous to oneself and society.*

Challenging this narrative is difficult, at best. Arguing that going after pleasure as your final goal makes more sense than going after abstract transcendent values ("ATVs" lol ) as a final goal is an uphill battle. As Cassius said in the thread on Eusebius: "Christians and most of the rest of the world think that Epicureans are monsters. Or that Epicurus was an Antichrist even. This is why we can't get too complacent and think that "everyone wants to be happy" means the same thing to everyone."

I think there is two parts to "abstract transcendent values":

1) Religion and religious values -- worshipping, placating, petitioning a "creator God" which requires one to set aside one's own personal pleasure to ensure that "God is pleased"...and so that one can go to heaven after death).

2) Cultural values of "perfection" / "continual improvement" / "new/better innovations" -- these are threatened by the pursuit of pleasure...one's own pleasure must be set aside for these goals. For example, pursuing the perfection of a virtuoso violinist, a prima ballerina, or an olympic champion -- these take tremendous discipline and self-sacrifice. And within technology and medicine -- the goal of continually making improvements to make things better and safer, or to elieviate suffering of illness and prevent death...personal pleasure could be seen as getting the way of the kind of hard work required for innovation.

So Epicureanism will always be at odds with these.

The "golden mean" implies some kind of perfection, yet perfection is an artificial and abstract idea that doesn't exist in the real world "messiness" of humans. Humans are not mathematical equations.

Quote from Nate

Epicurus' pursuit of pleasure is distinguished from Aristotle's pursuit of excellence. Aristotle thought that an excellent person would necessarily enjoy happiness, whereas Epicurus recognized that an excellent person is only "happy" when enjoying the fruits of their excellence. Excellence, itself, is not the motivating goal. Pleasure is the goal.

There is something so liberating in Epicurus teaching, because being liberated from the "pursuit of excellence" opens one up to true freedom. But still one would wonder...do we still admire people in their pursuit of excellence?

What makes the world "messy" is that things are in flux, and exist in a state of continual change, though some things change so slowly we can't easily see the changes happening. And this messiness is also is why we can't make absolute rules about things.

Quote from Cassius

And taken on that broad level, I don't think there is a way under the Epicuran view of nature that such a mechanism could function. As "golden mean" is frequently used, the result is a word game implying that it is generally possible to solve problems by looking for extremes, and (so to speak) adding them together and dividing by two. I don't think Epicurus would say that the world works that way in regard to pleasure or anything else either.

So we have to instead function in an intuitive way, using our senses to re-access a given situation, prodded by the feeling of wanting what is enjoyable, and combined with a "prudent-calculus" as to what will lead to long-term well-being.

Quote from smoothiekiwi

I think that most of the stuff you've mentioned is a model of a "perfect partner".

Okay...then not so much as possessing the qualities perfectly, but rather at some level, and also able to improve, otherwise marriage will be a difficult experience and end up in divorce.

Also, I read this somewhere in the past...people who have a drive for extreme novelty...they make bad marriage partners. You'll be able to judge this trait in the way that people enjoy eating because they will be the ones who are continually seeking out new restuarants to try...so eventually they will lose interest in the "comfort sex" of marriage.

The above list I wrote is just some ideas about why it is difficult to be happy in marriage...because there are so many variables. And there could be other variables that I left out.

Statistics show that better educated people tend to be less likely to divorce, and one would hope that they would be happier in their marriages. Perhaps this is because their intelligence and emotional stability leads to a better "hedonic calculus" (or "prudent calculus") during the initial dating process...being better able to vet out their dating choices, before coming to find a life partner.

The quality of one's marriage has such an influence on whether one lives pleasantly and pleasurably...so it is paramount to choose well.

It seems to me that the word "pity" in the past had a different shade of meaning than what it has now, as we can see from Don, in the Tolkien excerpt above.

Here is an excerpt the end of chapter 2 of "A Few Days in Athens" ...the word pity in the very last sentence.

Quote

[Time] "as he leads us gently onwards in the path of life, demonstrates to us many truths that we never heard in the schools, and some that, hearing there, we found hard to receive. Our knowledge of human life must be acquired by our passage through it; the lessons of the sage are not sufficient to impart it. Our knowledge of men must be acquired by our own study of them; the report of others will never convince us. When you, my son, have seen more of life, and studied more men, you will find, or, at least, I think you will find, that the judgment is not false which makes us lenient to the failings — yea! even to the crimes of our fellows. In youth, we act on the impulse of feeling, and we feel without pausing to judge. An action, vicious in itself, or that is so merely in our estimation, fills us with horror, and we turn from its agent without waiting to listen to the plea which his ignorance could make to our mercy. In our ripened years, supposing our judgment to have ripened also, when all the insidious temptations that misguided him, and all the disadvantages that he has labored under, perhaps-from his birth, are apparent to us — it is then, and not till then, that our indignation at the crime is lost in our pity of the man.”

Quote from Cassius

As in some other current threads where we are discussing pain and pleasure, I don't think that Epicurus was unrealistic about pain: pain is required in order to live to any degree, and more pain is often required for more pleasure. So while "Absence of disturbance" and "absence of pain" are goals in the Epicurean system, they are not in themselves the ultimate goal or the highest goal. PLEASURE trumps both of those, and we can and do accept some degree of both disturbance and pain in order to achieve the pleasures we want in life.

Posing the question in this way really exhibits - in my view - how terrible a mistake it is to postulate ataraxia and aponia as the highest goods rather than pleasure. (And I will add that it makes it worse to leave them untranslated, because that makes it harder for newer people to understand what really is being discussed.) When you make it clear what is involved, it seems to me that it's easy to see that OF COURSE the avoidance of disturbance and the avoidance of pain do not trump all other considerations. Over and over Epicurus makes that clear, and in those situations where it can be argued that he seems to be saying something else, you override that interpretation by looking to the foundations and the full context of the philosophy, and adopt a construction that is consistent with both

The pain that is taken on should be in service to long-term pleasure...so if marriage over-all turns out to be 50/50, then it is a tough call. Having been married I would say that the pleasure was high in the early years, and much lower in the later years. The reason that I divorced was because it at times became unbearable with no hope for reconciling the irreconcilable differences.

I begin to think that marriage is going to be difficult unless both people possess certain characteristics. Here is my "recipe" for a happy marriage, both people must have:

1) superb negotiation skills

2) high emotional intelligence

3) very grounded in reasoned thinking and general intelligence

4) highly co-operative and generous dispositions

5) a people-centered approach to life (hold people as more important than ideas or objects)

6) a shared worldview and goals in life

Quote from smoothiekiwi

I see the concept of marriage as... strange. I understand that there may be many advantages- I immediately think of security.

As far as security, there is also long-term committed co-habitation, as there are some people who do stay together for many years without being legally married (but this may be a low number).

In any long-term relationship there is the main benefit of sexuality -- especially during the ages of 30's and 40's...married people have more sex (unless they are in an unhappy marriage).

Married people also tend to do better financially when both are adequately employed and they can then afford to buy a home.

In marriage there is the benefit of companionship. A married couple might move one or more times during their lifetime, or might lose some of their friends due to changes in employment. The couple stays together no matter if employment requires relocation, and so the long-term companionship gives a continuity. Also during retirement and in the later part of life, the companionship is very important.

Pity is looking down at someone and creates an "object" divorced from feeling, whereby we need not do anything to help.

Compassion is caring and consideration for another in a way that sees the fullness of their humanity. If for some reason, we turn away from the feeling of compassion, then we turn also away from our own self, so that we then lose our ability to be self-compassionate.

It is only when hope leads to inaction that it is an "evil".

With the right hopeful attitude we can carry on in life...otherwise difficult times become unbearable if there is no hope for taking action to create change or improve the situation.

So within Epicureanism, there is the great importance of friendship, and within friendship there is the great importance of acting with compassion toward one's friends, as compassion would bring the greatest pleasure within friendship interactions.

I think it would be good to more clearly define the word "compassion" as an active attitude rather than a passive attitude. So speaking and acting with cordiality, kindness, consideration, respect, patience, acceptance, candor, and caring.

Valentine's Day is all about celebrating love. Here is an excerpt on the first stage of love, and this is just one approach to the idea of stages within a relationship:

Quote

If there's one thing in life that's anything but simple, it's love. That's why there are so many relationships that end early and so many married couples who wind up divorced. Movies and fairytales make the entire experience look so easy, but it's a lot more complicated. While love is a natural thing to feel, most people don't know that love will eventually move through several stages of love.

It evolves as your relationship and life evolves. If you or your partner bail too early, you will never reach the final stage where many are able to find true contentment and a stronger connection than ever before.

Love Stage #1 - The Passionate Beginning

The first stage of love, often called the "honeymoon phase," is what most people envision when they think of falling in love. This is the stage where you meet a potential partner and begin to have feelings for one another. Your heart skips a beat when you see them; you have butterflies in your stomach, and they consume your thoughts. More than love, this is infatuation. You experience intense, passionate feelings for the other person.

This is the stage in which you’re most likely to disregard or overlook anything negative or concerning about your potential mate. Their weaknesses seem nonexistent. Other people might see them, but you have no idea what they're talking about. You're wearing rose-colored, heart-shaped glasses. Plus, you're high on hormones like oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, testosterone, and estrogen.

For most people, this is their favorite stage of love because everything just feels good. You can't imagine arguing or things taking a turn for the worse. If only you could stay in this stage forever! However, that is not realistic. For a relationship to last, you have to know your partner intimately, including all of his or her flaws and faults. That begins in the next stage.

https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/love/ho…stages-of-love/

Display More

And here is a good one on 7 stages:

What Are The 7 Stages of Marriage and How to Survive Them — Loving at Your Best

All relationships go through stages. Every stage teaches you about the other person, which might reveal a side of them that you didn't know about.

www.lovingatyourbest.com

As an Epicurean, here is what NOT to do:

Quote

In a little German town called Eutin, people still fall in love the old-fashioned way, through hand-written letters and destiny. Meet the celebrity oak tree that has been bringing together dreamers from around the world long before dating apps were even conceived.

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/germany…ngles-together/

This may lead to marriage but may not lead to long-term compatibility...and would say that this would be very Anti-Epicurean, since it relies on "fate"...but if you don't properly do a "hedonic calculus" regarding compatibility, then it will lead to unhappiness later after the romance "wears off".

I have read that one of the most common ways that couples meet is through friends and family, and that would also help screen out incompatible people immediately.

Quote from Cassius

That's because In my humble view modern psychology is as frequently or more a mess (with camps saying very opposite things)

Yes, very true, and so it comes down everyone must choose for themselves which makes the most reasonable sense. Lately there is the meme within psychology of "science-based" therapies. But we must remember that science itself never holds a final or absolute answer.

Quote from Cassius

a reference to courtesans

I was referring to Lucretius Book 4, in which men are wooing courtesans (since they were not prostitutes, but were like a mistress that was supported with gifts and other economic requirements in exchange for exclusive (or mostly exclusive) sexual favors. So this description by Lucretius can appear similar to the very early stage of dating and falling in love, where a man tries to woo a woman with gifts. But Lucretius warns against having passion for the courtesan. Everything he writes is based on the context of the courtesan, and so it is absolutely not applicable to modern life.

Quote from Joshua

"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?"

I do not, of course, accept his definitions of "light" and "righteousness". And not everyone will be flattered by the image of yoked oxen as a metaphor for marriage.

But there is something to the idea that a compatible foundation of values and beliefs about 'the constitution of the world' is important to long-term happiness and cooperation.

I do not say that it cannot work; only that it will be very difficult to make it work. And this may partly explain the reluctance of some people to pursue marriage, for who can say what changes may develop in the space of decades?

Yes, a compatible foundation of values and beliefs is completey necessary. Also, both people must have a kind, honest, and patient disposition. There are so many lists online about what makes people compatible. Some say that two people shouldn't be too much the same, while others say similarity of common interests will bring more shared activities, and shared activities are what create a lasting bond. It makes sense to me that two people should be very similar.

As for the worldview of Epicureanism, and for myself, I think now that if I should ever remarry that the person MUST also be Epicurean, which means that I may never remarry...but on the plus side, at least I will remain free, and not become a "yoked oxen" (lol ).

A few reactions:

The words and phrasing are so different from modern english that it takes a lot of effort to unravel. For example: What does it mean to "riot in luxury and vice"?

Theophrastus is thought of as being "vicious" because his style of philosophical discourse is perhaps harsh, hostile, and menacing to Leontium?

Timocrates is thought of as being "vicious" because the things that he says about Epicurus are lies? This makes more sense, as the adjective properly fits. But there is something left out here, and that is when people feel angry, they lash out as an attempt to "punish". So there is something that Timocrates was angry about.

So we are then left at a level of philosophizing about having compassion. There are absolutes presented here, which aren't tied down to any specifics of "who, what, why, when, where".

Hopefully it will get better as the story develops.

Quote from Joshua

The sad story of Lucy Harris in the early history of Mormonism

Suddenly I am wondering if Lucretius was mis-translated...and my idea is likely totally unrelated to what you had intended.

I am off now to frolick in the Oregon sunshine, a rare treat. More tomorrow on the "Stages of Romantic Love".

Valentine's Day is coming up soon. The origin may go back as far as the Roman festival of Lupercalia, which was later replaced by the Christian day honoring the martyr Saint Valentine.

Quote

Although there is no evidence linking Saint Valentine’s Day to the rites of the ancient Roman or ancient Greek cults, popular modern sources claim links to the Roman Lupercalia celebration observed around February 13–15, a rite connected to fertility. Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa, meaning Juno the purifier or the chaste Juno, was celebrated on February 13–14. Pope Gelasius I (492–496) abolished Lupercalia. Juno is the ancient Roman name for goddess Hera, the spouse of ancient Greek father of the gods Zeus. In the ancient Athenian calendar the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion, dedicated to the sacred marriage of the couple.

https://greekreporter.com/2013/02/13/anc…valentines-day/

Quote

The Feast of Saint Valentine was established by Pope Gelasius I in AD 496 to be celebrated on February 14 in honour of Saint Valentine of Rome, who died on that date in AD 269.^[9][10] The day became associated with romantic love in the 14th and 15th centuries when notions of courtly love flourished, apparently by association with the "lovebirds" of early spring. In 18th-century England, it grew into an occasion in which couples expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines"). Valentine's Day symbols that are used today include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-produced greeting cards.^[11] In Italy, Saint Valentine's Keys are given to lovers "as a romantic symbol and an invitation to unlock the giver's heart"...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day

Regarding love and romantic relationships, there is not much to go on within Epicureanism.

In De rerum Natura Lucretius (Book 4, 1030) mentions the energies which arise in the body, and then further goes on speak of the dangers of pursuing romance with the wandering Venus' -- the courtesans with whom the men of ancient Greece had relationships.

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, Book 4 (English Text)

So for modern Epicureans, we must look instead to modern psychology for help with our understanding of marriage and long-term relationships. There is an understanding that relationships go through stages, and I have seen it listed as anywhere between 4 thru 12 stages. I will post more soon on this tomorrow. I may even cover one stage per day as we approach Valentine's Day.

Quote from Don

Or the teacher or another student notices the person acting in an angry way. Then a frank criticism session is engaged in with the student, incorporating "setting before the eyes" to depict the consequences of the behavior.

That doesn't seem to address the "root cause" of the anger...so no matter how much someone knows that bad results will happen, if they don't actively shift the "root cause" (by incorporating new more effective strategies) they will repeat the same behaviour. So this must have just been one small aspect of a larger "program" (one would hope).

Quote from Don

That's how I'm thinking "setting before the eyes" goes except in reverse: "Here's what the video camera would see."

So it is like practicing something in your mind, beforehand?