Posts by Kalosyni

Quote from Cassius

I think this is also where the word "empty" gets used, right? And I find that word also not up to the task of being clear.

Actually that is very interesting to me...because then you can ask "empty of what?"

Empty of benefit? Empty of true pleasure?

Then you can ask yourself questions like:

Does it matter if I eat hot oatmeal or cold cereal for breakfast.

Does it matter if I wear a white t-shirt or a blue t-shirt tomorrow.

Does it matter if I graduate from college or drop out to work a job -- depends on what job.

And you can ask yourself, further if it will matter 3 months or a year from now if I go to that party or not -- whether or not to procrastinate on studying for an upcoming exam.

So then it can help you determine what things you are willing to put effort into for long-term benefit and long-term security.

Whether "groundless" is appropriate...

The internet definition of groundless = "not based on any good reason". And I really would want to know the original Greek word used? Don if you know?

I need to track where I read something about the view of deeming something as groundless -- after the fact or while thinking through/imagining (placing before the eyes) -- and then one sees that it 1) it causes a lot of pain and no pleasure, or 2) it is impossible to get.

For example: if a person said: "Oh how I wish I could go on a flight on Blue Origin, but it costs $1.25 million per passenger so I can't afford to do it." So then one would then reason about how this desire is not necessary for a happy life AND then replace that desire with something easier to get. Or another (more down to earth) example: if someone has very limited finances, but says "Oh it would be so nice to go to drive to a resort town on the ocean, but hotels are so expensive these days and I need to be careful about not spending away my limited savings." -- and then sees that the basic "deeper" human desire is for exploration (or for learning, experiencing, novelty, or relaxation) then finding something else such as exploring things and going to museums in one's own city, or finding a nice park with a river or lake.

This might be the kind of thing that we need to develop clear presentations on and this could eventually be part of a daily reader/guidebook -- or an "Epicurean Basic Training".

Here is a new graphic. I removed the labels "extravagent" and "corrosive" because for me it doesn't seem correct to abstractly label anything, it must be applied with in a given condition, environment, and situation.

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Edit note: 7:51pm ET -- I'm not sure this graphic makes sense now without the labels in the very first graphic in post 1 above (especially the image of the credit cards).

Quote from Onenski

Briefly, Epicurus' portrait was intentionally symbolic and not merely representational. It had the function of attracting new people to the School. Additionally (and as a speculation of Frischer) this recruitment worked attracting a specific psychological profile.

Quote from Onenski

The idea is that some people have a major tendency to believe in epicurean premises (those who have more tendency to trust in their senses, for example) than others. Frischer uses some psychoanalytic framework (from Carl Jung) to make this suggestion (which I think is too speculative, by the way).

Quote from Godfrey

regarding some ways to think about art for outreach.

I've been pondering the use of the image of Epicurus as a symbol of the Epicurean philosophy. But it is also very close to a kind of "hero worship", which I personally feel troubling. Perhaps as modern Epicureans we need to develop a symbol which comes to stand for observation by the senses and also "pleasure as telos". And maybe it would be something along the lines of greek letter(s) -- I think Nate was working on some symbols but need to find those.

The image of Epicurus doesn't mean anything to people who don't know who Epicurus is and who are not "Epicureans".

I used this image (below) for the past 20th, and potentially will use for future announcements, which Cassius also places announcements onto the Facebook group. As I read what Diogenes Laertius says about the will of Epicurus and his wishes for the 20th, including for the remembrance of Metrodorus, and other days remembering his brothers and Polyaenus, then it comes to me that there were very different cultural rituals practiced in ancient Greece. I guess I am still uncertain about the focus on Epicurus' image.

I was just taking a look at Don's article:

File

Epicurus’s Birthday: The 7th, 10th, or 20th of Gamelion - Mystery Solved

This paper outlines the reasons to accept that Epicurus was born on the 20th day of the month of Gamelion.

Don

December 26, 2022 at 12:07 AM

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Conclusion

It is nearly impossible to provide a specific modern Gregorian date to an event that happened in antiquity. The variable days, chronologies, and simply the vast stretch of time make calculations like that almost sure to fail to one degree or another. Saying that Julius Caesar died on March 15 because he died on the Ides of March14 is a convenient shorthand at best. We understandably want to put historical events in a context significant to us, but history has no such obligation to accommodate our desires. However, when we have dates given in reference to the calendar actually used in ancient times, we can place that date within the context of the event's contemporary culture. Knowing an event took place on a day in Gamelion or in Thargelion or on the Idus Martiae may not mean much to us; but, to the people who lived through it, it was as readily comprehensible to them as it is to us when we say in the United States that we're celebrating the Fourth of July. We are fortunate to have as much information as we do concerning the birth of Epicurus, let alone enough information for it to be debated. That said, the ancient textual references, the volumes of scholarship, and the corrected interpretations all clearly point to Epicurus being born on the 20th day of Gamelion during the third year of the 109th Olympiad when Sosigenēs held the archonship in Athens.

Quote from Cassius

How many times should we desire to visit Rome?

On the usefulness of the analogy: That is like asking how many time per week should we desire to make love.

If you desire to go to Rome, should you go? Can you afford to go? Is it distracting you from something else you should do instead?

This could be a good topic for our 20th meeting.

Quote from Martin

both Adkins and Keto are controversial

Some people actually gain weight on Keto/Adkins because they are still consuming more calories than they burn. And people who lose weight gain the weight right back again after coming off the diet. Eventually you have to return eating some carbs -- life isn't worth living without some carbs -- but you need to learn to enjoy complex carbs like brown rice and other healthy carbs.

I think that the problem happens when people want to lose weight in one month. So they are impatient and want it to happen immediately.

If you ate the Mediteranean diet for 6 months with a very mild calorie deficit, and then after 6 months you continue eating the Mediteranean diet because it is healthy. So you take on a permanent healthy lifestyle.

Here is a new blog post I just created, on weight loss and healthy eating. I quote the following Vatican Sayings:

54. Do not pretend to love and practice wisdom, but love and practice wisdom in reality; for we need not the appearance of health but true health.

59. The stomach is not insatiable, as most people say; instead the opinion that the stomach needs unlimited filling is false.

68. Nothing is enough to one for whom enough is very little.

69. The ingratitude of the soul makes a creature greedy for endless variation in its way of life.

71. Ask this question of every desire: what will happen to me if the object of desire is achieved, and what if not?

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You can find practical tips on weight loss and healthy eating on

my blog post: "An Epicurean Journey into Weight Loss"

Regarding the good attributes and ancient Greek events and festivals during the month of Gamelion -- the month in which Epicurus was born (which coincides with the modern calander months of January/February).

"...Gamelion... is the month of the Halcyon Days, days of warm sun and calm seas, Alkionides Meres, as the Greeks call them, which appear in mid January. These glorious Halcyon days of the month of Gamelion, also played a role in the reason certain dates were chosen for so many ancient Greek feasts, festivals and theatre, which were always held outdoors."

Edit Note: After the initial posting of this, I further researched about "halcyon days" and I am finding mixed references to the exact times.

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Gamelion; the month of marriage, was the seventh month of the Attic calendar of ancient Greece which coincides with the modern day month of February.

The word derives from the Greek γαμηλίᾰ (gamēlía), meaning “wedding feast”, as it was the most popular month for weddings;

(γάμος – gámos – wedding in greek).

Gamelion:

A month of marriages and festivals

Not by chance was the ancient Greek month Gamelion the “Wedding-Month” a month for love, lust, weddings and festivals.

Ancient Greeks generally married in winter, in honour of the goddess of marriage, Hera (Juno) Greek Goddess of Women, Marriage, Childbirth, Children and Family, a time when, throughout the month, special sacrifices were made to the goddess.

As the ancient Greek wedding consisted of a three part ceremony which lasted for three days, held outdoors and usually at night, the weather had to be taken into consideration.

Gamelion, then, was the perfect month, as this is the month of the Halcyon Days, days of warm sun and calm seas, Alkionides Meres, as the Greeks call them, which appear in mid January.

These glorious Halcyon days of the month of Gamelion, also played a role in the reason certain dates were chosen for so many ancient Greek feasts, festivals and theatre, which were always held outdoors.

The sacred Marriage

Another reason the month of Gamelion is the month of marriages, is to commemorate the sacred Marriage, or Hieros gamos or Hierogamy, of Goddess Hera and Zeus; king of Greek gods.

The wedding took place, with much pomp and glory, in the Garden of Hesperides, where Gaia, Mother Earth, overcome with happiness, caused a tree to bloom with golden apples and was watched over by the dreaded fates (The Moirai) of ancient Greece, who were probably comparing notes with each other and deciding the destiny of this sacred coupling!

The wedding between Hera and Zeus was followed by a three hundred year honeymoon.

The Theogamia or Hieros Gamos, a sexual ritual, or fertility rite, which performs a marriage between a god and a goddess, an annual festival celebrating the marriage of the gods Zeus and Hera, a sort of wedding anniversary, took place in the temple of Hera in honor of the goddess as protector of Marriage.

The wedding of Zeus and Hera was celebrated at the Heraion of Samos.

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Read more about this at the Article Source

Also during Gamelion was the

Lenaia festival.From Wikipedia

: "The festival was in honour of Dionysus Lenaios.^[1] There is also evidence the festival also took place in Delphi.^[2]

The term Lenaia probably comes from "lenos" 'wine-press' or from "lenai", another name for the Maenads (the female worshippers of Dionysus)."

"The Mantle" article seems like a very good overview, and it is geared toward a modern understanding. There might be a few things I could get nit-picky about.

Here is a new graphic I just made. I have incorporated the terms "extravagant desires" and "corrosive desires" from the new book "Living for Pleasure" by Emily Austin.

I am hoping for feedback, do you think this is helpful? Does it need anything different or anything added?

Here is an article exploring the validity of Hoffman's ideas:

A Contradiction in Donald Hoffman’s (Idealist) Fitness-Beats-Truth Theorem

Donald Hoffman claims that the “organism that sees reality as it is goes extinct”. So there is a reality after all? And how do this claim…

medium.com

Don looking at the above Latin Dictionary entry for "voluptas" -- it occurs to me that delight sounds like a mental pleasure, and where as plain old "pleasure" is in the body.

(Just my take on it).

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Quote from Kalosyni What good is knowing your destination if you don't know which road to take to get there?

Quote from Todd

It's a necessary first step to getting there, isn't it?

Would you blindly follow a road if you didn't know where it was taking you? Maybe you are simply enjoying the trip for it's own sake. That's fine, but still, you'd want to know that it's not taking you into the middle of a war zone (for example).

Yes! This could be a good topic for an illustration!

Quote from Cassius

But since, as I say, the issue is not «what is the means of happiness?» but «what is happiness and what is the ultimate goal of our nature?»,

btw, I have always had trouble with this. What good is knowing your destination if you don't know which road to take to get there?

You could also say that this forum is a tool and not the final goal -- which from all appearances we sometimes seem to: "inopportunely messed about by these people (being transferred from the place of the means to that of the end), are in no way an end, but the means to the end."

These lines by Lucretius point to the solution:

Our terrors and our darknesses of mind

Must be dispelled, not by the sunshine's rays,

Not by those shining arrows of the light,

But by insight into nature, and a scheme

Of systematic contemplation.

Is there anything else by Lucretius to add to this to be more specific?

I remember now the book "The Demon Haunted World" by Carl Sagan. Wikipedia has a good overview:

The Demon-Haunted World - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

So would this be considered a much more clear (and modern) understanding of what Epicurus was beginning to present, by his looking to nature? When we use science correctly, is it a much more complex system compared to Epicurean philosophy? Maybe it might be good to have a table to graphically show similiarities between Epicureanism and modern science.

Also, the "dragon in the garage" story in the above Wikipedia article shows how metaphor can be used to illustrate ideas.

Quote from Cassius

How do we illustrate through Epicurean principles how we got here? And how do we illustrate the solution?

Allegory is a way to present ideas in a hidden and coded manner -- and so it is a kind of esoteric knowledge -- and I myself prefer to be much more straight-forward. I am not looking to convince anyone of anything. But I would enjoy being able to explain the philosophy more clearly to myself and anyone who might already be oriented toward an Epicurean worldview. And as such, I see no need for allegory or parable.

Here is a better definition of allegory, and it give the example of "Animal Farm" by Orwell being an allegory.

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What is an allegory?

An allegory is a narrative story that conveys a complex, abstract, or difficult message. It achieves this through storytelling. Rather than having to explain the pitfalls of arrogance and the virtues of persistence, a writer can instead tell a tale about a talking tortoise and a haughty hare.

Humans naturally gravitate toward good stories. Have you ever noticed how fiction gets the most shelf space in the bookstore? Stories are compelling. By using a story to talk about big, abstract, or difficult ideas, allegory takes advantage of our inclination toward story.

Sometimes, the message a writer wants to convey is dangerous to talk about explicitly. In these cases, allegory creates distance between the writer and the message. One famous example of this is George Orwell’s 1945 novel Animal Farm. Orwell used a story line about farm animals to express his dissent toward the Russian government, a risky subject to discuss outright.

Source

Quote from Cassius

The Michelle Pinto graphic crystalizes the anti-supernatural aspect of Epicurean philosophy in the "one picture is worth a thousand words" way. Music is similarly effective.

I would call that an illustration of a passage in Lucretius. And I can definitely get on board with illustrations.