PD19 And The Meaning Of No "Greater" Pleasure

    During our 20th meetup, I loved Martin’s temperature analogy, and thinking of pleasure as an intensive property so much! Temperature is such a familiar concept that I think it should work well for explaining some of these concepts generally


    "Infinite time contains an equal amount of temperature as limited time."


    I’m still curious about the second part though: “if one measures, by reason, the limits of pleasure.”


    What does it mean to use reason to measure the limits of pleasure? (Or is that wording not representative of what Epicurus meant)


    If we can have the same amount of pleasure in our short lives as we could over infinite time, but only if we use reason to measure the limits of pleasure, it seems pretty crucial to be able to do that!


    Does it mean that we’re using reason to generally determine what the limits of pleasure are (ie his response to the Platonic claim that there is no limit to pleasure) as a general principle? Or does it mean to measure the limits of pleasure in a more day-to-day or moment-by-moment sense, using our reason at the time? Or something entirely different??


    I will say, I think the whole thing makes sense together to say:

    Once you realize that pleasure doesn’t increase beyond removal of all pain, you can see that as much pleasure can exist in a limited life as an unlimited one.


    But I’m not certain if that’s how it was intended.

    Quote from reneliza

    I’m still curious about the second part though: “if one measures, by reason, the limits of pleasure.”

    What if we allow for multiple explanations, as in the letter to Pythocles? Reasoning might lead one to:

    - A person’s pleasure is limited by their finite life: their life is still finite, regardless of the infinity of time.

    - If you're in a state of pleasure, the length of time of that state is immaterial and can't be quantified, so finite or infinite time are irrelevant (correct me if I'm wrong; that's how I understand Martin's point).

    - Using the idea of homeostasis (at least as I understand it) as a teeter-totter, pleasure can be thought of as a state of balance. Too much pleasure brings pain, which seeks a return to the state of balance and could be considered as a limit to pleasure. In the absence of pleasure, we'll do anything to obtain it, to return to the state of balance.


    These are three valid (I think) ideas of the limits of pleasure and there are certainly more. The previous PDs provide guidelines to understand pleasure, to use while reasoning this out. I think there are multiple ways to interpret this, as long as you use reasoning to rule out interpretations such as "God will fill my life with pleasure, whether in this life or the next, so I don't need to worry about time" or "I can do whatever I want to find pleasure, regardless of the consequences".


    The more you grapple with reasoning out the issue, the more ramifications and nuances you might find.

    PD19 - "Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures by reason the limits of pleasure."


    Another twist:


    If we are to strive to live like the gods who are immortal, we who are mortal can live equally well because there is no difference in our experience of pleasure vs the god's experience of pleasure -- because "pleasure" functions the same way regardless of time.


    Was the word used in this PD "hedone" or "eudaimonia" ?

    I don't know if this will clarify or obfuscate matters, but I was inclined to parse the second phrase in PD19.


    ἐάν τις αὐτῆς τὰ πέρατα καταμετρήσῃ τῷ λογισμῷ.


    ἐάν = if


    Both τις and αὐτῆς are feminine singular which, to me, seems to refer back to τὴν ἡδονὴν (pleasure) from the previous phrase which is also feminine.


    τὰ πέρατα we've mentioned are "the limits" but, more precisely, defined as "end, limit, boundary"

    Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, πέρα^ς


    In philosophy, a πέρας (singular) can refer to "the perfection" of something. LSJ gives cites including one to P.Herc 831.8 https://papyri.info/dclp/59491


    which brings us to a dative construction in the last three words:

    καταμετρήσῃ τῷ λογισμῷ


    I find the idea of the "boundary" interesting in light of καταμετρήσῃ (noun singular feminine dative) "measuring out" from the verb καταμετρέω


    Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, καταμετρ-έω


    ...which could just mean "measure out" but could also refer to laying out a camp ("castrametation" a word I never read before), i.e., measuring out the area of an encampment or "assigning land held by military tenure." Joshua may find this interesting from a surveying perspective.


    Finally, we come to τῷ λογισμῷ "to logismoi"

    The basic definition of λογισμός "logismos" is "counting, calculation" or simply "calculation or reasoning" if not associated with numbers.


    This is related to λόγος "logos" which is notoriously tricky to parse (and is even used to refer to Jesus as part of the Trinity "Ho Logos" "The Word"). Check out the LSJ definition:

    Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, λόγος


    So, at its most basic, "to logismoi" could be parsed "by using one's logos" which puts us right back into the "notoriously tricky" parsing of what logos means. Reasoning is acceptable, but it carried a lot more connotations in ancient Greek. Hence my hobby horse/soap box about translators feeling they have to reduce complex connotations to one simple English word with its own linguistic baggage.


    So, an alternative translation of the second phrase of PD19, *could* be:

    "if pleasure (is) being measured out through the logos."


    Take that for what its worth. LOL. You were expected clarity?


    PS. I found that the prefix κατα- kata- in a word like καταμετρήσῃ katametrēsēi (kata + metrēsēi) can convey "fully, completely". metrēsēi is related to English meter, measure, etc. So we're getting a phrase that conveys something like measuring out or laying out the boundaries or limits fully and completely through the use of our reasoning powers, to fully understanding how pleasure impacts our life and not accepting a popular notion of the hoi polloi that pleasure is insatiable and expands infinitely, we must understand and internalize that pleasure has limits and boundaries that can be understood.

    I apologize if the point has already been made, but it occurs to me to approach the question in these terms;


    Epicurus said that "gods there are", and that those gods dwell incorruptibly in a perpetual state of eudaimonia--of pleasure, unmixed with any pain or disturbance.


    He did not say that "gods there once were"--that they were living in incorruptible pleasure and peace, but they are no more because they've all killed themselves out of ennui and desperation ages ago.


    If the gods still find pleasure in living through all the ages of the this world, we may surmise that eternity would also do good service to an Epicurean. But we shall not have it.

    Quote

    You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.

    -Thoreau

    Something to think on--remembering while we think that Hamlet is a tragedy only because he couldn't make up his mind!

    Quote

    [...] The draught swallowed by all of us at birth is a draught of death.

    Vatican Saying 30

    There's a Greek anti-baptism for a Greek 'anti-Christ'!

    It occurs to me that I've misinterpreted or mischaracterized the characters' motivation in The Good Place with respect to that way out of existence. Joshua , please feel free to weigh in


    The people in the Good Place still experienced desires for novel experiences, still feared "death" (even though they were already dead), etc. However, those who expressed their readiness to, let's say, dissolve into the cosmos, expressed it as being at peace. The others couldn't understand the person! But there was acceptance, peace of mind, nothing holding them back, from just letting go. It was NOT boredom that led them to realize it was "time to go." They were fulfilled, at peace, etc. The ones being "left behind" were still afraid of "death", craving new experiences, or just wanting to relive the same experiences over and over.


    There are a number of interpretations of this scenario, but an eternal, indestructible peace of mind a la an Epicurean god is not out of the question. Even so, we are NOT immortal nor can we be. So... The challenge to interpret pd19 continues.

    Quote from reneliza

    I will say, I think the whole thing makes sense together to say:

    Once you realize that pleasure doesn’t increase beyond removal of all pain, you can see that as much pleasure can exist in a limited life as an unlimited one.


    But I’m not certain if that’s how it was intended

    Yes, reneliza , I think the way you've worded it is exactly how it was intended.

    Basically, once the glass is full, it's full. Whether the glass stays full a day or an infinite time, it's the same volume. That's the "limit" of pleasure: the full glass.

    Quote from Don

    Basically, once the glass is full, it's full. Whether the glass stays full a day or an infinite time, it's the same volume. That's the "limit" of pleasure: the full glass.

    .... Which is a far superior and more clear way to state the proposition rather than saying "Once the glass is totally empty, it's totally empty. Whether the glass stays empty for a day or for an infinite time, it's the same volume."


    The latter formula may also be true, but it conveys a totally different attitude. Those "absence of" descriptions work ONLY if you vigorously keep in the front of your mind that since there are only two feelings, then when you are not feeling pains you are feeling pleasures. If you don't have that Epicurean premise front and center, then it looks like you are investing mystical qualities in "emptiness" or even "nothingness". It seems that was possible for the ancient Epicureans, but very hard for us to day, given our lack of full explanations from the texts and our overall more negative attitude toward pleasure.


    Those latter formulas (emptiness and nothingness) are of great appeal to Buddhists and Nihilists and others who are unhappy with what they think they see in life, but not at all representative of what a philosophy of pleasure would look like.


    It is impossible for me to believe that the Romans who enthusiastically adopted Epicurus interpreted him through the "emptiness" / "nothingness" metaphor.


    The Romans - who had the texts and the teachers - understood it as Cicero described it from the positive perspective: "A life of tranquility crammed full of pleasures."


    and


    XII. The truth of the position that pleasure is the ultimate good will most readily appear from the following illustration. Let us imagine a man living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain: what possible state of existence could we describe as being more excellent or more desirable? One so situated must possess in the first place a strength of mind that is proof against all fear of death or of pain; he will know that death means complete unconsciousness, and that pain is generally light if long and short if strong, so that its intensity is compensated by brief duration and its continuance by diminishing severity. Let such a man moreover have no dread of any supernatural power; let him never suffer the pleasures of the past to fade away, but constantly renew their enjoyment in recollection, and his lot will be one which will not admit of further improvement.

    Quote from Cassius

    "Once the glass is totally empty, it's totally empty. Whether the glass stays empty for a day or for an infinite time, it's the same volume."

    Emptiness is pain, dissatisfaction, anxiety, trouble.

    Fullness is pleasure, joy, happiness, well-being.

    Martin was wondering whether I had missed the mark on Hamlet in what I said above. He might be right; the stage having been set with the murder of Hamlet's father, a crime which Hamlet could not prove, was there really any way to avoid a tragic ending? I don't know.


    That Hamlet's tragic flaw is indecision, procrastination, or vacillation is also disputed by critics. The main argument in support of that conclusion comes from a well known public lecture by the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge;


    Quote

    Man is distinguished from the brute animals in proportion as thought prevails over sense: but in the healthy processes of the mind, a balance is constantly maintained between the impressions from outward objects and the inward operations of the intellect;—for if there be an overbalance in the contemplative faculty, man thereby becomes the creature of mere meditation, and loses his natural power of action. Now one of Shakespeare's modes of creating characters is to conceive any one intellectual or moral faculty in morbid excess, and then to place himself, Shakespeare, thus mutilated or diseased, under given circumstances. In Hamlet he seems to have wished to exemplify the moral necessity of a due balance between our attention to the objects of our senses, and our meditation on the workings of our minds,—an equilibrium between the real and the imaginary worlds. In Hamlet this balance is disturbed: his thoughts, and the images of his fancy, are far more vivid than his actual perceptions, and his very perceptions, instantly passing through the medium of his contemplations, acquire, as they pass, a form and a colour not naturally their own. Hence we see a great, an almost enormous, intellectual activity, and a proportionate aversion to real action consequent upon it, with all its symptoms and accompanying qualities. This character Shakespeare places in circumstances, under which it is obliged to act on the spur of the moment:—Hamlet is brave and careless of death; but he vacillates from sensibility, and procrastinates from thought, and loses the power of action in the energy of resolve. Thus it is that this tragedy presents a direct contrast to that of Macbeth; the one proceeds with the utmost slowness, the other with a crowded and breathless rapidity.


    The effect of this overbalance of the imaginative power is beautifully illustrated in the everlasting broodings and superfluous activities of Hamlet's mind, which, unseated from its healthy relation, is constantly occupied with the world within, and abstracted from the world without,—giving substance to shadows, and throwing a mist over all common-place actualities.

    It is possible to accept Coleridge's presupposition that there is a tragic flaw, but find that flaw in something else: an Oedipal complex, pride or hubris, etc.


    It is also possible to approach the text without reference to any tragic flaw, as such. But I think Coleridge's view has become predominant.

    Quote from Don

    once the glass is full, it's full. Whether the glass stays full a day or an infinite time, it's the same volume.

    In rethinking my comment there, I want to emphasize that the goal is to keep the glass full all the time by having banished fear, anxiety, etc. until you die. I don't want it to be understood as Cassius 's being full "for a moment" comment. Because of the glass is full and you die tomorrow or you die 100 years from now, it's the same limit of pleasure.


    PS: That's why I think ataraxia and aponia are necessary components in an Epicurean worldview / perspective / paradigm (take your pick). To me, that's what keeps the glass full while, at the same time, allowing one to experience the "limit of pleasure" while going about your daily routine of laughing, loving wisdom/philosophizing and tending to one's home life and using one's other goods. Having that glass full is what saturates ones life with pleasure and also allows one to enjoy the other pleasure of life unalloyed with anxiety or pain. There's no room for ascetism or self-mortification within that worldview.

    Edited once, last by Don: Added PS ().

    Like 2 Thanks 2

    Staying with that full glass analogy for the moment, I would think that the glass "spilling" some because it is overfilled would have to be interpreted carefully.


    If the glass is spilling because more is being poured into it, and the liquid simply overflows because new liquid is being added, I would see that as "variation" and not a bad thing (just not something that increases the total experience of pleasure.


    On the other hand if the glass spills because it is jostled, and the liquid spills over the edge and thus the total liquid declines, that would be a bad thing from just about every perspective, I would think.


    (I realize that my very old graphic with the various stages of filling might need to be more precise on that point. Simply adding more and causing it to overflow would not be the best example of disturbance.)

    Quote from Don

    Because of the glass is full and you die tomorrow or you die 100 years from now, it's the same limit of pleasure.

    Making clear the context and perspective makes all the difference. The life of one year or a hundred years is the same in respect to "limit of pleasure." But on the other hand those two lives are not at all the same in many other respects.

    Quote from Cassius

    But on the other hand those two lives are not at all the same in many other respects

    Expand on that. In what ways? (I'm not necessarily saying I disagree but for the sake of discussion, I can't just let that statement stand on it's own)

    Quote from Cassius

    Staying with that full glass analogy for the moment, I would think that the glass "spilling" some because it is overfilled would have to be interpreted carefully.


    If the glass is spilling because more is being poured into it, and the liquid simply overflows because new liquid is being added, I would see that as "variation" and not a bad thing (just not something that increases the total experience of pleasure.


    On the other hand if the glass spills because it is jostled, and the liquid spills over the edge and thus the total liquid declines, that would be a bad thing from just about every perspective, I would think.

    We may be taking the "full glass" metaphor further than is useful :/

    Quote from Don

    We may be taking the "full glass" metaphor further than is useful :/

    I dunno, I think a good metaphor is going to be extensible to cover the closely related issue of "What about variation?" And if not, then that may reveal a flaw in the metaphor. (But in this case I don't think there's a problem that prevents its extension.)

    Quote from Cassius

    I dunno, I think a good metaphor is going to be extensible to cover the closely related issue of "What about variation?"

    Okay, I'll give you that, but I don't like the idea of the spilling over as variation. It seems... messy.

    I could see if the glass is tipped or jostled and there's spillage, that makes sense that the mind is still troubled and anxious. It's not steady.

    But a variation analogy? I'm going to have to ponder that.

    Quote from Don
    Quote from Cassius

    I dunno, I think a good metaphor is going to be extensible to cover the closely related issue of "What about variation?"

    Okay, I'll give you that, but I don't like the idea of the spilling over as variation. It seems... messy.

    I could see if the glass is tipped or jostled and there's spillage, that makes sense that the mind is still troubled and anxious. It's not steady.

    But a variation analogy? I'm going to have to ponder that.

    What about a change in state of what's in the glass? It could be liquid, it could be frozen, it could turn to wine, it could turn to orange juice.


    I'm trying to get away from adding to it, because it's at it's natural limit but there can still be variation within the glass.


    Still gonna have to ponder...

    I'm trying to think of ways to get away from the vessel metaphor.

    To me, the boundaries of pleasure are reached, if using our reasoning, when the mind is free from trouble and the body is free from pain and there's a confidence that state will continue. That is the natural limit of *pleasure.*

    Choosing natural but unnecessary *desires*, as Godfrey has conjectured elsewhere, vary our pleasure and this is where the work happens. But what does that mean? It, to me, changes neither the quality nor quantity of *pleasure*. The latter is self-evident because the natural "limit of pleasure" has been reached. But can it change the quality of pleasure since again the natural boundaries have been reached? What does it really mean to "vary" one's pleasure if the limit has been reached? Pleasure comes from choosing to act on desires. Again, as Godfrey stressed before, desire does NOT equal pleasure. The natural/necessary etc. descriptors modify *desire* not *pleasure* because all pleasure is good but just not choiceworthy.

    How do we create a metaphor that gets at that connection between desires and pleasure??