Would You Rather Live For A Week As (1) Epicurus During the Last Week of His Life or (2) An Anonymous Shepherd Laying In The Grass In The Summertime With No Pain At All?

If I may:

I'm trying to understand what long term pleasure I would be gaining if I chose to endure the pain of the last week of Epicurus's life. We know (or are told) he was writing letters up to his last day, or at least dictating them. But I've seen people go through kidney stones, and Epicurus's were evidently impacted and infected.

Plus do I die at the end of the week or come back to my present self? Do I get to retain all of Epicurus's knowledge? Do I get to come back and write books in Epicurus's name?

Epicureans can choose to undergo pain and hardship of it leads to long term pleasure in their lives. If I can somehow know what he knew, that's something to consider. But again, I remain skeptical of the value of these kinds of thought experiments.

Now we're getting somewhere!

Your Menoikeus quote is an interesting one. I went back to see how I translated it:

Quote from Menoikeus, Don translation

Just as the most food is not chosen but that which brings the greatest pleasure; choose as well not the longest time but that in which one enjoys the fruits of that which bring the greatest pleasure (ἀλλὰ τὸν ἥδιστον καρπίζεται.).

The key word that gets skimmed over by a lot of translations is καρπίζεται (karpizetai) "enjoy the fruits (of that which brings the greatest pleasure (ἥδιστον hēdiston))" which is related to Latin carpo as in carpe diem "pluck/harvest the day". There's a literal sense of reaping the benefits, enjoying the fruits, of the most pleasurable experience, the sweetest choice.

By consciously choosing the hypothetical - for me! someone else's mileage may vary - that involves living in severe pain for a week then dying, whether or not I'm imbued with the knowledge of Epicurus or surrounded by his friends, doesn't sound "fruitful" to me, to riff on καρπίζεται. One, by definition of the hypothetical, couldn't "come back" and share that knowledge. But do I know I'm me living as Epicurus, or am I just Epicurus living his life with no memory of me?

This seems akin to the choice of "Would you choose to be given "god-like" knowledge for a day then die?" What good would it serve to know everything and not be able to share it?

Epicurus didn't choose to experience the severe pains of his final acute illness. That was a part of his life that wasn't up to him. How he dealt with it is admirable, maybe even inspirational. So I don't see the fruitfullness in choosing that final week. It's still the shepherd for me if I am required to choose.

Quote from Cassius

In this case: Are all pleasures equally to be chosen? If so, how do we choose among them? If not, why not?

No.

Epicurus was concerned with our entire existence: the well-being of both our physical (σώματος) and mental (ψυχῆς) health. By contemplating and following his philosophy, we come to understand that all our decisions of which actions to choose and from which actions to flee are going to affect whether our physical, material health and well-being are to be maintained or not and whether our minds are to be troubled or not. That is the baseline for every decision and with "Ask this question of every desire: what will happen to me if the object of desire is achieved, and what if not?"

Quote from Cassius

Another warmup question might be: "A former Torquatus put his son to death for violating a military rule, and our Torquatus justified that as a decision consistent in nature with an Epicurean perspective. This despite the other Epicurean rule that we sometimes die for a friend. Does that tell us anything about the Epicurean position for choosing among pleasures and pains?"

For the earlier Torquatus, he decided security and order in his troops was more important than the life of his son. That sounds horrific, but I'm also not an ancient Roman general commanding a legion. The fruits of his decision were strict discipline under his command. Was it worth it? Did it provide well-being? You'd have to ask Titus Manlius Imperiosus Torquatus

Titus Manlius Imperiosus Torquatus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Quote from Cassius

So if I read you correctly, from your perspective, the "ability to share" seems to be perhaps the paramount consideration in fruitfulness and enjoyability.

Hmmm. That said, I can take pleasure in learning something new and I don't necessarily have to share everything I learn. The differences with this Epicurus week scenario is:

Would I know I know something that wasn't available to me or my Epicurean friends in modern time? Or am I simply transported into Epicurus's body with no prior knowledge of my previous existence? If the latter, I'm not worried about sharing. In the former, I'm dealing with having important knowledge that could be of use to my friends with the pain of not being able to share that knowledge with said friends.

PS. (Edit) Everything is contextual! The same pleasure in different contexts coming from different desires may lead to completely different decisions on whether one selects or flees from that pleasure.

Quote from Cassius

So "pleasure" is itself contextual and there is absolutely no Platonic ideal or Aristotelian essence of "Pleasure"?

The feeling of pleasure is personal and subjective.

Choices are based on context.

Is this chart of any use?

A Comparison Chart on “The Goal of Life” – NewEpicurean

Quote from Cassius

Does that apply too to "the limit of quantity of pleasure" as referenced in PD03? If so, the PD03 is intended to mean the "limit of quantity of pleasure for YOU" or "for a particular person" is the absence of pain, rather than referring to a particular activity? And that therefore different people are going to be doing different things when they are at this limit referenced in PD03?

No.

The "limit" of pleasure is the removal of all pain, by definition. After that, it's all variation. For anyone. People are going to be doing different things to provide that variety.

Don't get "the height of pleasure" or "the highest pleasure" or "the greatest pleasure" mixed up with the "greatest good." The greatest good, summum bonum, telos *is* pleasure. But I don't want to derail this thread, but I want to stress that point.

Does this sometimes perplexing PD add anything to this discussion?

PD09 “If every pleasure were condensed and were present, both in time and in the whole compound [body and soul] or in the most important parts of our nature, then pleasures would never differ from one another.” Inwood & Gerson (1994)

I've often interpreted PD09 to mean that a pleasurable feeling is a pleasurable feeling. Condensing all or every pleasure implies that's possible... Or does it? That "if" could be doing the same work as in PD10. IF x was possible, then y. But IF x isn't possible, y isn't possible. Maybe PD09 is actually saying that all pleasures do differ from each other!

PD09, 10, and 11 all start out with ει "if..."

• If every pleasure were condensed...
• If the things that produce the delights of those who are profligate...
• If our suspicions about astronomical phenomena and about death were nothing to us...

Those "if's..." imply to me that those IF's are counterfactual! Those if's are not actually possible. That sets to a whole different vibe for each of those 3 PDs.

Quote from Cassius

Other than PD09 does Epicurus say anything anywhere that might support the idea that pleasures are "the same"?

See my addendum edit to post 35. I'm not convinced PD09 says pleasures are the same.

There's no doubt that Epicurus was in an immense amount of pain during the last week of his life, and as illogical as it may sound, I would trade a lifetime of grass-laying shepherd days to experience what it must have been like for him during that time. Something so priceless as to be able to write to my most trusted friends and reflect on a lifetime of philosophical discussions is my ideal way to spend my final days. No greater pleasure exists for me. And to be able to do that through his eyes and his mind, given all that he has accomplished along with countless philosophical discussions? That isn't something that can so easily be recreated.

If I wanted to be a lay in the grass in the summertime for a week, I would simply wait 9 months. Besides, a shepherd's life never appealed to me, anyway.

In The Letter to Idomeneus, he writes:

Quote from Cyril Bailey from his book "Epicurus, The Extant Remains."

"On this blissful day, which is also the last of my life, I write this to you. My continual sufferings from strangury and dysentery are so great that nothing could increase them; but I set above them all the gladness of mind at the memory of our past conversations. But I would have you, as becomes your lifelong attitude to me and to philosophy, watch over the children of Metrodorus."

I could not imagine a more pleasant end.

(besides *not* suffering from strangury and dysentery, of course. Details)