What If Anything Has Changed About Human Nature In the Last 2000 Years?

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That is, do you think "the mind" exists, in part, outside of the skull?

BrainToBeing to be honest, I'm just beginning to look into the idea of the "extended mind" and am curious as to your thoughts on the matter. I certainly don't put any stock in a mist floating outside of the body, or of a supernatural spirit.

I just listened to the Annie Murphy Paul interview that Don linked to. She seems to be defining the idea using interoception, in-person social networks, and a variety of tools, both analog (notebooks, calendars) and digital. From what I gather, she's not working with rigorous science but is more interested in practices people can do to increase their personal efficacy. (Correct me if I'm wrong; I was interrupted a few times while listening.)

To answer your question, I think that the mind, being physical, exists in the body. And I'd say that the mind probably exists in the body outside of the skull, for example in the nervous system. I'm not prepared at this point to say that the mind extends outside of the body: that seems to me to be more metaphorical. If communication, processing and storage systems are all considered to be "mind", that completely redefines what it means to be a human animal and seems like a major overreach.

Pleasure is not limited to immediate pleasure. More often than not, the Epicurean way means taking action which involves direct pain and results only much later in increased pleasure as compared to not have taken that action.

Quote from Martin

Pleasure is not limited to immediate pleasure. More often than not, the Epicurean way means taking action which involves direct pain and results only much later in increased pleasure as compared to not have taken that action.

Not only is it not limited to "immediate," but time is only one of the factors involved. The much more profound aspect is that when Epicurus says that there are only two feelings, and that what is not pain is pleasure, then he is referring to experiences that most people do not think of as immediate sensory pleasure at all.

Sorry I have not been keeping up recently but this is what I would say in summary after reading the exchanges. Most everything that I see BraintoBeing describing as motivating him does not fit in either of the categories of physical pain or physical pleasure, although those sensations accompany certain aspects of all he is describing. if I read what BTB is saying correctly, he says that he finds "satisfying" and emotionally "the right thing to do" all sorts of things that are not immediate sensory pain or pleasure. Those aspects of awareness which are not perceived as painful Epicurus is considering to be pleasure.

So most of BraintoBeings' issues with "pleasure" as i read them continue to revolve around the limited definition he (and most people) give to the word "pleasure."

That is why it is important to study what the Epicureans actually said and wrote and not rely on the superficial definition of pleasure that the anti-Epicureans argued in the ancient world and that continues to prevail today. If someone is interested in digging into those details then they will find a lot to work with in what Epicurus wrote. If someone isn't interested in digging into that level of detail then they will find Epicurean formulations nothing but frustrating and they will go on hitting their heads against the wall until their heads give way and they go on to something more productive for them.

We see this over and over and over again. People see certain things that they like in Epicurus, but they don't get engaged in the details of what the ancient Epicureans really taught, and they spend their time churning their wheels over why they think Epicurus just really didn't go far enough in limiting his perspective to "pleasure." It's all very frustrating both for them and for those who actually **do** read into the details of Epicurus. And what I'm describing is probably 90% plus of the internet discussion of Epicurus.

This is much like the problem with humanism - they reject a theological basis for morality but then proceed to embrace exactly the same morality with only a few changes around the edges that the theologists embrace. Epicurus went much deeper to challenge the very definitions of good and evil in a very Nietzsche-like "beyond good and evil" way.

So I think this is a productive conversation so far, but to ever bring any kind of resolution to the issues the question of the definition of pleasure has to be addressed, and then after that it has to be made clear whether the "pleasure" being referred to is as Epicurus described it or as the rest of the world insists on describing it.

Not an easy thing to do but otherwise we just talk past each other forever.

Quote from BrainToBeing

If the word "pleasure" is interpreted to mean "consistent with personal ethics, beliefs, values, expectations, attitudes, goals and habits" then I guess doing what I did could be claimed to be consistent with my "pleasure". However, I guarantee you it did not feel like pleasure.

If you got personal satisfaction from doing what you felt was the right thing to do, that would align with Epicurus definition of the spectrum of pleasure.

Quote from BrainToBeing

See, this is precisely the problem. You apparently want to grant "intelligence" as something transcendent - something which cannot be explained as the result of our 86 billion neurons interacting or reproduced by adequately sophisticated non-biological systems.

Nope. Human "intelligence" or "consciousness" is exactly an emergent property of the interaction of our 86 billion neurons and our physical environment and our gut biome and our other physical, chemical, and biological processes. Whether intelligence or consciousness can arise in a complex non-biological system is an open question. I've seen arguments for and against from neuroscientists, biologists, technology experts, philosophers, etc. There is nothing transcendent about the phenomena but there may be something unique about the biology that makes it possible, at least for any foreseeable far future.

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Even at this very early stage, answers I get from ChatGPT are very commonly better than answers I can get from discussion with anyone (including all my university colleagues). And, this is only the beginning.

This is only the beginning. ChatGPT and large language model platforms like it give the verisimilitude or veneer of intelligence. But it's all smoke and mirrors put together by clever programmers and the ingestion of innumerable inputs of text and images. It passes the Turing Test in many ways because we're pattern-seeking and agency-seeking beings due to our evolution.

Getting back to the title of this thread, "What If Anything Has Changed About Human Nature In the Last 2000 Years?"....

It would seem to me that the best way to address this question, at least in this forum, is to examine it in terms of the Epicurean Canon: sensations, anticipations and feelings. First, are there any new faculties in addition to these three that have arisen in the last 2000 years? Second, have any of the three faculties changed significantly in the last 2000 years?

To my understanding, the answer to the first question is "no".

As to the second question, current science has helped to explain the canonic faculties in more detail but, as far as I know, hasn't discovered anything new that wasn't a part of the faculties 2000 years ago. For example, we now talk of more than just five senses, but these aren't something that didn't exist 2000 years ago: we're just aware of them now even though they were an integral part of how humans have previously functioned.

But, and correct me if I'm wrong BrainToBeing , this seems to be the central problem that you're concerned with, which is responding to a variety of existential threats:

Quote from BrainToBeing

But, now we need to have the whole population understand how to think with science, and be willing to work with "inconvenient science".

Epicurean philosophy is based on "the way things are", as Lucretius famously said. And the ethics, for the most part, arises out of the physics and the canonic. The physics isn't going to change in any way that will meaningfully affect human behavior, precisely due to the problem in the quote. The way that humans acquire knowledge (the canon) isn't going to change meaningfully either.

Of the three faculties of the canon, none to them are, to my mind, something that will change any time soon. Evolution, after all, occurs at a glacial pace.

Any ethical change occurs in the individual; only when the number of individuals changing reaches a critical mass can it be said that institutional or societal ethics has changed. The only way to speed this up, I think, is by exponentially increasing the number of individuals being reached. And they must be reached in a way that directly and repeatedly stimulates each of their canonic faculties if the information is going to take hold. Unfortunately, the majority of those with the ability to do this are promoting the exact opposite of the point of view in the above quote.

So it is largely a political problem, which in order to avoid fracturing the community that we have here, we have agreed not to discuss. However it is an urgent problem. From an Epicurean point of view, this is pain and is therefore something that each of us needs to address in some way. This is what is meant by pleasure being the absence of pain: one must be aware of their pain. The feelings are two, pleasure and pain, and the goal of a healthy organism is pleasure. One must examine the pain and determine if it's leading to greater pleasure, or if it's something that needs to be rooted out. Then one can figure out the most effective way to remove the pain, or if the pain is determined to be incurable, to deal with it. Sometimes the solution will be individual and sometimes it will mean actively engaging the public sphere.

Quote from BrainToBeing

With those perspectives then I don't think those three cover beliefs or values.

The canon (feelings, anticipations, sensations), the epistmology of Epicurean philosophy, by definition, doesn't include beliefs and values. The canonic faculties, according to Epicurus, provide "pre-rational" data from which beliefs arise. And also according to Epicurean philosophy, there are beliefs built on solid foundations and there are "empty" beliefs such as the belief that the gods care how we conduct our lives.

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Beliefs are, IMO, overarching views of how the world works and how we work within it.

I see no problem with that definition.

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Values are, IMO, constraints on perspectives and actions. Values entice certain behaviors within the framework of personal values, and restrict actions that are inconsistent with personal values. Both of these cognitive frameworks are very important guides of behavior.

What are "values" other than those honorable, just, and noble acts an individual does that also give them pleasure (ie, satisfaction to echo a previous post). The "guides of behavior" in Epicurean philosophy are pleasure and pain.

Quote from BrainToBeing

I would interpret sensations to reference derivatives of the senses and sensory information.

I would interpret anticipations to reference expectations derived from experience.

And, I would interpret feelings to reference emotions derived from sensations, interpretations and thought.

Since this is an Epicurean philosophy forum, I thought it might be helpful look at whether your interpretations of those words line up with Epicurus's interpretation of those words. Here one the relevant passage from Diogenes Laertius, The Live of the Eminent Philosophers, Book 10.31-34:

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Now in The Canon Epicurus affirms that our sensations and preconceptions and our feelings are the standards of truth ; the Epicureans generally make perceptions of mental presentations to be also standards. His own statements are also to be found in the Summary addressed to Herodotus and in the Sovran Maxims. Every sensation, he says, is devoid of reason and incapable of memory ; for neither is it self-caused nor, regarded as having an external cause, can it add anything thereto or take anything therefrom. Nor is there anything which can refute sensations or convict them of error : [32] one sensation cannot convict another and kindred sensation, for they are equally valid ; nor can one sensation refute another which is not kindred but heterogeneous, for the objects which the two senses judge are not the same45; nor again can reason refute them, for reason is wholly dependent on sensation ; nor can one sense refute another, since we pay equal heed to all. And the reality of separate perceptions guarantees46 the truth of our senses. But seeing and hearing are just as real as feeling pain. Hence it is from plain facts that we must start when we draw inferences about the unknown. For all our notions are derived from perceptions, either by actual contact or by analogy, or resemblance, or composition, with some slight aid from reasoning. And the objects presented to madmen and to people in dreams are true, for they produce effects--i.e. movements in the mind--which that which is unreal never does.

[33] By preconception (i.e., anticipation) they mean a sort of apprehension or a right opinion or notion, or universal idea stored in the mind ; that is, a recollection of an external object often presented, e.g. Such and such a thing is a man : for no sooner is the word "man" uttered than we think of his shape by an act of preconception, in which the senses take the lead. Thus the object primarily denoted by every term is then plain and clear. And we should never have started an investigation, unless we had known what it was that we were in search of. For example : The object standing yonder is a horse or a cow. Before making this judgement, we must at some time or other have known by preconception the shape of a horse or a cow. We should not have given anything a name, if we had not first learnt its form by way of preconception. It follows, then, that preconceptions are clear. The object of a judgement is derived from something previously clear, by reference to which we frame the proposition, e.g. "How do we know that this is a man?" [34] Opinion they also call conception or assumption, and declare it to be true and false50; for it is true if it is subsequently confirmed or if it is not contradicted by evidence, and false if it is not subsequently confirmed or is contradicted by evidence. Hence the introduction of the phrase, "that which awaits" confirmation, e.g. to wait and get close to the tower and then learn what it looks like at close quarters.

They affirm that there are two states of feeling, pleasure and pain, which arise in every animate being, and that the one is favourable and the other hostile to that being, and by their means choice and avoidance are determined; and that there are two kinds of inquiry, the one concerned with things, the other with nothing but words. So much, then, for his division and criterion in their main outline.

Re the Epicurean conception of pleasure vs values:

Principal Doctrine 5: "It is not possible to live joyously without also living wisely and beautifully and rightly, nor to live wisely and beautifully and rightly without living joyously; and whoever lacks this cannot live joyously." (From here)

Compare that with this:

Quote from BrainToBeing

I do many things that are ethically appropriate but do not derive to my personal pleasure. For example, in my medical career I could have made a boatload more money if I practiced for my "pleasure". But, I didn't. I did what I thought was ethically appropriate for patients, illness, and the healthcare system. Many, many times this made my life harder.

In Epicurean terms, one would weigh the potential pleasures of a boatload of money vs the pleasure of knowing that you did no harm, and/or the future pleasure (which is what you would be/are experiencing now) of living guilt free, knowing that you did the right thing. Additionally, one would measure the pains involved, such as you describe, in addition to the future pain (again, now) of guilt and regrets for the harm you may have caused. In this way and others, one finds that the Epicurean way of life is one based on personal responsibility. I would suggest that you actually acted in alignment with PD05 without being aware of the doctrine. Because this how Epicurus basically saw biology as working. This reality is far different from the picture painted by Cicero and others throughout the ages who refuse to accept a definition of pleasure as other than titillation.

Quote from BrainToBeing

They may be a method of assessment for a personal view of truth. However, I hold that as different from "Truth" (with a capital "T", a universal truth).

Ah, therein lies the rub! A fundamental view of Epicureans is that there is no universal Truth. Or to put it another way, the universal truth is that we live in a material universe with no supernatural god(s) and no afterlife. Much of Epicurus' thinking was in response to, and a refutation of, Platonic forms and ideals. Since he posited that there is nothing other than atoms and void, an idea floating around in their midst would be tantamount to the mind being located in a mist floating around outside of the body.

The Stoics believed in a universal logos: an intelligent universe. That was one of the fundamental differences between them and the Epicureans. You can find Marcus Aurelius pondering this in his Meditations. Interestingly, the modern Stoics seem to have largely stepped away from this idea. An interesting treatment of the conflict is in Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods, a book which introduced me to the Epicurean position and convinced me of the fallacy of the logos (which result would have been much to Cicero's horror).

For some reason this brings to mind the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, in which the author and protagonist gradually goes mad in a search for a universal Quality. He was vainly trying to define something that doesn't exist. The admittedly difficult issue that must be dealt with on a personal level is whether one believes that there is no Truth out there, or whether there is one that we as yet are unable to fathom.

Quote from Godfrey

Interestingly, the modern Stoics seem to have largely stepped away from this idea.

Here's Dr. Austin's essay on that very topic.

Quote from BrainToBeing

"Truth" (with a capital "T", a universal truth)

What do you mean by capital-T Truth? What would a "Universal Truth" be? And what would your authority for asserting the particular Universal Truth be?

PS. Godfrey was spot on in his description of the Epicurean position in "universal Truth."

Quote from BrainToBeing

In my view, Truth (with a capital T) is that which exists independent of our perspective of it. We are not the authors of truth, only at best its revealers and/or messengers. For example, the laws of physics existed long before we attempted to discover them. They existed independent of our perspectives.

You're simply describing "the way things are," as Lucretius' takes the title of his work. If that's what you're calling "Truth with a Capital T" that's like a physicist saying the sum total of all laws of physics can be called "God." Epicureans accept that the material universe exists "independent of our perspective on it." In fact, the universe existed before we were born and will exist after we cease to exist. That aspect of what you're calling "Truth" doesn't seem to be that big of a deal from my perspective.

Quote from BrainToBeing

So, I do think there is Truth, though we certainly may not know what it is.

Okay, but that doesn't address my question. If you're going to assert that there's some kind of ultimate "Truth," you need to at least say how you arrive at that conclusion. Is there a god that provides the source of the ultimate Truth? Is there some supernatural revelation that provides knowledge of this ultimate "Truth"? Conversely, if you're merely asserting that we find "Truth" - i.e., the way things are - by investigating nature via science and other means of measurement and observation and then apply those in technology (i.e., "the machine I'm now using"), that seems to me to be rather a banal "truth."

I mean no disrespect by saying this, but, I beg you..Please... Please stop using the phrase "great sages of the past." We're not concerned on this forum with the "great sages of the past." If this was a general philosophy forum, then that would be fine. This particular forum, however, is dedicated to exploring the philosophy of Epicurus, the interaction between the Epicureans and their rivals, the works of the early Epicureans, and the continuing influence of Epicurean philosophy up to our time. Again, this is sincerely not meant to be any disrespect to you or your individual interests and pursuits. But we need stay focused. If you have reactions to the individual Epicurean doctrines or Epicurean ideas, I believe we would all be interested to hear them.

And while "brilliant voices derived different fundamental conclusions at these philosophical levels," I would say not all conclusions are created equal. If, for example, one's "personal philosophy" relies on supernatural revelation, not verifiable or observable, I would see that as a red flag.