Posts by Cassius

PD26. Of desires, all that do not lead to a sense of pain, if they are not satisfied, are not necessary, but involve a craving which is easily dispelled when the object is hard to procure, or they seem likely to produce harm.

Joshua is right to point to this one, which is relatively clear. And I think he's right to say that the test is not limited to "bodily" - unless someone is speaking in the sense that everything is "bodily" in the end - but that's not the sense being discussed as far as I can tell.

I think Torquatus makes clear and there's no reason to doubt him that mental pains and pleasures can often be more significant to us that bodily pains and pleasures. Dying for a friend would be an extreme decision but one that seems to clearly involve mental over bodily considerations.

And in the end I don't think that's even a close issue. While maintenance of the body is necessary in order for us to do anything, most of the biggest decisions that have the most affect our course of life are not primarily for the sake of the "body" at all.

Quote from Joshua

You have to do the math yourself, for yourself!

.... because only YOU can measure the pain or pleasure that results from any action.

It is exactly wrong to do what the Benthamites tried to do and reduce the calculation purely to mathemetics.

However, so long as you realize that the mathematics is only an aid, and cannot be applied as the final factor, I would say that lining things up statistically does make some sense as a tool of analysis.

So I'd still maintain that in any difficult decision it probably does make sense to sit down and try to enumerate the options as a spreadsheet. If you don't, you're not making your best effort to think things though. But you have to remember that the assignment of units of pain and pleasure is entirely relative to you.

Therefore I would not say "don't even try to add them up because it can't be done."

i would say "plotting out the possibilities in detail is the only rational way to proceed, but you have to remember that there is no "necessity" in ethical decisionmaking. You can't treat your projection as applicable to anyone else or even to yourself at a later time. A moment by moment analysis is all that is possible,

Post

A Draft Epicurean Pleasure Maximization Worksheet

Feelings cannot be reduced to numbers, and there are important limitations in the use of a "worksheet" as an aid in evaluating choices and avoidances. However it may be helpful to some people to visualize an illustration of the weighing process that some term the "hedonic calculus." Here is a draft example for your consideration and comment. Scores included here are of course fictional and for example only. A version of the spreadsheet in xlsx format is attached for downloading.

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Cassius

July 11, 2019 at 10:25 PM

Welcome to Episode 310 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.
   
We'll pick up this week at Section 14 of Part 5 of Tusculan Disputations, continuing to look at how the Stoic/Platonic philosophers use logic to deduce that since only virtue is within our control, happiness comes from exclusively relying on virtue, excluding all else from being considered to be truly good.

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Thank you Kalosyni and thanks to others such as Raphael Raul who have suggested navigation revisions.

There's always going to be a tradeoff due to vastly different screen sizes. We're currently a little more heavily weighted towards larger screens given our use of the top dropdown menus and the sidebars. Those aren't nearly as useful on a phone or portrait size screen, so this card view look will make it much easier for mobile users to get an overview of the site.

A second draft of how this may look is here:

Navigation - Epicureanfriends.com

www.epicureanfriends.com

This seems like a very close issue as raised in Lucretius Book 3 when he points out that even if our atoms were rearranged later due to the effects of infinite time and space, that would still not be "us" because of the absence of continuous memory.

However I am not sure as I reread that whether Lucretius is making a specific assertion that continued memory is somehow necessarily impossible. He may be relying solely on the objection that we don't remember any past lives, which I gather he is taking as sufficient proof that these rearrangements have already happened. He may well be inferring from the fact that we have no such memories that this is sufficient proof that the break is a matter of fact regardless of the cause.

I tend to think that that is his reasoning and that given the implications of infinite universe/eternal time that the inference is sound.

3-843

And even if the nature of mind and the power of soul has feeling, after it has been rent asunder from our body, yet it is naught to us, who are made one by the mating and marriage of body and soul. Nor, if time should gather together our substance after our decease and bring it back again as it is now placed, if once more the light of life should be vouchsafed to us, yet, even were that done, it would not concern us at all, when once the remembrance of our former selves were snapped in twain. And even now we care not at all for the selves that we once were, not at all are we touched by any torturing pain for them. For when you look back over all the lapse of immeasurable time that now is gone, and think how manifold are the motions of matter, you could easily believe this too, that these same seeds, whereof we now are made, have often been placed in the same order as they are now; and yet we cannot recall that in our mind’s memory; for in between lies a break in life, and all the motions have wandered everywhere far astray from sense.

Quote from Patrikios

I agree with Martin and others that uploading your brain is not a viable alternative. At what age do you upload, before [brain cells start dying ar age 25?)?

I interpret the original question (and most hypotheticals like this) not to refer to now ("...IS a viable alternative") but to whether such a thing will be possible in the future with more advanced technology.

Is there is some theoretical barrier or insuperable obstacle that will always be impossible to overcome no matter what the technology?

"Clinamen Vitae - The swerve toward lived experience, where life is worthy of being lived"

Blog Article

Clinamen Vitae - The swerve toward lived experience, where life is worthy of being lived, by Elli Pensa

Clinamen Vitae — The swerve toward lived experience, where life is worthy of being lived

Between night and day lie twilight and dawn - moments that belong neither to light nor to darkness, yet honor both as complementary shades of our natural, tangible, and shared reality. These moments transcend - or rather, refute- the Aristotelian logic of the excluded middle, which leads to dilemmas and false necessities. Nature does not operate this way; it does not exclude, does not oppose. It discerns,…

Elli

October 27, 2025 at 10:31 AM

When Science Returns to the Hellenic Worldview: Empathy and Consciousness Redeemed

Blog Article

Duty, Evolution, Neuroscience, Attic Tragedy, and Epicurean Philosophy

Duty, Evolution, Neuroscience, Attic Tragedy, and Epicurean Philosophy.

An Analysis of a Father’s Death Sentence Against His Own Son - Torquatus and the Roman Recasting of Epicurean Philosophy.

Titus Manlius Torquatus, as portrayed in Cicero’s De Finibus, appears as a defender of Epicurean philosophy. Although many of his arguments echo core Epicurean principles, his rhetorical strategy and moral framework reveal a distinctly Roman reinterpretation - shaped by the ethos of duty, authority, and…

Elli

November 18, 2025 at 2:34 PM

“When Science Returns to the Hellenic Worldview: Empathy and Consciousness Redeemed”

Blog Article

“When Science Returns to the Hellenic Worldview: Empathy and Consciousness Redeemed”

“When Science Returns to the Hellenic Worldview: Empathy and Consciousness Redeemed”

Friedrich Nietzsche, in his work The Antichrist, denounces Paul as the inventor of Christianity and an enemy of Rome’s grandeur. But perhaps Nietzsche himself misunderstood what Paul truly fought against. Rome may have been the aching tooth, but Greece was its root. And Paul - not as a scientific dentist (for he knew nothing of science, of course) - but more like the last illiterate barber in the neighborhood,…

Elli

November 18, 2025 at 2:39 PM

For those that might have missed them, Elli has posted several lengthy articles in recent weeks. I'm making this point and also setting up discussion threads for each because sometimes it appears our existing users who often rely on the red "update" markers, don't see when blog entries are added. Thanks to Elli for these articles!

“When Science Returns to the Hellenic Worldview: Empathy and Consciousness Redeemed”

Blog Article

“When Science Returns to the Hellenic Worldview: Empathy and Consciousness Redeemed”

“When Science Returns to the Hellenic Worldview: Empathy and Consciousness Redeemed”

Friedrich Nietzsche, in his work The Antichrist, denounces Paul as the inventor of Christianity and an enemy of Rome’s grandeur. But perhaps Nietzsche himself misunderstood what Paul truly fought against. Rome may have been the aching tooth, but Greece was its root. And Paul - not as a scientific dentist (for he knew nothing of science, of course) - but more like the last illiterate barber in the neighborhood,…

Elli

November 18, 2025 at 2:39 PM

Duty, Evolution, Neuroscience, Attic Tragedy, and Epicurean Philosophy

Blog Article

Duty, Evolution, Neuroscience, Attic Tragedy, and Epicurean Philosophy

Duty, Evolution, Neuroscience, Attic Tragedy, and Epicurean Philosophy.

An Analysis of a Father’s Death Sentence Against His Own Son - Torquatus and the Roman Recasting of Epicurean Philosophy.

Titus Manlius Torquatus, as portrayed in Cicero’s De Finibus, appears as a defender of Epicurean philosophy. Although many of his arguments echo core Epicurean principles, his rhetorical strategy and moral framework reveal a distinctly Roman reinterpretation - shaped by the ethos of duty, authority, and…

Elli

November 18, 2025 at 2:34 PM

Clinamen Vitae - The swerve toward lived experience, where life is worthy of being lived, by Elli Pensa

Blog Article

Clinamen Vitae - The swerve toward lived experience, where life is worthy of being lived, by Elli Pensa

Clinamen Vitae — The swerve toward lived experience, where life is worthy of being lived

Between night and day lie twilight and dawn - moments that belong neither to light nor to darkness, yet honor both as complementary shades of our natural, tangible, and shared reality. These moments transcend - or rather, refute- the Aristotelian logic of the excluded middle, which leads to dilemmas and false necessities. Nature does not operate this way; it does not exclude, does not oppose. It discerns,…

Elli

October 27, 2025 at 10:31 AM

Happy Thanksgiving Don!

Episode 309 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "The Error of Basing Happiness On The Alleged Divinity of The Human Mind"

Another note: In the first half of this episode, we take up Cicero's gross contradiction - which he calls out himself (!) between what he wrote in "On Ends' and what he is advocating here in "Tusculoan Disputations."

The basic point is this:

- In On Ends, Cicero had taken the position that while the Stoics might say that only virtue is good and vice is evil, they also admitted that there were other things to be preferred (health) and not preferred (sickness). Here in On Ends Cicero defends Aristotle's school for saying that health is a good other than virtue, and sickness is an evil, because in the end their disagreement is only a matter of words, and they ultimately agree as to substance.

- Here in Tusculan Disputations Cicero is for some reason taking the *opposite* position, and he is siding with the Stoics that the Artistotelians are making a fatal error by admitting that anything is good other than virtue and anything evil other than vice.

Cicero makes no real effort to explain his inconsistency other than to say that he himself (Cicero) is a skeptic, and he can change his position from day to day according to whatever he thinks is probable.

CIcero doesn't see any problem with his change in positions, and in one thing he does remain absolutely consistent:- No matter what you think of the word-game dispute between Aristotle and Zeno, everyone agrees that Epicurus is a reprobate.

This episode will be out later today or at the latest tomorrow. Editing is almost complete and i want to particularly commend Joshua's windup on the main topic of this episode, starting around the 38 minute mark.

Quote from Don

If we accept "direct" quotes from Cicero, should we not probably accept "direct" quotes from Plutarch?

This is an interesting topic in itself, but depending on the context I would definitely trust Cicero before I trusted Plutarch, depending on two factors that stand out to me:

- If Cicero is letting an Epicurean speaker go on at length, I'd give it more deference. Plutarch seems to rarely if ever do that. Plutarch's always on the attack and does not profess any degree of neutrality.

- We know Cicero was living at a time when he was talking to strong and dedicated Epicureans and he was in fact depending on Cassius Longinus for all his political hopes, so he had strong motivations to stay in line. I'm not aware that there's any reason to think Plutarch had any motivation to be fair to Epicureans at all.

- But the main issue would be whether the alleged statement has analogs in the core texts, and I just don't see that in this case. In fact, when Epicurus speaks so strongly of a simple diet and also the pleasures of philosophy and study of nature as to his primary sources of happiness, it appears to me that those contradict any assertion that the physical pleasures of the stomach outweigh all others. If he had been going down the road of looking to essentials, you're going to die a lot sooner if you miss water or air than missing "food" (which seems more at issue in referring to the "stomach," though I can see water being included in the stomach).

I see that that specific phrase "Their god is the belly" is from Philippians and not directly tied to Epicureans, though it wouldn't be surprising if they were the intended target

Philippians 3:19

King James Bible
Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

I'm totally good with the pleasures of the stomach, but the thrust of many of these quotes makes the belly appear to be more important than any other part of the body, and I don't see that in any authentic core letter of Epicurus or Lucretius or Diogenes of Oinoanda, do you?

It rings to me more of a reduction to the absurd ..... the other statements that are more challenging or confrontational seem to me to be much better attested and appear in similar versions in the core documents.

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What say you guys as to possible relation between this and 3 and 4 of Tetrapharmakon?